Letter from Bruce Chatwin, Aubenas-les-Alpes, France, to James Ivory, London, England, 1971 August 12 : typescript signed.

Recounting in detail an odd scenario involving "one puffy public school master followed by three of the most exqusitely dressed and pretty and flirtatious boys" stopping at various government agencies in Afghanistan; thinking it was "very funny" and "worth a filum [sic]"; telling Ivory that "My mind has been on my book," and he is "now lurching into the final chapter"; announcing that "She THE FINANCIAL MASTER-MIND whose mind only works in terms of the Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh [i.e. Chatwin's wife Elizabeth] says you owe HER not me, the sum of 128 dollars-- what a hideous expense that tiddly little car was"; asking Ivory to send the money to Elizabeth at Holwell Farm; saying the house he is staying in in France "is now filled at night with little black flies that you can neither see nor here [sic]."