SUMMER BEAUTY HINTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 7, 10 January 1938, Page 14

SUMMER BEAUTY HINTS

I Picnics, weekend rambles, sea bathing, jolly days on the beach—all these are the essence of a happy summer, but they bring their own problems, also for those who value their Looks. Hence a 'little practical advice may not come amiss, so that one may get the best out of one's holidays without looking a sunburnt wreck in the process. First your hair. You' will, of I course, have it shampooed and set a ' day or so before going on holiday. i. . When .you take off your hat and comb it through you want it to look lovely—not lank and bedraggled. If you have to set it yourself, make sure the ends are neatly curled before leaving, so thai wind and holiday activities- will-not . wreak:: early havoc •with1 this-asset-to;your appearance.

From some of the upper windows ot the houses surrounding Villa Torlonia, the residence of Premier Mussolini and his family, a partial view may be had of the Dictator's backyard, and from them many pairs of indiscreet eyes are always ready to spy the movements of s plump, middle-aged, fair-headed woman, who derives obvious and unaffected pleasure from feeding a couple ot dozen chickens, writes . Arnaido Cortes) tn the 'New York Times.' She emerges every day at fixed hours fanweather or foul, from the kitchen door of the comparatively modest lodge in which Mussolini lives, and calls her chickens in a soft, well-modulated voice. She is invariably dressed with the utmost simplicity in a coarse apron or a much-worn raincoat covering a plain skirt and blouse, and has her wellrounded left arm thrust through the handle of a basket, from which she throws handfuls of feed to the chickens which run clucking round her utilitarian shoes, The reason why this domestic scene arouses so much interest in all beholders is that the woman who is the centre of it is Donna Rachele, Mussolini's wife. A PERFECT SETTING. No more perfect setting than the one just described could be imagined for her, nor one that more clearly brings out her character. Born of peasant stock, she has lost none of the simplicity of ways and tastes typical of the peasant Reared to a life of hard work, she is still the believer in the old Italian adage, "Command and do it yourself, you will be served like a king." Elevated by a curious trick of fate to a station far above the wildest dreams of women of her birth, she has not changed much from the gentle, somewhat placid girl who thirty or so years before made , the beds and washed the dishes in a country inn on the outskirts of Forli. She is the perfect wife and mother in a land that has accepted the theory that the women's place is in the home as a tenet of faith. She is always.in the shadow as completely as her husband is in the spotlight, and is apparently well content that this should be so; for her pleasures are those that home-loving women find around their own home-sides and in.the bosoms of their families. Her children and her home are her greatest passions, and her whole life is centred in them and revolves around them. Donna Rachele is entitled to the appellation of "Donna" because her husband is one of the wearers of the Collar of the Annunziata, and this rare distinction gives both him and her the rank of a cousin of the King. ' :, NEVER ENTERTAINS FORMALLY. Even without it, not a -single door hi Italy would be closed to her, but she has made no attempt ~to profit by her position to shine in society. She never entertains—unless the term entertaining can be applied to the hospitality she offers to various old cronies of hers who drop in on her every now and then to pass the time of day— since whatever official dinners Mussolini is obliged to give, are given in hotels and restaurants. She has never seen the inside of any of the aristocratic houses in Rome, not for lack,,of invitations,,but because she has np desire to mix with a social set in which she feels, at bottom,.that she is a stranger.

Her only concessions to her altered station in life are the fashionable clothes she wears when she appears in the streets, her carefully-manicured hands, the perfection of her hair, which

betrays the attentions of an expert coiffeur, and a slimming cure that she is now. taking to fight a growing tendency to stoutness. With an adaptability that is rare in persons who have risen from the soil, she has fltted into her new life in Rome, so different from the life oi a maid-of-all-work to which she was accustomed as a girl, as if to the mariner born She has spent much time and effort in educating nerself and in reading to make up tor early deficiencies occasioned by the fact that her father's death obliged her to abandon school when she was only eight years old, and is capable of conversing interestingly and with ease and assurance on a great variety of subjects. ... SPEAKS IN ROMAGNA DIALECT. She. has never, however, been able to master a foreign language, and still talks to Mussolini in the rough dialect of their native Romagna. Apart from her sons' ana daughters' tutors, music teacher,, gymnastic instructor, and riding master, who are regarded and treated almost as members of the family, few visitors ever cross the threshold of Villa Torlonia, and the exceptions are a very limited number of friends and acquaintances of Signora Mussolini's young days, who are.always made welcome andl whose homely chatter she greatly enjoys. Donna Rachele's most intimate friend is Mussolini's sister, Edvige, who lost her husband some time ago and now lives, alone in Rome in Via Castelfidardo, not far from Villa; Torlonia. She is poor and ekes out a humble existence with a small, monthly.-sum that Mussolini pays her out of his private income., She calls on Donna Rachele .frequently, and, their tastes and habits being congenial, they enjoy each other's company greatly. t Signora Mussolini's eldest daughter, Edda, and her eldest son, Vittorio, and their -respective . husband—Count Galeazzo Ciano, the Foreign Minister —and wife are also often in and out of the house, and not rarely take their meals with her, especially in the evening, when Mussolini also dines at home. ' . " NOTED AS KEEN BARGAINER. The parsimoniousness that was bred into her bones by the poverty in which she spent her youth is still one of Signora Mussolini's characteristics. She frequently leaves the house early, in the morning to do her own marketing, and she has the reputation of being a keen bargainer. ■% ' ■■ Donna Racbele is now 47 and still young for her age. Her fair hair shows no signs of greying, and, though she has been putting on weight in recent years,, her figure is still trim. She has an' infectious smile and a ready laugh, and has not lost the jolliness that made, her a general favourite when she was a girL Age has mellowed her, however, and has especially developed the qualities of human sympathy that she has always possessed to a marked degree. She is given to good works and is prominent in al,number■'of charitable enterprises in a quiet and unobtrusive way; and people who are in trouble or distress fly to her instinctively. Donna Rachele's antecedents are of the humblest. She was, born in a peasant's hut*in the commune.of Predappio in tlie Province of Forli. Her father, Agostino Guidi, a farm hand on the estate of a certain Signor Zoli, died early, leaving her mother, Anna, to bring up a family as best she could.' V Rachele, who was eight at the time, had to leave school, and go to work for what miserable wages a girl of her age could earn. Except for a few months sgpent^ as a servant in Rimini, shp passed the whole of her youth in the country, hiring herself out to this or thaffanner who needed help about the house.