| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 13 October 1885 |
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 13 October 1885
My dear Laura,
I return you by this post the first ten leaflets of the Manifest4*4 — I was compelled to break off, firstly because it is 5 o'clock and secondly because there is a lacune of considerable extent which I cannot fill up. Paul I hope will send me what is wanting at once, and I will return it if possible same day. For I see now that it will not take me long. To tell you the truth, a translation of the Manifest always frightens me — it reminds me of weary hours spent in vain on that most untranslatable of documents. But you have hit the nail on the head. There are only two passages where you evidently were interrupted and did not catch the exact meaning. Otherwise the work is excellently done, and for the first time the pamphlet will appear in French in a form that we can be proud of and that will give the reader an idea of what the original is. As you go on towards the end, practice will make you still more perfect, and you will more and more, not translate, but reproduce in the other language. You will therefore take my notes — where the meaning is not in question — as mere suggestions on the value of which you will have to decide. I am so out of practice in speaking and writing French that positively an hour's chat with Johnny[1] acts upon me as a refresher upon a German Counsel, and really revives my capacity of thinking in French more than ever I should have dreamt.
I am glad indeed that you have taken this job in hand; that you would succeed if you once put your shoulder to the wheel, I never doubted, but I am glad to read the thing done. Now we have got you in harness and will do our best to keep you in it. It will be of infinite use to the movement in France, for you may be sure the learning of German will not make much progress for some time amongst them, and even those that do learn it, learn it like schoolboys and without perhaps ever speaking to a native. Poor Fortin's translation[2] do give me trouble enough — the German words are mere skeletons to him, no flesh and blood — how can he reproduce them in French! And Mohr's vigorous German too!
Well here's to your health and success, after the Manifest anything you may tackle will appear child's play!
Dinner bell — so good-bye,
Yours ever,
F.E.