His family and the Clerambaults had known each other in the country,
before either of them were transplanted to Paris; this acquaintance
formed the basis of an amicable intercourse, solid rather than
intimate--for Mairet opened his heart to no one but his wife--but
resting on an esteem that nothing could shake.
They had not corresponded since the beginning of the war; each had
been too much absorbed by his own troubles. Men who went to fight
did not scatter their letters among their friends, but generally
concentrated on one person whom they loved best, and to whom they told
everything. Mairet's wife, as always, was his only confidante. His
letters were a journal in which he thought aloud; and in one of the
last he spoke of Clerambault. He had seen extracts from his first
articles in some of the nationalist papers which were the only ones
allowed at the front, where they were quoted with insulting comments.
He spoke of them to his wife, saying what comfort he had found in
these words of an honest man driven to speak out, and he begged her to
let Clerambault know that his old friendship for him was now all
the warmer and closer. He also asked Madame Mairet to send him the
succeeding articles, but he died before they could reach him.
When he was gone the woman, who had lived only for him, tried to draw
nearer to the people who had been near to him in the last days of his
life.
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