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

28 Halcyon Days No More
possible).’’ In spite of her self-deprecating manner, Olga was gaining a
reputation for individual, fresh readings of contemporary works: ‘‘Her
really strong point is a flowing cantabile,’’ a contemporary critic noted.
The Duncan sisters also introduced Olga and her mother to members
of the literary establishment in Paris: Paul Souday, Charles Clermont-
Ganneau, Charles Maurras, and Sisley Huddleston (Paris correspondent
for the Observer). At Madame de Pomairol’s they met Judith Gautier,
daughter of the essayist and critic Théophile, and thereafter were invited
to the Gautier flat on the rue Washington. On one of those evenings, an
elderly man—a smallish dark figure to Olga’s eyes—was introduced as the
author Joséphin Péladan. (Unknown to Olga at the time, Péladan’s Le
Secret des Troubadours was a great enthusiasm of Ezra’s.)
Another venue for Olga’s talent was St. Geneviève’s Club on the rue
Vaugirard in Montparnasse (known to the American colony as Sylvia
Beach’s father’s club). The British group assembled at the Lyceum where
Olga, still in her teens, ‘‘performed with finish’’ before the evening was
brought to a close with impromptu dancing and enthusiastic renditions of
‘‘God Save the King.’’ Through Julia’s contacts, Olga also was invited to
perform at the matinées musicales at the avenue Niel home of Madame
Giulia Valda with American soprano Julia Porter, then the star pupil of
Madame Valda. The Musical Courier applauded the obbligato in the Bach-
Gounod arrangement of Ave Maria ‘‘of that very capable young violinist
whose excellent musicianship has been mentioned before.’’
In that time of peace and prosperity before the Great War, Mabel and
Ethel Duncan joined the family group in Italy for a summer holiday. They
stopped at the Hotel Saturnia in Venice, and Olga became enamored with
that city favored by artists, not knowing that some fifteen years later it
would become her permanent home. Teddy was displaying artistic talent,
sketching the mosaic of Christ on a white donkey in the piazza of St.
Mark’s. The travelers continued on to Florence, where Julia took an
apartment for the summer in an ancient building with high ceilings facing
the tree-shaded Via dei Tintori, a cool refuge in the intense heat. This was
a memorable interlude for the impressionable young girl. She fondly
recalled hearing the great tenor Benjamino Gigli sing La Spagnola (mentioned
by Pound in Canto 27).