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

210 A Visitor to St. Elizabeth’s
dressed in blue jeans and a checkered blouse, [she] suggested a frayed and
faded survivor of the early bobby-sox days.’’ She found her way to the
hospital with ‘‘Ste√,’’ the sister of Stanislaus Yankowski, a Polish scholar
helping Pound with translations. Sheri was born Shirley O’Brennan to a
large Irish Catholic family, and her father drank to excess, rather like
James Joyce’s. She had gone to New York in her late teens, worked as a
model, and married a painter, Ezio Martinelli. They moved in the hippest
circles in Manhattan until she drifted into drink and drugs. After the
marriage ended, she came to Washington. She said that she had waited all
her life to meet a ‘‘holy man,’’ and Ezra Pound fit that image.
For a time, the admiration was mutual. A magazine article reported that
‘‘Mr. Pound considers Miss Martinelli’s paintings better than anything
done ‘since 1527.’ ’’ Sheri became a member of Pound’s inner circle, and
since the hospital required Ezra to be accompanied by a family member
outside the ward she often substituted for Dorothy as his ‘‘adopted’’
daughter. Sheri hinted that Ezra had considered legal adoption. In later
interviews, Martinelli insisted that she and Pound were lovers, which is
unlikely, because visitors were not permitted in the ward after 4:30 in the
afternoon, and there was no privacy on the hall at any hour.
For many months, she visited Ezra almost daily, observing the scene
with an artist’s eye: Dorothy’s ‘‘luminous beauty, with almost celestial
Botticelli perfection, a winter rosebud with tiny touches of pink, . . . soft
hair falling with a golden aura about her face.’’ Silence surrounded Dorothy,
she remembered, but the refined English lady would surprise everyone
by saying things quite out of character: ‘‘imbecile, idiot!’’ She also
quoted Dorothy as saying she liked having Ezra in St. Elizabeth’s: ‘‘At
least I know where he’s sleeping tonight.’’
And then there was ‘‘the other lady.’’ Sheri was witness to Olga’s 1955
visit. She was sitting at the right hand of Pound one afternoon when
Dorothy failed to appear. Then Olga came, ‘‘a royal presence, with
marble-like, sculptured features, her back sti√ and erect, professionallooking,
a trained person.’’ Her hair was carefully ‘‘marcelled’’ in waves,
and she was wearing a lovely lavender and white summer dress, with
matching lavender parasol to protect fragile skin against summer sun.
No one knew who Olga was, but Pound looked up with a ‘‘bad little