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

285 Olga Triumphant
Rylandses as an imbroglio involving ‘‘skullduggery, the gondolieri intelligence
network, alarms and counter alarms, threats of a suit and countersuits,
in other words, a very sordid business.’’
The Rylandses packed away papers and memorabilia intended for the
library into several old trunks and removed them, presumably for storage
in a safe place, to a warehouse of the gondolieri on the nearby Zattere. In
Fitzgerald’s view, the Rylandses had ‘‘stolen’’ at least one trunk filled with
valuable papers, but she had no proof. At some point, Walter and Mary
went to Venice and removed the trunks to Brunnenburg. Mary has said
that people like the Rylandses made her mother’s life in later years—but
she gradually came to see that they were using her, as an icon.
For many years Olga had considered a memorial to Pound in his native
United States; Ezra had expressed a wish to be buried in Hailey, Idaho, the
place of his birth. In early October 1985, when opportunity knocked, this
far from typical ninety-year-old was on her way there. She and Mary were
to be honored guests at the centenary celebration (October 30, 1985) of
Hailey’s most famous—and controversial—native son.
One can only imagine how the residents of this small Western town
viewed the woman touted as ‘‘Ezra Pound’s mistress’’ (though she insisted,
‘‘I was never supported by Ezra’’), who had once lived in a ménage
à trois with Pound and his legal wife. She was wearing a modish traveling
costume and perky hat, a hand-woven plaid shawl draped dramatically
over her shoulders, and carrying a rubber-tipped umbrella ‘‘more for
pointing than support.’’
Richard Ardinger, editor of Limberlost Press, held Olga’s shawl while a
cameraman positioned her for a television interview. The white frame
house where Ezra had been born was behind her, and poets were reading
their work in the front yard. On this beautiful fall afternoon, the sun was
bright, the sky was clear blue, but the leaves were falling with a gusting
wind. The interviewer was primed with a question: ‘‘What kind of man
was Ezra Pound?’’ ‘‘He was a good man,’’ Olga replied, steadying herself
with the umbrella tip, ‘‘he was a manly man.’’
Later, Olga and Mary fielded questions about Ezra in Hailey’s Liberty
Theater. ‘‘Pound was not a Fascist,’’ Olga insisted, holding a microphone
in one hand, patting the table to stress the point with the other. ‘‘His name