An essayist and translator, invited to contribute an idea regarding the act of translation to a contemporary psychoanalytic journal, reflects on the relationship between the original text being translated and the translator’s capacity for understanding and interpretation. As the essay unfolds, she compares the original text to an immutable truth, the translation to a telescope, and the translator to the person looking through the telescope reporting on what she sees. The reflection presents several possible analogies to the interpretive work of psychoanalysis.