Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of July 20, 1881

Overview

Wagner's night was troubled by dreams in which Cosima did not love him and Jews transformed into worms, though he wakes to recall the pleasure of the previous day's theater visit with warmth. He works on his score through both morning and afternoon, pausing to reflect on how thoroughly distinct German identity has become blurred and to revisit his old prediction that no Jew would enter the acting profession. In the evening he reads aloud from Jacolliot's Indian tales, so captivated by one story that he retells the whole of it, and they dine outdoors in a companionable mood.

Content

Wednesday, July 20:

R. had a somewhat restless night. He dreamed first of all that I did not love him, then that he was surrounded by Jews who turned into worms. We have breakfast in the turret. R. thinks of our visit to the theater, which gave him great pleasure. “It was a very nice day yesterday,” he says in referring to it.

His opinion of Herr Neumann is also a favorable one; he says he has personality; and he adds that he no longer knows any Germans at all, everything has become so blurred. He recalls having maintained in the year ’52 that no Jew would ever become an actor - and now! R. works on his score morning and afternoon. In between, lunch with our friends. R. reads an Indian story in Jacolliot, and it fascinates him so much that he recounts it to me in the evening. We eat out of doors.

Yesterday R. said to Joukowsky, referring to their mutual liking for soft things, “The Indescribable, here it is done: the pleasant and soft things one likes to put on.” He changes that today into, “The gently strokable, and we are done: the pleasant and soft things one likes to put on!”