Mort par correspondance (EDITION BILINGUE FRANCAIS/ANGLAIS)

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Daniella, très digne, et toute de noir vêtue, est installée au premier rang de l’assemblée. Elle a atrocement mal aux pieds.
Le prêtre a été un peu long dans l’éloge de feu son mari, et elle examine depuis un moment, mais fort discrètement, les détails des vitraux de la petite chapelle. L’inévitable Christ en croix, immense, disproportionné, juste au-dessus de l’autel. Les apôtres. Les martyrs. Les saints.
À sa droite, Jean-Patrick est assis, incroyablement raide, jambes croisées, mâchoire serrée. Il a les yeux secs. À sa gauche, Nina, généralement si maîtresse d’elle-même, est, depuis le début de la cérémonie, secouée de sanglots. Elle était tellement plus proche de Roland que son frère cadet… Père et fille cultivaient une complicité qui avait toujours laissé Daniella pantoise : en compagnie de cette enfant qui lui ressemblait tant, Roland, si formel, si raisonnable, si engoncé dans sa petite vie rangée, devenait un autre homme, détendu et souriant. Il était soudain volubile, enthousiaste même.
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. Read more Close