Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/306

The grave was soon filled up. A little wooden cross was planted over it.

In the midst of his sobs the doctor heard Jacques utter this cry of egotism—

“Oh! my youth, it is you they are burying.”

Jacques belonged to a club styled the Water-drinkers, which seemed to have been founded in imitation of the famous one of the Rue des Quatre-Vent, which is treated of in that fine story “Un Grand Homme de Province.” Only there was 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 de Balzac’s book the members of the club end by attaining the object they proposed to themselves, whilst after several years’ existence the club of the Water-drinkers was naturally dissolved by the death of all its members, without the name of any one of them remaining attached to a work attesting their existence.

During his union with Francine, Jacques’s 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