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Then the next boy did likewise; then the third and the fourth and the fifth! "Their faces were almost white with fear when we missionaries did not pray. It filled them with terror!" And the last Flash-light of Fear is that of the baby in Medan. The Priest lived across the way in a temple. The baby was sick with whooping-cough.
They would rid themselves of him in this way, and also receive a great price for him. They continued their journey as far as the borders of Egypt, and there they met four men, descendants of Medan, the son of Abraham, and to these they sold Joseph for five shekels. The two companies, the Ishmaelites and the Medanites, arrived in Egypt upon the same day.
And the issue, in collaboration, of these tales in one volume, in which the master jostled elbows with his pupils, took on the appearance of a manifesto, the tone of a challenge, or the utterance of a creed. In fact, however, the beginnings had been much more simple, and they had confined themselves, beneath the trees of Medan, to deciding on a general title for the work.
And the issue, in collaboration, of these tales in one volume, in which the master jostled elbows with his pupils, took on the appearance of a manifesto, the tone of a challenge, or the utterance of a creed. In fact, however, the beginnings had been much more simple, and they had confined themselves, beneath the trees of Medan, to deciding on a general title for the work.
Following the example of one of his comrades of Medan, being readily carried away by precision of style and the rhythm of sentences, by the imperious rule of the ballad, of the pantoum or the chant royal, Maupassant also desired to write in metrical lines. However, he never liked this collection that he often regretted having published.
In "Les Soirees de Medan," the volume in which "Boule de Suif" appeared, there is another story called "Sac au Dos," in which another novelist made his appearance among the five who "publicly affirmed their literary tendencies" about the central figure of Zola.
I'll introduce you to two celebrities. We will visit the homes of two artists." "But I have been ordered to go to the country!" "That's just where we'll go. On the way we'll call on Meissonier, at his place in Poissy; then we'll walk over to Medan, where Zola lives. I have been commissioned to obtain his next novel for our newspaper." Patissot, wild with joy, accepted the invitation.
Of De Maupassant we know that he was born in Normandy about 1850; that he was the favorite pupil, if one may so express it, the literary protege, of Gustave Flaubert; that he made his debut late in 1880, with a novel inserted in a small collection, published by Emile Zola and his young friends, under the title: "The Soirees of Medan"; that subsequently he did not fail to publish stories and romances every year up to 1891, when a disease of the brain struck him down in the fullness of production; and that he died, finally, in 1893, without having recovered his reason.
When he was thirty he contributed that masterpiece of ironic humor 'Boule de suif, to the 'Soirées de Médan, a volume of short-stories put forth by the late Émile Zola, with the collaboration of a little group of his friends and followers. On this first appearance in the arena of letters Maupassant stept at once to a foremost place.
Now it is a new realism which appeals to us: it is the turn of the soul. The battle which the "Soirees de Medan" helped to win has been won; having gained our right to deal with humble and unpleasant and sordidly tragic things in fiction, we are free to concern ourselves with other things. But though the period has passed, and will not return, the masterpieces of the period remain.