This street greatly resembled a back-yard turned wrong side out.

The sun never seemed to shine into it.

The black wooden houses, with numerous poles projecting from the windows, still further increased the darkness.

Rarely did a brick wall gleam red among them; for these too, in many places, had turned quite black.

Here and there, high up, a bit of stuccoed wall illumined by the sun glistened with intolerable whiteness.