032753057302

"We burned copies of Dante and Swift and Marcus Aurelius."
"Wasn't he a European?"
"Something like that."
"Wasn't he a radical?"
"I 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
parlour 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 awhile?"
"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, Millie! "
"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'll 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 parlour 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 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?"