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Show SO I DYED MY SHOES TO GO AND SEE nTT.TlD pvATp AKD TO TELL 10U THE j Pj 1 V 7 I l j HONEST TRUTH MY EYES WERE NONE TOO DRY,' WHEN in Rome do mv mv!:twa. lushed :iro irv as the Americans l-i'r"!;1"1'';' Vll' SAYS NANCY SPAIN ''" " " """ . " ' rl I, ? . - v' " ii "mi "" ' - Mill'! - 1 hhmPl l eo: o :. ea s::.i.si a North Country Htss."iui!.1 The mons'.iij; was so ho: and the Scituivc oi St Pe t 's such a Ulayiiu s.un rap that I was at rani tin-ci'-t1 ti'.jin m siiots mtLtiv me:; ar.4 U a e black lotv -pr.nta behind air up Hie white marble aisle. I was too frightened to look back, so lor all I know I mav have Uii my mark in St. Peter's. . . The crowd miKltt have come from any age. There were Carmelite monks tn brown. And a solid phalanx ol the Armed Forces of the U.S.A. There was an old lady of 92 who had come all the wav from Count v Clare. Eire, determined to have the blessing of the Holy Father before sue got any older. Here is another jean ot seeing 1he Pope fo tinm with thousands of others into St. Peter's Stuare and receive liis blessing jrom the, balcony. had been received by the A m e r i can Ambassador, Mrs. Clare Boothe Luce. I applied for an audience with His Holiness the Pope. My invitation arrived savin? sav-in? that ladies must be veiled and accollato. I asked everyone I saw, including the taxi - drivers. what this Italian word meant in English. Toe general ouinion was " formal." " in black." Slacks, thev told me. were dehniteiv nowhere like accollato enoush.' So off I went to a ladies' outfitters. My, what an uproar. Bewildering EVERYONE was shouting, shout-ing, screaming, yelling, and pulling in Italian. " What is the sirte of your w aist ? " they screeched, and ' What is the size of your feel ? " They were bewildered by my replies until I suddenly found out thai the Italians measure everything in centimetres. Mv waist Is 60 centimetres round and my feet are 38 centimetres centi-metres long. Fancy finding that out at tne age of 35. . . . Isn't that extraordinary ? In the end I decided that shoes were too difficult, too hard to break in. in all that heat (and too expensive), and settled for dyeing a pair of my own court shoes - black. Wonderful SO off I went to the 100 and 200-lire store to buy myself a bottle oi shoe dye. Ah, how wonderful it was. . Here were heaps of children's garments in marvellous colours, exotic games played with two tambourines and a shuttlecock and the cheapest, prettiest, and bes'. table glasses that I have ever seen. I wondered vi10 the customers were. Were they all Italian ? There was a very pretty girl with me at the shoe counter. She had enormous black eyes, she was quite simply dressed, in a short-sleeved blouse and a wide, dark skirt, but there were two ladies with her who seemed to be in attendance. She was buying a pair of soft slippers. She had blisters, she said, from going round the Colosseum. The shopgirls were falling over themselves in their eagerness to get near, to serve her. Who could she be. I asked ? " Oh," said a floor walker. A roaring SO we stood, under the cool dome, while the guards stamped gently, moving their weisht from one foot to the other : and the wonderful Roman policemen (who take a percentage percen-tage of every fine thev impose and look so like Napoleon Bonaparte he all their finery) tried in vain to stop the pilgrims from leaping upon the seats. For as the choir began their anthem the murmur became the full-throated roaring of a happy, holiday crowd. He's coming, he's here, it's the Holy Father. . . . As papers, handkerchiefs, hands waved came Pius XII, in his chair on the shoulders of his guard, bobbing slightly above us as he gave us his blessing, smiling sweetly. His face is a saintly one. a gentle scholar's face, withdrawn from the world, yet warm with sympathy, joyous to see us and welcome us all. His voice when he spoke to us, group by group (and the cheering broke out again), was young and strong for all his 77 years. His eyes danced with pleasure as he blessed the children and told them how pleased he was with their examination results. 'Isn't he great ?' AND somebody held up a little boy of four and the Pope laid his hands upon him, and somebody proffered a white skull cap to be blessed. " Will you. look at that now." said the old lady from County Clave behind me. " Will you observe His Holiness ? He's who enimisiasm. nat is Queen Soraya of Persia. She alw ays shops here. . . ." Like a first night THE audience with His Holiness was a general one. which meant that we were all packed into the Basilica of St. Peter's like a first-night crowd. Although I'm not a Catholic I had a wonderful seat, in a stage box. as it were. I arrived at 10 a.m. prompt as it said on taken off his own little hat and given it in exchange to that audacious pilgrim. Ah, isn't he great, the Holy Father ? " And I ttri'ned round to see the face of the old lady who had spoken, w;ho had come 1.597 miles in her ninety-third year, 'sitting up all night in a third-class third-class carriage on a wooden seat, all through the long. warm, summer night. Her leathery old cheeks were wet with tears. And to tell you the honest truth my eyes were not any too dry. |