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

148 The Subject Is—Wartime
comes to [the] knees. [He] talks . . . counting points on his fingers.
Subjects: love and religion . . . [if he] had a dozen corn stalks, he
would eat one grain a day as ‘‘communion’’—the sun rose every
day & Christ rose every day on the altar, & the body of Jesus in
the communion was the corn.
(June 29) [The] third of the ‘‘figurines’’ comes to my door: little
old woman—gentle manners & a blessing hand . . . old-fashioned
full-gathered skirt, needs earrings & a basket of fruit & strings of
garlic to be a figure from a Presepio. The only male beggar—a
stray dog—asks for the moon, i.e., a pezzetto di pane’ . . . give him
a lire & feel poverty-stricken at having no larder.
(July 3) EP arrives unexpected, bringing treat in honor of M[ary]’s
birthday, a tin of marvelous paté de foie . . . real tea.
(July 7) Beans, with bit of speck [bacon] & oil. Figs (skin good to
eat!) Pinolo [pine nuts] & pear skins & cores.
(July 8) [Mary’s] birthday cake, castagna flour with candied
cherries.
(July 16) Co√ee from orange peel. [Max] Beerbohm’s servant sent
& showed how to make.
(July 24) Lin Yu Tang, the Chinese philosopher, said: ‘‘A wellfilled
stomach is indeed a great thing: all else is luxury of life.’’
[Pound added the Chinese ideogram for the happy state of going to
bed ‘‘warm, well-filled, dark and sweet.’’]
(July 25) More potatoes in a few weeks than in whole previous
year . . . rabbit and chicken reappearing, and biscuits. Black market
eggs, 7 lire each. Drought accounts for disappearance of salads and
green vegetables.