The narrator was born speaking a different language that no one could understand. As an infant, when the wet nurse said he was happy and healthy, he cried out that his bed was hard and the milk bitter. The priest baptizing him did not understand when the narrator said the priest was not born Christian. A soothsayer predicted the narrator would be a leader, but he cried he would be a musician. Years later, the soothsayer claims he foretold the narrator would be a musician, and the narrator now believes him, having forgotten his original language from another world.