Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of December 15, 1881

Overview

Richard woke under the spell of a troubling dream about Hans and death, and although later letters brought some reassurance, the whole day remained permeated by melancholy. He worked, counted the thirty pages still separating him from the end of the score, and distracted himself with wild sea views and fantasies of future travel under blue skies. By evening a game of whist, newspaper absurdities, and his renewed fear that no one would understand his works after his death revealed how closely artistic anxiety and mortal anxiety had become entwined.

Content

Thursday, December 15:

During the night I heard R. groan and cry out, “My good Cosima!” He wakes in a melancholy mood and tells me his dream: “We seemed to be in your father’s house, Hans and Lulu, too, and I, as if to show that we had brought her up strictly, went to punish Lulu with a box on the ears; she tried to give me one in return. Then we wanted to leave, but Hans tried to appease and conciliate us; he kissed my hand, I his brow, we continued to kiss each other, and he said, ‘I knew very well that you would not have fulfilled your love for me without giving me the highest prize.’ Then he goes to leave the room; as he opens the door, his double enters, and we burst into tears and sobs, realizing that it means his death.”

I tell R. that I had mentioned death in one of my last letters to Lusch, in order to set her on the right path in her behavior toward her father. At breakfast R. says that in his case dreams of this sort have never been prophetic, and the afternoon brings a letter from Lusch with an enclosure - on the whole a reassuring one - from Hans! But our mood is melancholy. Before lunch R. writes to Herr Niemann, saying, among other things, “Anyone who does not believe in you will not get very far.” He also does some work; he still has 30 pages of score to finish, and thinks of them with a sigh! We drive to the sea, which is wild and raging, a sight which keeps us entertained. We return home along the Via Maqueda, and R. again goes to his work. Among other topics of conversation, we imagined what would happen if we married off all our daughters and then went traveling together through the world! Madeira, Ceylon - “I want blue skies.”

In the evening we play whist, ending with vexation over his lack of luck, after first reading in detail about the terrible incident in Vienna. Thinking today about human wretchedness, R. was also reminded that Schopenhauer saw it as a just desert for our behavior toward animals. He reads aloud the advertisements in the Musikzeitung, laughing heartily over them. Today he again complains that nobody understands his aims, that there is nobody to whom he can entrust the realization of his works after his death. He says he does not wish to bring up Siegfried for that purpose.

When we saw him beside the wild sea today, R. exclaimed, “What a happy childhood the boy has - what impressions!”