The two versions of Flaubert’s Un coeur simple, both signed by writer and translator Lalla Romano, prompt a reflection on a practice which lies in the hybrid space between revision and retranslation. Mainly due to extratextual reasons, two often conflicting dynamics emerge from Romano’s interventions in the text and in the paratexts: the tendency to get closer to the source text and, at the same time, the translator’s unusual independence from its stylistic features.