"Not good night. I'll be with you the rest of the night, a vinegar gnat tickling your ear when you need me. But good night and good luck, anyway."
The door opened and shut. Montag was in the dark street again, looking at the world.
You could feel the war getting ready in the sky that night. The way the clouds moved aside and came back, and the way the stars looked, a million of them swimming between the clouds, like the enemy disks, and the feeling that the sky might fall upon the city and turn it to chalk dust, and the moon go up in red fire; that was how the night felt.
Montag walked from the subway with the money in his pocket (he had visited the bank which was open all night every night with robot tellers in attendance) and as he walked he was listening to the Seashell Radio in one ear. . . . "We have mobilized a million men. Quick victory is ours if the war comes. . . ." Music flooded over the voice quickly and it was gone.
"Ten million men mobilized," Faber's voice whispered in his other ear. "But say one million. It's happier."
"Faber?"
"Yes?"
"I'm not thinking. I'm just doing like I'm told, like always. You said get the money and I got it. I didn't really think of it myself. When do I start working things out on my own?"
"You've started already, by saying what you just said. You'll have to take me on faith."
"I took the others on faith!"
"Yes, and look where we're headed. You'll have to travel blind for a while. Here's my arm to hold onto."
"I don't want to change sides and just be told what to do. There's no reason to change if I do that."
"You're wise already!"
Montag felt his feet moving him on the sidewalk toward his house. "Keep talking."
"Would you like me to read? I'll read so you can remember. I go to bed only five hours a night. Nothing to do. So if you like, I'll read you to sleep nights. They say you retain knowledge even when you're sleeping, if someone whispers it in your ear."
"Yes."
"Here." Far away across town in the night, the faintest whisper of a turned page. "The Book of Job."
The moon rose in the sky as Montag walked, his lips moving just a trifle.
He was eating a light supper at nine in the evening when the front door cried out in the hall and Mildred ran from the parlor like a native fleeing an eruption of Vesuvius. Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles came through the front door and vanished into the volcano's mouth with martinis in their hands. Montag stopped eating. They were like a monstrous crystal chandelier tinkling in a thousand chimes, he saw their Cheshire cat smiles burning through the walls of the house, and now they were screaming at each other above the din.
Montag found himself at the parlor door with his food still in his mouth.
"Doesn't everyone look nice!"
"Nice."
"You look fine, Millie!"
"Fine."
"Everyone looks swell."
"Swell!"
Montag stood watching them.
"Patience," whispered Faber.
"I shouldn't be here," whispered Montag, almost to himself. "I should be on my way back to you with the money!"
"Tomorrow's time enough. Careful!"