The sentence I finally translated at 3 a.m.

I was staring at a paragraph from a draft of a peace treaty — not the kind with signatures, but the kind that lives in footnotes and unspoken agreements. The original was in French, clipped, dry as old paper. I kept rewriting the same sentence: 'Il n’est pas dit que la paix soit durable, mais elle est possible.' At first I rendered it as 'It is not said that peace is lasting, but it is possible' — too literal, too stiff. Then I tried 'Peace isn’t guaranteed, but it’s within reach' — closer, but lost something. At 3:07 a.m., I settled on: 'No one promises peace will last, but it can happen.' It