Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of September 7, 1872

Overview

R. was unwell, yet still managed to write a moving epitaph for Tausig and send his own works to her father. The narrator worked on a laudatory speech, visited old friends and the Schweizerei with the children, and heard reassuring news from a lawyer about the venture’s prospects. Family jokes and small domestic disagreements were set against the larger frustration that Bavarian officialdom had accomplished nothing.

Content

Saturday, September 7:

R. very unwell, but he writes the epitaph for Tausig's grave, which I find wonderfully moving. In the garden I work out the notes to a laudatory discourse which my father entrusted to me. In the afternoon I write to him and send him my work. R. sends him his works with a dedication "in the style of Hans Sachs."

To the Schweizerei with the children. There met the lawyer Kafferlein from the management committee, who has no doubts about the success of the enterprise. Loldi, seeing his three dogs, says, "One of them belongs to him; the other two have been invited."

R. indisposed, becomes angry when I speak of giving up my bedroom in the new house to my father. The whims of the particularist administration in Bavaria have led to nothing.