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

152 The Subject Is—Wartime
In 1944, the Allied bombing of Rapallo, Genoa, and other coastal towns
began in earnest. The Rapallo railroad bridge was destroyed, and communications
between Rapallo and the rest of the world were interrupted.
At the Capella dei Monti, a woman and the priest hearing her in the
confessional were killed. Father Desmond Chute, the Anglican priest, had
been deported as an enemy alien to work in a war hospital at Bobbio.
News came at last of the death of Winaretta Singer, the Princesse de
Polignac, who had furthered Olga’s early career and continued to o√er
financial support through the years. The Princesse was mourned by many
in literary as well as musical circles; in Maurice Baring’s words, it was ‘‘a
great loss . . . the wittiest woman in Europe.’’
Olga wrote to Count Chigi: ‘‘It doesn’t seem possible that this cauchemar
[nightmare] we are living can go on much longer. . . . it was a great
satisfaction to know that you continue your e√orts in homage to Vivaldi.
. . . [Mary] is not here now . . . it became necessary to let her take a job . . . a
secretarial position, and [she] works very hard. . . . It has been eight
months since I saw her . . . eighteen is a bit young to have to be on one’s
own.’’ She passed along news from their mutual friend Emma Ivancich
that her house in Capri had been seized and occupied.
The Count was pleased that Olga had received the Quaderni with the
Vivaldi articles, and that Pound had also noticed them. ‘‘My Vivaldi mania
is due wholly to you, my dear and most valuable secretary and inimitable
collaborator,’’ the Count wrote. ‘‘We continue to be spared by the ‘heroic’
enemy airmen [that is, the Allied forces], but in the countryside around us
a number of things have been destroyed, among them the beautiful and
historic Basilica dell’Osservanza, with its famous della Robbias.’’ (‘‘[T]he
Osservanza is broken, and the best de la Robbia busted to flinders,’’ Ezra
would recall in Canto 80.)
‘‘How it hurts to learn about the Basilica dell’Osservanza!’’ Olga replied.
‘‘I will pray for your city. . . . Here, too, there are always alerts, and
in Zoagli, many people killed.’’ Her reaction was typical of many on both
sides during the war who noted only the bombing in their own neighborhoods,
ignoring the devastation wrought in London and other European
cities, with even greater loss of lives.