This is another early Russian novel by Nabokov. It was originally published with the name Camera Obscura, a title that I think better captures the spirit of the novel, but given Nabokov’s own involvement in this translation, he’s made his choice. In the novel we are thrust into the German film industry of the 1920s (that has some crossover with Hollywood, but is it’s own thing primarily). Albinus is a respected middle-aged filmmaker who meets a young would-be ingenue named Margot. He thinks he’s found the embodiment of innocence and falls in love with the version of her he has convinced himself of. This turns out to be a bad idea, because he doesn’t know that even at her young age she’s already worked as a prostitute and as a thief and con artist. Margot uses her new found power over Albinus to convince him to leave his wife, provide her (and her lover) with an apartment and to supply her with cash, hoping to drain him of his moderate wealth.
While on the surface this seems a kind of condemnation of a femme fatale character, but it functions more so as a lampoon of the kind of older men who would give up a comfortable life to chase after a needless dream of their own making. Margot is shown to be a product of the desperate life she’s born into at a young age, not some criminal savant. Albinus only becomes her target after he delivers himself into her arms and prostrates himself first.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Laughter-Dark-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0679724508/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=laughter+in+the+dark&qid=1572116181&sr=8-1)