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

123 Rare and Unforgettable Concerts
bothered, waiting for the guns to go o√. They seem more annoyed at
having to adunato [muster] than in having a war.’’ One of her friends had
bought a black shirt, symbolic of the Fascist Party. Pound was in Rome,
where he heard ‘‘the Boss’’ (Mussolini) address the populace: ‘‘I mean he
wuz on the balcony. . . . The troops have entered Abyssinia, which may be
in the paper when you get this.’’ He was, once again, in a ‘‘fury, trying to
xxxpress his rages with a pen. . . . We murkns born awfully young.’’
Olga was with the Richardses in Hook Heath for another Christmas.
She asked Frau Marcher to put aside some books for Mary, suggested Ezra
might send their daughter sweets. Realizing the importance of having
o≈cial documents for Mary in case of war, Olga proposed getting a
certificate at the consulate in Paris stating that she was the sister of Arthur
Rudge, and thus Mary’s aunt and legal guardian!
News of the furor directed at Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and
Foreign Secretary Samuel Hoare over the negotiation of the Hoare-Laval
agreement, which would give much of Abyssinia to Italy, was relayed to
Olga by an eyewitness. She reported to Pound on December 20: ‘‘These
Brits are incredible. . . . Hoare in tears, everyone furious. . . . She [Olga]
furious on account of that prig . . . [Anthony] Eden getting the job.’’
‘‘Baldwin has got a vote of confidence,’’ was Ezra’s commentary. ‘‘England
now against dragging war into Europe . . . coal strike next / and the
monetary issue the point.’’
‘‘More celebrations on New Year’s Day [1936] and the birthdays of the
children—all cuts into time,’’ Olga complained. ‘‘One little boy is quite
charming, but nothing seems to compare to Leoncina.’’ In later years, she
confided in her notebook, ‘‘Pride is one of the seven deadly sins, but there
is no sin in a mother’s natural pride in her children, which is founded on
the cardinal virtues of love and hope.’’
Another winter concert season was beginning in Rapallo. Gerhart
Münch was joined by an impressive group of musicians: Gabriele Bianchi
from the Festival Musicale di Venezia, Yves Tinayre from Paris, and Tibor
Serly from Leopold Stokowski’s Philadelphia Orchestra. The programs,
put together with Olga’s collaboration, included chamber music by Telemann,
a Bach cantata, Stravinsky’s Petrushka, Bartók’s Quartets, Mozart’s