Good translators approach their work in all sorts of different ways. They have egos as big as successful people in any other arena, but the ones I respect are keenly aware of the difference between creativity and appropriation. They might see their work as akin to a curator’s, a librarian’s or a publisher’s. To such people works of art are entrusted — and part of that trust is that they do not alter the objects in their care with inappropriate intrusions of their own personality. There is no little art in mounting the successful museum show, but one would be rightly appalled to find the curator touching up the Rembrandts.