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

255 The Last Ten Years
stone paths. I am hoping Omar and Co. will be back next weekend.’’ All of
her letters to Ezra closed with a term of endearment, ‘‘à toi.’’
Another vexation for Olga arose when she learned that Mary’s Discretions
was being published in translation in Italy. ‘‘A rather undiplomatic
thing to do,’’ Laughlin wrote Noel Stock; ‘‘it will simply increase
Olga’s hostility [to Mary], if the book is circulating . . . among her Italian
friends.’’
In September, another event to remember: breakfast at Caroline de
Robilant’s palazzo to view Pope Paul and his cortège passing on the Grand
Canal. They joined a small crowd near the Accademia before the Pope was
‘‘stuck up on a platform before St. Mark’s,’’ in Olga’s words.
Olga’s gift to Ezra on his last birthday was an antique bed with provenance
of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s family. Joan Fitzgerald came to help
Olga assemble the parts. Some were missing, and Olga said it resembled ‘‘a
comic strip, trying to puzzle the matter out.’’ At last, ‘‘E. in bed—a miracle.
He allowed me to sluice him in [the] tub, so all clean in a new
clean bed.’’
Pound’s dream: Vivaldi in Siena. Piscetto’s prete had gotten someone in
the Vatican to celebrate Vivaldi. ‘‘I was looking for you,’’ Ezra said, ‘‘after
we got there, I had forgotten the hotel.’’ ‘‘Did you find it?’’ ‘‘No, I just
woke up.’’
When Ezra felt strong enough for luncheon at Pensione Cici, he cut a
distinguished figure: ivory-handled cane, newly laundered lavender shirt
with wide collar, monocolored yellow tie. As they walked along the Zattere—a
not unusual happening—a young German poet followed and introduced
himself. At the Cici, Ezra hung his hat outside the pensione
dining room according to custom, his scarf on a brass hook, and carried
the cane inside, then took his place with Olga among the ‘‘regulars.’’
The next morning, new injections activated the bladder, and Ezra was a
di≈cult patient: ‘‘wet o√ and on all day . . . a constant drip.’’ Olga never
complained, but took a tranquillina at the moment of washing and dressing
Ezra. Ezra objected to the ‘‘cackle’’ of Diana, the nurse who gave the
injections. The situation reached crisis proportions on the eleventh, when
he flooded. Ezra was ‘‘better, but very bad-tempered’’ over the weekend.