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

231 The Last Ten Years
given me warning.’’ Olga was determined to restore Ezra’s health and
equilibrium, whatever the cost.
The couple remained in Venice through the winter. Mary Jane Phillips-
Matz, who lived in the second house down the alley from No. 252 in the
1960s, and after 1969 just across the canal from Olga’s house, remembered
the ‘‘trim, gray-haired woman who . . . fed stray cats and . . . began to
cosset our three toddling daughters (and the son born in 1966), serving
afternoon tea and cookies, and when they were older, the elderly man who
lived with her taught them to play chess.’’ The two women shared an
interest in music, and both were from Ohio. ‘‘From her I learned how to
serve ample meals on tiny trays that inevitably ended with poached pears
or soft desserts with colorful names, ‘Spotted Dog’ or ‘Resurrection Pudding.’
The smell of burnt logs hung in the living room, as did the scent of
pungent eucalyptus.’’
Phillips-Matz remembered Olga as energetic, intelligent, high-spirited,
a mine of common sense, who punctuated every sentence with ‘‘Capito?’’
‘‘She taught me to layer newspapers under sweaters and coats to keep
warm, to wrap a light blanket like a kilt for extra protection during
afternoon naps. I helped to mop up water from the canal that crept into the
hall during an acqua alta. Her closets and mine were filled with clothes that
had seen ten or even twenty seasons. She taught me a great deal about
what she called, ‘making do,’ how to make a bed on steamer trunks. Loans
flowed from her house to mine . . . repaid promptly on both sides. After
great loss, we grieved together. After lunches at Montin’s or Cici’s, we
exchanged memories of childhood visits to Mt. Chocorua.’’ Poignantly,
she recalled ‘‘the day she played for the last time and put her violin away,
without a trace of self-pity or regret.’’
In February 1964, four months before the seventh Festival of Two
Worlds, Gian Carlo Menotti came to Venice to arrange the Italian premiere
of the Last Savage. Mary Jane’s friendship with Menotti dated back to the
1950s. A decade later, she was director of public relations, general manager,
and fund-raiser for the Festival. Charles Matz, who was then Mary
Jane’s husband, o√ered to introduce Menotti to Pound. ‘‘Did you know,’’
Matz asked, ‘‘that Pound once wrote an opera?’’
‘‘You mean the libretto?’’