Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of November 8, 1873

Overview

The day opened with a painful dispute over her refusal to travel, leaving R. displeased. He had also written a verse for the festival committee, and her invented hat met with his approval. Reports of the children’s illness, a dream in which she conducted Beethoven and outshone Rachel, and the evening’s Tuther rounded out a mixed day.

Content

Saturday, November 8:

Sad dispute with R. in consequence of my not making the journey. He has written a verse for the festival committee. The hat I invented, since I cannot wear the present-day extravaganzas, pleases R.

Dr. Martin Perels, editor of Die Deutsche Schaubühne, offers to give lectures on mental illness for Bayreuth!!! The children unwell. R. dreamed that I was conducting Beethoven’s A Major Symphony at a concert which Rachel was attending, though he knew her to be dead; after it he was supposed to conduct the 9th, but I was doing so well that he asked himself whether he could possibly perform the same office!

In the evening Futher.