Youth in him had awakened tardily but ardent, and, with a presentiment of his approaching end, he had sought to exhaust it in Francine's arms.

Thus it happened that good chances of work knocked at his door without Jacques answering, because he would have had to disturb himself, and he found it more comfortable to dream by the light of his beloved's eyes.
When Francine was dead the sculptor went to see his old friends the Water Drinkers again.

But Lazare's spirit predominated in this club, in which each of the members lived petrified in the egoism of art.

Jacques did not find what he came there in search of.

They scarcely understood his despair, which they strove to appease by argument, and seeing this small degree of sympathy, Jacques preferred to isolate his grief rather than see it laid bare by discussion.