Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of September 22, 1880

Overview

R. was worn down by a cold, bad sleep, and the loss of privacy at breakfast irritated him enough to describe his whole nature as a series of extremes rather than anything moderate. The afternoon walk with her was beautiful and exalting, while the evening brought her father's Dante, reservations from R. about its subject, reflections on the Parsifal prelude, and another return to Luther.

Content

Wednesday, September 22:

R. had a cold and restless night; Italian beds annoy him, and he is vexed that today we cannot have our cozy breakfast room to ourselves. "With me it is always paroxysms," he says; "indifference is unknown to me, and everything is a paroxysm, either of joy or of pain."

In the afternoon R. and I take a very lovely walk to a country house, and we are often overwhelmed by the beauties of the heavens and the earth.

In the evening my father plays his Dante to us; R. has serious reservations with regard to the material. We then play whist. Talking of the Prelude to Parsifal, R. says, "Nothing here and nothing there; it was from nothing that God made the world." What he means is that he has simply placed his themes side by side, like a preacher his Bible passages. When my father goes off to bed, he asks for Luther's Smaller Catechism again.