CHAPTER THREE
EDINBURGH: 1966-8
Sotheby’s kept Chatwin to the bitter end, not releasing him till 5 p.m. on the day before Edinburgh University required him to register. That night he took the sleeper to Edinburgh. No digs existed for married students.While he hunted for an unfurnished flat, he lodged for £10 a week at the Avondale B & B on the main road south out of the city.
He had arrived in high spirits. He was part Scottish and coming back to his roots, the land of his forebears, the Bruces; and of his maternal grandmother, the gypsy-like Gaggie from Aberdeen. He was enrolled to study the discipline of his great-uncle Philip; the profession claimed by Robert Byron when he had sought admission to Mount Athos.
Archaeology was a four-year course. It was arduous work. Chatwin attended from ten to fifteen lectures a week, which went on till seven in the evening; and was expected to write a weekly essay.Prescribed texts for the autumn term covered eighteen subjects, from the barbarian kingdoms of Western Europe to the uncertain frontiers of the Mongol horsemen. He also chose to learn Sanskrit.
But, as at Sotheby’s, disillusionment set in.
He was away from the bright lights; no wine or food in shops; he had to work hard; and as an older student he did not fit in. Here was someone who had been twice to Afghanistan, to the Sudan, to Istanbul; others, fresh from school, found him shy or stand-offish.
Nor was archaeology the discipline he thought it was.‘Totally bewildering to me,’ he wrote in notes for his first lecture, on 8 October 1966, featuring a cairn at High Gillespie. ‘Two middle chambers only really indicated by depressions in the earth.’ Four days later, he scrawled ‘Terrifying’ – underlining the word three times. He was repeating himself, his repellence with ‘things’. As his friend Robert Erskine put it: ‘He went into archaeology thinking he’d be the next Howard Carter, walking into a room of Egyptian antiquities – and not spending his time with his bottom in the air, in the mud, groping around a megalithic site.’
He would last two and a half of the four years; he described his period here as his ‘saison en enfer’.

To Ivry Freyberg

Department of Archaeology | 19 George Square | Edinburgh | 24 October 1966
 
My dear Ivry,
I have just had the immeasurably sad news that Raulin is dead.109 You must try to forget these past few years with their sense of impending tragedy. Instead you must try and imagine that some invisible power has carried him off as he was – open, fair, free-minded and ruthlessly honest. He was one of the very few really remarkable people I have known and for that I shall always be grateful.
with love Bruce
 
While Chatwin studied, Elizabeth rented Lower Lodge at Ozleworth Park in order to oversee the renovations at Holwell Farm. She wrote to her mother: ‘Bruce sends his love. I don’t think you’ll ever make a correspondent out of him . . . he hardly even writes to me when I’m not here, and then only scribbles giving orders etc.’

To Elizabeth Chatwin

Avondale | Edinburgh | 30 October 1966
 
Sat
Dear E.
Tried to ring you but this is cheaper.
1. Will you come straight here next Fri as I won’t be able to meet the plane?
Will try and get hold of James Dundas.
2. Daddy should deal with the Burnley110.
3. Can you bring typewriter if it’s not too much trouble.
4. I’ll pay Feaver but only when Sotheby’s pay me my pension etc.
5. Dagger111 must wait till I’ve had a proper search. Am telling F.N.112 to keep Lloyd Williams113 informed.
6. Suggest 6x6 square tiles, not the octagonal ones as they’ll look a bit corny114.
Am seeing Eddie’s115 friend Peter Davis116 today after beagling (!) with Bill Spink117. We’re now in a tiny room which is sad.
XXX
B
p.s £6-10-0 is a sleeper to Edinburgh

To Stephen Tennant

Avondale | Edinburgh | [October 1966]
 
There is a great friend of mine here called Peter Davis. He is one of the leading botanists of the day and is embarked on a complete Flora of Turkey, in 14 volumes! He is also one of your fervent admirers. He bought a picture in your London exhibition and is desperately keen to have another or more. Do you think he could buy one? I seem to remember that there are two in Sotheby’s, and maybe he’d like one of those. But then I couldn’t know how much to ask. Do let me know if you can spare one, one with Lascars? He really is terribly keen and asks constantly.
Yours ever, Bruce Chatwin
PS The weather is unbelievably horrible here, but at least one breathes fresh air which is a change after London.
 
On 1 November, Chatwin took a three-year lease on an apartment in the Royal Mile.

To Derek Hill

Avondale | Edinburgh | 8 November 1966
 
We have a flat . . . but I do not think we’ll be in it by November 20th. Address is c/o Dept of Archaeology, 19 George Sq, Edinburgh, but no phone. We had the Chanlers here. Great dramas over regular feeding118 times. Considerably recovered after that horrible auctioneer had nearly drunk the last drop, but will I pass the exams? B

To Elizabeth Chatwin

Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | 30 November 1966
 
Tuesday
Term will soon be over and I’m in a state about exams. At least they can only chuck me out at the end of the year. Had a very funny lunch on Sunday with the Talbot-Rices119 who you’ll love. She is a big Russian version of Penelope Betjeman120, and he beams. They live at Fossebridge and so we are going over to see them soon. Otherwise nothing but the orange linoleum. I think I’ve changed my mind again about the floor and want plain pine again. I want to experiment with dirt and caustic on a piece. When I come back through London I’ll make some enquiries. I thought I might stay with old Simon Snell121 for two nights. I also want to see about getting some crushed terracotta for painting the house. I think the Rokeby122 colour needs toning down a bit for Glos. Would the Victorian curtains123 be nice in the back bedroom? The only place for them. Had just remembered how nice the Persian textile will look in dining room. Redman124 sounds a real menace. Terrible dramas about getting a painting by Stephen Tennant for Peter Davis. S[tephen] T[ennant] writes illuminated letters to the Department and tells me he has dedicated a poem to me called the ‘Supreme Vision’.125
One can only pray to God it will never be published. He also says that he has been asked to go to the University of Wisconsin to give a seminar on Willa Cather.126 If he does it would be one of the spectacles of the century, and we ought to go and write a book about it. Peter Davis is giving a dinner party for the Southern blonde and her husband on the Thursday. Sotheby’s kept my pension and contra-ed it which I thought was rather forward of them without asking. One can’t complain really and I shall take even longer to pay the rest off. Very patronising letter from Llewellyn. ‘With each day that passes, the fatter their arses.’
xxxx B
 
In November an illuminated letter had arrived from Tennant at the Archaeology Department to say that he was writing a play set in Aix les Bains, Madame is Resting, which he hoped to sell as a brisk farce. ‘Edinburgh must be very handsome in sombre autumn. You do sound studious: what period are you studying? Boadicea? Camelot? Constantine? Bion?’

To Stephen Tennant

Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | 24 November 1966
 
Dear Stephen,
I have never been so overworked in my life. Even duchesses take up less time than history essays. It really is a most extraordinary sensation going back to school. I have learnt never to offend the second-year students, who are immensely full of their own self-importance. One second-yearer leaned across my shoulder and asked me why I was reading a particularly devious book, and then said that first-year students were not able to understand its mysteries. A rigid stratification divides the years and the twain shall never meet let alone for a conversation. There are some anti-conventional characters as well. There’s a wonderful young man with carrot-coloured plaits who wears a red plastic coat and no shoes even though there’s ice on the pavement. I have only once been out of Edinburgh and that was to stay in Traquair; the hills above Glen were covered in snow even in October. May I come shortly after Christmas or else immediately before on about the 20th. I have to take exams here which I feel sure I shall fail, and will be in need of cheerfulness.
As ever, Bruce

To Elizabeth Chatwin

Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | 27 November 1966
 
I still think that the 9in tiles would be nice in the dining room and don’t think they would be too noisy. We could put an easy chair up by the fireplace with a rug in front to give it a bit of warmth. They might look very well laid diagonally but I’m not sure about that. I think you can get Dutch Delft copies with the little figures in the middle; they might be better than nothing. Also make sure they sink a space for a door mat (big) inside the back door.
XXX B
 
On 20 December 1966 Stuart Piggott invited Chatwin to dinner (‘smoked salmon & venison, ananas au cognac’), afterwards writing in his diary: ‘I became bored as he stayed until 1.30 a.m. oh my God. I suppose he was enjoying himself but oh when will the young realise that three hours is the ideal time to come and stay for a meal?’ On 6 February 1967 Chatwin invited himself to dinner again,‘revealing all in the same breath and too obviously that Elizabeth had gone back to their Gloucestershire house, and sounding rather gay and relieved about it’. Piggott speculated whether Chatwin ‘has homo. tendencies. No change to be had from me!’

To Derek Hill

Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | Saturday [February 1967]
 
Dear D.,
My parents have lent us their car and we got out of this place, thank God, for the first time. In Perth we found a huge Wemyss jardinière127 which I thought was horrid, but could scarcely be considered an expert judge. Enclosed is the shop’s card. Run by a very swishy number who couldn’t decide whether he was going to talk Highland or Hairdresser. I thought it was fiendishly expensive, but considering the prices here for really bad and beaten up bowls I suppose you would be getting value for money. Green bands above and below, green handles and cabbage roses on the body. Am very keen about this Hermes glass128, which I have tried to monopolise, but E. thinks she would like to wear. I have just bought her a lacquered Javanese coolie hat. When are you coming to see us in Glos? We can put you up as yet in a state of intense discomfort, but the food is delicious, or perhaps you’d prefer the rival attractions of our nearest neighbour, Alvilde L.-M.129 I say you were right about Peter Saunders 130. After greasing about for months sending messages about how keen he was to meet us, when I said that I was an undergraduate he looked slightly nonplussed, spluttered something about Sotheby’s and after the truth had dawned, ignored us. Poor thing to have wasted a whole moneymaking evening; he was quite crestfallen; I feel he may have wanted a free evaluation. He seems to have a beastly collection of modern pictures. Did you see his house tarted up by David Hicks131 in that decorating book? It is quite the funniest book to appear last year.
We are going down to Glos in Mid-March and don’t have to be back again till the end of April. I HAVE to go and excavate in Bangor, on some beastly Neolithic site being developed for industry just opposite the front gates of Vaynol.132 As it is very easy to get on the ferry to N. Ireland from there I thought we might come over to Ireland for a week. Are you going to be there in early April? We can’t make it definite because it rather depends on the state of the house. Do let me know?
What are you doing in the summer? I intend to go to Afghanistan and Persia and possibly N. India and Nepal for four months with E. joining me for some of the time only because she is going home for her brother’s wedding. I really feel I am justified in opting out. It’s bad enough raising the wind for one air fare let alone two. Spent the whole of December having my teeth seen to in Birmingham; owing to incompetent dentistry of the most expensive Harley St kind, they were on the point of falling out, but were rescued just in time. I went to Sotheby’s for two hours and felt that feeling of helpless rage coming over me again. I am afraid it is terribly boring here; I expected it, and have to convince myself that it’s good for me. But the intense relief of not having to turn up each morning to that lugubrious firm is a compensation. And I dare say that a really massive trip will put me right. I haven’t had a proper holiday for two years. You are lucky to be going to Greece at this time of year. I once went on the Acropolis in February and there was nobody else except a party of Russian sailors. Edinburgh station is draped in Hammers and Sickles for Mr Kosygin,133 and there is a ramshackle bunch of demonstrators demanding freedom for the Ukraine.
Love, Bruce

To Derek Hill

Holwell Farm | Wotton-Under-Edge | Glos | 29 March 1967
 
V. sorry cannot make it. At the moment, I have a streaming cold. That’s what comes of excavating in the snow.

To Derek Hill

Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | 8 May 1967
 
I have a Wemyss pot and cover with strawberries for you. No one could accuse me of divided loyalties. Bruce
 
In June 1967, after sitting his first-year exams, Chatwin left Edinburgh for the summer and moved in to Holwell Farm. The renovations had taken more than a year.

To Gertrude Chanler

Holwell Farm | Wotton-Under-Edge | Glos | 5 July 1967
 
Dear Gertrude,
We are covered in paint. Things are suddenly beginning to happen, like the electricity is going to be switched on and the central heating given its trial run. Needless to say when we are really settled down to a job of work there is always a country drama. I have spent half the morning chasing somebody else’s cows out. The kitchen is all but ready and we aim to move into it, one bedroom and the little study at the end of the house very soon. It will be a great relief to get out of the lodge and begin to lead a civilised life again.
The examinations went off all right, and in fact I was top of the year and a prizewinner,134 something that never happened to me at school, and despite my gloomy predictions to the contrary; it was all very encouraging. Stuart [Piggott] is not excavating this year and I am off in ten days to Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Bulgaria to see some museums and excavations. He has given me a whole battery of introductions. This year is International Tourist year and it does seem rather amazing that one does not require visas for an Iron Curtain Country except Russia. An old school friend135 is in the embassy in Sofia which will make life more comfortable and interesting there. I am then going to Turkey for about three weeks with Andrew Batey136 and hope that Lib will come out and join us on the way back. I have just finished an article I am writing for a book on the flowers of Greece, not really my subject and I am afraid it’s been more hard work than it’s worth. I dread that it is inaccurate and that learned botanists will tear it to shreds.
I have been howling with laughter at all the hoo-haa in the press about the art forgeries. This is in fact only the tip of the iceberg and more will come. But I do take a certain pleasure in the fact that I threw Mr Legros137 physically out of Sotheby’s by the neck some four years ago.
Last weekend we went to Penelope Betjeman’s. He is about to be made Poet Laureate138 and wasn’t there, and she is so exhausting that we came back here to collapse. This weekend we hope to have a real work corvée, and Felicity [Nicolson] is expected too. The cat has had kittens and this time they are doing fine even though she is a hopeless mother. Poor David Nash has mumps terribly badly in New York and has temperatures up to 105. They are now recovering in Brittany and I am going to wait for them to arrive here before setting off. I hope that Cary [Welch] will come over this autumn. We have just had a totally incoherent letter from him. They are building a house in Greece with Billy Wood’s brother Clem and one day it’ll be lovely for us to use it as well. Then he has schemes for other hide-outs in Mexico: and the Burning Ghats in Benares!
We must go back to the scraping. I’ll send John and Sheila139 a cable from darkest Moravia, but this time the cables office must send them on.
Lots of love B
 
No sooner had he moved into Holwell Farm than Chatwin set off for his summer’s excavation at Zàvist, south of Prague. He took with him for the first and last parts of the journey a 23-year-old American architecture student, Andrew Batey. This was ‘the steamer-chair character’ whom he had met on board the Queen Elizabeth when sailing to get married. Batey, then studying history at Occidental College in Los Angeles, was sailing home. ‘We had adjacent deck chairs on the stormy, freezing crossing. One moved over and it turned out to be Bruce.’ So began a fifteen-year friendship. Chatwin, says Elizabeth, was ‘very, very keen’ on the willowy Batey, who in 1966 matriculated at St Catherine’s College, Oxford. Batey visited the Chatwins at Ozleworth and pestered Chatwin to go travelling. In July 1967 they took the Orient Express to Venice, stopping off at the Villa Malcontenta to meet Dorothea Landsberg. Batey continued by train through Bulgaria to Turkey; Chatwin to digs in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Rumania. They planned to reunite in Istanbul.
This letter would, twenty years later, inspire the opening of Chatwin’s novel Utz about a collector of Meissen porcelain in Cold War Prague.

To Elizabeth Chatwin

Hotel Kaiserhof | Frankenberggasse | Vienna | Austria | [July 1967]
 
Dear E,
I am very late in my time-table because I should be through Hungary by now. I arrived here today from Bratislava and spent the afternoon in the Volkerkunde museum as everything else was shut. There are three feather Aztec objects here, which I knew vaguely about but was totally unprepared for. One is Montezuma’s fan (from the collections of H. Cortez and Charles V – no less), a circular arrangement of brilliant feathers with an acid green butterfly in the middle. Then there is his green feather headdress with blue and red stripes and little gold plaques and another circular fan with a coyote in violet and orange in a raspberry fan. These three objects make the Bliss collection140 et al sink into nothingness, and there is heaven knows what besides.
We failed to get into the Stocklet Collection141 because the objects and the furniture were all put away for the summer, but Mme S[tocklet] was very accommodating and asked me to come again in the autumn. She even remembered my visit of 1960! Then we went to Aix and looked at Charlemagne and the Schatzkammer where there are some objects that nearly made me die, especially the engraving on the back of the cross of Lothar and Richard of Cornwall’s sceptre. We separated at Cologne after looking over that monstrous cathedral and I went to an exhibition of ‘Rome on the Rhine’ which was only fairly instructive and visually barren. I then went on to Bonn, to Habelt142 the bookseller where I found a copy of Dörpfeld’s143 Troy and the v. rare Berlin Troy catalogue both of which I bought. The Bonn Landesmuseum has the gold Fritzdorf Cup which is paralleled by the Wessex Culture Rillaton Cup144 and one from Mycenae. There was also a smashing Hunnish cauldron which I had not known about. On to Nuremberg where I had the row with the hotel145 and would never have set foot in Germany again were it not for the great kindness on the part of the manageress of the next hotel who was so appalled that she treated me to breakfast. In the Dom is the fantastic, hideous but rather wonderful ‘sacrament haus’ of Adam Kraft146 who portrayed himself with his mason’s mallet supporting the monstrous load. The museum is quite wonderful with Durers and manuscripts of Otto III’s scriptorium at Endernach. I made the happy discovery that the chalcedony salt [cellar] I bought from David Lethan147 is Augsburg c.1600, and that means it’s really worth something.
Prague is one of the most curious places in the world. The whole place is utterly bourgeois and always obviously was. Communism sits on it in a most uneasy way, and I would have said cannot last long. It is virtually impossible to meet a single communist. Even in the trains and buses they joke about it. Some of the younger generation might be communist but would not dream of owning up to the fact. It must be one of the few places in the world where one can hear the American position in Vietnam actually defended. They loathe the Russians and Chinese with an emotional fervour. A great many speak English, and I had a long lecture from a man on the excavation who could only be described as a peasant on the merits of Eton and how England was an education to the world. The world is full of surprises.
I rather fell on my feet and met a charming couple called Plesl.148 He directs the excavations of a Celtic oppidum called Zàvist, nr. Prague and I was given the professional suite at the camp which meant that I didn’t have to live in town. We went on a tour in their car of S. Bohemia to see another friend digging another Celtic oppidum called Trisov. Nearby is a Schwartzenburg castle called Chesky Krumlov149 with a theatre with the Commedia dell’ Arte figures in a sub Tiepolo manner. We drank pre-war Burgundy in a wine-cellar. Also on the Zavist excavation was an Italian called Maurizio,150 who is my new friend. There is every reason why I should dislike Maurizio but somehow I do not. He is over six and a half feet tall and indecently fat. Despite the solid nature of Bohemian food he needs to be refilled every half hour. In July he was awarded a doctorate at Rome University and is vaguely connected with Tucci151 and his nefarious crew. His thesis, calculated to make me hate him, was on the close of the Indus Valley Civilisation and the coming of the Aryans. He got it all wrong, and used a number of inapplicable analogies about the movement of the Maya from Guatemala to Yucatan. Maurizio is never at a loss for some apparently brilliant remark about some obscure facet of Central European archaeology, but I fear that his knowledge is about as superficial as mine. He tells me he was once employed in smuggling microfilms from East to West Berlin. He is a man of many parts, an archaeologist of sorts, a smuggler, an International Socialist and also a self-styled great lover. Maurizio cannot talk about the stratigraphy of the Lower Quetta valley without finding two bulges which remind him of firm breasts. He bent double, which for him is no mean feat, to kiss the hand of a ferocious Slav lady archaeologist. She was somewhat affronted, but in general it must be said he enjoys considerable success. He is engaged to a girl in Andover, the Wessex bird as he calls her. This is not to say that Maurizio doesn’t have birds in any European town one cares to mention. The current object of his affections is Eva. ‘Eva, the first woman, she gave herself utterly to me.’ Eva is an enthusiastic wide-hipped blonde with sparkling blue spectacles and buck teeth, who lives up the hill from Zàvist with her refined but calculating mother, and I fear that Maurizio did not bargain for her as well. Mother and daughter work as a team, and they are determined to catch Herr Doktor Maurizio. Both have visions of a splendid Roman future, and Maurizio has built up such a baroque image of grandeur that it will be hard for him to dispel their illusions. He has already invited them to Rome. ‘Supposing they really come,’ he moans. ‘How would I explain it to my family – and the Roman bird?’ In the mean time Maurizio is eating them out of house and home – vast quantities of duck and dumplings, chocolate cake, red currant tarts and apricots. He sits on the sofa, and while mama presses her attentions and Eva ladles yet another spoonful of cherry jam down that ever open mouth, he contemplates himself in the mirror occasionally inclining his head to admire that strange Roman profile. I cannot imagine how he will extract himself from the situation, especially as mama has specially rented a riverside cottage for the two lovers this weekend. Despite a lingering feeling that he may have made Eva pregnant, Maurizio faces the prospect of the final parting next week with equanimity. ‘It is very simple,’ he says. ‘I shall burst into tears, and when I cry who can be angry?’ I cannot imagine it will be so simple and Evsen Plesh is full of gloomy prognostications of the scene that will follow.
In the meantime on Tuesday another bird turned up, the Moravian bird as opposed to the Bohemian bird, a passing affair from last year’s conference when she had made terrible confusion of lantern slides while fondling Maurizio in the dark. News of her arrival in Prague from Moravia caused Maurizio to break off abruptly a deep conversation he was having about the affinities of the Beaker Culture in Bohemia, and to hurry to the Hotel Flora where apparently she was staying. I must say the Moravian bird was ravishing and did much better credit to Maurizio than Eva. She had a pointed turned up nose, dimpled chin and masses of hair piled up on her head and her sensuous little mouth flickered when she was silent. But there was a terrible snag. She had come to Prague to get married. The bridegroom was an ineffectual young German from Magdeburg with a fall-away chin and pointed shoes. She had known him for three years. ‘And to think,’ exclaimed the outraged Mauriuzio, ‘that when she was making love to me on the Linear Pottery site at Bylany,152 she knew him all the time. It confirms my opinion of the faithfulness of women. How could she give herself to the dirty German.’ Anyway for the time being she apparently could and would and the reason for her contacting Maurizio was that he should be best man at the wedding. He at once changed tack and agreed with alacrity, and also insisted that I come too as a witness. The time of the wedding was eightthirty in the morning on the next day at the church of St Ignatz. ‘Don’t you understand?’ he said, ‘she is only marrying him because she is pregnant. I shall play the part of the faithful and wronged friend and in two years I shall have her.’ I think that Maurizio may have miscalculated again because the two seemed absolutely devoted and stood in the foyer of the hotel kissing and fondling each other to the fury of the headwaiter who finally told them to desist.
So the next morning at a quarter past eight found Maurizio and I in archaeological clothes but with carnations in our buttonholes on the steps of the baroque church of St Ignatz in Charles Square.153 One old woman was desultorily cleaning the aisle and another prayed loudly and devotedly in the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, a real rock cut tomb with a plastic Christ looming over the boulders which were rather unsuitably planted with gladioli and gloxinias. An untidy man appeared and was under the impression that I was the organist. When I protested, he shrugged and said he would play himself. This he did on two chords only and to this cacophony the bride arrived in a large Tatra saloon accompanied by her parents and the bridegrooms mother, a solid German hausfrau in a crinkled pale blue suit. The bride’s mother was a good-looking woman evidently in a savage temper, and her father a mild mannered little Czech who squinted through his spectacles. Maurizio bent double and kissed the ladies hands to their evident surprise. The bride must have been wearing her grandmother’s wedding dress, and the bridegroom’s shoes were more pointed than ever. And so this comic little procession made its way up the aisle to the thump-thump of the organ, and came to rest inside the pink marble altar rails where the priest was waiting. St Ignatz is a vast building, about the same size as Bath Abbey with astonishing pink and white plaster decoration and angels and saints dripping from every cornice. The grey marble pillars rippled like the waters of an oil-covered sea, and the organist thump-thumped while the ceremony proceeded in an undertone. I winked at the mother who winked back and began to look more cheerful. And finally the organ stopped while the priest gave a short address. On either side of the altar-piece St Peter exhorted and St Paul comforted while St Ignatius was wafted up to heaven in a rosy sunset and above supercilious cherubs pouted on plaster clouds, and for a moment there was peace. Then the organ thump-thumped again, and never was an aisle so long. By nine-ten the seven of us were in the Hotel Miramar in a corner of the cocktail lounge drinking the happy couple’s health with a savage Hungarian wine that tore to my liver. In the corner by the deserted bandstand was a stuffed bear which a cleaning woman dusted as she cleared up the squalid mess of the night before. And that was the most curious wedding I have ever been to.
Mon.
I must say I like Vienna more and more. The museum is fabulous and as luck would have it the collections are closed to the public. This means that they are available to be taken out of the cases by the likes of me. There is a charming assistant of Prof Kromer who spent a year at Edinburgh, poor thing but he survived well enough. Over lunch time I went to the Schatzkammer. The Imperial mantle of 1125!! with gold lions attacking camels on a scarlet ground is the most wonderful thing I ever saw. Compare the fact that King William of Sicily had the coronation robe inscribed with an Arabic legend with today’s petty nationalism and realise how we have regressed. The sword of Charles the Bold has a narwhal tusk sheath and handle, and I must say I am more than resigned to the extravagance of a tusk since seeing the unicorn presented to the Emperor Rudolf one of the inalienable treasures of the Hapsburgs together with a sumptuous Byzantine agate bowl, once considered to be the Holy Grail.
Now what are you going to do? I go to Hungary on Wednesday and will be incommunicado till I reach Sofia on the 15th or so. You know the address c/o Bache, British Embassy. I feel that I may not go to Cyprus but instead go to Maurizio’s professor’s excavation at Bari which sounds v. interesting and you could come too, or do you want to go to the Turkish Aegean coast in September. I must say I would love to go to Samos from Turkey, then we might descend on Teddy [Millington-Drake] before making back. Or we could meet in Italy. The possibilities are endless. Why don’t you suggest something? If you came to Turkey I wouldn’t recommend the train all the way but a single air flight to Istanbul and no return. If you want to see Istanbul with me154 you must let me know via Andrew or c/o Bache because we’ll leave it out till later and go into Anatolia first.
I’m in a horrid hot little room and I miss you.
xxxxxx
B
P.S. Can you imagine it? The Schmallclothes155 actually turfed Andrew off at Hyde Park Corner instead of taking him back? I’m afraid – to be written off!
B

To Ivry Freyberg

Postcard, Aachen Cathedral | Vienna | Austria | 1967
 
Rang you up when we were in the South once or twice with no luck. Am on an archaeological peregrination in E Europe while E. is in America. I have been excavating in Czechoslovakia in a Celtic fort which was fascinating despite my forebodings to the contrary. Am now being a common or garden tourist for a few days before facing the rigours of Rumania for a fortnight. I do believe I shall go to see the Merry Widow. Love Bruce

To Cary Welch

Postcard, Volkerkunde Museum | Vienna | Austria [1967]
 
From the collection of H. Cortez. Not a bad provenance and I bet that if all the schlemiels in Madison Avenue saw it, they’d say it was a fake. I think your Sassanian dish156 is a marvel, and that you’re very wise, brilliant, etc and it’s the best object you ever had etc. etc.
I have been grovelling about in the dust with a whole lot of enthusiastic Czechs, and will write at length when I have the time. Will be in Turkey on Aug 20 c/o British School of Archaeology in Ankara. Love B

To Charles and Margharita Chatwin

Postcard, El Greco’s Ascension, Budapest Museum | Hungary | 15 August 1967
 
E Hungary
Am excavating for a few days at a Bronze Age site on the River Tisza, before going on to Rumania. In Transylvania there has just been found what may be the earliest evidence yet of writing yet known. I must say I shall not come here again without a car. The trains are packed and take for ever. Harsh white wine on an empty stomach for breakfast. Bruce

To Elizabeth Chatwin

Béke Étterem | Hungary | [August 1967]
The dining room of the Béke Étterem is a long corridor with barely room for the three rows of tables. The modernistic lamps have quaint green glass shades half of which work. In between the Gentleman’s which smells horribly and the Ladies which smells less is the orchestra, three violins, a double bass and a xylophone. Cream coloured walls have sprouted a curious fungus and in the far corner is a mutinous green tile stove. Each table has a single bedraggled carnation, and a sprig of asparagus fern that has seen many carnations. Also a blue metal hatstand behind each chair. A few foxed engravings are hung out of sight, level with the helmets. I have never known an orchestra with a greater capacity to shock. We have been running through Lehar waltzes, and whenever we hit a high note it is like crossing a hump back bridge, never fails to hit the wrong note. ‘We are going to Maxim’s’ with a noise that sounds like a thousand Siamese cats in part song. The noise is quite deafening. Thieving Magpie, drab potbellied gentlemen with their shirt tails flapping. Sweaty fingers. Dark rings around their eyes. As I understand no word of the menu, and as I am constitutionally able to endure almost anything, although I did draw the line at the hen’s head which peered out of the soup at me at luncheon, I have been experimenting with everything called Parizi. The influence of the French capital was never really strong in Eastern Europe and has still been further diluted in recent years. The object I am eating seems to be a hybrid Wiener Schnitzel and onion omelette, the one wrapped in the other deep fried in batter and served with a few rings of batter and chips. An original omelette surprise, like the orchestra!

To Gertrude Chanler

Ankara | Turkey | 4 September 1967
 
I’ve just been to see your friend Captain Trammel157 who is badly laid up in hospital here, and I’ll go again tomorrow. I’ve been having a fascinating trip, in fact a lot of hard work, but I’ve learned an incredible amount. There’s nothing like going to see the material first hand. I can never really grasp the implications from books. Over the past week I’ve been tramping about in the wilds of Anatolia. Andrew Batey was so beguiled by my Turkish friends in Istanbul that he stayed. Betty Carp158 who we saw said ‘I have known people go up to Anatolia and like it.’ I do, but I’m now in the state of longing to go home.159 Love, Bruce

To Gertrude Chanler

Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 4 October 1967
 
How nice to get your letter! You beat me to it because I was on the point of writing to you to say that we had definitely decided to come over for Christmas. Your offer to pay the tickets comes as a marvellous surprise and we both look forward to it immensely. I think we must spend a few days here immediately after the term ends, and imagine that we’ll fly on the 20th or perhaps the day before. We must book now. There will be a number of odds and ends to tie up here. One rather unfortunate thing is that our farmer John Jones may be going. He has been offered a sheep farm of 45,000 acres in Northern Scotland, and obviously we can’t begrudge him that. In fact we have been actively helping him find the necessary finance. But that will mean we shall probably be having to find a replacement and that is difficult enough. They all seem to be so sharp and on the make here. I think that the best thing to do now that we have it properly fenced is to stick out for a high rent for a series of short lets. The trouble about letting for a long period is that one can create what is called an agricultural tenancy which means that one can never get the encumbent out, and we must avoid that. The next minor disaster occurred when the main water pipe burst, apparently owing to the action of static electricity on a galvanised pipe laid in wet clay. We were without water for four or five days and had to fetch it in milk churns. They then came to lay the new polythene pipe with a mechanical digger. When the man came to fill it in again, Lib was in Wotton doing the shopping and I had settled down to some Sanskrit. There was a yell from the front, because he had got trapped by the grab and was pinned against the cab. The plumber rescued him and announced that he had some ribs broken. I then called for the ambulance and not only did it arrive but three fire engines and half the county police force together with reporters for the local and Bristol papers. Of course in the meantime the driver had recovered and I felt I wanted to hide in view of what appeared to be a false alarm. Otherwise the whole place has taken a terrific turn for the better and is becoming simply beautiful inside. The kitchen is the most pleasant I have ever known and I think we will almost live in it. I am in the middle of painting the study which will be ready before we go. I once learned a very good technique for colouring walls. You paint them with flat white oil, and then put a very thin layer of coloured wax glaze. This gives the walls a slightly transparent look. We are doing the study in golden ochre which sounds horrible but I think you’ll like it. The bathroom doors which I glazed green over grey blue are a great success. A painter friend of mine is seriously thinking of adopting the technique. The boiler at last works after its teething troubles and the whole place is remarkably warm and has dried out in a way I never thought it would.
Off again to Edinburgh in a few days. It is a far better course this year, and in point of fact one in which I have covered more of the ground than last year. I can’t slack off though and be a flash in the pan. We are hoping that the Linlithgows may have a flat or cottage for us at Hopetown which is five miles from the city in wonderful country which leads down to the Forth. She is American and apparently gets very bored with the locals. So I would have thought there was a chance. In any case we must move from the smokey zone into the New Town if possible because one gets absolutely black where we are.
Captain Trammel was very nice to me in Ankara. He didn’t look at all too good when I went the first time, but was up and cheerful the second time. I didn’t ask Betty Carp what was the matter because it was obviously tactless to do so. It seems that he was waiting the results of tests which had been sent to Germany. I did gather though that it might have been quite serious. He was very interesting about Turkey and appears to know Istanbul backwards. Another person who knows Istanbul backwards by now is Andrew Batey. My Turkish friends almost ate him up entirely, and although he was supposed to come in to the wilds of Anatolia with me he never left the city for five weeks. I warned him in advance that it would happen if he weren’t firm minded and it did.
The things that Elizabeth brought back are wonderful particularly the plain George II silver plate, which is in my opinion exactly how silver should look. I love its simplicity, and the tankard looks grand on it. I had one bit of luck in that I found an agate and silver gilt salt cellar in Edinburgh, and when I was in Vienna found almost the pair to it. Instead of being 17th century as I had thought it turns out to be Burgundian circa 1480, and the Vienna example comes from the Imperial treasury. When I have to learn German we’ll go to Vienna rather than Germany. I had three most enjoyable days there, which was a great relief after Nuremburg where I had a fight with a hotel keeper.
Congratulations on your wedding anniversary and wish Bobby many happy returns of the day. Too late, I’m afraid, but as I once forgot my own birthday until it was a week too late, frankly it’s not surprising. There’ll be so many people to see again at Christmas and its very exciting. Cary [Welch] says he’ll be in India but I am not sure I believe it yet. But as he was going through a craze for the Beatles, and since they are going too, I feel there may be more in it this time.160 I would rather like to go to the Philadelphia University Museum for two or three days, and we could stay with Billy and Mia Wood. Otherwise the slate is clean. We both look forward to it immensely. It seems ages since last October. So much water has flown under the bridges, but I’ve never felt a twinge of regret about Sotheby’s, and every time I go back and see my poor ex-colleagues, I find they all want to do the same.
With much love, and please forgive the typing,
Bruce
 
Chatwin started his second year as the lone male on his course, which had slimmed from 41 students to seven. A favourite lecturer had also moved on.

To Elizabeth Chatwin

Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | 24 October 1967
 
Horribly cold here, bring plenty of warm clothes. Edinburgh the same. Charles Thomas appointed professor at Leicester.161 Am going to Stuart [Piggott] on Sunday. Otherwise nothing. Will you please bring Huxley’s Flora of Greece162 RHS pamphlet in the journals, also his flora of the Mediterranean in the attic and Piggott’s Penguin Approach to Archaeology in the Lodge.
 
On 16 November 1967 Hugh had a car accident in Birmingham. ‘I was travelling down Bradford Street in a red Austín 1100 when a lorry jumped the lights and I swerved to avoid it and a bus I had overtaken came in and spat me out under the lorry. I wasn’t wearing a seat belt. They scraped me off the road and got me to hospital, I had 57 stitches in my head and was unconscious for two days.’ During this time he dreamed about Bruce.

To Hugh Chatwin

Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | 1 December 1967
 
Dear H,
All this business about dreams. I never knew we were telepathic.163 Believe it or not I had a dream about you to coincide with yours about me. It’s this wild Celtic blood. Very sinister. I nearly came down today, but Father said you’d prefer it when you’re a bit better. Congratulations on your exams.164 I’ve got some at the end of next week. My whole life consists of struggling from one exam to the next. Felicity Nicolson is here for the week and she and E. have been charging down to Galloway and have come back with a couple of whopping Benin bronze heads.165 Everyone writes to me to see if I can get them into Sotheby’s. Any one would think it was the Christian Church in the 4th Century. I was always of the opinion that Sotheby’s was some kind of religious cult. Now I know. How awful to have been an unbeliever. An unrepentant pagan. If you want some light if rather embarrassing entertainment get hold of a copy of a book by Connor and Pearson called The Dorak Affair, with a totally fictitious conversation with your brother not one word of which did he say.166 The so-called treasure worth millions never existed so it is naturally somewhat difficult to find out where it has disappeared to. It’s like finding the Holy Grail. We have done rather well with our sales so far and haven’t had to sell the silver, because we got £150 for a picture167 I TOLD Elizabeth to buy for £35 in a Sotheby’s sale a year ago. How’s that for a good profit.
Get well soon.168
B
 
In the winter of 1967 Cary Welch recommended Chatwin to curate an exhibition at the Asia House Gallery in New York devoted to the Nomadic Art of the Asian Steppes to be called The Animal Style. The exhibition was not to open until January 1970. Until that time Chatwin was expected to use his Sotheby’s training to contact museums and collectors and to gather the best examples of nomadic art. This was where he now directed his energies.

To Cary Welch

Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | 13 January 1968
 
Dear C,
Since you seem prepared to spend vast sums on works of art, I enclose the following three photos (three life size) of an object I want to buy. It is Archaic Eskimo probably from North Alaska, exactly which of the eskimo cultures I wouldn’t like to predict. It is in MAMMOTH ivory. I have had this checked by the Natural History Museum. It belongs to a jeweller in Glasgow. I believe he will ask a hefty price for it. He has always promised to sell it to me one day, and I would like not to refuse to pay it. It is of course an arrow-shaft straightener of a type well attested from the Madgalenian to the Eskimo of today. I personally hardly know of a more satisfying Eskimo object, it has gone the colour of rich mahogany tempered with a sort of cloudy effect on the surface. I have been thinking of Eskimo objects for the exhibition and this is what has brought the question again into the open. I don’t think I will be able to afford to buy it at the moment, but would buy it for you if you were interested, providing I am able to buy it back after your death in the unlikely event that you should DIE before me. Or maybe you think it is boring.169
I am on the verge of buying however a really exquisite Parthian silver earring [of an elephant head], the head and ears unbelievably fine with the trunk curling round in a loop, in silver, very hard and fine, the ears like some kind of ruched curtain, as in Uncle Nasli’s170 dish. 1½ in diam, it seems raving but not considering my preoccupation with objects that fit into a matchbox.
Mercifully, the Edinburgh library has all the books I need for the Animal Style. It becomes more and more exciting as I spot, or think I do, wide ranging new possibilities. I have also found a fabulous 19th century travel book, with plates in the manner of Gustav Doré, called Una Estate in Siberio, fantastic engravings of shaman offerings and fetishes in dark mesolithic woods. They would do wonderfully as end covers, and could be elaborated ad nauseam by Mr MacCracken.171 I spent the whole day with a friend from London on the prowl round the shops. The barrenness was numbing. I think I will buy a 19th century wax cast of the face of an Australian aboriginal reputedly from the collection of Charles Darwin or maybe a coco-de-mer. I did buy a Peruvian maté gourd 18th century, with silver mounts, the best I have ever seen, and that is not saying much.
Love, Bruce

To Cary Welch

Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | 30 January 1968
 
Dear C.,
This letter is being written in high dudgeon, and is really to let off steam. The dahling172 despite frequent warnings that they should be insured, and a strict injunction not to consign them to the tender hands of the GPO has lost her pearl necklace valued in 1936 for £7,000, or rather the postman ‘lost’ the registered package on his delivery round, thinking it must have slipped out of his postbag when the bus turned a sharp corner.
Consequently the whole of my life for the past three days has been full of the wails of the dahling, disgruntled telephone calls to America, who are needless to say not best pleased, expensive lawyers, devious jewellers, obdurate post-officials, lightfingered (in my opinion) postmen, hopeless policemen etc., just when I had hoped to do some work on the Exhibition.
The dahling is QUITE HOPELESS about her possessions. She is rapidly divesting herself of all her jewellery (and her and my clothing) on planes, trains and buses, when it could either be turned into CASH or mortgaged, or merely kept in a Bank. It is a stupid waste to LOSE it. It makes me a. socially conscious b. furious that I could have used the money much better. It now would appear that we can recover at least some of its value due to Gross Negligence on the part of the Post Office though that was not without an intense struggle.
I also wanted to go for the weekend to the Shetlands to the annual Viking Festival the ‘Up-Helly-Aa’ at which they burn a replica of a Viking ship and send it off to sea, although admittedly I was secretly glad that I didn’t have to face the 80mph gale in which the boat got stuck . . .
I shall go to Glasgow next week to see about the Eskimo object. We have a new car, a Volkswagen to replace my beloved Citroen van173 which the dahling always hated. I don’t like the image of the former. Who is this Peter Avery?174 The name rings a big bell. I have bought this Parthian silver earring, very cheaply. It has apparently been vetted as ancient by some lab, God knows where. It is very appealing, but I cannot help wondering if it is marvellous quality Art Nouveau, if so what a conception. The Professor175 and I would love to have a look at a slide of the FIBULA with a promise not to publish etc. We are also very taken with the idea of the silk176. If it is silk then it is the first occurrence in West Asia, but very interestingly there is evidence of an incipient SILK ROUTE leading to Celtic Europe in the 6th Century BC, where it is found in the Heuneberg,177 conveyed by our old friends the Scythians on their stocky ponies with their animal style trappings. Or is the fragment really too small to tell even under the most powerful microscope.
Elizabeth is going down to London to see about the BLOODY pearls, and so I shall have the weekend to do some work. Give my greetings to the infant MacCracken
Love
B
PS I went to London the other day and saw the Knight178 at a party, wife in Portugal, and he was off there the next day. I have never liked the Knight more and we had an endless conversation. We wished you had been there to see the English in Fancy Dress. All my old friends in multicoloured silk finery and furs or transparent plastic. I had a fascinating conversation with a Qantas Air Steward who told me a long saga of the secrets of AIR LOVE. Elizabeth was rather offended not to be introduced 179 though it would have shut him up like a clam.

To Derek Hill

Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | 8 February 1968
 
Dear D.,
How badly I want to see you! I wish we could come down but we simply cannot. I am up to my eyes in work and debt and cannot stir. Edinburgh is a penance for frittering away all those years of doing nothing. I am going to organise an exhibition for the Asia Society in New York. It is John D. Rockefeller’s plaything of the moment, though the chances of his continued enchantment with Asia in general are, I imagine, dimming. The title is ‘The Animal Style of Mounted Asian Nomads’. The J.D.R. fund for Asiatic research is packing me off first to Finland, Sweden, Germany and a string of eastern European countries in March, and in the summer to Russia and my goal of the moment, Mongolia, if the Mongols are receiving. My collaborator is the topical Emmy Bunker whose father-in-law is ambassador in Saigon. Consequently she prefers not to be seen in Soviet circles. It opens in the winter of 1970. I would so liked to have come on that Iranian conference, but the dates conflict with the term. Beware of a gentleman called Mr M who will be intimately entwined in the whole business. He has silverly hair and the manner of Vittorio de Sica.180 He is married to a Persian lady who secured him three archaeological concessions ‘une pour la recherché, deux pour la commerce’. I was once at a curious lunch at the Cavalry Club at which Signor M tried to sell the ex-conservative M.P. for Plymouth, a Captain Plugge, a monstrous fake silver vase purporting to be 2nd Millennium BC. Also present were Dr Barnett of the B.M. and the Air attaché of the American Embassy, whose only counsel when asked a question was ‘Bomb North Vietnam’ and whose wife ‘just adored antiques’. The Captain was attracted to Mr M’s girlfriend, who was being let off for the day. Dr Barnett who was called upon to authenticate the vase sat in a cold sweat, and I laughed . . .
I suppose you’ll never come here again now that poor Mrs Crabbie181 has died . . . Our house is in the doldrums. It is finished structurally; the central heating keeps it warm and dry. There are some expensive pieces of furniture, but neither carpets, curtains nor paint. Nor have we the time to see to it. We make the best of Edinburgh, but it is very second best, and our immediate reaction on leaving here is to get abroad.
What are your plans for the summer? I secretly may go on to Japan on the Trans-Siberian railway, but cannot imagine how I would get back. I suddenly feel a great fascination for the far north but imagine it is only a phase; I don’t think I shall ever be a serious archaeologist because my whole approach is wrong. I can only see it in terms of getting someone else to pay for my travels . . .
We stayed four days in the Chanler apartment in New York. It really is inconceivable to me that they should have copied curtain materials that should have been swept away in 1918. There are a number of other touches that you would appreciate such as my father-in-law’s proud hanging of the pictures, where neither he nor anyone else can see them, particularly the Chardin182 which is totally concealed from view.
Love, Bruce

To Gertrude Chanler

Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | 8 February 1968
 
Dear Gertrude,
What a week it’s been! I must say that when the postman arrived on the doorstep and said they’d lost the package, bedlam broke loose. We were in awful suspense over the weekend, and it was only slightly relieving to hear from Cartiers that they were insured. The police pulled very grave faces and said they doubted it would ever be found again. They were the only people in the whole business who were enjoying themselves. I imagine that in Edinburgh they are constantly being sent off for worthless bits of rubbish, but valuable purralls really captured their imagination. Eliz[abeth] went to London because we decided to get Ian Murray183 to handle the whole thing for us, and that evening there was a loud rat-tat-tat on the door, and the two most comic CID detectives standing outside. They looked at us as though they had stepped out of a very slow moving comedy thriller of the ’thirties, one six foot five at least and nearly as wide with a beetroot coloured face, the other less than five feet a sort of ashy colour. With the maximum of ceremony they pulled it out of an envelope, and asked me to identify it. I pulled out my glass in a very knowledgeable way and said ‘Boucheron 1920’ in a very knowing way. Then they told the story. The postman must have dropped it out of his bag onto the pavement at the top end of Princes Street. A shop assistant walking to work after ‘a tiff with er boyfriend’ and in a blind fury sees a little package and kicks at it, not once but for half a mile like a football. When she gets to the shop, she sees some cotton wool poking out from one end and inside ‘a wee string o’ beads’ which she keeps at the bottom of her shop bag for a week. In the meantime she makes it up with her boyfriend (quite bright the boyfriend) who says purralls. She takes them to a jeweller for valuation so she can get the reward for finding them ha! ha! and the jeweller who was apparently not very bright but who had a visit from our friends the detectives the day before telephones the police. We are now trying to get the girl off because under Scotch Law she has to be charged for withholding them.
It sounds all very well after the event but I had a feeling that something might go wrong and said that the post wasn’t the proper place for them. In any case I have now made E. get them insured.
We have sold the old van very well to a friend of mine184 who set her heart on it and despite the fact that I have told her twice what it was worth. We have got a rather smart green Volkswagen instead which is what E always wanted. Last night we went to see Mrs Murray185 who was very nice and asked to be reminded to you. She has a fine portrait of Mrs Wadsworth by Thomas Sully. She says that she can fix up some stalking for me next year on her old estate.
We did have a wonderful time at Christmas. I have never really enjoyed America more, because always in the past there was the gloomy shadow of Parke-Bernet looming up in the background. I will have to come over to talk about the exhibition and then of course we must come for the opening which will be Christmas the year after next and that time we won’t be in a rush at all because the days of exams will be over. We have been having the vilest weather here and were knocked off our feet in the great gale the other day. It was dangerous to be out at all because the air was filled with flying rubbish. But so far we haven’t had the fantastic snowfalls that they have been having in the south.
Lots of love, Bruce
PS Hugh much better

To Cary Welch

Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | 8 February 1968
 
By Air Love
Dear C.,
I was not aware that E. had spoken to the unspeakable Roger.186 For me personally R. has the same effect as Edith’s friends who I met on Crete, a reaction that is rarely less than physical. In my view it would be a bad idea, though I don’t want it to get back to E. that I said so. Everything Roger touches has the kiss of agonising DEATH. It could be that he has turned the corner, but as I have been an appalled witness to such endeavours as a motor-racing magazine, a colour book about maharajas in decline, a collection of Holbeins belonging to an Irish peer, a collection of ikons belonging to an Austrian prince, plus God knows what in the way of trying to sell an Egyptian mummy to Kathmandu, the last I admit not without its funny side, I rather doubt his ability to handle anything, least of all Mr Mac C., who will undoubtedly have a ferocious chemical reaction too. Worse Roger has two hangers on called the Princess Toy and the Prince Chip, while he hangs on to a very pleasant lady called Mrs Brydon Brown187 on the principle of little fish suck bigger fish. The combination would be fatal. No wonder E. didn’t confess to her indiscretion.
Will you let me know if you have any spring plans in our direction because we wouldn’t want to miss you. I shall leave here on about March 16th en route for Helsinki, probably to be birched in the sauna at the expense of Asia House. I’ve never been able to make up my mind if I like the idea or not. Wouldn’t it be awful if one suddenly found one was a physical masochist as well as everything else? My friend Mr Batey wants to come and look at the architecture of Alvar Aalto but I’m not sure if it’s a good idea as he’s wildly unreliable and unpunctual, and as I have work to do, it would be a distraction. I have promised though to take him to the Stocklet House, which is a marvel. Last time I sat in a white leather sheepfold, drank wishy washy tea from rock crystal cups, and watched the Rembrandts and a Simone Martini wheeled by on a stainless steel trolley. When the lights in the theatre go up, they shine through Mexican alabaster masks on the Han tomb reliefs flanking the auditorium. Mr B[atey] is marrying his childhood sweetheart in California in late September, and his father in law to be seems to be that rich that he is doshing out air tickets to friends for the CEREMONY. He has also given him the fastest and most expensive Mercedes that money can buy in which I shall probably be killed if he comes to the continent. I have already had the nastiest moment of my life in his £20 Austin Seven.
I have bought the largest coco-de-mer I have ever seen. Beautiful and obscene. We take it to bed.188 Did I give you the message that Mr H[ewett] will NEVER sell the Migration style brooch away from you, and I am going to take a photo when I go down there. I am buying a bellows for my Asia House Tour.
Love B
PS Got your letter this morning and will reply soon, but I am plunged in the Neolithic of Bulgaria, who is a very demanding master.

To Emma Bunker

Postcard, greenstone sculpture of Neolithic elk, Alunda, Uppland. Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | [April 1968]
 
Will write again when my photos of the objects are printed. I couldn’t make Budapest or Bucharest because the visa complications were vast. Ortiz collection has proved to be a great success and photos expected in 2 weeks. Would you ever go to Toronto where the Royal Ontario museum has Borowski’s Ordos Coll. Bruce
 
In April 1968 Cary Welch wrote to say that he had seen another early Sassanian dish with a motif of Shapur I slaying lions with a bow.‘I think it is the best hunting piece I have seen.’

To Cary Welch

Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | [April 1968]
 
Your letter of this morning re the Sassanian dish. You may think I am mad, but I urgently counsel you not to buy it. I am certain from the photographs that it is a forgery – although a damn good one. If you’ll forgive me saying so, I think you are judging it by the same standards you would apply to Indian painting from Rajasthan around 1800. I have always been of the opinion that the forgeries of Iranian objects rely on Indian inspirations, if not actual workmanship.
Anatomically I think that the foreleg of the deer is horrible, also the position of the lion’s paws wholly out of keeping, also the rib cages of both animals are like car radiators. Furthermore the animal is a deer and should have antlers; instead it has antelope horns which should be curving backwards, except those of the saiga antelope (which this is not) which curve backwards before their tips begin to come forwards. No a thousand times NO. IT IS NOT GENUINE. It is less of a joke than the object from the Kimble Foundation in the Asia House Exhibition which is grotesque.
I simply cannot imagine how you could be bothered to fling away genuine objects for this. Sassanian silver dishes and Sassanian art in general may be clumsy and inaccurate at times, but never slick (and sleazy) like this.
It was for peddling this sort of object round America that Mr Safani189 offered me 100,000 dollars a year.
Forgive the ranting.
Love B
 
On 19 April 1968 Chatwin had lunch with the journalist Kenneth Rose and two South American girls. Rose wrote in his diary: ‘We have a jolly lunch, all shouting at once. Bruce tells us that his great-grandfather was a celebrated swindler, who cheated the then Duke of Marlborough out of many millions as his family solicitor. “He cheated old women out of their few pounds, too.”. . . Bruce has tried to get his father to talk about the case, but cannot get a word out of him. He asks me to see.’ On 30 April 1968 Rose wrote to Chatwin of his discovery that Robert Harding Milward had owed his creditors £108,595.15.11, for which he was sentenced to six years, dying in prison a few months after receiving his sentence.

To Kenneth Rose190

Flat 6 | 234 Canongate | Edinburgh | [April 1968]
 
A real operator – £108,595.15.11 is no mean sum. If only he hadn’t been found out! One can hardly breath for fog and rain. A visit from you in May would be a blessing, but I may try to escape south to do my revision. Do let me know if you are going to be up here. Winston must have known R.H.M[ilward] for there to be a reference to him at all.191 His hey-day with the Marlboroughs was a good twenty years before in the’70’s and ’80’s. I’ll try and whip up the Gounod, Wagner, Richter correspondence for you to see. Bruce

To Ivry Freyberg

Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 10 June [1968]
 
Lovely party. I couldn’t have enjoyed it more. Maddeningly I missed the train but there was a perfectly good one later at 11.30. I can’t imagine why I was taking the 10.30. Come down, PLEASE, to Glos. It’s quite beautiful at the moment. Can put you up in minimal comfort! but GOOD FOOD! Am in the middle of sitting exams. Lots of love, Bruce
 
In the summer of 1968 Stuart Piggott invited Chatwin to join him and Ruth Tringham on an official tour of archaeological museums in the Soviet Union. On Sunday 30 June 1968 Andrew Batey drove Chatwin and Piggott to Dover; from Ostend they took a train to Warsaw to meet Tringham – also George Ortiz, whom Chatwin had invited separately. Elizabeth was to join Chatwin for the second part of the journey, through Rumania and the Caucasus. On 3 July, Piggott wrote in his diary that foreign travel was an escape-route clearly for Chatwin, ‘who is running away from himself by travelling’.

To Elizabeth Chatwin

Hotel Orbis Bristol | Warsaw | Poland | [July 1968]
 
Dear E.,
Visit to Warsaw of high fantasy with ambassadorial dinner parties and visits to the Academy. Freedom of movement circumscribed owing to lack of transport. Also our official Soviet invitation came through some two days after the visit was supposed to begin. This may mean we have to scrap our whole programme for the Caucasus/Iran but God alone knows! Could you try and bring with you my compass which is somewhere in my room I think, and failing that can you buy a fairly good one? Can you also bring my copy of Parvan’s Dacia,192 a small green book in my shelves and a map of Rumania. I only hope you’ll be able to come on the Transylvanian jaunt.193 Also remember to put the tent in the car + a small billycan for gas in case you run out.
While enquiring about the Bulgar/Rumanian section in the car can you find out if one can cross the Danube by ferry going due north from Sofia, through Vraca and thus missing out Bucharest. I think the best thing is to miss out Hungary if this is going to be difficult by taking the Yugoslav autobahn from Belgrade to Lyubliana. On looking at Stuart’s map I see that one cannot cross the Danube anywhere else but at Guirgui nr Bucharest.
Love, B

To Elizabeth Chatwin

Hotel Orbis Bristol | Warsaw | Poland | [July 1968]
 
Dear E,
We are faced with a totally Kafka-esque situation. We are now on two tours, one organised by ourselves going Leningrad – Moscow – Kiev and the Caucasus, the other at Ministerial and Ambassadorial level going to Leningrad – Moscow – Suzdal – Siberia and Moldavia with camping equipment and excavation tools provided. Flurries of cables have been exchanged between half the British embassies of E. Europe. Ambassadorial and ministerial receptions and dinner have been arranged. George [Ortiz]194 is arriving tonight and may well be collected from the airport in a Rolls-Royce. How can one explain his Bolivian nationality – as a fellow of Che Guevara? Ruth has apparently lost her passport and the British Council Representative is a collector of Bloomers in the [Eddie] Gaythorne-Hardy manner.
Love B
PS Please try and bring 3 tubes of Dylon – quick wash – excellent! We may now go to Moldavia rather than the Caucasus after all. Will write c/o British School of Archaeology in Athens. Please contact for messages. B
 
Piggott’s group broke up on 20 July, Chatwin heading off to Bucharest. In August he was in Kiev where he watched ‘a squadron of Cossack cavalry exercising down a cobbled street: glossy black horses, scarlet capes, high hats worn at an angle; and the sour resentful faces of the crowd.’ One month later, Russian tanks rolled into Prague. Chatwin by then had joined Elizabeth at the Welches’ house in Spetsai. The invasion of Czechoslovakia and the événements in Paris that summer passed him by, his concentration focused on the Asia House exhibition. On 7 September Piggott wrote in his diary: ‘Bruce rang up on Monday in London; caught night train; breakfasted with me; collected some books he wanted and returned to London by the 10 a.m. Very mad.’ Days afterwards, he flew to New York for a meeting with his fellow curators, Emma Bunker and Ann Farkas.

To Elizabeth Chatwin

1030 Fifth Avenue | New York | [September 1968]
 
Dear E,
Flight at present is fixed for the morning of the 10th approx 8am. But I may have to go to dinner with the Rockinghorses195 the night before and leave from NY rather than Boston. Possibility of massive research grant from Rockerfeller. Asia House Exhibition neither better nor worse than expected. Emmy [Bunker] is fine but listens to not one word. Ann Farkas severe academic, but not unsympathetic. New possibility of exhibition at Museum of Primitive Art to coincide with Asia House.
English invasion in force. Mr Fish,196 Blades, Annacat,197 all up Madison there are slow English drawls. Steph198 decorating Blades. Desmond Guinness,199 David Hicks – Tous. Many parties. Charities etc. Go to Philadelphia tomorrow. Atmosphere very nervous with possibility of vast negro vote for Wallace (!) to precipitate to struggle. Please go to Holland if you feel like it but let me know if you’re going. Otherwise see you sometime on 10 Oct . . .
Dining with Cousin O’D200 this evening at 7.0. Brendan & Ali201 with the Irish Georgians on Tu.
Love B
 
Chatwin—‘a compass without a needle’ as one friend called him at this time – now replaced Piggott with a new guru. Peter Levi, the Jesuit priest and poet whom he had known since Sotheby’s, was teaching in Oxford. Elizabeth says,‘I’d go and wander round the Botanical Gardens with my cat while Bruce and Peter talked in Campion Hall.’ For Chatwin, the thin and handsome Levi was a figure of glamour. Levi said: ‘He thought it a wonderful idea to have all these pads all over the place: a room at Campion Hall; a room in Athens; a room in Eastbourne, where my mother lived. He wanted from me a way of life that was largely in his imagination. He thought my life was some kind of solution: I travelled and I was a writer.’ A main topic of discussion was the introductory essay on nomadic art that Chatwin was contributing to the catalogue for the Asia House exhibition. Levi said: ‘He was then in the process of transforming himself from an archaeologist into a writer and so far as any advice was called for, it was I who advised him to make the change. You write in order to change yourself in my view. He was trying to remake his life and become a writer.’ Another topic was Afghanistan: Levi had been commissioned by Collins to write a travel book on the Greek influence in Afghanistan. He suggested that Chatwin come with him and take the photographs. ‘You can look at nomads and I can look at Greeks.’

To Peter Levi

Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 15 October 1968
 
Dear Peter,
Many thanks for the poems.202 It would have been delightful to think that we might have met up on Saturday but I’m afraid that Edinburgh is calling.
My summer was disastrous too, or rather wasteful. I shall not repeat the experiment of travel in the Soviet Union until there is clear sign of a change. Every plan was frustrated, and I’m afraid that most traditional Russian hospitality is a deep-seated desire to see foreigners drunk. I did manage to see Professor Masson203 under his own table, while reciting a Shakespeare sonnet for the benefit of his wife. It was not worth the supreme effort for I was crippled with a liver attack for days after.204
I am certainly going to Afghanistan next summer, if not before. I refuse to delay it one moment longer in the interests of spurious scholarship in Eastern Europe. I have been to Lahore, but not to Swat. I have every intention to go to Swat, Dir, Chitral (which I know), Hunza and Baltit. In the Lahore Museum there is a suit of leather armour which belonged to a stray Mongol dessicated in the desert of Sind. We could even try to go to Pir-Sar, which Aurel Stein identified with Alexander’s Aornos.
Didn’t you find America in a curious calm? A negro told me that the word was out ‘Vote Wallace! He don’t give you no shit.’ Refugees of 1938 now talk openly of returning to Europe. People discuss when and how the country shall be split. In the Ukraine they talk darkly of big trouble in Lvov, and the Khirgiz virtually push the Muscovites off the pavement. Are the Super-powers superannuated?
I’ll try and come and see you soon. Bruce
 
After attending Andrew Batey’s marriage in Pasadena – ‘Bruce gave me a Mogul dagger with a jade handle as a wedding present (for an exquisite death)’ – Chatwin returned to Edinburgh on 10 October. He had moved out of the Canongate flat in the summer. On 22 October Stuart Piggott wrote in his diary: ‘B now staying at the Abercromby Hotel up the road; madder I think. He and/or his marriage will crack up before long.’
In late November Elizabeth drove up to fetch him – they were flying to America for Thanksgiving. She found Chatwin fed up with having to study Roman Britain, and fed up as well with Piggott, whose attitude towards him, says Elizabeth, had become bizarre to say the least, even frightening. An entry in Chatwin’s notebook, one of several on this theme, attest to his mounting suspicion that ‘most archaeologists interpret the things of the remote past in terms of their own projected suicide’. Elizabeth says, ‘More than once Stuart suggested that the three of us go away and kill ourselves.’
The Chatwins spent Christmas in Geneseo, but Bruce did not reappear in Edinburgh. On 9 January Piggott wrote: ‘Absolutely no news of Bruce Chatwin. He came to me in a great state last term saying he was £6, 000 in debt owing to buying the Glos. house, wouldn’t take money from Elizabeth’s family & simply had to take a job – offered one at £1, 000 a year, one day a week from Christie’s. Shot off to London to investigate & hasn’t been heard of since.’