"This belief is handed down in Bersabea: that, suspended in the heavens, there exists another Bersabea, where the city's most elevated virtues and sentiments are poised, and that if the terrestrial Bersabea will take the celestial one as its model the two cities will become one..."

"...they also believe, these inhabitants, that another Bersabea exists underground, the receptacle of everything base and unworthy that happens to them, and it is their constant care to erase from the visible Bersabea every tie or resemblance to the lower twin..." 

"It is true that the city is accompanied by two projections of itself, one celestial and one infernal; but the citizens are mistaken about their consistency." 

"Intent on piling up its carats of perfection, Bersabea takes for virtue what is now a grim mania to fill the empty vessel of itself; the city does not know that its only moments of generous abandon are those when it becomes detached from itself, when it lets go, expands."