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

144 The Subject Is—Wartime
In March, April, and May, Pound continued his discursi. After broadcasts,
he visited friends in Rome: Gian Carlo Menotti, whose honored
guest he would be at the Spoleto Festival after the war, and George
Santayana, then writing his memoirs, ‘‘a bit older, not very lively.’’ For
more spirited company, he ‘‘exchanged yarns’’ with the Irish ambassador,
Mac White.
Italians were noticing shortages. Olga wrote to Ezra about an unexpected
windfall of meat: ‘‘A bistecca broke a leg and had to be killed . . .
Sunday [it] was sold to the population in [the] little chapel above the
church on [the] way to Monte Allegro. Talk about sacrificial rites! The
butcher did the job in the chapel, and we waited our turns outside, while
Mass was going on in the church.’’ She was preserving orange marmalade
and waiting for news of Ezra’s return from Rome. Mary was writing the
most di≈cult chapter of her novel, ‘‘having finished reading The Bostonians
[by Henry James], now fallin’ back on Jane Austen’s Emma.’’
Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooks were installed in the Villa Sant’
Agnese near Florence to wait out the war. Barney had listened to Pound
over Rome Radio: ‘‘glad you are sticking to it . . . and was the violin
surrounding your speech Olga’s?’’ she wrote Ezra. (The recording of
Vivaldi she heard in the background was not Olga.)
Olga returned to the Accademia in June and installed herself in a small
flat near the market at 8 (vicolo) San Salvatore. Ezra wrote that he had
made ‘‘three [broadcasts] in a row Fri/Sat/Mon . . . am developing
prima-donnitis . . . as Gertie [Gertrude Stein] said, ‘I am an explainer.’ ’’
Olga had to apply for permission to return to Sant’Ambrogio: travel
papers were required during wartime. Mary, now sixteen, was translating
the Greek classics (at Ezra’s suggestion). She wrote to her mother from
Gais: ‘‘I am all right . . . [but] growing out of my clothes. . . . I hope very
much that we may soon be settled all together.’’ Ezra was at that time
‘‘considering a flat in Rome for us [that is, Olga and Mary] after the
war. . . . Roma wd / be more amusin’ fer the kid than Sant’Ambrogio.’’
The Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor thrust the United
States into the war with Japan, and soon with Germany and Italy. Pound’s
radio broadcasts ceased as he retired to Rapallo, in his words, ‘‘to seek
wisdom from the ancients.’’ When he joined Olga and Mary in Sant’Am-