Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of June 7, 1874

Overview

The day moves between routine devotion, family news, and artistic unease, with R. finding some relief in his water treatment while the household turns over church duties and music. A death notice for Marie Muchanoff troubles everyone, but he resists writing about her because he distrusts sentiment and theatrical sincerity.

Content

Sunday, June 7:

R. drinks his Marienbad water every morning, and it does him good. I go to church for the installation of a new parson by the dean. R. reads the dismal announcement of Marie Muchanoff’s death in the newspaper, and wonders whether he should write about her, but how? He says one might be as clever as a serpent or as harmless as a dove; it would still be feigned, and that inhibited him. I beg him to do it.

“The only possible church nowadays,” R. says today, “is music, with Beethoven as the high priest.”

Return of R[ichter], who brings good news regarding our undertaking, whereas his reports of performances of Der Freischütz in Dresden and Lohengrin in Berlin are horrifying. In the evening J. Rubinstein, who, in the way of Jews, has copied all sorts of things from my father, much to his own advantage.