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

16
The Last Ten Years
1962–1972
‘‘The sea in which he floated’’
After his reunion with Olga, Ezra was moved to the Villa Chiara, the
Casa di Cura of Dr. Giuseppe Bacigalupo, whose mother, Elfreide, had
been Pound’s doctor before the war. A clear case of prostatitis had been
‘‘shamefully neglected.’’ Olga never forgave the doctors at St. Elizabeth’s
for having dismissed the patient without a complete physical checkup. Yet
a urologist from Genoa and Dr. Bacigalupo were both of the opinion that
an operation was unnecessary at the time.
The doctor had shown Olga how to manage without a nurse. A
local woman came in the mornings for two hours, a contadina they
had known for more than thirty years, whom she could trust. ‘‘I made
a fire on the hearth, and E. read Cantos out loud until bedtime, making
notes and corrections . . . most touchingly considerate, no trouble
at all.’’
She kept a daily log, like a trained nurse, of Pound’s meals and
medications:
7:15 breakfast: orange juice, few spoonsful porridge.
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