BHL – Letter to a Russian friend

JI came back from Odessa.

In this city so Slavic and so Francophile, founded by a French governor and by a tsarina fond of philosophy, in this city, basically, so Ukrainian, so Russian and where the writer that I am felt a little less close , for once, from the Malaparte of Kaputt than Romain Gary d’European Education, I haven’t stopped thinking about you.

I think of what you must think, over there, in Russia, of this unleashing of savagery.

I am thinking of this nightmare in which a new tsar, who for twenty years has only been able to reign by war, has precipitated the Ukrainians who were bombarded, massacred, promised to annihilation, but also, to a lesser extent, the friends of freedom in Russia.

I am thinking of your sons, grandsons, cousins, these new Chvéïk soldiers to whom we are acquainted…

Illustration: dusault for “the point”