Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of February 13, 1881

Overview

Refreshed after a good night's sleep, Wagner copies out his article and warmly receives Colonel and Frau Schaffer for lunch, struck afterward by how much the couple had aged. Their walk through the cold palace gardens prompts Wagner to observe that the grounds feel entirely imbued with the spirit of Parsifal. The evening closes with a deeply absorbing reading of Cervantes, whose work leaves a strong impression on both of them.

Content

Sunday, February 13:

R. slept well, copies out his article, and is very good-humored with Colonel Schaffer and his wife, whom we have to lunch to thank them about Boni. When we are walking in the palace gardens afterward, R. tells me it made him feel very strange to see how much the couple had aged; no doubt they had thought the same about him. In the evening we read Cervantes's El celoso extremeño, which makes a great impression on us. For reading material R. has landed on Pott and is pleased to encounter Gobineau in its pages right at the start. It was cold today, and we crept rather than walked through the palace gardens, which are "saturated with Parsifal," as R. remarks.