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

248 The Last Ten Years
be amazed (and grateful) for the astonishing way you care for EP. Terribly
exhausting, and no time o√. Bless you for it!’’ he wrote.
Olga’s e√orts were not unappreciated. On her seventy-fifth birthday
April 13, Ezra wrote this paean of praise, ‘‘To Olga’’:
If there was a trace of beauty in anything, she saw it.
For fine and just perception and a level gaze,
For courage in face of evil,
For courage in time of adversity.
If anyone ever deserved the spring with all its beauty, she did.
What her memory brought her was always some trace of fineness
of perception.
Dorothy Pound wrote to the couple in Venice in early spring: ‘‘Rapallo
is now quite unpleasant. All winter there are floods of old people, and
now—Easter and onwards—one caravan-load after another. The bay is
already surrounded by bathing huts. I greatly hoped to see Ezra, it’s more
than a year.’’ She added the distressing news that ‘‘Sunday p.m. somebody
got into my room and opened the little dispatch case, extracting several
rings (I do so regret my engagement ring from Ezra). . . . They left the
English money and passport untouched . . . must be Mercury transit across
the Sun!’’
On July 21, 1970, a ‘‘Petition for Order to Make Monthly Payment to
Patient’s Companion’’ was filed by Caryl S. Terry, attorney for Dorothy
Pound, ‘‘Committee for Ezra Pound,’’ in the U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia.
For a number of years, Miss Olga Rudge has acted as the patient’s
companion, fulfilling the functions of both housekeeper and
nurse. . . . it would be advisable to provide Miss Rudge with some
remuneration for her services, since it would be extremely
expensive to hire persons to perform the services she presently
performs. Therefore, the Committee requests that an order be
entered authorizing her to make monthly payments to Miss Rudge