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These are the OCR results for the 1953 published version of the book Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury. The OCR results have been produced with tesseract.
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With the </p><p>brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, </p><p>the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing </p><p>all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. </p><p>With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with </p><p>the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire </p><p>that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He </p><p>wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the </p><p>flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up </p><p>in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning. </p><p>Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame. </p><p>He knew that when he returned to the firehouse, he might wink at himself, a minstrel man, burnt- </p><p>corked, in the mirror. Later, going to sleep, he would feel the fiery smile still gripped by his face </p><p>muscles, in the dark. It never went away, that. smile, it never ever went away, as long as he </p><p>remembered. </p><p>He hung up his black-beetle-coloured helmet and shined it, he hung his flameproof jacket neatly; </p><p>he showered luxuriously, and then, whistling, hands in pockets, walked across the upper floor of </p><p>the fire Station and feil down the hole. At the last moment, when disaster seemed positive, he</p><p>pulled his hands from his pockets and broke his fall by grasping the golden pole. He slid to a </p><p>squeaking halt, the heels one inch from the concrete floor downstairs. </p><p>He walked out of the fire Station and along the midnight Street toward the subway where the </p><p>silent, air-propelled train slid soundlessly down its lubricated flue in the earth and let him out </p><p>with a great puff of warm air an to the cream-tiled escalator rising to the suburb. </p><p>Whistling, he let the escalator waft him into the still night air. He walked toward the comer, </p><p>thinking little at all about nothing in particular. Before he reached the corner, however, he </p><p>slowed as if a wind had sprung up from nowhere, as if someone had called his name. </p><p>The last few nights he had had the most uncertain feelings about the sidewalk just around the </p><p>corner here, moving in the starlight toward his house. He had feit that a moment before his </p><p>making the turn, someone had been there. The air seemed charged with a special calm as if </p><p>someone had waited there, quietly, and only a moment before he came, simply turned to a </p><p>shadow and let him through. Perhaps his nose detected a faint perfume, perhaps the skin on the </p><p>backs of his hands, on his face, feit the temperature rise at this one spot where a person's </p><p>Standing might raise the immediate atmosphere ten degrees for an instant. There was no </p><p>understanding it. Each time he made the turn, he saw only the white, unused, buckling sidewalk, </p><p>with perhaps, on one night, something vanishing swiftly across a lawn before he could focus his </p><p>eyes or speak. </p><p>But now, tonight, he slowed almost to a stop. His inner mind, reaching out to turn the corner for </p><p>him, had heard the faintest whisper. Breathing? Or was the atmosphere compressed merely by </p><p>someone Standing very quietly there, waiting? </p><p>He turned the corner. </p><p>The autumn leaves blew over the moonlit pavement in such a way as to make the girl who was </p><p>moving there seem fixed to a sliding walk, letting the motion of the wind and the leaves carry her </p><p>forward. Her head was half bent to watch her shoes stir the circling leaves. Her face was slender </p><p>and milk-white, and in it was a kind of gentle hunger that touched over everything with tireless </p><p>curiosity. It was a look, almost, of pale surprise; the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that no </p><p>move escaped them. Her dress was white and it whispered. He almost thought he heard the</p><p>motion of her hands as she walked, and the infinitely small sound now, the white stir of her face </p><p>turning when she discovered she was a moment away from a man who stood in the middle of the </p><p>pavement waiting. </p><p>The trees overhead made a great sound of letting down their dry rain. The girl stopped and </p><p>looked as if she might pull back in surprise, but instead stood regarding Montag with eyes so </p><p>dark and shining and alive, that he feit he had said something quite wonderful. But he knew his </p><p>mouth had only moved to say hello, and then when she seemed hypnotized by the Salamander on </p><p>his arm and the phoenix-disc on his ehest, he spoke again. </p><p>"Of course," he said, "you're a new neighbour, aren't you?" </p><p>"And you must be"-she raised her eyes from his Professional symbols-"the fireman." Her voice </p><p>trailed off. </p><p>"How oddly you say that." </p><p>'Td-I'd have known it with my eyes shut," she said, slowly. </p><p>"What-the smell of kerosene? My wife always complains," he laughed. "You never wash it off </p><p>completely." </p><p>"No, you don't," she said, in awe. </p><p>He feit she was walking in a circle about him, turning him end for end, shaking him quietly, and </p><p>emptying his pockets, without once moving herseif. </p><p>"Kerosene," he said, because the silence had lengthened, "is nothing but perfume to me." </p><p>"Does it seem like that, really?" </p><p>"Of course. Why not?" </p><p>She gave herseif time to think of it. "I don't know." She turned to face the sidewalk going toward </p><p>their homes. "Do you mind if I walk back with you? I'm Clarisse McClellan." </p><p>"Clarisse. Guy Montag. Come along. What are you doing out so late wandering around? How </p><p>old are you?" </p><p>They walked in the warm-cool blowing night on the silvered pavement and there was the faintest </p><p>breath of fresh apricots and strawberries in the air, and he looked around and realized this was </p><p>quite impossible, so late in the year. </p><p>There was only the girl walking with him now, her face bright as snow in the moonlight, and he</p><p>knew she was working his questions around, seeking the best answers she could possibly give. </p><p>"Well," she said, "fm seventeen and I'm crazy. My uncle says the two always go together. When </p><p>people ask your age, he said, always say seventeen and insane. Isn't this a nice time of night to </p><p>walk? I like to smell things and look at things, and sometimes stay up all night, walking, and </p><p>watch the sun rise." </p><p>They walked on again in silence and finally she said, thoughtfully, "You know, I'm not afraid of </p><p>you at all." </p><p>He was surprised. "Why should you be?" </p><p>"So many people are. Afraid of firemen, I mean. But you 're just a man, after all..." </p><p>He saw himself in her eyes, suspended in two shining drops of bright water, himself dark and </p><p>tiny, in fine detail, the lines about his mouth, everything there, as if her eyes were two </p><p>miraculous bits of violet amber that might capture and hold him intact. Her face, turned to him </p><p>now, was fragile milk crystal with a soft and constant light in it. It was not the hysterical light of </p><p>electricity but-what? But the strangely comfortable and rare and gently flattering light of the </p><p>candle. One time, when he was a child, in a power-failure, his mother had found and lit a last </p><p>candle and there had been a brief hour of rediscovery, of such illumination that space lost its vast </p><p>dimensions and drew comfortably around them, and they, mother and son, alone, transformed, </p><p>hoping that the power might not come on again too soon .... </p><p>And then Clarisse McClellan said: </p><p>"Do you mind if I ask? How long have you worked at being a fireman?" </p><p>"Since I was twenty, ten years ago." </p><p>"Do you ever read any of the books you bum?" </p><p>He laughed. "That's against the law!" </p><p>"Oh. Of course." </p><p>"If s fine work. Monday bum Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn 'em to ashes, </p><p>then bum the ashes. That's our official slogan." </p><p>They walked still further and the girl said, "Is it true that long ago firemen put fires out instead of </p><p>going to Start them?"</p><p>"No. Houses. have always been fireproof, take my word for it." </p><p>"Strange. I heard once that a long time ago houses used to burn by accident and they needed </p><p>firemen to stop the flames." </p><p>He laughed. </p><p>She glanced quickly over. "Why are you laughing?" </p><p>"I don't know." He started to laugh again and stopped "Why?" </p><p>"You laugh when I haven't been funny and you answer right off. You never stop to think what </p><p>I've asked you." </p><p>He stopped walking, "You are an odd one," he said, looking at her. "Haven't you any respect?" </p><p>"I don't mean to be insulting. It's just, I love to watch people too much, I guess." </p><p>"Well, doesn't this mean anything to you?" He tapped the numerals 451 stitched on his char- </p><p>coloured sleeve. </p><p>"Yes," she whispered. She increased her pace. "Have you ever watched the jet cars racing on the </p><p>boulevards down that way? </p><p>"You're changing the subject!" </p><p>"I sometimes think drivers don't know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them </p><p>slowly," she said. "If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh yes! he'd say, that's grass! A pink </p><p>blur? That's a rose-garden! White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows. My uncle drove </p><p>slowly on a highway once. He drove forty miles an hour and they jailed him for two days. Isn't </p><p>that funny, and sad, too?" </p><p>"You think too many things," said Montag, uneasily. </p><p>"I rarely watch the 'parlour walls' or go to races or Fun Parks. So I've lots of time for crazy </p><p>thoughts, I guess. Have you seen the two-hundred-foot-long billboards in the country beyond </p><p>town? Did you know that once billboards were only twenty feet long? But cars started rushing by </p><p>so quickly they had to Stretch the advertising out so it would last." </p><p>"I didn't know that!" Montag laughed abruptly. </p><p>"Bet I know something eise you don't. There's dew on the grass in the morning." </p><p>He suddenly couldn't remember if he had known this or not, and it made him quite irritable. </p><p>"And if you look"-she nodded at the sky-"there's a man in the moon." </p><p>He hadn't looked for a long time. </p><p>They walked the rest of the way in silence, hers thoughtful, his a kind of clenching and </p><p>uncomfortable silence in which he shot her accusing glances. When they reached her house all its </p><p>lights were blazing. </p><p>"Whaf s going on?" Montag had rarely seen that many house lights. </p><p>"Oh, just my mother and father and uncle sitting around, talking. It's like being a pedestrian, only </p><p>rarer. My uncle was arrested another time-did I teil you?-for being a pedestrian. Oh, we're most </p><p>peculiar." </p><p>"But what do you talk about?" </p><p>She laughed at this. "Good night!" She started up her walk. Then she seemed to remember </p><p>something and came back to look at him with wonder and curiosity. "Are you happy?" she said. </p><p>"Am I what?" he cried. </p><p>But she was gone-running in the moonlight. Her front door shut gently. </p><p>"Happy! Of all the nonsense." </p><p>He stopped laughing. </p><p>He put his hand into the glove-hole of his front door and let it know his touch. The front door </p><p>slid open. </p><p>Of course I'm happy. What does she think? I'm not? he asked the quiet rooms. He stood looking </p><p>up at the Ventilator grille in the hall and suddenly remembered that something lay hidden behind </p><p>the grille, something that seemed to peer down at him now. He moved his eyes quickly away. </p><p>What a stränge meeting on a stränge night. He remembered nothing like it save one afternoon a </p><p>year ago when he had met an old man in the park and they had talked .... </p><p>Montag shook his head. He looked at a blank wall. The girl's face was there, really quite </p><p>beautiful in memory: astonishing, in fact. She had a very thin face like the dial of a small clock </p><p>seen faintly in a dark room in the middle of a night when you waken to see the time and see the </p><p>clock telling you the hour and the minute and the second, with a white silence and a glowing, all </p><p>certainty and knowing what it has to teil of the night passing swiftly on toward further</p><p>darknesses but moving also toward a new sun. </p><p>"What?" asked Montag of that other seif, the subconscious idiot that ran babbling at times, quite </p><p>independent of will, habit, and conscience. </p><p>He glanced back at the wall. How like a mirror, too, her face. Impossible; for how many people </p><p>did you know that refracted your own light to you? People were more often-he searched for a </p><p>simile, found one in his work-torches, blazing away until they whiffed out. How rarely did other </p><p>people's faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression, your own innermost </p><p>trembling thought? </p><p>What incredible power of identification the girl had; she was like the eager watcher of a </p><p>marionette show, anticipating each flicker of an eyelid, each gesture of his hand, each flick of a </p><p>finger, the moment before it began. How long had they walked together? Three minutes? Five? </p><p>Yet how large that time seemed now. How immense a figure she was on the stage before him; </p><p>what a shadow she threw on the wall with her slender body! He feit that if his eye itched, she </p><p>might blink. And if the muscles of his jaws stretched imperceptibly, she would yawn long before </p><p>he would. </p><p>Why, he thought, now that I think of it, she almost seemed to be waiting for me there, in the </p><p>Street, so damned late at night .... </p><p>He opened the bedroom door. </p><p>It was like coming into the cold marbled room of a mausoleum after the moon had set. Complete </p><p>darkness, not a hint of the silver world outside, the Windows tightly shut, the chamber a tomb- </p><p>world where no sound from the great city could penetrate. The room was not empty. </p><p>He listened. </p><p>The little mosquito-delicate dancing hum in the air, the electrical murmur of a hidden wasp snug </p><p>in its special pink warm nest. The music was almost loud enough so he could follow the tune. </p><p>He feit his smile slide away, melt, fold over, and down on itself like a tallow skin, like the stuff </p><p>of a fantastic candle burning too long and now collapsing and now blown out. Darkness. He was </p><p>not happy. He was not happy. He said the words to himself. He recognized this as the true state </p><p>of affairs. He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the</p><p>mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back. </p><p>Without turning on the light he imagined how this room would look. His wife stretched on the </p><p>bed, uncovered and cold, like a body displayed on the lid of a tomb, her eyes fixed to the ceiling </p><p>by invisible threads of Steel, immovable. And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios </p><p>tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, </p><p>coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind. The room was indeed empty. Every night the </p><p>waves came in and bore her off on their great tides of sound, floating her, wide-eyed, toward </p><p>morning. There had been no night in the last two years that Mildred had not swum that sea, had </p><p>not gladly gone down in it for the third time. </p><p>The room was cold but nonetheless he feit he could not breathe. He did not wish to open the </p><p>curtains and open the french Windows, for he did not want the moon to come into the room. So, </p><p>with the feeling of a man who will die in the next hour for lack of air,. he feit his way toward his </p><p>open, separate, and therefore cold bed. </p><p>An instant before his foot hit the object on the floor he knew he would hit such an object. It was </p><p>not unlike the feeling he had experienced before turning the corner and almost knocking the girl </p><p>down. His foot, sending vibrations ahead, received back echoes of the small barrier across its </p><p>path even as the foot swung. His foot kicked. The object gave a dull clink and slid off in </p><p>darkness. </p><p>He stood very straight and listened to the person on the dark bed in the completely featureless </p><p>night. The breath coming out of the nostrils was so faint it stirred only the furthest fringes of life, </p><p>a small leaf, a black feather, a single fibre of hair. </p><p>He still did not want outside light. He pulled out his igniter, feit the Salamander etched on its </p><p>silver disc, gave it a flick.... </p><p>Two moonstones looked up at him in the light of his small hand-held fire; two pale moonstones </p><p>buried in a creek of clear water over which the life of the world ran, not touching them. </p><p>"Mildred ! " </p><p>Her face was like a snow-covered island upon which rain might fall; but it feit no rain; over </p><p>which clouds might pass their moving shadows, but she feit no shadow. There was only the </p><p>singing of the thimble-wasps in her tamped-shut ears, and her eyes all glass, and breath going in</p><p>and out, softly, faintly, in and out of her nostrils, and her not caring whether it came or went, </p><p>went or came. </p><p>The object he had sent tumbling with his foot now glinted under the edge of his own bed. The </p><p>small crystal bottle of sleeping-tablets which earlier today had been filled with thirty capsules </p><p>and which now lay uncapped and empty in the light of the tiny flare. </p><p>As he stood there the sky over the house screamed. There was a tremendous ripping sound as if </p><p>two giant hands had torn ten thousand miles of black linen down the seam. Montag was cut in </p><p>half. He feit his ehest chopped down and split apart. The jet-bombs going over, going over, going </p><p>over, one two, one two, one two, six of them, nine of them, twelve of them, one and one and one </p><p>and another and another and another, did all the screaming for him. He opened his own mouth </p><p>and let their shriek come down and out between his bared teeth. The house shook. The flare went </p><p>out in his hand. The moonstones vanished. He feit his hand plunge toward the telephone. </p><p>The jets were gone. He feit his lips move, brushing the mouthpiece of the phone. "Emergency </p><p>hospital." A terrible whisper. </p><p>He feit that the stars had been pulverized by the sound of the black jets and that in the morning </p><p>the earth would be thought as he stood shivering in the dark, and let his lips go on moving and </p><p>moving. </p><p>They had this machine. They had two machines, really. One of them slid down into your </p><p>stomach like a black cobra down an echoing well looking for all the old water and the old time </p><p>gathered there. It drank up the green matter that flowed to the top in a slow boil. Did it drink of </p><p>the darkness? Did it suck out all the poisons accumulated with the years? It fed in silence with an </p><p>occasional sound of inner suffocation and blind searching. It had an Eye. The impersonal </p><p>operator of the machine could, by wearing a special optical helmet, gaze into the soul of the </p><p>person whom he was pumping out. What did the Eye see? He did not say. He saw but did not see </p><p>what the Eye saw. The entire Operation was not unlike the digging of a trench in one's yard. The </p><p>woman on the bed was no more than a hard Stratum of marble they had reached. Go on, anyway, </p><p>shove the bore down, slush up the emptiness, if such a thing could be brought out in the throb of</p><p>the suction snake. The operator stood smoking a cigarette. The other machine was working too. </p><p>The other machine was operated by an equally impersonal fellow in non-stainable reddish-brown </p><p>Overalls. This machine pumped all of the blood from the body and replaced it with fresh blood </p><p>and serum. </p><p>"Got to clean 'em out both ways," said the operator, Standing over the silent woman. "No use </p><p>getting the stomach if you don't clean the blood. Leave that stuff in the blood and the blood hits </p><p>the brain like a mailet, bang, a couple of thousand times and the brain just gives up, just quits." </p><p>"Stop it!" said Montag. </p><p>"I was just sayin'," said the operator. </p><p>"Are you done?" said Montag. </p><p>They shut the machines up tight. "We're done." His anger did not even touch them. They stood </p><p>with the cigarette smoke curling around their noses and into their eyes without making them </p><p>blink or squint. "That's fifty bucks." </p><p>"First, why don't you teil me if she'll be all right?" </p><p>"Sure, she'll be O.K. We got all the mean stuff right in our suitcase here, it can't get at her now. </p><p>As I said, you take out the old and put in the new and you're O.K." </p><p>"Neither of you is an M.D. Why didn't they send an M.D. from Emergency?" </p><p>"Hell! " the operator's cigarette moved on his lips. "We get these cases nine or ten a night. Got so </p><p>many, starting a few years ago, we had the special machines built. With the optical lens, of </p><p>course, that was new; the rest is ancient. You don't need an M.D., case like this; all you need is </p><p>two handymen, clean up the problem in half an hour. Look"-he started for the door-"we gotta go. </p><p>Just had another call on the old ear-thimble. Ten blocks from here. Someone eise just jumped off </p><p>the cap of a pillbox. Call if you need us again. Keep her quiet. We got a contra- sedative in her. </p><p>She'll wake up hungry. So long." </p><p>And the men with the cigarettes in their straight-lined mouths, the men with the eyes of puff- </p><p>adders, took up their load of machine and tube, their case of liquid melancholy and the slow dark </p><p>sludge of nameless stuff, and strolled out the door. </p><p>Montag sank down into a chair and looked at this woman. Her eyes were closed now, gently, and</p><p>he put out his hand to feel the warmness of breath on his palm. </p><p>"Mildred," he said, at last. </p><p>There are too many of us, he thought. There are billions of us and that's too many. Nobody </p><p>knows anyone. Strangers come and violate you. Strangers come and cut your heart out. Strangers </p><p>come and take your blood. Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life! </p><p>Half an hour passed. </p><p>The bloodstream in this woman was new and it seemed to have done a new thing to her. Her </p><p>cheeks were very pink and her lips were very fresh and full of colour and they looked soft and </p><p>relaxed. Someone else's blood there. If only someone else's flesh and brain and memory. If only </p><p>they could have taken her mind along to the dry-cleaner's and emptied the pockets and steamed </p><p>and cleansed it and reblocked it and brought it back in the morning. If only . . . </p><p>He got up and put back the curtains and opened the Windows wide to let the night air in. It was </p><p>two o'clock in the morning. Was it only an hour ago, Clarisse McClellan in the Street, and him </p><p>coming in, and the dark room and his foot kicking the little crystal bottle? Only an hour, but the </p><p>world had melted down and sprung up in a new and colourless form. </p><p>Laughter blew across the moon-coloured lawn from the house of Clarisse and her father and </p><p>mother and the uncle who smiled so quietly and so earnestly. Above all, their laughter was </p><p>relaxed and hearty and not forced in any way, coming from the house that was so brightly lit this </p><p>late at night while all the other houses were kept to themselves in darkness. Montag heard the </p><p>voices talking, talking, talking, giving, talking, weaving, reweaving their hypnotic web. </p><p>Montag moved out through the french Windows and crossed the lawn, without even thinking of </p><p>it. He stood outside the talking house in the shadows, thinking he might even tap on their door </p><p>and whisper, "Let me come in. I won't say anything. I just want to listen. What is it you 're </p><p>saying?" </p><p>But instead he stood there, very cold, his face a mask of ice, listening to a man's voice (the </p><p>uncle?) moving along at an easy pace: </p><p>"Well, after all, this is the age of the disposable tissue. Blow your nose on a person, wad them, </p><p>flush them away, reach for another, blow, wad, flush. Everyone using everyone else's coattails. </p><p>How are you supposed to root for the home team when you don't even have a programme or</p><p>know the names? For that matter, what colour jerseys are they wearing as they trot out on to the </p><p>field?" </p><p>Montag moved back to his own house, left the window wide, checked Mildred, tucked the covers </p><p>about her carefully, and then lay down with the moonlight on his cheek-bones and on the </p><p>frowning ridges in his brow, with the moonlight distilled in each eye to form a silver cataract </p><p>there. </p><p>One drop of rain. Clarisse. Another drop. Mildred. A third. The uncle. A fourth. The fire tonight. </p><p>One, Clarisse. Two, Mildred. Three, uncle. Four, fire, One, Mildred, two, Clarisse. One, two, </p><p>three, four, five, Clarisse, Mildred, uncle, fire, sleeping-tablets, men, disposable tissue, coat-tails, </p><p>blow, wad, flush, Clarisse, Mildred, uncle, fire, tablets, tissues, blow, wad, flush. One, two, </p><p>three, one, two, three! Rain. The storm. The uncle laughing. Thunder falling downstairs. The </p><p>whole world pouring down. The fire gushing up in a volcano. All rushing on down around in a </p><p>spouting roar and rivering stream toward morning. </p><p>"I don't know anything any more," he said, and let a sleep-lozenge dissolve on his tongue. </p><p>At nine in the morning, Mildred's bed was empty. </p><p>Montag got up quickly, his heart pumping, and ran down the hall and stopped at the kitchen </p><p>door. </p><p>Toast popped out of the silver toaster, was seized by a spidery metal hand that drenched it with </p><p>melted butter. </p><p>Mildred watched the toast delivered to her plate. She had both ears plugged with electronic bees </p><p>that were humming the hour away. She looked up suddenly, saw him, and nodded. </p><p>"You all right?" he asked. </p><p>She was an expert at lip-reading from ten years of apprenticeship at Seashell ear-thimbles. She </p><p>nodded again. She set the toaster clicking away at another piece of bread. </p><p>Montag sat down. </p><p>His wife said, "I don't know why I should be so hungry." </p><p>"You-?" </p><p>Tm HUNGRY."</p><p>"Last night," he began. </p><p>"Didn't sleep well. Feel terrible," she said. "God, I'm hungry. I can't figure it." </p><p>"Last night-" he said again. </p><p>She watched his lips casually. "What about last night?" </p><p>"Don't you remember?" </p><p>"What? Did we have a wild party or something? Feel like I've a hangover. God, I'm hungry. Who </p><p>was here?" </p><p>"A few people," he said. </p><p>"That's what I thought." She chewed her toast. "Sore stomach, but I'm hungry as all-get-out. </p><p>Hope I didn't do anything foolish at the party." </p><p>"No," he said, quietly. </p><p>The toaster spidered out a piece of buttered bread for him. He held it in his hand, feeling grateful. </p><p>"You don't look so hot yourself," said his wife. </p><p>In the late afternoon it rained and the entire world was dark grey. He stood in the hall of his </p><p>house, putting on his badge with the orange Salamander burning across it. He stood looking up at </p><p>the air-conditioning vent in the hall for a long time. His wife in the TV parlour paused long </p><p>enough from reading her script to glance up. "Hey," she said. "The man's THINKING!" </p><p>"Yes," he said. "I wanted to talk to you." He paused. "You took all the pills in your bottle last </p><p>night." </p><p>"Oh, I wouldn't do that," she said, surprised. </p><p>"The bottle was empty." </p><p>"I wouldn't do a thing like that. Why would I do a thing like that?" she asked. </p><p>"Maybe you took two pills and forgot and took two more, and forgot again and took two more, </p><p>and were so dopy you kept right on until you had thirty or forty of them in you." </p><p>"Heck," she said, "what would I want to go and do a silly thing like that for?" </p><p>"I don't know," he said. </p><p>She was quite obviously waiting for him to go. "I didn't do that," she said. "Never in a billion </p><p>years."</p><p>"All right if you say so," he said. </p><p>"That's what the lady said." She turned back to her script. </p><p>"What's on this afternoon?" he asked tiredly. </p><p>She didn't look up from her script again. "Well, this is a play comes on the wall-to-wall circuit in </p><p>ten minutes. They mailed me my part this morning. I sent in some box-tops. They write the script </p><p>with one part missing. It's a new idea. The home-maker, that's me, is the missing part. When it </p><p>comes time for the missing lines, they all look at me out of the three walls and I say the lines: </p><p>Here, for instance, the man says, 'What do you think of this whole idea, Helen?' And he looks at </p><p>me sitting here centre stage, see? And I say, I say — " She paused and ran her finger under a line </p><p>in the script. " 'I think that's fine!' And then they go on with the play until he says, 'Do you agree </p><p>to that, Helen! 1 and I say, 'I sure do!' Isn't that fun, Guy?" </p><p>He stood in the hall looking at her. </p><p>"It's sure fun," she said. </p><p>"What's the play about?" </p><p>"I just told you. There are these people named Bob and Ruth and Helen." </p><p>"Oh." </p><p>"It's really fun. It'll be even more fun when we can afford to have the fourth wall installed. How </p><p>long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall-TV put in? </p><p>It's only two thousand dollars." </p><p>"That's one-third of my yearly pay." </p><p>"It's only two thousand dollars," she replied. "And I should think you'd consider me sometimes. </p><p>If we had a fourth wall, why it'd be just like this room wasn't ours at all, but all kinds of exotic </p><p>people's rooms. We could do without a few things." </p><p>"We're already doing without a few things to pay for the third wall. It was put in only two </p><p>months ago, remember?" </p><p>"Is that all it was?" She sat looking at him for a long moment. "Well, good-bye, dear." . </p><p>"Good-bye," he said. He stopped and turned around. "Does it have a happy ending?" </p><p>"I haven't read that far." </p><p>He walked over, read the last page, nodded, folded the script, and handed it back to her. He</p><p>walked out of the house into the rain. </p><p>The rain was thinning away and the girl was walking in the centre of the sidewalk with her head </p><p>up and the few drops falling on her face. She smiled when she saw Montag. </p><p>"Hello! " </p><p>He said hello and then said, "What are you up to now?" </p><p>"I'm still crazy. The rain feels good. I love to walk in it. </p><p>"I don't think I'd like that," he said. </p><p>"You might if you tried." </p><p>"I never have." </p><p>She licked her lips. "Rain even tastes good." </p><p>"What do you do, go around trying everything once?" he asked. </p><p>"Sometimes twice." She looked at something in her hand. </p><p>"What've you got there?" he said. </p><p>"I guess it's the last of the dandelions this year. I didn't think I'd find one on the lawn this late. </p><p>Have you ever heard of rubbing it under your chin? Look." She touched her chin with the flower, </p><p>laughing. </p><p>"Why?" </p><p>"If it rubs off, it means I'm in love. Has it?" </p><p>He could hardly do anything eise but look. </p><p>"Well?" she said. </p><p>"You're yellow under there." </p><p>"Fine! Let's try YOU now." </p><p>"It won't work for me." </p><p>"Here." Before he could move she had put the dandelion under his chin. He drew back and she </p><p>laughed. "Hold still!" </p><p>She peered under his chin and frowned. </p><p>"Well?" he said. </p><p>"What a shame," she said. "You're not in love with anyone." </p><p>"Yes, I am ! " </p><p>"It doesn't show." </p><p>"I am very much in love!" He tried to conjure up a face to fit the words, but there was no face. "I </p><p>am ! " </p><p>"Oh please don't look that way." </p><p>"It's that dandelion," he said. "You've used it all up on yourself. That's why it won't work for </p><p>me." </p><p>"Of course, that must be it. Oh, now I've upset you, I can see I have; I'm sorry, really I am." She </p><p>touched his elbow. </p><p>"No, no," he said, quickly, "I'm all right." </p><p>"I've got to be going, so say you forgive me. I don't want you angry with me." </p><p>"I'm not angry. Upset, yes." </p><p>"I've got to go to see my psychiatrist now. They make me go. I made up things to say. I don't </p><p>know what he thinks of me. He says I'm a regulär onion! I keep him busy peeling away the </p><p>layers." </p><p>"I'm inclined to believe you need the psychiatrist," said Montag. </p><p>"You don't mean that." </p><p>He took a breath and let it out and at last said, "No, I don't mean that." </p><p>"The psychiatrist wants to know why I go out and hike around in the forests and watch the birds </p><p>and collect butterflies. I'll show you my collection some day." </p><p>"Good." </p><p>"They want to know what I do with all my time. I teil them that sometimes I just sit and think. </p><p>But I won't teil them what. I've got them running. And sometimes, I teil them, I like to put my </p><p>head back, like this, and let the rain fall into my mouth. It tastes just like wine. Have you ever </p><p>tried it?" </p><p>"No I~" </p><p>"You HAVE forgiven me, haven't you?" </p><p>"Yes." He thought about it. "Yes, I have. God knows why. You're peculiar, you're aggravating, </p><p>yet you're easy to forgive. You say you're seventeen?" </p><p>"Well-next month."</p><p>"How odd. How stränge. And my wife thirty and yet you seem so much older at times. I can't get </p><p>over it." </p><p>"You're peculiar yourself, Mr. Montag. Sometimes I even forget you're a fireman. Now, may I </p><p>make you angry again?" </p><p>"Go ahead." </p><p>"How did it Start? How did you get into it? How did you pick your work and how did you </p><p>happen to think to take the job you have? You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. </p><p>When I talk, you look at me. When I said something about the moon, you looked at the moon, </p><p>last night. The others would never do that. The others would walk off and leave me talking. Or </p><p>threaten me. No one has time any more for anyone eise. You're one of the few who put up with </p><p>me. That's why I think it's so stränge you're a fireman, it just doesn't seem right for you, </p><p>somehow." </p><p>He feit his body divide itself into a hotness and a coldness, a softness and a hardness, a trembling </p><p>and a not trembling, the two halves grinding one upon the other. </p><p>"You'd better run on to your appointment," he said. </p><p>And she ran off and left him Standing there in the rain. Only after a long time did he move. </p><p>And then, very slowly, as he walked, he tilted his head back in the rain, for just a few moments, </p><p>and opened his mouth.... </p><p>The Mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, </p><p>gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse. The dim light </p><p>of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, </p><p>touched here and there on the brass and the copper and the Steel of the faintly trembling beast. </p><p>Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils </p><p>of the creature that quivered gently, gently, gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber- </p><p>padded paws. </p><p>Montag slid down the brass pole. He went out to look at the city and the clouds had cleared away </p><p>completely, and he lit a cigarette and came back to bend down and look at the Hound. It was like </p><p>a great bee come home from some field where the honey is full of poison wildness, of insanity</p><p>and nightmare, its body crammed with that over-rich nectar and now it was sleeping the evil out </p><p>of itself. </p><p>"Hello," whispered Montag, fascinated as always with the dead beast, the living beast. </p><p>At night when things got dull, which was every night, the men slid down the brass poles, and set </p><p>the ticking combinations of the olfactory System of the Hound and let loose rats in the firehouse </p><p>area-way, and sometimes chickens, and sometimes cats that would have to be drowned anyway, </p><p>and there would be betting to see which the Hound would seize first. The animals were turned </p><p>loose. Three seconds later the game was done, the rat, cat, or chicken caught half across the </p><p>areaway, gripped in gentling paws while a four-inch hollow Steel needle plunged down from the </p><p>proboscis of the Hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine. The pawn was then </p><p>tossed in the incinerator. A new game began. </p><p>Montag stayed upstairs most nights when this went on. There had been a time two years ago </p><p>when he had bet with the best of them, and lost a week's salary and faced Mildred's insane anger, </p><p>which showed itself in veins and blotches. But now at night he lay in his bunk, face turned to the </p><p>wall, listening to whoops of laughter below and the piano-string scurry of rat feet, the violin </p><p>squeaking of mice, and the great shadowing, motioned silence of the Hound leaping out like a </p><p>moth in the raw light, finding, holding its victim, inserting the needle and going back to its </p><p>kennel to die as if a switch had been turned. </p><p>Montag touched the muzzle. . </p><p>The Hound growled. </p><p>Montag jumped back. </p><p>The Hound half rose in its kennel and looked at him with green-blue neon light flickering in its </p><p>suddenly activated eyebulbs. It growled again, a stränge rasping combination of electrical sizzle, </p><p>a frying sound, a scraping of metal, a turning of cogs that seemed rusty and ancient with </p><p>suspicion. </p><p>"No, no, boy," said Montag, his heart pounding. </p><p>He saw the silver needle extended upon the air an inch, pull back, extend, pull back. The growl </p><p>simmered in the beast and it looked at him.</p><p>Montag backed up. The Hound took a Step from its kennel. </p><p>Montag grabbed the brass pole with one hand. The pole, reacting, slid upward, and took him </p><p>through the ceiling, quietly. He stepped off in the half-lit deck of the upper level. He was </p><p>trembling and his face was green-white. Below, the Hound had sunk back down upon its eight </p><p>incredible insect legs and was humming to itself again, its multi-faceted eyes at peace. </p><p>Montag stood, letting the fears pass, by the drop-hole. Behind him, four men at a card table </p><p>under a green-lidded light in the corner glanced briefly but said nothing. Only the man with the </p><p>Captain's hat and the sign of the Phoenix on his hat, at last, curious, his playing cards in his thin </p><p>hand, talked across the long room. </p><p>"Montag . . . ?" </p><p>"It doesn't like me," said Montag. </p><p>"What, the Hound?" The Captain studied his cards. </p><p>"Come off it. It doesn't like or dislike. It just 'functions.' It's like a lesson in ballistics. It has a </p><p>trajectory we decide for it. It follows through. It targets itself, homes itself, and cuts off. It's only </p><p>copper wire, storage batteries, and electricity." </p><p>Montag swallowed. "Its calculators can be set to any combination, so many amino acids, so </p><p>much sulphur, so much butterfat and alkaline. Right?" </p><p>"We all know that." </p><p>"All of those Chemical balances and percentages on all of us here in the house are recorded in the </p><p>master file downstairs. It would be easy for someone to set up a partial combination on the </p><p>Hound's 'memory,' a touch of amino acids, perhaps. That would account for what the animal did </p><p>just now. Reacted toward me." </p><p>"Hell," said the Captain. </p><p>"Irritated, but not completely angry. Just enough 'memory' set up in it by someone so it growled </p><p>when I touched it." </p><p>"Who would do a thing like that?." asked the Captain. "You haven't any enemies here, Guy." </p><p>"None that I know of." </p><p>"We'll have the Hound checked by our technicians tomorrow. </p><p>"This isn't the first time it's threatened me," said Montag. "Last month it happened twice."</p><p>"We'll fix it up. Don't worry" </p><p>But Montag did not move and only stood thinking of the Ventilator grille in the hall at home and </p><p>what lay hidden behind the grille. If someone here in the firehouse knew about the Ventilator </p><p>then mightn't they "teil" the Hound . . . ? </p><p>The Captain came over to the drop-hole and gave Montag a questioning glance. </p><p>"I was just figuring," said Montag, "what does the Hound think about down there nights? Is it </p><p>coming alive on us, really? It makes me cold." </p><p>"It doesn't think anything we don't want it to think." </p><p>"That's sad," said Montag, quietly, "because all we put into it is hunting and finding and killing. </p><p>What a shame if that's all it can ever know.'" </p><p>Beatty snorted, gently. "Hell! It's a fine bit of craftsmanship, a good rifle that can fetch its own </p><p>target and guarantees the bull's-eye every time." </p><p>"That's why," said Montag. "I wouldn't want to be its next victim. </p><p>"Why? You got a guilty conscience about something?" </p><p>Montag glanced up swiftly. </p><p>Beatty stood there looking at him steadily with his eyes, while his mouth opened and began to </p><p>laugh, very softly. </p><p>One two three four five six seven days. And as many times he came out of the house and Clarisse </p><p>was there somewhere in the world. Once he saw her shaking a walnut tree, once he saw her </p><p>sitting on the lawn knitting a blue sweater, three or four times he found a bouquet of late flowers </p><p>on his porch, or a handful of chestnuts in a little sack, or some autumn leaves neatly pinned to a </p><p>sheet of white paper and thumb-tacked to his door. Every day Clarisse walked him to the corner. </p><p>One day it was raining, the next it was clear, the day after that the wind blew strong, and the day </p><p>after that it was mild and calm, and the day after that calm day was a day like a furnace of </p><p>summer and Clarisse with her face all sunburnt by late afternoon. </p><p>"Why is it," he said, one time, at the subway entrance, "I feel I've known you so many years?" </p><p>"Because I like you," she said, "and I don't want anything from you. And because we know each </p><p>other."</p><p>"You make me feel very old and very much like a father." </p><p>"Now you explain," she said, "why you haven't any daughters like me, if you love children so </p><p>much?" </p><p>"I don't know." </p><p>"You're joking!" </p><p>"I mean-" He stopped and shook his head. "Well, my wife, she . . . she just never wanted any </p><p>children at all. " </p><p>The girl stopped smiling. "I'm sorry. I really, thought you were having fun at my expense. I'm a </p><p>fool." </p><p>"No, no," he said. "It was a good question. It's been a long time since anyone cared enough to </p><p>ask. A good question." </p><p>"Let's talk about something eise. Have you ever smelled old leaves? Don't they smell like </p><p>cinnamon? Here. Smell." </p><p>"Why, yes, it is like cinnamon in a way." </p><p>She looked at him with her clear dark eyes. "You always seem shocked." </p><p>"It's just I haven't had time-" </p><p>"Did you look at the stretched-out billboards like I told you?" </p><p>"I think so. Yes." He had to laugh. </p><p>"Your laugh sounds much nicer than it did" </p><p>"Does it?" </p><p>"Much more relaxed." </p><p>He feit at ease and comfortable. "Why aren't you in school? I see you every day wandering </p><p>around." </p><p>"Oh, they don't miss me," she said. "I'm anti-social, they say. I don't mix. It's so stränge. I'm very </p><p>social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? Social to me means talking </p><p>about things like this." She rattled some chestnuts that had fallen off the tree in the front yard. </p><p>"Or talking about how stränge the world is. Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social</p><p>to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? An hour of TV dass, an </p><p>hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting </p><p>pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don't; they </p><p>just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film- </p><p>teacher. That's not social to me at all. It's a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the </p><p>spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it's wine when it's not. They run us so ragged by </p><p>the end of the day we can't do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun Park to bully people </p><p>around, break windowpanes in the Window Smasher place or wreck cars in the Car Wrecker </p><p>place with the big Steel ball. Or go out in the cars and race on the streets, trying to see how close </p><p>you can get to lamp-posts, playing 'chicken' and 'knock hub-caps.' I guess I'm everything they </p><p>say I am, all right. I haven't any friends. That's supposed to prove I'm abnormal. But everyone I </p><p>know is either shouting or dancing around like wild or beating up one another. Do you notice </p><p>how people hurt each other nowadays?" </p><p>"You sound so very old." </p><p>"Sometimes I'm ancient. I'm afraid of children my own age. They kill each other. Did it always </p><p>used to be that way? My uncle says no. Six of my friends have been shot in the last year alone. </p><p>Ten of them died in car wrecks. I'm afraid of them and they don't like me because I'm afraid. My </p><p>uncle says his grandfather remembered when children didn't kill each other. But that was a long </p><p>time ago when they had things different. They believed in responsibility, my uncle says. Do you </p><p>know, I'm responsible. I was spanked when I needed it, years ago. And I do all the shopping and </p><p>house-cleaning by hand. </p><p>"But most of all," she said, "I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look </p><p>at them and listen to them. I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where </p><p>they're going. Sometimes I even go to the Fun Parks and ride in the jet cars when they race on </p><p>the edge of town at midnight and the police don't care as long as they're insured. As long as </p><p>everyone has ten thousand insurance everyone's happy. Sometimes I sneak around and listen in </p><p>subways. Or I listen at soda fountains, and do you know what?" </p><p>"What?" </p><p>"People don't talk about anything." </p><p>"Oh, they must!"</p><p>"No, not anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming-pools mostly and say how </p><p>swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone eise. </p><p>And most of the time in the cafes they have the jokeboxes on and the same jokes most of the </p><p>time, or the musical wall lit and all the coloured patterns running up and down, but it's only </p><p>colour and all abstract. And at the museums, have you ever been? All abstract. That's all there is </p><p>now. My uncle says it was different once. A long time back sometimes pictures said things or </p><p>even showed people." </p><p>"Your uncle said, your uncle said. Your uncle must be a remarkable man." </p><p>"He is. He certainly is. Well, I've got to be going. Goodbye, Mr. Montag." </p><p>"Good-bye." </p><p>"Good-bye...." </p><p>One two three four five six seven days: the firehouse. </p><p>"Montag, you shin that pole like a bird up a tree." </p><p>Third day. </p><p>"Montag, I see you came in the back door this time. The Hound bother you?" </p><p>"No, no." </p><p>Fourth day. </p><p>"Montag, a funny thing. Heard teil this morning. Fireman in Seattle, purposely set a Mechanical </p><p>Hound to his own Chemical complex and let it loose. What kind of suicide would you call that?" </p><p>Five six seven days. </p><p>And then, Clarisse was gone. He didn't know what there was about the afternoon, but it was not </p><p>seeing her somewhere in the world. The lawn was empty, the trees empty, the Street empty, and </p><p>while at first he did not even know he missed her or was even looking for her, the fact was that </p><p>by the time he reached the subway, there were vague stirrings of un-ease in him. Something was </p><p>the matter, his routine had been disturbed. A simple routine, true, established in a short few days, </p><p>and yet . . . ? He almost turned back to make the walk again, to give her time to appear. He was </p><p>certain if he tried the same route, everything would work out fine. But it was late, and the arrival </p><p>of his train put a stop to his plan.</p><p>The flutter of cards, motion of hands, of eyelids, the drone of the time-voice in the firehouse </p><p>ceiling ". . . one thirty-five. Thursday morning, November 4th,... one thirty-six . . . one thirty- </p><p>seven a.m... " The tick of the playing-cards on the greasy table-top, all the sounds came to </p><p>Montag, behind his closed eyes, behind the barrier he had momentarily erected. He could feel the </p><p>firehouse full of glitter and shine and silence, of brass colours, the colours of coins, of gold, of </p><p>silver: The unseen men across the table were sighing on their cards, waiting. </p><p>". . .one forty-five..." The voice-clock mourned out the cold hour of a cold morning of a still </p><p>colder year. </p><p>"What's wrong, Montag?" </p><p>Montag opened his eyes. </p><p>A radio hummed somewhere. "... war may be declared any hour. This country Stands ready to </p><p>defend its — " </p><p>The firehouse trembled as a great flight of jet planes whistled a single note across the black </p><p>morning sky. </p><p>Montag blinked. Beatty was looking at him as if he were a museum statue. At any moment, </p><p>Beatty might rise and walk about him, touching, exploring his guilt and self-consciousness. </p><p>Guilt? What guilt was that? </p><p>"Your play, Montag." </p><p>Montag looked at these men whose faces were sunburnt by a thousand real and ten thousand </p><p>imaginary fires, whose work flushed their cheeks and fevered their eyes. These men who looked </p><p>steadily into their platinum igniter flames as they lit their eternally burning black pipes. They and </p><p>their charcoal hair and soot-coloured brows and bluish-ash-smeared cheeks where they had </p><p>shaven close; but their heritage showed. Montag started up, his mouth opened. Had he ever seen </p><p>a fireman that didn't have black hair, black brows, a fiery face, and a blue-steel shaved but </p><p>unshaved look? These men were all mirror-images of himself ! Were all firemen picked then for </p><p>their looks as well as their proclivities? The colour of cinders and ash about them, and the </p><p>continual smell of burning from their pipes. Captain Beatty there, rising in thunderheads of </p><p>tobacco smoke. Beatty opening a fresh tobacco packet, crumpling the cellophane into a sound of </p><p>fire.</p><p>Montag looked at the cards in his own hands. "I-I've been thinking. About the fire last week. </p><p>About the man whose library we fixed. What happened to him?" </p><p>"They took him screaming off to the asylum" </p><p>"He. wasn't insane." </p><p>Beatty arranged his cards quietly. "Any man's insane who thinks he can fool the Government and </p><p>US." </p><p>"I've tried to imagine," said Montag, "just how it would feel. I mean to have firemen burn our </p><p>houses and our books." </p><p>"We haven't any books." </p><p>"But if we did have some." </p><p>"You got some?" </p><p>Beatty blinked slowly. </p><p>"No." Montag gazed beyond them to the wall with the typed lists of a million forbidden books. </p><p>Their names leapt in fire, burning down the years under his axe and his hose which sprayed not </p><p>water but kerosene. "No." But in his mind, a cool wind started up and blew out of the Ventilator </p><p>grille at home, softly, softly, chilling his face. And, again, he saw himself in a green park talking </p><p>to an old man, a very old man, and the wind from the park was cold, too. </p><p>Montag hesitated, "Was-was it always like this? The firehouse, our work? I mean, well, once </p><p>upon a time..." </p><p>"Once upon a time!" Beatty said. "What kind of talk is THAT?" </p><p>Fool, thought Montag to himself, you'll give it away. At the last fire, a book of fairy tales, he'd </p><p>glanced at a single line. "I mean," he said, "in the old days, before homes were completely </p><p>fireproofed " Suddenly it seemed a much younger voice was speaking for him. He opened his </p><p>mouth and it was Clarisse McClellan saying, "Didn't firemen prevent fires rather than stoke them </p><p>up and get them going?" </p><p>"That's rieh!" Stoneman and Black drew forth their rulebooks, which also contained brief </p><p>histories of the Firemen of America, and laid them out where Montag, though long familiär with </p><p>them, might read:</p><p>"Established, 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the Colonies. First Fireman: Benjamin </p><p>Franklin." </p><p>RUFE 1 . Answer the alarm swiftly. </p><p>2. Start the fire swiftly. </p><p>3. Burn everything. </p><p>4. Report back to firehouse immediately. </p><p>5. Stand alert for other alarms. </p><p>Everyone watched Montag. He did not move. </p><p>The alarm sounded. </p><p>The bell in the ceiling kicked itself two hundred times. Suddenly there were four empty chairs. </p><p>The cards feil in a flurry of snow. The brass pole shivered. The men were gone. </p><p>Montag sat in his chair. Below, the orange dragon coughed into life. </p><p>Montag slid down the pole like a man in a dream. </p><p>The Mechanical Hound leapt up in its kennel, its eyes all green flame. </p><p>"Montag, you forgot your helmet!" </p><p>He seized it off the wall behind him, ran, leapt, and they were off, the night wind hammering </p><p>about their siren scream and their mighty metal thunder ! </p><p>It was a flaking three-storey house in the ancient part of the city, a Century old if it was a day, but </p><p>like all houses it had been given a thin fireproof plastic sheath many years ago, and this </p><p>preservative shell seemed to be the only thing holding it in the sky. </p><p>"Here we are !" </p><p>The engine slammed to a stop. Beatty, Stoneman, and Black ran up the sidewalk, suddenly </p><p>odious and fat in the plump fireproof slickers. Montag followed. </p><p>They crashed the front door and grabbed at a woman, though she was not running, she was not </p><p>trying to escape. She was only Standing, weaving from side to side, her eyes fixed upon a </p><p>nothingness in the wall as if they had struck her a terrible blow upon the head. Her tongue was </p><p>moving in her mouth, and her eyes seemed to be trying to remember something, and then they </p><p>remembered and her tongue moved again: </p><p>" 'Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, </p><p>as I trust shall never be put out.' " </p><p>"Enough of that!" said Beatty. "Where are they?" </p><p>He slapped her face with amazing objectivity and repeated the question. The old woman's eyes </p><p>came to a focus upon Beatty. "You know where they are or you wouldn't be here," she said. </p><p>Stoneman held out the telephone alarm card with the complaint signed in telephone duplicate on </p><p>the back </p><p>"Have reason to suspect attic; 11 No. Elm, City. — E. B." </p><p>"That would be Mrs. Blake, my neighbour;" said the woman, reading the initials. </p><p>"All right, men, let's get 'em!" </p><p>Next thing they were up in musty blackness, swinging silver hatchets at doors that were, after all, </p><p>unlocked, tumbling through like boys all rollick and shout. "Hey! " A fountain of books sprang </p><p>down upon Montag as he climbed shuddering up the sheer stair-well. How inconvenient! Always </p><p>before it had been like snuffing a candle. The police went first and adhesive-taped the victim's </p><p>mouth and bandaged him off into their glittering beetle cars, so when you arrived you found an </p><p>empty house. You weren't hurting anyone, you were hurting only things! And since things really </p><p>couldn't be hurt, since things feit nothing, and things don't scream or whimper, as this woman </p><p>might begin to scream and cry out, there was nothing to tease your conscience later. You were </p><p>simply cleaning up. Janitorial work, essentially. Everything to its proper place. Quick with the </p><p>kerosene! Who's got a match! </p><p>But now, tonight, someone had slipped. This woman was spoiling the ritual. The men were </p><p>making too much noise, laughing, joking to cover her terrible accusing silence below. She made </p><p>the empty rooms roar with accusation and shake down a fine dust of guilt that was sucked in </p><p>their nostrils as they plunged about. It was neither cricket nor correct. Montag feit an immense </p><p>irritation. She shouldn't be here, on top of everything! </p><p>Books bombarded his shoulders, his arms, his upturned face A book alighted, almost obediently, </p><p>like a white pigeon, in his hands, wings fluttering. In the dim, wavering light, a page hung.open </p><p>and it was like a snowy feather, the words delicately painted thereon. In all the rush and fervour, </p><p>Montag had only an instant to read a line, but it blazed in his mind for the next minute as if </p><p>stamped there with fiery Steel. "Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine." He dropped</p><p>the book. Immediately, another feil into his arms. </p><p>"Montag, up here! " </p><p>Montag's hand closed like a mouth, crushed the book with wild devotion, with an insanity of </p><p>mindlessness to his ehest. The men above were hurling shovelfuls of magazines into the dusty </p><p>air. They feil like slaughtered birds and the woman stood below, like a small girl, among the </p><p>bodies. </p><p>Montag had done nothing. His hand had done it all, his hand, with a brain of its own, with a </p><p>conscience and a curiosity in each trembling finger, had turned thief.. Now, it plunged the book </p><p>back under his arm, pressed it tight to sweating armpit, rushed out empty, with a magician's </p><p>flourish! Look here! Innocent! Look! </p><p>He gazed, shaken, at that white hand. He held it way out, as if he were far-sighted. He held it </p><p>close, as if he were blind. </p><p>"Montag! " </p><p>He jerked about. </p><p>"Don't stand there, idiot!" </p><p>The books lay like great mounds of fishes left to dry. The men danced and slipped and feil over </p><p>them. Titles glittered their golden eyes, falling, gone. </p><p>"Kerosene! They pumped the cold fluid from the numbered 451 tanks strapped to their shoulders. </p><p>They coated each book, they pumped rooms full of it. </p><p>They hurried downstairs, Montag staggered after them in the kerosene fumes. </p><p>"Come on, woman!" </p><p>The woman knelt among the books, touching the drenched leather and cardboard, reading the gilt </p><p>titles with her fingers while her eyes accused Montag. </p><p>"You can't ever have my books," she said. </p><p>"You know the law," said Beatty. "Where's your common sense? None of those books agree with </p><p>each other. You've been locked up here for years with a regulär damned Tower of Babel. Snap </p><p>out of it! The people in those books never lived. Come on now! " </p><p>She shook her head.</p><p>"The whole house is going up;" said Beatty, </p><p>The men walked clumsily to the door. They glanced back at Montag, who stood near the woman. </p><p>"You're not leaving her here?" he protested. </p><p>"She won't come." </p><p>"Force her, then!" </p><p>Beatty raised his hand in which was concealed the igniter. "We're due back at the house. Besides, </p><p>these fanatics always try suicide; the pattern's familiär." </p><p>Montag placed his hand on the woman's elbow. "You can come with me." </p><p>"No," she said. "Thank you, anyway." </p><p>"I'm counting to ten," said Beatty. "One. Two." </p><p>"Please," said Montag. </p><p>"Go on," said the woman. </p><p>"Three. Four." </p><p>"Here." Montag pulled at the woman. </p><p>The woman replied quietly, "I want to stay here" </p><p>"Five. Six." </p><p>"You can stop counting," she said. She opened the fingers of one hand slightly and in the palm of </p><p>the hand was a single slender object. </p><p>An ordinary kitchen match. </p><p>The sight of it rushed the men out and down away from the house. Captain Beatty, keeping his </p><p>dignity, backed slowly through the front door, his pink face burnt and shiny from a thousand </p><p>fires and night excitements. God, thought Montag, how true! Always at night the alarm comes. </p><p>Never by day! Is it because the fire is prettier by night? More spectacle, a better show? The pink </p><p>face of Beatty now showed the faintest panic in the door. The woman's hand twitched on the </p><p>single matchstick. The fumes of kerosene bloomed up about her. Montag feit the hidden book </p><p>pound like a heart against his ehest. </p><p>"Go on," said the woman, and Montag feit himself back away and away out of the door, after </p><p>Beatty, down the Steps, across the lawn, where the path of kerosene lay like the track of some</p><p>evil snail. </p><p>On the front porch where she had come to weigh them quietly with her eyes, her quietness a </p><p>condemnation, the woman stood motionless. </p><p>Beatty flicked his fingers to spark the kerosene. </p><p>He was too late. Montag gasped. </p><p>The woman on the porch reached out with contempt for them all, and struck the kitchen match </p><p>against the railing. </p><p>People ran out of houses all down the Street. </p><p>They said nothing on their way back to the firehouse. Nobody looked at anyone eise. Montag sat </p><p>in the front seat with Beatty and Black. They did not even smoke their pipes. They sat there </p><p>looking out of the front of the great Salamander as they turned a corner and went silently on. </p><p>"Master Ridley," said Montag at last. </p><p>"What?" said Beatty. </p><p>"She said, 'Master Ridley.' She said some crazy thing when we came in the door. 'Play the man, 1 </p><p>she said, 'Master Ridley.' Something, something, something." </p><p>" 'We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put </p><p>out,'" said Beatty. Stoneman glanced over at the Captain, as did Montag, startled. </p><p>Beatty rubbed his chin. "A man named Latimer said that to a man named Nicholas Ridley, as </p><p>they were being burnt alive at Oxford, for heresy, on October 16, 1555." </p><p>Montag and Stoneman went back to looking at the Street as it moved under the engine wheels. </p><p>"I'm full of bits and pieces," said Beatty. "Most fire captains have to be. Sometimes I surprise </p><p>myself. WATCH it, Stoneman!" </p><p>Stoneman braked the truck. </p><p>"Damn!" said Beatty. "You've gone right by the comer where we turn for the firehouse." </p><p>"Who is it?" </p><p>"Who would it be?" said Montag, leaning back against the closed door in the dark. </p><p>His wife said, at last, "Well, put on the light." </p><p>"I don't want the light." </p><p>"Come to bed." </p><p>He heard her roll impatiently; the bedsprings squealed. </p><p>"Are you drunk?" she said. </p><p>So it was the hand that started it all. He feit one hand and then the other work his coat free and </p><p>let it slump to the floor. He held his pants out into an abyss and let them fall into darkness. His </p><p>hands had been infected, and soon it would be his arms. He could feel the poison working up his </p><p>wrists and into his elbows and his shoulders, and then the jump-over from shoulder-blade to </p><p>shoulder-blade like a spark leaping a gap. His hands were ravenous. And his eyes were </p><p>beginning to feel hunger, as if they must look at something, anything, everything. </p><p>His wife said, "What are you doing?" </p><p>He balanced in space with the book in his sweating cold fingers. </p><p>A minute later she said, "Well, just don't stand there in the middle of the floor." </p><p>He made a small sound. </p><p>"What?" she asked. </p><p>He made more soft sounds. He stumbled towards the bed and shoved the book clumsily under </p><p>the cold pillow. He feil into bed and his wife cried out, startled. He lay far across the room from </p><p>her, on a winter island separated by an empty sea. She talked to him for what seemed a long </p><p>while and she talked about this and she talked about that and it was only words, like the words he </p><p>had heard once in a nursery at a friend's house, a two-year-old child building word patterns, </p><p>talking jargon, making pretty sounds in the air. But Montag said nothing and after a long while </p><p>when he only made the small sounds, he feit her move in the room and come to his bed and stand </p><p>over him and put her hand down to feel his cheek. He knew that when she pulled her hand away </p><p>from his face it was wet. </p><p>Late in the night he looked over at Mildred. She was awake. There was a tiny dance of melody in </p><p>the air, her Seashell was tamped in her ear again and she was listening to far people in far places, </p><p>her eyes wide and staring at the fathoms of blackness above her in the ceiling. </p><p>Wasn't there an old joke about the wife who talked so much on the telephone that her desperate </p><p>husband ran out to the nearest störe and telephoned her to ask what was for dinner? Well, then, </p><p>why didn't he buy himself an audio-Seashell broadcasting Station and talk to his wife late at</p><p>night, murmur, whisper, shout, scream, yell? But what would he whisper, what would he yell? </p><p>What could he say? </p><p>And suddenly she was so stränge he couldn't believe he knew her at all. He was in someone </p><p>else's house, like those other jokes people told of the gentleman, drunk, coming home late at </p><p>night, unlocking the wrong door, entering a wrong room, and bedding with a stranger and getting </p><p>up early and going to work and neither of them the wiser. </p><p>"Millie.... ?" he whispered. </p><p>"What?" </p><p>"I didn't mean to startle you. What I want to know is ...." </p><p>"Well?" </p><p>"When did we meet. And where?" </p><p>"When did we meet for what?" she asked. </p><p>"I mean-originally." </p><p>He knew she must be frowning in the dark. </p><p>He clarified it. "The first time we ever met, where was it, and when?" </p><p>"Why, it was at — " </p><p>She stopped. </p><p>"I don't know," she said. </p><p>He was cold. "Can't you remember?" </p><p>"It's been so long." </p><p>"Only ten years, that's all, only ten!" </p><p>"Don't get excited, I'm trying to think." She laughed an odd little laugh that went up and up. </p><p>"Funny, how funny, not to remember where or when you met your husband or wife." </p><p>He lay massaging his eyes, his brow, and the back of his neck, slowly. He held both hands over </p><p>his eyes and applied a steady pressure there as if to crush memory into place. It was suddenly </p><p>more important than any other thing in a life-time that he knew where he had met Mildred. </p><p>"It doesn't matter," She was up in the bathroom now, and he heard the water running, and the </p><p>swallowing sound she made. </p><p>"No, I guess not," he said. </p><p>He tried to count how many times she swallowed and he thought of the visit from the two zinc- </p><p>oxide-faced men with the cigarettes in their straight-lined mouths and the electronic-eyed snake </p><p>winding down into the layer upon layer of night and stone and stagnant spring water, and he </p><p>wanted to call out to her, how many have you taken TONIGHT! the capsules! how many will </p><p>you take later and not know? and so on, every hour! or maybe not tonight, tomorrow night! And </p><p>me not sleeping, tonight or tomorrow night or any night for a long while; now that this has </p><p>started. And he thought of her lying on the bed with the two technicians Standing straight over </p><p>her, not bent with concern, but only Standing straight, arms folded. And he remembered thinking </p><p>then that if she died, he was certain he wouldn't cry. For it would be the dying of an unknown, a </p><p>Street face, a newspaper image, and it was suddenly so very wrong that he had begun to cry, not </p><p>at death but at the thought of not crying at death, a silly empty man near a silly empty woman, </p><p>while the hungry snake made her still more empty. </p><p>How do you get so empty? he wondered. Who takes it out of you? And that awful flower the </p><p>other day, the dandelion! It had summed up everything, hadn't it? "What a shame! You're not in </p><p>love with anyone ! " And why not? </p><p>Well, wasn't there a wall between him and Mildred, when you came down to it? Literally not just </p><p>one, wall but, so far, three! And expensive, too! And the uncles, the aunts, the cousins, the </p><p>nieces, the nephews, that lived in those walls, the gibbering pack of tree-apes that said nothing, </p><p>nothing, nothing and said it loud, loud, loud. He had taken to calling them relatives from the very </p><p>first. "How's Uncle Louis today?" "Who?" "And Aunt Maude?" The most significant memory he </p><p>had of Mildred, really, was of a little girl in a forest with out trees (how odd!) or rather a little girl </p><p>lost on a plateau where there used to be trees (you could feel the memory of their shapes all </p><p>about) sitting in the centre of the "living-room." The living-room; what a good job of labelling </p><p>that was now. No matter when he came in, the walls were always talking to Mildred. </p><p>"Something must be done!I" </p><p>"Yes, something must be done!" </p><p>"Well, let's not stand and talk!" </p><p>"Let's do it! " </p><p>Tm so madl could SPIT!" </p><p>What was it all about? Mildred couldn't say. Who was mad at whom? Mildred didn't quite know. </p><p>What were they going to do? Well, said Mildred, wait around and see. </p><p>He had waited around to see. </p><p>A great thunderstorm of sound gushed from the walls. Music bombarded him at such an </p><p>immense volume that his bones were almost shaken from their tendons; he feit his jaw vibrate, </p><p>his eyes wobble in his head. He was a victim of concussion. When it was all over he feit like a </p><p>man who had been thrown from a cliff, whirled in a centrifuge and spat out over a waterfall that </p><p>feil and feil into emptiness and emptiness and never-quite-touched-bottom-never-never-quite-no </p><p>not quite-touched-bottom ... and you feil so fast you didn't touch the sides either ... never ... quite </p><p>. . . touched . anything. </p><p>The thunder faded. The music died. </p><p>"There," said Mildred, </p><p>And it was indeed remarkable. Something had happened. Even though the people in the walls of </p><p>the room had barely moved, and nothing had really been settled, you had the impression that </p><p>someone had turned on a washing-machine or sucked you up in a gigantic vacuum. You drowned </p><p>in music and pure cacophony. He came out of the room sweating and on the point of collapse. </p><p>Behind him, Mildred sat in her chair and the voices went on again: </p><p>"Well, everything will be all right now," said an "aunt." </p><p>"Oh, don't be too sure," said a "cousin." </p><p>"Now, don't get angry!" </p><p>"Who's angry?" </p><p>"YOU are ! " </p><p>"You're mad!" </p><p>"Why should I be mad!" </p><p>"Because!" </p><p>"That's all very well," cried Montag, "but what are they mad about? Who are these people? </p><p>Who's that man and who's that woman? Are they husband and wife, are they divorced, engaged, </p><p>what? Good God, nothing's connected up."</p><p>"They—" said Mildred. "Well, they-they had this fight, you see. They certainly fight a lot. You </p><p>should listen. I think they're married. Yes, they're married. Why?" </p><p>And if it was not the three walls soon to be four walls and the dream complete, then it was the </p><p>open car and Mildred driving a hundred miles an hour across town, he shouting at her and she </p><p>shouting back and both trying to hear what was said, but hearing only the scream of the car. "At </p><p>least keep it down to the minimum !" he yelled: "What?" she cried. "Keep it down to fifty-five, </p><p>the minimum! " he shouted. "The what?" she shrieked. "Speed!" he shouted. And she pushed it </p><p>up to one hundred and five miles an hour and tore the breath from his mouth. </p><p>When they stepped out of the car, she had the Seashells stuffed in her ears. </p><p>Silence. Onlv the wind blowing softlv. </p><p>"Mildred." He stirred in bed. </p><p>He reached over and pulled one of the tiny musical insects out of her ear. "Mildred. Mildred?" </p><p>"Yes." Her voice was faint. </p><p>He feit he was one of the creatures electronically inserted between the slots of the phono-colour </p><p>walls, speaking, but the speech not piercing the crystal barrier. He could only pantomime, hoping </p><p>she would turn his way and see him. They could not touch through the glass. </p><p>"Mildred, do you know that girl I was telling you about?" </p><p>"What girl?" She was almost asleep. </p><p>"The girl next door." </p><p>"What girl next door?" </p><p>"You know, the high-school girl. Clarisse, her name is." </p><p>"Oh, yes," said his wife. </p><p>"I haven't seen her for a few days-four days to be exact. Have you seen her?" </p><p>"No." </p><p>"I've meant to talk to you about her. Strange." </p><p>"Oh, I know the one you mean." </p><p>"I thought you would." </p><p>"Her," said Mildred in the dark room. </p><p>"What about her?" asked Montag. </p><p>"I meant to teil you. Forgot. Forgot." </p><p>"Teil me now. What is it?" </p><p>"I think she's gone." </p><p>"Gone?" </p><p>"Whole family moved out somewhere. But she's gone for good. I think she's dead." </p><p>"We couldn't be talking about the same girl." </p><p>"No. The same girl. McClellan. McClellan, Run over by a car. Four days ago. I'm not sure. But I </p><p>think she's dead. The family moved out anyway. I don't know. But I think she's dead." </p><p>"You're not sure of it! " </p><p>"No, not sure. Pretty sure." </p><p>"Why didn't you teil me sooner?" </p><p>"Forgot." </p><p>"Four days ago!" </p><p>"I forgot all about it." </p><p>"Four days ago," he said, quietly, lying there. </p><p>They lay there in the dark room not moving, either of them. "Good night," she said. </p><p>He heard a faint rustle. Her hands moved. The electric thimble moved like a praying mantis on </p><p>the pillow, touched by her hand. Now it was in her ear again, humming. </p><p>He listened and his wife was singing under her breath. </p><p>Outside the house, a shadow moved, an autumn wind rose up and faded away But there was </p><p>something eise in the silence that he heard. It was like a breath exhaled upon the window. It was </p><p>like a faint drift of greenish luminescent smoke, the motion of a single huge October leaf </p><p>blowing across the lawn and away. </p><p>The Hound, he thought. It's out there tonight. It's out there now. If I opened the window . . . </p><p>He did not open the window. </p><p>He had chills and fever in the morning. </p><p>"You can't be sick," said Mildred. </p><p>He closed his eyes over the hotness. "Yes."</p><p>"But you were all right last night." </p><p>"No, I wasn't all right " He heard the "relatives" shouting in the parlour. </p><p>Mildred stood over his bed, curiously. He feit her there, he saw her without opening his eyes, her </p><p>hair burnt by Chemicals to a brittle straw, her eyes with a kind of cataract unseen but suspect far </p><p>behind the pupils, the reddened pouting lips, the body as thin as a praying mantis from dieting, </p><p>and her flesh like white bacon. He could remember her no other way. </p><p>"Will you bring me aspirin and water?" </p><p>"You've got to get up," she said. "It's noon. You've slept five hours later than usual." </p><p>"Will you turn the parlour off?" he asked. </p><p>"That's my family." </p><p>"Will you turn it off for a sick man?" </p><p>'TU turn it down." </p><p>She went out of the room and did nothing to the parlour and came back. "Is that better?" </p><p>"Thanks." </p><p>"That's my favourite programme," she said. </p><p>"What about the aspirin?" </p><p>"You've never been sick before." She went away again. </p><p>"Well, I'm sick now. I'm not going to work tonight. Call Beatty for me." </p><p>"You acted funny last night." She returned, humming. </p><p>"Where's the aspirin?" He glanced at the water-glass she handed him. </p><p>"Oh." She walked to the bathroom again. "Did something happen?" </p><p>"A fire, is all." </p><p>"I had a nice evening," she said, in the bathroom. </p><p>"What doing?" </p><p>"The parlour." </p><p>"What was on?" </p><p>"Programmes." </p><p>"What programmes?" </p><p>"Some of the best ever." </p><p>"Who?". </p><p>"Oh, you know, the bunch." </p><p>"Yes, the bunch, the bunch, the bunch." He pressed at the pain in his eyes and suddenly the </p><p>odour of kerosene made him vomit. </p><p>Mildred came in, humming. She was surprised. "Why'd you do that?" </p><p>He looked with dismay at the floor. "We burned an old woman with her books." </p><p>"It's a good thing the rug's washable." She fetched a mop and worked on it. "I went to Helen's </p><p>last night." </p><p>"Couldn't you get the shows in your own parlour?" </p><p>"Sure, but it's nice visiting." </p><p>She went out into the parlour. He heard her singing. </p><p>"Mildred?" he called. </p><p>She returned, singing, snapping her fingers softly. </p><p>"Aren't you going to ask me about last night?" he said. </p><p>"What about it?" </p><p>"We burned a thousand books. We burned a woman." </p><p>"Well?" </p><p>The parlour was exploding with sound. </p><p>"We burned copies of Dante and Swift and Marcus Aurelius." </p><p>"Wasn't he a European?" </p><p>"Something like that." </p><p>"Wasn't he a radical?" </p><p>"I never read him." </p><p>"He was a radical." Mildred fiddled with the telephone. "You don't expect me to call Captain </p><p>Beatty, do you?" </p><p>"You must! " </p><p>"Don't shout!" </p><p>"I wasn't shouting." He was up in bed, suddenly, enraged and flushed, shaking. The parlour</p><p>roared in the hot air. "I can't call him. I can't teil him I'm sick." </p><p>"Why?" </p><p>Because you're afraid, he thought. A child feigning illness, afraid to call because after a </p><p>moment's discussion, the conversation would run so: "Yes, Captain, I feel better already. I'll be </p><p>in at ten o'clock tonight." </p><p>"You're not sick," said Mildred. </p><p>Montag feil back in bed. He reached under his pillow. The hidden book was still there. </p><p>"Mildred, how would it be if, well, maybe, I quit my job awhile?" </p><p>"You want to give up everything? After all these years of working, because, one night, some </p><p>woman and her books—" </p><p>"You should have seen her, Millie! " </p><p>"She's nothing to me; she shouldn't have had books. It was her responsibility, she should have </p><p>thought of that. I hate her. She's got you going and next thing you know we'll be out, no house, </p><p>no job, nothing." </p><p>"You weren't there, you didn't see," he said. "There must be something in books, things we can't </p><p>imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't </p><p>stay for nothing." </p><p>"She was simple-minded." </p><p>"She was as rational as you and I, more so perhaps, and we burned her." </p><p>"That's water under the bridge." </p><p>"No, not water; fire. You ever seen a burned house? It smoulders for days. Well, this fire'll last </p><p>me the rest of my life. God! I've been trying to put it out, in my mind, all night. I'm crazy with </p><p>trying." </p><p>"You should have thought of that before becoming a fireman." </p><p>"Thought! " he said. "Was I given a choice? My grandfather and father were firemen. In my </p><p>sleep, I ran after them." </p><p>The parlour was playing a dance tune. </p><p>"This is the day you go on the early shift," said Mildred. "You should have gone two hours ago. I</p><p>just noticed." </p><p>"It's not just the woman that died," said Montag. "Last night I thought about all the kerosene I've </p><p>used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man </p><p>was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to </p><p>put them down on paper. And I'd never even thought that thought before." He got out of bed. </p><p>"It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the </p><p>world and life, and then I came along in two minutes and boom! it's all over." </p><p>"Let me alone," said Mildred. "I didn't do anything." </p><p>"Let you alone! That's all very well, but how can I leave myself alone? We need not to be let </p><p>alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really </p><p>bothered? About something important, about something real?" </p><p>And then he shut up, for he remembered last week and the two white stones staring up at the </p><p>ceiling and the pump-snake with the probing eye and the two soap-faced men with the cigarettes </p><p>moving in their mouths when they talked. But that was another Mildred, that was a Mildred so </p><p>deep inside this one, and so bothered, really bothered, that the two women had never met. He </p><p>turned away. </p><p>Mildred said, "Well, now you've done it. Out front of the house. Look who's here.". </p><p>"I don't care." </p><p>"There's a Phoenix car just driven up and a man in a black shirt with an orange snake stitched on </p><p>his arm coming up the front walk." </p><p>"Captain Beauty?" he said, </p><p>"Captain Beatty." </p><p>Montag did not move, but stood looking into the cold whiteness of the wall immediately before </p><p>him. </p><p>"Go let him in, will you? Teil him I'm sick." </p><p>"Teil him yourself ! " She ran a few Steps this way, a few Steps that, and stopped, eyes wide, when </p><p>the front door Speaker called her name, softly, softly, Mrs. Montag, Mrs. Montag, someone here, </p><p>someone here, Mrs. Montag, Mrs. Montag, someone's here. Fading. </p><p>Montag made sure the book was well hidden behind the pillow, climbed slowly back into bed,</p><p>arranged the covers over his knees and across his ehest, half-sitting, and after a while Mildred </p><p>moved and went out of the room and Captain Beatty strolled in, his hands in his pockets. </p><p>"Shut the 'relatives' up," said Beatty, looking around at everything except Montag and his wife. </p><p>This time, Mildred ran. The yammering voices stopped yelling in the parlour. </p><p>Captain Beatty sat down in the most comfortable chair with a peaceful look on his ruddy face. </p><p>He took time to prepare and light his brass pipe and puff out a great smoke cloud. "Just thought </p><p>I'd come by and see how the sick man is." </p><p>"How'd you guess?" </p><p>Beatty smiled his smile which showed the candy pinkness of his gums and the tiny candy </p><p>whiteness of his teeth. "I've seen it all. You were going to call for a night off." </p><p>Montag sat in bed. </p><p>"Well," said Beatty, "take the night off!" He examined his eternal matchbox, the lid of which </p><p>said GUARANTEED: ONE MILLION LIGHTS IN THIS IGNITER, and began to strike the </p><p>Chemical match abstractedly, blow out, strike, blow out, strike, speak a few words, blow out. He </p><p>looked at the flame. He blew, he looked at the smoke. "When will you be well?" </p><p>"Tomorrow. The next day maybe. First of the week." </p><p>Beatty puffed his pipe. "Every fireman, sooner or later, hits this. They only need understanding, </p><p>to know how the wheels run. Need to know the history of our profession. They don't feed it to </p><p>rookies like they used to. Damn shame." Puff. "Only fire chiefs remember it now." Puff. "Pli let </p><p>you in on it." </p><p>Mildred fidgeted. </p><p>Beatty took a full minute to settle himself in and think back for what he wanted to say. </p><p>"When did it all Start, you ask, this job of ours, how did it come about, where, when? Well, I'd </p><p>say it really got started around about a thing called the Civil War. Even though our rule-book </p><p>Claims it was founded earlier. The fact is we didn't get along well until photography came into its </p><p>own. Then— motion pictures in the early twentieth Century. Radio. Television. Things began to </p><p>have mass." </p><p>Montag sat in bed, not moving.</p><p>"And because they had mass, they became simpler," said Beatty. "Once, books appealed to a few </p><p>people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But </p><p>then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population. </p><p>Films and radios, magazines, books levelled down to a sort of paste pudding norm, do you </p><p>follow me?" </p><p>"I think so." </p><p>Beatty peered at the smoke pattern he had put out on the air. "Picture it. Nineteenth-century man </p><p>with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth Century, speed up your camera. </p><p>Books cut shorter. Condensations, Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap </p><p>ending." </p><p>"Snap ending." Mildred nodded. </p><p>"Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, </p><p>winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The </p><p>dictionaries were for reference. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet (you </p><p>know the title certainly, Montag; it is probably only a faint rumour of a title to you, Mrs. </p><p>Montag) whose sole knowledge, as I say, of Hamlet was a one-page digest in a book that </p><p>claimed: 'now at least you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbours.' Do you see? </p><p>Out of the nursery into the College and back to the nursery; there's your intellectual pattern for </p><p>the past five centuries or more." </p><p>Mildred arose and began to move around the room, picking things up and putting them down. </p><p>Beatty ignored her and continued </p><p>"Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click? Pie? Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, </p><p>Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, </p><p>Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a </p><p>headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man's mind around about so fast under the </p><p>pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters, that the centrifuge flings off all </p><p>unnecessary, time-wasting thought!" </p><p>Mildred smoothed the bedclothes. Montag feit his heart jump and jump again as she patted his</p><p>pillow. Right now she was pulling at his shoulder to try to get him to move so she could take the </p><p>pillow out and fix it nicely and put it back. And perhaps cry out and stare or simply reach down </p><p>her hand and say, "What's this?" and hold up the hidden book with touching innocence. </p><p>"School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and </p><p>spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job </p><p>counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling </p><p>switches, fitting nuts and bolts?" </p><p>"Let me fix your pillow," said Mildred. </p><p>"No! " whispered Montag, </p><p>"The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at. </p><p>dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour." </p><p>Mildred said, "Here." </p><p>"Get away," said Montag. </p><p>"Life becomes one big pratfall, Montag; everything bang; boff, and wow!" </p><p>"Wow," said Mildred, yanking at the pillow. </p><p>"For God's sake, let me be!" cried Montag passionately. </p><p>Beatty opened his eyes wide. </p><p>Mildred's hand had frozen behind the pillow. Her fingers were tracing the book's outline and as </p><p>the shape became familiär her face looked surprised and then stunned. Her mouth opened to ask </p><p>a question . . . </p><p>"Empty the theatres save for clowns and furnish the rooms with glass walls and pretty colours </p><p>running up and down the walls like confetti or blood or sherry or sauterne. You like baseball, </p><p>don't you, Montag?" </p><p>"Baseball's afine game." </p><p>Now Beatty was almost invisible, a voice somewhere behind a screen of smoke </p><p>"What's this?" asked Mildred, almost with delight. Montag heaved back against her arms. </p><p>"What's this here?" </p><p>"Sit down!" Montag shouted. She jumped away, her hands empty. "We're talking ! " </p><p>Beatty went on as if nothing had happened. "You like bowling, don't you, Montag?"</p><p>"Bowling, yes." </p><p>"And golf?" </p><p>"Golf is a fine game." </p><p>"Basketball?" </p><p>"Afine game.". </p><p>"Billiards, pool? Football?" </p><p>"Fine games, all of them." </p><p>"More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don't have to think, eh? Organize and </p><p>organize and superorganize super-super sports. More Cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind </p><p>drinks less and less. Impatience. Highways full of crowds going somewhere, somewhere, </p><p>somewhere, nowhere. The gasoline refugee. Towns turn into motels, people in nomadic surges </p><p>from place to place, following the moon tides, living tonight in the room where you slept this </p><p>noon and I the night before." </p><p>Mildred went out of the room and slammed the door. The parlour "aunts" began to laugh at the </p><p>parlour "uncles.", </p><p>"Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more </p><p>minorities. Don't Step on the toes of the dog?lovers, the cat?lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, </p><p>chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second?generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, </p><p>Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this </p><p>play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics </p><p>any where. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All </p><p>the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock </p><p>up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the </p><p>damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. </p><p>But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic ?books survive. And the </p><p>three?dimensional sex?magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the </p><p>Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to Start with, no! </p><p>Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks</p><p>to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old </p><p>confessions, or trade ?journals." </p><p>"Yes, but what about the firemen, then?" asked Montag. </p><p>"Ah." Beatty leaned forward in the faint mist of smoke from his pipe. "What more easily </p><p>explained and natural? With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, </p><p>grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative </p><p>creators, the word ' intellectual, 1 of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always </p><p>dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school dass who was </p><p>exceptionally ’bright,’ did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many </p><p>leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after </p><p>hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the </p><p>Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are </p><p>happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book </p><p>is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's </p><p>mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well?read man? Me? I won't stomach them for </p><p>a minute. And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world (you were </p><p>correct in your assumption the other night) there was no longer need of firemen for the old </p><p>purposes. They were given the new job, as Custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our </p><p>understandable and rightful dread of being inferior; official censors, judges, and executors. That's </p><p>you, Montag, and that's me." </p><p>The door to the parlour opened and Mildred stood there looking in at them, looking at Beatty and </p><p>then at Montag. Behind her the walls of the room were flooded with green and yellow and </p><p>orange fireworks sizzling and bursting to some music composed almost completely of </p><p>trap?drums, tom?toms, and cymbals. Her mouth moved and she was saying something but the </p><p>sound covered it. </p><p>Beatty knocked his pipe into the palm of his pink hand, studied the ashes as if they were a </p><p>symbol to be diagnosed and searched for meaning. </p><p>"You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and </p><p>stirred. Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't</p><p>that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? </p><p>Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, </p><p>for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these." </p><p>"Yes." </p><p>Montag could lip?read what Mildred was saying in the doorway. He tried not to look at her </p><p>mouth, because then Beatty might turn and read what was there, too. </p><p>"Coloured people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about </p><p>Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The </p><p>cigarette people are weeping? Bum the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight </p><p>outside. Better yet, into the incinerator. Funerals are unhappy and pagan? Eliminate them, too. </p><p>Five minutes after a person is dead he's on his way to the Big Flue, the Incinerators serviced by </p><p>helicopters all over the country. Ten minutes after death a man's a speck of black dust. Let's not </p><p>quibble over individuals with memoriams. Forget them. Burn them all, burn everything. Fire is </p><p>bright and fire is clean." </p><p>The fireworks died in the parlour behind Mildred. She had stopped talking at the same time; a </p><p>miraculous coincidence. Montag held his breath. </p><p>"There was a girl next door," he said, slowly. "She's gone now, I think, dead. I can't even </p><p>remember her face. But she was different. How?how did she happen?" </p><p>Beatty smiled. "Here or there, that's bound to occur. Clarisse McClellan? We've a record on her </p><p>family. We've watched them carefully. Heredity and environment are funny things. You can't rid </p><p>yourselves of all the odd ducks in just a few years. The home environment can undo a lot you try </p><p>to do at school. That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're </p><p>almost snatching them from the cradle. We had some false alarms on the McClellans, when they </p><p>lived in Chicago. Never found a book. Uncle had a mixed record; anti?social. The girl? She was </p><p>a time bomb. The family had been feeding her subconscious, I'm sure, from what I saw of her </p><p>school record. She didn't want to know how a thing was done, but why. That can be </p><p>embarrassing. You ask Why to a lot of things and you wind up very unhappy indeed, if you keep </p><p>at it. The poor girl's better off dead." </p><p>"Yes, dead." </p><p>"Luckily, queer ones like her don't happen, often. We know how to nip most of them in the bud,</p><p>early. You can't build a house without nails and wood. If you don't want a house built, hide the </p><p>nails and wood. If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a </p><p>question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a </p><p>thing as war. If the Government is inefficient, top?heavy, and tax?mad, better it be all those than </p><p>that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the </p><p>words to more populär songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last </p><p>year. Cram them full of non?combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel </p><p>stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a </p><p>sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. </p><p>Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way </p><p>lies melancholy. Any man who can take a TV wall apart and put it back together again, and most </p><p>men can nowadays, is happier than any man who tries to slide?rule, measure, and equate the </p><p>universe, which just won't be measured or equated without making man feel bestial and lonely. I </p><p>know, I've tried it; to hell with it. So bring on your clubs and parties, your acrobats and </p><p>magicians, your dare-devils, jet cars, motor?cycle helicopters, your sex and heroin, more of </p><p>everything to do with automatic reflex. If the drama is bad, if the film says nothing, if the play is </p><p>hollow, sting me with the theremin, loudly. I'll think I'm responding to the play, when it's only a </p><p>tactile reaction to Vibration. But I don't care. I just like solid entertainment." </p><p>Beatty got up. "I must be going. Lecture's over. I hope I've clarified things. The important thing </p><p>for you to remember, Montag, is we're the Happiness Boys, the Dixie Duo, you and I and the </p><p>others. We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with </p><p>conflicting theory and thought. We have our fingers in the dyke. Hold steady. Don't let the </p><p>torrent of melancholy and drear philosophy drown our world. We depend on you. I don't think </p><p>you realize how important you are, to our happy world as it Stands now." </p><p>Beatty shook Montag's limp hand. Montag still sat, as if the house were collapsing about him and </p><p>he could not move, in the bed. Mildred had vanished from the door. </p><p>"One last thing," said Beatty. "At least once in his career, every fireman gets an itch. What do the </p><p>books say, he wonders. Oh, to scratch that itch, eh? Well, Montag, take my word for it, I've had</p><p>to read a few in my time, to know what I was about, and the books say nothing! Nothing you can </p><p>teach or believe. They're about non?existent people, figments of imagination, if they're fiction. </p><p>And if they're non?fiction, it's worse, one professor calling another an idiot, one philosopher </p><p>screaming down another's gullet. All of them running about, putting out the stars and </p><p>extinguishing the sun. You come away lost." </p><p>"Well, then, what if a fireman accidentally, really not, intending anything, takes a book home </p><p>with him?" </p><p>Montag twitched. The open door looked at him with its great vacant eye. </p><p>"A natural error. Curiosity alone," said Beatty. "We don't get over?anxious or mad. We let the </p><p>fireman keep the book twenty?four hours. If he hasn't burned it by then, we simply come and </p><p>burn it for him." </p><p>"Of course." Montag's mouth was dry. </p><p>"Well, Montag. Will you take another, later shift, today? Will we see you tonight perhaps?" </p><p>"I don't know," said Montag. </p><p>"What?" Beatty looked faintly surprised. </p><p>Montag shut his eyes. 'TU be in later. Maybe." </p><p>"We'd certainly miss you if you didn't show," said Beatty, putting his pipe in his pocket </p><p>thoughtfully. </p><p>I'll never come in again, thought Montag. </p><p>"Get well and keep well," said Beatty. </p><p>He turned and went out through the open door. </p><p>Montag watched through the window as Beatty drove away in his gleaming </p><p>yellow?flame?coloured beetle with the black, char?coloured tyres. </p><p>Across the Street and down the way the other houses stood with their flat fronts. What was it </p><p>Clarisse had said one afternoon? "No front porches. My uncle says there used to be front </p><p>porches. And people sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and </p><p>not talking when they didn't want to talk. Sometimes they just sat there and thought about things, </p><p>turned things over. My uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because they didn't </p><p>look well. But my uncle says that was merely rationalizing it; the real reason, hidden underneath, </p><p>might be they didn't want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the</p><p>wrong kind of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think. So they ran off </p><p>with the porches. And the gardens, too. Not many gardens any more to sit around in. And look at </p><p>the furniture. No rocking?chairs any more. They're too comfortable. Get people up and running </p><p>around. My uncle says . . . and . . . my uncle . . . and . . . my uncle ..." Her voice faded. </p><p>Montag turned and looked at his wife, who sat in the middle of the parlour talking to an </p><p>announcer, who in turn was talking to her. "Mrs. Montag," he was saying. This, that and the </p><p>other. "Mrs. Montag?" Something eise and still another. The Converter attachment, which had </p><p>cost them one hundred dollars, automatically supplied her name whenever the announcer </p><p>addressed his anonymous audience, leaving a blank where the proper syllables could be filled in. </p><p>A special spot?wavex?scrambler also caused his televised image, in the area immediately about </p><p>his lips, to mouth the vowels and consonants beautifully. He was a friend, no doubt of it, a good </p><p>friend. "Mrs. Montag?now look right here." </p><p>Her head turned. Though she quite obviously was not listening. </p><p>Montag said, "It's only a Step from not going to work today to not working tomorrow, to not </p><p>working at the firehouse ever again." , </p><p>"You are going to work tonight, though, aren't you?" said Mildred. </p><p>"I haven't decided. Right now I've got an awful feeling I want to smash things and kill things </p><p>"Go take the beetle." </p><p>"No thanks." </p><p>"The keys to the beetle are on the night table. I always like to drive fast when I feel that way. </p><p>You get it up around ninetyfive and you feel wonderful. Sometimes I drive all night and come </p><p>back and you don't know it. It's fun out in the country. You hit rabbits, sometimes you hit dogs. </p><p>Go take the beetle." </p><p>"No, I don't want to, this time. I want to hold on to this funny thing. God, it's gotten big on me. I </p><p>don't know what it is. I'm so damned unhappy, I'm so mad, and I don't know why I feel like I'm </p><p>putting on weight. I feel fat. I feel like I've been saving up a lot of things, and don't know what. I</p><p>might even Start reading books." </p><p>"They'd put you in jail, wouldn't they?" She looked at him as if he were behind the glass wall. </p><p>He began to put on his clothes, moving restlessly about the bedroom. "Yes, and it might be a </p><p>good idea. Before I hurt someone. Did you hear Beatty? Did you listen to him? He knows all the </p><p>answers. He's right. Happiness is important. Fun is everything. And yet I kept sitting there saying </p><p>to myself, I'm not happy, I'm not happy." </p><p>"I am." Mildred's mouth beamed. "And proud of it." </p><p>"I'm going to do something," said Montag. "I don't even know what yet, but I'm going to do </p><p>something big." </p><p>"I'm tired of listening to this junk," said Mildred, turning from him to the announcer again </p><p>Montag touched the volume control in the wall and the announcer was speechless. </p><p>"Millie?" He paused. "This is your house as well as mine. I feel it's only fair that I teil you </p><p>something now. I should have told you before, but I wasn't even admitting it to myself. I have </p><p>something I want you to see, something I've put away and hid during the past year, now and </p><p>again, once in a while, I didn't know why, but I did it and I never told you." </p><p>He took hold of a straight?backed chair and moved it slowly and steadily into the hall near the </p><p>front door and climbed up on it and stood for a moment like a statue on a pedestal, his wife </p><p>Standing under him, waiting. Then he reached up and pulled back the grille of the </p><p>air?conditioning System and reached far back inside to the right and moved still another sliding </p><p>sheet of metal and took out a book. Without looking at it he dropped it to the floor. He put his </p><p>hand back up and took out two books and moved his hand down and dropped the two books to </p><p>the floor. He kept moving his hand and dropping books, small ones, fairly large ones, yellow, </p><p>red, green ones. When he was done he looked down upon some twenty books lying at his wife's </p><p>feet. </p><p>"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't really think. But now it looks as if we're in this together." </p><p>Mildred backed away as if she were suddenly confronted by a pack of mice that had come up out </p><p>of the floor. He could hear her breathing rapidly and her face was paled out and her eyes were </p><p>fastened wide. She said his name over, twice, three times. Then moaning, she ran forward, seized</p><p>a book and ran toward the kitchen incinerator. </p><p>He caught her, shrieking. He held her and she tried to fight away from him, scratching. </p><p>"No, Millie, no! Wait! Stop it, will you? You don't know . . . stop it!" He slapped her face, he </p><p>grabbed her again and shook her. </p><p>She said his name and began to cry. </p><p>"Millie! he said. "Listen. Give me a second, will you? We can't do anything. We can't burn </p><p>these. I want to look at them, at least look at them once. Then if what the Captain says is true, </p><p>we'll burn them together, believe me, we'll burn them together. You must help me." He looked </p><p>down into her face and took hold of her chin and held her firmly. He was looking not only at her, </p><p>but for himself and what he must do, in her face. "Whether we like this or not, we're in it. I've </p><p>never asked for much from you in all these years, but I ask it now, I plead for it. We've got to </p><p>Start somewhere here, figuring out why we're in such a mess, you and the medicine at night, and </p><p>the car, and me and my work. We're heading right for the cliff, Millie. God, I don't want to go </p><p>over. This isn't going to be easy. We haven't anything to go on, but maybe we can piece it out </p><p>and figure it and help each other. I need you so much right now, I can't teil you. If you love me at </p><p>all you'll put up with this, twenty ?four, forty?eight hours, that's all I ask, then it'll be over. I </p><p>promise, I swear! And if there is something here, just one little thing out of a whole mess of </p><p>things, maybe we can pass it on to someone eise." </p><p>She wasn't fighting any more, so he let her go. She sagged away from him and slid down the </p><p>wall, and sat on the floor looking at the books. Her foot touched one and she saw this and pulled </p><p>her foot away. </p><p>"That woman, the other night, Millie, you weren't there. You didn't see her face. And Clarisse. </p><p>You never talked to her. I talked to her. And men like Beatty are afraid of her. I can't understand </p><p>it. Why should they be so afraid of someone like her? But I kept putting her alongside the </p><p>firemen in the house last night, and I suddenly realized I didn't like them at all, and I didn't like </p><p>myself at all any more. And I thought maybe it would be best if the firemen themselves were </p><p>burnt." </p><p>"Guy! " </p><p>The front door voice called softly:</p><p>"Mrs. Montag, Mrs. Montag, someone here, someone here, Mrs. Montag, Mrs. Montag, someone </p><p>here." </p><p>Softly. </p><p>They turned to Stare at the door and the books toppled everywhere, everywhere in heaps. </p><p>"Beatty!" said Mildred. </p><p>"It can't be him." </p><p>"He's come back!" she whispered. </p><p>The front door voice called again softly. "Someone here ..." </p><p>"We won't answer." Montag lay back against the wall and then slowly sank to a crouching </p><p>Position and began to nudge the books, bewilderedly, with his thumb, his forefinger. He was </p><p>shivering and he wanted above all to shove the books up through the Ventilator again, but he </p><p>knew he could not face Beatty again. He crouched and then he sat and the voice of the front door </p><p>spoke again, more insistently. Montag picked a single small volume from the floor. "Where do </p><p>we begin?" He opened the book half?way and peered at it. "We begin by beginning, I guess." </p><p>"He'll come in," said Mildred, "and burn us and the books!" </p><p>The front door voice faded at last. There was a silence. Montag feit the presence of someone </p><p>beyond the door, waiting, listening. Then the footsteps going away down the walk and over the </p><p>lawn. </p><p>"Let's see what this is," said Montag. </p><p>He spoke the words haltingly and with a terrible selfconsciousness. He read a dozen pages here </p><p>and there and came at last to this: </p><p>" 'It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than </p><p>submit to break eggs at the smaller end.'" </p><p>Mildred sat across the hall from him. "What does it mean? It doesn't mean anything! The Captain </p><p>was right! " </p><p>"Here now," said Montag. "We'll Start over again, at the beginning." </p><p>PART II </p><p>THE SIEVE AND THE SAND </p><p>THEY read the long afternoon through, while the cold November rain feil from the sky upon the </p><p>quiet house. They sat in the hall because the parlour was so empty and grey-looking without its </p><p>walls lit with orange and yellow confetti and sky-rockets and women in gold-mesh dresses and </p><p>men in black velvet pulling one-hundred-pound rabbits from silver hats. The parlour was dead </p><p>and Mildred kept peering in at it with a blank expression as Montag paced the floor and came </p><p>back and squatted down and read a page as many as ten times, aloud. </p><p>" 'We cannot teil the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by </p><p>drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over, so in a series of kindnesses there is at last </p><p>one which makes the heart run over."’ </p><p>Montag sat listening to the rain. </p><p>"Is that what it was in the girl next door? I've tried so hard to figure." </p><p>"She's dead. Let's talk about someone alive, for goodness' sake." </p><p>Montag did not look back at his wife as he went trembling along the hall to the kitchen, where he </p><p>stood a long .time watching the rain hit the Windows before he came back down the hall in the </p><p>grey light, waiting for the tremble to subside. </p><p>He opened another book. </p><p>" 'That favourite subject, Myself.'" </p><p>He squinted at the wall. " 'The favourite subject, Myself." 1 </p><p>"I understand that one," said Mildred. </p><p>"But Clarisse's favourite subject wasn't herseif. It was everyone eise, and me. She was the first </p><p>person in a good many years I've really liked. She was the first person I can remember who </p><p>looked straight at me as if I counted." He lifted the two books. "These men have been dead a </p><p>long time, but I know their words point, one way or another, to Clansse." </p><p>Outside the front door, in the rain, a faint scratching. </p><p>Montag froze. He saw Mildred thrust herseif back to the wall and gasp. </p><p>"I shut it off." </p><p>"Someone— the door— why doesn't the door-voice teil us— " </p><p>Under the door-sill, a slow, probing sniff, an exhalation of electric steam. </p><p>Mildred laughed. "It's only a dog, that's what! You want me to shoo him away?" </p><p>"Stay where you are!" </p><p>Silence. The cold rain falling. And the smell of blue electricity blowing under the locked door. </p><p>"Let's get back to work," said Montag quietly. </p><p>Mildred kicked at a book. "Books aren't people. You read and I look around, but there isn't </p><p>anybody!" </p><p>He stared at the parlour that was dead and grey as the waters of an ocean that might teem with </p><p>life if they switched on the electronic sun. </p><p>"Now," said Mildred, "my 'family' is people. They teil me things; I laugh, they laugh! And the </p><p>colours ! " </p><p>"Yes, I know." </p><p>"And besides, if Captain Beatty knew about those books—" She thought about it. Her face grew </p><p>amazed and then horrified. "He might come and bum the house and the 'family.' That's awful! </p><p>Think of our Investment. Why should I read? What for?" </p><p>"What for! Why!" said Montag. "I saw the damnedest snake in the world the other night. It was </p><p>dead but it was alive. It could see but it couldn't see. You want to see that snake. It's at </p><p>Emergency Hospital where they filed a report on all the junk the snake got out of you! Would </p><p>you like to go and check their file? Maybe you'd look under Guy Montag or maybe under Fear or </p><p>War. Would you like to go to that house that burnt last night? And rake ashes for the bones of the </p><p>woman who set fire to her own house! What about Clarisse McClellan, where do we look for </p><p>her? The morgue! Listen!" </p><p>The bombers crossed the sky and crossed the sky over the house, gasping, murmuring, whistling </p><p>like an immense, invisible fan, circling in emptiness. </p><p>"Jesus God," said Montag. "Every hour so many damn things in the sky! How in hell did those </p><p>bombers get up there every single second of our lives! Why doesn't someone want to talk about </p><p>it? We've started and won two atomic wars since 1960. Is it because we're having so much fun at </p><p>home we've forgotten the world? Is it because we're so rieh and the rest of the world's so poor </p><p>and we just don't care if they are? I've heard rumours; the world is starving, but we're well-fed. Is </p><p>it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we're hated so much? I've heard the </p><p>rumours about hate, too, once in a long while, over the years. Do you know why? I don't, that's</p><p>sure! Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the </p><p>same damn insane mistakes! I don't hear those idiot bastards in your parlour talking about it. </p><p>God, Millie, don't you see? An hour a day, two hours, with these books, and maybe..." </p><p>The telephone rang. Mildred snatched the phone. </p><p>"Ann!" She laughed. "Yes, the White Clown's on tonight!" </p><p>Montag walked to the kitchen and threw the book down. "Montag," he said, "you're really stupid. </p><p>Where do we go from here? Do we turn the books in, forget it?" He opened the book to read over </p><p>Mildred's laughter. </p><p>Poor Millie, he thought. Poor Montag, it's mud to you, too. But where do you get help, where do </p><p>you find a teacher this late? </p><p>Hold on. He shut his eyes. Yes, of course. Again he found himself thinking of the green park a </p><p>year ago. The thought had been with him many times recently, but now he remembered how it </p><p>was that day in the city park when he had seen that old man in the black suit hide something, </p><p>quickly in his coat . </p><p>... The old man leapt up as if to run. And Montag said, "Wait ! " </p><p>"I haven't done anything! " cried the old man trembling. </p><p>"No one said you did." </p><p>They had sat in the green soft light without saying a word for a moment, and then Montag talked </p><p>about the weather, and then the old man responded with a pale voice. It was a stränge quiet </p><p>meeting. The old man admitted to being a retired English professor who had been thrown out </p><p>upon the world forty years ago when the last liberal arts College shut for lack of students and </p><p>patronage. His name was Faber, and when he finally lost his fear of Montag, he talked in a </p><p>cadenced voice, looking at the sky and the trees and the green park, and when an hour had passed </p><p>he said something to Montag and Montag sensed it was a rhymeless poem. Then the old man </p><p>grew even more courageous and said something eise and that was a poem, too. Faber held his </p><p>hand over his left coat-pocket and spoke these words gently, and Montag knew if he reached out, </p><p>he might pull a book of poetry from the man's coat. But he did not reach out. His. hands stayed</p><p>on his knees, numbed and useless. "I don't talk things, sir," said Faber. "I talk the meaning of </p><p>things. I sit here and know I'm alive." </p><p>That was all there was to it, really. An hour of monologue, a poem, a comment, and then without </p><p>even acknowledging the fact that Montag was a fireman, Faber with a certain trembling, wrote </p><p>his address on a slip of paper. "For your file," he said, "in case you decide to be angry with me." </p><p>"I'm not angry," Montag said, surprised. </p><p>Mildred shrieked with laughter in the hall. </p><p>Montag went to his bedroom closet and flipped through his file-wallet to the heading: FUTURE </p><p>INVESTIGATIONS (?). Faber's name was there. He hadn't turned it in and he hadn't erased it. </p><p>He dialled the call on a secondary phone. The phone on the far end of the line called Faber's </p><p>name a dozen times before the professor answered in a faint voice. Montag identified himself </p><p>and was met with a lengthy silence. "Yes, Mr. Montag?" </p><p>"Professor Faber, I have a rather odd question to ask. How many copies of the Bible are left in </p><p>this country?" </p><p>"I don't know what you're talking about! " </p><p>"I want to know if there are any copies left at all." </p><p>"This is some sort of a trap! I can't talk to just anyone on the phone!" </p><p>"How many copies of Shakespeare and Plato?" </p><p>"None ! You know as well as I do. None!" </p><p>Faber hung up. </p><p>Montag put down the phone. None. A thing he knew of course from the firehouse listings. But </p><p>somehow he had wanted to hear it from Faber himself. </p><p>In the hall Mildred's face was suffused with excitement. "Well, the ladies are coming over!" </p><p>Montag showed her a book. "This is the Old and New Testament, and-" </p><p>"Don't Start that again!" </p><p>"It might be the last copy in this part of the world." </p><p>"You've got to hand it back tonight, don't you know? Captain Beatty knows you've got it, doesn't </p><p>he?" </p><p>"I don't think he knows which book I stole. But how do I choose a substitute? Do I turn in Mr.</p><p>Jefferson? Mr. Thoreau? Which is least valuable? If I pick a substitute and Beatty does know </p><p>which book I stole, he'll guess we've an entire library here!" </p><p>Mildred's mouth twitched. "See what you're doing? You'll ruin us! Who's more important, me or </p><p>that Bible?" She was beginning to shriek now, sitting there like a wax doll melting in its own </p><p>heat. </p><p>He could hear Beatty's voice. "Sit down, Montag. Watch. Delicately, like the petals of a flower. </p><p>Light the first page, light the second page. Each becomes a black butterfly. Beautiful, eh? Light </p><p>the third page from the second and so on, chainsmoking, chapter by chapter, all the silly things </p><p>the words mean, all the false promises, all the second-hand notions and time-worn philosophies." </p><p>There sat Beatty, perspiring gently, the floor littered with swarms of black moths that had died in </p><p>a single storm </p><p>Mildred stopped screaming as quickly as she started. Montag was not listening. "There's only </p><p>one thing to do," he said. "Some time before tonight when I give the book to Beatty, I've got to </p><p>have a duplicate made." </p><p>"You'll be here for the White Clown tonight, and the ladies coming over?" cried Mildred. </p><p>Montag stopped at the door, with his back turned. "Millie?" </p><p>A silence "What?" </p><p>"Millie? Does the White Clown love you?" </p><p>No answer. </p><p>"Millie, does—" He licked his lips. "Does your 'family' love you, love you very much, love you </p><p>with all their heart </p><p>and soul, Millie?" </p><p>He feit her blinking slowly at the back of his neck. </p><p>"Why'd you ask a silly question like that?" </p><p>He feit he wanted to cry, but nothing would happen to his eyes or his mouth. </p><p>"If you see that dog outside," said Mildred, "give him a kick for me." </p><p>He hesitated, listening at the door. He opened it and stepped out. </p><p>The rain had stopped and the sun was setting in the clear sky. The Street and the lawn and the</p><p>porch were empty. He let his breath go in a great sigh. </p><p>He slammed the door. </p><p>He was on the subway. </p><p>I'm numb, he thought. When did the numbness really begin in my face? In my body? The night I </p><p>kicked the pill-bottle in the dark, like kicking a buried mine. </p><p>The numbness will go away, he thought. It'll take time, but I'll do it, or Faber will do it for me. </p><p>Someone somewhere will give me back the old face and the old hands the way they were. Even </p><p>the smile, he thought, the old burnt-in smile, that's gone. I'm lost without it. </p><p>The subway fled past him, cream-tile, jet-black, cream-tile, jet-black, numerals and darkness, </p><p>more darkness and the total adding itself. </p><p>Once as a child he had sat upon a yellow dune by the sea in the middle of the blue and hot </p><p>summer day, trying to fill a sieve with sand, because some cruel cousin had said, "Fill this sieve </p><p>and you'll get a dime!" 'And the faster he poured, the faster it sifted through with a hot </p><p>whispering. His hands were tired, the sand was boiling, the sieve was empty. Seated there in the </p><p>midst of July, without a sound, he feit the tears move down his cheeks. </p><p>Now as the vacuum-underground rushed him through the dead cellars of town, jolting him, he </p><p>remembered the terrible logic of that sieve, and he looked down and saw that he was carrying the </p><p>Bible open. There were people in the suction train but he held the book in his hands and the silly </p><p>thought came to him, if you read fast and read all, maybe some of the sand will stay in the sieve. </p><p>But he read and the words feil through, and he thought, in a few hours, there will be Beatty, and </p><p>here will be me handing this over, so no phrase must escape me, each line must be memorized. I </p><p>will myself to do it. </p><p>He clenched the book in his fists. </p><p>Trumpets blared. </p><p>"Denham's Dentrifice." </p><p>Shut up, thought Montag. Consider the lilies of the field. </p><p>"Denham's Dentifrice." </p><p>They toil not- </p><p>"Denham's— "</p><p>Consider the lilies of the field, shut up, shut up. </p><p>"Dentifrice ! " </p><p>He tore the book open and flicked the pages and feit them as if he were blind, he picked at the </p><p>shape of the individual letters, not blinking. </p><p>"Denham's. Spelled : D-E.N " </p><p>They toil not, neither do they . . . </p><p>A fierce whisper of hot sand through empty sieve. </p><p>"Denham's does it!" </p><p>Consider the lilies, the lilies, the lilies... </p><p>"Denham's dental detergent." </p><p>"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" It was a plea, a cry so terrible that Montag found himself on his feet, </p><p>the shocked inhabitants of the loud car staring, moving back from this man with the insane, </p><p>gorged face, the gibbering, dry mouth, the flapping book in his fist. The people who had been </p><p>sitting a moment before, tapping their feet to the rhythm of Denham's Dentifrice, Denham's </p><p>Dandy Dental Detergent, Denham's Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice, one two, one two three, one </p><p>two, one two three. The people whose mouths had been faintly twitching the words Dentifrice </p><p>Dentifrice Dentifrice. The train radio vomited upon Montag, in retaliation, a great ton-load of </p><p>music made of tin, copper, silver, chromium, and brass. The people were pounded into </p><p>Submission; they did not run, there was no place to run; the great air-train feil down its shaft in </p><p>the earth. </p><p>"Lilies of the field." "Denham's." </p><p>"Lilies, I said!" </p><p>The people stared. </p><p>"Call the guard." </p><p>"The man's off-" </p><p>"Knoll View!" </p><p>The train hissed to its stop. </p><p>"Knoll View!" A cry. </p><p>"Denham's." A whisper. </p><p>Montag's mouth barely moved. "Lilies..." </p><p>The train door whistled open. Montag stood. The door gasped, started shut. Only then .did he </p><p>leap past the other passengers, screaming in his mind, plunge through the slicing door only in </p><p>time. He ran on the white tiles up through the tunnels, ignoring the escalators, because he wanted </p><p>to feel his feet-move, arms swing, lungs clench, unclench, feel his throat go raw with air. A voice </p><p>drifted after him, "Denham's Denham's Denham's," the train hissed like a snake. The train </p><p>vanished in its hole. </p><p>"Who is it?" </p><p>"Montag out here." </p><p>"What do you want?" </p><p>"Let me in." </p><p>"I haven't done anything 1" </p><p>"I'm alone, dammit ! " </p><p>"You swear it?" </p><p>"I swear!" </p><p>The front door opened slowly. Faber peered out, looking very old in the light and very fragile </p><p>and very much afraid. The old man looked as if he had not been out of the house in years. He and </p><p>the white plaster walls inside were much the same. There was white in the flesh of his mouth and </p><p>his cheeks and his hair was white and his eyes had faded, with white in the vague blueness there. </p><p>Then his eyes touched on the book under Montag's arm and he did not look so old any more and </p><p>not quite as fragile. Slowly his fear went. </p><p>"I'm sorry. One has to be careful." </p><p>He looked at the book under Montag's arm and could not stop. "So it's true." </p><p>Montag stepped inside. The door shut. </p><p>"Sit down." Faber backed up, as if he feared the book might vanish if he took his eyes from it. </p><p>Behind him, the door to a bedroom stood open, and in that room a litter of machinery and Steel </p><p>tools was strewn upon a desk-top. Montag had only a glimpse, before Faber, seeing Montag's </p><p>attention diverted, turned quickly and shut the bedroom door and stood holding the knob with a </p><p>trembling hand. His gaze returned unsteadily to Montag, who was now seated with the book in</p><p>his lap. "The book-where did you-?" </p><p>"I stole it." </p><p>Faber, for the first time, raised his eyes and looked directly into Montag's face. "You're brave." </p><p>"No," said Montag. "My wife's dying. A friend of mine's already dead. Someone who may have </p><p>been a friend was burnt less than twenty-four hours ago. You're the only one I knew might help </p><p>me. To see. To see. ." </p><p>Faber's hands itched on his knees. "May I?" </p><p>"Sorry." Montag gave him the book. </p><p>"It's been a long time. I'm not a religious man. But it's been a long time." Faber turned the pages, </p><p>stopping here and there to read. "It's as good as I remember. Lord, how they've changed it- in our </p><p>'parlours' these days. Christ is one of the 'family' now. I often wonder it God recognizes His own </p><p>son the way we've dressed him up, or is it dressed him down? He's a regulär peppermint stick </p><p>now, all sugar-crystal and saccharine when he isn't making veiled references to certain </p><p>commercial products that every worshipper absolutely needs." Faber sniffed the book. "Do you </p><p>know that books smell like nutmeg or some spiee from a foreign land? I loved to smell them </p><p>when I was a boy. Lord, there were a lot of lovely books once, before we let them go." Faber </p><p>turned the pages. "Mr. Montag, you are looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going, a </p><p>long time back. I said nothing. I'm one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when </p><p>no one would listen to the 'guilty,' but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself. And when </p><p>finally they set the structure to burn the books, using the, firemen, I grunted a few times and </p><p>subsided, for there were no others grunting or yelling with me, by then. Now, it's too late." Faber </p><p>closed the Bible. "Well— suppose you teil me why you came here?" </p><p>"Nobody listens any more. I can't talk to the walls because they're yelling at me. I can't talk to </p><p>my wife; she listens to the walls. I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I </p><p>talk long enough, it'll make sense. And I want you to teach me to understand what I read." </p><p>Faber examined Montag's thin, blue-jowled face. "How did you get shaken up? What knocked </p><p>the torch out of your hands?" </p><p>"I don't know. We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's</p><p>missing. I looked around. The only thing I positively knew was gone was the books I'd burned in </p><p>ten or twelve years. So I thought books might help." </p><p>"You're a hopeless romantic," said Faber. "It would be funny if it were not serious. It's not books </p><p>you need, it's some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the </p><p>'parlour families' today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the </p><p>radios and televisors, but are not. No, no, it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where </p><p>you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in </p><p>nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot </p><p>of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is </p><p>only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment </p><p>for us. Of course you couldn't know this, of course you still can't understand what I mean when I </p><p>say all this. You are intuitively right, that's what counts. Three things are missing. </p><p>"Number one: Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. </p><p>And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores. It has </p><p>features. This book can go under the microscope. You'd find life under the glass, Streaming past </p><p>in infinite profusion. The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch </p><p>you can get on a sheet of paper, the more Titerary' you are. That's my definition, anyway. Telling </p><p>detail. Fresh detail. The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over </p><p>her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies. </p><p>"So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. </p><p>The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are </p><p>living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and </p><p>black loam. Even fireworks, for all their prettiness, come from the chemistry of the earth. Yet </p><p>somehow we think we can grow, feeding on flowers and fireworks, without completing the cycle </p><p>back to reality. Do you know the legend of Hercules and Antaeus, the giant wrestler, whose </p><p>strength was incredible so long as he stood firmly on the earth. But when he was held, rootless, </p><p>in mid-air, by Hercules, he perished easily. If there isn't something in that legend for us today, in </p><p>this city, in our time, then I am completely insane. Well, there we have the first thing I said we</p><p>needed. Quality, texture of information." </p><p>"And the second?" </p><p>"Leisure." </p><p>"Oh, but we've plenty of off-hours." </p><p>"Off-hours, yes. But time to think? If you're not driving a hundred miles an hour, at a clip where </p><p>you can't think of anything eise but the danger, then you're playing some game or sitting in some </p><p>room where you can't argue with the fourwall televisor. Why? The televisor is 'real.' It is </p><p>immediate, it has dimension. It teils you what to think and blasts it in. It must be, right. It seems </p><p>so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn't time to protest, </p><p>'What nonsense!"' </p><p>"Only the 'family' is 'people.'" </p><p>"I beg your pardon?" </p><p>"My wife says books aren't 'real.'" </p><p>"Thank God for that. You can shut them, say, 'Hold on a moment.' You play God to it. But who </p><p>has ever torn himself from the claw that encloses you when you drop a seed in a TV parlour? It </p><p>grows you any shape it wishes! It is an environment as real as the world. It becomes and is the </p><p>truth. Books can be beaten down with reason. But with all my knowledge and scepticism, I have </p><p>never been able to argue with a one-hundred-piece symphony orchestra, full colour, three </p><p>dimensions, and I being in and part of those incredible parlours. As you see, my parlour is </p><p>nothing but four plaster walls. And here " He held out two small rubber plugs. "For my ears </p><p>when I ride the subway-jets." </p><p>"Denham's Dentifrice; they toil not, neither do they spin," said Montag, eyes shut. "Where do we </p><p>go from here? Would books help us?" </p><p>"Only if the third necessary thing could be given us. Number one, as I said, quality of </p><p>information. Number two: leisure to digest it. And number three: the right to carry out actions </p><p>based on what we learn from the inter-action of the first two. And I hardly think a very old man </p><p>and a fireman turned sour could do much this late in the game..." </p><p>"I can get books." </p><p>"You're running a risk." </p><p>"That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want." </p><p>"There, you've said an interesting thing," laughed Faber, "without having read it!" </p><p>"Are things like that in books. But it came off the top of my mind!" </p><p>"All the better. You didn't fancy it up for me or anyone, even yourself." </p><p>Montag leaned forward. "This afternoon I thought that if it turned out that books were worth </p><p>while, we might get a press and print some extra copies— " </p><p>" We?" </p><p>"You and I" </p><p>"Oh, no ! " Faber sat up. </p><p>"But let me teil you my plan—" </p><p>"If you insist on telling me, I must ask you to leave." </p><p>"But aren't you interested?" </p><p>"Not if you Start talking the sort of talk that might get me burnt for my trouble. The only way I </p><p>could possibly listen to you would be if somehow the fireman structure itself could be burnt. </p><p>Now if you suggest that we print extra books and arrange to have them hidden in firemen's </p><p>houses all over the country, so that seeds of suspicion would be sown among these arsonists, </p><p>bravo, I'd say!" </p><p>"Plant the books, turn in an alarm, and see the firemen's houses bum, is that what you mean?" </p><p>Faber raised his brows and looked at Montag as if he were seeing a new man. "I was joking." </p><p>"If you thought it would be a plan worth trying, I'd have to take your word it would help." </p><p>"You can't guarantee things like that! After all, when we had all the books we needed, we still </p><p>insisted on finding the highest cliff to jump off. But we do need a breather. We do need </p><p>knowledge. And perhaps in a thousand years we might pick smaller cliffs to jump off. The books </p><p>are to remind us what asses and fools we are. They're Caesar's praetorian guard, whispering as </p><p>the parade roars down the avenue, ' Rcmembcr, Caesar, thou art mortal.' Most of us can't rush </p><p>around, talking to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven't time, money or that </p><p>many friends. The things you're looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the</p><p>average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book. Don't ask for guarantees. </p><p>And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of </p><p>saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore." </p><p>Faber got up and began to pace the room. </p><p>"Well?" asked Montag. </p><p>"You're absolutely serious?" </p><p>"Absolutely." </p><p>"It's an insidious plan, if I do say so myself." Faber glanced nervously at his bedroom door. "To </p><p>see the firehouses burn across the land, destroyed as hotbeds of treason. The Salamander devours </p><p>his tail! Ho, God! " </p><p>"I've a list of firemen's residences everywhere. With some sort of Underground " </p><p>"Can't trust people, that's the dirty part. You and I and who eise will set the fires?" </p><p>"Aren't there professors like yourself, former writers, historians, linguists . . .?" </p><p>"Dead or ancient." </p><p>"The older the better; they'll go unnoticed. You know dozens, admit it ! " </p><p>"Oh, there are many actors alone who haven't acted Pirandello or Shaw or Shakespeare for years </p><p>because their plays are too aware of the world. We could use their anger. And we could use the </p><p>honest rage of those historians who haven't written a line for forty years. True, we might form </p><p>classes in thinking and reading." </p><p>"Yes! " </p><p>"But that would just nibble the edges. The whole culture's shot through. The skeleton needs </p><p>melting and re-shaping. Good God, it isn't as simple as just picking up a book you laid down half </p><p>a Century ago. Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of </p><p>its own accord. You firemen provide a circus now and then at which buildings are set off and </p><p>crowds gather for the pretty blaze, but it's a small sideshow indeed, and hardly necessary to keep </p><p>things in line. So few want to be rebels any more. And out of those few, most, like myself, scare </p><p>easily. Can you dance faster than the White Clown, shout louder than 'Mr. Gimmick' and the </p><p>parlour 'families'? If you can, you'll win your way, Montag. In any event, you're a fool. People</p><p>are having fun" </p><p>"Committing suicide! Murdering!" </p><p>A bomber flight had been moving east all the time they talked, and only now did the two men </p><p>stop and listen, feeling the great jet sound tremble inside themselves. </p><p>"Patience, Montag. Let the war turn off the 'families.' Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. </p><p>Stand back from the centrifuge." </p><p>"There has to be someone ready when it blows up." </p><p>"What? Men quoting Milton? Saying, I remember Sophocles? Reminding the survivors that man </p><p>has his good side, too? They will only gather up their stones to hurl at each other. Montag, go </p><p>home. Go to bed. Why waste your final hours racing about your cage denying you're a squirrel?" </p><p>"Then you don't care any more?" </p><p>"I care so much I'm sick." </p><p>"And you won't help me?" </p><p>"Good night, good night." </p><p>Montag's hands picked up the Bible. He saw what his hands had done and he looked surprised. </p><p>"Would you like to own this?" </p><p>Faber said, "I'd give my right arm." </p><p>Montag stood there and waited for the next thing to happen. His hands, by themselves, like two </p><p>men working together, began to rip the pages from the book. The hands tore the flyleaf and then </p><p>the first and then the second page. </p><p>"Idiot, what're you doing!" Faber sprang up, as if he had been struck. He feil, against Montag. </p><p>Montag warded him off and let his hands continue. Six more pages feil to the floor. He picked </p><p>them up and wadded the paper under Faber's gaze. </p><p>"Don't, oh, don't ! " said the old man. </p><p>"Who can stop me? I'm a fireman. I can bum you!" </p><p>The old man stood looking at him. "You wouldn't." </p><p>"I could ! " </p><p>"The book. Don't tear it any more." Faber sank into a chair, his face very white, his mouth</p><p>trembling. "Don't make me feel any more tired. What do you want?" </p><p>"I need you to teach me." </p><p>"All right, all right." </p><p>Montag put the book down. He began to unwad the crumpled paper and flatten it out as the old </p><p>man watched tiredly. </p><p>Faber shook his head as if he were waking up. </p><p>"Montag, have you some money?" </p><p>"Some. Four, five hundred dollars. Why?" </p><p>"Bring it. I know a man who printed our College paper half a Century ago. That was the year I </p><p>came to dass at the Start of the new semester and found only one Student to sign up for Drama </p><p>from Aeschylus to O'Neill. You see? How like a beautiful statue of ice it was, melting in the sun. </p><p>I remember the newspapers dying like huge moths. No one wanted them back. No one missed </p><p>them. And the Government, seeing how advantageous it was to have people reading only about </p><p>passionate lips and the fist in the stomach, circled the Situation with your fire-eaters. So, Montag, </p><p>there's this unemployed printer. We might Start a few books, and wait on the war to break the </p><p>pattern and give us the push we need. A few bombs and the Tamilies' in the walls of all the </p><p>houses, like harlequin rats, will shut up! In silence, our stage- whisper might carry." </p><p>They both stood looking at the book on the table. </p><p>"I've tried to remember," said Montag. "But, hell, it's gone when I turn my head. God, how I </p><p>want something to say to the Captain. He's read enough so he has all the answers, or seems to </p><p>have. His voice is like butter. I'm afraid he'll talk me back the way I was. Only a week ago, </p><p>pumping a kerosene hose, I thought: God, what fun!" </p><p>The old man nodded. "Those who don't build must burn. It's as old as history and juvenile </p><p>delinquents." </p><p>"So that's what I am." </p><p>"There's some of it in all of us." </p><p>Montag moved towards the front door. "Can you help me in any way tonight, with the Fire </p><p>Captain? I need an umbrella to keep off the rain. I'm so damned afraid I'll drown if he gets me </p><p>again." </p><p>The old man said nothing, but glanced once more nervously, at his bedroom. Montag caught the </p><p>glance. "Well?" </p><p>The old man took a deep breath, held it, and let it out. He took another, eyes closed, his mouth </p><p>tight, and at last exhaled. "Montag..." </p><p>The old man turned at last and said, "Come along. I would actually have let you walk right out of </p><p>my house. I am a cowardly old fool." </p><p>Faber opened the bedroom door and led Montag into a small chamber where stood a table upon </p><p>which a number of metal tools lay among a weiter of microscopic wire-hairs, tiny coils, bobbins, </p><p>and crystals. </p><p>"What' s this?" asked Montag. </p><p>"Proof of my terrible cowardice. I've lived alone so many years, throwing images on walls with </p><p>my imagination. Fiddling with electronics, radio-transmission, has been my hobby. My </p><p>cowardice is of such a passion, complementing the revolutionär)? spirit that lives in its shadow, I </p><p>was forced to design this." </p><p>He picked up a small green-metal object no larger than a .22 bullet. </p><p>"I paid for all this-how? Playing the stock-market, of course, the last refuge in the world for the </p><p>dangerous intellectual out of a job. Well, I played the market and built all this and I've waited. </p><p>I've waited, trembling, half a lifetime for someone to speak to me. I dared speak to no one. That </p><p>day in the park when we sat together, I knew that some day you might drop by, with fire or </p><p>friendship, it was hard to guess. I've had this little item ready for months. But I almost let you go, </p><p>I'm that afraid!" </p><p>"It looks like a Seashell radio." </p><p>"And something more! It listens! If you put it in your ear, Montag, I can sit comfortably home, </p><p>warming my frightened bones, and hear and analyse the firemen's world, find its weaknesses, </p><p>without danger. I'm the Queen Bee, safe in the hive. You will be the drone, the travelling ear. </p><p>Eventually, I could put out ears into all parts of the city, with various men, listening and </p><p>evaluating. If the drones die, I'm still safe at home, tending my fright with a maximum of </p><p>comfort and a minimum of chance. See how safe I play it, how contemptible I am?"</p><p>Montag placed the green bullet in his ear. The old man inserted a similar object in his own ear </p><p>and moved his lips. </p><p>"Montag! " </p><p>The voice was in Montag's head. </p><p>"I hear you! " </p><p>The old man laughed. "You're coming over fine, too!" Faber whispered, but the voice in </p><p>Montag's head was clear. "Go to the firehouse when if s time. I'll be with you. Let's listen to this </p><p>Captain Beatty together. He could be one of us. God knows. I'll give you things to say. We'll </p><p>give him a good show. Do you hate me for this electronic cowardice of mine? Here I am sending </p><p>you out into the night, while I stay behind the lines with my damned ears listening for you to get </p><p>your head chopped off." </p><p>"We all do what we do," said Montag. He put the Bible in the old man's hands. "Here. I'll chance </p><p>turning in a substitute. Tomorrow— " </p><p>"I'll see the unemployed printer, yes; that much I can do." </p><p>"Good night, Professor." </p><p>"Not good night. I'll be with you the rest of the night, a vinegar gnat tickling your ear when you </p><p>need me. But good night and good luck, anyway." </p><p>The door opened and shut. Montag was in the dark Street again, looking at the world. </p><p>You could feel the war getting ready in the sky that night. The way the clouds moved aside and </p><p>came back, and the way the stars looked, a million of them swimming between the clouds, like </p><p>the enemy discs, and the feeling that the sky might fall upon the city and turn it to chalk dust, and </p><p>the moon go up in red fire; that was how the night feit. </p><p>Montag walked from the subway with the money in his pocket (he had visited the bank which </p><p>was open all night and every night with robot tellers in attendance) and as he walked he was </p><p>listening to the Seashell radio in one car... "We have mobilized a million men. Quick victory is </p><p>ours if the war comes .. .." Music flooded over the voice quickly and it was gone. </p><p>"Ten million men mobilized," Faber's voice whispered in his other ear. "But say one million. It's </p><p>happier." </p><p>"Faber?"</p><p>"Yes?" </p><p>"I'm not thinking. I'm just doing like I'm told, like always. You said get the money and I got it. I </p><p>didn't really think of it myself. When do I Start working things out on my own?" </p><p>"You've started already, by saying what you just said. You'll have to take me on faith." </p><p>"I took the others on faith ! " </p><p>"Yes, and look where we're headed. You'll have to travel blind for a while. Here's my arm to </p><p>hold on to." </p><p>"I don't want to change sides and just be told what to do. There's no reason to change if I do </p><p>that." </p><p>"You're wise already!" </p><p>Montag feit his feet moving him on the sidewalk.toward his house. "Keep talking." </p><p>"Would you like me to read? I'll read so you can remember. I go to bed only five hours a night. </p><p>Nothing to do. So if you like; I'll read you to sleep nights. They say you retain knowledge even </p><p>when you're sleeping, if someone whispers it in your ear." </p><p>"Yes." </p><p>"Here." Far away across town in the night, the faintest whisper of a turned page. "The Book of </p><p>Job." </p><p>The moon rose in the sky as Montag walked, his lips moving just a trifle. </p><p>He was eating a light supper at nine in the evening when the front door cried out in the hall and </p><p>Mildred ran from the parlour like a native fleeing an eruption of Vesuvius. Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. </p><p>Bowles came through the front door and vanished into the volcano's mouth with martinis in their </p><p>hands: Montag stopped eating. They were like a monstrous crystal chandelier tinkling in a </p><p>thousand chimes, he saw their Cheshire Cat smiles burning through the walls of the house, and </p><p>now they were screaming at each other above the din. Montag found himself at the parlour door </p><p>with his food still in his mouth. </p><p>"Doesn't everyone look nice!" </p><p>"Nice." </p><p>"You look fine, Millie! "</p><p>"Fine." </p><p>"Everyone looks swell." </p><p>"Swell! </p><p>"Montag stood watching them. </p><p>"Patience," whispered Faber. </p><p>"I shouldn't be here," whispered Montag, almost to himself. "I should be on my way back to you </p><p>with the money!" "Tomorrow's time enough. Careful!" </p><p>"Isn't this show wonderful?" cried Mildred. "Wonderful!" </p><p>On one wall a woman smiled and drank orange juice simultaneously. How does she do both at </p><p>once, thought Montag, insanely. In the other walls an X-ray of the same woman revealed the </p><p>contracting journey of the refreshing beverage on its way to her delightful stomach! Abruptly the </p><p>room took off on a rocket flight into the clouds, it plunged into a lime-green sea where blue fish </p><p>ate red and yellow fish. A minute later, Three White Cartoon Clowns chopped off each other's </p><p>limbs to the accompaniment of immense incoming tides of laughter. Two minutes more and the </p><p>room whipped out of town to the jet cars wildly circling an arena, bashing and backing up and </p><p>bashing each other again. Montag saw a number of bodies fly in the air. </p><p>"Millie, did you see that?" </p><p>"I saw it, I saw it! " </p><p>Montag reached inside the parlour wall and pulled the main switch. The images drained away, as </p><p>if the water had been let out from a gigantic crystal bowl of hysterical fish. </p><p>The three women turned slowly and looked with unconcealed irritation and then dislike at </p><p>Montag. </p><p>"When do you suppose the war will Start?" he said. "I notice your husbands aren't here tonight?" </p><p>"Oh, they come and go, come and go," said Mrs. Phelps. "In again out again Finnegan, the Army </p><p>called Pete yesterday. He'll be back next week. The Army said so. Quick war. Forty-eight hours </p><p>they said, and everyone home. That' s what the Army said. Quick war. Pete was called yesterday </p><p>and they said he'd be, back next week. Quick..." </p><p>The three women fidgeted and looked nervously at the empty mud-coloured walls. </p><p>"I'm not worried," said Mrs. Phelps. "Fll let Pete do all the worrying." She giggled. 'TU let old </p><p>Pete do all the worrying. Not me. I'm not worried." </p><p>"Yes," said Millie. "Let old Pete do the worrying." </p><p>"It's always someone else's husband dies, they say." </p><p>"I've heard that, too. I've never known any dead man killed in a war. Killed jumping off </p><p>buildings, yes, like Gloria's husband last week, but from wars? No." </p><p>"Not from wars," said Mrs. Phelps. "Anyway, Pete and I always said, no tears, nothing like that. </p><p>It's our third marriage each and we're independent. Be independent, we always said. He said, if I </p><p>get killed off, you just go right ahead and don't cry, but get married again, and don't think of me." </p><p>"That reminds me," said Mildred. "Did you see that Clara Dove five-minute romance last night </p><p>in your wall? Well, it was all about this woman who— " </p><p>Montag said nothing but stood looking at the women's faces as he had once looked at the faces of </p><p>saints in a stränge church he had entered when he was a child. The faces of those enamelled </p><p>creatures meant nothing to him, though he talked to them and stood in that church for a long </p><p>time, trying to be of that religion, trying to know what that religion was, trying to get enough of </p><p>the raw incense and special dust of the place into his lungs and thus into his blood to feel touched </p><p>and concerned by the meaning of the colourful men and women with the porcelain eyes and the </p><p>blood-ruby lips. But there was nothing, nothing; it was a stroll through another störe, and his </p><p>currency stränge and unusable there, and his passion cold, even when he touched the wood and </p><p>plaster and clay. So it was now, in his own parlour, with these women twisting in their chairs </p><p>under his gaze, lighting cigarettes, blowing smoke, touching their sun-fired hair and examining </p><p>their blazing fingernails as if they had caught fire from his look. Their faces grew haunted with </p><p>silence. They leaned forward at the sound of Montag's swallowing his final bite of food. They </p><p>listened to his feverish breathing. The three empty walls of the room were like the pale brows of </p><p>sleeping giants now, empty of dreams. Montag feit that if you touched these three staring brows </p><p>you would feel a fine salt sweat on your finger-tips. The perspiration gathered with the silence </p><p>and the sub-audible trembling around and about and in the women who were burning with </p><p>tension. Any moment they might hiss a long sputtering hiss and explode. </p><p>Montag moved his lips. </p><p>"Let's talk."</p><p>The women jerked and stared. </p><p>"How're your children, Mrs. Phelps?" he asked. </p><p>"You know I haven't any! No one in his right mind, the Good Lord knows; would have </p><p>children!" said Mrs. Phelps, not quite sure why she was angry with this man. </p><p>"I wouldn't say that," said Mrs. Bowles. "I've had two children by Caesarian section. No use </p><p>going through all that agony for a baby. The world must reproduce, you know, the race must go </p><p>on. Besides, they sometimes look just like you, and that's nice. Two Caesarians tamed the trick, </p><p>yes, sir. Oh, my doctor said, Caesarians aren't necessary; you've got the, hips for it, everything's </p><p>normal, but I insisted." </p><p>"Caesarians or not, children are ruinous; you're out of your mind," said Mrs. Phelps. </p><p>"I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home </p><p>three days a month; it's not bad at all. You heave them into the 'parlour' and turn the switch. It's </p><p>like washing clothes; stuff laundry in and slam the lid." Mrs. Bowles tittered. "They'd just as </p><p>soon kick as kiss me. Thank God, I can kick back! " </p><p>The women showed their tongues, laughing. </p><p>Mildred sat a moment and then, seeing that Montag was still in the doorway, clapped her hands. </p><p>"Let's talk politics, to please Guy!" </p><p>"Sounds fine," said Mrs. Bowles. "I voted last election, same as everyone, and I laid it on the line </p><p>for President Noble. I think he's one of the nicest-looking men who ever became president." </p><p>"Oh, but the man they ran against him!" </p><p>"He wasn't much, was he? Kind of small and homely and he didn't shave too close or comb his </p><p>hair very well. " </p><p>"What possessed the 'Outs' to run him? You just don't go running a little short man like that </p><p>against a tall man. Besides -he mumbled. Half the time I couldn't hear a word he said. And the </p><p>words I did hear I didn't understand!" </p><p>"Fat, too, and didn't dress to hide it. No wonder the landslide was for Winston Noble. Even their </p><p>names helped. Compare Winston Noble to Hubert Hoag for ten seconds and you can almost</p><p>figure the results." </p><p>"Damn it!" cried Montag. "What do you know about Hoag and Noble?" </p><p>"Why, they were right in that parlour wall, not six months ago. One was always picking his nose; </p><p>it drove me wild. " </p><p>"Well, Mr. Montag," said Mrs. Phelps, "do you want us to vote for a man like that?" </p><p>Mildred beamed. "You just run away from the door, Guy, and don't make us nervous." </p><p>But Montag was gone and back in a moment with a book in his hand. </p><p>"Guy!" </p><p>"Damn it all, damn it all, damn it!" </p><p>"What' ve you got there; isn't that a book? I thought that all special training these days was done </p><p>by film." Mrs. Phelps blinked. "You reading up on fireman theory?" </p><p>"Theory, hell," said Montag. "It's poetry." </p><p>"Montag." A whisper. </p><p>"Leave me alone! " Montag feit himself turning in a great circling roar and buzz and hum. </p><p>"Montag, hold on, don't..." </p><p>"Did you hear them, did you hear these monsters talking about monsters? Oh God, the way they </p><p>jabber about people and their own children and themselves and the way they talk about their </p><p>husbands and the way they talk about war, dammit, I stand here and I can't believe it!" </p><p>"I didn't say a single word about any war, I'll have you know," said Mrs, Phelps. </p><p>"As for poetry, I hate it," said Mrs. Bowles. </p><p>"Have you ever read any?" </p><p>"Montag," Faber's voice scraped away at him. "You '11 ruin everything. Shut up, you fool!" </p><p>"All three women were on their feet. </p><p>"Sit down!" </p><p>They sat. </p><p>"I'm going home," quavered Mrs. Bowles. </p><p>"Montag, Montag, please, in the name of God, what are you up to?" pleaded Faber. </p><p>"Why don't you just read us one of those poems from your little book," Mrs. Phelps nodded. "I</p><p>think that'd he very interesting." </p><p>"That's not right," wailed Mrs. Bowles. "We can't do that!" </p><p>"Well, look at Mr. Montag, he wants to, I know he does. And if we listen nice, Mr. Montag will </p><p>be happy and then maybe we can go on and do something eise." She glanced nervously at the </p><p>long emptiness of the walls enclosing them. </p><p>"Montag, go through with this and I'll cut off, I'll leave." The beetle jabbed his ear. "What good </p><p>is this, what'll you prove?" </p><p>"Scare hell out of them, that's what, scare the living daylights out!" </p><p>Mildred looked at the empty air. "Now Guy, just who are you talking to?" </p><p>A silver needle pierced his brain. "Montag, listen, only one way out, play it as a joke, cover up, </p><p>pretend you aren't mad at all. Then-walk to your wall-incinerator, and throw the book in!" </p><p>Mildred had already anticipated this in a quavery voice. "Ladies, once a year, every fireman's </p><p>allowed to bring one book home, from the old days, to show his family how silly it all was, how </p><p>nervous that sort of thing can make you, how crazy. Guy's surprise tonight is to read you one </p><p>sample to show how mixed-up things were, so none of us will ever have to bother our little old </p><p>heads about that junk again, isn't that right, darling?" </p><p>He crushed the book in his fists. "Say 'yes.'" </p><p>His mouth moved like Faber' s. </p><p>"Yes." </p><p>Mildred snatched the book with a laugh. "Here! Read this one. No, I take it back. Here's that real </p><p>funny one you read out loud today. Ladies, you won't understand a word. It goes umpty-tumpty- </p><p>ump. Go ahead, Guy, that page, dear." </p><p>He looked at the opened page. </p><p>A fly stirred its wings softly in his ear. "Read." </p><p>"What's the title, dear?" </p><p>"Dover Beach." His mouth was numb. </p><p>"Now read in a nice clear voice and go slow." </p><p>The room was blazing hot, he was all fire, he was all coldness; they sat in the middle of an empty </p><p>desert with three chairs and him Standing, swaying, and him waiting for Mrs. Phelps to stop</p><p>straightening her dress hem and Mrs. Bowles to take her fingers away from her hair. Then he </p><p>began to read in a low, stumbling voice that grew firmer as he progressed from line to line, and </p><p>his voice went out across the desert, into the whiteness, and around the three sitting women there </p><p>in the great hot emptiness: </p><p>"'The Sea of Faith </p><p>Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore </p><p>Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. </p><p>But now I only hear </p><p>Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, </p><p>Retreating, to the breath </p><p>Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear </p><p>And naked shingles of the world.'" </p><p>The chairs creaked under the three women. Montag finished it out: </p><p>"'Ah, love, let us be true </p><p>To one another! for the world, which seems </p><p>To lie before us like a land of dreams, </p><p>So various, so beautiful, so new, </p><p>Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, </p><p>Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; </p><p>And we are here as on a darkling plain </p><p>Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, </p><p>Where ignorant armies clash by night.'" </p><p>Mrs. Phelps was crying. </p><p>The others in the middle of the desert watched her crying grow very loud as her face squeezed </p><p>itself out of shape. They sat, not touching her, bewildered by her display. She sobbed </p><p>uncontrollably. Montag himself was stunned and shaken. </p><p>"Sh, sh," said Mildred. "You're all right, Clara, now, Clara, snap out of it! Clara, what's wrong?" </p><p>"I-I,", sobbed Mrs. Phelps, "don't know, don't know, I just don't know, oh oh..." </p><p>Mrs. Bowles stood up and glared at Montag. "You see? I knew it, that's what I wanted to prove! I </p><p>knew it would happen! I've always said, poetry and tears, poetry and suicide and crying and</p><p>awful feelings, poetry and sickness; all that mush! Now I've had it proved to me. You're nasty, </p><p>Mr. Montag, you're nasty! " </p><p>Faber said, "Now..." </p><p>Montag feit himself turn and walk to the wall-slot and drop the book in through the brass notch </p><p>to the waiting flames. </p><p>"Silly words, silly words, silly awful hurting words," said Mrs. Bowles. "Why do people want to </p><p>hurt people? Not enough hurt in the world, you've got to tease people with stuff like that ! " </p><p>"Clara, now, Clara," begged Mildred, pulling her arm. "Come on, let's be cheery, you turn the </p><p>'family' on, now. Go ahead. Let's laugh and be happy, now, stop crying, we'll have a party!" </p><p>"No," said Mrs. Bowles. "I'm trotting right straight home. You want to visit my house and </p><p>'family,' well and good. But I won't come in this fireman's crazy house again in my lifetime! " </p><p>"Go home." Montag fixed his eyes upon her, quietly. "Go home and think of your first husband </p><p>divorced and your second husband killed in a jet and your third husband blowing his brains out, </p><p>go home and think of the dozen abortions you've had, go home and think of that and your damn </p><p>Caesarian sections, too, and your children who hate your guts! Go home and think how it all </p><p>happened and what did you ever do to stop it? Go home, go home!" he yelled. "Before I knock </p><p>you down and kick you out of the door!" </p><p>Doors slammed and the house was empty. Montag stood alone in the winter weather, with the </p><p>parlour walls the colour of dirty snow. </p><p>In the bathroom, water ran. He heard Mildred shake the sleeping tablets into her hand. </p><p>"Fool, Montag, fool, fool, oh God you silly fool..." </p><p>"Shut up!" He pulled the green bullet from his ear and jammed it into his pocket. </p><p>It sizzled faintly. "... fool . . . fool ..." </p><p>He searched the house and found the books where Mildred had stacked them behind the </p><p>refrigerator. Some were missing and he knew that she had started on her own slow process of </p><p>dispersing the dynamite in her house, stick by stick. But he was not angry now, only exhausted </p><p>and bewildered with himself. He carried the books into the backyard and hid them in the bushes </p><p>near the alley fence. For tonight only, he thought, in case she decides to do any more burning. </p><p>He went back through the house. "Mildred?" He called at the door of the darkened bedroom.</p><p>There was no sound. </p><p>Outside, Crossing the lawn, on his way to work, he tried not to see how completely dark and </p><p>deserted Clarisse McClellan's house was .... </p><p>On the way downtown he was so completely alone with his terrible error that he feit the </p><p>necessity for the stränge warmness and goodness that came from a familiär and gentle voice </p><p>speaking in the night. Already, in a few short hours, it seemed that he had known Faber a </p><p>lifetime. Now he knew that he was two people, that he was above all Montag, who knew </p><p>nothing, who did not even know himself a fool, but only suspected it. And he knew that he was </p><p>also the old man who talked to him and talked to him as the train was sucked from one end of the </p><p>night city to the other on one long sickening gasp of motion. In the days to follow, and in the </p><p>nights when there was no moon and in the nights when there was a very bright moon shining on </p><p>the earth, the old man would go on with this talking and this talking, drop by drop, stone by </p><p>stone, flake by flake. His mind would well over at last and he would not be Montag any more, </p><p>this the old man told him, assured him, promised him. He would be Montag-plus-Faber, fire plus </p><p>water, and then, one day, after everything had mixed and simmered and worked away in silence, </p><p>there would be neither fire nor water, but wine. Out of two separate and opposite things, a third. </p><p>And one day he would look back upon the fool and know the fool. Even now he could feel the </p><p>Start of the long journey, the leave-taking, the going away from the seif he had been. </p><p>It was good listening to the beetle hum, the sleepy mosquito buzz and delicate filigree murmur of </p><p>the old man's voice at first scolding him and then consoling him in the late hour of night as he </p><p>emerged from the steaming subway toward the firehouse world. </p><p>"Pity, Montag, pity. Don't haggle and nag them; you were so recently one o f them yourself. </p><p>They are so confident that they will run on for ever. But they won't run on. They don't know that </p><p>this is all one huge big blazing meteor that makes a pretty fire in space, but that some day it'll </p><p>have to hit. They see only the blaze, the pretty fire, as you saw it. </p><p>"Montag, old men who stay at home, afraid, tending their peanut-brittle bones, have no right to </p><p>criticize. Yet you almost killed things at the Start. Watch it! I'm with you, remember that. I</p><p>understand how it happened. I must admit that your blind raging invigorated me. God, how </p><p>young I feit! But now-I want you to feel old, I want a little of my cowardice to be distilled in you </p><p>tonight. The next few hours, when you see Captain Beatty, tiptoe round him, let me hear him for </p><p>you, let me feel the Situation out. Survival is our ticket. Forget the poor, silly women ...." </p><p>"I made them unhappier than they have been in years, Ithink," said Montag. "It shocked me to </p><p>see Mrs. Phelps cry. Maybe they're right, maybe it's best not to face things, to run, have fun. I </p><p>don't know. I feel guilty— " </p><p>"No, you mustn't! If there were no war, if there was peace in the world, I'd say fine, have fun! </p><p>But, Montag, you mustn't go back to being just a fireman. All isn't well with the world." </p><p>Montag perspired. </p><p>"Montag, you listening?" </p><p>"My feet," said Montag. "I can't move them. I feel so damn silly. My feet won't move!" </p><p>"Listen. Easy now," said the old man gently. "I know, I know. You're afraid of making mistakes. </p><p>Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in </p><p>people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been </p><p>honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll </p><p>never learn. Now, pick up your feet, into the firehouse with you! We're twins, we're not alone </p><p>any more, we're not separated out in different parlours, with no contact between. If you need help </p><p>when Beatty pries at you, I'll be sitting right here in your eardrum making notes!" </p><p>Montag feit his right foot, then his left foot, move. </p><p>"Old man," he said, "stay with me." </p><p>The Mechanical Hound was gone. Its kennel was empty and the firehouse stood all about in </p><p>plaster silence and the orange Salamander slept with its kerosene in its belly and the firethrowers </p><p>crossed upon its flanks and Montag came in through the silence and touched the brass pole and </p><p>slid up in the dark air, looking back at the deserted kennel, his heart beating, pausing, beating. </p><p>Faber was a grey moth asleep in his ear, for the moment. </p><p>Beatty stood near the drop-hole waiting, but with his back turned as if he were not waiting.</p><p>"Well," he said to the men playing cards, "here comes a very stränge beast which in all tongues is </p><p>called a fool." </p><p>He put his hand to one side, palm up, for a gift. Montag put the book in it. Without even glancing </p><p>at the title, Beatty tossed the book into the trash-basket and lit a cigarette. "'Who are a little wise, </p><p>the best fools be.' Welcome back, Montag. I hope you'll be staying, with us, now that your fever </p><p>is done and your sickness over. Sit in for a hand of poker?" </p><p>They sat and the cards were dealt. In Beatty's sight, Montag feit the guilt of his hands. His </p><p>fingers were like ferrets that had done some evil and now never rested, always stirred and picked </p><p>and hid in pockets, moving from under Beatty's alcohol-flame Stare. If Beatty so much as </p><p>breathed on them, Montag feit that his hands might wither, turn over on their sides, and never be </p><p>shocked to life again; they would be buried the rest of his life in his coat-sleeves, forgotten. For </p><p>these were the hands that had acted on their own, no part of him, here was where the conscience </p><p>first manifested itself to snatch books, dart off with job and Ruth and Willie Shakespeare, and </p><p>now, in the firehouse, these hands seemed gloved with blood. </p><p>Twice in half an hour, Montag had to rise from the game and go to the latrine to wash his hands. </p><p>When he came back he hid his hands under the table. </p><p>Beatty laughed. "Let's have your hands in sight, Montag. </p><p>Not that we don't trust you, understand, but—" </p><p>They all laughed. </p><p>"Well," said Beatty, "the crisis is past and all is well, the sheep returns to the fold. We're all </p><p>sheep who have strayed at times. Truth is truth, to the end of reckoning, we've cried. They are </p><p>never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts, we've shouted to ourselves. 'Sweet food </p><p>of sweetly uttered knowledge,' Sir Philip Sidney said. But on the other hand: 'Words are like </p><p>leaves and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.' Alexander </p><p>Pope. What do you think of that?" </p><p>"I don't know." </p><p>"Careful," whispered Faber, living in another world, far away. </p><p>"Or this? 'A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; There </p><p>shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.' Pope. Same Essay. </p><p>Where does that put you?"</p><p>Montag bit his lip. </p><p>'TU teil you," said Beatty, smiling at his cards. "That made you for a little while a drunkard. </p><p>Read a few lines and off you go over the cliff. Bang, you're ready to blow up the world, chop off </p><p>heads, knock down women and children, destroy authority. I know, I've been through it all." </p><p>"I'm all right," said Montag, nervously. </p><p>"Stop blushing. I'm not needling, really I'm not. Do you know, I had a dream an hour ago. I lay </p><p>down for a cat-nap and in this dream you and I, Montag, got into a furious debate on books. You </p><p>towered with rage, yelled quotes at me. I calmly parried every thrust. Power, I said, And you, </p><p>quoting Dr. Johnson, said 'Knowledge is more than equivalent to force! 1 And I said, 'Well, Dr. </p><p>Johnson also said, dear boy, that "He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an </p><p>uncertainty.'" Stick with the fireman, Montag. All eise is dreary chaos!" </p><p>"Don't listen," whispered Faber. "He's trying to confuse. He's slippery. Watch out!" </p><p>Beatty chuckled. "And you said, quoting, 'Truth will come to light, murder will not be hid long!' </p><p>And I cried in good humour, 'Oh God, he speaks only of his horse!' And 'The Devil can eite </p><p>Scripture for his purpose.' And you yelled, 'This age thinks better of a gilded fool, than of a </p><p>threadbare saint in wisdom's school!' And I whispered gently, 'The dignity of truth is lost with </p><p>much protesting.' And you screamed, 'Carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer!' And I said, </p><p>patting your hand, 'What, do I give you trench mouth?' And you shrieked, 'Knowledge is power!' </p><p>and 'A dwarf on a giant's shoulders of the furthest of the two!' and I summed my side up with </p><p>rare serenity in, 'The folly of mistaking a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring </p><p>of Capital truths, and oneself as an oracle, is inborn in us, Mr. Valery once said.'" </p><p>Montag's head whirled sickeningly. He feit beaten unmercifully on brow, eyes, nose, lips, chin, </p><p>on shoulders, on upflailing arms. He wanted to yell, "No! shut up, you're confusing things, stop </p><p>it!" Beatty's graceful fingers thrust out to seize his wrist. </p><p>"God, what a pulse! I've got you going, have I, Montag. Jesus God, your pulse sounds like the </p><p>day after the war. Everything but sirens and bells! Shall I talk some more? I like your look of</p><p>panic. Swahili, Indian, English Lit., I speak them all. A kind of excellent dumb discourse, </p><p>Willie!" </p><p>"Montag, hold on! " The moth brushed Montag's ear. "He's muddying the waters!" </p><p>"Oh, you were scared silly," said Beatty, "for I was doing a terrible thing in using the very books </p><p>you clung to, to rebut you on every hand, on every point! What traitors books can be! You think </p><p>they're backing you up, and they turn on you. Others can use them, too, and there you are, lost in </p><p>the middle of the moor, in a great weiter of nouns and verbs and adjectives. And at the very end </p><p>of my dream, along I came with the Salamander and said, Going my way? And you got in and </p><p>we drove back to the firehouse in beatific silence, all -dwindled away to peace." Beatty let </p><p>Montag's wrist go, let the hand slump limply on the table. "All's well that is well in the end." </p><p>Silence. Montag sat like a carved white stone. The echo of the final hammer on his skull died </p><p>slowly away into the black cavern where Faber waited for the echoes to subside. And then when </p><p>the startled dust had settled down about Montag's mind, Faber began, softly, "All right, he's had </p><p>his say. You must take it in. I'll say my say, too, in the next few hours. And you'll take it in. And </p><p>you'll try to judge them and make your decision as to which way to jump, or fall. But I want it to </p><p>be your decision, not mine, and not the Captain's. But remember that the Captain belongs to the </p><p>most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom, the solid unmoving cattle of the majority. Oh, God, </p><p>the terrible tyranny of the majority. We all have our harps to play. And it's up to you now to </p><p>know with which ear you'll listen." </p><p>Montag opened his mouth to answer Faber and was saved this error in the presence of others </p><p>when the Station bell rang. The alarm-voice in the ceiling chanted. There was a tacking-tacking </p><p>sound as the alarm-report telephone typed out the address across the room. Captain Beatty, his </p><p>poker cards in one pink hand, walked with exaggerated slowness to the phone and ripped out the </p><p>address when the report was finished. He glanced perfunctorily at it, and shoved it in his pocket. </p><p>He came back and sat down. The others looked at him. </p><p>"It can wait exactly forty seconds while I take all the money away from you," said Beatty, </p><p>happily. </p><p>Montag put his cards down. </p><p>"Tired, Montag? Going out of this game?" </p><p>"Yes." </p><p>"Hold on. Well, come to think of it, we can finish this hand later. Just leave your cards face down </p><p>and hüstle the equipment. On the double now." And Beatty rose up again. "Montag, you don't </p><p>look well? I'd hate to think you were coming down with another fever..." </p><p>'TU be all right." </p><p>"You'll be fine. This is a special case. Come on, jump for it!" </p><p>They leaped into the air and clutched the brass pole as if it were the last vantage point above a </p><p>tidal wave passing below, and then the brass pole, to their dismay slid them down into darkness, </p><p>into the blast and cough and suction of the gaseous dragon roaring to life! </p><p>"Hey!" </p><p>They rounded a corner in thunder and siren, with concussion of tyres, with scream of rubber, </p><p>with a shift of kerosene bulk in the glittery brass tank, like the food in the stomach of a giant; </p><p>with Montag's fingers jolting off the silver rail, swinging into cold space, with the wind tearing </p><p>his hair back from his head, with the wind whistling in his teeth, and him all the while thinking </p><p>of the women, the chaff women in his parlour tonight, with the kerneis blown out from under </p><p>them by a neon wind, and his silly damned reading of a book to them. How like trying to put out </p><p>fires with water-pistols, how senseless and insane. One rage turned in for another. One anger </p><p>displacing another. When would he stop being entirely mad and be quiet, be very quiet indeed? </p><p>"Here we go!" </p><p>Montag looked up. Beatty never drove, but he was driving tonight, slamming the Salamander </p><p>around corners, leaning forward high on the driver's throne, his massive black slicker flapping </p><p>out behind so that he seemed a great black bat flying above the engine, over the brass numbers, </p><p>taking the full wind. </p><p>"Here we go to keep the world happy, Montag !" </p><p>Beatty's pink, phosphorescent cheeks glimmered in the high darkness, and he was smiling </p><p>furiously. </p><p>"Here we are!" </p><p>The Salamander boomed to a halt, throwing men off in slips and clumsy hops. Montag stood </p><p>fixing his raw eyes to the cold bright rail under his clenched fingers.</p><p>I can't do it, he thought. How can I go at this new assignment, how can I go on burning things? I </p><p>can't go in this place. </p><p>Beatty, smelling of the wind through which he had rushed, was at Montag's elbow. "All right, </p><p>Montag?" </p><p>The men ran like cripples in their clumsy boots, as quietly as spiders. </p><p>At last Montag raised his eyes and turned. Beatty was watching his face. </p><p>"Something the matter, Montag?" </p><p>"Why," said Montag slowly, "we've stopped in front of my house." </p><p>PART III </p><p>BURNING BRIGHT </p><p>LIGHTS flicked on and house-doors opened all down the Street, to watch the carnival set up. </p><p>Montag and Beatty stared, one with dry satisfaction, the other with disbelief, at the house before </p><p>them, this main ring in which torches would be juggled and fire eaten. </p><p>"Well," said Beatty, "now you did it. Old Montag wanted to fly near the sun and now that he's </p><p>burnt his damn wings, he wonders why. Didn't I hint enough when I sent the Hound around your </p><p>place?" </p><p>Montag's face was entirely numb and featureless; he feit his head turn like a stone carving to the </p><p>dark place next door, set in its bright borders of flowers. </p><p>Beatty snorted. "Oh, no! You weren't fooled by that little idiot's routine, now, were you? </p><p>Flowers, butterflies, leaves, sunsets, oh, hell! It's all in her file. I'll be damned. I've hit the </p><p>bullseye. Look at the sick look on your face. A few grass-blades and the quarters of the moon. </p><p>What trash. What good did she ever do with all that?" </p><p>Montag sat on the cold fender of the Dragon, moving his head half an inch to the left, half an </p><p>inch to the right, left, right, left right, left .... </p><p>"She saw everything. She didn't do anything to anyone. She just let them alone." </p><p>"Alone, hell ! She chewed around you, didn't she? One of those damn do-gooders with their </p><p>shocked, holier-than-thou silences, their one talent making others feel guilty. God damn, they </p><p>rise like the midnight sun to sweat you in your bed!"</p><p>The front door opened; Mildred came down the Steps, running, one suitcase held with a dream- </p><p>like clenching rigidity in her fist, as a beetle-taxi hissed to the curb. </p><p>"Mildred! " </p><p>She ran past with her body stiff, her face floured with powder, her mouth gone, with out lipstick. </p><p>"Mildred, you didn't put in the alarm!" </p><p>She shoved the valise in the waiting beetle, climbed in, and sat mumbling, "Poor family, poor </p><p>family, oh everything gone, everything, everything gone now ...." </p><p>Beatty grabbed Montag's shoulder as the beetle blasted away and hit seventy miles an hour, far </p><p>down the Street, gone. </p><p>There was a crash like the falling parts of a dream fashioned out of warped glass, mirrors, and </p><p>crystal prisms. Montag drifted about as if still another incomprehensible storm had turned him, to </p><p>see Stoneman and Black wielding axes, shattering window-panes to provide cross-ventilation. </p><p>The brush of a death's-head moth against a cold black screen. "Montag, this is Faber. Do you </p><p>hear me? What is happening </p><p>"This is happening to me," said Montag. </p><p>"What a dreadful surprise," said Beatty. "For everyone nowadays knows, absolutely is certain, </p><p>that nothing will ever happen to me. Others die, I go on. There are no consequences and no </p><p>responsibilities. Except that there are. But let's not talk about them, eh? By the time the </p><p>consequences catch up with you, it's too late, isn't it, Montag?" </p><p>"Montag, can you get away, run?" asked Faber. </p><p>Montag walked but did not feel his feet touch the cement and then the night grasses. Beatty </p><p>flicked his igniter nearby and the small orange flame drew his fascinated gaze. </p><p>"What is there about fire that's so lovely? No matter what age we are, what draws us to it?" </p><p>Beatty blew out the flame and lit it again. "It's perpetual motion; the thing man wanted to invent </p><p>but never did. Or almost perpetual motion. If you let it go on, it'd burn our lifetimes out. What is </p><p>fire? It's a mystery. Scientists give us gobbledegook about friction and molecules. But they don't </p><p>really know. Its real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences. A problem gets </p><p>too burdensome, then into the furnace with it. Now, Montag, you're a bürden. And fire will lift </p><p>you off my shoulders, clean, quick, sure; nothing to rot later. Antibiotic, aesthetic, practical."</p><p>Montag stood looking in now at this queer house, made stränge by the hour of the night, by </p><p>murmuring neighbour voices, by littered glass, and there on the floor, their covers torn off and </p><p>spilled out like swan-feathers, the incredible books that looked so silly and really not worth </p><p>bothering with, for these were nothing but black type and yellowed paper, and ravelled binding. </p><p>Mildred, of course. She must have watched him hide the books in the garden and brought them </p><p>back in. Mildred. Mildred. </p><p>"I want you to do this job all by your lonesome, Montag. Not with kerosene and a match, but </p><p>piecework, with a flamethrower. Your house, your clean-up." </p><p>"Montag, can't you run, get away!" </p><p>"No!" cried Montag helplessly. "The Hound! Because of the Hound!" </p><p>Faber heard, and Beatty, thinking it was meant for him, heard. "Yes, the Hound's somewhere </p><p>about the neighbourhood, so don't try anything. Ready?" </p><p>"Ready." Montag snapped the safety-catch on the flamethrower. </p><p>"Fire!" </p><p>A great nuzzling gout of flame leapt out to lap at the books and knock them against the wall. He </p><p>stepped into the bedroom and fired twice and the twin beds went up in a great simmering </p><p>whisper, with more heat and passion and light than he would have supposed them to contain. He </p><p>burnt the bedroom walls and the cosmetics ehest because he wanted to change everything, the </p><p>chairs, the tables, and in the dining-room the silverware and plastic dishes, everything that </p><p>showed that he had lived here in this empty house with a stränge woman who would forget him </p><p>tomorrow, who had gone and quite forgotten him already, listening to her Seashell radio pour in </p><p>on her and in on her as she rode across town, alone. And as before, it was good to burn, he feit </p><p>himself gush out in the fire, snatch, rend, rip in half with flame, and put away the senseless </p><p>problem. If there was no solution, well then now there was no problem, either. Fire was best for </p><p>everything! </p><p>"The books, Montag!" </p><p>The books leapt and danced like roasted birds, their wings ablaze with red and yellow feathers. </p><p>And then he came to the parlour where the great idiot monsters lay asleep with their white</p><p>thoughts and their snowy dreams. And he shot a bolt at each of the three blank walls and the </p><p>vacuum hissed out at him. The emptiness made an even emptier whistle, a senseless scream. He </p><p>tried to think about the vacuum upon which the nothingness had performed, but he could not. He </p><p>held his breath so the vacuum could not get into his lungs. He cut off its terrible emptiness, drew </p><p>back, and gave the entire room a gift of one huge bright yellow flower of burning. The fire-proof </p><p>plastic sheath on everything was cut wide and the house began to shudder with flame. </p><p>"When you 're quite finished," said Beatty behind him. "You're under arrest." </p><p>The house feil in red coals and black ash. It bedded itself down in sleepy pink-grey cinders and a </p><p>smoke plume blew over it, rising and waving slowly back and forth in the sky. It was three-thirty </p><p>in the morning. The crowd drew back into the houses; the great tents of the circus had slumped </p><p>into charcoal and rubble and the show was well over. </p><p>Montag stood with the flame-thrower in his limp hands, great islands of perspiration drenching </p><p>his armpits, his face smeared with soot. The other firemen waited behind him, in the darkness, </p><p>their faces illuminated faintly by the smouldering foundation. </p><p>Montag started to speak twice and then finally managed to put his thought together. </p><p>"Was it my wife turned in the alarm?" </p><p>Beatty nodded. "But her friends turned in an alarm earlier, that I let ride. One way or the other, </p><p>you'd have got it. It was pretty silly, quoting poetry around free and easy like that. It was the act </p><p>of a silly damn snob. Give a man a few lines of verse and he thinks he's the Lord of all Creation. </p><p>You think you can walk on water with your books. Well, the world can get by just fine without </p><p>them. Look where they got you, in slime up to your lip. If I stir the slime with my little finger, </p><p>you'll drown ! " </p><p>Montag could not move. A great earthquake had come with fire and levelled the house and </p><p>Mildred was under there somewhere and his entire life under there and he could not move. The </p><p>earthquake was still shaking and falling and shivering inside him and he stood there, his knees </p><p>half-bent under the great load of tiredness and bewilderment and outrage, letting Beatty hit him </p><p>without raising a hand. </p><p>"Montag, you idiot, Montag, you damn fool; why did you really do it?" </p><p>Montag did not hear, he was far away, he was running with his mind, he was gone, leaving this </p><p>dead soot-covered body to sway in front of another raving fool. </p><p>"Montag, get out of there! " said Faber. </p><p>Montag listened. </p><p>Beatty struck him a blow on the head that sent him reeling back. The green bullet in which </p><p>Faber's voice whispered and cried, feil to the sidewalk. Beatty snatched it up, grinning. He held it </p><p>half in, half out of his ear. </p><p>Montag heard the distant voice calling, "Montag, you all right?" </p><p>Beatty switched the green bullet off and thrust it in his pocket. "Well— so there's more here than I </p><p>thought. I saw you tilt your head, listening. First I thought you had a Seashell. But when you </p><p>turned clever later, I wondered. We'll trace this and drop it on your friend." </p><p>"No! " said Montag. </p><p>He twitched the safety catch on the flame-thrower. Beatty glanced instantly at Montag's fingers </p><p>and his eyes widened the faintest bit. Montag saw the surprise there and himself glanced to his </p><p>hands to see what new thing they had done. Thinking back later he could never decide whether </p><p>the hands or Beatty's reaction to the hands gave him the final push toward murder. The last </p><p>rolling thunder of the avalanche stoned down about his ears, not touching him. </p><p>Beatty grinned his most charming grin. "Well, that's one way to get an audience. Hold a gun on a </p><p>man and force him to listen to your speech. Speech away. What'll it be this time? Why don't you </p><p>belch Shakespeare at me, you fumbling snob? 'There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats, for I </p><p>am arm'd so strong in honesty that they pass by me as an idle wind, which I respect not!' How's </p><p>that? Go ahead now, you second-hand litterateur, pull the trigger." He took one Step toward </p><p>Montag. </p><p>Montag only said, "We never burned right..." </p><p>"Hand it over, Guy," said Beatty with a fixed smile. </p><p>And then he was a shrieking blaze, a jumping, sprawling, gibbering mannikin, no longer human </p><p>or known, all writhing flame on the lawn as Montag shot one continuous pulse of liquid fire on </p><p>him. There was a hiss like a great mouthful of spittle banging a redhot stove, a bubbling and </p><p>frothing as if salt had been poured over a monstrous black snail to cause a terrible liquefaction </p><p>and a boiling over of yellow foam. Montag shut his eyes, shouted, shouted, and fought to get his</p><p>hands at his ears to clamp and to cut away the sound. Beatty flopped over and over and over, and </p><p>at last twisted in on himself like a charred wax doll and lay silent. </p><p>The other two firemen did not move. </p><p>Montag kept his sickness down long enough to aim the flame-thrower. "Turn around!" </p><p>They turned, their faces like blanched meat, Streaming sweat; he beat their heads, knocking off </p><p>their helmets and bringing them down on themselves. They feil and lay without moving. </p><p>The blowing of a single autumn leaf. </p><p>He turned and the Mechanical Hound was there. </p><p>It was half across the lawn, coming from the shadows, moving with such drifting ease that it was </p><p>like a single solid cloud of black-grey smoke blown at him in silence. </p><p>It made a single last leap into the air, coming down at Montag from a good three feet over his </p><p>head, its spidered legs reaching, the procaine needle snapping out its single angry tooth. Montag </p><p>caught it with a bloom of fire, a single wondrous blossom that curled in petals of yellow and blue </p><p>and orange about the metal dog, clad it in a new covering as it slammed into Montag and threw </p><p>him ten feet back against the bole of a tree, taking the flame-gun with him. He feit it scrabble and </p><p>seize his leg and stab the needle in for a moment before the fire snapped the Hound up in the air, </p><p>burst its metal bones at the joints, and blew out its interior in the single flushing of red colour </p><p>like a skyrocket fastened to the Street. Montag lay watching the dead-alive thing fiddle the air </p><p>and die. Even now it seemed to want to get back at him and finish the injection which was now </p><p>working through the flesh of his leg. He feit all of the mingled relief and horror at having pulled </p><p>back only in time to have just his knee slammed by the fender of a car hurtling by at ninety miles </p><p>an hour. He was afraid to </p><p>get up, afraid he might not be able to gain his feet at all, with an anaesthetized leg. A numbness </p><p>in a numbness hollowed into a numbness.... </p><p>And now...? </p><p>The Street empty, the house burnt like an ancient bit of stage-scenery, the other homes dark, the </p><p>Hound here, Beatty there, the three other firemen another place, and the Salamander . . . ? He </p><p>gazed at the immense engine. That would have to go, too.</p><p>Well, he thought, let's see how badly off you are. On your feet now. Easy, easy . . . there. </p><p>He stood and he had only one leg. The other was like a chunk of burnt pine-log he was carrying </p><p>along as a penance for some obscure sin. When he put his weight on it, a shower of silver </p><p>needles gushed up the length of the calf and went off in the knee. He wept. Come on! Come on, </p><p>you, you can't stay here! </p><p>A few house-lights were going on again down the Street, whether from the incidents just passed, </p><p>or because of the abnormal silence following the fight, Montag did not know. He hobbled around </p><p>the ruins, seizing at his bad leg when it lagged, talking and whimpering and shouting directions </p><p>at it and cursing it and pleading with it to work for him now when it was vital. He heard a </p><p>number of people crying out in the darkness and shouting. He reached the back yard and the </p><p>alley. Beatty, he thought, you're not a problem now. You always said, don't face a problem, bum </p><p>it. Well, now I've done both. Good-bye, Captain. </p><p>And he stumbled along the alley in the dark. </p><p>A shotgun blast went off in his leg every time he put it down and he thought, you're a fool, a </p><p>damn fool, an awful fool, an idiot, an awful idiot, a damn idiot, and a fool, a damn fool; look at </p><p>the mess and where's the mop, look at the mess, and what do you do? Pride, damn it, and temper, </p><p>and you've junked it all, at the very Start you vomit on everyone and on yourself. But everything </p><p>at once, but everything one on top of another; Beatty, the women, Mildred, Clarisse, everything. </p><p>No excuse, though, no excuse. A fool, a damn fool, go give yourself up! </p><p>No, we'll save what we can, we'll do what there is left to do. If we have to burn, let's take a few </p><p>more with us. Here! </p><p>He remembered the books and turned back. Just on the off chance. </p><p>He found a few books where he had left them, near the garden fence. Mildred, God bless her, had </p><p>missed a few. Four books still lay hidden where he had put them. Voices were wailing in the </p><p>night and flashbeams swirled about. Other Salamanders were roaring their engines far away, and </p><p>police sirens were cutting their way across town with their sirens. </p><p>Montag took the four remaining books and hopped, jolted, hopped his way down the alley and </p><p>suddenly feil as if his head had been cut off and only his body lay there. Something inside had </p><p>jerked him to a halt and flopped him down. He lay where he had fallen and sobbed, his legs </p><p>folded, his face pressed blindly to the gravel. </p><p>Beatty wanted to die. </p><p>In the middle of the crying Montag knew it for the truth. Beatty had wanted to die. He had just </p><p>stood there, not really trying to save himself, just stood there, joking, needling, thought Montag, </p><p>and the thought was enough to stifle his sobbing and let him pause for air. How stränge, stränge, </p><p>to want to die so much that you let a man walk around armed and then instead of shutting up and </p><p>staying alive, you go on yelling at people and making fun of them until you get them mad, and </p><p>then .... </p><p>At a distance, running feet. </p><p>Montag sat up. Let's get out of here. Come on, get up, get up, you just can't sit! But he was still </p><p>crying and that had to be finished. It was going away now. He hadn't wanted to kill anyone, not </p><p>even Beatty. His flesh gripped him and shrank as if it had been plunged in acid. He gagged. He </p><p>saw Beatty, a torch, not moving, fluttering out on the grass. He bit at his knuckles. I'm sorry, I'm </p><p>sorry, oh God, sorry .... </p><p>He tried to piece it all together, to go back to the normal pattern of life a few short days ago </p><p>before the sieve and the sand, Denham's Dentifrice, moth-voices, fireflies, the alarms and </p><p>excursions, too much for a few short days, too much, indeed, for a lifetime. </p><p>Feet ran in the far end of the alley. </p><p>"Get up!" he told himself. "Damn it, get up!" he said to the leg, and stood. The pains were spikes </p><p>driven in the kneecap and then only darning needles and then only common, ordinary safety pins, </p><p>and after he had dragged along fifty more hops and jumps, filling his hand with slivers from the </p><p>board fence, the prickling was like someone blowing a spray of sealding water on that leg. And </p><p>the leg was at last his own leg again. He had been afraid that running might break the loose </p><p>ankle. Now, sucking all the night into his open mouth, and blowing it out pale, with all the </p><p>blackness left heavily inside himself, he set out in a steady jogging pace. He carried the books in </p><p>his hands. </p><p>He thought of Faber. </p><p>Faber was back there in the steaming lump of tar that had no name or identity now. He had burnt</p><p>Faber, too. He feit so suddenly shocked by this that he feit Faber was really dead, baked like a </p><p>roach in that small green capsule shoved and lost in the pocket of a man who was now nothing </p><p>but a frame skeleton strung with asphalt tendons. </p><p>You must remember, burn them or they'll burn you, he thought. Right now it's as simple as that. </p><p>He searched his pockets, the money was there, and in his other pocket he found the usual </p><p>Seashell upon which the city was talking to itself in the cold black morning. </p><p>"Police Alert. Wanted: Fugitive in city. Has committed murder and crimes against the State. </p><p>Name: Guy Montag. Occupation: Fireman. Last seen . . ." </p><p>He ran steadily for six blocks, in the alley, and then the alley opened out on to a wide empty </p><p>thoroughfare ten lanes wide. It seemed like a boatless river frozen there in the raw light of the </p><p>high white arc-lamps; you could drown trying to cross it, he feit; it was too wide, it was too open. </p><p>It was a vast stage without scenery, inviting him to run across, easily seen in the blazing </p><p>illumination, easily caught, easily shot down. </p><p>The Seashell hummed in his ear. </p><p>"... watch for a man running ... watch for the running man . . . watch for a man alone, on foot . . . </p><p>watch..." </p><p>Montag pulled back into the shadows. Directly ahead lay a gas Station, a great chunk of porcelain </p><p>snow shining there, and two silver beetles pulling in to fill up. Now he must be clean and </p><p>presentable if he wished, to walk, not run, stroll calmly across that wide boulevard. It would give </p><p>him an extra margin of safety if he washed up and combed his hair before he went on his way to </p><p>get where . . . ? </p><p>Yes, he thought, where am I running? </p><p>Nowhere. There was no where to go, no friend to turn to, really. Except Faber. And then he </p><p>realized that he was indeed, running toward Faber's house, instinctively. But Faber couldn't hide </p><p>him; it would be suicide even to try. But he knew that he would go to see Faber anyway, for a </p><p>few short minutes. Faber's would be the place where he might refuel his fast draining belief in </p><p>his own ability to survive. He just wanted to know that there was a man like Faber in the world. </p><p>He wanted to see the man alive and not burned back there like a body shelled in another body.</p><p>And some of the money must be left with Faber, of course, to be spent after Montag ran on his </p><p>way. Perhaps he could make the open country and live on or near the rivers and near the </p><p>highways, in the fields and hills. </p><p>A great whirling whisper made him look to the sky. </p><p>The police helicopters were rising so far away that it seemed someone had blown the grey head </p><p>off a dry dandelion flower. Two dozen of them flurried, wavering, indecisive, three indes off, </p><p>like butterflies puzzled by autumn, and then they were plummeting down to land, one by one, </p><p>here, there, softly kneading the streets where, turned back to beetles, they shrieked along the </p><p>boulevards or, as suddenly, leapt back into the sir, continuing their search. </p><p>And here was the gas Station, its attendants busy now with customers. Approaching from the </p><p>rear, Montag entered the men's washroom. Through the aluminium wall he heard a radio voice </p><p>saying, "War has been declared." The gas was being pumped outside. The men in the beetles </p><p>were talking and the attendants were talking about the engines, the gas, the money owed. Montag </p><p>stood trying to make himself feel the shock of the quiet Statement from the radio, but nothing </p><p>would happen. The war would have to wait for him to come to it in his personal file, an hour, </p><p>two hours from now. </p><p>He washed his hands and face and towelled himself dry, making little sound. He came out of the </p><p>washroom and shut the door carefully and walked into the darkness and at last stood again on the </p><p>edge of the empty boulevard. </p><p>There it lay, a game for him to win, a vast bowling alley in the cool morning. The boulevard was </p><p>as clean as the surface of an arena two minutes before the appearance of certain unnamed victims </p><p>and certain unknown killers. The air over and above the vast concrete river trembled with the </p><p>warmth of Montag's body alone; it was incredible how he feit his temperature could cause the </p><p>whole immediate world to vibrate. He was a phosphorescent target; he knew it, he feit it. And </p><p>now he must begin his little walk. </p><p>Three blocks away a few headlights glared. Montag drew a deep breath. His lungs were like </p><p>burning brooms in his ehest. His mouth was sucked dry from running. His throat tasted of bloody </p><p>iron and there was rusted Steel in his feet. </p><p>What about those lights there? Once you started walking you'd have to gauge how fast those </p><p>beetles could make it down here. Well, how far was it to the other curb? It seemed like a hundred</p><p>yards. Probably not a hundred, but figure for that anyway, figure that with him going very </p><p>slowly, at a nice stroll, it might take as much as thirty seconds, forty seconds to walk all the way. </p><p>The beetles? Once started, they could leave three blocks behind them in about fifteen seconds. </p><p>So, even if halfway across he started to run . . . ? </p><p>He put his right foot out and then his left foot and then his right. He walked on the empty avenue. </p><p>Even if the Street were entirely empty, of course, you couldn't be sure of a safe Crossing, for a car </p><p>could appear suddenly over the rise four blocks further on and be on and past you before you had </p><p>taken a dozen breaths. </p><p>He decided not to count his Steps. He looked neither to left nor right. The light from the overhead </p><p>lamps seemed as bright and revealing as the midday sun and just as hot. </p><p>He listened to the sound of the car picking up speed two blocks away on his right. Its movable </p><p>headlights jerked back and forth suddenly, and caught at Montag. </p><p>Keep going. </p><p>Montag faltered, got a grip on the books, and forced himself not to freeze. Instinctively he took a </p><p>few quick, running Steps then talked out loud to himself and pulled up to stroll again. He was </p><p>now half across the Street, but the roar from the beetle's engines whined higher as it put on speed. </p><p>The police, of course. They see me. But slow now; slow, quiet, don't turn, don't look, don't seem </p><p>concerned. Walk, that's it, walls, walk. </p><p>The beetle was rushing. The beetle was roaring. The beetle raised its speed. The beetle was </p><p>whining. The beetle was in high thunder. The beetle came skimming. The beetle came in a single </p><p>whistling trajectory, fired from an invisible rifle. It was up to 120 m.p.h. It was up to 130 at least. </p><p>Montag clamped his jaws. The heat of the racing headlights burnt his cheeks, it seemed, and </p><p>jittered his eye-lids and flushed the sour sweat out all over his body. </p><p>He began to shuffle idiotically and talk to himself and then he broke and just ran. He put out his </p><p>legs as far as they would go and down and then far out again and down and back and out and </p><p>down and back. God ! God! He dropped a book, broke pace, almost turned, changed his mind, </p><p>plunged on, yelling in concrete emptiness, the beetle scuttling after its running food, two </p><p>hundred, one hundred feet away, ninety, eighty, seventy, Montag gasping, flailing his hands, legs</p><p>up down out, up down out, closer, closer, hooting, calling, his eyes burnt white now as his head </p><p>jerked about to confront the Hashing glare, now the beetle was swallowed in its own light, now it </p><p>was nothing but a torch hurtling upon him; all sound, all blare. Now-almost on top of him ! </p><p>He stumbled and feil. </p><p>I'm done! It's over! </p><p>But the falling made a difference. An instant before reaching him the wild beetle cut and </p><p>swerved out. It was gone. Montag lay flat, his head down. Wisps of laughter trailed back to him </p><p>with the blue exhaust from the beetle. </p><p>His right hand was extended above him, flat. Across the extreme tip of his middle finger, he saw </p><p>now as he lifted that hand, a faint sixteenth of an inch of black tread where tyre had touched in </p><p>passing. He looked at that black line with disbelief, getting to his feet. </p><p>That wasn't the police, he thought. </p><p>He looked down the boulevard. It was clear now. A carful of children, all ages, God knew, from </p><p>twelve to sixteen, out </p><p>124 FAHRENHEIT 451 </p><p>whistling, yelling, hurrahing, had seen a man, a very extraordinary sight, a man strolling, a rarity, </p><p>and simply said, "Let's get him," not knowing he was the fugitive Mr. Montag, simply a,number </p><p>of children out for a long night of roaring five or six hundred miles in a few moonlit hours, their </p><p>faces icy with wind, and coming home or not coming at dawn, alive or not alive, that made the </p><p>ad venture. </p><p>They would have killed me, thought Montag, swaying, the air still torn and stirring about him in </p><p>dust, touching his bruised cheek. For no reason at all in the world they would have killed me. </p><p>He walked toward the far kerb telling each foot to go and keep going. Somehow he had picked </p><p>up the spilled books; he didn't remember bending or touching them. He kept moving them from </p><p>hand to hand as if they were a poker hand he could not figure. </p><p>I wonder if they were the ones who killed Clarisse? </p><p>He stopped and his mind said it again, very loud. </p><p>I wonder if they were the ones who killed Clarisse! </p><p>He wanted to run after them yelling. </p><p>His eyes watered. </p><p>The thing that had saved him was falling flat. The driver of that car, seeing Montag down, </p><p>instinctively considered the probability that running over a body at that speed might turn the car </p><p>upside down and spill them out. If Montag had remained an upright target. . . ? </p><p>Montag gasped. </p><p>Far down the boulevard, four blocks away, the beetle had slowed, spun about on two wheels, and </p><p>was now racing back, slanting over on the wrong side of the Street, picking up speed. </p><p>But Montag was gone, hidden in the safety of the dark alley for which he had set out on a long </p><p>journey, an hour or was it a minute, ago? He stood shivering in the night, looking back out as the </p><p>beetle ran by and skidded back to the centre of the avenue, whirling laughter in the air all about </p><p>it, gone. </p><p>Further on, as Montag moved in darkness, he could see the helicopters falling, falling, like the </p><p>first flakes of snow in the long winter. to come.... </p><p>The house was silent. </p><p>Montag approached from the rear, creeping through a thick night-moistened scent of daffodils </p><p>and roses and wet grass. He touched the screen door in back, found it open, slipped in, moved </p><p>across the porch, listening. </p><p>Mrs. Black, are you asleep in there? he thought. This isn't good, but your husband did it to others </p><p>and never asked and never wondered and never worried. And now since you're a fireman's wife, </p><p>it's your house and your turn, for all the houses your husband burned and the people he hurt </p><p>without thinking. . </p><p>The house did not reply. </p><p>He hid the books in the kitchen and moved from the house again to the alley and looked back </p><p>and the house was still dark and quiet, sleeping. </p><p>On his way across town, with the helicopters fluttering like torn bits of paper in the sky, he </p><p>phoned the alarm at a lonely phone booth outside a störe that was closed for the night. Then he </p><p>stood in the cold night air, waiting and at a distance he heard the fire sirens Start up and run, and</p><p>the Salamanders coming, coming to bum Mr. Black's house while he was away at work, to make </p><p>his wife stand shivering in the morning air while the roof let go and dropped in upon the fire. But </p><p>now, she was still asleep. </p><p>Good night, Mrs. Black, he thought. - </p><p>"Faber! " </p><p>Another rap, a whisper, and a long waiting. Then, after a minute, a small light flickered inside </p><p>Faber's small house. After another pause, the back door opened. </p><p>They stood looking at each other in the half-light, Faber and Montag, as if each did not believe in </p><p>the other's existence. Then Faber moved and put out his hand and grabbed Montag and moved </p><p>him in and sat him down and went back and stood in the door, listening. The sirens were wailing </p><p>off in the morning distance. He came in and shut the door. </p><p>Montag said, "I've been a fool all down the line. I can't stay long. I'm on my way God knows </p><p>where." </p><p>"At least you were a fool about the right things," said Faber. "I thought you were dead. The </p><p>audio-capsule I gave you—" </p><p>"Burnt." </p><p>"I heard the captain talking to you and suddenly there was nothing. I almost came out looking for </p><p>you." </p><p>"The captain's dead. He found the audio-capsule, he heard your voice, he was going to trace it. I </p><p>killed him with the flamethrower." </p><p>Faber sat down and did not speak for a time. </p><p>"My God, how did this happen?" said Montag. "It was only the other night everything was fine </p><p>and the next thing I know I'm drowning. How many times can a man go down and still be alive? </p><p>I can't breathe. There's Beatty dead, and he was my friend once, and there's Millie gone, I </p><p>thought she was my wife, but now I don't know. And the house all burnt. And my job gone and </p><p>myself on the run, and I planted a book in a fireman's house on the way. Good Christ, the things </p><p>I've done in a single week! " </p><p>"You did what you had to do. It was coming on for a long time." </p><p>"Yes, I believe that, if there's nothing eise I believe. It saved itself up to happen. I could feel it </p><p>for a long time, I was saving something up, I went around doing one thing and feeling another. </p><p>God, it was all there. It's a wonder it didn't show on me, like fat. And now here I am, messing up </p><p>your life. They might follow me here." </p><p>"I feel alive for the first time in years," said Faber. "I feel I'm doing what I should have done a </p><p>lifetime ago. For a little while I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. </p><p>Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. I suppose I'll </p><p>have to do even more violent things, exposing myself so I won't fall down on the job and turn </p><p>scared again. What are your plans?" </p><p>"To keep running." </p><p>"You know the war's on?" </p><p>"I heard." </p><p>"God, isn't it funny?" said the old man. "It seems so remote because we have our own troubles." </p><p>"I haven't had time to think." Montag drew out a hundred dollars. "I want this to stay with you, </p><p>use it any way that'll help when I'm gone." </p><p>"But- " </p><p>"I might be dead by noon; use this." </p><p>Faber nodded. "You'd better head for the river if you can, follow along it, and if you can hit the </p><p>old railroad lines going out into the country, follow them. Even though practically everything's </p><p>airborne these days and most of the tracks are abandoned, the rails are still there, rusting. I've </p><p>heard there are still hobo camps all across the country, here and there; walking camps they call </p><p>them, and if you keep walking far enough and keep an eye peeled, they say there's lots of old </p><p>Harvard degrees on the tracks between here and Los Angeles. Most of them are wanted and </p><p>hunted in the cities. They survive, I guess. There aren't many of them, and I guess the </p><p>Government's never considered them a great enough danger to go in and track them down. You </p><p>might hole up with them for a time and get in touch with me in St. Louis, I'm leaving on the five </p><p>a.m. bus this morning, to see a retired printer there, I'm getting out into the open myself, at last. </p><p>The money will be put to good use. Thanks and God bless you. Do you want to sleep a few</p><p>minutes?" </p><p>"I'd better run." </p><p>"Let's check." </p><p>He took Montag quickly into the bedroom and lifted a picture frame aside, revealing a television </p><p>screen the size of a postal card. "I always wanted something very small, something I could talk </p><p>to, something I could blot out with the palm of my hand, if necessary, nothing that could shout </p><p>me down, nothing monstrous big. So, you see." He snapped it on. "Montag," the TV set said, and </p><p>lit up. "M-O-N-T-A-G." The name was spelled out by the voice. "Guy Montag. Still running. </p><p>Police helicopters are up. A new Mechanical Hound has been brought from another district.. ." </p><p>Montag and Faber looked at each other. </p><p>". . . Mechanical Hound never fails. Never since its first use in tracking quarry has this incredible </p><p>invention made a mistake. Tonight, this network is proud to have the opportunity to follow the </p><p>Hound by camera helicopter as it Starts on its way to the target..." </p><p>Faber poured two glasses of whisky. "We'll need these." </p><p>They drank. </p><p>". . . nose so sensitive the Mechanical Hound can remember and identify ten thousand odour- </p><p>indexes on ten thousand men with out re-setting! " </p><p>Faber trembled the least bit and looked about at his house, at the walls, the door, the doorknob, </p><p>and the chair where Montag now sat. Montag saw the look. They both looked quickly about the </p><p>house and Montag feit his nostrils dilate and he knew that he was trying to track himself and his </p><p>nose was suddenly good enough to sense the path he had made in the air of the room and the </p><p>sweat of his hand hung from the doorknob, invisible, but as numerous as the jeweis of a small </p><p>chandelier, he was everywhere, in and on and about everything, he was a luminous cloud, a ghost </p><p>that made breathing once more impossible. He saw Faber stop up his own breath for fear of </p><p>drawing that ghost into his own body, perhaps, being contaminated with the phantom exhalations </p><p>and odours of a running man. </p><p>"The Mechanical Hound is now landing by helicopter at the site of the Burning!" </p><p>And there on the small screen was the burnt house, and the crowd, and something with a sheet </p><p>over it and out of the sky, fluttering, came the helicopter like a grotesque flower. </p><p>So they must have their game out, thought Montag. The circus must go on, even with war </p><p>beginning within the hour.... </p><p>He watched the scene, fascinated, not wanting to move. It seemed so remote and no part of him; </p><p>it was a play apart and separate, wondrous to watch, not without its stränge pleasure. That's all </p><p>for me, you thought, that's all taking place just for me, by God. </p><p>If he wished, he could linger here, in comfort, and follow the entire hunt on through its swift. </p><p>phases, down alleys across streets, over empty running avenues, Crossing lots and playgrounds, </p><p>with pauses here or there for the necessary commercials, up other alleys to the burning house of </p><p>Mr. and Mrs. Black, and so on finally to this house with Faber and himself seated, drinking, </p><p>while the Electric Hound snuffed down the last trail, silent as a drift of death itself, skidded to a </p><p>halt outside that window there. Then, if he wished, Montag might rise, walk to the window, keep </p><p>one eye on the TV screen, open the window, lean out, look back, and see himself dramatized, </p><p>described, made over, Standing there, limned in the bright small television screen from outside, a </p><p>drama to be watched objectively, knowing that in other parlours he was large as life, in full </p><p>colour, dimensionally perfect! And if he kept his eye peeled quickly he would see himself, an </p><p>instant before oblivion, being punctured for the benefit of how many civilian parlour-sitters who </p><p>had been wakened from sleep a few minutes ago by the frantic sirening of their living-room </p><p>walls to come watch the big game, the hunt, the one-man carnival. </p><p>Would he have time for a speech? As the Hound seized him, in view of ten or twenty or thirty </p><p>million people, mightn't he sum up his entire life in the last week in one single phrase or a word </p><p>that would stay with them long after the. Hound had turned, clenching him in its metal-plier </p><p>jaws, and trotted off in darkness, while the camera remained stationary, wate hing the creature </p><p>dwindle in the distance— a splendid fade-out! What could he say in a single word, a few words, </p><p>that would sear all their faces and wake them up? </p><p>"There," whispered Faber. </p><p>Out of a helicopter glided something that was not machine, not animal, not dead, not alive, </p><p>glowing with a pale green luminosity. It stood near the smoking ruins of Montag's house and the </p><p>men brought his discarded flame-thrower to it and put it down under the muzzle of the Hound.</p><p>There was a whirring, clicking, humming. </p><p>Montag shook his head and got up and drank the rest of his drink. "It's time. I'm sorry about </p><p>this:" </p><p>"About what? Me? My house? I deserve everything. Run, for God's sake. Perhaps I can delay </p><p>them here— " </p><p>"Wait. There's no use your being discovered. When I leave, burn the spread of this bed, that I </p><p>touched. Burn the chair in the living room, in your wall incinerator. Wipe down the furniture </p><p>with alcohol, wipe the door-knobs. Burn the throwrug in the parlour. Turn the air-conditioning </p><p>on full in all the rooms and spray with moth-spray if you have it. Then, turn on your lawn </p><p>Sprinklers as high as they'll go and hose off the sidewalks. With any luck at all, we can kill the </p><p>trail in here, anyway..' </p><p>Faber shook his hand. "Fll tend to it. Good luck. If we're both in good health, next week, the </p><p>week after, get in touch. General Delivery, St. Louis. I'm sorry there's no way I can go with you </p><p>this time, by ear-phone. That was good for both of us. But my equipment was limited. You see, I </p><p>never thought I would use it. What a silly old man. No thought there. Stupid, stupid. So I haven't </p><p>another green bullet, the right kind, to put in your head. Go now!" </p><p>"One last thing. Quick. A suitcase, get it, fill it with your dirtiest clothes, an old suit, the dirtier </p><p>the better, a shirt, some old sneakers and socks . . . ." </p><p>Faber was gone and back in a minute. They sealed the cardboard valise with clear tape. "To keep </p><p>the ancient odour of Mr. Faber in, of course," said Faber sweating at the job. </p><p>Montag doused the exterior of the valise with whisky. "I don't want that Hound picking up two </p><p>odours at once. May I take this whisky. I'll need it later. Christ I hope this works!" </p><p>They shook hands again and, going out of the door, they glanced at the TV. The Hound was on </p><p>its way, followed by hovering helicopter cameras, silently, silently, sniffing the great night wind. </p><p>It was running down the first alley. </p><p>"Good-bye ! " </p><p>And Montag was out the back door lightly, running with the half-empty valise. Behind him he </p><p>heard the lawn-sprinkling System jump up, filling the dark air with rain that feil gently and then </p><p>with a steady pour all about, washing on the sidewalks, and draining into the alley. He carried a</p><p>few drops of this rain with him on his face. He thought he heard the old man call good-bye, but </p><p>he-wasn't certain. </p><p>He ran very fast away from the house, down toward the river. </p><p>Montag ran. </p><p>He could feel the Hound, like autumn, come cold and dry and swift, like a wind that didn't stir </p><p>grass, that didn't jar Windows or disturb leaf-shadows on the white sidewalks as it passed. The </p><p>Hound did not touch the world. It carried its silence with it, so you could feel the silence building </p><p>up a pressure behind you all across town. Montag feit the pressure rising, and ran. </p><p>He stopped for breath, on his way to the river, to peer through dimly lit Windows of wakened </p><p>houses, and saw the silhouettes of people inside watching their parlour walls and there on the </p><p>walls the Mechanical Hound, a breath of neon vapour, spidered along, here and gone, here and </p><p>gone! Now at Elm Terrace, Lincoln, Oak, Park, and up the alley toward Faber's house. </p><p>Go past, thought Montag, don't stop, go on, don't turn in! </p><p>On the parlour wall, Faber's house, with its Sprinkler System pulsing in the night air. </p><p>The Hound paused, quivering. </p><p>No! Montag held to the window sill. This way! Here! </p><p>The procaine needle flicked out and in, out and in. A single clear drop of the stuff of dreams feil </p><p>from the needle as it vanished in the Hound's muzzle. </p><p>Montag held his breath, like a doubled fist, in his ehest. </p><p>The Mechanical Hound turned and plunged away from Faber's house down the alley again. </p><p>Montag snapped his gaze to the sky. The helicopters were closer, a great blowing of insects to a </p><p>single light source. </p><p>With an effort, Montag reminded himself again that this was no fictional episode to be watched </p><p>on his run to the river; it was in actuality his own chess-game he was witnessing, move by move. </p><p>He shouted to give himself the necessary push away from this last house window, and the </p><p>fascinating seance going on in there ! Hell ! and he was away and gone ! The alley, a Street, the </p><p>alley, a Street, and the smell of the river. Leg out, leg down, leg out and down. Twenty million </p><p>Montags running, soon, if the cameras caught him. Twenty million Montags running, running</p><p>like an ancient flickery Keystone Comedy, cops, robbers, chasers and the chased, hunters and </p><p>hunted, he had seen it a thousand times. Behind him now twenty million silently baying Hounds </p><p>ricocheted across parlours, three-cushion shooting from right wall to centre wall to left wall, </p><p>gone, right wall, centre wall, left wall, gone ! </p><p>Montag jammed his Seashell to his ear. </p><p>"Police suggest entire population in the Elm Terrace area do as follows: Everyone in every house </p><p>in every Street open a front or rear door or look from the Windows. The fugitive cannot escape if </p><p>everyone in the next minute looks from his house. Ready! " </p><p>Of course! Why hadn't they done it before! Why, in all the years, hadn't this game been tried! </p><p>Everyone up, everyone out! He couldn't be missed! The only man running alone in the night city, </p><p>the only man proving his legs ! </p><p>"At the count of ten now! One! Two!" </p><p>He feit the city rise. Three . </p><p>He feit the city turn to its thousands of doors. </p><p>Faster! Leg up, leg down ! </p><p>"Four ! " </p><p>The people sleepwalking in their hallways. </p><p>"Five! " </p><p>He feit their hands on the doorknobs! </p><p>The smell of the river was cool and like a solid rain. His throat was burnt rust and his eyes were </p><p>wept dry with running. He yelled as if this yell would jet him on, fling him the last hundred </p><p>yards. </p><p>"Six, seven, eight ! " </p><p>The doorknobs turned on five thousand doors. "Nine!" </p><p>He ran out away from the last row of houses, on a slope leading down to a solid moving </p><p>blackness. "Ten!" </p><p>The doors opened. </p><p>He imagined thousands on thousands of faces peering into yards, into alleys, and into the sky,</p><p>faces hid by curtains, pale, night-frightened faces, like grey animals peering from electric caves, </p><p>faces with grey colourless eyes, grey tongues and grey thoughts looking out through the numb </p><p>flesh of the face. </p><p>But he was at the river. </p><p>He touched it, just to be sure it was real. He waded in and stripped in darkness to the skin, </p><p>splashed his body, arms, legs, and head with raw liquor; drank it and snuffed some up his nose. </p><p>Then he dressed in Faber's old clothes and shoes. He tossed his own clothing into the river and </p><p>watched it swept away. Then, holding the suitcase, he walked out in the river until there was no </p><p>bottom and he was swept away in the dark. </p><p>He was three hundred yards downstream when the Hound reached the river. Overhead the great </p><p>racketing fans of the helicopters hovered. A storm of light feil upon the river and Montag dived </p><p>under the great illumination as if the sun had broken the clouds. He feit the river pull him further </p><p>on its way, into darkness. Then the lights switched back to the land, the helicopters swerved over </p><p>the city again, as if they had picked up another trail. They were gone. The Hound was gone. Now </p><p>there was only the cold river and Montag floating in a sudden peacefulness, away from the city </p><p>and the lights and the chase, away from everything. </p><p>He feit as if he had left a stage behind and many actors. He feit as if he had left the great seance </p><p>and all the murmuring ghosts. He was moving from an unreality that was frightening into a </p><p>reality that was unreal because it was new. </p><p>The black land slid by and he was going into the country among the hills: For the first time in a </p><p>dozen years the stars were coming out above him, in great processions of wheeling fire. He saw a </p><p>great juggernaut of stars form in the sky and threaten to roll over and crush him. </p><p>He floated on his back when the valise filled and sank; the river was mild and leisurely, going </p><p>away from the people who ate shadows for breakfast and steam for lunch and vapours for supper. </p><p>The river was very real; it held him comfortably and gave him the time at last, the leisure, to </p><p>consider this month, this year, and a lifetime of years. He listened to his heart slow. His thoughts </p><p>stopped rushing with his blood. </p><p>He saw the moon low in the sky now. The moon there, and the light of the moon caused by </p><p>what? By the sun, of course. And what lights the sun? Its own fire. And the sun goes on, day </p><p>after day, burning and burning. The sun and time. The sun and time and burning. Burning. The</p><p>river bobbled him along gently. Burning. The sun and every clock on the earth. It all came </p><p>together and became a single thing in his mind. After a long time of floating on the land and a </p><p>short time of floating in the river he knew why he must never burn again in his life. </p><p>The sun burned every day. It burned Time. The world rushed in a circle and turned on its axis </p><p>and time was busy burning the years and the people anyway, without any help from him. So if he </p><p>burnt things with the firemen, and the sun burnt Time, that meant.that everything burned! </p><p>One of them had to stop burning. The sun wouldn't, certainly. So it looked as if it had to be </p><p>Montag and the people he had worked with until a few short hours ago. Somewhere the saving </p><p>and putting away had to begin again and someone had to do the saving and keeping, one way or </p><p>another, in books, in records, in people's heads, any way at all so long as it was safe, free from </p><p>moths, silver-fish, rust and dry-rot, and men with matches. The world was full of burning of all </p><p>types and sizes. Now the guild of the asbestos-weaver must open shop very soon. </p><p>He feit his heel bump land, touch pebbles and rocks, scrape sand. The river had moved him </p><p>toward shore. </p><p>He looked in at the great black creature without eyes or light, without shape, with only a size that </p><p>went a thousand miles without wanting to stop, with its grass hills and forests that were waiting </p><p>for him. </p><p>He hesitated to leave the comforting flow of the water. He expected the Hound there. Suddenly </p><p>the trees might blow under a great wind of helicopters. </p><p>But there was only the normal autumn wind high up, going by like another river. Why wasn't the </p><p>Hound running? Why had the search veered inland? Montag listened. Nothing. Nothing. </p><p>Millie, he thought. All this country here. Listen to it! Nothing and nothing. So much silence, </p><p>Millie, I wonder how you'd take it? Would you shout Shut up, shut up! Millie, Millie. And he </p><p>was sad. </p><p>Millie was not here and the Hound was not here, but the dry smell of hay blowing from some </p><p>distant field put Montag on the land. He remembered a farm he had visited when he was very </p><p>young, one of the rare times he had discovered that somewhere behind the seven veils of</p><p>unreality, beyond the walls of parlours and beyond the tin moat of the city, cows chewed grass </p><p>and pigs sat in warm ponds at noon and dogs barked after white sheep on a hill. </p><p>Now, the dry smell of hay, the motion of the waters, made him think of sleeping in fresh hay in a </p><p>lonely barn away from the loud highways, behind a quiet farmhouse, and under an ancient </p><p>windmill that whirred like the sound of the passing years overhead. He lay in the high barn loft </p><p>all night, listening to distant animals and insects and trees, the little motions and stirrings. </p><p>Düring the night, he thought, below the loft, he would hear a sound like feet moving, perhaps. He </p><p>would tense and sit up. The sound would move away, He would lie back and look out of the loft </p><p>window, very late in the night, and see the lights go out in the farmhouse itself, until a very </p><p>young and beautiful woman would sit in an unlit window, braiding her hair. It would be hard to </p><p>see her, but her face would be like the face of the girl so long ago in his past now, so very long </p><p>ago, the girl who had known the weather and never been burned by the fire-flies, the girl who </p><p>had known what dandelions meant rubbed off on your chin. Then, she would be gone from the </p><p>warm window and appear again upstairs in her moon-whitened room. And then, to the sound of </p><p>death, the sound of the jets cutting the sky into two black pieces beyond the horizon, he would lie </p><p>in the loft, hidden and safe, watching those stränge new stars over the rim of the earth, fleeing </p><p>from the soft colour of dawn. </p><p>In the morning he would not have needed sleep, for all the warm odours and sights of a complete </p><p>country night would have rested and slept him while his eyes were wide and his mouth, when he </p><p>thought to test it, was half a smile. </p><p>And there at the bottom of the hayloft stair, waiting for him, would be the incredible thing. He </p><p>would Step carefully down, in the pink light of early morning, so fully aware of the world that he </p><p>would be afraid, and stand over the small miracle and at last bend to touch it. </p><p>A cool glass of fresh milk, and a few apples and pears laid at the foot of the Steps. </p><p>This was all he wanted now. Some sign that the immense world would accept him and give him </p><p>the long time needed to think all the things that must be thought. </p><p>A glass of milk, an apple, a pear. </p><p>He stepped from the river. </p><p>The land rushed at him, a tidal wave. He was crushed by darkness and the look of the country </p><p>and the million odours on a wind that iced his body. He feil back under the breaking curve of </p><p>darkness and sound and smell, his ears roaring. He whirled. The stars poured over his sight like </p><p>flaming meteors. He wanted to plunge in the river again and let it idle him safely on down </p><p>somewhere. This dark land rising was like that day in his childhood, swimming, when from </p><p>nowhere the largest wave in the history of remembering slammed him down in salt mud and </p><p>green darkness, water burning mouth and nose, retching his stomach, screaming! Too much </p><p>water! </p><p>Too much land! </p><p>Out of the black wall before him, a whisper. A shape. In the shape, two eyes. The night looking </p><p>at him. The forest, seeing him. </p><p>The Hound! </p><p>After all the running and rushing and sweating it out and half-drowning, to come this far, work </p><p>this hard, and think yourself safe and sigh with relief and come out on the land at last only to find </p><p>The Hound! </p><p>Montag gave one last agonized shout as if this were too much for any man. </p><p>The shape exploded away. The eyes vanished. The leafpiles flew up in a dry shower. </p><p>Montag was alone in the wilderness. </p><p>A deer. He smelled the heavy musk-like perfume mingled with blood and the gummed </p><p>exhalation of the animafs breath, all cardamon and moss and ragweed odour in this huge night </p><p>where the trees ran at him, pulled away, ran, pulled away, to the pulse of the heart behind his </p><p>eyes. </p><p>There must have been a billion leaves on the land; he waded in them, a dry river smelling of hot </p><p>cloves and warm dust. And the other smells! There was a smell like a cut potato from all the </p><p>land, raw and cold and white from having the moon on it most of the night. There was a smell </p><p>like pickles from a bottle and a smell like parsley on the table at home. There was a faint yellow </p><p>odour like mustard from a jar. There was a smell like carnations from the yard next door. He put </p><p>down his hand and feit a weed rise up like a child brushing him. His fingers smelled of liquorice. </p><p>He stood breathing, and the more he breathed the land in, the more he was filled up with all the</p><p>details of the land. He was not empty. There was more than enough here to fill him. There would </p><p>always be more than enough. </p><p>He walked in the shallow tide of leaves, stumbling. </p><p>And in the middle of the strangeness, a familiarity. </p><p>His foot hit something that rang dully. </p><p>He moved his hand on the ground, a yard this way, a yard that. </p><p>The railroad track. </p><p>The track that came out of the city and rusted across the land, through forests and woods, </p><p>deserted now, by the river. </p><p>Here was the path to wherever he was going. Here was the single familiär thing, the magic charm </p><p>he might need a little while, to touch, to feel beneath his feet, as he moved on into the bramble </p><p>bushes and the lakes of smelling and feeling and touching, among the whispers and the blowing </p><p>down of leaves. </p><p>He walked on the track. </p><p>And he was surprised to learn how certain he suddenly was of a single fact he could not prove. </p><p>Once, long ago, Clarisse had walked here, where he was walking now. </p><p>Half an hour later, cold, and moving carefully on the tracks, fully aware of his entire body, his </p><p>face, his mouth, his eyes stuffed with blackness, his ears stuffed with sound, his legs prickled </p><p>with burrs and nettles, he saw the fire ahead. </p><p>The fire was gone, then back again, like a winking eye. He stopped, afraid he might blow the fire </p><p>out with a single breath. But the fire was there and he approached warily, from a long way off. It </p><p>took the better part of fifteen minutes before he drew very close indeed to it, and then he stood </p><p>looking at it from cover. That small motion, the white and red colour, a stränge fire because it </p><p>meant a different thing to him. </p><p>It was not burning; it was warming! </p><p>He saw many hands held to its warmth, hands without arms, hidden in darkness. Above the </p><p>hands, motionless faces that were only moved and tossed and flickered with firelight. He hadn't </p><p>known fire could look this way. He had never thought in his life that it could give as well as take.</p><p>Even its smell was different. </p><p>How long he stood he did not know, but there was a foolish and yet delicious sense of knowing </p><p>himself as an animal come from the forest, drawn by the fire. He was a thing of brush and liquid </p><p>eye, of für and muzzle and hoof, he was a thing of horn and blood that would smell like autumn </p><p>if you bled it out on the ground. He stood a long long time, listening to the warm crackle of the </p><p>flames. </p><p>There was a silence gathered all about that fire and the silence was in the men's faces, and time </p><p>was there, time enough to sit by this rusting track under the trees, and look at the world and turn </p><p>it over with the eyes, as if it were held to the centre of the bonfire, a piece of Steel these men </p><p>were all shaping. It was not only the fire that was different. It was the silence. Montag moved </p><p>toward this special silence that was concerned with all of the world. </p><p>And then the voices began and they were talking, and he could hear nothing of what the voices </p><p>said, but the sound rose and feil quietly and the voices were turning the world over and looking </p><p>at it; the voices knew the land and the trees and the city which lay down the track by the river. </p><p>The voices talked of everything, there was nothing they could not talk about, he knew from the </p><p>very cadence and motion and continual stir of curiosity and wonder in them. </p><p>And then one of the men looked up and saw him, for the first or perhaps the seventh time, and a </p><p>voice called to Montag: </p><p>"All right, you can come out now ! " </p><p>Montag stepped back into the shadows. </p><p>"It's all right," the voice said. "You're welcome here." </p><p>Montag walked slowly toward the fire and the five old men sitting there dressed in dark blue </p><p>denim pants and jackets and dark blue suits. He did not know what to say to them. </p><p>"Sit down," said the man who seemed to be the leader of the small group. "Have some coffee?" </p><p>He watched the dark steaming mixture pour into a collapsible tin cup, which was handed him </p><p>straight off. He sipped it gingerly and feit them looking at him with curiosity. His lips were </p><p>scalded, but that was good. The faces around him were bearded, but the beards were clean, neat, </p><p>and their hands were clean. They had stood up as if to welcome a guest, and now they sat down </p><p>again. Montag sipped. "Thanks," he said. "Thanks very much." </p><p>"You're welcome, Montag. My name's Granger." He held out a small bottle of colourless fluid.</p><p>"Drink this, too. It'll change the Chemical index of your perspiration. Half an hour from now </p><p>you'll smell like two other people. With the Hound after you, the best thing is Bottoms up." </p><p>Montag drank the bitter fluid. </p><p>"You'll stink like a bobcat, but that's all right," said Granger. </p><p>"You know my name;" said Montag. </p><p>Granger nodded to a portable battery TV set by the fire. </p><p>"We've watched the chase. Figured you'd wind up south along the river. When we heard you </p><p>plunging around out in the forest like a drunken elk, we didn't hide as we usually do. We figured </p><p>you were in the river, when the helicopter cameras swung back in over the city. Something funny </p><p>there. The chase is still running. The other way, though." </p><p>"The other way?" </p><p>"Let's have a look." </p><p>Granger snapped the portable viewer on. The picture was a nightmare, Condensed, easily passed </p><p>from hand to hand, in the forest, all whirring colour and flight. A voice cried: </p><p>"The chase continues north in the city! Police helicopters are converging on Avenue 87 and Elm </p><p>Grove Park!" </p><p>Granger nodded. "They're faking. You threw them off at the river. They can't admit it. They </p><p>know they can hold their audience only so long. The show's got to have a snap ending, quick! If </p><p>they started searching the whole damn river it might take all night. So they're sniffing for a </p><p>scape-goat to end things with a bang. Watch. They'll catch Montag in the next five minutes! " </p><p>"But how— " </p><p>"Watch." </p><p>The camera, hovering in the belly of a helicopter, now swung down at an empty Street. </p><p>"See that?" whispered Granger. "It'll be you; right up at the end of that Street is our victim. See </p><p>how our camera is coming in? Building the scene. Suspense. Long shot. Right now, some poor </p><p>fellow is out for a walk. A rarity. An odd one. Don't think the police don't know the habits of </p><p>queer ducks like that, men who walk mornings for the hell of it, or for reasons of insomnia </p><p>Anyway, the police have had him charted for months, years. Never know when that sort of</p><p>information might be handy. And today, it turns out, if s very usable indeed. It saves face. Oh, </p><p>God, look there ! " </p><p>The men at the fire bent forward. </p><p>On the screen, a man turned a corner. The Mechanical Hound rushed forward into the viewer, </p><p>suddenly. The helicopter light shot down a dozen brilliant pillars that built a cage all about the </p><p>man. </p><p>A voice cried, "There's Montag ! The search is done!" </p><p>The innocent man stood bewildered, a cigarette burning in his hand. He stared at the Hound, not </p><p>knowing what it was. He probably never knew. He glanced up at the sky and the wailing sirens. </p><p>The cameras rushed down. The Hound leapt up into the air with a rhythm and a sense of timing </p><p>that was incredibly beautiful. Its needle shot out. It was suspended for a moment in their gaze, as </p><p>if to give the vast audience time to appreciate everything, the raw look of the victim's face, the </p><p>empty Street, the Steel animal a bullet nosing the target. </p><p>"Montag, don't move!" said a voice from the sky. </p><p>The camera feil upon the victim, even as did the Hound. Both reached him simultaneously. The </p><p>victim was seized by Hound and camera in a great spidering, clenching grip. He screamed. He </p><p>screamed. He screamed! </p><p>Blackout. </p><p>Silence. </p><p>Darkness. </p><p>Montag cried out in the silence and turned away. </p><p>Silence. </p><p>And then, after a time of the men sitting around the fire, their faces expressionless, an announcer </p><p>on the dark screen said, "The search is over, Montag is dead; a crime against society has been </p><p>avenged." </p><p>Darkness. </p><p>"We now take you to the Sky Room of the Hotel Lux for a half-hour of Just-Before-Dawn, a </p><p>Programme of-" </p><p>Granger turned it off. </p><p>"They didn't show the man's face in focus. Did you notice? </p><p>Even your best friends couldn't teil if it was you. They scrambled it just enough to let the </p><p>imagination take over. Hell," he whispered. "Hell." </p><p>Montag said nothing but now, looking back, sat with his eyes fixed to the blank screen, </p><p>trembling. </p><p>Granger touched Montag's arm. "Welcome back from the dead." Montag nodded. Granger went </p><p>on. "You might as well know all of us, now. This is Fred Clement, former occupant of the </p><p>Thomas Hardy chair at Cambridge in the years before it became an Atomic Engineering School. </p><p>This other is Dr. Simmons from U.C.L.A., a specialist in Ortega y Gasset; Professor West here </p><p>did quite a bit for ethics, an ancient study now, for Columbia University quite some years ago. </p><p>Reverend Padover here gave a few lectures thirty years ago and lost his flock between one </p><p>Sunday and the next for his views. He's been bumming with us some time now. Myself: I wrote a </p><p>book called The Fingers in the Glove; the Proper Relationship between the Individual and </p><p>Society, and here I am! Welcome, Montag! " </p><p>"I don't belong with you," said Montag, at last, slowly. "I've been an idiot all the way." </p><p>"We're used to that. We all made the right kind of mistakes, or we wouldn't be here. When we </p><p>were separate individuals, all we had was rage. I struck a fireman when he came to burn my </p><p>library years ago. I've been running ever since. You want to join us, Montag?" </p><p>"Yes." </p><p>"What have you to offer?" </p><p>"Nothing. I thought I had part of the Book of Ecclesiastes and maybe a little of Revelation, but I </p><p>haven't even that now." </p><p>"The Book of Ecclesiastes would be fine. Where was it?" </p><p>"Here," Montag touched his head. </p><p>"Ah," Granger smiled and nodded. </p><p>"Whaf s wrong? Isn't that all right?" said Montag. </p><p>"Better than all right; perfect!" Granger turned to the Reverend. "Do we have a Book of </p><p>Ecclesiastes?" </p><p>"One. A man named Harris of Youngstown." </p><p>"Montag." Granger took Montag's shoulder firmly. "Walk carefully. Guard your health. If </p><p>anything should happen to Harris, you are the Book of Ecclesiastes. See how important you've </p><p>become in the last minute!" </p><p>"But I've forgotten!" </p><p>"No, nothing's ever lost. We have ways to shake down your clinkers for you." </p><p>"But I've tried to remember!" </p><p>"Don't try. It'll come when we need it. All of us have photographic memories, but spend a </p><p>lifetime learning how to block off the things that are really in there. Simmons here has worked </p><p>on it for twenty years and now we've got the method down to where we can recall anything that's </p><p>been read once. Would you like, some day, Montag, to read Plato's Republic?" </p><p>"Of course!" </p><p>"I am Plato's Republic. Like to read Marcus Aurelius? Mr. Simmons is Marcus." </p><p>"How do you do?" said Mr. Simmons. </p><p>"Hello," said Montag. </p><p>"I want you to meet Jonathan Swift, the author of that evil political book, Gulliver's Travels! And </p><p>this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and-this one is Schopenhauer, and this one is Einstein, and </p><p>this one here at my elbow is Mr. Albert Schweitzer, a very kind philosopher indeed. Here we all </p><p>are, Montag. Aristophanes and Mahatma Gandhi and Gautama Buddha and Confucius and </p><p>Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson and Mr. Lincoln, if you please. We are also </p><p>Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John." </p><p>Everyone laughed quietly. </p><p>"It can't be," said Montag. </p><p>"It is," replied Granger, smiling. " We're book-burners, too. We read the books and burnt them, </p><p>afraid they'd be found. Micro-filming didn't pay off; we were always travelling, we didn't want to </p><p>bury the film and come back later. Always the chance of discovery. Better to keep it in the old </p><p>heads, where no one can see it or suspect it. We are all bits and pieces of history and literature </p><p>and international law, Byron, Tom Paine, Machiavelli, or Christ, it's here. And the hour is late. </p><p>And the war's begun. And we are out here, and the city is there, all wrapped up in its own coat of</p><p>a thousand colours. What do you think, Montag?" </p><p>"I think I was blind trying to do things my way, planting books in firemen's houses and sending </p><p>in alarms." </p><p>"You did what you had to do. Carried out on a national scale, it might have worked beautifully. </p><p>But our way is simpler and, we think, better. All we want to do is keep the knowledge we think </p><p>we will need, intact and safe. We're not out to incite or anger anyone yet. Lor if we are destroyed, </p><p>the knowledge is dead, perhaps for good. We are model citizens, in our own special way; we </p><p>walk the old tracks, we lie in the hills at night, and the city people let us be. We're stopped and </p><p>searched occasionally, but there's nothing on our persons to incriminate us. The Organization is </p><p>flexible, very loose, and fragmentary. Some of us have had plastic surgery on our faces and </p><p>fingerprints. Right now we have a horrible job; we're waiting for the war to begin and, as </p><p>quickly, end. It's not pleasant, but then we're not in control, we're the odd minority crying in the </p><p>wilderness. When the war's over, perhaps we can be of some use in the world." </p><p>"Do you really think they'll listen then?" </p><p>"If not, we'll just have to wait. We'll pass the books on to our children, by word of mouth, and let </p><p>our children wait, in turn, on the other people. A lot will be lost that way, of course. </p><p>But you can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what </p><p>happened and why the world blew up under them. It can't last." </p><p>"How many of you are there?" </p><p>"Thousands on the roads, the abandoned railtracks, tonight, bums on the outside, libraries inside. </p><p>It wasn't planned, at first. Each man had a book he wanted to remember, and did. Then, over a </p><p>period of twenty years or so, we met each other, travelling, and got the loose network together </p><p>and set out a plan. The most important single thing we had to pound into ourselves was that we </p><p>were not important, we mustn't be pedants; we were not to feel superior to anyone eise in the </p><p>world. We're nothing more than dust-jackets for books, of no significance otherwise. Some of us </p><p>live in small towns. Chapter One of Thoreau's Waiden in Green River, Chapter Two in Willow </p><p>Farm, Maine. Why, there's one town in Maryland, only twenty-seven people, no bomb '11 ever</p><p>touch that town, is the complete essays of a man named Bertrand Russell. Pick up that town, </p><p>almost, and flip the pages, so many pages to a person. And when the war's over, some day, some </p><p>year, the books can be written again, the people will be called in, one by one, to recite what they </p><p>know and we'll set it up in type until another Dark Age, when we might have to do the whole </p><p>damn thing over again. But that's the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or </p><p>disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and </p><p>worth the doing." </p><p>"What do we do tonight?" asked Montag. </p><p>"Wait," said Granger. "And move downstream a little way, just in case." </p><p>He began throwing dust and dirt on the fire. </p><p>The other men helped, and Montag helped, and there, in the wilderness, the men all moved their </p><p>hands, putting out the fire together. </p><p>They stood by the river in the starlight. </p><p>Montag saw the luminous dial of his Waterproof. Five. Five o'clock in the morning. Another year </p><p>ticked by in a single hour, and dawn waiting beyond the far bank of the river. </p><p>"Why do you trust me?" said Montag. </p><p>A man moved in the darkness. </p><p>"The look of you's enough. You haven't seen yourself in a mirror lately. Beyond that, the city has </p><p>never cared so much about us to bother with an elaborate chase like this to find us. A few </p><p>crackpots with verses in their heads can't touch them, and they know it and we know it; everyone </p><p>knows it. So long as the vast population doesn't wander about quoting the Magna Charta and the </p><p>Constitution, it's all right. The firemen were enough to check that, now and then. No, the cities </p><p>don't bother us. And you look like hell." </p><p>They moved along the bank of the river, going south. Montag tried to see the men's faces, the old </p><p>faces he remembered from the firelight, lined and tired. He was looking for a brightness, a </p><p>resolve, a triumph over tomorrow that hardly seemed to be there. Perhaps he had expected their </p><p>faces to burn and glitter with the knowledge they carried, to glow as lanterns glow, with the light </p><p>in them. But all the light had come from the camp fire, and these men had seemed no different </p><p>from any others who had run a long race, searched a long search, seen good things destroyed, </p><p>and now, very late, were gathering to wait for the end of the party and the blowing out of the</p><p>lamps. They weren't at all certain that the things they carried in their heads might make every </p><p>future dawn glow with a purer light, they were sure of nothing save that the books were on file </p><p>behind their quiet eyes, the books were waiting, with their pages uncut, for the customers who </p><p>might come by in later years, some with clean and some with dirty fingers. </p><p>Montag squinted from one face to another as they walked. </p><p>"Don't judge a book by its cover," someone said. </p><p>And they all laughed quietly, moving downstream. </p><p>There was a shriek and the jets from the city were gone overhead long before the men looked up. </p><p>Montag stared back at the city, far down the river, only a faint glow now. </p><p>"My wife's back there." </p><p>"I'm sorry to hear that. The cities won't do well in the next few days," said Granger. </p><p>"It's stränge, I don't miss her, it's stränge I don't feel much of anything," said Montag. "Even if </p><p>she dies, I realized a moment ago, I don't think I'll feel sad. It isn't right. Something must be </p><p>wrong with me." </p><p>"Listen," said Granger, taking his arm, and walking with him, holding aside the bushes to let him </p><p>pass. "When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind </p><p>man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he </p><p>made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands. </p><p>And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I </p><p>cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or </p><p>help us raise doves and pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, or teil us jokes </p><p>the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was </p><p>no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I've never </p><p>gotten over his death. Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he </p><p>died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by </p><p>his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten </p><p>million fine actions the night he passed on." </p><p>Montag walked in silence. "Millie, Millie," he whispered. "Millie."</p><p>"What?" </p><p>"My wife, my wife. Poor Millie, poor Millie. I can't remember anything. I think of her hands but </p><p>I don't see them doing anything at all. They just hang there at her sides or they lie there on her </p><p>lap or there's a cigarette in them, but that's all." </p><p>Montag turned and glanced back. </p><p>What did you give to the city, Montag? </p><p>Ashes. </p><p>What did the others give to each other? </p><p>Nothingness. </p><p>Granger stood looking back with Montag. "Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, </p><p>my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes </p><p>made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere </p><p>to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It </p><p>doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before </p><p>you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference </p><p>between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn- </p><p>cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime." </p><p>Granger moved his hand. "My grandfather showed me some V-2 rocket films once, fifty years </p><p>ago. Have you ever seen the atom-bomb mushroom from two hundred miles up? It's a pinprick, </p><p>it's nothing. With the wilderness all around it. </p><p>"My grandfather ran off the V-2 rocket film a dozen times and then hoped that some day our </p><p>cities would open up and let the green and the land and the wilderness in more, to remind people </p><p>that we're allotted a little space on earth and that we survive in that wilderness that can take back </p><p>what it has given, as easily as blowing its breath on us or sending the sea to teil us we are not so </p><p>big. When we forget how close the wilderness is in the night, my grandpa said, some day it will </p><p>come in and get us, for we will have forgotten how terrible and real it can be. You see?" Granger </p><p>turned to Montag. " Grandfather' s been dead for all these years, but if you lifted my skull, by </p><p>God, in the convolutions of my brain you'd find the big ridges of his thumbprint. He touched me. </p><p>As I said earlier, he was a sculptor. 'I hate a Roman named Status Quo!' he said to me. 'Stuff your</p><p>eyes with wonder,' he said, 'live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more </p><p>fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, </p><p>there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which </p><p>hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping its life away. To hell with that,' he said, </p><p>'shake the tree and knock the great sloth down on his ass.'" </p><p>"Look!" cried Montag. </p><p>And the war began and ended in that instant. </p><p>Later, the men around Montag could not say if they had really seen anything. Perhaps the merest </p><p>flourish of light and motion in the sky. Perhaps the bombs were there, and the jets, ten miles, five </p><p>miles, one mile up, for the merest instant, like grain thrown over the heavens by a great sowing </p><p>hand, and the bombs drifting with dreadful swiftness, yet sudden slowness, down upon the </p><p>morning city they had left behind. The bombardment was to all intents and purposes finished, </p><p>once the jets had sighted their target, alerted their bombardiere at five thousand miles an hour; as </p><p>quick as the whisper of a scythe the war was finished. Once the bomb-release was yanked it was </p><p>over. Now, a full three seconds, all of the time in history, before the bombs struck, the enemy </p><p>ships themselves were gone half around the visible world, like bullets in which a savage islander </p><p>might not believe because they were invisible; yet the heart is suddenly shattered, the body falls </p><p>in separate motions and the blood is astonished to be freed on the air; the brain squanders its few </p><p>precious memories and, puzzled, dies. </p><p>This was not to be believed. It was merely a gesture. Montag saw the flirt of a great metal fist </p><p>over the far city and he knew the scream of the jets that would follow, would say, after the deed, </p><p>disintegrate, leave no stone on another, perish. Die. </p><p>Montag held the bombs in the sky for a single moment, with his mind and his hands reaching </p><p>helplessly up at them. "Run!" he cried to Faber. To Clarisse, "Run!" To Mildred, "Get out, get </p><p>out of there! " But Clarisse, he remembered, was dead. And Faber was out; there in the deep </p><p>valleys of the country somewhere the five a.m. bus was on its way from one desolation to </p><p>another. Though the desolation had not yet arrived, was still in the air, it was certain as man </p><p>could make it. Before the bus had run another fifty yards on the highway, its destination would</p><p>be meaningless, and its point of departure changed from metropolis to junkyard. </p><p>And Mildred . . . </p><p>Get out, run! </p><p>He saw her in her hotel room somewhere now in the halfsecond remaining with the bombs a </p><p>yard, a foot, an inch from her building. He saw her leaning toward the great shimmering walls of </p><p>colour and motion where the family talked and talked and talked to her, where the family prattled </p><p>and chatted and said her name and smiled at her and said nothing of the bomb that was an inch, </p><p>now a half-inch, now a quarter-inch from the top of the hotel. Leaning into the wall as if all of </p><p>the hunger of looking would find the secret of her sleepless unease there. Mildred, leaning </p><p>anxiously, nervously, as if to plunge, drop, fall into that swarming immensity of colour to drown </p><p>in its bright happiness. </p><p>The first bomb struck. </p><p>"Mildred! " </p><p>Perhaps, who would ever know? Perhaps the great broadcasting stations with their beams of </p><p>colour and light and talk and chatter went first into oblivion. </p><p>Montag, falling flat, going down, saw or feit, or imagined he saw or feit the walls go dark in </p><p>Millie's face, heard her screaming, because in the millionth part of time left, she saw her own </p><p>face reflected there, in a mirror instead of a crystal ball, and it was such a wildly empty face, all </p><p>by itself in the room, touching nothing, starved and eating of itself, that at last she recognized it </p><p>as her own and looked quickly up at the ceiling as it and the entire structure of the hotel blasted </p><p>down upon her, carrying her with a million pounds of brick, metal, plaster, and wood, to meet </p><p>other people in the hives below, all on their quick way down to the cellar where the explosion rid </p><p>itself of them in its own unreasonable way. </p><p>I remember. Montag clung to the earth. I remember. Chicago. Chicago, a long time ago. Millie </p><p>and I. That's where we met! I remember now. Chicago. A long time ago. </p><p>The concussion knocked the air across and down the river, turned the men over like dominoes in </p><p>a line, blew the water in lifting sprays, and blew the dust and made the trees above them mourn </p><p>with a great wind passing away south. Montag crushed himself down, squeezing himself small,</p><p>eyes tight. He blinked once. And in that instant saw the city, instead of the bombs, in the air. </p><p>They had displaced each other. For another of those impossible instants the city stood, rebuilt </p><p>and unrecognizable, taller than it had ever hoped or strived to be, taller than man had built it, </p><p>erected at last in gouts of shattered concrete and sparkles of torn metal into a mural hung like a </p><p>reversed avalanche, a million colours, a million oddities, a door where a window should be, a top </p><p>for a bottom, a side for a back, and then the city rolled over and feil down dead. </p><p>Montag, lying there, eyes gritted shut with dust, a fine wet cement of dust in his now shut mouth, </p><p>gasping and crying, now thought again, I remember, I remember, I remember something eise. </p><p>What is it? Yes, yes, part of the Ecclesiastes and Revelation. Part of that book, part of it, quick </p><p>now, quick, before it gets away, before the shock wears off, before the wind dies. Book of </p><p>Ecclesiastes. Here. He said it over to himself silently, lying flat to the trembling earth, he said the </p><p>words of it many times and they were perfect without trying and there was no Denham's </p><p>Dentifrice anywhere, it was just the Preacher by himself, Standing there in his mind, looking at </p><p>him .... </p><p>"There," said a voice. </p><p>The men lay gasping like fish laid out on the grass. They held to the earth as children hold to </p><p>familiär things, no matter how cold or dead, no matter what has happened or will happen, their </p><p>fingers were clawed into the dirt, and they were all shouting to keep their eardrums from </p><p>bursting, to keep their sanity from bursting, mouths open, Montag shouting with them, a protest </p><p>against the wind that ripped their faces and tore at their lips, making their noses bleed. </p><p>Montag watched the great dust settle and the great silence move down upon their world. And </p><p>lying there it seemed that he saw every single grain of dust and every blade of grass and that he </p><p>heard every cry and shout and whisper going up in the world now. Silence feil down in the </p><p>sifting dust, and all the leisure they might need to look around, to gather the reality of this day </p><p>into their senses. </p><p>Montag looked at the river. We'll go on the river. He looked at the old railroad tracks. Or we'll go </p><p>that way. Or we'll walk on the highways now, and we'll have time to put things into ourselves. </p><p>And some day, after it sets in us a long time, it'll come out of our hands and our mouths. And a</p><p>lot of it will be wrong, but just enough of it will be right. We'll just Start walking today and see </p><p>the world and the way the world walks around and talks, the way it really looks. I want to see </p><p>everything now. And while none of it will be me when it goes in, after a while it'll all gather </p><p>together inside and it'll be me. Look at the world out there, my God, my God, look at it out there, </p><p>outside me, out there beyond my face and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it's </p><p>finally me, where it's in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times ten thousand a day. I </p><p>get hold of it so it'll never run off. I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on </p><p>it now; that's a beginning. </p><p>The wind died. </p><p>The other men lay a while, on the dawn edge of sleep, not yet ready to rise up and begin the day's </p><p>obligations, its fires and foods, its thousand details of putting foot after foot and hand after hand. </p><p>They lay blinking their dusty eyelids. You could hear them breathing fast, then slower, then slow </p><p>Montag sat up. </p><p>He did not move any further, however. The other men did likewise. The sun was touching the </p><p>black horizon with a faint red tip. The air was cold and smelled of a coming rain. </p><p>Silently, Granger arose, feit his arms, and legs, swearing, swearing incessantly under his breath, </p><p>tears dripping from his face. He shuffled down to the river to look upstream. </p><p>"It's flat," he said, a long time later. "City looks like a heap of baking-powder. It's gone." And a </p><p>long time after that. "I wonder how many knew it was coming? I wonder how many were </p><p>surprised?" </p><p>And across the world, thought Montag, how many other cities dead? And here in our country, </p><p>how many? A hundred, a thousand? </p><p>Someone struck a match and touched it to a piece of dry paper taken from their pocket, and </p><p>shoved this under a bit of grass and leaves, and after a while added tiny twigs which were wet </p><p>and sputtered but finally caught, and the fire grew larger in the early morning as the sun came up </p><p>and the men slowly turned from looking up river and were drawn to the fire, awkwardly, with </p><p>nothing to say, and the sun coloured the backs of their necks as they bent down. </p><p>Granger unfolded an oilskin with some bacon in it. "We'll have a bite. Then we'll turn around </p><p>and walk upstream. They'll be needing us up that way."</p><p>Someone produced a small frying-pan and the bacon went into it and the frying-pan was set on </p><p>the fire. After a moment the bacon began to flutter and dance in the pan and the sputter of it </p><p>filled the morning air with its aroma. The men watched this ritual silently. </p><p>Granger looked into the fire. "Phoenix." </p><p>"What?" </p><p>"There was a silly damn bird called a Phoenix back before Christ: every few hundred years he </p><p>built a pyre and burned himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he </p><p>burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like </p><p>we're doing the same thing, over and over, but we've got one damn thing the Phoenix never had. </p><p>We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we've done for a </p><p>thousand years, and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, </p><p>some day we'll stop making the goddam funeral pyres and jumping into the middle of them. We </p><p>pick up a few more people that remember, every generation." </p><p>He took the pan off the fire and let the bacon cool and they ate it, slowly, thoughtfully. </p><p>"Now, let's get on upstream," said Granger. "And hold on to one thought: You're not important. </p><p>You're not anything. Some day the load we're carrying with us may help someone. But even </p><p>when we had the books on hand, a long time ago, we didn't use what we got out of them. We </p><p>went right on insulting the dead. We went right on spitting in the graves of all the poor ones who </p><p>died before us. We're going to meet a lot of lonely people in the next week and the next month </p><p>and the next year. And when they ask us what we're doing, you can say, We're remembering. </p><p>That's where we'll win out in the long run. And some day we'll remember so much that we'll </p><p>build the biggest goddam steam-shovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove </p><p>war in and cover it up. Come on now, we're going to go build a mirror-factory first and put out </p><p>nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them." </p><p>They finished eating and put out the fire. The day was brightening all about them as if a pink </p><p>lamp had been given more wick. In the trees, the birds that had flown away now came back and </p><p>settled down. </p><p>Montag began walking and after a moment found that the others had fallen in behind him, going</p><p>north. He was surprised, and moved aside to let Granger pass, but Granger looked at him and </p><p>nodded him on. Montag went ahead. He looked at the river and the sky and the rusting track </p><p>going back down to where the farms lay, where the barns stood full of hay, where a lot of people </p><p>had walked by in the night on their way from the city. Later, in a month or six months, and </p><p>certainly not more than a year, he would walk along here again, alone, and keep right on going </p><p>until he caught up with the people. </p><p>But now there was a long morning's walk until noon, and if the men were silent it was because </p><p>there was everything to think about and much to remember. Perhaps later in the morning, when </p><p>the sun was up and had warmed them, they would begin to talk, or just say the things they </p><p>remembered, to be sure they were there, to be absolutely certain that things were safe in them. </p><p>Montag feit the slow stir of words, the slow simmer. And when it came to his turn, what could he </p><p>say, what could he offer on a day like this, to make the trip a little easier? To everything there is </p><p>a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. Yes. A time to keep silence and a </p><p>time to speak. Yes, all that. But what eise. What eise? Something, something . . . </p><p>And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and </p><p>yielded her fruit every month; And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. </p><p>Yes, thought Montag, that's the one I'll save for noon. For noon... </p><p>When we reach the city. </p><p>THE END </p><p></pre> </div><!--/.container--></p><p> </main></p><p> </div><!--/#wrap--></p><p> <!-- Timing ...</p><p> rendered on: www16.us.archive.org</p><p> seconds diff sec message stack(file:line:function)</p><p>=========================================================</p><p> 0.0000 0.0000 petabox start var/cache/petabox/petabox/www/sf/download.php:1:require</p><p> |common/ia:55:require_once</p><p> |setup.php:330:log</p><p> 0.0008 0.0008 call get_redis() var/cache/petabox/petabox/www/sf/download.php:83:main_wrap</p><p> |download.php:104:main</p><p> |download.php:325:getItem</p><p> |common/Item.inc:77:parseMetadata</p><p> |Item.inc:132:get_obj</p><p> |Metadata.inc:371:get_json_obj</p><p> |Metadata.inc:1599:direct</p><p> |Caching/AbstractReactiveCache.inc:281:do_recompute</p><p> |AbstractReactiveCache.inc:392:call_user_func_array</p><p> |./unknown:unknown:{closure}</p><p> |/var/cache/petabox/petabox/www/common/Metadata.inc:1640:_get_json_obj</p><p> |Metadata.inc:1764:log</p><p> 0.0050 0.0041 redis_read start var/cache/petabox/petabox/www/sf/download.php:83:main_wrap</p><p> |download.php:104:main</p><p> |download.php:325:getItem</p><p> |common/Item.inc:77:parseMetadata</p><p> |Item.inc:132:get_obj</p><p> |Metadata.inc:371:get_json_obj</p><p> |Metadata.inc:1599:direct</p><p> |Caching/AbstractReactiveCache.inc:281:do_recompute</p><p> |AbstractReactiveCache.inc:392:call_user_func_array</p><p> |./unknown:unknown:{closure}</p><p> |/var/cache/petabox/petabox/www/common/Metadata.inc:1640:_get_json_obj</p><p> |Metadata.inc:1872:log</p><p> 0.0172 0.0122 redis_read finish var/cache/petabox/petabox/www/sf/download.php:83:main_wrap</p><p> |download.php:104:main</p><p> |download.php:325:getItem</p><p> |common/Item.inc:77:parseMetadata</p><p> |Item.inc:132:get_obj</p><p> |Metadata.inc:371:get_json_obj</p><p> |Metadata.inc:1599:direct</p><p> |Caching/AbstractReactiveCache.inc:281:do_recompute</p><p> |AbstractReactiveCache.inc:392:call_user_func_array</p><p> |./unknown:unknown:{closure}</p><p> |/var/cache/petabox/petabox/www/common/Metadata.inc:1640:_get_json_obj</p><p> |Metadata.inc:1874:log</p><p> 0.0216 0.0045 begin session_start var/cache/petabox/petabox/www/sf/download.php:83:main_wrap</p><p> |download.php:104:main</p><p> |download.php:543:stream</p><p> |download.php:988:head</p><p> |common/Nav.inc:67:__construct</p><p> |Nav.inc:135:session_start</p><p> |Cookies.inc:61:log</p><p> 0.0218 0.0001 done session_start var/cache/petabox/petabox/www/sf/download.php:83:main_wrap</p><p> |download.php:104:main</p><p> |download.php:543:stream</p><p> |download.php:988:head</p><p> |common/Nav.inc:67:__construct</p><p> |Nav.inc:135:session_start</p><p> |Cookies.inc:67:log</p><p> 0.1177 0.0960 bug dump var/cache/petabox/petabox/www/sf/download.php:83:main_wrap</p><p> |download.php:104:main</p><p> |download.php:543:stream</p><p> |download.php:1020:footer</p><p> |common/setup.php:130:footer</p><p> |Nav.inc:1392:dump</p><p> |Bug.inc:120:log</p><p> --></p><p> <script type="text/javascript"></p><p>if (window.archive_analytics) {</p><p> var vs = window.archive_analytics.get_data_packets();</p><p> for (var i in vs) {</p><p> vs[i]['cache_bust']=Math.random();</p><p> vs[i]['server_ms']=117;</p><p> vs[i]['server_name']="www16.us.archive.org";</p><p> }</p><p> if ($(".more_search").size()>0) {</p><p> window.archive_analytics.send_scroll_fetch_base_event();</p><p> }</p><p>}</p><p></script></p><p> </div></p><p> </body></p><p></html></p></body></text></TEI>