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

280 Olga Triumphant
War II trials, notably that of Lord Haw-Haw, the broadcaster of Nazi
propaganda to Britain.
Mary Jane Phillips-Matz raced around the city in taxis with Olga to see
the apartments where she and her mother had lived and accompanied her
to the airport on April 13. ‘‘She was lugging . . . an old raincoat of Pound’s,
into which she had pinned several things of her own. . . . We drank fruit
juice out of cans and nibbled on crackers . . . the best birthday party ever.
She waved happily from the gate, and elegant as always, disappeared
down the jetway.’’
Life in Venice continued at the same lively pace. When Joan Guiness
came to tea, Olga o√ered a cup of Earl Grey, which delighted Guiness (she
reportedly imported a supply of Jackson’s from London): ‘‘I can’t bear
Italian tea—dead mouse floating in a cup, we call it.’’ The second birthday
of George Augustus James, the Rylandses’ first-born son, was celebrated
on June 18. Philip was taking on another worthwhile cause, organizing the
first circulating library of English books in Venice. Only centuries were
milestones in that ancient city—a concert at San Giorgio Maggiore marked
the one thousandth anniversary of the Abbazia Benedittini with music by
Gregorio Zuchino, a monk of the year 1600.
In late July, Gabriele and Luisa Stocchi drove her to Sant’Ambrogio.
She awoke at dawn in Ezra’s bed. Birdsong, which continued for almost an
hour, and the bells of San Pantaleo inspired a quotation from Yeats in the
notebook: ‘‘all happiness depends on the energy to assume the mask of
some other self . . . all joyous or creative life is a rebirth as something not
oneself, something which has no memory and is created in a moment and
perpetually renewed.’’
She was closing her safe deposit box in Rapallo and listed its contents:
two gold coins; a copy of Antheil’s Ballet Mécanique; ‘‘Dawn Song,’’
Pound’s first published poem (in Mumsey magazine, 1905); Ezra’s letters
to his parents of the same era; an early edition of the Little Review; letters
from Hemingway and Miró, a note from Maurice Vlaminck; letters to
Olga from Stella Bowen and James Joyce—a few of the treasures accumulated
in some eighty-eight years.
On the anniversary of Ezra’s death, Bill MacNaughton accompanied