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.This other is Dr.Simmons from U.C.L.A., aspecialist in Ortega y Gasset; Professor West here did quite a bit for ethics, anancient study now, for Columbia University quite some years ago.Reverend Padoverhere gave a few lectures thirty years ago and lost his flock between one Sunday andthe next for his views.He's been bumming with us some time now.Myself: I wrote abook called The Fingers in the Glove; the Proper Relationship between the Individualand Society, and here I am! Welcome, Montag! ""I don't belong with you," said Montag, at last, slowly."I've been an idiot all the way.""We're used to that.We all made the right kind of mistakes, or we wouldn't be here.When we were separate individuals, all we had was rage.I struck a fireman when hecame to burn my library 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 ofRevelation, but I haven't even that now.""The Book of Ecclesiastes would be fine.Where was it?""Here," Montag touched his head."Ah," Granger smiled and nodded."What's wrong? Isn't that all right?" said Montag."Better than all right; perfect!" Granger turned to the Reverend."Do we have a Bookof Ecclesiastes?""One.A man named Harris of Youngstown.""Montag." Granger took Montag's shoulder firmly."Walk carefully.Guard your health.If anything should happen to Harris, you are the Book of Ecclesiastes.See howimportant you've become in the last minute!""But I've forgotten!""No, nothing's ever lost.We have ways to 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, butspend a lifetime learning how to block off the things that are really in there.Simmonshere 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, toread Plato's Republic?""Of course!""I am Plato's Republic.Like to read Marcus Aurelius? Mr.Simmons is Marcus.""How do you do?" said Mr.Simmons."Hello," said Montag."I want you to meet Jonathan Swift, the author of that evil political book, Gulliver'sTravels! And this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and-this one is Schopenhauer, andthis one is Einstein, and this one here at my elbow is Mr.Albert Schweitzer, a verykind philosopher indeed.Here we all are, Montag.Aristophanes and MahatmaGandhi and Gautama Buddha and Confucius and Thomas Love Peacock andThomas Jefferson and Mr.Lincoln, if you please.We are also Matthew, Mark, Luke,and John."Everyone laughed quietly."It can't be," said Montag."It is," replied Granger, smiling." We're book-burners, too.We read the books andburnt them, afraid they'd be found.Micro-filming didn't pay off; we were alwaystravelling, we didn't want to bury the film and come back later.Always the chance ofdiscovery.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, TomPaine, Machiavelli, or Christ, it's here.And the hour is late.And the war's begun.Andwe are out here, and the city is there, all wrapped up in its own coat of a thousandcolours.What do you think, Montag?""I think I was blind trying to do things my way, planting books in firemen's houses andsending in alarms.""You did what you had to do.Carried out on a national scale, it might have workedbeautifully.But our way is simpler and, we think, better.All we want to do is keep theknowledge we think we will need, intact and safe.We're not out to incite or angeranyone yet.For if we are destroyed, the knowledge is dead, perhaps for good.Weare model citizens, in our own special way; we walk the old tracks, we lie in the hillsat night, and the city people let us be.We're stopped and searched occasionally, butthere's nothing on our persons to incriminate us.The organization is flexible, veryloose, and fragmentary.Some of us have had plastic surgery on our faces andfingerprints.Right now we have a horrible job; we're waiting for the war to begin and,as quickly, end.It's not pleasant, but then we're not in control, we're the odd minoritycrying in the wilderness.When the war's over, perhaps we can be of some use in theworld.""Do you really think they'll listen then?""If not, we'll just have to wait.We'll pass the books on to our children, by word ofmouth, and let our children wait, in turn, on the other people.A lot will be lost thatway, of course.But you can't make people listen.They have to come round in their own time,wondering what happened and why the world blew up under them.It can't last.""How many of you are there?""Thousands on the roads, the abandoned railtracks, tonight, bums on the outside,libraries inside.It wasn't planned, at first.Each man had a book he wanted toremember, and did.Then, over a period of twenty years or so, we met each other,travelling, and got the loose network together and set out a plan.The most importantsingle thing we had to pound into ourselves was that we were not important, wemustn't be pedants; we were not to feel superior to anyone else in the world.We'renothing more than dust-jackets for books, of no significance otherwise.Some of us live in small towns.Chapter One of Thoreau's Walden in Green River, Chapter Twoin Willow Farm, Maine.Why, there's one town in Maryland, only twenty-sevenpeople, no bomb'll ever touch that town, is the complete essays of a man namedBertrand Russell.Pick up that town, almost, and flip the pages, so many pages to aperson.And when the war's over, some day, some year, the books can be writtenagain, the people will be called in, one by one, to recite what they know and we'll setit up in type until another Dark Age, when we might have to do the whole damn thingover again.But that's the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouragedor disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it isimportant and worth the doing.""What do we do tonight?" asked Montag."Wait," said Granger."And move downstream a little way, just in case."He began throwing dust and dirt on the fire
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