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

212 A Visitor to St. Elizabeth’s
was then staying in Jenkintown with Miss Clare Warren, who had been a
friend of the senior Pounds before they moved to Italy.
Olga’s long correspondence with Louise Baynes had ceased entirely
during the war. Since Olga always considered herself close to Uncle
Harold and Aunt Lou and remembered fondly childhood visits to New
Hampshire, the estrangement is puzzling. A clue may be found in a 1936
letter from Louise, then living on Bailey’s Island, Maine, to Olga’s brother
Teddy: ‘‘I wonder what I have done to o√end Olga,’’ she wrote, ‘‘certainly
nothing intentional.’’ She expressed surprise that Olga was doing ‘‘secretarial
work,’’ and added that ‘‘she [Olga] must have had association with a
great many people with interests similar to her own; it seems strange that
so attractive a girl should remain unmarried.’’ For anyone as fiercely
proud of her independence as Olga, this must have rankled; moreover, as
the mother of Pound’s child, she considered herself married in the eyes of
God. On this visit, she was saddened to see her aunt failing, and misunderstandings
were forgiven or forgotten. Olga sailed from the port
of New York, not to return until 1969 when she came back triumphantly
with Ezra.