Gomorrah, the right bank, was the region of vice, license and dishonesty. It was the hunting-ground of all the cosmopolitan riff-raff, all the shifty hordes of exotics who had gradually foregathered and silently slipped into France after the war of 1870. They formed a nomadic, rascally and thievish multitude, without principles, country or morals and were united solely by their greed for gold or a thirst for coarse pleasures. Gambling in stocks had filled their coffers and criminal transactions paid for their fatuous homes. The women were no better than the men; the adultery of the former flourished by the side of the swindling of the latter. Whole districts, and some of the finest, had become their domicile. Chaillot, Monceau, Malesherbes and the Roule bowed at their orders and their money. There were long rows of hotels all filled with _rastaquouères_, and houses which the Jews had conquered from top to bottom, occupying every floor. Semites from Frankfort fraternized there with adventurers from the New World, shady Americans with dubious Orientals. And the whole country was sucked dry in the service of that impudent mob which gave its orders in doubtful French. The right bank--it was the cursed city! Cyprien always drew great effects and lengthy orations from these descriptions and parallels; he used them also as a sort of touchstone by which to appreciate people. If one lived on the left bank of the river, he was at once entitled to Cyprien's sympathies. But if one dwelt on the right bank, in a rich neighborhood, Cyprien was at once wary of him, and would only make amends later after his title to respect had been established. M. Raindal had labored hard to point out how such a theory was psychologically doubtful and topographically inexact; but his brother persisted in it because it was simple, violent, and corroborated his passions. Especially this evening when he had been rested by two days' silence and stimulated by Schleifmann's call, he was riding his hobby all around M. Raindal with an increasing air of challenge and daring. "Yes," he shouted at his brother, stamping the carpet, "you are blind.... You know nothing, you see nothing.... You live in your corner, buried among your mummies and your old books.... You have never been further than the bridge of the Saints-Pères.... You are duped and exploited; you are a child--a kid, as Schleifmann says. Why don't you go for a walk some day through those places I am telling you about?... Talk, ask, find out.... You will see.... In that world, in those houses, abominable deeds are performed and all manner of foulness!" The voiceless patience of M. Raindal was worn out. He risked one of those defenses which he had used before in the course of that polemic when the returns had at length become regular and mechanical as in a stage duel: