Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of August 13, 1872

Overview

R. dreams that Hans is among them while the household continues its summer routine, and news arrives that Hans plans a Munich concert for Bayreuth. The day is split between R.'s writing, time in the garden with the children, and a visit from the von Hagens, after which they listen to the third act of Götterdämmerung and hear it as if newly revealed. A moonlit walk ends in a painful disagreement, but R.'s reflections on a possible silver wedding anniversary reveal how deeply he longs to keep both the past and the present from slipping away.

Content

Tuesday, August 13:

R. dreamed that Hans was with us and that I told him I had typhus, but it did not matter.

Yesterday we read in a newspaper that Hans intended to conduct a concert in Munich on behalf of Bayreuth, and this is confirmed by Marie Muchanoff.

R. works on his essay; I in the garden with the children. In the afternoon a visit from the von Hagen family. The son, a student of philosophy, had requested the journey to Bayreuth as a birthday present. Music is played: the third act of Götterdämmerung up to Gutrune’s entrance. Utterly splendid, and as a whole new even to me.

In the evening went for a walk by moonlight; a sad difference of opinion between R. and me, “the stupidest thing that can happen.” Having read in the newspaper about a man who had celebrated two silver wedding anniversaries, R. talks of the possibility of our own silver wedding anniversary and says: “There would never be another celebration like it! Oh, I wish I were much younger, not just to relive past events, but to enjoy the present longer!”