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ray bradbury fahrenheit 451 this one with gratitude is for don congdon fahrenheit 451 the temperature at which book-paper catches fire and burns part i it was a pleasure to burn it was a special pleasure to see things eaten to see things blackened and changed with the brass nozzle in his fists with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world the blood pounded in his head and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history with his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black he strode in a swarm of fireflies he wanted above all like the old joke to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house while the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame he knew that when he returned to the firehouse he might wink at himself a minstrel man burnt-corked in the mirror later going to sleep he would feel the fiery smile still gripped by his face muscles in the dark it never went away that smile it never ever went away as long as he remembered he hung up his black-beetle-coloured helmet and shined it he hung his flameproof jacket neatly he showered luxuriously and then whistling hands in pockets walked across the upper floor of the fire station and fell down the hole at the last moment when disaster seemed positive he pulled his hands from his pockets and broke his fall by grasping the golden pole he slid to a squeaking halt the heels one inch from the concrete floor downstairs he walked out of the fire station and along the midnight street toward the subway where the silent air-propelled train slid soundlessly down its lubricated flue in the earth and let him out with a great puff of warm air an to the cream-tiled escalator rising to the suburb whistling he let the escalator waft him into the still night air he walked toward the comer thinking little at all about nothing in particular before he reached the corner however he slowed as if a wind had sprung up from nowhere as if someone had called his name the last few nights he had had the most uncertain feelings about the sidewalk just around the corner here moving in the starlight toward his house he had felt that a moment before his making the turn someone had been there the air seemed charged with a special calm as if someone had waited there quietly and only a moment before he came simply turned to a shadow and let him through perhaps his nose detected a faint perfume perhaps the skin on the backs of his hands on his face felt the temperature rise at this one spot where a person s standing might raise

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the immediate atmosphere ten degrees for an instant there was no understanding it each time he made the turn he saw only the white unused buckling sidewalk with perhaps on one night something vanishing swiftly across a lawn before he could focus his eyes or speak but now tonight he slowed almost to a stop his inner mind reaching out to turn the corner for him had heard the faintest whisper breathing or was the atmosphere compressed merely by someone standing very quietly there waiting he turned the corner the autumn leaves blew over the moonlit pavement in such a way as to make the girl who was moving there seem fixed to a sliding walk letting the motion of the wind and the leaves carry her forward her head was half bent to watch her shoes stir the circling leaves her face was slender and milk-white and in it was a kind of gentle hunger that touched over everything with tireless curiosity it was a look almost of pale surprise the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that no move escaped them her dress was white and it whispered he almost thought he heard the motion of her hands as she walked and the infinitely small sound now the white stir of her face turning when she discovered she was a moment away from a man who stood in the middle of the pavement waiting the trees overhead made a great sound of letting down their dry rain the girl stopped and looked as if she might pull back in surprise but instead stood regarding montag with eyes so dark and shining and alive that he felt he had said something quite wonderful but he knew his mouth had only moved to say hello and then when she seemed hypnotized by the salamander on his arm and the phoenix-disc on his chest he spoke again of course he said you re a new neighbour aren t you and you must be she raised her eyes from his professional symbols the fireman her voice trailed off how oddly you say that i d-i d have known it with my eyes shut she said slowly what-the smell of kerosene my wife always complains he laughed you never wash it off completely no you don t she said in awe he felt she was walking in a circle about him turning him end for end shaking him quietly and emptying his pockets without once moving herself kerosene he said because the silence had lengthened is nothing but perfume to me does it seem like that really of course why not she gave herself time to think of it i don t know she turned to face the sidewalk going toward their homes do you mind if i walk back with you i m clarisse mcclellan clarisse guy montag come along what are you doing out so late wandering around how old are you they walked in the warm-cool blowing night on the silvered pavement and there was the faintest breath of fresh apricots and strawberries in the air and he looked around and realized this was quite impossible so late in the year there was only the girl walking with him now her face bright as snow in the moonlight and he knew she was working his questions around seeking the best answers she could possibly give well she said i m seventeen and i m crazy my uncle says the two always go together when people ask your age he said always say seventeen and insane.

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isn t this a nice time of night to walk i like to smell things and look at things and sometimes stay up all night walking and watch the sun rise they walked on again in silence and finally she said thoughtfully you know i m not afraid of you at all he was surprised why should you be so many people are afraid of firemen i mean but you re just a man after all he saw himself in her eyes suspended in two shining drops of bright water himself dark and tiny in fine detail the lines about his mouth everything there as if her eyes were two miraculous bits of violet amber that might capture and hold him intact her face turned to him now was fragile milk crystal with a soft and constant light in it it was not the hysterical light of electricity but-what but the strangely comfortable and rare and gently flattering light of the candle one time when he was a child in a power-failure his mother had found and lit a last candle and there had been a brief hour of rediscovery of such illumination that space lost its vast dimensions and drew comfortably around them and they mother and son alone transformed hoping that the power might not come on again too soon and then clarisse mcclellan said do you mind if i ask how long have you worked at being a fireman since i was twenty ten years ago do you ever read any of the books you bum he laughed that s against the law oh of course it s fine work monday bum millay wednesday whitman friday faulkner burn em to ashes then bum the ashes that s our official slogan they walked still further and the girl said is it true that long ago firemen put fires out instead of going to start them no houses have always been fireproof take my word for it strange i heard once that a long time ago houses used to burn by accident and they needed firemen to stop the flames he laughed she glanced quickly over why are you laughing i don t know he started to laugh again and stopped why you laugh when i haven t been funny and you answer right off you never stop to think what i ve asked you he stopped walking you are an odd one he said looking at her haven t you any respect i don t mean to be insulting it s just i love to watch people too much i guess well doesn t this mean anything to you he tapped the numerals 451 stitched on his char-coloured sleeve yes she whispered she increased her pace have you ever watched the jet cars racing on the boulevards down that way you re changing the subject i sometimes think drivers don t know what grass is or flowers because they never see them slowly she said if you showed a driver a green blur oh yes he d say that s grass a pink blur that s a rose-garden white blurs are houses brown blurs are cows my uncle drove slowly on a highway once he drove forty miles an hour and they jailed him for two days isn t that funny and sad too you think too many things said montag uneasily i rarely watch the parlour walls or go to races or fun parks so i ve lots of time for crazy thoughts i guess have you seen the two-hundred-foot-long billboards in the country beyond town did you know that once billboards were only twenty feet long?

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but cars started rushing by so quickly they had to stretch the advertising out so it would last i didn t know that montag laughed abruptly bet i know something else you don t there s dew on the grass in the morning he suddenly couldn t remember if he had known this or not and it made him quite irritable and if you look she nodded at the sky there s a man in the moon he hadn t looked for a long time they walked the rest of the way in silence hers thoughtful his a kind of clenching and uncomfortable silence in which he shot her accusing glances when they reached her house all its lights were blazing what s going on montag had rarely seen that many house lights oh just my mother and father and uncle sitting around talking it s like being a pedestrian only rarer my uncle was arrested another time-did i tell you for being a pedestrian oh we re most peculiar but what do you talk about she laughed at this good night she started up her walk then she seemed to remember something and came back to look at him with wonder and curiosity are you happy she said am i what he cried but she was gone-running in the moonlight her front door shut gently happy of all the nonsense he stopped laughing he put his hand into the glove-hole of his front door and let it know his touch the front door slid open of course i m happy what does she think i m not he asked the quiet rooms he stood looking up at the ventilator grille in the hall and suddenly remembered that something lay hidden behind the grille something that seemed to peer down at him now he moved his eyes quickly away what a strange meeting on a strange night he remembered nothing like it save one afternoon a year ago when he had met an old man in the park and they had talked montag shook his head he looked at a blank wall the girl s face was there really quite beautiful in memory astonishing in fact she had a very thin face like the dial of a small clock seen faintly in a dark room in the middle of a night when you waken to see the time and see the clock telling you the hour and the minute and the second with a white silence and a glowing all certainty and knowing what it has to tell of the night passing swiftly on toward further darknesses but moving also toward a new sun what asked montag of that other self the subconscious idiot that ran babbling at times quite independent of will habit and conscience he glanced back at the wall how like a mirror too her face impossible for how many people did you know that refracted your own light to you people were more often-he searched for a simile found one in his work-torches blazing away until they whiffed out how rarely did other people s faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression your own innermost trembling thought what incredible power of identification the girl had she was like the eager watcher of a marionette show anticipating each flicker of an eyelid each gesture of his hand each flick of a finger the moment before it began how long had they walked together three minutes five yet how large that time seemed now how immense a figure she was on the stage before him what a shadow she threw on the wall with

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her slender body he felt that if his eye itched she might blink and if the muscles of his jaws stretched imperceptibly she would yawn long before he would why he thought now that i think of it she almost seemed to be waiting for me there in the street so damned late at night he opened the bedroom door it was like coming into the cold marbled room of a mausoleum after the moon had set complete darkness not a hint of the silver world outside the windows tightly shut the chamber a tomb-world where no sound from the great city could penetrate the room was not empty he listened the little mosquito-delicate dancing hum in the air the electrical murmur of a hidden wasp snug in its special pink warm nest the music was almost loud enough so he could follow the tune he felt his smile slide away melt fold over and down on itself like a tallow skin like the stuff of a fantastic candle burning too long and now collapsing and now blown out darkness he was not happy he was not happy he said the words to himself he recognized this as the true state of affairs he wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back without turning on the light he imagined how this room would look his wife stretched on the bed uncovered and cold like a body displayed on the lid of a tomb her eyes fixed to the ceiling by invisible threads of steel immovable and in her ears the little seashells the thimble radios tamped tight and an electronic ocean of sound of music and talk and music and talk coming in coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind the room was indeed empty every night the waves came in and bore her off on their great tides of sound floating her wide-eyed toward morning there had been no night in the last two years that mildred had not swum that sea had not gladly gone down in it for the third time the room was cold but nonetheless he felt he could not breathe he did not wish to open the curtains and open the french windows for he did not want the moon to come into the room so with the feeling of a man who will die in the next hour for lack of air he felt his way toward his open separate and therefore cold bed an instant before his foot hit the object on the floor he knew he would hit such an object it was not unlike the feeling he had experienced before turning the corner and almost knocking the girl down his foot sending vibrations ahead received back echoes of the small barrier across its path even as the foot swung his foot kicked the object gave a dull clink and slid off in darkness he stood very straight and listened to the person on the dark bed in the completely featureless night the breath coming out of the nostrils was so faint it stirred only the furthest fringes of life a small leaf a black feather a single fibre of hair he still did not want outside light he pulled out his igniter felt the salamander etched on its silver disc gave it a flick two moonstones looked up at him in the light of his small hand-held fire two pale moonstones buried in a creek of clear water over which the life of the world ran not touching them mildred her face was like a snow-covered island upon which rain might fall but it felt no rain over which clouds might pass their moving shadows but she felt no shadow there was only the singing of the thimble-wasps in her tamped-shut ears and her eyes all glass and breath going in and out softly faintly in and out of her nostrils and her not caring whether it came or went went or came.

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the object he had sent tumbling with his foot now glinted under the edge of his own bed the small crystal bottle of sleeping-tablets which earlier today had been filled with thirty capsules and which now lay uncapped and empty in the light of the tiny flare as he stood there the sky over the house screamed there was a tremendous ripping sound as if two giant hands had torn ten thousand miles of black linen down the seam montag was cut in half he felt his chest chopped down and split apart the jet-bombs going over going over going over one two one two one two six of them nine of them twelve of them one and one and one and another and another and another did all the screaming for him he opened his own mouth and let their shriek come down and out between his bared teeth the house shook the flare went out in his hand the moonstones vanished he felt his hand plunge toward the telephone the jets were gone he felt his lips move brushing the mouthpiece of the phone emergency hospital a terrible whisper he felt that the stars had been pulverized by the sound of the black jets and that in the morning the earth would be thought as he stood shivering in the dark and let his lips go on moving and moving they had this machine they had two machines really one of them slid down into your stomach like a black cobra down an echoing well looking for all the old water and the old time gathered there it drank up the green matter that flowed to the top in a slow boil did it drink of the darkness did it suck out all the poisons accumulated with the years it fed in silence with an occasional sound of inner suffocation and blind searching it had an eye the impersonal operator of the machine could by wearing a special optical helmet gaze into the soul of the person whom he was pumping out what did the eye see he did not say he saw but did not see what the eye saw the entire operation was not unlike the digging of a trench in one s yard the woman on the bed was no more than a hard stratum of marble they had reached go on anyway shove the bore down slush up the emptiness if such a thing could be brought out in the throb of the suction snake the operator stood smoking a cigarette the other machine was working too the other machine was operated by an equally impersonal fellow in non-stainable reddish-brown overalls this machine pumped all of the blood from the body and replaced it with fresh blood and serum got to clean em out both ways said the operator standing over the silent woman no use getting the stomach if you don t clean the blood leave that stuff in the blood and the blood hits the brain like a mallet bang a couple of thousand times and the brain just gives up just quits stop it said montag i was just sayin said the operator are you done said montag they shut the machines up tight we re done his anger did not even touch them they stood with the cigarette smoke curling around their noses and into their eyes without making them blink or squint that s fifty bucks first why don t you tell me if she ll be all right sure she ll be o.k we got all the mean stuff right in our suitcase here it can t get at her now as i said you take out the old and put in the new and you re o.k neither of you is an m.d why didn t they send an m.d from emergency hell the operator s cigarette moved on his lips we get these cases nine or ten a night got so many starting a few years ago we had the special machines built with the optical lens of course that was new the rest is ancient you don t need an m.d case like this all you need is two handymen clean up the problem in half an hour.

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look he started for the door we gotta go just had another call on the old earthimble ten blocks from here someone else just jumped off the cap of a pillbox call if you need us again keep her quiet we got a contra-sedative in her she ll wake up hungry so long and the men with the cigarettes in their straight-lined mouths the men with the eyes of puff-adders took up their load of machine and tube their case of liquid melancholy and the slow dark sludge of nameless stuff and strolled out the door montag sank down into a chair and looked at this woman her eyes were closed now gently and he put out his hand to feel the warmness of breath on his palm mildred he said at last there are too many of us he thought there are billions of us and that s too many nobody knows anyone strangers come and violate you strangers come and cut your heart out strangers come and take your blood good god who were those men i never saw them before in my life half an hour passed the bloodstream in this woman was new and it seemed to have done a new thing to her her cheeks were very pink and her lips were very fresh and full of colour and they looked soft and relaxed someone else s blood there if only someone else s flesh and brain and memory if only they could have taken her mind along to the drycleaner s and emptied the pockets and steamed and cleansed it and reblocked it and brought it back in the morning if only he got up and put back the curtains and opened the windows wide to let the night air in it was two o clock in the morning was it only an hour ago clarisse mcclellan in the street and him coming in and the dark room and his foot kicking the little crystal bottle only an hour but the world had melted down and sprung up in a new and colourless form laughter blew across the moon-coloured lawn from the house of clarisse and her father and mother and the uncle who smiled so quietly and so earnestly above all their laughter was relaxed and hearty and not forced in any way coming from the house that was so brightly lit this late at night while all the other houses were kept to themselves in darkness montag heard the voices talking talking talking giving talking weaving reweaving their hypnotic web montag moved out through the french windows and crossed the lawn without even thinking of it he stood outside the talking house in the shadows thinking he might even tap on their door and whisper let me come in i won t say anything i just want to listen what is it you re saying but instead he stood there very cold his face a mask of ice listening to a man s voice the uncle moving along at an easy pace well after all this is the age of the disposable tissue blow your nose on a person wad them flush them away reach for another blow wad flush everyone using everyone else s coattails how are you supposed to root for the home team when you don t even have a programme or know the names for that matter what colour jerseys are they wearing as they trot out on to the field montag moved back to his own house left the window wide checked mildred tucked the covers about her carefully and then lay down with the moonlight on his cheekbones and on the frowning ridges in his brow with the moonlight distilled in each eye to form a silver cataract there one drop of rain clarisse another drop mildred a third the uncle a fourth the fire tonight one clarisse two mildred three uncle four fire one mildred two clarisse one two three four five clarisse mildred uncle fire sleeping-tablets men disposable tissue coat-tails blow wad flush clarisse mildred uncle fire,

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tablets tissues blow wad flush one two three one two three rain the storm the uncle laughing thunder falling downstairs the whole world pouring down the fire gushing up in a volcano all rushing on down around in a spouting roar and rivering stream toward morning i don t know anything any more he said and let a sleep-lozenge dissolve on his tongue at nine in the morning mildred s bed was empty montag got up quickly his heart pumping and ran down the hall and stopped at the kitchen door toast popped out of the silver toaster was seized by a spidery metal hand that drenched it with melted butter mildred watched the toast delivered to her plate she had both ears plugged with electronic bees that were humming the hour away she looked up suddenly saw him and nodded you all right he asked she was an expert at lip-reading from ten years of apprenticeship at seashell earthimbles she nodded again she set the toaster clicking away at another piece of bread montag sat down his wife said i don t know why i should be so hungry you i m hungry last night he began didn t sleep well feel terrible she said god i m hungry i can t figure it last night he said again she watched his lips casually what about last night don t you remember what did we have a wild party or something feel like i ve a hangover god i m hungry who was here a few people he said that s what i thought she chewed her toast sore stomach but i m hungry as allget-out hope i didn t do anything foolish at the party no he said quietly the toaster spidered out a piece of buttered bread for him he held it in his hand feeling grateful you don t look so hot yourself said his wife in the late afternoon it rained and the entire world was dark grey he stood in the hall of his house putting on his badge with the orange salamander burning across it he stood looking up at the air-conditioning vent in the hall for a long time his wife in the tv parlour paused long enough from reading her script to glance up hey she said the man s thinking yes he said i wanted to talk to you he paused you took all the pills in your bottle last night oh i wouldn t do that she said surprised the bottle was empty i wouldn t do a thing like that why would i do a thing like that she asked maybe you took two pills and forgot and took two more and forgot again and took two more and were so dopy you kept right on until you had thirty or forty of them in you heck she said what would i want to go and do a silly thing like that for i don t know he said.

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she was quite obviously waiting for him to go i didn t do that she said never in a billion years all right if you say so he said that s what the lady said she turned back to her script what s on this afternoon he asked tiredly she didn t look up from her script again well this is a play comes on the wall-towall circuit in ten minutes they mailed me my part this morning i sent in some boxtops they write the script with one part missing it s a new idea the home-maker that s me is the missing part when it comes time for the missing lines they all look at me out of the three walls and i say the lines here for instance the man says `what do you think of this whole idea helen and he looks at me sitting here centre stage see and i say i say she paused and ran her finger under a line in the script `i think that s fine and then they go on with the play until he says `do you agree to that helen and i say `i sure do isn t that fun guy he stood in the hall looking at her it s sure fun she said what s the play about i just told you there are these people named bob and ruth and helen oh it s really fun it ll be even more fun when we can afford to have the fourth wall installed how long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall-tv put in it s only two thousand dollars that s one-third of my yearly pay it s only two thousand dollars she replied and i should think you d consider me sometimes if we had a fourth wall why it d be just like this room wasn t ours at all but all kinds of exotic people s rooms we could do without a few things we re already doing without a few things to pay for the third wall it was put in only two months ago remember is that all it was she sat looking at him for a long moment well good-bye dear good-bye he said he stopped and turned around does it have a happy ending i haven t read that far he walked over read the last page nodded folded the script and handed it back to her he walked out of the house into the rain the rain was thinning away and the girl was walking in the centre of the sidewalk with her head up and the few drops falling on her face she smiled when she saw montag hello he said hello and then said what are you up to now i m still crazy the rain feels good i love to walk in it i don t think i d like that he said you might if you tried i never have she licked her lips rain even tastes good what do you do go around trying everything once he asked sometimes twice she looked at something in her hand what ve you got there he said i guess it s the last of the dandelions this year i didn t think i d find one on the lawn this late have you ever heard of rubbing it under your chin look she touched her chin with the flower laughing why if it rubs off it means i m in love has it

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he could hardly do anything else but look well she said you re yellow under there fine let s try you now it won t work for me here before he could move she had put the dandelion under his chin he drew back and she laughed hold still she peered under his chin and frowned well he said what a shame she said you re not in love with anyone yes i am it doesn t show i am very much in love he tried to conjure up a face to fit the words but there was no face i am oh please don t look that way it s that dandelion he said you ve used it all up on yourself that s why it won t work for me of course that must be it oh now i ve upset you i can see i have i m sorry really i am she touched his elbow no no he said quickly i m all right i ve got to be going so say you forgive me i don t want you angry with me i m not angry upset yes i ve got to go to see my psychiatrist now they make me go i made up things to say i don t know what he thinks of me he says i m a regular onion i keep him busy peeling away the layers i m inclined to believe you need the psychiatrist said montag you don t mean that he took a breath and let it out and at last said no i don t mean that the psychiatrist wants to know why i go out and hike around in the forests and watch the birds and collect butterflies i ll show you my collection some day good they want to know what i do with all my time i tell them that sometimes i just sit and think but i won t tell them what i ve got them running and sometimes i tell them i like to put my head back like this and let the rain fall into my mouth it tastes just like wine have you ever tried it no i you have forgiven me haven t you yes he thought about it yes i have god knows why you re peculiar you re aggravating yet you re easy to forgive you say you re seventeen well-next month how odd how strange and my wife thirty and yet you seem so much older at times i can t get over it you re peculiar yourself mr montag sometimes i even forget you re a fireman now may i make you angry again go ahead how did it start how did you get into it how did you pick your work and how did you happen to think to take the job you have you re not like the others i ve seen a few i know when i talk you look at me when i said something about the moon you looked at the moon last night the others would never do that the others would walk off and leave me talking or threaten me no one has time any more for anyone

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else you re one of the few who put up with me that s why i think it s so strange you re a fireman it just doesn t seem right for you somehow he felt his body divide itself into a hotness and a coldness a softness and a hardness a trembling and a not trembling the two halves grinding one upon the other you d better run on to your appointment he said and she ran off and left him standing there in the rain only after a long time did he move and then very slowly as he walked he tilted his head back in the rain for just a few moments and opened his mouth the mechanical hound slept but did not sleep lived but did not live in its gently humming gently vibrating softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse the dim light of one in the morning the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window touched here and there on the brass and the copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently gently gently its eight legs spidered under it on rubber-padded paws montag slid down the brass pole he went out to look at the city and the clouds had cleared away completely and he lit a cigarette and came back to bend down and look at the hound it was like a great bee come home from some field where the honey is full of poison wildness of insanity and nightmare its body crammed with that over-rich nectar and now it was sleeping the evil out of itself hello whispered montag fascinated as always with the dead beast the living beast at night when things got dull which was every night the men slid down the brass poles and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound and let loose rats in the firehouse area-way and sometimes chickens and sometimes cats that would have to be drowned anyway and there would be betting to see which the hound would seize first the animals were turned loose three seconds later the game was done the rat cat or chicken caught half across the areaway gripped in gentling paws while a four-inch hollow steel needle plunged down from the proboscis of the hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine the pawn was then tossed in the incinerator a new game began montag stayed upstairs most nights when this went on there had been a time two years ago when he had bet with the best of them and lost a week s salary and faced mildred s insane anger which showed itself in veins and blotches but now at night he lay in his bunk face turned to the wall listening to whoops of laughter below and the piano-string scurry of rat feet the violin squeaking of mice and the great shadowing motioned silence of the hound leaping out like a moth in the raw light finding holding its victim inserting the needle and going back to its kennel to die as if a switch had been turned montag touched the muzzle the hound growled montag jumped back the hound half rose in its kennel and looked at him with green-blue neon light flickering in its suddenly activated eyebulbs it growled again a strange rasping combination of electrical sizzle a frying sound a scraping of metal a turning of cogs that seemed rusty and ancient with suspicion no no boy said montag his heart pounding.

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he saw the silver needle extended upon the air an inch pull back extend pull back the growl simmered in the beast and it looked at him montag backed up the hound took a step from its kennel montag grabbed the brass pole with one hand the pole reacting slid upward and took him through the ceiling quietly he stepped off in the half-lit deck of the upper level he was trembling and his face was green-white below the hound had sunk back down upon its eight incredible insect legs and was humming to itself again its multi-faceted eyes at peace montag stood letting the fears pass by the drop-hole behind him four men at a card table under a green-lidded light in the corner glanced briefly but said nothing only the man with the captain s hat and the sign of the phoenix on his hat at last curious his playing cards in his thin hand talked across the long room montag it doesn t like me said montag what the hound the captain studied his cards come off it it doesn t like or dislike it just `functions it s like a lesson in ballistics it has a trajectory we decide for it it follows through it targets itself homes itself and cuts off it s only copper wire storage batteries and electricity montag swallowed its calculators can be set to any combination so many amino acids so much sulphur so much butterfat and alkaline right we all know that all of those chemical balances and percentages on all of us here in the house are recorded in the master file downstairs it would be easy for someone to set up a partial combination on the hound s memory a touch of amino acids perhaps that would account for what the animal did just now reacted toward me hell said the captain irritated but not completely angry just enough memory set up in it by someone so it growled when i touched it who would do a thing like that asked the captain you haven t any enemies here guy none that i know of we ll have the hound checked by our technicians tomorrow this isn t the first time it s threatened me said montag last month it happened twice we ll fix it up don t worry but montag did not move and only stood thinking of the ventilator grille in the hall at home and what lay hidden behind the grille if someone here in the firehouse knew about the ventilator then mightn t they tell the hound the captain came over to the drop-hole and gave montag a questioning glance i was just figuring said montag what does the hound think about down there nights is it coming alive on us really it makes me cold it doesn t think anything we don t want it to think that s sad said montag quietly because all we put into it is hunting and finding and killing what a shame if that s all it can ever know beatty snorted gently hell it s a fine bit of craftsmanship a good rifle that can fetch its own target and guarantees the bull s-eye every time that s why said montag i wouldn t want to be its next victim why you got a guilty conscience about something montag glanced up swiftly beatty stood there looking at him steadily with his eyes while his mouth opened and began to laugh very softly.

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one two three four five six seven days and as many times he came out of the house and clarisse was there somewhere in the world once he saw her shaking a walnut tree once he saw her sitting on the lawn knitting a blue sweater three or four times he found a bouquet of late flowers on his porch or a handful of chestnuts in a little sack or some autumn leaves neatly pinned to a sheet of white paper and thumbtacked to his door every day clarisse walked him to the corner one day it was raining the next it was clear the day after that the wind blew strong and the day after that it was mild and calm and the day after that calm day was a day like a furnace of summer and clarisse with her face all sunburnt by late afternoon why is it he said one time at the subway entrance i feel i ve known you so many years because i like you she said and i don t want anything from you and because we know each other you make me feel very old and very much like a father now you explain she said why you haven t any daughters like me if you love children so much i don t know you re joking i mean he stopped and shook his head well my wife she she just never wanted any children at all the girl stopped smiling i m sorry i really thought you were having fun at my expense i m a fool no no he said it was a good question it s been a long time since anyone cared enough to ask a good question let s talk about something else have you ever smelled old leaves don t they smell like cinnamon here smell why yes it is like cinnamon in a way she looked at him with her clear dark eyes you always seem shocked it s just i haven t had time did you look at the stretched-out billboards like i told you i think so yes he had to laugh your laugh sounds much nicer than it did does it much more relaxed he felt at ease and comfortable why aren t you in school i see you every day wandering around oh they don t miss me she said i m anti-social they say i don t mix it s so strange i m very social indeed it all depends on what you mean by social doesn t it social to me means talking about things like this she rattled some chestnuts that had fallen off the tree in the front yard or talking about how strange the world is being with people is nice but i don t think it s social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk do you an hour of tv class an hour of basketball or baseball or running another hour of transcription history or painting pictures and more sports but do you know we never ask questions or at least most don t they just run the answers at you bing bing bing and us sitting there for four more hours of film-teacher that s not social to me at all it s a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom and them telling us it s wine when it s not they run us so ragged by the end of the day we can t do anything but go to bed or head for a fun park to bully people around break windowpanes in the window smasher place or wreck cars in the car wrecker place with the big steel ball or go out in the cars and race on the streets trying to see how close you can get to lamp-

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p. 14

posts playing `chicken and knock hub-caps i guess i m everything they say i am all right i haven t any friends that s supposed to prove i m abnormal but everyone i know is either shouting or dancing around like wild or beating up one another do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays you sound so very old sometimes i m ancient i m afraid of children my own age they kill each other did it always used to be that way my uncle says no six of my friends have been shot in the last year alone ten of them died in car wrecks i m afraid of them and they don t like me because i m afraid my uncle says his grandfather remembered when children didn t kill each other but that was a long time ago when they had things different they believed in responsibility my uncle says do you know i m responsible i was spanked when i needed it years ago and i do all the shopping and house-cleaning by hand but most of all she said i like to watch people sometimes i ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them i just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they re going sometimes i even go to the fun parks and ride in the jet cars when they race on the edge of town at midnight and the police don t care as long as they re insured as long as everyone has ten thousand insurance everyone s happy sometimes i sneak around and listen in subways or i listen at soda fountains and do you know what what people don t talk about anything oh they must no not anything they name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming-pools mostly and say how swell but they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else and most of the time in the cafes they have the jokeboxes on and the same jokes most of the time or the musical wall lit and all the coloured patterns running up and down but it s only colour and all abstract and at the museums have you ever been all abstract that s all there is now my uncle says it was different once a long time back sometimes pictures said things or even showed people your uncle said your uncle said your uncle must be a remarkable man he is he certainly is well i ve got to be going goodbye mr montag good-bye good-bye one two three four five six seven days the firehouse montag you shin that pole like a bird up a tree third day montag i see you came in the back door this time the hound bother you no no fourth day montag a funny thing heard tell this morning fireman in seattle purposely set a mechanical hound to his own chemical complex and let it loose what kind of suicide would you call that five six seven days and then clarisse was gone he didn t know what there was about the afternoon but it was not seeing her somewhere in the world the lawn was empty the trees empty the street empty and while at first he did not even know he missed her or was even looking for her the fact was that by the time he reached the subway there were vague stirrings of un-ease in him something was the matter his routine had been disturbed a simple routine true established in a short few days and yet he almost turned back to make the walk again to give her time to appear he was

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p. 15

certain if he tried the same route everything would work out fine but it was late and the arrival of his train put a stop to his plan the flutter of cards motion of hands of eyelids the drone of the time-voice in the firehouse ceiling one thirty-five thursday morning november 4th one thirtysix one thirty-seven a.m the tick of the playing-cards on the greasy table-top all the sounds came to montag behind his closed eyes behind the barrier he had momentarily erected he could feel the firehouse full of glitter and shine and silence of brass colours the colours of coins of gold of silver the unseen men across the table were sighing on their cards waiting .one forty-five the voice-clock mourned out the cold hour of a cold morning of a still colder year what s wrong montag montag opened his eyes a radio hummed somewhere war may be declared any hour this country stands ready to defend its the firehouse trembled as a great flight of jet planes whistled a single note across the black morning sky montag blinked beatty was looking at him as if he were a museum statue at any moment beatty might rise and walk about him touching exploring his guilt and selfconsciousness guilt what guilt was that your play montag montag looked at these men whose faces were sunburnt by a thousand real and ten thousand imaginary fires whose work flushed their cheeks and fevered their eyes these men who looked steadily into their platinum igniter flames as they lit their eternally burning black pipes they and their charcoal hair and soot-coloured brows and bluish-ash-smeared cheeks where they had shaven close but their heritage showed montag started up his mouth opened had he ever seen a fireman that didn t have black hair black brows a fiery face and a blue-steel shaved but unshaved look these men were all mirror-images of himself were all firemen picked then for their looks as well as their proclivities the colour of cinders and ash about them and the continual smell of burning from their pipes captain beatty there rising in thunderheads of tobacco smoke beatty opening a fresh tobacco packet crumpling the cellophane into a sound of fire montag looked at the cards in his own hands i-i ve been thinking about the fire last week about the man whose library we fixed what happened to him they took him screaming off to the asylum he wasn t insane beatty arranged his cards quietly any man s insane who thinks he can fool the government and us i ve tried to imagine said montag just how it would feel i mean to have firemen burn our houses and our books we haven t any books but if we did have some you got some beatty blinked slowly no montag gazed beyond them to the wall with the typed lists of a million forbidden books their names leapt in fire burning down the years under his axe and his hose which sprayed not water but kerosene no but in his mind a cool wind started up and blew out of the ventilator grille at home softly softly chilling his face and again he saw himself in a green park talking to an old man a very old man and the wind from the park was cold too.

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