Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria was a wilderness of apple trees, fountains, and rearing white chicken-wire horses meant to conjure up the Normandy resort "Deauville, Ville du Cheval." It was time for the biggest party of October in New York, the April in Paris Ball. The 1,400 jewel-hung society folks from all over the U.S. and nearly 100 from Paris jammed into the Waldorf's Grand Ballroom and adjoining suites for a nine-hour blast for four French and American charities. "A gay and brilliant assemblage," said the society reporters next morning. It was indeed. And at one point in the evening, a New York Times photographer snapped a picture of Socialite Stephen Sanford, Mrs. Rose Kennedy and the Duchess of Windsor that Velasquez would have been proud of.

The family was down on the ranch, but French fashion's growing Boy Wonder Yves St. Laurent got a special White House tour anyway. "Very bright, very gay, tres joli," murmured Yves. "The colors are very different from the colors one sees in Europe in such a house." Someone asked how he was enjoying his job in dress designing and such. "I theenk," whispered Yves, 29, fluffing his long, bushy sideburns, "I theenk if I could live my life over again, I would like to be a beatneek."

As she was sermonizing last spring, "A woman's body hasn't just been created to be peered at and peered at. For me, it is something beautiful if it is breathing and alive!" With her breath coming in lively pants, German Actress Elke Sommer, 25, in Hollywood filming something called Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, climbed out of the studio tub in a lather. Explained Elke cleanly: "This scene is a satire on the typical European film."

The poet's dominant expression has become a piercing stare, accompanied by a silence that encompasses all but his closest friends. "I did not enter into silence," Ezra Pound told one of those friends, French Publisher Dominique de Roux last week. "Silence captured me." De Roux, who will soon publish Pound's major work, Cantos, in French, says the silence indicates "a profound sense of remorse"--a remorse that has been growing deeper since 1958, when Pound was released from a Washington mental institution, where he was confined for twelve years after being indicted for treason because of his pro-Fascist World War II broadcasts from Italy. Now living in Venice, the Faustian-bearded poet was spending a few days in Paris to celebrate his 80th birthday, and one of the carefully guarded things he did say was that he wants to return to the U.S. to visit his birthplace in Hailey, Idaho, some time soon.

There was Oklahoma's hearty Governor Henry Bellmon, 44, running around the island of Kyushu handing out Japanese-language recipes for "Okrahoma" pecan pie. The mystified Japanese smiled politely, and finally someone pointed out that hardly anyone in Japan had ever heard of pecan pie. Well, boomed Bellmon as he wound up a U.S.-Japan Governors' conference tour, "that's all the more reason to push it. Why, man, this is virgin country for Oklahoma pecans!"

"The boys dig Anne, Man! She's the most!" bounced Bandleader Meyer Davis in a ditty to come out by, as Anne Ford, 22, youngest daughter of Henry Ford II, made her debut four years ago. For the last few months the boy that Anne's been digging the most is ur bane Wall Street Stockbroker Giancarlo Uzielli, 31, whose mother is a Rothschild. Gianni has been seeking a Vatican annulment of his first marriage to French beauty Anne-Marie Deschodt, now wed to nouvelle vague Film Director Louis Malle. Though both are Catholics, Anne and Gianni have decided not to wait any longer. They will be married Dec. 28 in a civil ceremony in the Manhattan apartment of the bride's mother, Mrs. Anne McDonnell Ford.

Costumed in flying togs, Danny Kaye set off from New York's La Guardia Airport to pilot a friend's twin-engined jet to nine U.S. cities to whoop up support for the Halloween "trick-or-treat for UNICEF" campaign. The idea was for the kids to go out and collect nickels and climes for the agency, the United Nations Children's Fund. At Philadelphia, Danny had an urgent phone call from UNICEF's executive director, Henry Labouisse, 61, and when he got to Washington, Danny told the waiting schoolchildren about a very large treat indeed. UNICEF had just been named winner of the $57,000 Nobel Peace Prize for its help to needy children throughout the world.

The Beatles stepped forward in the state ballroom of Buckingham Palace and bowed shyly. "How long have you been together now?" the Queen asked softly. "Oh, for many years," muttered Paul McCartney. Then Queen Elizabeth II pinned the silver badges of Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire on their solemn, ungear suits. Outside, things were normal again, with a few hundred caterwauling kids trying to crash the palace gates and the Beatles bubbling Liverpudlian again. "She's got a keen pad," whooped Paul, "and I liked the staff. I thought they'd be dukes and things, but they were just fellahs." Then he added tenderly: "She was like a mum to us."

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