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.""No! " said Montag.He twitched the safety catch on the flame-thrower.Beatty glanced instantly atMontag's fingers and his eyes widened the faintest bit.Montag saw the surprise thereand himself glanced to his hands to see what new thing they had done.Thinkingback later he could never decide whether the hands or Beatty's reaction to the handsgave him the final push toward murder.The last rolling thunder of the avalanchestoned down about his ears, not touching him.Beatty grinned his most charming grin."Well, that's one way to get an audience.Holda gun on a man and force him to listen to your speech.Speech away.What'll it bethis time? Why don't you belch Shakespeare at me, you fumbling snob? `There is noterror, Cassius, in your threats, for I am arm'd so strong in honesty that they pass byme as an idle wind, which I respect not!' How's that? Go ahead now, you second-hand litterateur, pull the trigger." He took one step toward Montag.Montag only said, "We never burned right.""Hand it over, Guy," said Beatty with a fixed smile.And then he was a shrieking blaze, a jumping, sprawling, gibbering mannikin, nolonger human or known, all writhing flame on the lawn as Montag shot onecontinuous pulse of liquid fire on him.There was a hiss like a great mouthful of spittlebanging a redhot stove, a bubbling and frothing as if salt had been poured over amonstrous black snail to cause a terrible liquefaction and a boiling over of yellowfoam.Montag shut his eyes, shouted, shouted, and fought to get his hands at hisears to clamp and to cut away the sound.Beatty flopped over and over and over, andat last twisted in on himself like a charred wax doll and lay silent.The other two firemen did not move.Montag kept his sickness down long enough to aim the flame-thrower."Turn around!"They turned, their faces like blanched meat, streaming sweat; he beat their heads,knocking off their helmets and bringing them down on themselves.They fell and laywithout moving.The blowing of a single autumn leaf.He turned and the Mechanical Hound was there.It was half across the lawn, coming from the shadows, moving with such drifting easethat it was like a single solid cloud of black-grey smoke blown at him in silence.It made a single last leap into the air, coming down at Montag from a good three feetover his head, its spidered legs reaching, the procaine needle snapping out its singleangry tooth.Montag caught it with a bloom of fire, a single wondrous blossom thatcurled in petals of yellow and blue and orange about the metal dog, clad it in a newcovering as it slammed into Montag and threw him ten feet back against the bole of atree, taking the flame-gun with him.He felt it scrabble and seize his leg and stab theneedle in for a moment before the fire snapped the Hound up in the air, burst itsmetal bones at the joints, and blew out its interior in the single flushing of red colourlike a skyrocket fastened to the street.Montag lay watching the dead-alive thingfiddle the air and die.Even now it seemed to want to get back at him and finish theinjection which was now working through the flesh of his leg.He felt all of the mingledrelief and horror at having pulled back only in time to have just his knee slammed bythe fender of a car hurtling by at ninety miles an hour.He was afraid toget up, afraid he might not be able to gain his feet at all, with an anaesthetized leg.Anumbness in a numbness hollowed into a numbness.And now.?The street empty, the house burnt like an ancient bit of stage-scenery, the otherhomes dark, the Hound here, Beatty there, the three other firemen another place,and the Salamander.? He gazed at the immense engine.That would have to go,too.Well, he thought, let's see how badly off you are.On your feet now.Easy, easy.there.He stood and he had only one leg.The other was like a chunk of burnt pine-log hewas carrying along as a penance for some obscure sin.When he put his weight on it,a shower of silver needles gushed up the length of the calf and went off in the knee.He wept.Come on! Come on, you, you can't stay here!A few house-lights were going on again down the street, whether from the incidentsjust passed, or because of the abnormal silence following the fight, Montag did notknow.He hobbled around the ruins, seizing at his bad leg when it lagged, talking andwhimpering and shouting directions at it and cursing it and pleading with it to work forhim now when it was vital.He heard a number of people crying out in the darknessand shouting.He reached the back yard and the alley.Beatty, he thought, you're nota problem now.You always said, don't face a problem, bum it.Well, now I've doneboth.Good-bye, Captain.And he stumbled along the alley in the dark.A shotgun blast went off in his leg every time he put it down and he thought, you're afool, a damn fool, an awful fool, an idiot, an awful idiot, a damn idiot, and a fool, adamn fool; look at the mess and where's the mop, look at the mess, and what do youdo? Pride, damn it, and temper, and you've junked it all, at the very start you vomiton everyone and on yourself.But everything at once, but everything one on top ofanother; Beatty, the women, Mildred, Clarisse, everything.No excuse, though, noexcuse.A fool, a damn fool, go give yourself up!No, we'll save what we can, we'll do what there is left to do.If we have to burn, let'stake a few more with us.Here!He remembered the books and turned back.Just on the off chance.He found a few books where he had left them, near the garden fence.Mildred, Godbless her, had missed a few.Four books still lay hidden where he had put them [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]