On: Zelensky proposes face-to-face talks in open letter to Putin

Things that are hateful: a letter that must be written. An invitation extended to one who has already broken every gate. The proposal of a meeting between the fox and the hen, after the coop is already splintered and stained.

I read of this open letter, this call for “direct engagement.” The very phrase is like a robe of thick, unpatterned hemp - coarse and without grace. To speak of engagement when the engagement has been, for years, the grinding of stone upon bone! It is the hateful thing: to perform the ritual of diplomacy when the other has long since scattered the incense and overturned the altar. The form is observed, but the spirit is a corpse.

One imagines the document itself. Was it on fine paper? Was the ink well-ground? Such details would be wasted. A letter to a man who reads landscapes as targets, and cities as kindling, is like offering a perfect plum to one whose mouth is full of ashes. The gesture is elegant, but its destination makes it pathetic.

And the report says the other great power is now looking elsewhere, toward another fire. This, too, is hateful. It has the air of a courtier who, bored with one tragedy, turns to watch a different play, letting the first act bleed on unattended.

Things that make the heart sink: a noble gesture made into a public spectacle because all private avenues are choked with rubble. The most elegant words, when flung against a wall of sheer contempt, become merely sad. One should not have to propose a conversation. One should be able to hear the reply to one’s first, and quietest, question. That silence is the only answer that matters, and it is the most hateful thing of all.