Cities and Names 1.

Little can I tell you of Aglaura, beyond the things its own
inhabitants go on repeating: an array of proverbial virtues, of
equally proverbial faults, some eccentricities, an occasional
punctilious regard for the rules.  Ancient observers, whom there is n
o reason not to presume truthful, attributed to Aglaura its enduring
assortment of qualities, of course comparing them to those of the
other cities of their times.  Neither the Aglaura that is recounted
nor the Aglaura that is seen is, perhaps, much chang ed since then,
but what was an eccentricity has become common, what passed for the
norm is now a quirk, and virtues and faults have lost merit or
discredit in a mixture of virtues and faults differently distributed. 
In this sense, nothing which is said of
 Aglaura is true, and yet a solid and compact image of a city emerges
therefrom, while the scattered judgements which might be formed by
living there have a less substantial texture.  This is the result: the
city that is recounted has much of what is needed to exist, whereas
the city that exists in its place, exists less. 

If therefore I wished to describe Aglaura, confining myself to what I
have myself seen and experienced, I would have to tell you that it is
a colorless city, with no character, haphazardly situated.  But this
would not be true either: at certain hours, i n certain places along
the street, you see opening up before you the hint of something
unmistakable, rare, even magnificent; you would like to say what it
is, but everything which has previously been said of Aglaura imprisons
the words and forces you to r etell rather than to tell. 

Thus the inhabitants continue to believe that they live in an Aglaura
which is only growing upon the name Aglaura, and they do not notice
the Aglaura that is growing on the earth.  And even for me, who would
like to keep the two cities distinct in memory,
it is only possible to tell you of the one, because the recollection
of the other, lacking words to fix it in place, has been dispersed. 

- 
From Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino, English Translation  
copyright 1974 by Harcourt Brace and Company. 
The translation has been revised.