Dear Sir David Eckett:
At this moment, as I pick up my pen, the blizzard outside is pelting the windows with grains of Baltic sea salt, but compared to the smoke rising between the Caucasus Mountains, this northern cold is merely a child's whimper. A few days ago, when I read the sketch you enclosed with your letter depicting the destruction of a Chechnya village, the figures huddled on scorched earth, the baby swaddles hanging amid the broken walls, my silver inkstand was even cracked by a drop of hot sealing wax.
God bears witness, even in the hellish landscapes depicted by Dante, I have never seen a tragedy more gut-wrenching.
