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

153 The Subject Is—Wartime
The Count was receiving many applications with fees paid, in spite of
‘‘the complete absence of means of transportation to Siena . . . and the
general chaos.’’ He was going ahead with plans to open the Accademia—
the provincial governor had approved—and he hoped that Olga would
return as soon as possible.
There followed a long hiatus in their correspondence. Olga’s situation
changed dramatically when the Germans constructed concrete walls to
defend the beaches in Rapallo and issued an order for all inhabitants of
seafront apartments to evacuate. In May 1944, Ezra and Dorothy were
forced to move, with their household furnishings, from 12, via Marsala
within twenty-four hours. They might have gone to Villa Raggio with
Isabel Pound on the other side of Rapallo, ‘‘but it would have meant EP
being very cramped, and another hill to climb,’’ Olga remembered. ‘‘It
would have been a kindness to EP’s mother, who was alone, if DP had
gone there—at least for weekends—but she [Dorothy] did not like her
[mother-in-law].’’ To save Ezra’s strength on the long walk to Sant’Ambrogio
(and, Olga admitted, to keep him near), she invited the couple to
move in with her.
Ezra’s immediate concern was how to dispose of twenty years’ accumulation
of papers and books. Olga recalled that Pound himself carried
the many little poetry magazines, reviews, and so forth—materials that
were of too great interest (and eventual value) to throw away—to the new
municipal building, the Casa del Fascio. The Casa del Fascio had a large
room intended as a library, with empty shelves. ‘‘He took me there,’’ she
later wrote, and ‘‘I got the impression that he did this so I might be
o≈cially . . . recognized as a friend of his. We passed through a large room
where a seduta [meeting] of local Fascists seemed to be taking place. I
never had a dopolavoro card, useful for rebates on cinema tickets, etc., still
less any Fascist tessera [membership card]. . . . The Rapallo concerts gave
a rebate on tickets, but few, if any of the local Fascist o≈cials ever came.’’
The rest of Ezra’s papers were to be carted up the hill to Casa 60. But
where to find containers to carry them? No porters were available to lift
the heavy household e√ects up the steep hill, no men, no horses or mules,
and no road for cars at that time. The Sant’Ambrogio flat was still as