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

229 The Last Ten Years
‘‘takes an interest in books and newspapers. . . . All this has shown that . . .
his fits of depression and not wanting to eat were not mental, or cussedness,
[but] due to poison in the blood. . . . I shall not go to Siena this
summer. . . . Mary can come down for a week or so every now and then
and take over if necessary. . . . I intend to see this thing through. Dr.
Bacigalupo . . . has known E. over 35 years and understands his kinks,
doesn’t get put o√ by his manner . . . is very fond of E.’’
When Ezra was released from the Villa Chiara on June 30, he returned
with Olga to Sant’Ambrogio, and Dorothy Pound left Rapallo with Omar
the same day. Dorothy wrote, after arriving at Brunnenburg, that she was
glad the operation was successful, but ‘‘I hope now they will leave the poor
man alone.’’ She enclosed a check ‘‘for Ezra’s keep,’’ and added, ‘‘please
reimburse yourself for warm undershirt and any other expenses. We generally
allow 60,000 lire a month for food.’’ She continued to send monthly
checks, but kept the purse strings firmly in hand: ‘‘No money is supposed
to be his ‘own’ nowadays.’’
Mary and the children came to Sant’Ambrogio while Olga returned to
Siena July 22 for the nineteenth Settimana Musicale Senese. She wanted to
be there for the second performance of Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans
(about which she wrote a scholarly abstract for the Accademia Bollettino).
Lester Littlefield was still ‘‘guardian’’ of 252, calle Querini; Marianne
Moore and two Bryn Mawr classmates traveling in Italy and Greece had
visited him at Olga’s house that summer. Olga retained the right to use it
two months of the year, and on September 25—as soon as Ezra could
travel by train—she took him back to the Hidden Nest.
He was strong enough to attend a dinner on the thirtieth to celebrate his
election to the Academy of American Poets hosted by the Society of
Venetian Writers. While Olga remained quietly in the background, Ezra
was becoming an international celebrity. An interview with photographs
appeared in Time (translated from Epoca) in April 1963.
They returned to Sant’Ambrogio for Ezra’s second prostate operation
at the Villa Chiara. ‘‘Dorothy was responsible for the second operation—
as Committee, she had to decide,’’ Olga noted bitterly; ‘‘the one chosen
left him impotent.’’ But she was fair enough to acknowledge that the
alternative operation might have killed him.