Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of September 22, 1875

Overview

Wagner was laid low by a chill and had to remain in bed, so the day became quieter and more domestic, centered on the children and letters to the two eldest. Storms and the autumn equinox stirred worries about Hans’s voyage to America, while she herself sat alone in her gray room, uneasy but outwardly calm, finding consolation in the memory of Mabuse’s Saint Luke in Prague.

Content

Wednesday, September 22:

R. unwell, has to stay in bed! It seems to be a chill.

Spent much of the day with the children, wrote to the two eldest, in the evening alone in my little gray room. It is very stormy, autumnal equinox; people say it is not good to be at sea at such a time, I wonder whether Hans is not now on his way to America, and feel alarmed!

Marie’s picture looks at me, she who said to her friend, “I hope you have not prayed God to spare my life.” During the day ordered the winter clothing necessary for Vienna. I am very tranquil and, I think, cheerful, though my wounds are still open, incurable.

A favorite memory for me now is Mabuse’s Saint Luke in Prague—his air of remoteness and his composure, the meditativeness of a saint and the circumspection of a genius, and besides that the magnificent surroundings, which for such a man do not even exist.