Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of November 20, 1872

Overview

The day began with Wagner meeting Brandt and hearing Frau Jaide sing from Ortrud, which impressed everyone with both her voice and her intelligence. Letters arrived in a mixed stream of praise and hostility, and the household laughed over a mockingly phrased complaint about Tannhäuser. The evening ended in a lively Wagner Society banquet, with military music in the rain, a laurel wreath presented to the conductor, and a touching toast to the diarist, while she closed the notebook in a mood of humility and prayer over past wrongs and the happiness of her family.

Content

Wednesday, November 20:

R. confers with Brandt, also has Frau Jaide, whom we heard in Le Mage, brought to see him, and she sings him something from Ortrud; wonderful voice and an intelligent woman. Perhaps a Brünnhilde?

Many letters; nastinesses from Bologna, then panegyrics, also from there. We have to laugh a lot about the expression used by an ill-wisher, who informs us that Tannhäuser was “orribilmente fischiato”; it sounds so childish to us.

Good news of the children. Dinner at Brandt’s, unfortunately again too lavish; the good people cannot imagine things without champagne, a torment to us. Just as yesterday, out of pure respect, dear Frau Heckel allowed me to drink a whole glass of arrack, which I took to be water. This has now become a byword between us, and yesterday I told Brandt, referring to his previous silence about Neumann: “That is when you also let us drink arrack, out of pure consideration.”

R. dreamed that I kissed Hans’s feet; it is very curious how in this case, as often before, R.’s dreams give grotesque expression to my feelings, which I can sum up by saying that I am always remembering with humility what I did to Hans and am constantly grieved by it, though without remorse, since I know and feel what drove me to it. And it is with the acknowledgment of this feeling that I mean to close this book, in which I have written down in truthfulness only what is true. God forgive me my sins, give me good children, let R. be well and contented, and let Hans find happiness and satisfaction! Amen.

[End of the fifth notebook of the Diaries.]

Wednesday, November 20, continuation. In the evening Wagner Society banquet, very lively; the military band of the Regiment of Guards, 54 strong, played a serenade in pouring rain: the Overture to Tannhäuser and the “Bridal Chorus” from Lohengrin. Great enthusiasm; R. went down and presented the conductor with the laurel wreath he himself had received upstairs. A very touching toast is proposed to me in verse. We leave at about midnight, after R. raised his glass to Brandt one more time.