4pQonT

EZRA POUND 157
such a rewarding companion. He was Florenz Dale, who had
been known to a certain crowd in Paris as the "King of Bohemia".
Life with Peggy allowed him to drink heavily, and one evening
in Rapallo, he smashed an expensive twenty-seven piece tortoiseshell
dressing set, which she had just purchased. He then ran into
the cold sea with his clothes on. Afterwards, says Peggy, he sat
through a cinema in his wet suit, but suffered no ill effects. 5
Such antics were nothing new to the natives of Rapallo. Most
of the visitors were people of means who, having been everywhere
else, at last had to stop at Rapallo.
For several centuries, Italy had been the playground of people
who go there to do things they would be arrested for at home.
Consequently, the townspeople of Rapallo were pleasantly surprised
to find that Ezra had come there to work. No doubt it
took them some time to overcome their suspicions, but finally he
was accepted as visiting royalty, in a manner which Elizabeth
Delehanty later recorded, with amusement and frustration, in The
New Yorker. 6
On her visit to Rapallo, it seemed that everything
she reached for, including a beach umbrella, was reserved for
Mr. Pound.
The Italians extended him this sort of recognition because they
had had far too many residents such as Norman Douglas, author
of South Wind. Due to his predilection for boys, Douglas periodically
left Italy in great haste, with a single suitcase, being
allowed to return only after the indignant parents had been mollified.
Lest this seem intolerant, it should be noted that the attitude
of the Fascist officials toward such customs was much stricter than
at the present time. Mussolini's "passion for order" included chasing
Mr. Douglas out of Italy, but he always got back in, and he
bore no scars. Visitors to Italy haven't been banned for these
practices since Mussolini was hanged by the heels in a town
marketplace.
As Mr. Pound did not wish to corrupt anyone, he spent a very
pleasant two decades with the townspeople of Rapallo, until the
soldiers took him away. George Antheil turned up, as did Richard
Aldington, William Butler Yeats, and others of Ezra's friends.
Lady Trowbridge came for a visit, accompanied by her companion,
Radclyffe Hall, who was then under indictment in England for her