Andrew reads the newspaper on the train ride home and then looks out the window at the passing houses. He gets off the train and is excited to return home to his family and his garden. He sees his children playing in the front yard and he rushes past them so that he can get changed to go work in the garden. He greets his wife, Hilda, and then goes upstairs to search for his trousers. He meets his children in the backyard and begins to hoe some of the soil near his beans. He begins to talk to his children about the importance of beans and the service he does for them. The children kill some caterpillars that they find and then Andrew moves onto his peas and his strawberries. He thinks about how he is merely a human scratching at the skin of the planet and how his ancestors did not have clothes or watches to tell the time. He moves some plants from one area to another and looks out onto a nearby field at the beauty of the trees and a small hill. He gets his children to help water the plants and then he returns his tools to the toolshed, but sees a toad sitting at the entrance and seems frightened by it. Later, they all eat dinner and Andrew and Hilda comment on how spoiled their kids are. After dinner, Hilda goes into the other room to play violin and is accompanied by one of their daughters while Andrew goes outside into the dusk to listen to the music. He stares out at the field in the distance and watches as the last rays of light disappear and a dark city is revealed before him with towers and walls and houses. He stares at it for a while and then notices that it is getting late and so he goes back inside to play a game of chess with Hilda. She asks him about the dark city and he tells her that it is weird that it is only revealed at night. He also says that he saw maggot-like people living in the city, all milling about and devouring the universe. Hilda says he must be going mad and he says that he has already gone mad. They laugh and then begin to lock up for the night.