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

257 The Last Ten Years
hospital, S.S. Giovanni e Paolo. Stoic as always, Ezra refused a stretcher,
came downstairs with his hand on the wooden rail that had been put there
in the 1960s, ‘‘when EP came back to stay—it was the last thing in the
house His hand touched.’’ He walked along the calle Querini to the Fondamenta
Ca’Bala and climbed into the gondola unassisted.
As Olga related the events of their last hours together:
The next morning, Joan Fitzgerald came to the hospital . . . she
insisted on my resting, held his hand for the intravenous. He said,
‘‘Take your hand away!’’ I, of course, never rested, nor did I leave
the room from the time we got to the hospital. The doctors . . .
were kind, attentive and conscientious. . . . [I] had no impression of
his being in pain (he was always uncomplaining of physical pain).
After that, more intravenous, then a tube in [the] nose . . . which
evidently gave him relief, so much so that he dropped asleep, tired
out, but peacefully breathing, and we were alone. . . . There were
no last messages, no ‘death-bed repentance.’ I did not know,
though sitting with his hand in mine, when he had gone until the
nurse came in, turned up [the] middle light.
Caro! When death came it was beautiful, and you went, smiling.
I held your hand and was glad.