Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of June 29, 1872

Overview

Bank papers from Feustel suggested that, after travel expenses, I had nearly twenty thousand francs, though the calculations remained confusing. Lulu’s toothache and the trouble with her teeth worried me deeply, and R. himself was kept from work by a cold. He spent time reading Darwin’s account of animal behavior with growing humility, while we reviewed the many vexations since the festival and he speculated about Vienna’s interest in Die Walküre. In the evening I entertained him with my own visit to the dentist, which felt like a glimpse into the hidden mysteries of Bayreuth.

Content

Saturday, June 29:

Feustel sends me my bank account; I do not understand the calculations, believe, however, that in all, after subtraction of the traveling costs, I possess 19,857 francs. Lulu has a toothache; the growth of her teeth is causing me concern. I am never for a moment free from worries about the children, alas! Will I experience through them the proud joy of having brought up good and capable human beings?

R. has a cold and cannot work today. In Darwin, The Origin of Species, he reads the case of a dog which, while being dissected, licks the hand of its master, who is doing the operation; the fact that the latter does not then stop upsets R. greatly: “One needs always to visualize such things to recognize among what sort of people one is living, to whom one belongs, and to become humble.” It moves me to utter silence. Forget, forget! Oh, this life of ours!

We reckon up our experiences since the festival: 1. Hans’s letter; 2. the Weissheimer affair; 3. the “general”; 4. Wilamowitz; 5. Johann Herbeck; 6. Julius Lang! Regarding 5, R. surmises that they would like to have Die Walküre for the World’s Fair, but are not saying so.

In the afternoon drove to the dentist. Lulu in considerable pain, her teeth are bad. In the evening Gibbon.

R. says: “If I am still able to establish my school here, it will give me much joy to express my views on Die Zauberflöte, Figaro, Freischütz, Gluck, too, and their cultural significance. Zauberflöte, Freischütz belong to the popular theater, the Didone Abbandonatas, on the other hand, to the Court theater. But, alas, how is culture possible when religion has such defective roots, and even terminology is so little defined that one can talk of spirit and Nature as if they were antitheses?”

I entertain R. with an account of my visit to the dentist, where I really got to know “les mystères de Bayreuth.”