Summary

Reacting to a politician's plan to overhaul the infrastructure of the city, the narrator gives some background on Zuidpark, a city park that had been halved during Urbain's lifetime, along with the demolition of Zuidstatie, a beautiful train station where Urbain spent a lot of time as a child. While discussing the Citadelpark, the narrator is reminded of his grandfather taking him to see "The Skaters" by Emile Claus at the museum, a painting that contains children with sleds on ice. He looks at a flat rock on his desk. It was given to him by his grandfather, who painted a folk scene on it and brought it from Rapallo, the Italian beach town where Ezra Pound wrote the majority of his Cantos.

The narrator thinks about lost objects, especially a golden pocket watch that was given to him by his grandfather...