In Irène Némirovsky's poignant novella, 'Autumn Flies,' the story delves into the lives of the Karine family, Russian aristocrats living in exile in rural France after the Revolution. The elderly patriarch clings to the memories and traditions of a lost era, creating a suffocating atmosphere for his younger relatives who struggle to adapt to their new, impoverished reality. Némirovsky masterfully captures the tensions of generational conflict, the bitterness of nostalgia, and the slow, inevitable decay of a family and a social class, much like the last flies of autumn before the winter frost.