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

87 The Breaking Point
where people get to if they start thinking their moods and emotions
are the only thing in life.
The same day, he continued: ‘‘She was evidently very tired when she
wrote . . . been working too hard . . . an’ I’m damned if I see ‘lost
everything.’ Where you got the idea that you don’t want a younger man?’’
He added, ‘‘not too conceited, without too many brains, obviously not
hideous. . . . I’d like to know why you think you wouldn’t be perfectly
happy with the above?’’
Olga: ‘‘Am I supposed to want the younger man without any brains—
instead of, or in addition to himself? He means kindly, obviously, but He
will never be praised for his insight into the ’uman ’art.’’
When He first knew her . . . he seemed to consider her of the
same species (a very poor or inferior kind of course) as himself.
Now he speaks of ‘‘me’’ and ‘‘my,’’ ‘‘my’’ world, in contradistinction
to ‘‘you’’—can he tell her why she is to be kept outside?
The monde of ‘‘Mr. and Mrs. E.P.’’—only people who can tell a
good anecdote of the 1890s admitted. . . . You should have a nice
crowd of Bolcheviks to break up all the smug people you have
around, who talk about ‘‘artistes.’’ . . . I shall bring the Leoncina up
illiterate, let your damn Omar have the ’90s.
Ezra: ‘‘She fed up with hartists, an’ he about fed up with women.’’ In
Canto 29, Pound had written: ‘‘the female / Is a chaos / an octopus / a
biological process.’’ Only in his last years did he pay full homage to Olga’s
courage, her sacrifice, her importance to him as a poet. At forty-four, he
was still exhibiting the characteristics of a spoiled only child, a condition
later diagnosed at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital as narcissism, an inability to
know one’s own emotions or to empathize with others, and often an
unconscious (or conscious?) need to exploit.
In spite of the emotional impasse with Ezra, Olga was beginning to
enjoy the fruits of her labors at 252, calle Querini: ‘‘There is no greater joy
possible than standing ’round watching other people do what you tell
them. . . . She hasn’t enjoyed anything so much since she used to tag