Others – significantly more numerous – were published in various small books and collections after the author's death by his widow, Alice Regnault: in La Pipe de cidre, La Vache tachetée, Un homme sensible, Chez l'Illustre écrivain, Le Petit Gardeur de vache, and Un gentilhomme .

Anxious to profit from all of his literary output, Mirbeau reused a number of the stories that had already appeared in the French press by inserting them into his patchwork novel Les Vingt et un Jours d'un neurasthénique .

The daily papers could thereby secure the fidelity of their readers by offering them a bit of entertainment and by allowing them to experience a modicum of cheer and emotion.

Mirbeau saw in the story a valuable opportunity to expand his literary range, by treating subjects and sketching out characters and settings that he intended to develop more fully in subsequent novels.

In his short stories, Mirbeau also addresses the failure of communication between the sexes, the derisory, larval existence of people dehumanized by an oppressive and alienating society.