REINVENTING HILLARY

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That line brought down the house. But in truth, this First Lady is still trying to figure out who she can be and what she can do. She does not want to repeat the mistakes she made during her husband's first two years in office, when she alienated many Americans not because she was a powerful woman but because she seemed not to realize that the citizenry expects its powerful leaders, male and female, to show the humility befitting those whose authority is merely on loan from the people.

Since then, of course, she has been at pains to downplay her role in the Administration, retrenching into a more traditional First Lady persona. But as Bill Clinton was successfully learning to inhabit the role of President, Hillary's role-playing was less consistent. Very often in public she is smiling but remote, her eyes concealed by dark sunglasses. Even when she is having fun, as she clearly was last week, there is an unmistakable sadness to her, a pensive, fragile air that reflects four bruising years in Washington and the bone-deep weariness that campaigning brings. She speaks of seeking a new balance in her life. "That's what I try to do every single day," she said, settling back into the leather seat of a limousine idling on the tarmac at the Sydney airport. "I hold my hands out and try to put one foot in front of the other. I'm big on balance."

The message is as much personal as professional. On Oct. 26, Hillary turned 49, a vulnerable age for many women: elderly parents falter, the nest empties, the encroachments of passing time become harder to ignore. In the past four years the Clintons have lost two parents--his mother, her father. The couple dread the day when Chelsea, now 16, will head off to college. On the Asia trip, Hillary was often a solitary figure. She spent the first weekend in Hawaii by herself or alone with her husband, swimming and walking Oahu's rainswept beaches. While Clinton draped his golf cart in plastic sheeting and hit the rainy links, Hillary lost herself in books: she brought along eight, including John Le Carre's new novel, The Tailor of Panama.

While waiting in her Sydney limo for the President to arrive from his golf game with Australian star Greg Norman, Hillary described the job she sees for herself in welfare reform. "There's a lot of good information we have now because of the [welfare] waivers that have been granted [to the states] in the last several years," she said. "There has to be a transfer of knowledge across state boundaries. There are going to be some really steep learning curves." She went on contentedly for a while, until she was asked about the first term and the hard lessons learned. "I'm sure there are lots and lots of lessons, things we did that could have been done better," Hillary said, but she didn't come up with any. "It's hard to look back, because I know so much more now than I did on Jan. 20, 1993." An aide opened the car door to say the President had arrived. The First Lady barely noticed. "There is nothing to prepare you for walking into the White House. I've learned so much I can't even begin to digest it all."