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

140 Overture to War
[Hitler] will be in London by September 15th, after which ’spose the war
will die down a bit.’’
Olga moved into a smaller apartment at 22, via Roma. ‘‘She has discovered
the orchestrale get 40 lire a day, which is a lot more than she
gets . . . being a perfeck sec[retary], but would rather tornare & essere une
violiniste [be a violinist], if not a perfeck lady.’’
Ezra was going to the ministry of culture in Rome to explore the
possibility of using Rome Radio as a platform for his economic theories, to
earn some money to support his two families: ‘‘Waaal, mebbe papa bring
home the bacon / not o≈cial, but sum under consideration dieci mille
[lire].’’
Everything was uncertain. After visiting Mary in Florence, Olga was
expecting La Quiete to close before the next term: ‘‘Leoncina all right,
thin, but hard as nails and shaping nicely.’’ When she inquired at the U.S.
consulate if any action had been taken on Mary’s passport application, the
consular o≈cer put her o√ with vague excuses—he had not heard from
Washington—and asked if Olga had been ordered to leave Rapallo; foreigners
were already being evacuated from the coastal towns.
She returned to Siena, with ‘‘a concert every night . . . this place more
like a monkey house!’’ Maestro Vannini had gone o√ to rescue his family
from Viareggio (it was rumored that the English fleet would soon be out).
Ezra still planned to go to Siena for the final concerts. ‘‘What wardrobe
she thinks he requires? . . . velvet getting a bit quaint, and nobody wears
evening stu√ ’cause it is wartime . . . white shirt and black tie quite enough
with any dark suit. . . . I don’t feel my presence needs any sartorial
emphasis.’’
‘‘She ’spose He doesn’t need his velvet, but He will need to look towny,
a lot of the Nibs or Nobs have accepted.’’ They were to celebrate a special
event in music—the first performance, after more than two centuries, of
Vivaldi’s oratorio, Juditha Triumphans. This epic masterwork, which had
been lost to the world, was saved by Olga’s diligence and curiosity when
she discovered the score at Cambridge University’s Fitzwilliam Library.
After a brief overture for drums, horns, and string orchestra, the mighty
chorus of soldiers in battle sings out: