Loki, agreed, but the goal of the original exercise was not to translate for others, but for yourself, so that while reading a translation you can get a better feel for what the author intended.
For example, consider this seemingly clumsy and muddled couple of sentences from the beginning of Madame Bovary. Translated, they are cumbersome to read:
His legs, in blue stockings, looked out from beneath yellow trousers, drawn tight by braces, He wore stout, ill-cleaned, hob-nailed boots.
But in the original, the rhythm and sound of the words reveal Flaubert's masterful phrasing:
Ses jambes, en bas bleus, sortaient d'un pantalon jaunâtre très tiré par les bretelles. Il était chaussé de souliers forts, mal cirés, garnis de clous.
Also notice that the mot juste for jaunatre is not yellow, but yellowish, to convey a certain disdain. In that paragraph Flaubert describes the poor boy's appearance and clothing as almost clownish: bad haircut, green, black, red, blue and yellow colors, ugly shoes, clothing too tight and small.
On the other hand, consider the absolutely awesome ending of the first part of Proust's Cities of the Plain, where the ironic mockery is dripping from every sentence in the original, and how Moncrieff manages to keep most of it in his translation:
For the two angels who were posted at the gates of Sodom to learn whether its inhabitants (according to Genesis) had indeed done all the things the report of which had ascended to the Eternal Throne must have been, and of this one can only be glad, exceedingly ill chosen by the Lord, Who ought not to have entrusted the task to any but a Sodomite. And he would at once have made them retrace their steps to the city which the rain of fire and brimstone was to destroy. On the contrary, they allowed to escape all the shame-faced Sodomites, even if these, on catching sight of a boy, turned their heads, like Lot’s wife, though without being on that account changed like her into pillars of salt. With the result that they engendered a numerous posterity with whom this gesture has continued to be habitual, like that of the dissolute women who, while apparently studying a row of shoes displayed in a shop window, turn their heads to keep track of a passing student. These descendants of the Sodomites, so numerous that we may apply to them that other verse of Genesis: “If a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered,” have established themselves throughout the entire world; they have had access to every profession and pass so easily into the most exclusive clubs that, whenever a Sodomite fails to secure election, the blackballs are, for the most part, cast by other Sodomites, who are anxious to penalize sodomy, having inherited the falsehood that enabled their ancestors to escape from the accursed city. It is possible that they may return there one day. Certainly they form in every land an Oriental colony, cultured, musical, malicious, which has certain charming qualities and intolerable defects. We shall study them with greater thoroughness in the course of the following pages; but I have thought it as well to utter here a provisional warning against the lamentable error of proposing (just as people have encouraged a Zionist movement) to create a Sodomist movement and to rebuild Sodom. For, no sooner had they arrived there than the Sodomites would leave the town so as not to have the appearance of belonging to it, would take wives, keep mistresses in other cities where they would find, incidentally, every diversion that appealed to them. They would repair to Sodom only on days of supreme necessity, when their own town was empty, at those seasons when hunger drives the wolf from the woods; in other words, everything would go on very much as it does to-day in London, Berlin, Rome, Petrograd or Paris.
Anyhow, on the day in question, before paying my call on the Duchess, I did not look so far ahead, and I was distressed to find that I had, by my engrossment in the Jupien-Charlus conjunction, missed perhaps an opportunity of witnessing the fertilization of the blossom by the bee.
Car les deux anges qui avaient été placés aux portes de Sodome pour savoir si ses habitants, dit la Genèse, avaient entièrement fait toutes ces choses dont le cri était monté jusqu’à l’Éternel, avaient été, on ne peut que s’en réjouir, très mal choisis par le Seigneur, lequel n’eût dû confier la tâche qu’à un Sodomiste. Et il leur aurait immédiatement fait rebrousser chemin vers la ville qu’allait détruire la pluie de feu et de soufre.
Au contraire, on laissa s’enfuir tous les Sodomistes honteux, même si, apercevant un jeune garçon, ils détournaient la tête, comme la femme de Loth, sans être pour cela changés comme elle en statues de sel. De sorte qu’ils eurent une nombreuse postérité chez qui ce geste est resté habituel, pareil à celui des femmes débauchées qui, en ayant l’air de regarder un étalage de chaussures placées derrière une vitrine, retournent la tête vers un étudiant. Ces descendants des Sodomistes, si nombreux qu’on peut leur appliquer l’autre verset de la Genèse: «Si quelqu’un peut compter la poussière de la terre, il pourra aussi compter cette postérité», se sont fixés sur toute la terre, ils ont eu accès à toutes les professions, et entrent si bien dans les clubs les plus fermés que, quand un sodomiste n’y est pas admis, les boules noires y sont en majorité celles de sodomistes, mais qui ont soin d’incriminer la sodomie, ayant hérité le mensonge qui permit à leurs ancêtres de quitter la ville maudite. Il est possible qu’ils y retournent un jour. Certes ils forment dans tous les pays une colonie orientale, cultivée, musicienne, médisante, qui a des qualités charmantes et d’insupportables défauts. On les verra d’une façon plus approfondie au cours des pages qui suivront; mais on a voulu provisoirement prévenir l’erreur funeste qui consisterait, de même qu’on a encouragé un mouvement sioniste, à créer un mouvement sodomiste et à rebâtir Sodome. Or, à peine arrivés, les sodomistes quitteraient la ville pour ne pas avoir l’air d’en être, prendraient femme, entretiendraient des maîtresses dans d’autres cités, où ils trouveraient d’ailleurs toutes les distractions convenables. Ils n’iraient à Sodome que les jours de suprême nécessité, quand leur ville serait vide, par ces temps où la faim fait sortir le loup du bois, c’est-à-dire que tout se passerait en somme comme à Londres, à Berlin, à Rome, à Pétrograd ou à Paris.
En tout cas, ce jour-là, avant ma visite à la duchesse, je ne songeais pas si loin et j’étais désolé d’avoir, par attention à la conjonction Jupien–Charlus, manqué peut-être de voir la fécondation de la fleur par le bourdon.
In both cases, good and bad translations, it pays to do some validation of your own. Caveat lector, and all that.
