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

88 The Breaking Point
’round after the gardener as a child in St. John’s Wood and watch the man
build the dog kennels.’’ She was following Ezra’s advice to enjoy the
company of younger men: ‘‘The two Adrians [Stokes and Kent] have
turned up here . . . A. has lent me his gramaphone and books, and took
me to a cinema. I am reading Aldington’s [translation of Rémy] de Gourmont,
who is a great consolation. . . . altogether she is feeling more
pleased.’’
Olga shrewdly recognized that Ezra had started defining their relationship
as ‘‘impresario and impressed.’’ Plans were taking shape for her Berlin
debut. ‘‘I have been told it is certain,’’ Antheil wrote Pound. ‘‘Olga will be
given a chance to appear before the most artistic audience in Deutschland.’’
Smitty was going to Italy for a much-needed rest, and Olga encouraged
Ezra to finish his opera: ‘‘now [that] you have a [Dolmetsch] clavichord
and George, you could get the Villon into shape so it could be
handed to a conductor.’’
Olga and Kathleen Richards were booked to perform in London on the
same night as Jascha Heifetz. ‘‘Our concert would draw quite a di√erent
type,’’ Kathleen wrote: ‘‘depends very much on what we do ourselves
with re. to raking in all our friends and acquaintances. . . . [We] begin at
8:15, allowing those good souls who come from the country to get home in
decent time.’’
The Guardian reviewed the concert favorably: ‘‘Miss Olga Rudge and
Miss Kathleen [Richards] Dale . . . showed that Mozart can easily stand the
strain of a whole program. . . . Miss Rudge handled the solo part with style
and a wholesome precision.’’ Musical Opinion agreed that ‘‘these two very
fine artists . . . remind one of the passage about Hermia and Helena in
‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ they sang ‘both in one key’ . . . [with] good
tone, clear passages, and . . . beautiful finish, simple and unsophisticated.’’
In September Olga moved into her new home in Venice, the first and
last she would ever own. Ezra arrived for a fortnight’s visit, then moved
on to Verona, while Olga rendezvoused at the railway station with ‘‘the
Landosk’’ (harpsichordist Wanda Landowska). ‘‘[She] was telling me
some story, interrupted in middle of sentence by friends’ arrival and
business of getting tickets . . . a quarter of an hour later continues: ‘Is it the