Published in France in 1929, it has been recently re-issued, due to the increasing interest in and popularity of the author's work, following the discovery and publication of Suite Française.

Le Bal is a short novella about a German Jewish family living in Paris; Snow in Autumn is a poignant tale of Russian emigres fleeing to France following the Bolshevik Revolution.

Le Bal, which was made into a film when first published, tells the story of a young girl, Antoinette Kampf, who lives with her parents in an opulent apartment in Paris.

Her teenage daughter's attending the ball would change the event, turning her into a middle-aged woman, rather than the fantasy of youth and being courted by a young lover.

She has nursed all the children through the years, and now, with a heavy heart, she sees the youngest male members of the family leave to fight in the Great War.