Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of February 8, 1883

Overview

Wagner is too unwell to attend lunch, remaining in his room and protecting himself from any excitement, though news of friend Dohm's death prompts him to burst into loud operatic song—a characteristic response to grief. By the afternoon he joins Cosima for quiet conversation, and after an evening massage he takes supper with the family, where a conductor's war stories rekindle Wagner's longstanding vision of Siegfried becoming a surgeon, an idea originally inspired by Goethe. The evening lifts into genuine warmth as Wagner suddenly praises Cosima's "clever face" and the household erupts in laughter at Fidi's quip about their tutor Hausburg.

Content

Thursday, February 8:

I have breakfast at R.'s bedside, since he is not feeling well. He gets up toward 10 o'clock, but he does not come to lunch, in order not to excite himself; shortly before lunch he shows me the newspaper report of our friend Dohm's death. As we are finishing our meal, we hear him loudly singing "Don Giovanni, tu m'invitasti!" He comes in to us for a moment but soon leaves us, so as not to excite himself.

Toward 4 o'clock he comes into the salon, and we chat about all kinds of things, though I refrain from telling him that Scaria is causing difficulties! In the evening, after the doctor has given him a massage, R. has supper with us and stays with us for a while, during which time the conductor's accounts of looking after the sick during the war bring back to R.'s mind his ideas (inspired by Goethe) of Siegfried's becoming a surgeon.

At the start of the evening he was in somewhat low spirits, but he gradually cheers up and is merry and unconstrained, suddenly expressing delight in my "clever face"! Much laughter over Fidi's opinion of Hausburg: "He goes into the café, I into the church."