Familiar Rhythm

Everything was spic & span at No. 2 Piazza dell' Esquilino in Rome last week. Officials of the Argentine Embassy had spent 200 million lire (more than $250,000 at black-market rates) to clean and refurbish the four-story, 40-room building in honor of their house guest, Maria Eva Duarte de Peron.

New portraits of her husband, Argentina's President Juan Peron, were placed strategically on the walls; new Louis XV furniture was installed in her bedroom. A new floor of shining tile was laid for the main entrance, doors were painted garish green, marble stairs were shined mirror-bright. No one could blame Embassy officials when their bright new decorations became the background for the first jeers that Evita had heard since her European tour began June 8.

"Down! Down!" Evita, fresh from her triumph in Spain (TIME, June 23) and a greeting from the Italian Foreign Minister, Count Sforza, stepped to the Embassy's balcony to receive the applause she expected. A straw hat with two huge roses topped her honey-colored hair piled in a pompadour; her black silk dress with pink print flowers was pulled tight.

The crowd chanted "Peron! Peron! Peron!" Then some, apparently intoxicated by the familiar two-syllable rhythm, began to shout "Duce! Duce! Duce!" That brought counter-shouts of "Down with Franco! Down with Peron! Down with Fascism!" The abashed figure on the balcony heard it all; she was, Argentine officials said later, upset.

But the next day Evita, usually tardy, was ready ahead of time, dressed appropriately in ankle-length black dress and long black cape, for her audience with Pope Pius XII. The Pope talked to her for exactly the customary 30 minutes, had kind words for her husband's concern for Argentine underprivileged, his aid to war-torn countries of Europe, his contributions to papal charities. At interview's end, the Pope gave her a handsome rosary. Then Evita went on to visit the Borgia apartments (which are still haunted, Italians say, by the ghosts of libertine Pope Alexander VI and his daughter Lucrezia), and to pray at St. Peter's, where some 100 curious onlookers waiting under the front colonnade broke into applause.

The Medal. Not until 24 hours later did the Argentine Embassy to the Holy See receive the decoration to mark Senora Peron's visit. A Vatican messenger delivered a little red box containing the eight-pointed, diamond-laden Grand Cross of the Order of Pius IX,* with wide blue ribbon edged with red. It was for President Peron, will make him "Knight of the Great Ribbon."

Evita herself will take home no papal decoration. Peronistas had hoped she might be given a papal title that would enable Argentina's First Lady, born on the wrong side of the tracks, to out-snoot Buenos Aires' stuffy aristocracy.

* The second highest papal decoration. Onetime Argentine President Justo received the top decoration, the Supreme Order of Christ.

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