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

73 The Hidden Nest
[The] photograph was sent to me by an internationally famous and
controversial literary gentleman, who enclosed the ‘‘simulacrum of
an active and decorative component of . . . art, music, letters, etc.’’
Since he demands anonymity, it is a pity his whole letter about Miss
Rudge cannot be printed, because it . . . says a lot more than I
could. . . . She was fiddling on the spot in Budapest when the last
riot broke out . . . held Mussolini’s attention for two hours in
private audience. . . . She appears to play a good deal of Mozart as
well as the ultra-moderns.
Olga performed with Gabriele Bianchi at the Sala Benedetto Marcello in
Venice on July 15, after spending two and a half hours with Maestro
Mainardi perfecting her technique. ‘‘He does the Ravel magnificently,’’ she
wrote Ezra. ‘‘Ravel told him the sonata (form) was an exact copy of one of
Mozart’s.’’
Another triumph was a recital with Giorgio Levi at Gabriele d’Annunzio’s
estate, Vittoriale. After World War I, the war hero–poet moved
to the Gardone Riviera to construct his memorial in an old villa that
housed a museum, library, and amphitheater where he produced his own
plays. A mausoleum that looked like a half-submerged submarine was
under construction for the bodies of ten men who had fought with him—
and later his own. A quotation from La Città Morta, ‘‘Io ho quel che ho
donato’’ [I have what I have given away], was placed strategically over the
main gateway. In the private rooms, Olga recalled a marble statue of St.
Sebastian and a co≈n-shaped bed on a dias surrounded by chamoisleather
curtains.
D’Annunzio was a short man, somewhat plump, with small shoulders
and tiny feet, giving him a somewhat feminine appearance. His morbidly
sallow complexion and pock-marked skin made it di≈cult at first to see
why so many women found him irresistible. After an a√air with the great
actress Eleonora Duse in 1896 during voluntary exile in France, he had
formed a liaison with Romaine Brooks, and at the time of Olga’s visit, the
then sixty-five-year-old’s resident mistress was a young Russian, Nathalie
de Goloube√.