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

30 Halcyon Days No More
do you manage about supper? . . . all supplies will go up, people are afraid
to be without later on. . . . Do pray that the two nations now squabbling
may settle their quarrel without bringing the rest of Europe into it.’’ She
cautioned the two young men (soon to be mobilized), ‘‘not [to] bathe
[swim] . . . too soon after eating, or after you are very warm.’’
A week later, the inevitable news: ‘‘Germany has declared war! I could
not sleep at all last night. . . . [A] strong searchlight has been put near the
bridge at Issy to keep watch for the Zeppelins . . . the sky almost [like]
day . . . heard that British warships are patrolling the French coast, putting
searchlights out on the shore.’’
Now that France was at war, Julia and Olga, as foreign residents, had to
seek o≈cial permission to leave and to return to Paris: ‘‘I have to get the
papers signed by the Consul, and afterwards to the prefecture of police.
. . . There are not likely to be trains out of Paris . . . all are taken for
troops. . . . The money [from Father] came only last night. I thought I
could change the American and English money, but . . . everything was
crowded and shut at 12 o’clock.’’
Many other Americans in Paris were stranded without funds. The
consulate advanced gold dollars for transportation home to anyone with
proof of U.S. citizenship, and many queued up in front of the building.
Though her husband strongly urged her to do so, Julia never considered
returning home.
Her next letter described a visit to the market with its shortages: ‘‘no
fruit at all by 12 o’clock. The Germans have asked the Belgians for an
armistice of twenty-four hours. English troops are said to have landed two
or three days ago . . . mothers everywhere are sending their boys o√—in
many cases never to return.’’
Olga and her mother did not travel to Saint Cécile that summer. When
the brothers returned to Paris, they spent many evenings trying to decipher
the often ‘‘incomprehensible noises’’ on the crystal set rigged up in the
attic room, and watched planes flying over the airfield at Issy from the
roof. ‘‘We could see them in the far distance from the rue Chamfort,’’ Olga
recalled. The Rudge brothers were still underage and American, but their
neighbors Gilbert and Jack Insall were among the first volunteers in the
Royal Flying Corps, to be joined later by their younger brother, Cecil.