THE ENGLISH GARDENS
205
ing. And there
is
the old Schwabinger, the pre-Hitler, Expres–
sionist veteran sitting around on nearly private benches. He, like
his
contemporaries, wears a collection of sweaters and scarves
and carries what must be music or manuscripts or drawings. The
rich Schwabingers take up tables on the two levels of terraces at
the
Seehaus,
a vast restaurant on the edge of an artificial lake.
They have dogs and cats, sometimes canes. But even on sunny
days, late afternoon, a kind of mid-European fatalism prompts
them to carry umbrellas. And, often enough, the sunset disap–
pears into a rising of clouds and the rain falls. These old
Schwabingers laugh and wave to friends off at other tables.
'That is Greta von Spielerin,' you will be told, 'a great actress in
her time,' or 'He is Rudolph Kunstler-you must know
his
poli–
tical cartoons of the 'twenties.' Everyone
is
familiar. Munich
is
a
Millionendorf- a
village of a million people."
Meredith had an illusion of the ease and pleasure of writing,
this
morning. Why hadn't he got up early, before? The pension
usually took him over, took him into its intimacies. The maids
lingered and giggled in his room after they cleaned. The Graf'in
and he held long conversations of a literary turn, she in English,
he in German. She told him stories of her father's friends, the
poets Morike and Keller. And Meredith was lazy and gregarious
and liked having his work interrupted. Now, the words were roll–
ing out:
"The Gardens are fine for you and me and the old Schwab–
inger. But Munich's Teenagers, the
Halbstiirkern
(half-strongs),
its delinquents, its young art and literary worlds have no time for
the Gardens (although they are said to
be
handy for quick sex).
Sitting around in espresso cafes along Leopold, or in the two
to three basement bars near the University, they slouch, drink
a lot of coffee, wear blue jeans which, after all these post-war
years, finally have a true, worn, James Dean style. The
girls
wear tight sweaters and pale lips and messy Brigitte Bardot hair.
They ignore each other and draw on menus. They come and go
indifferently, dropping into chairs, dragging each other across
