-2-
 
Ambassador very pleasantly, making no reference whatever to the fact that he had been unwilling 
 
to receive him for over a year.                                              .
 
     I was profoundly shocked by the Duce's appearance.  In the countless times I had seen him 
 
in moving pictures and in photographs, and in the many descriptions I had read of him, he had 
 
always seemed to me as an active, quick-moving, exceedingly animated personality. The man I 
 
saw before me seemed fifteen years older than his actual age of Fifty-eight. He was ponderous and 
 
static, rather than vital. He moved with an elephantine motion. Every step appeared an effort. He 
 
is very heavy for his height, and his face in repose falls into rolls of flesh. His close clipped hair
 
 is snow white. During our long and rapid interchange of  views, he kept his eyes shut a 
 
considerable part of the time,  opening them with his dynamic and often-described wide-open 
 
stare only when he desired particularly to underline  some remark. At his side was a large cup of 
 
tea which he  sipped from time to time.
 
     Mussolini impressed me as a man laboring under some tremendous strain; physical 
 
unquestionably, for he has  procured a new and young Italian mistress only ten days ago; but in 
 
my definite Judgment, mental as well. One could almost sense a leaden oppression.
 
         Count Ciano commenced the conversation by saying that Mussolini desired him to act as 
 
interpreter, since in view of the importance of the conversation he would prefer to speak in his 
 
own language rather than in French or in English.
 
     I said that I wanted first of all to express my gratitude