204
DAVID '
JACKSON
clothes, stood there slapping the back of
his
neck, did some knee
bends and stretched
his
shoulders and arms, and then pulled on
a wartime flight mechanic's suit in which he liked to work.
Rubbing
his
hands, he paced around the room as was
his
habit,
circling
his
writing table at the windows like
3i
tiger cornering its
prey. The pension was quiet, they all still slept.
At last, he began: "Dear girl, the pension
is
quiet, they
are all asleep, and I'm filled with the honor of working in the
..
small hours and, finally, writing to you. Here will be the letter
about Munich, do you think it
is
worthy of printers' ink? This
removable preface contains my love; but it can be considered
as
stationary, if you would like to announce it to the world. And
now to the subject:
"Munich
is
a vast imitation, and as such is fortifying. I find
it, also, an important city. Walking up the Florentine Ludwig–
strasse to the classical Roman Siegestur, into the Left Bank Leo–
poldstrasse, I am conscious of hoping some original of mine,
one day,
will
be taken into the sleeping mind of Munich. In
order that, ever after, dreamlike copies would emerge.
"A Munich rusticated palace is the dream of a Southern
Renaissance; a pony-tail hair-do of a Munich Teenager is a
dream of American Daring.
"The English Gardens, where we would walk in late Spring,
is, of course, the dream of a dream. It is a landscaped Arcadia.
Four miles long, one wide, the Gardens hold acres of trees, canals,
lakes. At some exact moment of a sultry late Spring day, the
Gardens proclaim their origins
in
that great painter of the nine–
teenth century, Bocklin. The city has vanished. There are bird
cries straight from
his
brush. The sun slants across lawns, figures
in dateless clothes trail along some way off, a column from the
Golden Age (perhaps a smokestack) meets your gaze. The mur–
mur of waves (traffic), a cry, and there sport Undine and dryads
and jolly naked fat mermen looking like Wallace Beery.
"Of course, the illusion is forever being broken, but pleas–
antly so. For
this
is an arena of tourists and bohemian Schwab-
