Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of March 25, 1873

Overview

The day is shaped by domestic illness and the quiet persistence of work, set against Richard's thoughts on Bayreuth and the deaths of close artistic allies. His reflections turn the personal into something almost fateful, as if history were sending obscure warnings through coincidence. The household remains physically constrained, but the building site and the evening dictation keep life moving. Richard's dreams of vanity add a comic counterpoint to his usual indifference to self-display.

Content

Tuesday, March 25:

Evchen is still unwell, but happily there is no danger.

Richard talks to me about the article on Bayreuth which he is writing for the ninth volume and in which he speaks of Tausig. Thoughts of his death and of Schnorr's, in the same month, almost, I believe, on the same day, and both at a time in which they were most vital to R.'s cause, when relationships should have been growing closer: "One asks oneself what Fate was trying to tell one - it was all quite in the natural order of things, and yet it seemed like a demonic hint!"

Fine all day, and we go to the building site. In the evening dictation - still dreary Paris. R.'s dreams are very curious: he, who has no tendency toward, indeed no understanding of, personal vanity, had nothing but vain visions!