Alright, you can come out now.
It's alright, you're welcome here.
Some coffee, Mr. Montag?
Thank you.
You're welcome. My name is Granger.
Drink this. It'll change your chemical index so you'll smell like two other people.
You know me?
Yes. The chase is still going on over the radio.
What chase?
Look and see.
They're faking it. You threw them off at the river. They can't admit it. They know that you're holding-
They can only hold their audience for so long.
Show's gotta have a snap ending. Quick!
If they started to breach the whole damn river, it might-
It might take all night. So they're sniffing out a scapegoat to end things with a bang.
Watch. They'll catch "Montag" in the next five minutes.
But how?
Watch.
See that? It'll be you; right up at the end of that street is our next victim.
See how the cameras are coming in? Building the scene. Suspense. Long shot.
Right now, some poor fellow is out for a walk. A rarity. An odd one.
Don't think the police don't know the habits of queer ducks like that, men who walk mornings for the hell of it, or for reasons of insomnia.
Anyway, the police have had him charted for months, years.
Never know when that sort of
information might be handy.
And today, it turns out, it's very usable indeed. It saves face.
Oh gosh. Look there!
Even your best friends couldn't tell if it was you. They scrambled it just enough to let the imagination take over.
Hell... hell.
Welcome back from the dead.
You might as well get to know me. I wrote a book called,
"The Fingers in the Glove; the Proper Relationship between the Individual and Society"
And here I am. Welcome, Montag!
I don't belong with you. I've been an idiot all the way.
We're used to that. We've made all the right kinds of mistakes, or we wouldn't have been here.
When we were separate individuals, all we had was rage.
I struck a fireman-
I struck a fireman when he came to burn my library thirty years ago.
I've been running ever since. You want to join us, Montag?
Yes.
What have you to offer?
Nothing. I thought I had part of the Book of Ecclesiastes and maybe a little of Revelation, but I haven't- I haven't even that now.
The Book of Ecclesiastes would be fine. Where was it?
Here.
Ah.
What's wrong? Isn't that all right?
Better than all right; perfect!
Now let's see. Do we have- oh yes!
A man named Harris in Youngstown.
Walk carefully. Guard your health.
If anything should happen to Harris, you are the Book of Ecclesiastes.
See how important you've become in the last minute!
But I've forgotten!
No, nothing's ever lost. We have ways to shake you down- shake down your clinkers for you.
But I've tried to remember!
Don't try. It'll come when we need it.
All of us have photographic memories, but spend a lifetime learning how to block off the things that are really in there.
An old friend of mine, Simmons, has worked on it for twenty years and now we've got the method down to where we can recall anything that's been read once.
Would you like, some day, Montag, to read Plato's Republic?
Of course!
I am Plato's Republic.
Like to read Marcus Aurelius? Mr. Simmons is Marcus.
Later on, I want you to meet Jonathan Swift, the author of that evil political book, Gulliver's Travels!
And another fellow who is Charles Darwin, and another who is Schopenhauer, and another who is Einstein, and the very kind philosopher, Mr. Albert Schweitzer.
We're all here on Earth, Montag.
Aristophanes and Mahatma Gandhi and Gautama Buddha and Confucius and Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson and Mr. Lincoln, if you please.
We are also Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
It can't be.
It is. We're book-burners, too. We read the books and burnt them, afraid they'd be found.
Micro-filming didn't pay off; we were always travelling, we didn't want to bury the film and come back later. Always the chance of discovery.
Better to keep it in the old heads, where no one can see it or suspect it.
We are all bits and pieces of history and literature and international law...
Byron, Tom Paine, Machiavelli, or Christ, it's here.
And the hour is late. And the war's begun.
And we are out here, and the city is there... all wrapped up in its own coat of a thousand colors.
What do you think, Montag?
I think I was blind trying to do things my way, planting books in firemen's houses and sending in alarms.
You did what you had to do. Carried out on a national scale, it might have worked beautifully. But our way is simpler and, we think, better.
All we want to do is keep the knowledge we think we will need, intact and safe. We're not out to incite or anger anyone yet.
For if we are destroyed, the knowledge is dead, perhaps for good.
We are model citizens, in our own special way; we walk the old tracks, we lie in the hills at night, and the city people let us be.
We're stopped and searched occasionally, but there's nothing on our persons to incriminate us.
*One long conversation later*
What do we do tonight?
Tonight, we wait. And move downstream a little way, just in case.
