The story opens with a prologue in which the narrator takes inspiration from the beliefs of the Kabbalah, a Jewish religious tradition. The kabbalah believed that the word "hebrew," the language of gods, was the same as that of objects. The rabbis believed that if a word were used in a language other than Hebrew, the word would fall from the lips of the speaker. The narrator does not know if the story belongs to "science fictio" in the beginning, on his "surface of marvelous gardens," or to "the humghar race," which he cultivated on the surface of the gardens. The humghars divided into clans, and they fought to own him. They began to live on floating cities, creating artificial foods and artificial water from his suffering molecules. They took him as a god, and the narrator emerged amidst their "delightful civilization," thinking that he could give them "supernatural powers" to conquer the universe and devour it. He remained silent, hoping to find a single "just being" among them to give him the "excuse" to save them. He looks down at them like a "ferrible wave," hoping that he can find a just being among them, but he remains silent. His look falls over them like "a fervent wave," and he cries out, "O god of stone, speak