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

119 Rare and Unforgettable Concerts
such a convenient system. Ma che! He showing such noble firmness coming
up and down hill.’’
July 16: ‘‘Reward for virtue—invited to dine with Max Beerbohm, the
impeccable. His wife didn’t come, recovering from Rome heat, so had
[the] luxury of EP and MB solo.’’ Beerbohm was in good form, telling
stories of Henry James at George Meredith’s memorial service, ‘‘looking
more imposing than Hardy,’’ of meeting James ‘‘on a cold corner on the
way to a jolly corner,’’ a euphemism for a rendezvous with his (male)
partner. He then amused them with anecdotes of Edward VII at ‘‘Consuelo’s’’
(Vanderbilt’s), and of d’Annunzio’s lugubrious death chamber at
Il Vittoriale, which Olga remembered.
August 30: ‘‘Leave for Venice con lui. He goes up to Gais and brings
down Leoncina, who stayed ten days. . . . takes her out bathing every day,
she very good. Münchs arrive the 14th, stay at Signora Scarpa’s for a week.
Lui, they and self dine at Palazzo Polignac and play the Chilesotti. . . .
[Vladimir] Horowitz’ remark on hearing M[ünch] practice chez moi: ‘ce
pianiste joue aussi bien que moi.’ Thé for the Congrès Musicale chez
Princesse. Present: EP, R[ichard] Strauss, Alban Berg, etc. End of month,
Horowitz and Princesse to play Lili Boulanger, Bach. He leaves 24th. I stay
on. P’sse. hurts hand, but before end of month, is well enough to play Lili
Boulanger, Bach etc.’’
After this memorable week of concerts, the Princesse rewarded Olga
and the pianist Dame Clara Haskell with a motor trip to Brescia, Vicenza,
Bergamo, and Gardone. Olga remarked on the superb truite saumonée in
Gardone at the ‘‘12 Apostoli,’’ and ‘‘wished He was at it.’’ (Ezra mentioned
the ‘‘Trattoria degli [sic] Apostoli [dodici]’’ in Canto 74.)
She was back in Rapallo in time for his birthday on October 30, ‘‘which
properly celebrated—XXX.’’
In November, young James Laughlin, the twenty-four-year-old scion
of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation of Pittsburgh and on leave
from Harvard, arrived to sit at the feet of the master. ‘‘Jaz,’’ as he liked
to be called, had studied at Choate Academy under Dudley Fitts, where
he read Pound and Eliot and won an Atlantic Monthly prize before coming
to Rapallo to study at the ‘‘Ezuversity.’’ Impressively tall (six feet three
inches), Laughlin was a personable young man with an earnest manner,