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Translate a sentence from French to English


Effie

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Hello,

 

Could you please help me translate the following sentence into English:

Voici une terrible causerie, ma chère enfant; il y a trois heures que je suis ici. - This is the first sentence of a very well-known letter by M-me de Sevigne. I cannot figure out what is the actual meaning of this phrase: Voici une terrible causerie... 

Voici une terrible causerie - it cannot be a "Here is a terrible conversation/talk..." It makes no sense. Is there another meaning of the word "causerie" ?

In the English translation of this letter the translator simply omitted these words, could not make sense of them either, I guess.

How would you translate this sentence?

Thank you for your help.

 

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In literary critical terms causerie could refer to a piece of writing so I think it would make sense if this person then shows this piece of writing to the reader; in this case the writer wants the reader to know about an informal or conversational piece of writing that is terrible.

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