He clenched the book in his fists.

Trumpets blared.

“Denham’s Dentrifice.”

Shut up, thought Montag. Consider the lilies of the field.

“Denham’s Dentifrice.”

They toil not —

“Denham’s…”

Consider the lilies of the field, shut up, shut up.

“Dentifrice!”

He tore the book open and flicked the pages and felt them as if he were blind, he picked at the shape of the individual letters, not blinking.

“Denham’s. Spelled: D-E-N”

They toil not, neither do they…

A fierce whisper of hot sand through empty sieve.

“Denham’s does it!”

Consider the lilies, the lilies, the lilies…

“Denham’s dental detergent.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” It was a plea, a cry so terrible that Montag found himself on his feet, the shocked inhabitants of the loud car staring, moving back from this man with the insane, gorged face, the gibbering, dry mouth, the flapping book in his fist. The people who had been sitting a moment before, tapping their feet to the rhythm of Denham’s Dentifrice, Denham’s Dandy Dental Detergent, Denham’s Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice, one two, one two three, one two, one two three. The people whose mouths had been faintly twitching the words Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice. The train radio vomited upon Montag, in retaliation, a great ton-load of music made of tin, copper, silver, chromium, and brass. The people wcre pounded into submission; they did not run, there was no place to run; the great air-train fell down its shaft in the earth.

“Lilies of the field.”

“Denham’s.”

“Lilies, I said!”

The people stared.

“Call the guard.”

“The man’s off – ”

“Knoll View!”

The train hissed to its stop.

“Knoll View!” A cry.

“Denham’s.” A whisper.

Montag’s mouth barely moved.

“Lilies…”

The train door whistled open. Montag stood. The door gasped, started shut. Only then. did he leap past the other passengers, screaming in his mind, plunge through the slicing door only in time. He ran on the white tiles up through the tunnels, ignoring the escalators, because he wanted to feel his feet-move, arms swing, lungs clench, unclench, feel his throat go raw with air. A voice drifted after him, “Denham’s Denham’s Denham’s,” the train hissed like a snake. The train vanished in its hole.

“Who is it?”

“Montag out here.”

“What do you want?”

“Let me in.”

“I haven’t done anything!”

“I’m alone, dammit!”

“You swear it?”

“I swear!”

The front door opened slowly. Faber peered out, looking very old in the light and very fragile and very much afraid. The old man looked as if he had not been out of the house in years. He and the white plaster walls inside were much the same. There was white in the flesh of his mouth and his cheeks and his hair was white and his eyes had faded, with white in the vague blueness there. Then his eyes touched on the book under Montag’s arm and he did not look so old any more and not quite as fragile. Slowly his fear went.

“I’m sorry. One has to be careful.”

He looked at the book under Montag’s arm and could not stop.

“So it’s true.”

Montag stepped inside. The door shut.

“Sit down.”

Faber backed up, as if he feared the book might vanish if he took his eyes from it. Behind him, the door to a bedroom stood open, and in that room a litter of machinery and steel tools was strewn upon a desk-top. Montag had only a glimpse, before Faber, seeing Montag’s attention diverted, turned quickly and shut the bedroom door and stood holding the knob with a trembling hand. His gaze returned unsteadily to Montag, who was now seated with the book in his lap.

“The book-where did you-?”

“I stole it.”

Faber, for the first time, raised his eyes and looked directly into Montag’s face.

“You’re brave.”

“No,” said Montag. “My wife’s dying. A friend of mine’s already dead. Someone who may have been a friend was burnt less than twenty-four hours ago. You’re the only one I knew might help me. To see. To see…”

Faber’s hands itched on his knees.

“May I?”

“Sorry.” Montag gave him the book.

“It’s been a long time. I’m not a religious man. But it’s been a long time.” Faber turned the pages, stopping here and there to read. “It’s as good as I remember. Lord, how they’ve changed itin our ‘parlours’ these days. Christ is one of the ‘family’ now. I often wonder it God recognizes His own son the way we’ve dressed him up, or is it dressed him down? He’s a regular peppermint stick now, all sugar-crystal and saccharine when he isn’t making veiled references to certain commercial products that every worshipper absolutely needs.”

Faber sniffed the book.

“Do you know that books smell like nutmeg or some spice from a foreign land? I loved to smell them when I was a boy. Lord, there were a lot of lovely books once, before we let them go.”

Faber turned the pages.

“Mr. Montag, you are looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing. I’m one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the ‘guilty,’ but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself. And when finally they set the structure to burn the books, using the, firemen, I grunted a few times and subsided, for there were no others grunting or yelling with me, by then. Now, it’s too late.”

Faber closed the Bible.

“Well – suppose you tell me why you came here?”

“Nobody listens any more. I can’t talk to the walls because they’re yelling at me. I can’t talk to my wife; she listens to the walls. I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it’ll make sense. And I want you to teach me to understand what I read.”

Faber examined Montag’s thin, blue-jowled face. “How did you get shaken up?

What knocked the torch out of your hands?”