Smart Set

Count Giuseppe Volpi, 67, felt like a blooming magnolia--one of the pink & white magnolias that were bursting into flower again in Lausanne's formal gardens. For another spring had come to the new ruins of old Europe, amidst which the Count was somewhat surprised to find himself alive. From the Beau-Rivage Hotel, Mussolini's ex-finance minister could watch the Lake of Geneva reflect the blue sky as in a sun-flecked mirror. Some mornings were so crisp that the Count could see clear across to Evians-les-Bainson the French shore, where, in the evil old days before the war, he and his playfellows of Europe's smart set used to play roulette. Now the grimmer chances of history had closed France to him.

The French longed for the old Count too, but not quite in the same spirit. The French would like to lay hands on Volpi as a Fascist war criminal. Better the discomforts of a $75-a-day suite in a Swiss hotel than that! Lausanne might seem somewhat provincial after Rome. But better last in a little Helvetian city than priority rating on a list of war criminals in Rome or Paris.

Butter & Egg Man. Well might the old banker, who had begun his career as a butter & egg merchant in the Balkans, smile in the topiary trimness of his beard. What tides of political refugees had swept through Europe since the beginning of this century! Each had left its human sediment or drift in Switzerland. The Count was sharing the sanctuary from which Lenin and his fellow fugitives had conspired to overthrow the Russian empire. Later the fugitives from Lenin, the White Russians, had sought a haven of safety. In little more than a decade many who had laughed at the shabby efforts of the White Russians to survive as taxi drivers and waiters were fleeing in their turn from the Fascists and Nazis.

Going to Town. Now the most preposterous refugees of all had washed into Switzerland--the Italian Fascists. At the Palace Hotel could be met such old-time friends of the Count as Countess Edda Mussolini Ciano, widow of the Fascist foreign minister whom her father had had shot. With her was her latest lover, dandified Marchese Pucci, who had helped whisk her across the Swiss frontier when Mussolini fell. This strange pair descended periodically from their snug mountain chalet to dance, dine and wine.

These fast, fancy affairs at the Palace were almost like old times, especially when Signora Elena Agnelli, statuesque, titian-haired leader of the Roman social season deigned to take part.

Of the Fascists only Dino Alfieri, once Italian propaganda minister and ambassador to Berlin, shunned the Roman revels at the Palace Hotel. He preferred his own serious set at the swank Golf & Sport Hotel at Crans-sur-Sierre. For Alfieri was talking about forming a new political party, still dreaming about returning to Italy. Count Volpi shook his head.

Lady of the Lake. Of the Italian refugees in Switzerland, the one with the best chance of returning to Italy had nothing to do with the Italian Fascists. She was Princess Marie-Jose, daughter of the late King Albert of the Belgians and wife of Italy's Crown Prince Umberto. She lived quietly, with her children and her sedate sister-in-law, Countess Calvi di Bergolo, waiting to see if Italy would be safe for monarchy.

What would happen to the other gilded refugees? Swiss hospitality was grudging. Said the Basel Nationalzeitung: "This manner of living is a provocation and a lack of elementary decency."

In the brave new world that the Fascists had done so much to create, the idea of sanctuary was less & less respected. Powerful pressure might be exerted across the Swiss frontiers. Well might Count Volpi brood upon the thought that by the time this spring's magnolia petals had fallen, he might be a good deal less reflective and a good deal more frightened.

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