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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017948508
ISBN 978-1-119-40569-6 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-40574-0 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-40573-3 (ebk)
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Part 2: Being Agile
CHAPTER 6: Agile Behaviors in Action
Part 3: Agile Planning and Execution
CHAPTER 7: Defining the Product Vision and Product Roadmap
CHAPTER 8: Planning Releases and Sprints
CHAPTER 9: Working throughout the Day
CHAPTER 10: Showcasing Work, Inspecting, and Adapting
CHAPTER 11: Preparing for Release
Part 4: Agile Management
Managing
Part 5: Ensuring Agile Success
Part 6: The Part of Tens
Step 4: Finalizing
PART 5: ENSURING AGILE SUCCESS
Step 1: Conduct an implementation strategy with success metrics
2: Build
Step 3: Form a transformation team and identify a pilot
Step 4: Build an environment for success
Step 5: Train sufficiently and recruit as needed
Step 6: Kick off the pilot with active coaching
Step 7: Execute the Roadmap to Value
Step 8: Gather feedback and improve
Step 9: Mature and solidify improvements
Step 10: Progressively expand within the organization
Avoiding Pitfalls
Introduction
Welcome to Agile Project Management For Dummies. Agile project management has grown to be as common as any management technique in business today. Over the past decade and a half, we have trained and coached companies big and small, all over the world, about how to successfully run agile projects. Through this work, we found that there was a need to write a digestible guide that the average person could understand and use.
In this book, we will clear up some of the myths about what agile project management is and what it is not. The information in this book will give you the confidence to know you can be successful using agile techniques.
About This Book
Agile Project Management For Dummies, 2nd Edition is more than just an introduction to agile practices and methodologies; you also discover the steps to execute agile techniques on a project. The material here goes beyond theory and is meant to be a field manual, accessible to the everyday person, giving you the tools and information you need to be successful with agile processes in the trenches of project management.
Foolish Assumptions
Because you’re reading this book, you might have a passing familiarity with project management. Perhaps you are a project manager, a member of a project team, or a stakeholder on a project. Or perhaps you don’t have experience with formal project management approaches but are looking for a solution now. You may even have heard the term agile and want to know more. Or you might already be part of a project team that’s trying to be more agile.
Regardless of your experience or level of familiarity, this book provides insights you may find interesting. If nothing else, we hope it brings clarity to any confusion or myths regarding agile project management you may have encountered.
Icons Used in This Book
Throughout this book, you’ll find the following icons.
Tips are points to help you along your agile project management journey. Tips can save you time and help you quickly understand a particular topic, so when you see them, take a look!
The Remember icon is a reminder of something you may have seen in past chapters. It also may be a reminder of a commonsense principle that is easily forgotten. These icons can help jog your memory when an important term or concept appears.
The Warning icon indicates that you want to watch out for a certain action or behavior. Be sure to read these to steer clear of big problems!
The Technical Stuff icon indicates information that is interesting but not essential to the text. If you see a Technical Stuff icon, you don’t need to read it to understand agile project management, but the information there might just pique your interest.
On the Web means that you can find more information on the book’s website at www.dummies.com/go/agileprojectmanagementfd2e.
Beyond the Book
Although this book broadly covers the agile project management spectrum, we can cover only so much in a set number of pages! If you find yourself at the end of this book thinking, “This was an amazing book! Where can I learn more about how to advance my projects under an agile approach?” check out Chapter 22 or head over to www.dummies.com for more resources.
We’ve provided a cheat sheet for tips on assessing your current projects in relation to agile principles and free tools for managing projects using agile techniques. To get to the cheat sheet, go to www.dummies.com, and then type Agile Project Management For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box. This is also where you’ll find any significant updates or changes that occur between editions of this book.
Where to Go from Here
We wrote this book so that you could read it in just about any order. Depending on your role, you may want to pay extra attention to the appropriate sections of the book. For example:
» If you’re just starting to learn about project management and agile approaches, start with Chapter 1 and read the book straight through to the end.
» If you are a member of a project team and want to know the basics of how to work on an agile project, check out the information in Part 3 (Chapters 7 through 11).
» If you are a project manager and are wondering how agile approaches affect your job, review Part 4 (Chapters 12 through 15).
» If you know the basics of agile project management and are looking at bringing agile practices to your company or scaling agile practices across your organization, Part 5 (Chapters 16 through 18) provides you with helpful information.
1 Understanding Agile
IN THIS PART . . .
Understand why project management needs to modernize due to the flaws and weaknesses in historical approaches to project management.
Find out why agile methods are growing as an alternative to traditional project management, and become acquainted with the foundation of agile project management: the Agile Manifesto and the 12 Agile Principles.
Discover the advantages that your products, projects, teams, customers, and organization can gain from adopting agile project management processes and techniques.
» Understanding why project management needs to change
» Finding out about agile project management
Chapter 1
Modernizing Project Management
Agile project management is a style of project management that focuses on early delivery of business value, continuous improvement of the project’s product and processes, scope flexibility, team input, and delivering welltested products that reflect customer needs.
In this chapter, you find out why agile processes emerged as an approach to software development project management in the mid-1990s and why agile methodologies have caught the attention of project managers, customers who invest in the development of new software, and executives whose companies fund software development departments. This chapter also explains the advantages of agile methodologies over long-standing approaches to project management.
Project Management Needed a Makeover
A project is a planned program of work that requires a definitive amount of time, effort, and planning to complete. Projects have goals and objectives and often must be completed in some fixed period of time and within a certain budget.
Because you are reading this book, it’s likely that you are either a project manager or someone who initiates projects, works on projects, or is affected by projects in some way.
Agile approaches are a response to the need to modernize project management. To understand how agile approaches are revolutionizing projects, it helps to know a little about the history and purpose of project management and the issues that projects face today.
The origins of modern project management
Projects have been around since ancient times. From the Great Wall of China to the Mayan pyramids at Tikal, from the invention of the printing press to the invention of the Internet, people have accomplished endeavors big and small in projects.
As a formal discipline, project management as we know it has only been around since the middle of the twentieth century. Around the time of World War II, researchers around the world were making major advances in building and programming computers, mostly for the United States military. To complete those projects, they started creating formal project management processes. The first processes were based on step-by-step manufacturing models the United States military used during World War II.
People in the computing field adopted these step-based manufacturing processes because early computer-related projects relied heavily on hardware, with computers that filled up entire rooms. Software, by contrast, was a smaller part of computer projects. In the 1940s and 1950s, computers might have thousands of physical vacuum tubes but fewer than 30 lines of programming code. The 1940s manufacturing process used on these initial computers is the foundation of the project management methodology known as waterfall.
In 1970, a computer scientist named Winston Royce wrote “Managing the Development of Large Software Systems,” an article for the IEEE that described the phases in the waterfall methodology. The term waterfall was coined later, but the phases, even if they are sometimes titled differently, are essentially the same as originally defined by Royce:
1. Requirements
2. Design
3. Development
4. Integration
5. Testing
6. Deployment
On waterfall projects, you move to the next phase only when the prior one is complete — hence, the name waterfall.
Pure waterfall project management — completing each step in full before moving to the next step — is actually a misinterpretation of Royce’s suggestions. Royce identified that this approach was inherently risky and recommended developing and testing within iterations to create products — suggestions that were overlooked by many organizations that adopted the waterfall methodology.
SOFTWARE PROJECT SUCCESS AND FAILURE
Unfortunately, the stagnation in traditional project management approaches is catching up with the software industry. In 2015, a software statistical company called the Standish Group did a study on the success and failure rates of 10,000 projects in the US. The results of the study showed that
• 29 percent of traditional projects failed outright. The projects were cancelled before they finished and did not result in any product releases. These projects delivered no value whatsoever.
• 60 percent of traditional projects were challenged. The projects were completed, but they had gaps between expected and actual cost, time, quality, or a combination of these elements. The average difference between the expected and actual project results — looking at time, cost, and features not delivered — was well over 100 percent.
• 11 percent of projects succeeded. The projects were completed and delivered the expected product in the originally expected time and budget.
Of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on application development projects in the US alone, billions of dollars were wasted on projects that never deployed a single piece of functionality.
The waterfall methodology was the most common project management approach in software development until it was surpassed by improved approaches based on agile techniques around 2008.
The problem with the status quo
Computer technology has, of course, changed a great deal since the last century. Many people have a computer on their wrist with more power, memory, and capabilities than the largest, most expensive machine that existed when people first started using waterfall methodologies.
At the same time, the people using computers have changed as well. Instead of creating behemoth machines with minimal programs for a few researchers and the military, people create hardware and software for the general public. In many countries, almost everyone uses a computer, directly or indirectly, every day. Software runs our cars, our appliances, our homes; it provides our daily information and daily entertainment. Even young children use computers — a 2-year-old is almost more adept with the iPhone than her parents. The demand for newer, better software products is constant.
Somehow, during all this growth of technology, processes were not left behind. Software developers are still using project management methodologies from the 1950s, and all these approaches were derived from manufacturing processes meant for the hardware-heavy computers of the mid-twentieth century.
Today, traditional projects that do succeed often suffer from one problem: scope bloat, the introduction of unnecessary product features in a project.
Think about the software products you use every day. For example, the wordprocessing program we’re typing on right now has many features and tools. Even though we write with this program every day, we use only some of the features all the time. We use other elements less frequently. And we have never used quite a few tools — and come to think of it, we don’t know anyone else who has used them, either. The features that few people use are the result of scope bloat.
Scope bloat appears in all kinds of software, from complex enterprise applications to websites that everyone uses. Figure 1-1 shows data from a Standish Group study that illustrates just how common scope bloat is. In the figure, you can see that 64 percent of requested features are rarely or never used.
The numbers in Figure 1-1 illustrate an enormous waste of time and money. That waste is a direct result of traditional project management processes that are unable to accommodate change. Project managers and stakeholders know that change is not welcome mid-project, so their best chance of getting a potentially desirable feature is at the start of a project. Therefore, they ask for
FIGURE 1-1:
Actual use of requested software features.
Copyright 2011 Standish Group
» Everything they need
» Everything they think they may need
» Everything they want
» Everything they think they may want
The result is the bloat in features that results in the statistics in Figure 1-1.
The problems associated with using outdated management and development approaches are not trivial. These problems waste billions of dollars a year. The billions of dollars lost in project failure in 2015 (see the sidebar, “Software project success and failure”) could equate to millions of jobs around the world.
Over the past two decades, people working on projects have recognized the growing problems with traditional project management and have been working to create a better model: agile project management.
Introducing Agile Project Management
The seeds for agile techniques have been around for a long time. In fact, agile values, principles, and practices are simply a codification of common sense. Figure 1-2 shows a quick history of agile project management, dating to the 1930s with Walter Sherwart’s Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) approach to project quality.
Agile project management timeline.
FIGURE 1-2:
In 1986, Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka published an article called “New New Product Development Game” in the Harvard Business Review. Takeuchi and Nonaka’s article described a rapid, flexible development strategy to meet fastpaced product demands. This article first paired the term scrum with product development. (Scrum originally referred to a player formation in rugby.) Scrum eventually became one of the most popular agile project management frameworks.
In 2001, a group of software and project experts got together to talk about what their successful projects had in common. This group created the Agile Manifesto, a statement of values for successful software development:
Manifesto for Agile Software Development*
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
These experts also created the Principles behind the Agile Manifesto, 12 practices that help support the values in the Agile Manifesto. We list the Agile Principles and describe the Agile Manifesto in more detail in Chapter 2.
Agile, in product development terms, is a descriptor for project management approaches that focus on people, communications, the product, and flexibility. If you’re looking for the agile methodology, you won’t find it. However, all agile methodologies (for example, crystal), frameworks (for example, scrum), techniques (for example, user story requirements), and tools (for example, relative estimating) have one thing in common: adherence to the Agile Manifesto and the 12 Agile Principles.
How agile projects work
Agile approaches are based on an empirical control method — a process of making decisions based on the realities observed in the project. In the context of software development methodologies, an empirical approach can be effective in both new
product development and enhancement and upgrade projects. By using frequent and firsthand inspection of the work to date, you can make immediate adjustments, if necessary. Empirical control requires
» Unfettered transparency: Everyone involved in an agile project knows what is going on and how the project is progressing.
» Frequent inspection: The people who are invested in the product and process the most regularly evaluate the product and process.
» Immediate adaptation: Adjustments are made quickly to minimize problems; if an inspection shows that something should change, it is changed immediately.
To accommodate frequent inspection and immediate adaptation, agile projects work in iterations (smaller segments of the overall project). An agile project involves the same type of work as in a traditional waterfall project: You create requirements and designs, develop the product, document it, and if necessary, integrate the product with other products. You test the product, fix any problems, and deploy it for use. However, instead of completing these steps for all product features at once, as in a waterfall project, you break the project into iterations, also called sprints.
Figure 1-3 shows the difference between a linear waterfall project and an agile project.
Mixing traditional project management methods with agile approaches is like saying, “I have a Porsche 911 Turbo. However, I’m using a wagon wheel on the front left side. How can I make my car as fast as the other Porsches?” The answer, of course, is you can’t. If you fully commit to an agile approach, you will have a better chance of project success.
Why agile projects work better
Throughout this book, you see how agile projects work better than traditional projects. Agile project management approaches can produce more successful projects. The Standish Group study, mentioned in the sidebar “Software project success and failure,” found that while 29 percent of traditional projects failed outright, that number dropped to only 9 percent on agile projects. The decrease in failure for agile projects is a result of agile project teams making immediate adaptations based on frequent inspections of progress and customer satisfaction.
CHAPTER
FIGURE 1-3: Waterfall versus agile project.
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
On eût dit que le père Oursel l’attendait car il ne parut pas étonné mais s’arrêta seulement.
Il portait un ancien complet redingote de drap noir de M. Le Brument, vaguement remis à sa taille, et un chapeau haut de forme aux poils rougeâtres. Le long repas et la beuverie ne semblaient point avoir entamé sa sobriété coutumière, car aucun indice ne le montrait ivre ou seulement excité comme les autres convives de la journée.
Quelque chose, pourtant, était différent en lui sans qu’elle pût le définir. Et, tout à coup, elle s’aperçut qu’il la regardait, ce qu’il n’accordait d’habitude à aucun être humain, et que c’était son regard inconnu qui le changeait ainsi.
Quittant le sentier, il s’approcha d’elle, et ils entrèrent sous le pommier qui faisait une tonnelle fleurie et secrète.
Fanny le considérait avec étonnement. Il était si nouveau de voir le vieux domestique rechercher la société! Et puis ses yeux, ses yeux qui la regardaient et dont, vraiment, elle ne connaissait ni la couleur, un brun de noisette comme ceux de certains chiens, ni le regard pareil aussi à celui d’un compagnon humble et fervent. Et elle ne savait que dire. Enfin, gênée par le silence, elle prononça des mots quelconques:
—Te voilà bien beau, père Oursel.
Le tutoiement de son enfance lui revenait sans qu’elle sût pourquoi, car les sœurs l’avaient abandonné depuis longtemps.
Le vieux la regardait parler. Sa surdité intermittente devait être plus forte ce soir. Et sa voix rocailleuse de taciturne prononça:
—Une commission qu’j’ai pour vous.
Elle répéta, surprise:
—Une commission?
Le vieux haletait un peu comme quelqu’un qui a marché vite. Ses souliers étaient blancs de poussière.
—C’en est une journée, ça! dit-il.
Elle vit bien qu’entre son humeur et son infirmité elle n’obtiendrait rien de plein gré. Et elle hocha la tête sans rien dire.
Après tout, Silas ne pouvait pas être là avant une demi-heure encore et une diversion l’aiderait à passez le temps. Le vieux reprit:
—Ça r’mue tout. Les choses d’autrefois. Longtemps que j’suis chez vous! Il y aura vingt-huit ans le 10 de juin.
Il s’arrêta comme pour laisser à ces paroles importantes le temps de se fixer. Fanny étonnée, répéta:
—Vingt-huit ans, c’est vrai!
Il la comprit aussitôt, cette fois.
—Et quatre-vingts qu’ j’ai eus le vingt-quatre de décembre, la veille de Noël.
Il répéta:
—La veille de «Nouël».
—Quatre-vingts ans, s’écria Fanny. Est-ce bien sûr, mon père Oursel?
Vingt-cinq minutes encore la séparaient du moment où définitivement, elle allait orienter sa vie, et cette chose passée, sans but, l’âge du vieux domestique, était capable d’absorber son intérêt. Un peu de l’ironie de cela l’effleura fugitivement, comme un de ces souffles de la mer qui venaient, par instants, mourir auprès d’eux en effeuillant toute une branche fleurie.
Le bonhomme marmotta:
—Quatre-vingt-un que j’aurai à «Nouël» prochain, si j’ suis encore là.
Il s’arrêta comme pour trouver une transition et reprit:
—Défunt maît’ Alfred Bernage, il aurait quatre-vingt-cinq, lui. Quand il m’a pris, il en avait cinquante-sept. Et il est mort deux ans après, le huit de novembre.
Perdue sous ces nombres, Fanny opinait vaguement, songeant: «C’est pas possible, c’est le cidre!»
Il continua:
—Après mon accident à la fabrique qu’il m’a pris. A cinquante-trois, on n’est plus bon à rien. «A la maison, qu’il a dit, allez, mon père Oursel, tu n’as personne, viens-t’en chez moi.» Ça s’appelle la charité, ça; la charité chrétienne.
Stupéfaite, Fanny l’écoutait. On ne parlait jamais de ces choses du passé chez elles. L’avait-elle su?
Elle dit d’une voix songeuse:
—Je me rappelle pas...
Il eut une espèce de sourire.
—La mère ne voulait pas. L’accident c’était de sa faute. Elle avait voulu qu’on me mette là, à la «chauffe».
Il montra son côté où, sans doute, une vieille cicatrice se cachait.
—J’y en veux pas. Mais lui, l’père, c’était un homme, un homme du temps jadis. Cette journée-là, j’ai dit comme ça: «Oursel, tu le r’payeras en une fois.»
Sans transition, le temps, seulement, de respirer, il ajouta:
—Faut pas partir, Fanny.
Elle recula, hors d’elle, par un étonnement qui, vraiment, passait toute mesure. Et aucune parole ne lui vint qui pût la traduire.
Le taciturne continuait:
—Quand le malheur est arrivé.
Il vit qu’elle formulait:
—Tu l’as su?
Ses yeux de bon chien firent «oui», et il continua:
—J’ai rien dit. Y’ avait pas moyen. C’était quand t’es partie en voyage avec ta mère. Il était trop tard. Et puis moi, qu’est-ce que c’est? moi qu’a seulement pas pu t’défendre. Il s’interrompit un instant, comme oppressé par ce souvenir.
Et puis, il reprit:
—Mais j’ai bien vu tout sur ta pauv’figure de tourment.
«Et pi, j’ai pu rien su, jusqu’au jour où il est arrivé, lui, le gars. Ton portrait qu’il a sur les épaules.»
Tous ces mots, tous ces mots qu’il savait! L’étonnement démesuré de Fanny se heurtait autant à ceci qu’à la découverte soudaine des intelligences cachées qu’il possédait de toute sa vie secrète. Ainsi toujours, toujours, ce bonhomme sans importance les avait jugées! Cela la gênait d’une singulière façon nouvelle pour ce passé. Et cet étonnement et cette gêne l’empêchaient de trouver les paroles qu’il aurait fallu pour l’arrêter ou le faire continuer. Mais il semblait au delà des interruptions et des encouragements et il continua:
—Les v’là mariés tous les deux qui t’ont fait tant de mal. Et faut pas leur céder la place! T’es chez toi! Restes-y. T’as pas besoin d’en prendre un que tu ne connais pas pour te commander.
Elle cria presque:
—Comment! vous saviez ça aussi?
—Et pi, écoute-moi, comme si c’était l’père Bernage qui t’parle. T’en va pas; y a pas un homme qui vaut la peine qu’une fille comme toi se mette folle de son corps.
Peu à peu, elle se montait au diapason de l’étrange et passionné monologue du taciturne. Et elle dit:
—Si, il m’aime, lui!
Il secoua sa tête que le haut de forme couronnait singulièrement. Et, comme si, abandonnant un argument, il en prenait un autre, il prononça avec une espèce d’autorité:
—A c’t’heure, y’a pu qu’ toi d’ Bernage sur leur bien. Faut y rester. Qui qu’ tu ferais sur les routes, quand t’as ta place, et ta maison, et ton bien?
Reste, ma Fanny.
Elle dit, moins assurée déjà:
—Non, personne n’a besoin de moi, personne ne m’aime ici.
Le vieux suivait attentivement les paroles sur ses lèvres.
—Y en aura qu’auront besoin de toi. T’en feras des gars comme ton père, des enfants à Berthe. Des bons huguenots. Y’en a pas d’aut’ que toi qui peuvent faire ça.
Il touchait juste, cette fois. Elle balbutia:
—Des pauvres enfants sans nom...
—Il est «dit Malandain»; il sera «dit Bernage», c’est bien de révisé!
Eblouie, elle répéta:
—Bernage, tu crois?
Le jour baissait sous le pommier. Elle mit sa tête dans ses mains pour réfléchir. Et tous les raisonnements se détachèrent d’elle encore une fois.
—Il va m’attendre. Il faut que j’y aille.
Mais le vieillard lui barra le chemin fleuri des branches traînantes.
—Non, ma Fanny, y va pas!
Cette résistance lui parut surnaturelle. Et une illumination subite de son esprit lui fit soudain comprendre. C’était un chagrin qu’il voulait lui éviter! Et elle cria:
—Vous l’avez vu! Tu l’as vu. C’était ça, ta commission?
Il ne répondit rien. Mais ses yeux de chien dévoué disaient dans la pénombre verte: «Frappe! Frappe!»
Alors, accrochée aux détails infimes comme tous ceux qui ont à découvrir la vérité, elle questionna, éperdue:
—Mais quand l’as-tu vu?
—C’t’après-midi. J’ai parti après la soupe.
—Comment! comment! Tu es allé et revenu, tout ce chemin, comme ça. Mais pourquoi?
Comme il ne répondait pas, elle reprit, plus directe, cette fois, par nécessité:
—Et qu’est-ce que tu lui as dit?
—J’y ai dit: «Quittez-la, vous lui feriez encore du mal. Quittez-la.»
Elle resta muette devant la grandeur totale des simples mots qui résumaient si parfaitement les circonstances.
—Et qu’est-ce qu’il a répondu?
—Rien. Il m’écoutait bien honnêtement, avec un air de penser en luimême.
Le vieillard fit une pause et continua:
«—Je y’ai dit: «C’est-il pour l’mariage?» Il m’a dit: «A’ n’ veut pas. Y’ a le mauvais gars qui lui ferait honte, si a’ m’ prenait.» Alors, j’y ai dit: «C’est la pure vérité, vous n’ mentez point, il la mettrait plus bas qu’ la terre, aussitte que c’est sa mère. Mais si c’est pas pour l’ mariage, ça n’ se peut pas.» Alors il a dit: «Et pourquoi donc ça?» Parce que c’est pas une fille à ça, que j’y ai dit. Y’ en a jamais eu chez les Bernage, elle reviendrait ou elle se ferait périr.»
«Il m’a regardé comme si il voyait la mort et il a fait deux fois comme ça: «C’est peut-être vrai... C’est peut-être vrai.»
Il y eut un grand silence entre eux. Et Fanny prononça enfin:
—Comment est-ce qu’il a dit tout ça à un vieux bonhomme comme toi, qu’il ne connaît seulement pas?
Le vieux dit simplement:
—Il m’a écouté parce que je parlais pour toi.
Elle cria encore, presque violemment:
—Mais il viendra!
Le vieux n’entendit pas, cette fois. Pourtant, il fit «non» en branlant doucement la tête.
Les larmes arrivaient. Elle sentait bien que c’était la voix de la raison et de l’honneur, du vieil honneur de son père, qui venait de parler. En répondant à cette voix qui chuchotait depuis si longtemps en elle: «Comment Silas t’aime-t-il et pourquoi?» qui, lorsqu’elle se voyait mariée, lui soufflait: «Un homme n’oublie jamais une faute comme la tienne»; et, quand elle songeait à la fuite romanesque, à la vie cachée sous un faux nom, criait: «Tu ne peux pas faire ça: une Bernage huguenote ne fait pas ça!»
Mais elle n’était pas encore tout à fait vaincue. Et elle dit:
—Tout ce malheur, tout ce tourment que j’ai souffert, alors, je ne pourrais jamais l’oublier?
Il parla pendant qu’elle parlait encore.
—T’as passé le plus dur. Quand on est vieux, on n’y pense plus.
Reprise de désespoir, elle gémit:
—Mais oui, vous êtes trop vieux pour me comprendre! Mais je veux aller voir. Il est là, j’en suis sûre.
Le frôlant sans qu’il bougeât, elle passa entre deux branches retombantes et franchit en courant la bordure d’herbe. Haletante, les yeux noyés, elle s’arrêta pour regarder par-dessus la barrière.
Le sentier dévalait entre les taillis de hêtres aux feuilles nouvelles d’or vert plantés dans le sombre tapis étoilé de blanc des anémones. Plus bas, l’arbre géant dressait son fût d’onyx. Mais Silas n’était pas là.
Toute son âme dans ses yeux, elle regarda un moment, à travers ses larmes sans cesse reformées, le sentier où mourait son espoir.
Alors, comme on réalise enfin la mort d’un être aimé, elle comprit que le vieux avait dit vrai, que Silas ne viendrait pas et que son absence resterait définitive, que c’était fini de sa vie de femme et qu’il lui fallait se tourner vers la vieillesse pour attendre d’elle le seul apaisement possible.
Et très étrangement, elle sentit glisser d’elle ce nouvel amour trop pesant qu’elle n’avait jamais bien supporté. La femme d’un seul homme, un seul instant, elle demeurait cela. Alors, du passé anéanti, le visage de l’homme qui avait changé sa vie, de l’inconnu d’un soir, le visage de Ludovic Vallée
surgit un instant. Elle le vit apparaître, disparaître peu à peu et s’effacer enfin.
Elle regarda autour d’elle, comme lorsqu’on quitte un songe. Le père Oursel n’était plus là. Peut-être avait-il dépensé en une fois toutes les paroles du reste de son existence et n’entendrait-on plus jamais le son de sa voix.
Le ciel violet semblait supporté par les bras blancs des arbres. Elle soupira, s’essuya les yeux et, reprenant le sentier dans l’herbe haute, elle se dirigea, ni fille, ni femme, vers son triste destin de mère sans enfant, vers son avenir martyrisé de tante Fanny.
PARIS.—IMP RAMLOT ET Cⁱᵉ, 52, AVENUE DU MAINE.—25.
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