It was 1880 before Huysmans was again heard from, this time in collaboration with Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Henry Céard, Léon Hennique, and Paul Alexis. Les Soirées de Médan was the inappropriate title of a book of interesting tales. Huysmans's contribution, Sac au Dos, is a story of the Franco-Prussian war that would have pleased Stendhal by its sardonic humour. The hero never reaches the front, but spends his time in hospitals, and the nearest he gets to the glory of war is a chronic stomach-ache. The variations on this ignoble motive showed the malice of Huysmans. War is not hell, he says in effect, but dysentery is; how often a petty ailing has unmade a heroic soul. Yet in the Brussels edition of this story there was published the following verse--the author seldom wrote poetry; he was hardly a poet, but as indicating certain religious preoccupations it is worth repeating: "O croix qui veux l'austère, ô chair qui veux le doux, O monde, ô évangile, immortels adversaires, Les plus grands ennemis sont plus d'accord que vous, Et les pôles du ciel ne sont pas plus contraires. On monte dans le ciel par un chemin de pleurs, Mais, que leur amertume a de douceurs divines! On descend aux enfers par un chemin de fleurs, Mais hélas! que ces fleurs nous préparent d'épines! La fleur qui, dans un jour, sèche et s'épanouit, Les bulles d'air et d'eau qu'un petit souffle casse, Une ombre qui paraît et qui s'évanouit Nous représentent bien comme le monde passe."