Dyspeptic Duce

Benito Mussolini's eye had lost its. glitter. Eight months had leafed away since his fall from power in Rome. In his Nazi-guarded villa on the shores of North Italy's Lago di Garda, he donned his grey general's uniform, began the day's mock routine of a mock Duce.*

No windy halls were here, no balconies for strutting. Laurel and cypress shut in the rococo house; stained glass windows kept its rooms in decadent twilight. Benito Mussolini shuffled to his desk, shuffled through a morning's paper work. His three physicians--two Italians, one German--had warned him sternly: a dyspeptic Duce could not live like a lion.

There was lunch with his wife, Donna Rachele, Son Vittorio, Son Bruno's widow and daughter. Then an hour of chess and strolling through the grounds, not too far from the Nazi Elite Guard or the air-raid shelter hewn from solid rock.

At 3 o'clock began the day's main chore: conference of state, sessions of the Fascist Republican cabinet. Of the old gang, Benito Mussolini had few left. Most influential of his fellow puppets: tall, peasant-tough Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, chief organizer of the Fascist Republican Army which helps the Wehrmacht curb restive northern Italy; dapper, sensual Lawyer Alessandro Pavolini, secretary and chief organizer of the neo-Fascist Party; arrogant, church-baiting Roberto Farinacci, the boss of Cremona Province.

By 8 o'clock.the Duce's stomach ulcers could stand no more. The household gathered for supper. Afterward, the man who once said, "I shall make my life a masterpiece" browsed in a book, chatted quietly. Punctually at 10, he shuffled to bed.

* Neutral visitors saw him at his lorn labors, described him and his surroundings to correspondents.

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