Under the Sun (16 page)

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 Chardin
¹⁸²
which is totally concealed from view.

Love, Bruce

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 Murray
¹⁸³
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 mine
¹⁸⁴
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 Murray
¹⁸⁵
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

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 Brown
¹⁸⁷
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.

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

 

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 Safani
¹⁸⁹
offered me 100,000 dollars a year.

Forgive the ranting.

Love B

 

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

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

 

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

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.