Young John, the somewhat innocent avatar of Old John, begins his exploration of the lost city....

"John arrives. It is night. The city lies before him. There was a low wall, and then a courtyard. The buildings beyond were vaguely Mediterranean, he could have been in Italy, southern France. The headlights of his car swept over their facades, their gated windows, arched passageways, the car muttering and rumbling like a discontented beast, there was a sense of how the car felt, an oily presence, the metal cold—a jagged edge here and there—and upholstery that seemed slick, perhaps leather. An enclosed space, in any case, bound, shuttered, nearly claustrophobic. He got out of the car and saw that he was young: an odd little epiphany, his body worked smoothly, no creaks or groans, he had a vision of himself standing there, the car still rumbling, but his face a boy’s face, a young man’s face, no sagging jowls, no folds of skin hooding his eyes, his body clearly lean and taut, he felt a little stir of pleasure, he stood up straighter and his lips—he could feel this, he said—moved into a slight smile"

"But enough: we speak of John: a young man of the usual carnality, a certain height, slimness, not ugly, not stupid, not many things, embryonic, a restless man with a certain fixity of purpose, we shall get to this fixity later, he stands in the headlights of his now quiet car, the empty city before him, caverns of streets, concrete, marble, lintels, windows, doorways, dark recesses, alleys, a city bereft of life, this is a dream of course, a nightscape of impulses firing electrically in his brain, we don’t wish to be deceptive here, he is dreaming, he will awaken and forget all of it—he will forget, we shall not—and resume his quotidian life beyond our purview and indeed beyond our interest."