LOVE IS A LOSING GAME : AMY WINEHOUSE

EZRA POUND and AND OLGA RUDGE : THE LAST YEARS

The last years of Ezra, fragile and in failing mental and physical health, were difficult ones for Olga, but ones in which she showered him with her love by care-giving as well as being concerned for his legacy as a poet and writer, and so much else.

Excerpt page 210:  

For many months, she (Olga) visited Ezra (at St. Elizabeth Hospital) almost daily, observing the scene with an artistic eye: Dorothy's "luminous beauty, with almost celestial Botticelli perfection, a winter rosebud with tiny touches of pink --- soft hair falling with a  golden aura about her face.: Silence surrounded Dorothy, she remembered but the refined English lady would surprise everybody by saying things quite of character...

And then there was 'the other lady." (Seri was witness to Olga's 1955 visit.) She was sitting at the right hand of Pound one afternoon when Dorothy failed to appear.  The Olga came, "a royal presence, with marble-like, sculptured features, her back stiff and erect, professional looking, a trained person. Her hair carefully 'marcelled; in waves, and she was wearing a lovely lavender and white summer dress, with matching lavender parasol to protect fragile skin against the summer sun.....

***

Ezra and Olga had an argument that suspended their relationship again  But when he recovered from the long illness that plagued him, they reunited and went back to Italy. And there, she became Ezra's caregiver. They had been a couple for over thirty years at this point and this time it was Olga who prevailed over Dorothy, who was invited to visit, and was living without Ezra. 

***

Excerpt page 239: 

After years of waiting, Olga at last had her prize.  One observer noted that "Miss Rudge was clearly the sea in which he (Pound) floated.  She cleaned, she shopped, she stoked the old stove.. And she appeared to enjoy every day with Ezra. "Why is it, in old age, dancing seems better? We had a gramophone, dancing with Him to Vivaldi was His idea!  After many lonely Christmases past, she now could enjoy the holidays with her lover  They saw the New Year in with "His new couch, Vivialdi, again on the roof, dinner on a tray, later chocolates and grog -hot" (Olga said.)

Their daily lives followed a familiar pattern: Ezra did yoga exercises before breakfast, "spontaneously."  Lunch at the Pensioni Montin or Cici, visits with friends, walks ... a light supper at home....  In the evening, Ezra often read selections from The Cantos."

Excerpt page 240:

During this era, Olga began to record Ezra's dreams in her notebook....

***

Their days were also full of visits and letters from many noteworthy persons in Literature, Poetry, Music, and the Arts.

In 1971 Olga and Ezra's daughter, Mary, published Discretions. In so many words, Olga was not described as a loving mother, but a disciplinarian who was strict and had high standards.  Olga was wounded.

Finally, Ezra's was dieing.  At first visitors came and then he was moved to a hosptial.  Olga was there. The morning of the day he died, she had thrown the I Ching and had gotten the prophetic message when the hexagram meaning Deliverance came up. More than 120 friends came to the funeral.

Excerpt page 260:

"Ezra Pound wished to be buried in Idaho," Olga noted, In view of the Sawtooth Range. He had made known in his writing to his Committee in 1967 but legally He was not free to manage his affairs.

And so Olga arranged it. And so his body was carried through Venice on a gondola and then she (Olga) sent a telegram to England that Ezra had died in his sleep to break the news to Dorothy  She had not delayed the funeral in time for Dorothy to attend.

When she herself could no longer live alone, her daughter Mary came and took her back to Germany and her home.  At near a hundred she was beginning to loose her memory. She lived to be 101.

MARY De RACHEWILTZ

Mary was the daughter of Ezra and Olga.  She married a noble and had children. Olga lived to have grandchildren and great-grandchildren through this only child.  In this video posted on YouTube, Mary talks a bit about her parents. 

Thank You for reading Mistress Manifesto!  Every book that is featured here on this blog is one I've read from cover to cover.  Anne Conover Carson's book is packed with details about Olga and Ezra's careers and the people who were influential in their lives.

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THE ARRANGEMENT : EZRA POUND and OLGA RUDGE : WORLD WAR II FORCED EZRA, DOROTHY, and OLGA to LIVE TOGETHER FOR A YEAR

Excerpt page 98:  (1931) It was Ezra's custom to spend late summer and early fall with Olga and Mary in Venice, while Dorothy was in England with her mother and Omar.* Mary recorded her first impressions of those visits in her autobiography, Discretions.....

***

Mary had memories of afternoon walks with her father or going for swimming with him and her mother practicing her violin in Rapallo, setting the table for lunches and collecting flowers, as a child. But when these weeks were over, she was sent back to her foster home.  Mary was raised in that German home.

As the Great Depression deepened Olga sought some other ways to earn income, taking a steno class and seeking work as a translator of written work in French.  Though many of their contemporaries thought this work was beneath her, they were pragmatic too.

George Antheil had work for her in New York - a tour that included travel expenses.  Ezra continued to work on his Canto's.  Eventually the economic conditions improved. In 1939 Ezra went back to the United States for the first time in twenty-eight years. Olga would also have cause to go back to the United States eventually, but they ended their lives in Italy, and together.

***

Page 137 Excerpt:  

While in the United States, he (Ezra) had consulted an attorney to explore the possibility of legally adopting Mary to legitimize her status and secure a U.S. Passport for her, in case they had to leave Italy suddenly. (because World War II was brewing.)  When Olga heard the news, for the first time in their fifteen year relationship she 'put her cards on the table' and stated her position in strong language that could not be misunderstood. "He has put her off every time she tries to get H to consider the subject of the present triangle, she wrote (The couple wrote to each other in third person as if this might keep their communications private.) There was no reason to maintain a "marital front" out of respect for Dorothy's parents, since both were gone. "He has told her He did not believe in marriage ... certainly no church would consider a marriage entered into as He did her. His was, as sacred or binding."  On the brink if war with its possible dislocations, it might be a good time to reconsider legitimize her own - as well as her child's status...

***

Olga was worried that if Ezra adopted Mary she might loose her  A the war began Mary was already in her mid-teens. When in 1944 Rapallo was bombed, deprivation and hunger set in.  Mary, at eighteen took a secretarial job and was on her own. When in May of that year, Dorothy and Ezra Pound were forced to move, along with all their furnishings and possessions, Olga invited them to live with her. The three of them lived together for a year. They attempted to be mature about the situation and Dorothy gave the impression she was not hurt by her husband's relationship with Olga.

***

During the war, Ezra went on Italian radio and made some pro-fascist remarks, which got him charged with treason by the United States.

***

Excerpt page 155: 

Later, after the triangular living arrangement had abruptly ended, Olga recorded her true feelings" "One solid year, Dorothy made use of me to the fullest, shared my house (while) I worked like a slave - cooking, cleaning, finding food - which I only undertook owing to her incapacity, so that E. should not suffer.  I cannot understand the incredible meanness of the way she was behaving... in terror lest I have some advantage over her, considering our respective positions: she, with the war year's income saved up, a family legal advisor to fall back on and right to appeal to any of E's friends for help, a child provided for with no trouble on her part.  I with no rights of any kind - income completely knocked out by war  - high and dry in a country I never would have lived in by choice except to be near E, having to improvise a living with Mary...:

***

Dorothy Pound would prevail as the wife of Ezra Pound for the rest of her life.  Ezra may have also withdrawn from Olga as he aged and their daughter, Mary, married and had children, making Olga a grandmother with a family of her own.  At one point the poet and the violinist did not see each other for seven years nor had Mary seen her father in as long.  As Ezra aged and his physical and mental health declined,  Olga wanted to be there for him.  In particular she wanted to get him out of St. Elizabeth's Hospital, in the United States near Washington, D.C., a mental hospital which she was shut out from, when he was there in the early 1950's.  Olga battled with depression again but managed to make it back to the United States where she got to visit with Ezra, where he was housed in the part of the hospital that housed those with senile dementia. She asked certain literary friends of his to lobby for his release from the hospital.  His legal problems did not make it any easier but his friend Ernest Hemingway suggested it was mental illness that had influenced his behavior and that was the legal path his lawyers took.

In these passages of Anne Conover Carson's book, we learn that Olga paid the price of not being married to the father of her child, a man she long loved, because he would not divorce.

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*Omar was the son of Dorothy and Ezra Pound, who Dorothy had as a first and only child not long after Olga had her daughter with Ezra, Mary.

THESE ARE FOR YOU!

 

OLGA RUDGE FINDS A HOME and A DIFFICULT RELATIONSHIP EMERGES as DOES SERIOUS DEPRESSION

Excerpt: page 83    ... Watts was eager to sell one of three adjoining small houses on a cul-de-sac near the old church of Santa Maria della Salte in Dorsodura, the quiet "back" of the city. ...  Olga began to consider ways to get together enough money.  "It was the house that changed my life, ad I got it just for the asking." she remembered "First I asked Ramooh is she would give me what she had promised in her will now -- to buy a house --- and she said, "Yes."  That was half. Then I wrote my father and asked him if he could give me the rest, and if so, to cable, "yes" and he did. I still feel guilty at not having told my father that I had not seen the house (he was in the real estate business).  If I had, he might not have acted at once.  As it was , he lost his money in the 1929 stock market crash, and I would have been left with nothing but my three year old."

Excerpt page 84: Olga arrived in late November 1928. "To call it the smallest house in Venice (is) pretty near the truth...

***

It was the only house she would ever own though she had the rental apartment in Paris for some time. The idea was that Ezra live next door and that she would have Mary live with her, that they would be a family unit while Ezra would have his own space, but he reacted as if he would be in a cage.The house needed replastering and white-washing.  Olga sent Christmas alone when she wanted Ezra with her, in a hotel while the house was being refurbished. She let him know that she was angry.  They had differences in what we call "world view."

***

Excerpt page 85 (Ezra wrote) ... You have a set of values I don't care a damn for.  I do not care a damn about private affairs, private life, personal interests. You do. It is perfectly right that you should, but you can't drag me into it.  Yeats wrote a long time ago that an artist could not really have friends save among artists.... You want to be the center of the circle.  I can not be in perpetual orbit.

*** 

Ezra was laying down the rules for a relationship.  He basically threatened that he might not continue in it.  

Excerpt page 86 : Early in the new year of 1929, the hard work, the uncertainty, the coldest winter in many years - in Venice, the canals froze over - had broken Olga's spirit.  In deep depression, she wrote to Ezra, crossing our some of the most painful passages; "I have tried very hard to go on some of the more painful passages, "I have tried very hard to go on working, but I can't... nearly two months since I tried to finish things.  You didn't want to keep me -- or to give me any reason, except unjust ones....."

***

Ezra was not sympathetic.  He urged her to have the company of men younger than him. Slowly she emerged from her depression.  She realized that Ezra thought of their relationship as the "impresario and the impressed."  

Ezra might have had Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  While accusing Olga of wanting to only have her way, he was not accomodating.

During the 1930's Great Depression era, Olga went into a serious depression again and since everyone was effected she limited what she would accept from Ezra as support of their daughter Mary.  There were times when he backed out of the relationship, and she knew it, but their daughter Mary had to be considered.  Over the years the two would work out their relationship, and if secrets were kept from family or society, certainly discretion and Ezra's wife Dorothy, had to be part of the arrangements.

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THE CANTOS OF EZRA POUND : THE POET READS CANTO XIV

EZRA, OLGA, and DOROTHY : EZRA BECOMES A FATHER AGAIN, THIS TIME WITH HIS WIFE and EGERTON DID NOT GIVE UP

Reading Anne Conover Carson's book, I sought information on what Dorothy Pound knew and what her relationship with her husband, Ezra, was really like.

***

Olga Rudge, who hid her pregnancy, gave birth to her daughter and left her in the care of a villager, so that she could continue her music career and earn a living. She also experienced depression after the birth for some time. She kept that she had a daughter a secret from her father for the rest of her life. 

Meanwhile Dorothy Pound, Ezra's wife, sometimes traveled with him or alone. The movement of these people for work and pleasure created obstacles but also opportunities for them to reunite. In Rapallo, a hill town in Southern Italy, known for it's Mediterranean produce and wine making. Ezra and Olga spent Christmas of 1925 there, one of the rare times they would be able to spend the holiday together, because Dorothy was traveling. In 1926, in Paris, Olga's financials were good enough to renew the lease on the apartment her mother had first rented for the family for another four years. Her father remarried, much to Olga's approval, and visited her in Paris with his new wife.

What was attractive to Olga about Ezra?  It would seem his literary accomplishments and acceptance of her as a woman of intelligence, of her having a 'fine mind,' as well as his allegiance with her to further her career as a concert violinist. Certainly she had to learn that he would not meet all her needs nor could be commanded to see her. Ezra came up with reasons or excuses to cancel plans with her but no doubt he was proud of her and attended her performances when possible. Olga performed in George Antheil's unconventional masterpiece Ballet Mecanique and Ezra created an avant-guard opera Le Testement de Villon in 1926.

But then Dorothy, nearing forty, as Ezra was also, became pregnant with her first child and gave birth in September of 1926. It was American ex pat writer Earnest Hemingway who took her to the hospital in Paris, a friend of the couple but where was Ezra?. One wonders if Dorothy had a child competitively with Olga. Omar, a son, would live with Dorothy's parents. Ezra Pound himself checked into the hospital, some thought due to the stress of "divided loyalties." He now had two children, a daughter and a son, with a mistress and a wife, and both children were being raised by others, and possibly his in-laws also provided the finances for their garndchild. For as esteemed as he was as a creative person of achievement, he was not financially independent enough to be capable of supporting children. Olga and Ezra saw their daughter between concerts. Mary reported mostly seeing her parents a day or two here and there as they made side trips to visit with her. 

Mary was about four years old when Ezra told his father that he was the father of a daughter. His parents were not rich but he was suggesting this be considered when they were writing their will. However, his father may have not told his mother.

But Egerton Grey, who had married and divorced again, also paid Olga a visit, as if he were in competition with Ezra for her.  He proposed marriage again.  Olga was unable to bring herself to tell him about Ezra or that she had a daughter. She was keeping important secrets from those closest to her. Perhaps she feared becoming infamous because she had become a public person as a performer but Egerton's love for her seemed to be unconditional.

Late in the summer of 1928 came the shock that Egerton Grey was dead.  He had been a student at the Biochemical Institute and working on his book. It was said that he was 'ill from overwork." Olga was thirty three. As her life went on, being with Ezra, she became sentimental about Egerton. While Ezra was away, she had the attention of many men, and he even encouraged her to entertain being with a younger man.  Did she ever? We don't know.  It's assumed that Ezra always managed to keep her for himself, even if she did mention the flirtations to make him jealous.

***

I have to admit to my readers that I have a suspicion that Egerton might have been struggling with his sexuality, that he might have been homosexual at a time when he would not have had an easy time of it in society if he were out.  His love for Olga outstanding, I wonder how he could have had two quick marriages.  What had gone wrong?  Perhaps Olga knew that she could always have his love if they did not marry.  The reason for his death also sounds suspicious to me.   --- Missy

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VENICE

 

OLGA RUDGE BECOMES A SINGLE MOTHER WITH EZRA POUND AS THE BIRTH FATHER

At twenty six years old, in 1921, Olga went to Capri, before it became a tourist spot, where there were many women living, artists and musicians, what could be called a lesbian colony.  She went there with the woman who she had partnered with for her performances, pianist Renata Borgatti, who was lesbian, and they shared housing.  The question lingers, the possibility that the two women did have a lesbian relationship.  Olga seemed to deny it, was even a bit defensive, and yet, it seems that Ezra considered that she might have had an experience.  What is known is that the two women were life-long collaborators, and that Ezra Pound got used to Renata's temperament. Olga wrote years later that the three men most important in her life, her father, Egerton, and Ezra all liked Renata but that might have been sentimentality.  Egerton continued to profess his love for Olga that summer and in some way Olga continued to love him, for she would someday be buried in a red kimona that he had brought back from Japan for her. Ezra had attended Olga's performance, and we know they had written to each other, but exactly when the couple became a couple remains a mystery.

Whatever the case there is evidence that Ezra was slow to acknowledge or accept the new circumstances of his life. He remained married to Dorothy, and was known for socializing without her, but when he had Olga come to Rapolla, Italy, in February 1924, he installed her in the same hotel where he and his wife were staying,  which angered her.  Meanwhile Egerton again proposed that he and Olga marry. These were years in which both Olga and Ezra traveled for performances and business and to connect with their peers, family and friends. She went back and forth to London. They came and went and so there many have been weeks or months in which their paths did not cross.  And, there is always a question of how much Dorothy knew or accepted. The Pounds were thinking that Rapolla would be their permanent home. It can also not be assumed that it was Ezra who seduced the much younger Olga. He may have kept a certain distance in their relationship or his wife might have tried to do that in the beginning. But they certainly managed to meet up because Olga became pregnant by Ezra.  Ezra and Dorothy remained childless and rumors were that Dorothy had never warmed to sexuality.

Excerpt page 56:

In Olga's view, Ezra should not be deprived of the privilege of having a child, a torchbearer. They had a daughter by "mutual consent." Olga wrote "but it was I who wanted the child, and saw no reason to make him responsible... EP could not have undertaken the child's upbringing, and OR was not counting on it." When she first mentioned the subject, Ezra had turned down the suggestion: the world was no place to bring a child into, he said, especially without economic security. ......  she did not mention the subject again until an unidentified patron if the arts, a friend of both, suggested to Ezra that she would supervise the upbringing of Olga's child and support it financially.  With this commitment, Ezra changed his mind and asked Olga if she might change hers.

***

It's possible that the unknown art patron was lesbian Natalie Barnes, who's friendship with Ezra was enduring.  In any case, Olga decided she would not accept financial help. She though stipends from her father and subletting her deceased mother's Paris apartment would suffice

Olga Rudge gave birth after a long and difficult labor that required a surgery, a daughter Mary, and she registered Arthur Rudge, the name of her brother who had died in World War I, as the father, to spare her daughter and Ezra future difficulties. She had given birth in a town north of Rome at a time when unaccompanied women were not welcome in hotels and she had kept her pregnancy quiet from some of her peers and was not honest with her own father.  Baby Mary was premature and not robust and Olga could not breast feed. She was left with a wet nurse in the village so that the baby would prosper and Olga could continue to perform concerts and earn money.

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