He had chills and fever in the morning. You can't be sick, said Mildred. He closed his eyes over the hotness. Yes, but you were all right last night.
No, I wasn't all right. He heard the relatives shouting in the parlor. Mildred stood over his bed, curiously.
He felt her there. He saw her without opening his eyes, her hair burnt by chemicals to a brittle straw. her eyes with a kind of cataract unseen but suspect far behind the pupils the reddened pouting lips the body as thin as a praying mantis from dieting and her flesh like white bacon he could remember her in no other way will you bring me aspirin and water you've got to get up she said it's noon you've slept five hours later than usual will you turn the parlor off he asked that's my family will you turn it off for a sick man i'll turn it down she went out of the room and did nothing to the parlor and came back is that better thanks that's my favorite program she said what about the aspirin you've never been sick before she went away again well i'm sick now i'm not going to work to-night call beattie for me you acted funny last night she returned humming Where's the aspirin? He glanced at the water-glass she handed him.
Oh! She walked to the bathroom again. Did something happen?
A fire is all. I had a nice evening, she said, in the bathroom. What doing?
The parlor. What was on? Programs.
What programs? Some of the best ever. Who?
Oh, you know, the bunch. Yes, the bunch, the bunch, the bunch. He pressed at the pain in his eyes, and suddenly the odor of kerosene made him vomit.
Mildred came in, humming. She was surprised. Why'd you do that?
He looked with dismay at the floor. We burned an old woman with her books. It's a good thing that rug's washable.
She fetched a mop and worked on it. I went to Helen's last night. Couldn't you get the shows in your parlor? Sure, but it's nice visiting.
She went out into the parlor. He heard her singing. Mildred, he called. She returned singing, snapping her fingers softly.
Aren't you going to ask me about last night, he said? What about it? We burned a thousand books.
We burned a woman. Well? The parlor was exploding with sound.
We burned copies of Dante and Swift and Marcus Aurelius. Wasn't he a European? Something like that.
Wasn't he a radical? I've never read him. He was a radical.
Mildred fiddled with the telephone. You don't expect me to call Captain Beatty, do you? You must.
Don't shout. I wasn't shouting. He was up in bed, suddenly enraged and flushed, shaking. The parlor roared in the hot air.
I can't call him. I can't tell him I'm sick. Why? Because you're afraid, he thought.
A child feigning illness, afraid to call because after a moment's discussion, the conversation would run so. Yes, Captain, I feel better already. I'll be in at ten o'clock tonight.
You're not sick, said Mildred. Montag fell back in bed. He reached under his pillow.
The hidden book was still there. Mildred, how would it be if, well, maybe I quit my job a while? you want to give up everything after all these years of working because one night some woman and her books you should have seen her milly she's nothing to me she shouldn't have had books it was her responsibility she should have thought of that i hate her she's got you going and next thing you know we'll be out no house no job nothing you weren't there you didn't see he said there must be something in books things we can't imagine to make a woman stay in a burning house there must be something there you don't stay for nothing she was simple-minded she was as rational as you and i more so perhaps and we burned her that's water under the bridge no not water fire you ever seen a burned house it smoulders for days Well, this fire will last me the rest of my life. God, I've been trying to put it out in my mind all night. I'm crazy with trying.
You should have thought of that before becoming a fireman. Thought, he said. Was I given a choice?
My grandfather and father were firemen. In my sleep I ran after them. The parlor was playing a dance tune.
This is the day you go on the early shift, said Mildred. You should have gone two hours ago. I just noticed. It's not just the woman that died, said Montag.
Last night I thought about all the kerosene I've used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books.
A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I'd never even thought that thought before.
He got out of bed. It took some man a lifetime, maybe, to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life. And then I came along in two minutes, and boom!
It's all over. let me alone said mildred i didn't do anything let you alone that's all very well but how can i leave myself alone we not we need not to be let alone we need to be really bothered once in a while how long is it since you were really bothered about something important, about something real. And then he shut up, for he remembered last week, and the two white stones staring up at the ceiling, and the pump-snake with the probing eye, and the two soap-faced men with the cigarettes moving in their mouths when they talked.
But that was another Mildred. That was a Mildred so deep inside this one, and so bothered, really bothered, that the two women had never met. He turned away. mildred said well now you've done it out front of the house look who's here i don't care there's a phoenix car just driven up and a man in a black shirt with an orange snake stitched on his arm coming up the front walk captain viti he said captain viti montag did not move but stood looking into the cold whiteness of the wall immediately before him go let him in will you tell him i'm sick tell him yourself she ran a few steps this way a few steps that and stopped eyes wide when the front-door speaker called her name softly softly mrs montag mrs montag someone here someone here mrs montag mrs montag someone here fading Montag made sure the book was well hidden behind the pillow, climbed slowly back into bed, arranged the covers over his knees and across his chest, half sitting, and after a while Mildred moved and went out of the room and Captain Beattie strolled in, his hands in his pockets.
Shut the relatives up, said Beattie, looking around at everything except Montag and his wife. This time Mildred ran. The yammering voices stopped yelling in the parlor.
Captain Beatty sat down in the most comfortable chair with a peaceful look on his ruddy face. He took time to repair and light his brass pipe and puff out a great smoke cloud. Just thought I'd come by and see how the sick man is. How'd you guess? Beatty smiled his smile which showed the candy pinkness of his gums and the tiny candy whiteness of his teeth.
I've seen it all. You are going to call for a night off, Montag sat in bed. Well, said Beattie, take the night off. He examined his eternal matchbox, the lid of which said, Guaranteed one million lights in this igniter, and began to strike the chemical match abstractedly. Blow out, strike, blow out, strike, speak a few words, blow out.
He looked at the flame, he blew, he looked at the smoke. When will you be well? Tomorrow.
The next day, maybe. First of the week. Beattie puffed his pipe.
Every fireman sooner or later hits this. They only need understanding. To know how the wheels run. Need to know the history of your profession. They don't feed it to rookies like they used to.
Damn shame. Puff. Only fire chiefs remember it now.
Puff. I'll let you in on it. Mildred fidgeted. meedy took a full minute to settle himself in and think back for what he wanted to say when did it all start you ask this job of ours how did it come about where when well i'd say it really got started around the thing called the civil war even though our rule book claims it was founded earlier the fact is we didn't get along well until photography came into its own then motion pictures and the early twentieth century radio television Things began to have mass.
Montag sat in bed, not moving. Because they had masks, they became simpler, said Beatty. Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere.
They could afford to be different. The world was roomy, but then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population.
Films and radios, magazines, books leveled down to a sort of paste-pudding norm. Do you follow me? I think so. beattie peered at the smoke pattern he had put on to the air picture it nineteenth-century man with his horses dogs cats carts slow motion then in the twentieth century speed up your camera books cut shorter condensations digests tabloids everything boils down to the gag the snap ending snap ending mildred nodded classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows then cut again to fill a two-minute book column winding up at last as a ten or twelve line dictionary rsum i exaggerate of course the dictionaries were for our reference but many were those whose sole knowledge of hamlet you know the title certainly montag it's probably only a faint rumor of a title to you mrs montag whose sole knowledge as i say of hamlet was a one-page digest in a book that claimed now at least you can read all the classics keep up with your neighbors do you see out of the nursery into the college and back into the nursery there's your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more mildred arose and began to move around the room picking things up and putting them down beattie ignored her and continued speed up the film montag quick click pic look eye now flick here there swift pace up down in out why how who what where bang smack wallop bing bong boom digest digest digest digest digest politics one column two sentences a headline then in mid-air all vanishes whirlman's mind rounds about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers exploiters broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessarily time-wasting thought mildred smooths the bedclothes montague felt his heart jump and jump again as she patted his pillow right now she was pulling at his shoulder to try to get him to move so she could take the pillow out and fix it nicely and put it back and perhaps cry out and stare or simply reach down her hand and say what's this and hold up the hidden book with touching innocence school is shortened discipline relaxed philosophies histories languages dropped english and spelling gradually neglected finally almost completely ignored life is immediate the job counts pleasure lies all about after work why learn anything save pressing buttons pulling switches fixing nuts and bolts let me fix your pillow said mildred no whispered The zipper displaces the button, and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at. Dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour.
Mildred said, Here. Get away, said Montag. Life becomes one big pratfall, Montag.
Everything, bang, boff, and wow. Wow, said Mildred, yanking at the pillow. For God's sake, let me be, cried Montag passionately.
beattie opened his eyes wide mildred's hand had frozen behind the pillow her fingers were tracing the book's outline and as the shape became familiar her face looked surprised and then stunned her mouth opened to ask a question empty the theatre save for clowns and furnish the rooms with glass walls and pretty colours running up and down the walls like confetti or blood or sherry or sauternes you like baseball don't you montague baseball's a fine game now beattie was almost invisible a voice somewhere behind a screen of smoke what's this asked mildred almost with delight montag heaved back against her arms what's this here sit down montag shouted she jumped away her hands empty we're talking beattie went on as if nothing had happened you like bowling don't you montag bowling yes and golf golf is a fine game basketball a fine game billiards pool football fine games all of them more sports for everyone group spirit fun and you don't have to think organize and organize and super organize super super sports more cartoons and books more pictures the mind drinks less and less impatience highways full of crowds going somewhere somewhere somewhere nowhere the gasoline refugee towns turn into motels people in nomadic surges from place to place following the moon tides living to-night in the room where you slept this noon and i the night before Mildred went out of the room and slammed the door. The parlor aunts began to laugh at the parlor uncles. Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we?
Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog lovers, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics, anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy. Remember that.
All the minor, minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors full of evil thoughts lock up your typewriters. They did. magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca books so the damn snobbish critics said were dishwater no wonder books stopped selling the critics said but the public knowing what it wanted spinning happily let the comic books survive and the three-dimensional sex magazines of course there you have it montag it didn't come from the government down there was no dictum no declaration no censorship to start with no Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick.
Thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time. You are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.
Yes, but what about the firemen, then? asked Montag. Ah.
Biddy leaned forward in the faint mist of smoke from his pipe. What more easily explained and natural? with school turning out more runners jumpers racers tinkerers grabbers snatchers flyers and swimmers instead of examiners critics knowers and imaginative creators the word intellectual of course became the swear word it deserved to be you always dread the unfamiliar surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally bright did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols hating him and wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours of course it was we must all be alike not everyone born free and equal as the constitution says but everyone made equal each man the image of every other then all are happy for there are no mountains to make them cower to judge themselves against so a book is a loaded gun in the house next door burn it take the shot from the weapon breach man's mind who knows who might be the target of a well-read man. Me?
I won't stomach them for a minute. And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely all over the world—you were correct in your assumption the other night—there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior. Official censors, judges, and executors. that's you montague and that's me the door to the parlor opened and mildred stood there looking in at them looking at beattie and then at montague behind her the walls of the room were flooded with green and yellow and orange fireworks sizzling and bursting to some music composed almost completely of tap drums, tom-toms, and cymbals.
Her mouth moved and she was saying something, but the sound covered it. Beatty knocked his pipe into the palm of his pink hand, studied the ashes as if they were a symbol to be diagnosed, and searched for meaning. You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, what do we want in this country above all?
People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving?
Don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? for pleasure for titillation and you must admit our culture provides plenty of these yes montague could lip read what mildred was saying in the doorway he tried not to look at her mouth because then beattie might turn and read what was there too Colored people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it.
White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs. The cigarette people are weeping. Burn the book.
Serenity Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside.
Better yet, into the incinerator. Funerals are unhappy, and pagan. Eliminate them, too.
Five minutes after a person is dead, he's on his way to the big flu. The incinerator is serviced by helicopters all over the country. Ten minutes after death, the man's a speck of black dust.
Let's not quibble over individuals with memoriams. Forget them. Burn them all. Burn everything. Fire is bright, and fire is clean.
The fireworks died in the parlor behind Mildred. She had stopped talking at the same time. A miraculous coincidence.
Montag held his breath. there's a girl next door he said slowly she's gone now i think dead i can't even remember her face but she was different how how did she happen beattie smiled Here or there, that's bound to occur. Clarice McClellan?
We have a record on her family. We've watched them carefully. Heredity and environment are funny things. You can't rid yourself of all the old odd ducks in just a few years.
The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle. We had some false alarms on the McClellans when they lived in Chicago. Never found a book.
Uncle had a mixed record, antisocial. The girl, she was a time bomb. The family had been feeding her subconscious, I'm sure, from what I saw of her school record.
She didn't want to know how a thing was done, but why? That can be embarrassing. You ask why to a lot of things, and you wind up very unhappy indeed.
If you keep at it, a poor girl's better off dead. Yes, dead. Luckily, queer ones don't happen often. We know how to nip most of them in the bud early. You can't build a house without nails and wood.
If you don't want a house built, hide the nails and wood. If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him. Give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war.
If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and taxman, better it be all those than people who worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn aisle grew last year.
Cram them full of non-combustible data, chalk them so damn full of facts they feel stuffed but absolutely brilliant with information. Then they'll feel their thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving, and they'll be happy because facts of that sort don't change. don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with that way lies melancholy any man who can take a tv wall apart and put it back together again-and most men can nowadays is happier than any man who tries to slide rule measure and equate the universe which just won't be measured or equated without making man feel bestial and lonely i know i've tried it to hell with it so bring on your clubs and parties your acrobats and magicians your daredevils jet cars motorcycle helicopters your sex and heroin more of everything to do with automatic reflex if the drama is bad if the film says nothing if the play is hollow sting me with the theremin loudly i think i'm responding to the play when it's only a tactile reaction to vibration but i don't care i just like solid entertainment beattie got up i must be going lecture's over i hope i've clarified things the important thing for you to remember montag is we're the happiness boys the dixie duo you and i and the others we stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone happy with conflicting theory and thought we have our fingers in the dike hold steady don't let the torrent of melancholy and drear philosophy drown our world We depend on you. I don't think you realize how important you are. We are.
To our happy world, as it stands now. beattie shook montague's limp hand montague still sat as if the house were collapsing about him and he could not move in the bed mildred had vanished from the door one last thing said beattie at least once in his career every fireman gets an itch what do the books say he wonders oh to scratch that itch eh well montague take my word for it i've had to read a few in my time to know what i was about And the books say nothing. Nothing you can teach or believe.
They're about non-existent people, figments of imagination, if they're fiction. And if they're non-fiction, it's worse. One professor calling another an idiot, one philosopher screaming down another's gullet, all of them running about, putting out the stars and extinguishing the sun. You come away lost.
Well then, what if a fireman accidentally, really not intending anything, takes a book home with him? Montag twitched. The open door looked at him with its great vacant eye. Unnatural error. Curiosity alone, said Beattie.
We don't get over-anxious or mad. We let the fireman keep the book twenty-four hours. If he hasn't burned it by then, we simply come and burn it for him.
Of course, Montag's mouth was dry. Well, Montag, will you take another, later shift today? Will we see you tonight, perhaps? I don't know, said Montag. What?
Beattie looked faintly surprised. Montag shut his eyes. I'll be in later. Maybe.
We'd certainly miss you if you didn't show, said Beattie, putting his pipe in his pocket thoughtfully. I'll never come in again, thought Montag. Get well and keep well, said Beattie.
He turned and went out through the open door. montag watched through the window as beatty drove away in his gleaming yellow flame-colored beetle with the black char-colored tires across the street and down the way the other houses stood with their flat fronts what was it clarice had said one afternoon no front porches my uncle says there used to be front porches and people sat there sometimes at night talking when they wanted to talk rocking and not talking when they didn't want to talk sometimes they just sat there and thought about things turned things over my uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because they didn't look well but my uncle says that was merely rationalizing it the real reason hidden underneath might be that they didn't want people sitting like that doing nothing rocking talking that was the wrong kind of social life people talked too much and they had time to think so they ran off with the porches and the gardens too not many gardens any more to sit around in and look at the furniture no rocking chairs any more they're too comfortable get people up and running around my uncle says and my uncle and my uncle her voice faded montague turned and looked at his wife who sat in the middle of the parlor and talking to an announcer who was in turn talking to her mrs montag he was saying this that and the other mrs montag something else and still another the converter attachment which had cost them one hundred dollars automatically supplied her name whenever the announcer addressed his anonymous audience leaving a blank where the proper syllables could be filled in a special spot wavex scrambler also caused his televised image in the area immediately about his lips to mouth the vowels and consonants beautifully he was a friend no doubt about it a good friend Mrs. Montag now, look, right here. Her head turned, though she quite obviously was not listening.
Montag said it's only a step from not going to work today to not working tomorrow, to not working at the firehouse ever again. You are going to work tonight, though, aren't you? said Mildred. I haven't decided.
Right now I've got an awful feeling I want to smash things and kill things. Go take the beetle. No thanks.
the keys to the beetle are on the night table i always like to drive fast when i feel that way you get it up around ninety-five and you feel wonderful sometimes i drive all night and come back and you don't know it it's fun out in the country you hit rabbits sometimes you hit dogs go take the beetle 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 don't know what it is. I'm so damn unhappy. I'm so mad.
I don't know why I feel like I'm putting on weight. I feel fat. I feel like I've been saving up a lot of things.
I don't know what. I might even start reading books. They'd put you in jail, wouldn't they?
She looked at him as if he were behind the glass wall. He began to put on his clothes, moving restlessly about the bedroom. Yes, and it might be a good idea, before I hurt someone.
Did you hear, Petey? Did you listen to him? He knows all the answers.
He's right. Happiness is important. Fun is everything. And yet I keep sitting there, saying to myself, I'm not happy.
I'm not happy. I am, Mildred's mouth beamed, and proud of it. i'm going to do something said montag i don't even know what yet but i'm going to do something big i'm tired of listening to this junk said mildred turning from him to the announcer again montag touched the volume control on the wall and the announcer was speechless millie he paused this is your house as well as mine i feel it's only fair that i tell you something now i should have told you before but i wasn't even admitting it to myself i have something i want you to see something i've put away in a hid during the past year now and again once in a while i didn't know why but i did it i never told you he took hold of a straight-backed chair and moved it slowly and steadily into the hall near the front door and climbed up on it and stood for a moment like a statue on a pedestal his wife standing under him waiting then he reached up and pulled back the grill of the air-conditioning system, and reached far back inside to the right, and moved still another sliding sheet of metal and took out a book.
Without looking at it, he dropped it to the floor. He put his hand back up and took out two books, and moved his hand down and dropped the two books to the floor. He kept moving his hand and dropping books, small ones, fairly large ones, yellow, red, green ones.
when he was done he looked down upon some twenty books lying at his wife's feet i'm sorry he said i didn't really think now it looks like we're in this together mildred backed away as if she were suddenly confronted by a pack of mice that had come up out of the floor he could hear her breathing rapidly and her face was paled out and her eyes were fastened wide she said his name over twice three times then moaning she ran forward seized a book and ran toward the kitchen incinerator he caught her shrieking he held her and she tried to fight away from him scratching no milly no wait stop it will you you don't know stop it he slapped her face he grabbed her again and shook her she said his name and began to cry milly he said listen give me a second will you we can't do anything we can't burn these i want to look at them at least look at them once Then, if what the captain says is true, we'll burn them together. Believe me, we'll burn them together. You must help me. He looked down into her face and took hold of her chin and held her firmly.
He was looking not only at her, but for himself and what he must do. In her face. Whether we like this or not, we're in it. I've never asked for much from you in all these years, but I ask it now.
I plead for it. We've got to start somewhere here, figuring out why we're in such a mess. You and the medicine at night and the car and me and my work. We're heading right for the cliff, Billy.
God, I don't want to go over. This isn't going to be easy. We haven't anything to go on, but maybe we can piece it out and figure it out and help each other. I need you so much right now. I can't tell you.
If you love me at all, you'll put up with this. 24, 48 hours, that's all I ask. Then it'll be over.
I promise. I swear. And if there's something here, just one little thing out of a whole mess of things, maybe we can pass it on to someone else.
She wasn't fighting anymore, so he let her go. She sagged away from him and slid down the wall and sat on the floor looking at the books. Her foot touched one and she saw this and pulled her foot away.
That woman the other night. Millie, you weren't there. You didn't see her face.
Clarice. you never talk to her i talk to her and men like beattie are afraid of her i can't understand it why should they be so afraid of someone like her But I kept putting her alongside the firemen in the house last night, and I suddenly realized I didn't like them at all, and I didn't like myself at all anymore. And I thought, maybe it would be best if the firemen themselves were burnt.
Guy! The front-door voice called swiftly. Mrs. Montag! Mrs. Montag!
Someone here! Someone here! Mrs. Montag! Mrs. Montag!
Someone here! Softly. they turned to stare at the door and the books toppled everywhere everywhere in heaps beady said mildred it can't be him he's come back she whispered the front-door voice called again softly someone here We won't answer.
Montag lay back against the wall, and then slowly sank to a crouching position and began to nudge the books, bewilderedly with his thumb, his forefinger. He was shivering, and he wanted above all to shove the books up through the ventilator again, but he knew we could not face Petey again. He crouched, and then he sat, and the voice in front of the front door spoke again, more insistently. Montag picked up a single small volume from the floor. Where do we begin?
He opened the book halfway and peered at it. We begin by beginning, I guess. He'll come in, said Mildred, and burn us and all the books.
The front door faded at last. There was a silence. Montag felt the presence of someone beyond the door, waiting, listening. Then the footsteps going away down the walk and over the lawn. Let's see what this is, said Montag.
He spoke the words haltingly and with a terrible self-consciousness. He read a dozen pages here and there and came at last to this. It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break eggs at the smaller end. Mildred sat across the hall from him.
What does it mean? It doesn't mean anything. The captain was right.
Here now, said Montag. We'll start over again. At the beginning.