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and as to why this timing? (p. 177) Rudge Notebooks, III, 151–52. ‘A note in pencil with no date [. . .]. Walking down the salita to Rapallo towards sunset, also the cherry tree’ (OR). For the most notable occurrence of the Sant’Ambrogio ‘salita’ (steep hill-path) see 80/520. flood & flame (p. 178) Manuscript. Pound speaks of the resilience of Olga, a small woman of decision and elegance, who after her evenings and concerts in Rapallo took the long solitary trek uphill to her quarters in ‘Casa 60’, Sant’Ambrogio. In February 1927 Olga gave a private violin recital for Mussolini, accompanied on the piano by Daniele Amfitheatrof – see Anne Carson, Olga Rudge and Ezra Pound (Yale University Press, 2001), p. 71. Here Pound alludes to her assessment (possibly critical) of the Duce (also an amateur violin player). Olga’s name being courage (p. 179) Typescript, signed in longhand, dated 1965. Another rendering of thanks. The opening statement recurs in a fragment sent by Pound to his publisher James Laughlin on August 24, 1966, with the request that it be placed at the close of The Cantos; Laughlin obliged in the 1995 paperback edition. Here Pound recalls some moments of his forty-year-old partnership with Olga: an excursion to the Paris suburb of Ville-d’Avray (97/700, and perhaps 80/529: ‘where they set tables down by small rivers’), her silhouette against the window (‘contrejour’) as she played the violin ‘with the sea beyond making horizon’ (74/464), a snapshot of her on the beach of Santa Margherita (town near Rapallo), and strolls on the Paris quays. According to Olga, Pound had in mind their first meeting in autumn 1922: ‘The walk along the Seine [‘Senna’ in Italian] from rue Jacob 20 to 2 rue Chamfort [Olga’s address] at 5 a.m. (?) after N. C. Barney’s costume ball. O.R. in Chinese coat belonging to Judith Gautier lent by Suzanne Meyer & Chinese shoes lent by Arthur Frank’s wife. E – black velvet jacket & red Spanish cummerbund. Stopped for breakfast at café’ (OR). The feast of San Pantaleo, the small church near Olga’s house (to which she returned with Ezra in summer 1964), is held on the last Sunday of July. 216 Posthumous Cantos
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And there was nothing but water melon (p. 180) Manuscript, one page. Olga made a longhand copy of this fragment, correcting the opening line. Pound had written: ‘And there was no water mellon’. It is likely that he assented to her correction, since this must have been a story she told him of her own childhood (‘Rudge family picnic on Mount Chocorua in 1903’ – OR; Mt Chocorua is also mentioned in 74/460). The point is that Olga has always put up with adversity, and has willingly confronted difficult circumstances. The line about leaving a picnic for a funeral (OR: ‘School picnic – Convent – Sherborne – Dorset’) may be also a metaphor for her taking responsibility for Pound in his last years. The Mousmé (‘The Little Japanese Mamma’) was a 1911 musical by Lionel Monckton; Pound is alluding again to Olga’s Chinese costume at their first meeting chez Natalie Barney. ‘The climbing was on Costa Line ship – I had passage from Newport News – only it did not sail (coaling) after several days spent chez cousin Paul Maline – flew back to Italy – 1952’ (OR). ‘Red heart in a flask of perfume, i.e. a tiny red heart in a tiny flask of perfume I took to E.P. at Saint Eliz. in 1952, had bought it in Rapallo at the gift shop (il Porto?) by “penny-plain” and “tuppence coloured” sisters’ (OR). Olga visited Pound at St Elizabeths on her birthday, April 13, 1952, and again in June 1955. The Wordsworthian touch of Olga’s pity ‘on every living thing’ is a significant addition to the praise of her strength and courage. The reference to her having kept Pound alive ‘for ten years’ suggests that this homage may have been written after 1970, since Pound put himself in Olga’s capable hands in April 1962, when his physical and mental health was indeed precarious, and both of them believed he was dying. Notes 217

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and as to why this timing? (p. 177) Rudge Notebooks, III, 151–52. ‘A note in pencil with no date [. . .]. Walking down the salita to Rapallo towards sunset, also the cherry tree’ (OR). For the most notable occurrence of the Sant’Ambrogio ‘salita’ (steep hill-path) see 80/520. flood & flame (p. 178) Manuscript. Pound speaks of the resilience of Olga, a small woman of decision and elegance, who after her evenings and concerts in Rapallo took the long solitary trek uphill to her quarters in ‘Casa 60’, Sant’Ambrogio. In February 1927 Olga gave a private violin recital for Mussolini, accompanied on the piano by Daniele Amfitheatrof – see Anne Carson, Olga Rudge and Ezra Pound (Yale University Press, 2001), p. 71. Here Pound alludes to her assessment (possibly critical) of the Duce (also an amateur violin player). Olga’s name being courage (p. 179) Typescript, signed in longhand, dated 1965. Another rendering of thanks. The opening statement recurs in a fragment sent by Pound to his publisher James Laughlin on August 24, 1966, with the request that it be placed at the close of The Cantos; Laughlin obliged in the 1995 paperback edition. Here Pound recalls some moments of his forty-year-old partnership with Olga: an excursion to the Paris suburb of Ville-d’Avray (97/700, and perhaps 80/529: ‘where they set tables down by small rivers’), her silhouette against the window (‘contrejour’) as she played the violin ‘with the sea beyond making horizon’ (74/464), a snapshot of her on the beach of Santa Margherita (town near Rapallo), and strolls on the Paris quays. According to Olga, Pound had in mind their first meeting in autumn 1922: ‘The walk along the Seine [‘Senna’ in Italian] from rue Jacob 20 to 2 rue Chamfort [Olga’s address] at 5 a.m. (?) after N. C. Barney’s costume ball. O.R. in Chinese coat belonging to Judith Gautier lent by Suzanne Meyer & Chinese shoes lent by Arthur Frank’s wife. E – black velvet jacket & red Spanish cummerbund. Stopped for breakfast at café’ (OR). The feast of San Pantaleo, the small church near Olga’s house (to which she returned with Ezra in summer 1964), is held on the last Sunday of July.

216 Posthumous Cantos

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