s a great difference between the heroes of the
latter circle and the Water Drinkers who, like all imitators, had
exaggerated the system they sought to put into practice. This difference
will be understood by the fact that in Balzac's book the members of the
club end by attaining the object they proposed to themselves, while
after several years' existence the club of the Water Drinkers was
naturally dissolved by the death of all its members, without the name of
anyone of them remaining attached to a work attesting their existence.

During his union with Francine, Jacques' intercourse with the Water
Drinkers had become more broken. The necessities of life had obliged the
artist to violate certain conditions solemnly signed and sworn by the
Water Drinkers the day the club was founded.

Perpetually perched on the stilts of an absurd pride, these young
fellows had laid down as a sovereign principle in their association,
that they must never abandon the lofty heights of art; that is to say,
that despite their mortal poverty, not one of them would make any
concession to necessity. Thus the poet Melchior would never have
consented to abandon what he called his lyre, to write a commercial
prospectus or an electoral address. That was all very well for the poet
Rodolphe, a good-for-nothing who was ready to turn his hand to anything,
and who never let a five franc piece flit past him without trying to
capture it, no matter how. The painter Lazare, a proud wearer of rags,
would never have soiled his brushes by painting the portrait of a tailor
holding a parrot on his forefinger, as our friend the painter Marcel had
once done in exchange for the famous dress coat nicknamed Methuselah,
which the hands of each of his sweethearts had starred over with darns.
All the while he had been living in communion of thought with the Water
Drinkers, the sculptor Jacques had submitted to the tyranny of the club
rules; but when he made the acquaintance of Francine, he would not make
the poor girl, already ill, share of the regimen he had accepted during
his solitude. Jacques' was above all an upright and loyal nature. He
went to the president of the club, the exclusive Lazare, and informed
him that for the future he would accept any work that would bring him
in anything.

"My dear fellow, your declaration of love is your artistic renunciation.
We will remain your friends if you like, but we shall no longer be your
partners. Work as you please, for