Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of April 2, 1876

Overview

Letters went out to E. Ollivier, Claire, and M. Tribert, while the children were taken for a drive in the afternoon. Siegfried, hoarse and philosophical beyond his years, spoke of death and said he no longer liked days because everyone must die. Later, Rubinstein’s Beethoven playing reopened the speaker’s grief so sharply that she could only weep and pray, unable to bear even the thought of the performances.

Content

Sunday, April 2:

Wrote letters to E. Ollivier, who is trying to make me suspicious of Claire Charnacé. To Claire also and to M. Tribert.

A drive with the children in the afternoon. Siegfried hoarse; he says at lunch, “I don’t like days any more.” Asked what he means, he explains, “Because everybody has to die.” He consoles himself with the thought that it will take some time for everyone to die.

I believe the boy has an intuition of my grief. I believe that, if one can die of grief, I ought now to die.

Rubinstein plays Beethoven’s Les Adieux Sonata, “L’absence et le retour”; as I heard these sounds, past times came back to me, and I had to weep, weep and pray. Will God take pity on me? I cannot bear to think of the performances. Oh, God, how easy on the burdened heart that which was hard to bear, but how hard any kind of success, any kind of satisfaction!