Mort par correspondance

**Extrait**

Daniella, tr es digne, et toute de noir vetue, est installee au premier rang
de l'assemblee. Elle a atrocement mal aux pieds.
Le pretre a ete un peu long dans l'eloge de feu son mari, et elle examine
depuis un moment, mais fort discretement, les details des vitraux de la petite
chapelle. L'inevitable Christ en croix, immense, disproportionne, juste au-
dessus de l'autel. Les apotres. Les martyrs. Les saints.
À sa droite, Jean-Patrick est assis, incroyablement raide, jambes croisees,
machoire serree. Il a les yeux secs. À sa gauche, Nina, generalement si
maitresse d'elle-meme, est, depuis le debut de la ceremonie, secouee de
sanglots. Elle etait tellement plus proche de Roland que son frere cadet… Pere
et fille cultivaient une complicite qui avait toujours laisse Daniella
pantoise : en compagnie de cette enfant qui lui ressemblait tant, Roland, si
formel, si raisonnable, si engonce dans sa petite vie rangee, devenait un
autre homme, detendu et souriant. Il etait soudain volubile, enthousiaste
meme.

Full of dignity and dressed entirely in black, Daniella was sitting in the
front row of the congregation. Her feet were killing her.
The minister had rather overextended her defunct husband's eulogy and, for a
while, she had been examining intently, albeit discreetly, the details on the
chapel's windows. The inevitable Christ on the Cross, so large and out of
proportion, just above the altar. The apostles. The martyrs. The saints.
Jean-Patrick, sitting bolt upright, with crossed legs, his jaw firmly set was
sitting to her right. His eyes were dry. To his left, Nina, who usually had so
much self-control, had been sobbing her heart out ever since the ceremony had
started. She was so much closer to Roland than her younger brother... Father
and daughter had developed a complicity which had always amazed Daniella: when
he was with that child who looked so like him, Roland, usually so formal, so
reasonable, so wrapped up in that cosy little life of his, would become a
different man: relaxed and smiling. Suddenly, he would become very talkative,
even enthusiastic.