Olga Rudge & Ezra Pound: "What Thou Lovest Well..."

84 The Hidden Nest
Olga arrived in Venice in late November 1928. ‘‘To call it the smallest
house in Venice [is] pretty near the truth (‘Holy Ghost’ houses, they call
them in Philadelphia),’’ she wrote. Poet Desmond O’Grady remarked,
after visiting 252, calle Querini, that it was like ‘‘three matchboxes on top
of each other.’’ The exterior was indeed unremarkable, with faded, peeling
paint when Olga first saw it. Some of the windows faced the gray,
crumbling back wall of the Dogana, the old Customs House (in summer
and early fall, she kept the shutters closed against the blinding sun). A
beamed ground-floor kitchen with a table-high brick hearth was, to Olga’s
eyes, one of the best features. On the top floor was ‘‘a studio contrived out
of an attic.’’
Olga passed December in a flurry of activity: ‘‘am having [the] downstairs
done gesso a cola [chalk white], i.e., whitewash that doesn’t come o√
on your clothes, and leaving the wood rim to focolare [fireplace] black . . .
beams black with white underneath. . . . if He cares to give opinion, [the
plasterers] are not likely to do much irreparable damage before [your]
answer.’’
Ezra’s reply: ‘‘My system of decor is absolootly the cheapest poss[ible]
. . . advise bright, clear colors. . . . She’z got the [bas relief of ] Isotta [da
Rimini], which might be putt in wall inside but not where the fire wd.
smoakk it.’’ He appeared to be unaware of the cat-and-mouse game he was
playing: ‘‘I think you’d be happier if you’d get me out of your mind for
awhile. . . . I should think there might be something brighter to think of.
. . . He wishes her a gran bel nuovo amante . . . it is a rotten idea her sitting
round waiting for him to come out of a bloody lethargy that neither he,
she, or anyone can a√ect . . . and he don’t propose to . . . present any
complaints or excuses, he hasn’t any.’’
Olga, the mother of his child, spent a cold and lonely Christmas at the
Pensione Seguso while the plasterers were at work on the calle Querini
house. She had no desire for a ‘‘gran bel nuovo amante.’’ She and Ezra had
been together only one Christmas since Mary was born; she felt that he
ought to be with her, and let him know that she thought she deserved
better. Many years later, after rereading Ezra’s next letter, she scribbled
‘‘explosion!!!’’ in red ink on the envelope. Nowhere in their correspondence
are their di√erences spelled out more clearly: