The Mexico City

The Amsterdam Bar in which Clamence and his compatriot first meet. It is Clamence's base of operations in his business of corruption - it is here that he makes contacts with his fellow Europeans and subsequently drags them down into hopelessness.

Paris

The city in which Clamence began his law practice, a city he compares to a painting that, in its realism, appears solid. During his time in Paris, Clamence descends from the respectable position of an advocate of the poor and desperate to maniacal self-degradation.

The Circles of e Hell

An invention of Dante in his Inferno. Each of the nine circles contained a particular kind of sinner - the Lustful in the Second Circle, for example, and the Gluttonous in the Third. The narrator compares the streets and the waterways of Amsterdam to Dante's vision of Hell.

Pont Royal

The bridge on which...