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

223 A Piece of Ginger
tainment for the illustrious guests. With her erect posture and the discipline
of a trained violinist, she remained charming, well dressed, and
e≈cient, seldom showing the strain and heartbreak over Ezra.
On August 14 Pound su√ered a relapse, and Olga was summoned to
Martinsbrunn. He was being fed intravenously, and she confided to Ronald
Duncan: ‘‘I thought the end had come, but came back here [Siena] the
17th as planned, so as not to show him I thought so. . . . [I] telephoned
Mary that evening—he had taken a turn for the better, the doctor said it
was miraculous!’’ Walter had brought a jar of Chinese ginger from London,
which in her view was ‘‘most unsuitable.’’ But not to disappoint the
child she said, ‘‘perhaps a little bit, when he felt better.’’ The next day, ‘‘E.
demanded a piece of ginger, after which he asked for a ham sandwich—he
had had nothing but [IV] injections for two weeks! . . . [he] is gradually
picking up.’’
He was sitting up when Olga arrived in October. ‘‘He can get well . . . is
much better than when I saw him in Rome,’’ Olga wrote Duncan, ‘‘mind
clear, not in the terrible state of anxiety and self-reproach.’’ But when
Duncan, the only nonfamily member permitted to enter the closely
guarded sanctuary, arrived at Martinsbrunn, Ezra was still lying in profound
silence during much of the visit.
Several months later, Olga wrote, ‘‘he was commencing to walk ’round
the room without a stick, fairly serene and content.’’ The doctor was
waiting to consult with a famous specialist from Innsbruck before risking
a prostate operation.
Duncan urged Olga to encourage Pound to make a will, but she hesitated:
‘‘Even if I would risk a misunderstanding with E. (and I won’t), a
will would have no legal value now that he has a ‘guardian.’ ’’ In her view,
the will that Ezra had already executed, before the war, ‘‘may or may not
have legal value. . . . It . . . names M. ‘literary executor’ when she reaches
the age of 18, until then, her mother (OR) guardian. . . . Don’t you think
she [Mary] has proven herself a capable young woman who has always
worked for E’s best interest?’’
‘‘Two things stand out in my mind after seeing you the other day in
Merano,’’ Duncan wrote Ezra. ‘‘(1) Your sense of remorse hasn’t got a leg
to stand on. Please stop worrying about trivial details. (2) Mary’s loyalty.