Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of September 19, 1873

Overview

R. resumes correspondence about equipment with Gedon and Heckel, while she works with the children and attends a sitting. A brighter sky improves his spirits, and the evening reading turns to a grim execution report that prompts a long discussion of punishment and religious ritual. R. imagines capital punishment as a solemn communal act akin to music, with the executioner and not the monk or judge playing the central role. Their reading of the saga continues this mood of moral drama and ends with deep emotion.

Content

Friday, September 19:

R. writes letters to Gedon and Heckel, this time regarding the equipment. I work with the children; in the afternoon, a sitting. A brighter sky, and R. in consequence feeling better.

In the evening R. reads to me and Malwida the report on the execution of Marchner, the murderer, and the executioner’s remarkable appeal to the soul of the wretched man. R. speaks once more about his idea of capital punishment and how this should be carried out: once the condemned man has given his consent, it should be entirely the work of religion, which, like music, starts with the first scream, proceeds to lamentation (and the artistic display of lamentation), and ends with salvation. The executioner Steller gives the impression of being a most remarkable person, and he does what the monk and the judge should be doing. Participation of the community in the extermination of one of its members in a ceremony of mourning.

R. recalls the court in the chapter on Dietrich in the Amelungen Saga, and we read the episode of Rutlieb and the Red Man with deep emotion.