A lot has changed since I last lived in Rome. Fewer cars are found parked on the sidewalks: the result, I am told, of more community spirit but also mainly more tickets being dispensed. And there are cops everywhere, and not only the gorgeously dressed and totally useless cops in cerulean capes and hats trimmed with gold braid, swords dangling from their hips, astride dumb horses. But real cops, lots of them. Terrorismo, terrorismo, terrorismo.

The other day I was walking through Piazza di Popolo, and there were a bunch of them: male cops gazing into the eyes of female cops in their copmobiles; cops dazed after large lunches, hanging about the two churches. And a phalanx of stern-faced, muscled cops in dark jodhpurs and matching berets lining a side street that leads to Piazza d'Espagna.

Facing these serious cops was a crowd of 130 gazing worshipfully at the pink brick of the Hotel de Russie, a place that, despite its tsarsih name, is actually exquisitely simple with exquisitely lofty prices and exquisitely rude personnel. I know, because in the days when Vanity Fair was rolling in cash, or pretending to, they put me up in the Hotel de Russie, and what you got for a $50 breakfast was amazing: a lovely spot in their outdoor garden, 1 cornetto, 1 oj, and 1 cup of coffee.

Anyway, the reason everyone was blocking the street and preventing any Roman from getting to his destination, was not -- as I had first suspected -- because Brad Pitt or anyone important was actually staying there. Even some lovely skinny Italian babe with shiny hair skimming her ass, wearing black high-heeled boots and a matching raincoat didn't get much notice as she exited.

Silvio Berlusconi was inside. 40 minutes....and we all waited for....some squat prime minister who is constantly being put on trial for fraud, tax evasion, and corruption. And yes, of course I was among the idiots who stood around and blocked access to the rest of the street.

So at first naturally, I assumed Silvio was inside one of the bedrooms of Hotel de Russie with perhaps a twin of the lovely skinny Italian babe in high-heeled boots, and that's why everyone was hanging around. To catch a glimpse of the latest 18-year-old or prostitute in his life. That's his usual m.o., more flagrant now that his wife Veronica Lario (whom he first met years and years ago when she appeared topless on stage) has promised to divorce him. Italians are divided about him. In theory. In practice they love him.

But no. It turns out Silvio was inside the hotel actually working. I know this because the first person to hit the sidewalk after the gorgeous babe, was Gianfranco Fini, of the neo-fascist party -- a thin, ascetic man who is often allied with Berlusconi. No one gave a damn about him, and he was forced to pile into his grey limo, uncheered.

But then, huge screams!! Silvio, Silvio!! A large black limo backed up to the hotel revolving door, so the great man wouldn't have to walk a single step. The stern-faced cops looked nervous. The crowd went nuts.

And sure enough: Out of Hotel de Russie came this little guy, about as wide as a door, his face sprayed an orangey-brown courtesy of some inferior tanning product. He should murder his plastic surgeon, by the way -- and here I'm not talking about the surgery necessary after his nose was smashed the other week by some nut in the crowd wielding a statuette. Not at all. Silvio's entire face has been stretched tight across the brow and cheekbones. It looks like a dark wet sheet wrapped around a plump mummy.

Anyway, as a journalist for la Repubblica told me the other day, Silvio is a guy who above all wants to be loved. He cannot understand it when critics trash him. So for about a full minute, nuts in the crowd or no nuts in the crowd, he stood and waved at all his fans, making the cops in jodhpurs even more nervous. Then he got into the black limo, indicated to the driver he wasn't to start the engine just then, and waved for another 3 full minutes through the windows. Only then did he drive off.

I am told that when he got his nose smashed, lots of Silvio's critics, especially intellectuals, wrote piles of columns about how this was the greatest day ever in Italy's long and august history -- and others, less intellectual, wrote that anyone who suggested such a thing was a barbarian.

But actually, from what I saw in front of the Hotel de Russie, Silvio has nothing to worry about. When I first interviewed him for VF, about 14 years ago, he told me straight out that he had no idea why he should be singled out for tax fraud, since that was the norm in Italy: "Everyone does it!" He looked puzzled and annoyed that I had broached the subject. Why, he asked, should a prime minister act differently from those he governed? For years he made sure that he couldn't be prosecuted for corruption, etc while he was in office -- had a law passed by Parliament, in fact, to keep him safe. And now it's his aim to stay in office forever and ever.

My money's on him.