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

115 Rare and Unforgettable Concerts
‘‘Torre! Torre! Civetta!’’ . . .
and the parade and the carrocchio [sic] and the flag-play
and the tossing of the flags of the contrade (Canto 80)
four fat oxen
having their arses wiped
and in general being tidied up to serve god under my window
with stoles of Imperial purple
with tassels, and grooms before the carroccio
on which carroch six lion heads
to receive the wax o√ering (Canto 43).
In early September, Ezra took Homer to Bolzano to meet his granddaughter.
Early photographs show a striking resemblance between the
white-haired Grossvater and his towheaded Moidile. ‘‘Her figlia has comported
herself most nobly,’’ Ezra reported; ‘‘Leoncina and I had [a] lovely
walk in a porfik day.’’ Olga had suggested that Ezra might bring his father
to Venice with Mary for two weeks in October, and in the first letter she
ever received from him Homer thanked her cordially but added: ‘‘I cannot
accept this time, hope all is well with you and yours.’’
After the fall concert week at the Accademia, Olga traveled to Merano
to introduce the child to her old friend Renata Borgatti. Mary, then nine
years old, was ‘‘behaving exceedingly well and making a good impression,’’
she wrote the child’s father, ‘‘so much so that the hotel owner, who
was starting to be annoying about lack of papers, etc., and asking embarrassing
questions, decided to let matters be.’’ The old castle where they
were paying guests housed a collection of armor and stu√ed deer heads
that the child described as ‘‘spada’’ and ‘‘animale’’ in a letter to her father.
The interlude ended when a letter from the Princesse de Polignac summoned
Olga to Venice to rehearse the Schubert and Beethoven trios with
Giorgio Levi and Nadia Boulanger.
Ezra was busy promoting the first full season of concerts, beginning
October 10. The son of Oscar Chilesotti, the great authority of sixteenthand
seventeenth-century lute music, was discovered living in Rapallo, and