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

177 What Thou Lovest Well Remains
at me . . . you simply don’t see—it’s as unconsciously done as if you had
pinched my finger in a door you had locked.’’
In Olga’s view, Pound’s mother would be an asset in the United States
when his case went to trial, but she had not been able to find a sponsor.
Father Chute had paid 2,025 lire for Isabel’s passport to be renewed and
made arrangements for her to leave on the June 29 sailing of the S.S.
Vulcania for New York. But after writing to a number of friends in the
Philadelphia area, including the Heacock sisters, to find a temporary
residence, Olga found no one who would take her in, and the Presbyterian
Home was beyond her modest means. In the end, Isabel ‘‘did not feel
secure’’ with the travel arrangements, and having heard from Dorothy
that she would be allowed only three fifteen-minute visits a week at St.
Elizabeth’s, she decided to remain in Rapallo.
Mary was preparing for the arrival of her first baby, Olga’s first grandchild,
at the Fonte di San Martino Casa di Cura in Merano. She was feeling
well, taking long walks to Schloss Tirol. ‘‘The nuns tell me the full moon
has a strong influence, perhaps [the baby will arrive] in two days.’’
The child was born at one o’clock on April 8, five days before Olga’s
birthday. ‘‘While I lay waiting, the first bud of the magnolia tree under my
balcony burst open,’’ Mary wrote. ‘‘I had the moon through the window, a
good alleviation of the pains. . . . Babbo has written a boy must obviously
be called Walter in honor of Walther van de Vogelweide—today is also
[the day of ] St. Walter—and Siegfried, for my special predilection for the
Nibelungen hero and for Boris’s capostipite [founder of the de Rachewiltz
family, from which Boris was descended]. . . . The baby has blue eyes and
blond hair like Babbo’s, a nose like Boris’s, and the general opinion is that
he looks like me.’’
Later, after she returned to the schloss: ‘‘I am in a continuous state of
bliss. . . . Our baby has already grown out of his first-size jackets . . . his
bluish color has changed to a bright pink, [he] keeps his eyes open and
assumes [a] quaint expression which somehow reminds me of Babbo. . . .
The nun in charge is of Gais, she knew me as a little girl.’’
Olga was back in Rapallo in June, corresponding with the Count: ‘‘I
found a di≈cult situation here with old Mrs. Pound . . . however, her