Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of June 22, 1870

Overview

Reports of Hans’s concerts for the Hans Sachs monument are preserved for Loulou, keeping his public success present in the household. Wagner is exhausted by work and the Walkuere worry, while Cosima visits Countess Bassenheim after the Prince’s death and is struck by the contrast between death’s serenity and life’s agony. Wilhelm Meister’s scene about Wilhelm’s child makes both her and Wagner weep with a maturity they feel youth could not understand.

Content

Wednesday, June 22:

In the newspaper appear reports of Hans’s concerts for the Hans Sachs monument. I give Loulou all these copies to preserve.

R. unfortunately very worn out by his work, but still more by worry about Die Walküre. A friendly letter from Marie Muchanoff, the Wagner performances in Weimar have begun with Der [Fliegende] Holländer. In the afternoon to Countess Bassenheim’s, the Prince died in the morning; saw the corpse, the serenity of death, the agony of life, a profound impression.

In the evening R. very unwell; I read W. Meister to him; over Wilhelm’s inquiry about his child, in the tower at the end of the 7th book, we have to weep. “In one’s youth one cannot begin to understand that,” R. says.