Under the Sun by Bruce Chatwin Page B

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
    Â 
    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
    Â 
    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
    Â 
    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 Burnley 110 .
    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. Dagger 111 must wait till I’ve had a proper search. Am telling F.N. 112 to keep Lloyd Williams 113 informed.
    6. Suggest 6x6 square tiles, not the octagonal ones as they’ll look a bit corny 114 .
    Am seeing Eddie’s 115 friend Peter Davis 116 today after beagling (!) with Bill Spink 117 . 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]
    Â 
    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