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

131 The Red Priest of Venice
about the Dresden collection published by an Italian periodical at Lake
Como, Il Broletto, ‘‘set up a whole concert in small photos, half-tone.’’
When Mary was taken ill with what the Reverend Mother diagnosed
as a light case of flu, Olga rushed to her bedside. ‘‘It looks more like
a stomach upset,’’ she reassured Ezra, ‘‘no cause for worry. . . . Hiz
cheeild iz better, and talking—[I am] much impressed—all about Gabriele
d’Annunzio.’’
In Florence, she noticed preparations for Hitler’s visit: ‘‘All the ugly,
modern houses on the piazza to be covered with . . . arazzi [tapestries] . . .
the Via Cavour, by a tunnel of flowers, so nothing will be seen of the
houses. . . . The Sienese [are] het up over being told they wuz to parade
[in] Firenze,’’ she added. ‘‘The carroccio is part of the procession and
symbolic of one taken at [the Battle of ] Monteaperti. . . . the Count
proposing to take half [of ] Siena to keep his spirits up.’’
Another short holiday in March in the South of France. At Biot, she
acquired several items from Lindy Shaw-Paige’s cast-o√ wardrobe, including
a complete skiing costume with boots. ‘‘The atmosphere [is] too
Brit for comfort,’’ she observed, with much talk about King Edward VIII’s
intention to marry the American divorcée Wallis Warfield Simpson. At
Etta Glover’s house in Le Lavandou, she met Ezra’s old friend Richard
Aldington, ‘‘[who] has written another awful novel . . . a sop to suburbia.’’
Ezra mentioned that H.D. (once married to Aldington), was ‘‘all
steamed up with kind feelings toward you . . . wanting to know why she
hasn’t been told [about the birth of Mary].’’
‘‘She has nothing against H. D. . . . it’s H. D. and Bryher I won’t stand at
any price,’’ Olga retorted (having fallen out with Hilda after she abandoned
Aldington to cohabit with Winifred Ellerman).
The crisis between Great Britain and Germany, always in the news, was
a cause for alarm: ‘‘If she doesn’t hear something sensible she will bust!
They think [Anthony] Eden is a saint and martyr! The locals have read the
Daily Express and worried about ‘where the Italian government [is] going
to find the money to pay for all this’ and say it hasn’t paid its debts to
England.’’
On March 24, 1938, the newly formed Vivaldi Society gave its first
concert in the stately ballroom of Ca’Dolfin, one of the most beautiful