All around there was the wet evening city, the black torrents of streets, the mobile, shiny cupolas of umbrellas, the blaze of shopwindows trickling down onto the asphalt. Along the rain the night began to flow, filling the depths of the courtyards, flickering in the eyes of the thin-legged prostitutes, who slowly strolled to and fro at the crowded intersections. And, somewhere above, the circular lights of an advertisement flashed intermittently  like a spinning illuminated wheel.

From “Natasha” by Vladimir Nabokov

Nabokov captures the bittersweet spirit of our cities.  It is as if  rain and night opened the door of our closets and let out our hidden skeletons so that they populated our neighborhoods at night:  “ The black torrents of the streets … flickering in the eyes of the thin-legged prostitutes, who slowly strolled to and fro … the circular lights of an advertisement flashed intermittently  like a spinning illuminated wheel.”  Darkness, light, beauty, and the ugliness of sin fuse in a scene that reminds me of one of Picasso’s black and white paintings. Nabokov could have written a poem with the visions his brilliant prose evokes.