Read The Fireman for Free Online Page A

leaped up past the pale, frightened faces, screamed in his mind soundlessly, and was out the opening door of the train and running on the white tiles up and up through tunnels, alone, that voice still crying like a seagull on a lonely shore after him, "Denham's, Denham's..."
     
    Professor Faber opened the door, saw the book, seized it. "My God, I haven't held a copy in years!"
     
    "We burned a house last night. I stole it."
     
    "What a chance to take!"
     
    Montag stood catching his breath. "I was curious."
     
    "Of course. It's beautiful. Here, come in, shut the door, sit down." Faber walked with the book in his fingers, feeling it, flipping the pages slowly, hungrily, a thin man, bald, with slender hands, as light as chaff. "There were a lot of lovely books once. Before we let them go." He sat down and put his hand over his eyes. "You are looking at a coward, Mr. Montag. When they burned the last of the evil books, as they called them, forty years back, I made only a few feeble protestations and subsided. I've damned myself ever since."
     
    "It's not too late. There are still books."
     
    "And there is still life in me, and I'm afraid of dying. Civilizations fall because men like myself fear death."
     
    "I've a plan," said Montag. "I'm in a position to do things. I'm a fireman; I can find and hide books. Last night I lay awake, thinking. We might publish many books privately when we have copies to print from."
     
    "How many have been killed for that?"
     
    "We'll get a press."
     
    "We? Not we. You, Mr. Montag."
     
    "You must help me. You're the only one I know. You must."
     
    "Must? What do you mean, must?'
     
    "We could find someone to build a press for us."
     
    "Impossible. The books are dead."
     
    "We can bring them back. I have a little money."
     
    "No, no." Faber waved his hands, his old hands, blotched with liver freckles.
     
    "But let me tell you my plan."
     
    "I don't want to hear. If you insist on telling me, I must ask you to leave."
     
    "We'll have extra copies of each book printed and hide them in firemen's houses!"
     
    "What?" The Professor raised his brows and gazed at Montag as if a bright light had been switched on.
     
    "Yes, and put in an alarm."
     
    "Call the fire engines?"
     
    "Yes, and see the engines roar up. See the doors battered down on firemen's houses for a change. And see the planted books found and each fireman, at last, accused and thrown in jail!"
     
    The Professor put his hand to his face. "Why, that's absolutely sinister."
     
    "Do you like it?"
     
    "The dragon eats his tail."
     
    "You'll join me?"
     
    "I didn't say that. No, no."
     
    ""BUT you see the confusion and suspicion we could spread?"
     
    "Yes, plenty of trouble there."
     
    "I've a list of firemen's homes all across the states. With an underground, we could reap fire and chaos for every blind bastard in the industry."
     
    "You can't trust anyone, though."
     
    "What about Professors like yourself, former actors, directors, writers, historians, linguists?"
     
    "Dead, or ancient, all of them."
     
    "Good. They'll have fallen from public notice. You know hundreds of them. I know you must."
     
    "Nevertheless, I can't help you, Montag. I'll admit your idea appeals to my sense of humor, to my delight in striking back. A temporary delight, however. I'm a frightened man; I frighten easily."
     
    "Think of the actors alone, then, who haven't acted Shakespeare or Pirandello. We could use their anger, and the rage of historians who haven't written for forty years. We could start small classes in reading..."
     
    "Impractical."
     
    "We could try."
     
    "The whole civilization must fall. We can't change just the front. The framework needs melting and remolding. Don't you realize, young man, that the Great Burning forty years back was almost unnecessary? By that time the public had stopped reading. Libraries were Saharas of emptiness. Except the Science Department."
     
    "But—"
     
    "Can you shout louder than radio,