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

195 A Visitor to St. Elizabeth’s
Olga’s eyes ‘‘a curious specimen, but nice—also hopeful.’’ Cornell believed
in a world federal government to maintain peace, and from the outset he
treated Pound’s defense as another civil liberties case.
Olga called on many old friends. Nadia Boulanger invited her to an
end-of-term fête for her pupils (mostly American). Mabel de Courcy
Duncan, recovering from an operation, was ‘‘lying, half-sitting, Etruscantomb
fashion, very thin, cheerful, memory a bit uncertain. . . . Ethel, with
ear plugs [hearing aids] now hears, and manages everything.’’ Natalie
Barney was still holding court in the rue Jacob salon, ‘‘dusted, but not
renovated, [and] asked me to lunch, both times alone, [was] able to talk.’’
The librairie in the old neighborhood had expanded to three shops;
Olga had first known its owner, Mademoiselle L’Avocat, as a girl of fifteen
selling in a tiny bookstore. She was saddened to see the grand salon of the
Pomairols on the rue Saint Dominique unfurnished and ruined by dividing
walls, ‘‘no valets in livery—only one aged employee, who knew nothing
about the Pomairols.’’
The Salle Pleyel, the venue where she had performed in her youth and
Pound had presented the concert version of Le Testament de Villon, had
been remodeled and completely changed, ‘‘not French, a rag-bag—no
Parisians!’’ She tried to get in touch with Jean Cocteau, sans success, and
went to the Opéra, thinking he might be at the rehearsal of his ballet
Phèdre, then being performed in honor of Nijinsky. But there was no
chance of attending the ballet, as the house was sold out. She considered a
concert by the renowned violinist Joseph Szigeti ‘‘un disastro.’’
There was a luncheon reunion with that suave man about town Arturo
Brown ‘‘incredibly the same—only better.’’ The admiration was mutual.
Don Arturo complimented her grey hair as very becoming. She pampered
herself after so many lean years: ‘‘bought meself a hat, a blouse, a pair of
dark-blue transparent gloves, elbow length.’’ Everywhere, she was reminded
of Ezra: ‘‘Now He pull up His sox, and reflect on the possibility of
getting here.’’
After Paris, Olga went on to London. She stopped at Faber & Faber,
Pound’s English publisher, for tea with Eliot, ‘‘very frail, but kind about
o√ering help re. my passport . . . thought it bad for me to be cooped up in
Italy.’’ He o√ered a check for a hundred pounds to pay her expenses,