Fahrenheit 451

Part 1

PART ONE :	PRVI DIO
THE HEARTH AND THE SALAMANDER	OGNJIŠTE I DAŽDEVNJAK
"If they give you ruled paper, write the other way." JUAN RAMÓN JIMÉNEZ	"Ako vam dadu papir s crtama Pišite na drugi način" - Juan Ramon Jimenez
IT WAS A PLEASURE TO BURN.	Užitak je bio paliti.
It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.	Osobit je užitak bio gledati kako stvari nestaju, kako crne i mijenjaju se. S bakrenom štrcaljkom u rukama, tim velikim udavom koji svoj otrovni petrolej pljuje u svijet, krv mu je udarala u glavi, a ruke su mu bile ruke nekakvog čudesnog dirigenta koji izvodi sve simfonije plamsanja i paljenja kako bi šatro ostatke i pougljenjele ostatke povijesti. Sa simboličnim šljemom s brojkom 451 na ravnodušnoj glavi i očima punim narančastog ognja pri pomisli na ono što slijedi, kvrcnuo je upaljač i kuća je poskočila od pohlepne vatre koja je večernje nebo obojila crvenilom, žutilom i crnilom. Koraknuo je u roj krijesnica. Poželio je više od svega da, kao u staroj šali, u ovu peć gurne sljez na štapu dok na verandi i travnjaku poput golubova uzlepetalih krila umiru knjige i u iskričavim kovitlacima uzlijeću i nestaju s vjetrom potamnjelim od paljenja.
Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame. He knew that when he returned to the firehouse, he might wink at himself, a minstrel man, burnt-corked, in the mirror. Later, going to sleep, he would feel the fiery smile still gripped by his face muscles, in the dark. It never went away, that. smile, it never ever went away, as long as he remembered.	Montag se divlje cerio smijehom ljudi koje je vatra oprljila i natjerala na uzmak. Znao je da će po povratku u vatrogasni dom moći namignuti samom sebi, nagaravljenu umjetniku, u zrcalu. Kasnije, pri odlasku na spavanje, osjetit će kako mu u mraku užagren osmijeh zateže mišićje lica. Koliko pamti, taj osmijeh nikad, baš nikad nije nestajao.
He hung up his black-beetle-coloured helmet and shined it, he hung his flameproof jacket neatly; he showered luxuriously, and then, whistling, hands in pockets, walked across the upper floor of the fire station and fell down the hole. At the last moment, when disaster seemed positive, he pulled his hands from his pockets and broke his fall by grasping the golden pole. He slid to a squeaking halt, the heels one inch from the concrete floor downstairs.	Objesio je svoj poput žohara crn šljem i olaštio ga, uredno je objesio svoj vatrostalni haljetak; dobro se istuširao, pa zatim, fućkajući, s rukama u džepovima, prešao gornji kat vatrogasne stanice i sunovratio se kroz rupu. U posljednjem trenutku, kad se katastrofa učinila neumitnom, izvukao je ruke iz džepova i osujetio pad ščepavši zlatnu motku. Uz škripu se zaustavio, a pete su mu bile tek dva centrimetra od betonskog poda prizemlja.
He walked out of the fire station and along the midnight street toward the subway where the silent, air-propelled train slid soundlessly down its lubricated flue in the earth and let him out with a great puff of warm air an to the cream-tiled escalator rising to the suburb.	Izašao je iz vatrogasne stanice, gdje je tihi, zrakom potiskivani vlak bešumno klizio svojim podmazanim kanalom u zemlji, da bi ga vlak potom sa snažnim pahom vrućega zraka ispustio na žućkasto dizalo koje ga je uzdizalo u otmjenu stambenu četvrt.
Whistling, he let the escalator waft him into the still night air. He walked toward the corner, thinking little at all about nothing in particular. Before he reached the corner, however, he slowed as if a wind had sprung up from nowhere, as if someone had called his name.	Zviždučući, pustio je da ga dizalo donese na miran noćni zrak. Pošao je prema uglu, ne razmišljajući pritom ni o čemu posebno. Međutim, prije no što je stigao do ugla, malko je usporio; učinilo mu se, naime, kao da je niotkuda puhnuo nekakav povjetarac, kao da ga je netko zovnuo imenom.
The last few nights he had had the most uncertain feelings about the sidewalk just around the corner here, moving in the starlight toward his house. He had felt that a moment before his making the turn, someone had been there. The air seemed charged with a special calm as if someone had waited there, quietly, and only a moment before he came, simply turned to a shadow and let him through. Perhaps his nose detected a faint perfume, perhaps the skin on the backs of his hands, on his face, felt the temperature rise at this one spot where a person's standing might raise the immediate atmosphere ten degrees for an instant. There was no understanding it. Each time he made the turn, he saw only the white, unused, buckling sidewalk, with perhaps, on one night, something vanishing swiftly across a lawn before he could focus his eyes or speak.	Zadnjih nekoliko noći imao je nekakav krajnje neodrediv osjećaj o pločniku tik iza ugla dok se pri svjetlosti zvijezda kretao prema svojoj kući. Osjetio je bio da se tik prije no što će zaokrenuti za ugao ondje netko nalazio. Zrak je bio nabijen nekom osobitom spokojnošću, kao da je ondje netko čekao u tišini, da bi samo časak prije nego što će on naići taj netko jednostavno zašao u sjenu i pustio ga da prođe. Možda je njegov nos osjetio slabašan parfem, možda je pak kožom nadlanice, lica, osjetio povišenje temperature baš na onom mjestu gdje bi neka osoba samim stajanjem mogla atmosferu u jednom trenutku promijeniti za deset stupnjeva. Nije bilo nikakva objašnjenja. Svaki put kad bi zaokretao, vidio je samo bijeli, nekorišteni, nagnuti pločnik te možda, jedne noći, nešto što je brzo nestajalo preko travnjaka i prije no što je stigao ustremiti pogled ili progovoriti.
But now, tonight, he slowed almost to a stop. His inner mind, reaching out to turn the corner for him, had heard the faintest whisper. Breathing? Or was the atmosphere compressed merely by someone standing very quietly there, waiting? He turned the corner.	Ali sada, večeras, usporio je tako da se gotovo zaustavio. Njegova podsvijest, koja se napregnula da za nj zakrene za ugao, osluhnula je slabašan šapat. Disanje? Ili je pak atmosferu zgusnulo već samo to što je ondje netko vrlo mirno stajao i čekao? Zašao je za ugao.
The autumn leaves blew over the moonlit pavement in such a way as to make the girl who was moving there seem fixed to a sliding walk, letting the motion of the wind and the leaves carry her forward. Her head was half bent to watch her shoes stir the circling leaves. Her face was slender and milk-white, and in it was a kind of gentle hunger that touched over everything with tireless curiosity. It was a look, almost, of pale surprise; the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that no move escaped them. Her dress was white and it whispered. He almost thought he heard the motion of her hands as she walked, and the infinitely small sound now, the white stir of her face turning when she discovered she was a moment away from a man who stood in the middle of the pavement waiting.	Jesensko lišće vijalo je preko mjesečinom obasjana pločnika na takav način da je djevojka koja se njime kretala izgledala kao da klizi, puštajući vjetru i lišću da je nose naprijed. Glavu je napola sagnula kako bi promatrala cipele koje su podizale uskovitlano lišće. Lice joj je bilo nježno i mliječno bijelo, a na njemu se zamjećivala crta neke otmjene gladi koja je sve uljepšavala neumornom znatiželjom. Bio je to pogled gotovo nejasna iznenađenja; tamne oči bile su toliko usredotočene na svijet da im nikakav pokret nije mogao izmaknuti. Haljina joj je bila bijela i šuštava. Gotovo da je pomislio kako čuje pokret njezinih ruku dok se kreće i isto takav neizmjerno slabašan zvuk: bijeli pomak njezina lica koje se pokrenulo kad je ustanovila da je samo jedan trenutak dijeli od muškarca koji stoji nasred pločnika i čeka.
The trees overhead made a great sound of letting down their dry rain. The girl stopped and looked as if she might pull back in surprise, but instead stood regarding Montag with eyes so dark and shining and alive, that he felt he had said something quite wonderful. But he knew his mouth had only moved to say hello, and then when she seemed hypnotized by the salamander on his arm and the phoenix-disc on his chest, he spoke again.	S drveća u visini začuo se veličanstven zvuk pljuska kiše. Djevojka se zaustavila i činilo se kao da bi se, zatečena, mogla još povući, no umjesto toga stala je i promatrala Montaga očima tako tamnim, blještavim i živahnim da je osjetio kako je rekao nešto istinski divno. No znao je da su se njegova usta pokrenula samo da izreknu pozdrav, pa je onda kad se učinilo da je djevojka zatravljena daždevnjakom na njegovoj nadlaktici i feniksovom pločicom na prsima prozborio ponovno.
"Of course," he said, "you're a new neighbour, aren't you?"	- Pa, naravno - rekao je - vi ste nova susjeda, zar ne?
"And you must be"―she raised her eyes from his professional symbols―"the fireman." Her voice trailed off.	- A vi mora da ste - podigla je oči sa simbola njegove profesije - vatrogasac. - Glas joj je zamro.
"How oddly you say that."	- Kako to čudno kažete.
"I'd―I'd have known it with my eyes shut," she said, slowly.	- Pa, pa to bih odgonetnula i žmirećke - kazala je polako.
"What―the smell of kerosene? My wife always complains," he laughed. "You never wash it off completely."	- Što, po mirisu petroleja? Moja žena uvijek prigovara -nasmijao se. - Nikad ga potpuno isprati.
"No, you don't," she said, in awe. He felt she was walking in a circle about him, turning him end for end, shaking him quietly, and emptying his pockets, without once moving herself.	- Ne, ne, nikada - kazala je sa strahopoštovanjem. Osjetio je da kruži oko njega, obrađuje ga malo-pomalo, potresa mirno i prazni mu džepove, a da se pritom sama nijednom ne pomakne.
"Kerosene," he said, because the silence had lengthened, "is nothing but perfume to me."	- Petrolej je - rekao je jer se stanka bila otegnula - za me isključivo parfem.
"Does it seem like that, really?"	- Stvarno vam se takvim čini?
"Of course. Why not?"	- Naravno. Zašto ne?
She gave herself time to think of it. "I don't know." She turned to face the sidewalk going toward their homes. "Do you mind if I walk back with you? I'm Clarisse McClellan."	Dala si je vremena da promisli. - Ne znam. - Okrenula se prema pločniku koji ih je vodio kući. - Imate li što protiv da se vratim s vama? Ja sam Clarisse McClellan.
"Clarisse. Guy Montag. Come along. What are you doing out so late wandering around? How old are you?"	- Clarisse, ja sam Guy Montag. Pođimo! Što radite tako kasno vani tumarajući? Koliko vam je godina?
They walked in the warm-cool blowing night on the silvered pavement and there was the faintest breath of fresh apricots and strawberries in the air, and he looked around and realized this was quite impossible, so late in the year.	Hodali su kroz toplosvježu vjetrovitu noć po srebrnom pločniku; u zraku se osjetio slabašan miris svježih marelica i jagoda, pa se Montag osvrnuo i spoznao da je to potpuno nemoguće, s obzirom na kasno godišnje doba.
There was only the girl walking with him now, her face bright as snow in the moonlight, and he knew she was working his questions around, seeking the best answers she could possibly give.	Postojala je samo djevojka koja sada s njim hoda, a čije je lice bilo svijetlo poput snijega na mjesečini; znao je da ona sada pretresa njegova pitanja tragajući za najboljim odgovorima koje bi mu mogla pružiti.
"Well," she said, "I'm seventeen and I'm crazy. My uncle says the two always go together. When people ask your age, he said, always say seventeen and insane. Isn't this a nice time of night to walk? I like to smell things and look at things, and sometimes stay up all night, walking, and watch the sun rise."	- Pa - rekla je - imam sedamnaest godina i luda sam. Moj ujo veli da ovo dvoje uvijek ide skupa. Kad te ljudi pitaju koliko ti je godina, rekao je, uvijek reci da ti je sedamnaest i da si luda. Nije li ovo divno doba noći za šetnju? Volim omirisati stvari, pogledati ih te ponekad probdjeti čitavu noć šećući i promatrati kako izlazi sunce.
They walked on again in silence and finally she said, thoughtfully, "You know, I'm not afraid of you at all."	Hodali su dalje šuteći, a onda je ona zamišljeno rekla: -Znate, nimalo vas se ne bojim.
He was surprised. "Why should you be?"	Iznenadio se. - Zašto biste me se bojali?

"So many people are. Afraid of firemen, I mean. But you're just a man, after all..."	- Toliki vas se boje. Boje se vatrogasaca, hoću reći. No vi ste, na koncu konca, samo čovjek...
He saw himself in her eyes, suspended in two shining drops of bright water, himself dark and tiny, in fine detail, the lines about his mouth, everything there, as if her eyes were two miraculous bits of violet amber that might capture and hold him intact. Her face, turned to him now, was fragile milk crystal with a soft and constant light in it. It was not the hysterical light of electricity but-what? But the strangely comfortable and rare and gently flattering light of the candle. One time, when he was a child, in a power-failure, his mother had found and lit a last candle and there had been a brief hour of rediscovery, of such illumination that space lost its vast dimensions and drew comfortably around them, and they, mother and son, alone, transformed, hoping that the power might not come on again too soon....	Vidio je sama sebe u njezinim očima, zadržana u dvjema sjajnim kapljicama bistre vode, sebe tamna i sićušna, sa svim pojedinostima, crtama oko usta, baš sa svime, kao da su njezine oči dva čudesna grumenčića ljubičastog jantara koja bi ga mogla zatočiti i sačuvati netaknutim. Njezino lice, sada okrenuto prema njemu, bilo je lomni mliječni kristal koji u sebi sadrži blago i postojano svjetlo. Nije to bilo histerično svjetlo elektriciteta nego - što? Nego čudnovato ugodno, rijetko i blago umilno svjetlo svijeće. Jednom, dok je bio dijete, kad je nestalo struje, njegova je mati pronašla i zapalila posljednju svijeću, pa je na trenutak prostor izgubio svoje goleme dimenzije i ugodno se obavio oko njih, pa su se oni, majka i sin, sami, preobrazili i poželjeli da se struja ne vrati tako skoro...
And then Clarisse McClellan said: "Do you mind if I ask? How long have you worked at being a fireman?"	A onda je Clarisse McClellan rekla: - Nećete zamjeriti što ću vas upitati? Koliko dugo radite kao vatrogasac?
"Since I was twenty, ten years ago."	- Od svoje dvadesete, to jest već deset godina.
"Do you ever read any of the books you bum?" He laughed. "That's against the law!"	- Pročitate li ikad ikoju od knjiga koje palite? Nasmijao se. - To je protuzakonito.
"Oh. Of course."	- Oh! Naravno.
"It's fine work. Monday burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn 'em to ashes, then burn the ashes. That's our official slogan."	- Lijep je to posao. Ponedjeljkom Poea, srijedom Steinbecka, petkom Pounda, šatri ih u pepeo, a onda šatri i pepeo. To nam je službeno geslo.
They walked still further and the girl said, "Is it true that long ago firemen put fires out instead of going to start them?"	Hodali su dalje, a zatim je djevojka rekla: - Je li istina da su u davna vremena vatrogasci gasili vatru umjesto što je potiču?
"No. Houses have always been fireproof, take my word for it."	- Ne. Kuće su odvajkada bile vatrostalne, časna riječ.
"Strange. I heard once that a long time ago houses used to burn by accident and they needed firemen to stop the flames."	- Čudno. Čula sam jednom da su u davna vremena kuće znale planuti slučajno, pa su tada vatrogasci bili potrebni da gase vatru.
He laughed.	Nasmijao se.
She glanced quickly over. "Why are you laughing?"	Hitro ga je pogledala. - Zašto se smijete?
"I don't know." He started to laugh again and stopped "Why?"	- Ne znam. - Ponovno se stao smijati pa prestao. - Zašto?
"You laugh when I haven't been funny and you answer right off. You never stop to think what I've asked you."	- Smijete se kad se ne šalim i smjesta odgovarate. Nikad ne zastanete da promislite o onome što vas pitam.
He stopped walking, "You are an odd one," he said, looking at her. "Haven't you any respect?"	Prestao je koračati. - Zaista ste čudni - rekao je. - Zar nemate nikakva poštovanja?
"I don't mean to be insulting. It's just, I love to watch people too much, I guess."	- Ne želim vrijeđati. Mislim da je to jednostavno stoga što previše volim promatrati ljude.
"Well, doesn't this mean anything to you?" He tapped the numerals 451 stitched on his char-coloured sleeve.	- Pa zar vama ovo ništa ne znači? - Kucnuo je po brojci 451, pričvršćenoj na njegov crni rukav.
"Yes," she whispered. She increased her pace. "Have you ever watched the jet cars racing on the boulevards down that way?	- Da - šapnula je. Ubrzala je korak. - Jeste li ikad promatrali mlazne automobile kako se utrkuju po bulevarima?
"You're changing the subject!"	- Mijenjate temu!
"I sometimes think drivers don't know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly," she said. "If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh yes! he'd say, that's grass! A pink blur? That's a rose-garden! White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows. My uncle drove slowly on a highway once. He drove forty miles an hour and they jailed him for two days. Isn't that funny, and sad, too?"	- Ponekad pomislim da vozači uopće ne znaju što je to trava, ili cvijeće, jer ih nikada ne zagledaju polako - rekla je. -Pokažete li vozaču zelenu mrlju, reći će: "O da, to je trava!" Ružičasta mrlja? To je ružičnjak! Bijele mrlje su kuće, smeđe krave. Moj me ujo jednom polako vozio autocestom. Vozio je četrdeset milja na sat, pa su ga strpali na dva dana u zatvor. Nije li to smiješno, a i tužno?
"You think too many things," said Montag, uneasily.	- Vi previše razmišljate - rekao je Montag zbunjeno.
"I rarely watch the 'parlour walls' or go to races or Fun Parks. So I've lots of time for crazy thoughts, I guess. Have you seen the two-hundred-foot-long billboards in the country beyond town? Did you know that once billboards were only twenty feet long? But cars started rushing by so quickly they had to stretch the advertising out so it would last."	- Rijetko gledam "salonske zidove", ne pohađam utrke i ne odlazim u zabavišta. Zato valjda imam puno vremena za lude misli. Jeste li vidjeli oglasne ploče od šezdeset pet metara u pokrajini, izvan grada? Jeste li znali da su nekoć reklamni panoi bili dugački samo šest metara? No automobili su počeli juriti tolikom brzinom da je trebalo protegnuti reklame kako bi služile svojoj svrsi.
"I didn't know that!" Montag laughed abruptly.	- Nisam to znao! - nasmijao je Montag naglo.
"Bet I know something else you don't. There's dew on the grass in the morning."	- Kladim se da ja znam još ponešto što vi ne znate. Jutrom je na travi rosa.
He suddenly couldn't remember if he had known this or not, and it made him quite irritable.	Odjednom se nije mogao prisjetiti je li to znao ili nije, i to ga je prilično razdražilo.
"And if you look―"she nodded at the sky―"there's a man in the moon."	- A ako pogledate - kimnula je prema nebu - na Mjesecu je čovjek.
He hadn't looked for a long time.	Odavno nije gledao.
They walked the rest of the way in silence, hers thoughtful, his a kind of clenching and uncomfortable silence in which he shot her accusing glances. When they reached her house all its lights were blazing.	Preostali dio puta hodali su šutke - ona zanijeta u misli, a on u nekoj napregnutoj i neugodnoj tišini, u kojoj ju je prostreljivao optužujućim pogledima. Kad su dospjeli do njezine kuće, sva su svjetla blještavo sjala.
"What's going on?" Montag had rarely seen that many house lights.	- Što se zbiva? - Montag je rijetko viđao ovoliku kućnu rasvjetu.
"Oh, just my mother and father and uncle sitting around, talking. It's like being a pedestrian, only rarer. My uncle was arrested another time―did I tell you?―for being a pedestrian. Oh, we're most peculiar."	- Oh, pa to moji mama, tata i ujo sjede i razgovaraju. To je kao da si pješak, ali samo rjeđe. Moga su uju jednom uhitili -jesam li vam to rekla? - zato što je pješačio. Oh, mi smo vam doista čudnovati.

"But what do you talk about?"	- Ali o čemu razgovarate?
She laughed at this. "Good night!" She started up her walk. Then she seemed to remember something and came back to look at him with wonder and curiosity. "Are you happy?" she said.	Ovo ju je nasmijalo. - Laku noć! - Pošla je dalje. A onda, kao da se nečega sjetila, vratila se da ga promotri s čuđenjem i radoznalošću. - Jeste li sretni? - upitala je.
"Am I what?" he cried.	- Jesam li što? - povikao je.
But she was gone―running in the moonlight. Her front door shut gently.	No ona je otišla - otrčala po mjesečini. Njezina ulazna vrata blago su se zatvorila.
"Happy! Of all the nonsense." He stopped laughing.	- Sretan! Koje li gluposti. Prestao se smijati.
He put his hand into the glove-hole of his front door and let it know his touch. The front door slid open.	Stavio je ruku u prorez na svojim ulaznim vratima i pričekao identifikaciju. Ulazna su vrata kliznula i otvorila se.
Of course I'm happy. What does she think? I'm not? he asked the quiet rooms. He stood looking up at the ventilator grille in the hall and suddenly remembered that something lay hidden behind the grille, something that seemed to peer down at him now. He moved his eyes quickly away.	Naravno da sam sretan. Što to ona misli? Da nisam? Upitao je mirne sobe. Stajao je u predsoblju i gledao rešetku ventilacije i odjednom se sjetio da je iza nje nešto skriveno, nešto što sada kao da pilji u njega. Brzo je odvratio pogled.
What a strange meeting on a strange night. He remembered nothing like it save one afternoon a year ago when he had met an old man in the park and they had talked...	Kakva li čudna susreta ove čudne večeri! Nije pamtio ništa slično tome, osim ono jedno popodne prije godinu dana kad je u perivoju susreo nekog starca i kad su njih dvojica razgovarali...
Montag shook his head. He looked at a blank wall. The girl's face was there, really quite beautiful in memory: astonishing, in fact. She had a very thin face like the dial of a small clock seen faintly in a dark room in the middle of a night when you waken to see the time and see the clock telling you the hour and the minute and the second, with a white silence and a glowing, all certainty and knowing what it has to tell of the night passing swiftly on toward further darknesses but moving also toward a new sun.	Montag je odmahnuo glavom. Pogledao je prazan zid. Ondje se nalazilo djevojčino lice, doista lijepo u sjećanju; divno, zapravo. Imala je vrlo sitno lice, poput brojčanika urice koju nazireš u mračnoj sobi usred noći kad se probudiš da pogledaš koje je doba te ustanoviš da ti ura u nekoj bijeloj tišini i sjaju kazuje sat, minutu i sekundu, svu pouzdanost i spoznaju o onome što ti ima reći o noći koja još uvijek brza prema tminama, ali koja se istodobno kreće i prema novom suncu.
"What?" asked Montag of that other self, the subconscious idiot that ran babbling at times, quite independent of will, habit, and conscience.	- Što? - upitao je Montag ono drugo ja, onoga idiota iz podsvijesti koji je povremeno blebetao posve neovisno o volji, običaju i savjesti.
He glanced back at the wall. How like a mirror, too, her face. Impossible; for how many people did you know that refracted your own light to you? People were more often―he searched for a simile, found one in his work―torches, blazing away until they whiffed out. How rarely did other people's faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought?	Ponovno je pogledao u zid. Njezino lice - koliko je slično i zrcalu. Nemoguće; jer, koliko ljudi poznaš koji ti odražavaju tvoju vlastitu svjetlost? Ljudi su češće - potražio je usporedbu i našao ju je u vlastitu poslu - zublje koje plamte sve dok ne ugasnu. Kako rijetko lica drugih ljudi preuzmu i vrate ti tvoj vlastiti izraz, tvoju najdublju uzdrhtalu pomisao?
What incredible power of identification the girl had; she was like the eager watcher of a marionette show, anticipating each flicker of an eyelid, each gesture of his hand, each flick of a finger, the moment before it began. How long had they walked together? Three minutes? Five? Yet how large that time seemed now. How immense a figure she was on the stage before him; what a shadow she threw on the wall with her slender body! He felt that if his eye itched, she might blink. And if the muscles of his jaws stretched imperceptibly, she would yawn long before he would.	Kakvu li je nevjerojatnu moć poistovjećivanja imala ta djevojka! Bila je poput nestrpljiva promatrača lutkarske predstave koji predviđa svaki treptaj kapka, svaku kretnju ruke, svaki trzaj prsta trenutak prije nego što će se zbiti. Koliko su dugo hodali zajedno? Tri minute? Pet? Pa opet, koliko se dugim činilo to vrijeme sada! Koliko je golem lik bila sada pred njim na pozornici! Koliku li je sjenu njezino vito tijelo bacilo na zid! Osjetio je da bi, da ga zasvrbi oko, mogla žmirnuti. A ako se njegova čeljust neprimjetno zategne, ona bi mogla zijevnuti mnogo prije njega.
Why, he thought, now that I think of it, she almost seemed to be waiting for me there, in the street, so damned late at night...	Pa, pomislio je, kad sada promislim o tome, kao da me čekala ondje, na ulici, tako vraški kasno noću...
He opened the bedroom door.	Otvorio je vrata spavaće sobe.
It was like coming into the cold marbled room of a mausoleum after the moon had set. Complete darkness, not a hint of the silver world outside, the windows tightly shut, the chamber a tomb-world where no sound from the great city could penetrate. The room was not empty.	Kao da je ulazio u hladnu mramornu odaju nekakva mauzoleja nakon mjesečeva zalaska. Potpun mrak, ni tračka srebrna svijeta izvana, prozori čvrsto zatvoreni, komora grobljanskog svijeta u koji ne može doprijeti nikakav zvuk velikoga grada. Soba nije bila prazna.
He listened.	Osluhnuo je.
The little mosquito-delicate dancing hum in the air, the electrical murmur of a hidden wasp snug in its special pink warm nest. The music was almost loud enough so he could follow the tune.	U zraku tih, nježan zuj popu t plesa komarca, električni mrmor skrivene ose raskomoćen u svom osobitom dotjeranom toplom gnijezdu. Muzika je bila dovoljno glasna da bi mogao slijediti napjev.
He felt his smile slide away, melt, fold over, and down on itself like a tallow skin, like the stuff of a fantastic candle burning too long and now collapsing and now blown out. Darkness. He was not happy. He was not happy. He said the words to himself. He recognized this as the true state of affairs. He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back.	Osjetio je da mu osmijeh iščezava, da se topi, preklapa i povija poput loja neke fantastične svijeće koja gori predugo, pa sada propada i gasi se. Mrak. Nije bio sretan. Nije bio sretan. Izrekao je te riječi samom sebi. Prepoznao je u njima pravo stanje stvari. Svoju je sreću nosio poput maske, a djevojka je otrčala preko travnjaka s maskom i nije bilo nikakva načina da se vrati i pokuca na njezina vrata te je zamoli da mu je vrati.
Without turning on the light he imagined how this room would look. His wife stretched on the bed, uncovered and cold, like a body displayed on the lid of a tomb, her eyes fixed to the ceiling by invisible threads of steel, immovable. And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind. The room was indeed empty. Every night the waves came in and bore her off on their great tides of sound, floating her, wide-eyed, toward morning. There had been no night in the last two years that Mildred had not swum that sea, had not gladly gone down in it for the third time.	Ne paleći svjetlo, zamislio je kako će ova soba izgledati. Njegova žena opružena na krevetu, nepokrivena i hladna, poput tijela izložena na grobnom pokrovu, njezine oči nevidljivim čeličnim nitima prikovane uza strop, nepokretne. A u ušima joj male Morske školjke - radioaparati poput naprstka čvrsto nabijeni - te elektronski ocean zvuka, glazba i riječi, glazba i riječi što zapljuskuju obale njezine neuspavane svijesti. Soba je bila doista prazna. Svake su noći stizali valovi i odnosili je svojim silnim plimama zvuka, splavljujući je budnu prema jutru. U posljednje dvije godine nije bilo noći u kojoj Mildred nije plivala tim morem, u kojoj nije radosno uranjala u nj po treći put.
The room was cold but nonetheless he felt he could not breathe. He did not wish to open the curtains and open the french windows, for he did not want the moon to come into the room. So, with the feeling of a man who will die in the next hour for lack of air, he felt his way toward his open, separate, and therefore cold bed.	Soba je bila hladna, no on je svejedno osjećao da ne može disati. Nije želio raskriti zastore i otvoriti staklena vrata, jer nije htio da mjesec ude u sobu. I tako je, osjećajući se poput čovjeka koji će za jedan sat umrijeti zbog pomanjkanja zraka, od tapkao prema svom otvorenom,odvojenom pa stoga studenom krevetu.
An instant before his foot hit the object on the floor he knew he would hit such an object. It was not unlike the feeling he had experienced before turning the corner and almost knocking the girl down. His foot, sending vibrations ahead, received back echoes of the small barrier across its path even as the foot swung. His foot kicked. The object gave a dull clink and slid off in darkness.	Trenutak prije no što će udariti u predmet na podu znao je da će udariti u takav predmet. Ovo se nije razlikovalo od onog osjećaja koji je iskusio prije nego što će zaokrenuti za ugao i umalo srušiti djevojku.Njegova noga, koja je preda se odaslala vibracije, primila je odjek male zapreke koja joj se našla na putu još dok je bila u zamahu. Udario je nogom. Predmet je muklo jeknuo i kliznuo u tamu.
He stood very straight and listened to the person on the dark bed in the completely featureless night. The breath coming out of the nostrils was so faint it stirred only the furthest fringes of life, a small leaf, a black feather, a single fibre of hair.	Uspravio se i osluhnuo osobu na mračnoj postelji u potpuno bezobličnoj noći. Dah koji je izlazio iz nosnica bio je tako slabašan da je pomicao tek najneznatnije okrajke života -listić, crno perce, jednu jedinu vlas.
He still did not want outside light. He pulled out his igniter, felt the salamander etched on its silver disc, gave it a flick....	I dalje mu nije bilo do svjetla izvana. Izvukao je upaljač, opipao daždevnjaka urezanog u njegovu srebrnu pločicu, kresnuo...
Two moonstones looked up at him in the light of his small hand-held fire; two pale moonstones buried in a creek of clear water over which the life of the world ran, not touching them.	Dva mjesečeva kamena gledala su ga u svjetlu njegove ručne vatrice; dva blijeda mjesečeva kamena ukopana u potok bistre vode iznad kojih teče život svijeta ne dodirujući ih.
"Mildred!"	- Mildred!
Her face was like a snow-covered island upon which rain might fall; but it felt no rain; over which clouds might pass their moving shadows, but she felt no shadow. There was only the singing of the thimble-wasps in her tamped-shut ears, and her eyes all glass, and breath going in and out, softly, faintly, in and out of her nostrils, and her not caring whether it came or went, went or came.	Lice joj je bilo poput zasniježena otoka na koji bi mogla pasti kiša, no što se uopće ne bi osjetilo; preko kojeg bi oblaci mogli prevući svoje putujuće sjene, no što se također ne bi osjetilo. Postojao je samo pjev sićušnih osa u začepljenim ušima, slabašno udisanje i izdisanje nosnica te njezina nebriga udiše li ili izdiše, izdiše li ili udiše.
The object he had sent tumbling with his foot now glinted under the edge of his own bed. The small crystal bottle of sleeping-tablets which earlier today had been filled with thirty capsules and which now lay uncapped and empty in the light of the tiny flare.	Predmet koji je otkotrljao nogom ljeskao se sada ispod ruba njegova kreveta: kristalna bočica pilula za spavanje, koja je još danas bila ispunjena s tridesetak kapsula, a koja je sada ležala nezačepljena i prazna u svjetlu sićušne vatrice.
As he stood there the sky over the house screamed. There was a tremendous ripping sound as if two giant hands had torn ten thousand miles of black linen down the seam. Montag was cut in half. He felt his chest chopped down and split apart. The jet-bombs going over, going over, going over, one two, one two, one two, six of them, nine of them, twelve of them, one and one and one and another and another and another, did all the screaming for him. He opened his own mouth and let their shriek come down and out between his bared teeth. The house shook. The flare went out in his hand. The moonstones vanished. He felt his hand plunge toward the telephone.	Dok je tako stajao, nebo je iznad kuće zatutnjalo. Čuo je strahovit zvuk drapanja, kao da su dvije divovske ruke rasparale deset tisuća milja crnog platna po šavu. Montag je bio raspolućen. Osjetio je da mu je prsni koš posječen i raskoljen. Mlazni bombarderi koji nadlijeću, nadlijeću, jedan dva, jedan dva, jedan dva, šest njih, devet njih, dvanaest, jedan pa jedan, pa jedan, pa jedan, pa još jedan, i još jedan i još jedan i još, svi su oni vrištali umjesto njega. Otvorio je usta i dopustio da njihov krik ude i izađe kroz njegove stisnute zube. Kuća se stresla. Plamičak je u ruci ugasnuo. Mjesečevi su kameni nestali. Osjetio je da mu se ruka pruža prema telefonu.
The jets were gone. He felt his lips move, brushing the mouthpiece of the phone. "Emergency hospital." A terrible whisper.	Mlažnjaci su nestali. Osjetio je da mu se usnice pomiču dodirujući mikrofon aparata. - Dežurnu bolnicu. - Užasan šapat.
He felt that the stars had been pulverized by the sound of the black jets and that in the morning the earth would be thought as he stood shivering in the dark, and let his lips go on moving and moving.	Osjetio je da su se zvijezde raspale u prah od zvuka crnih mlažnjaka te da će ujutro zemlja biti pokrivena njihovom prašinom kao nekim čudnim snijegom. To je bila njegova idiotska pomisao dok je dršćući stajao u mraku i dok su mu se usnice tresle, tresle.

They had this machine. They had two machines, really. One of them slid down into your stomach like a black cobra down an echoing well looking for all the old water and the old time gathered there. It drank up the green matter that flowed to the top in a slow boil. Did it drink of the darkness? Did it suck out all the poisons accumulated with the years? It fed in silence with an occasional sound of inner suffocation and blind searching. It had an Eye. The impersonal operator of the machine could, by wearing a special optical helmet, gaze into the soul of the person whom he was pumping out. What did the Eye see? He did not say. He saw but did not see what the Eye saw. The entire operation was not unlike the digging of a trench in one's yard. The woman on the bed was no more than a hard stratum of marble they had reached. Go on, anyway, shove the bore down, slush up the emptiness, if such a thing could be brought out in the throb of the suction snake. The operator stood smoking a cigarette. The other machine was working too.	Imali su taj stroj. Imali su zapravo dva stroja. Jedan od njih klizne vam u želudac poput nekakve crne kobre u zdenac te traga za svom starom vodom i starim vremenom što su se ondje nakupili. On iscrpi zelenu tvar koja tijekom polagana kuhanja ispliva na površinu. Popije li on sav mrak? Usisa li sve otrove što se nakupe s godinama? Stroj se hranio tiho, uz tek poneki zvuk unutrašnjeg zagušenja i traganja naslijepo. Imao je jedno oko. Bezlični rukovalac strojem mogao je, uz pomoć specijalnog optičkog šljema, zuriti u dušu osobe koju ispumpava. Što je oko vidjelo? Nije rekao. Vidio je, ali nije gledao što oko vidi. Čitava je operacija pomalo sličila kopanju jarka u dvorištu. Žena na krevetu nije bila ništa doli tvrd sloj mramora na koji su naišli. Idemo, svejedno, dalje, razgrnimo rupu, razmljackajmo prazninu, ako se tako nešto može izvući grčenjem usisne zmije. Operator je stajao pušeći cigaretu. I drugi je stroj radio.
The other machine was operated by an equally impersonal fellow in non-stainable reddish-brown overalls. This machine pumped all of the blood from the body and replaced it with fresh blood and serum.	Drugim je strojem rukovao jednako bezličan momak u crvenkastosmeđem radnom odijelu koje se ne može uprljati. Ova je naprava crpila iz tijela svu krv, nadomješćujući je svježom i serumom.
"Got to clean 'em out both ways," said the operator, standing over the silent woman. "No use getting the stomach if you don't clean the blood. Leave that stuff in the blood and the blood hits the brain like a mallet, bang, a couple of thousand times and the brain just gives up, just quits."	- Moramo očistiti i jedno i drugo - rekao je rukovalac stojeći nad nijemom ženom. - Obrada želuca besmislena je bez čišćenja krvi. Ostavite li tu tvar u krvi, krv će udariti u mozak poput malja, bum, nekoliko tisuća puta, i mozak jednostavno otkaže, odstupi.
"Stop it!" said Montag.	- Prestanite! - rekao je Montag.
"I was just sayin'," said the operator.	- Samo sam rekao ... - kazao je operator.
"Are you done?" said Montag.	- Jeste li završili? - upitao je Montag.
They shut the machines up tight. "We're done." His anger did not even touch them. They stood with the cigarette smoke curling around their noses and into their eyes without making them blink or squint. "That's fifty bucks."	Čvrsto su zatvorili strojeve. - Završili smo. - Njegova ljutnja uopće ih nije dirala. Stajali su, a cigaretni im se dim obavijao oko nosova i zalazio im u oči, a da pritom nisu niti treptali niti žmirkali. - To stoji pedeset zelenih.
"First, why don't you tell me if she'll be all right?"	- Prije svega, recite mi hoće li s njom biti sve u redu?
"Sure, she'll be O.K. We got all the mean stuff right in our suitcase here, it can't get at her now. As I said, you take out the old and put in the new and you're O.K."	- Svakako, bit će sve u najboljem redu. Svu gadnu tvar imamo ovdje u našim kovčezima, više joj ne može nauditi. Kao što sam rekao, izvadiš staro, umetneš novo, i sve je kako spada.
"Neither of you is an M.D. Why didn't they send an M.D. from Emergency?"	- Nijedan od vas nije liječnik. Zašto nisu poslali nekog liječnika iz hitne službe?
"Hell!" the operator's cigarette moved on his lips. "We get these cases nine or ten a night. Got so many, starting a few years ago, we had the special machines built. With the optical lens, of course, that was new; the rest is ancient. You don't need an M.D., case like this; all you need is two handymen, clean up the problem in half an hour. Look―"he started for the door―"we gotta go. Just had another call on the old ear-thimble. Ten blocks from here. Someone else just jumped off the cap of a pillbox. Call if you need us again. Keep her quiet. We got a contra-sedative in her. She'll wake up hungry. So long."	- Do vraga! - operatorova se cigareta pomaknula na usnici. - Svake noći imamo devet ili deset ovakvih slučajeva. Unatrag nekoliko godina imamo ih toliko da smo dali izraditi specijalne strojeve. S optičkim lećama, naravno, to je novo, ostalo je staro. Za ovakav slučaj ne trebate liječnika; trebate samo dva majstora koji će problem riješiti za pola sata. Slušajte - krenuo je prema vratima - moramo odavde. Upravo smo preko usnog napršnjaka dobili još jedan poziv. Deset blokova odavde. Još je netko zbacio čep s bočice za lijekove. Nazovite ako nas budete još trebali. Neka miruje. Ubrizgali smo joj kontrasedativ. Probudit će se gladna. Do viđenja!
And the men with the cigarettes in their straight-lined mouths, the men with the eyes of puff-adders, took up their load of machine and tube, their case of liquid melancholy and the slow dark sludge of nameless stuff, and strolled out the door.	I tako su ljudi s cigaretama u pravocrtnim ustima, ljudi zmijskih očiju, uprtili svoje strojeve i cijevi, svoje kutije s tekućom potištenošću i tromim mračnim glibom bezimene tvari te izašli.
Montag sank down into a chair and looked at this woman. Her eyes were closed now, gently, and he put out his hand to feel the warmness of breath on his palm. "Mildred," he said, at last.	Montag se spustio na stolac i pogledao ženu. Sada su joj oči bile zatvorene, blage, pa je ispružio ruku da na svome dlanu osjeti toplinu daha. - Mildred - rekao je na kraju.
There are too many of us, he thought. There are billions of us and that's too many. Nobody knows anyone. Strangers come and violate you. Strangers come and cut your heart out. Strangers come and take your blood. Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life!	Ima nas previše, pomislio je. Ima nas na milijarde, a to je previše. Nitko nikoga ne pozna. Neznanci dodu i oskvrnu te. Neznanci dodu i izvade ti srce. Neznanci dodu i uzmu ti krv. Bože dragi, tko su bili ti ljudi? Nikad ih u životu nisam vidio.
Half an hour passed.	Prošlo je pola sata.
The bloodstream in this woman was new and it seemed to have done a new thing to her. Her cheeks were very pink and her lips were very fresh and full of colour and they looked soft and relaxed. Someone else's blood there. If only someone else's flesh and brain and memory. If only they could have taken her mind along to the dry-cleaner's and emptied the pockets and steamed and cleansed it and reblocked it and brought it back in the morning. If only...	Krvotok u ovoj ženi bio je nov i činilo se da ju je obnovio. Obrazi su joj bili vrlo ružičasti, a usnice vrlo svježe i pune boje te su se doimale meko i opušteno. U njima je bila krv neke druge osobe. Da je bar i neko drugo tijelo, mozak i sjećanje! Da su joj barem i um odnijeli u čistionicu te mu ispraznili džepove pa ga oparili i očistili, a zatim ponovno zabrtvili i vratili ujutro. Da bar...
He got up and put back the curtains and opened the windows wide to let the night air in. It was two o'clock in the morning. Was it only an hour ago, Clarisse McClellan in the street, and him coming in, and the dark room and his foot kicking the little crystal bottle? Only an hour, but the world had melted down and sprung up in a new and colourless form.	Digao se, potegnuo zastore te širom otvorio prozore kako bi u prostoriju prostrujao noćni zrak. Bilo je dva ujutro. Je li to prošao tek jedan sat od susreta s Clarissom McClellan na ulici, od njegova ulaska u kuću, mračne sobe i od udarca nogom o kristalnu bočicu? Tek jedan sat, a svijet se rastalio i pojavio u novom, bezbojnom obliku.
Laughter blew across the moon-coloured lawn from the house of Clarisse and her father and mother and the uncle who smiled so quietly and so earnestly. Above all, their laughter was relaxed and hearty and not forced in any way, coming from the house that was so brightly lit this late at night while all the other houses were kept to themselves in darkness. Montag heard the voices talking, talking, talking, giving, talking, weaving, reweaving their hypnotic web.	Preko mjesečinom obasjana travnjaka dopro je smijeh iz kuće u kojoj su živjeli Clarisse, njezin otac, mati i ujak koji se smiješio tako mirno i iskreno. Prije svega, njihov je smijeh bio opušten i od srca, neusiljen, a stizao je iz kuće koja je u ovo doba noći bila toliko blještavo osvijetljena dok su se sve ostale kuće zatvorile u tmini. Montag je čuo glasove koji pričaju, pričaju, pričaju, stvaraju, predu, raspredaju svoju hipnotičku mrežu.
Montag moved out through the french windows and crossed the lawn, without even thinking of it. He stood outside the talking house in the shadows, thinking he might even tap on their door and whisper, "Let me come in. I won't say anything. I just want to listen. What is it you're saying?"	Montag je izišao kroz staklena vrata i nesvjesno prešao travnjak. Stajao je pred raspripovijedanom kućom u sjeni, razmišljajući kako bi to bilo da kucne na njihova vrata i šapne:"Pustite me unutra. Ništa neću reći. Želim samo slušati. O čemu vi to pričate?"
But instead he stood there, very cold, his face a mask of ice, listening to a man's voice (the uncle?) moving along at an easy pace: "Well, after all, this is the age of the disposable tissue. Blow your nose on a person, wad them, flush them away, reach for another, blow, wad, flush. Everyone using everyone else's coattails. How are you supposed to root for the home team when you don't even have a programme or know the names? For that matter, what colour jerseys are they wearing as they trot out on to the field?"	No umjesto toga, samo je stajao, vrlo hladan, lice mu je bilo ledena maska te je osluškivao muški glas (glas njezina ujaka?) koji je ravnomjerno nastavljao: - Pa, na koncu konca, ovo je doba potrošnih materijala. Išmrkaš se na nekoga, otareš, odbaciš, pa posegneš za drugim, pa opet išmrkaš, otareš, odbaciš. Svi se međusobno iskorištavaju. Kako navijati za domaću ekipu kad nemaš ni program, a ne znaš ni imena? Kad smo već pritom, kakve su boje dresovi u kojima izlaze na teren?
Montag moved back to his own house, left the window wide, checked Mildred, tucked the covers about her carefully, and then lay down with the moonlight on his cheek-bones and on the frowning ridges in his brow, with the moonlight distilled in each eye to form a silver cataract there.	Montag se povukao kući. Ostavio je prozor širom otvoren, pogledao Mildred, brižno je ututkao u pokrivače, pa onda legao dok mu je mjesečina obasjavala jagodične kosti i namrgođeno čelo, mjesečina koja je prokapavala u oba oka stvarajući ondje srebrnu mrenu.
One drop of rain. Clarisse. Another drop. Mildred. A third. The uncle. A fourth. The fire tonight. One, Clarisse. Two, Mildred. Three, uncle. Four, fire, One, Mildred, two, Clarisse. One, two, three, four, five, Clarisse, Mildred, uncle, fire, sleeping-tablets, men, disposable tissue, coat-tails, blow, wad, flush, Clarisse, Mildred, uncle, fire, tablets, tissues, blow, wad, flush. One, two, three, one, two, three! Rain. The storm. The uncle laughing. Thunder falling downstairs. The whole world pouring down. The fire gushing up in a volcano. All rushing on down around in a spouting roar and rivering stream toward morning.	Jedna kap kiše. Clarisse. Druga kap. Mildred. Treća. Ujak. Četvrta. Noćašnja vatra. Jedna, Clarisse. Dva, Mildred. Tri, ujak. Četiri, vatra. Jedan, Mildred, dva, Clarisse. Jedan, dva, tri, četiri, pet, Clarisse, Mildred, ujak, vatra, pilule za spavanje, ljudi, potrošni materijali, išmrkaj, otari, odbaci. Jedan, dva, tri, jedan, dva, tri! Kiša. Oluja. Ujak se smije. Oluja koja se slijeva u prizemlje. Čitav se svijet stuštio. Vatra koja se nadima u vulkanu. Sve se slijeva posvuda u bučnim mlazovima i obilnim bujicama prema jutru.
"I don't know anything any more," he said, and let a sleep-lozenge dissolve on his tongue.	- Više ništa ne znam - rekao je i pustio da mu se na jeziku otopi pastila za spavanje.
At nine in the morning, Mildred's bed was empty.	U devet ujutro Mildredin je krevet bio prazan.
Montag got up quickly, his heart pumping, and ran down the hall and stopped at the kitchen door.	Montag je hitro ustao, srce mu je uzbuđeno tuklo, potrčao je predsobljem i zaustavio se na kuhinjskim vratima.
Toast popped out of the silver toaster, was seized by a spidery metal hand that drenched it with melted butter.	Prepečenac je iskočio iz srebrne pržilice. Dohvatila ga je paučja metalna ruka te ga umočila u rastopljen maslac.
Mildred watched the toast delivered to her plate. She had both ears plugged with electronic bees that were humming the hour away. She looked up suddenly, saw him, and nodded.	Mildred je promatrala kako joj na tanjur stiže prepečenac. Oba su joj uha bila začepljena elektroničkim pčelama koje su joj zujem kratile vrijeme. Odjednom je podigla pogled, spazila Montaga i kimnula.
"You all right?" he asked.	- S tobom je sve u redu? - upitao je.
She was an expert at lip-reading from ten years of apprenticeship at Seashell ear-thimbles. She nodded again. She set the toaster clicking away at another piece of bread.	Nakon desetogodišnje prakse s usnim aparatima postala je stručnjak za čitanje s usana. Ponovno je kimnula. Namjestila je pržilicu da joj pripremi još jedan komad kruha.
Montag sat down.	Montag je sjeo.

His wife said, "I don't know why I should be so hungry."	Žena je rekla: - Ne znam zašto sam toliko gladna.
"You―"	- Bila si -
"I'm hungry."	- Gladna sam.
"Last night," he began.	- Sinoć - počeo je.
"Didn't sleep well. Feel terrible," she said. "God, I'm hungry. I can't figure it."	- Nisam dobro spavala. Osjećam se grozno - kazala je. -Bože, kako li sam gladna! Ne znam što mi je.
"Last night-" he said again.	- Sinoć - ponovio je.
She watched his lips casually. "What about last night?"	Nehajno je promatrala njegove usnice. - Što je bilo sinoć?
"Don't you remember?"	- Ne sjećaš se?
"What? Did we have a wild party or something? Feel like I've a hangover. God, I'm hungry. Who was here?"	- Čega? Jesmo li bili na nekom ludom provodu ili nešto slično? Osjećam se mamurno. Bože, kako li sam gladna! Tko je bio ovdje?
"A few people," he said.	- Nekoliko njih - rekao je.
"That's what I thought." She chewed her toast. "Sore stomach, but I'm hungry as all-get-out. Hope I didn't do anything foolish at the party."	- To sam si i mislila. - Žvakala je prepečenac. - Boli me želudac, ali gladna sam kao da su me ispumpali. Nadam se da na zabavi nisam napravila nikakvu budalaštinu.
"No," he said, quietly.	- Nisi - rekao je mirno.
The toaster spidered out a piece of buttered bread for him. He held it in his hand, feeling grateful.	Pržilica mu je na svoj paučji način servirala komad kruha s maslacem. S osjećajem zahvalnosti, prihvatio ga je rukom.
"You don't look so hot yourself," said his wife.	- Ti sam ne izgledaš baš previše uspaljeno - rekla mu je žena.
In the late afternoon it rained and the entire world was dark grey. He stood in the hall of his house, putting on his badge with the orange salamander burning across it. He stood looking up at the air-conditioning vent in the hall for a long time. His wife in the TV parlour paused long enough from reading her script to glance up. "Hey," she said. "The man's thinking!"	Predvečer je kišilo i čitav je svijet bio tamnosiv. Stajao je u predvorju svoga doma i stavljao značku s gorućim daždevnjakom. Stajao je i dugo gledao u rešetku ventilacije u predvorju. Njegova žena u TV salonu napravila je dovoljno dugu stanku u čitanju teksta svoje uloge da podigne pogled. - Hej - rekla je. - Pa taj čovjek razmišlja!
"Yes," he said. "I wanted to talk to you." He paused. "You took all the pills in your bottle last night."	- Da - rekao je. - Želio sam s tobom porazgovarati. - Zastao je. - Sinoć si popila sve pilule iz bočice.
"Oh, I wouldn't do that," she said, surprised.	- Oh, neće biti tako - rekla je iznenadivši se.
"The bottle was empty."	- Bočica je bila prazna.
"I wouldn't do a thing like that. Why would I do a thing like that?" she asked.	- Ne bih učinila tako nešto. Zašto bih tako postupila? -upitala je.
"Maybe you took two pills and forgot and took two more, and forgot again and took two more, and were so dopy you kept right on until you had thirty or forty of them in you."	- Možda si uzela dvije pilule pa zaboravila, a potom uzela još dvije, ponovno zaboravila, pa opet uzela dvije te tako ošamućena nastavila sve dok ih nisi progutala tridesetak, četrdesetak.
"Heck," she said, "what would I want to go and do a silly thing like that for?"	- K vragu - kazala je - zašto bih poželjela i napravila takvu glupost?
"I don't know," he said.	- Ne znam.
She was quite obviously waiting for him to go. "I didn't do that," she said. "Never in a billion years."	Posve očito, čekala je da on ode. - Nisam to učinila - rekla je. - Nikada to ne bih učinila.
"All right if you say so," he said.	- U redu je, ako tako veliš - kazao je.
"That's what the lady said." She turned back to her script.	- Tako je rekla dama. - Vratila se svome tekstu.
"What's on this afternoon?" he asked tiredly.	- Što je večeras na programu? - upitao je umorno.
She didn't look up from her script again. "Well, this is a play comes on the wall-to-wall circuit in ten minutes. They mailed me my part this morning. I sent in some box-tops. They write the script with one part missing. It's a new idea. The home-maker, that's me, is the missing part. When it comes time for the missing lines, they all look at me out of the three walls and I say the lines: Here, for instance, the man says, 'What do you think of this whole idea, Helen?' And he looks at me sitting here centre stage, see? And I say, I say --" She paused and ran her finger under a line in the script. "'I think that's fine!' And then they go on with the play until he says, 'Do you agree to that, Helen!' and I say, 'I sure do!' Isn't that fun, Guy?"	Nije ponovno podigla pogled s teksta. - Ovo je komad koji na zidovima počinje za deset minuta. Jutros su mi poštom dostavili moju ulogu. Pišu scenarij tako da jedna uloga nedostaje. Nova zamisao. Domaćica, to sam ja, uloga je koja nedostaje. Kad nastupi trenutak za tekst koji nedostaje, svi me iz tri zida gledaju, a ja onda izgovorim svoj tekst. Evo, na primjer, muškarac veli "Sto ti na sve ovo kažeš, Helen?" i gleda me dok ja ovdje sjedim na sredini pozornice, shvaćaš? A ja reknem, a ja reknem - Zastala je i prešla prstom ispod retka u tekstu - "Mislim da je dobro!" Zatim nastavljaju s komadom sve dok čovjek ne rekne:"Slažeš li se s tim, Helen?", a ja na to:"Svakako!" Nije li to zabavno, Guy?
He stood in the hall looking at her.	Stajao je u predvorju i promatrao ju je.
"It's sure fun," she said.	- Silno je zabavno - rekla je.
"What's the play about?"	- O čemu se govori u toj drami?

"I just told you. There are these people named Bob and Ruth and Helen."	- Upravo sam ti ispričala. Tu su ljudi po imenu Bob, Ruth i Helen.
"Oh."	- Aha.
"It's really fun. It'll be even more fun when we can afford to have the fourth wall installed. How long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall-TV put in? It's only two thousand dollars."	- Zbilja je zabavno. Bit će još zabavnije kad si budemo mogli priuštiti instaliranje četvrtog zida. Što misliš, koliko ćemo još morati štedjeti da srušimo četvrti zid i ugradimo četvrti TV zid? Pa to je samo dvije tisuće dolara.
"That's one-third of my yearly pay."	- To je trećina moje godišnje plaće.
"It's only two thousand dollars," she replied. "And I should think you'd consider me sometimes. If we had a fourth wall, why it'd be just like this room wasn't ours at all, but all kinds of exotic people's rooms. We could do without a few things."	- To je samo dvije tisuće dolara - odgovorila je. - A mislim da bi se kojiput trebao obazirati i na mene. Da imamo četvrti zid, uh, pa to bi bilo kao da ova soba uopće nije naša nego prostor svih mogućih egzotičnih ljudi. Mogli bismo se nečega i lišiti.
"We're already doing without a few things to pay for the third wall. It was put in only two months ago, remember?"	- Već smo se koječega i lišili kako bismo platili treći zid. Sjećaš li se, pa ugrađen je prije jedva dva mjeseca?
"Is that all it was?" She sat looking at him for a long moment. "Well, good-bye, dear.".	- I to je sve što mi imaš reći? - Sjedila je i dugo ga promatrala. - Pa, zbogom, dragi.
"Good-bye," he said. He stopped and turned around. "Does it have a happy ending?"	- Zbogom - rekao je. Zaustavio se i okrenuo. - Je li svršetak sretan?
"I haven't read that far."	- Nisam još dotle pročitala.
He walked over, read the last page, nodded, folded the script, and handed it back to her. He walked out of the house into the rain.	Prišao joj je, pročitao zadnju stranicu, kimnuo, presavinuo scenarij i vratio joj ga. Izišao je iz kuće na kišu.
The rain was thinning away and the girl was walking in the centre of the sidewalk with her head up and the few drops falling on her face. She smiled when she saw Montag.	Kiša je jenjavala, a djevojka je hodala sredinom pločnika, uzdignute glave, a rijetke su joj kapljice padale na lice. Nasmiješila se ugledavši Montaga.
"Hello!"	- Zdravo!
He said hello and then said, "What are you up to now?"	Odzdravio joj je pa rekao: - Što ste sada naumili?
"I'm still crazy. The rain feels good. I love to walk in it.	- I dalje sam luda. Fino je na kiši. Volim se šetati dok kiši.
"I don't think I'd like that," he said.	- Meni se baš ne sviđa - rekao je.
"You might if you tried."	- Moglo bi vam se svidjeti da pokušate.
"I never have."	- Nikad nisam pokušao.
She licked her lips. "Rain even tastes good."	Obliznula je usnice. - Kiša je i dobra okusa.
"What do you do, go around trying everything once?" he asked.	- Što to radite? Hodate uokolo i sve jednom probate? -upitao je
"Sometimes twice." She looked at something in her hand. "What've you got there?" he said.	- Ponekad i dva puta. - Pogledala je nešto što je držala u ruci. -Što vam je to?
"I guess it's the last of the dandelions this year. I didn't think I'd find one on the lawn this late. Have you ever heard of rubbing it under your chin? Look." She touched her chin with the flower, laughing.	- Mislim da je ovo posljednji ovogodišnji maslačak. Nisam vjerovala da ću ovako kasno naći još kojega na livadi. Jeste li ikad čuli da ga valja protrljati ispod brade? Gledajte! Dodirnula je cvijetom bradu, smijući se.
"Why?"	- Zašto?
"If it rubs off, it means I'm in love. Has it?" He could hardly do anything else but look.	- Ako otpadne, znači da sam zaljubljena. Je li otpao? Teško da mu je preostalo išta drugo nego da pogleda.
"Well?" she said.	- Pa? - kazala je.
"You're yellow under there."	- Ondje ispod ste žuti.
"Fine! Let's try you now."	- Dobro. A sad pokušajmo kod vas.
"It won't work for me."	- Kod mene neće djelovati.
"Here." Before he could move she had put the dandelion under his chin. He drew back and she laughed. "Hold still!"	- Evo. - Nije se stigao niti pokrenuti, a već mu je pod bradu stavila maslačak. Ustuknuo je, a ona se nasmijala. - Budite mirni!
She peered under his chin and frowned. "Well?" he said.	Virnula mu je pod bradu pa se namrštila. -I? - upitao je.
"What a shame," she said. "You're not in love with anyone."	- Sram vas bilo - rekla je. - Ni u koga niste zaljubljeni.

"Yes, I am!"	- O, jesam.
"It doesn't show."	- Ne vidi se.
"I am very much in love!" He tried to conjure up a face to fit the words, but there was no face. "I am!"	- Jesam, jako sam zaljubljen! - pokušavao je u pamet prizvati neko lice koje bi odgovaralo ovim riječima, no nikakvo mu se lice nije ukazalo. - Jesam!
"Oh please don't look that way."	- O, molim vas, nemojte tako gledati.
"It's that dandelion," he said. "You've used it all up on yourself. That's why it won't work for me."	- Svemu je kriv taj maslačak - rekao je. - Potrošili ste ga cijeloga za sebe. Zato i nije djelovao na mene.
"Of course, that must be it. Oh, now I've upset you, I can see I have; I'm sorry, really I am." She touched his elbow.	- Naravno, mora da je stvar u tome. Oh, sada sam vas usplahirila, vidim da jesam. Žao mi je, zaista - dotaknula mu je lakat.
"No, no," he said, quickly, "I'm all right."	- Ne, ne - hitro je rekao - sa mnom je sve u redu.
"I've got to be going, so say you forgive me. I don't want you angry with me."	- Moram poći. Molim vas, recite da mi opraštate. Ne želim da se ljutite na mene.
"I'm not angry. Upset, yes."	- Nisam ljut. Usplahiren, jesam.
"I've got to go to see my psychiatrist now. They make me go. I made up things to say. I don't know what he thinks of me. He says I'm a regular onion! I keep him busy peeling away the layers."	- Sada moram poći svome psihijatru. Gone me k njemu. Smišljala sam štošta. Ne znam što misli o meni. Veli da sam zaista šašava. Ima pune ruke posla da s mene oljušti sve slojeve.
"I'm inclined to believe you need the psychiatrist," said Montag.	- Sklon sam vjerovati da doista trebate psihijatra - rekao je Montag.
"You don't mean that."	- Ne mislite vi to.
He took a breath and let it out and at last said, "No, I don't mean that."	Duboko je uzdahnuo, pa izdahnuo, te naposljetku rekao: - Ne, ne mislim.
"The psychiatrist wants to know why I go out and hike around in the forests and watch the birds and collect butterflies. I'll show you my collection some day."	- Psihijatar želi doznati zašto izlazim i lutam šumama, promatram ptice i skupljam leptire. Jednog ću vam dana pokazati svoju zbirku.
"Good."	- Dobro.
"They want to know what I do with all my time. I tell them that sometimes I just sit and think. But I won't tell them what. I've got them running. And sometimes, I tell them, I like to put my head back, like this, and let the rain fall into my mouth. It tastes just like wine. Have you ever tried it?"	- Žele saznati kako provodim vrijeme. Kažem im da katkada samo sjedim i razmišljam. No neću im reći o čemu. - Dobro sam ih oznojila. A ponekad, velim im, volim ovako zabaciti glavu i pustiti da mi kiša pada u usta. Ima okus vina. Jeste li je ikad kušali?
"No I―"	- Ne, ja -
"You have forgiven me, haven't you?"	- Oprostili ste mi, je li tako?
"Yes." He thought about it. "Yes, I have. God knows why. You're peculiar, you're aggravating, yet you're easy to forgive. You say you're seventeen?"	- Da. - Zamislio se malko. - Da, jesam. Bog će znati zašto. Čudni ste, teški, a ipak vam je lako oprostiti. Rekli ste da imate sedamnaest godina?
"Well―next month."	- Pa - sljedećeg mjeseca.
"How odd. How strange. And my wife thirty and yet you seem so much older at times. I can't get over it."	- Čudno. Neobično. Mojoj je ženi trideset, a ipak katkada vi izgledate mnogo stariji. Ne mogu to shvatiti.
"You're peculiar yourself, Mr. Montag. Sometimes I even forget you're a fireman. Now, may I make you angry again?"	- Vi ste čudni, gospodine Montag. Ponekad posve zaboravim da ste vatrogasac. Dakle, smijem li vas ponovno razljutiti?
"Go ahead."	- Samo naprijed.
"How did it start? How did you get into it? How did you pick your work and how did you happen to think to take the job you have? You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. When I said something about the moon, you looked at the moon, last night. The others would never do that. The others would walk off and leave me talking. Or threaten me. No one has time any more for anyone else. You're one of the few who put up with me. That's why I think it's so strange you're a fireman, it just doesn't seem right for you, somehow."	- Kako je to počelo? Kako ste ušli u to? Kako ste izabrali svoje zanimanje i kako vam je uopće palo na pamet da se primite takva posla? Niste poput drugih. Vidjela sam ih nekoliko; znam ih. Kad govorim, gledate me. Kad sam rekla nešto o mjesecu, pogledali ste u mjesec, sinoć. Drugi to nikada ne bi napravili. Drugi bi se jednostavno udaljili ostavljajući me da pričam. Ili bi mi priprijetili. Više nitko nema vremena za druge. Vi ste jedan od nekolicine koji me podnio. Zato i mislim da je jako čudno što ste vatrogasac. Jednostavno, to vam nekako ne dolikuje.
He felt his body divide itself into a hotness and a coldness, a softness and a hardness, a trembling and a not trembling, the two halves grinding one upon the other.	Osjetio je da mu se tijelo razdvaja na toplinu i hladnoću, na mekoću i tvrdoću, na drhtanje i nedrhtanje, na dvije polovice koje se međusobno taru.
"You'd better run on to your appointment," he said.	- Bit će bolje da otrčite na svoj sastanak - kazao je.
And she ran off and left him standing there in the rain. Only after a long time did he move.	I tako je otrčala ostavivši ga da stoji na kiši. Pomaknuo se tek nakon nekog vremena.
And then, very slowly, as he walked, he tilted his head back in the rain, for just a few moments, and opened his mouth...	A onda je, vrlo sporo, hodajući, zabacio glavu unatrag, samo na nekoliko trenutaka, i otvorio usta...
The Mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and the copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, gently, gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber-padded paws.	Mehanički je Pas spavao, ali i nije spavao, živio, ali i nije živio, u svojem blagom zujanju, blagom podrhtavanju u ugodno rasvijetljenoj kućici, tamo u mračnom kutku vatrogasnog doma. Mutno svjetlo sat iza ponoći, mjesečina s vedra neba što se probijala kroz okvir velikog prozora, dodirivala je tu i tamo mjed, bakar i čelik neznatno uzdrhtale zvijeri. Svjetlo je treperilo na komadićima jarkocrvena stakla i na osjetljivim kapilarnim dlačicama u najlonskim četkama nozdrva stvorenja koje je podrhtavalo blago, blago, blago, raširivši poput pauka svojih osam nogu gumom pojastučenih šapa.
Montag slid down the brass pole. He went out to look at the city and the clouds had cleared away completely, and he lit a cigarette and came back to bend down and look at the Hound. It was like a great bee come home from some field where the honey is full of poison wildness, of insanity and nightmare, its body crammed with that over-rich nectar and now it was sleeping the evil out of itself.	Montag je kliznuo niz mjedenu motku. Izašao je da pogleda grad. Oblaci su se bili potpuno raščistili. Zapalio je cigaretu pa se vratio i sagnuo pa pogleda Psa. Zvijer je bila poput velike pčele koja se vratila kući s neke poljane na kojoj je med prepun otrovne divljine, bezumnosti i noćne more, pa joj je tijelo prepuno izobilnog nektara te sada snom izlučuje iz sebe zlo.

"Hello," whispered Montag, fascinated as always with the dead beast, the living beast.	- Hej - prošaptao je Montag, opčinjen kao i uvijek tom mrtvom a živom zvijeri.
At night when things got dull, which was every night, the men slid down the brass poles, and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the Hound and let loose rats in the firehouse area-way, and sometimes chickens, and sometimes cats that would have to be drowned anyway, and there would be betting to see which the Hound would seize first. The animals were turned loose. Three seconds later the game was done, the rat, cat, or chicken caught half across the areaway, gripped in gentling paws while a four-inch hollow steel needle plunged down from the proboscis of the Hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine. The pawn was then tossed in the incinerator. A new game began.	Noću kad zavlada dosada, a to će reći svake noći, ljudi su se spuštali niz motke te namještali odgovarajuće kombinacije olfaktornog sustava kod Psa, pa u prostoru vatrogasne postaje puštali na slobodu štakore, ponekad piliće, ponekad mačke, koje bi ionako trebalo udaviti, pa bi padale oklade koga će Pas prvo dograbiti. Životinje bi bile oslobođene. Za tri bi sekunde igra bila završena. Štakor, mačka ili pile bili bi smjesta uhvaćeni. Meke bi ih šape držale dok bi se iz surle Psa pomaljala deset centimetara duga šuplja čelična igla da ubrizga jaku dozu morfija ili prokaina. Zatim bi žrtva dospijevala u peć za spaljivanje. Uslijedila bi nova igra.
Montag stayed upstairs most nights when this went on. There had been a time two years ago when he had bet with the best of them, and lost a week's salary and faced Mildred's insane anger, which showed itself in veins and blotches. But now at night he lay in his bunk, face turned to the wall, listening to whoops of laughter below and the piano-string scurry of rat feet, the violin squeaking of mice, and the great shadowing, motioned silence of the Hound leaping out like a moth in the raw light, finding, holding its victim, inserting the needle and going back to its kennel to die as if a switch had been turned.	Montag je tih noći kad se ovo odigravalo ostajao na katu. Prije otprilike dvije godine i on se bio kladio s najstrastvenijima te izgubio tjednu plaću, suočivši se potom s Mildredinom silnom srdžbom. Sada je, međutim, ležao na svom ležaju, licem prema zidu, osluškujući salve smijeha odozdo te upravo klavirske zvuke trčanja štakorskih nogu, violinsko cicanje miševa i silnu zatiruću, znakovitu tišinu Psa koji nalijeće poput noćnog leptira na otkriveno svjetlo, nalazi, grabi žrtvu, zabada joj iglu pa se vraća u svoju kućicu da ondje zamre kao da si ga isključio prekidačem.
Montag touched the muzzle..	Montag je dodirnuo njušku.
The Hound growled. Montag jumped back.	Pas je zarežao. Montag je odskočio.
The Hound half rose in its kennel and looked at him with green-blue neon light flickering in its suddenly activated eyebulbs. It growled again, a strange rasping combination of electrical sizzle, a frying sound, a scraping of metal, a turning of cogs that seemed rusty and ancient with suspicion.	U svojoj kućici Pas se napola uspravio i pogledao ga neonskim zelenkasto-plavkastim treperavim svjetlom svojih iznenada aktiviranih očnih žaruljica. Ponovno je zarežao čudnom kreptavom kombinacijom električnog cvrčanja, zvuka što se javlja pri prženju, zvuka struganja metala, škripom zupčanika koji kao da su zahrđali prožeti sumnjičavošću.
"No, no, boy," said Montag, his heart pounding. He saw the silver needle extended upon the air an inch, pull back, extend, pull back. The growl simmered in the beast and it looked at him.	- Ne, ne, mali - rekao je Montag dok mu je srce tuklo. Ugledao je srebrnu iglu ispruženu u zrak centimetar-dva; vidio je kako se povlači, pa ponovno pruža, pa povlači. Zvijer je kiptjela rezanjem i motrila ga.
Montag backed up. The Hound took a step from its kennel. Montag grabbed the brass pole with one hand. The pole, reacting, slid upward, and took him through the ceiling, quietly. He stepped off in the half-lit deck of the upper level. He was trembling and his face was green-white. Below, the Hound had sunk back down upon its eight incredible insect legs and was humming to itself again, its multi-faceted eyes at peace.	Montag je uzmaknuo. Pas je iskočio iz kućice. Montag je jednom rukom ščepao mjedenu motku. Aktiviravši je, povukla ga je uvis i tiho provukla kroz strop. Iskoračio je na poluosvijetljenu razinu kata. Drhtao je, a lice mu je bilo zelenkasto bijelo. Ondje dolje Pas se spustio na svojih osam nevjerojatnih nogu kao u kukca te opet zazujao; njegove su se multifacetirane oči smirile.
Montag stood, letting the fears pass, by the drop-hole. Behind him, four men at a card table under a green-lidded light in the corner glanced briefly but said nothing. Only the man with the Captain's hat and the sign of the Phoenix on his hat, at last, curious, his playing cards in his thin hand, talked across the long room.	Montag je stao uz otvor i čekao da ga mine strah. Iza njega, u kutu, četvorka za kartaškim stolom pod zeleno zastrtim svjetlom nakratko ga je i bez riječi pogledala. Samo je čovjek s kapetanskom kapom i znakom feniksa na njoj naposljetku radoznalo, s kartama u ruci, zazvao preko dugačke prostorije:
"Montag...?"	- Montag...?
"It doesn't like me," said Montag.	- Ne voli me - kazao je Montag.
"What, the Hound?" The Captain studied his cards. "Come off it. It doesn't like or dislike. It just 'functions.' It's like a lesson in ballistics. It has a trajectory we decide for it. It follows through. It targets itself, homes itself, and cuts off. It's only copper wire, storage batteries, and electricity."	- Što? Pas? - kapetan je proučavao svoje karte. - Ma hajde! On niti voli niti ne voli. On samo "funkcionira". To ti je poput lekcije iz balistike. Ima putanju o kojoj mi odlučujemo. On je slijedi. Usmjerava se, pogađa i isključuje. Sve su to samo bakrene žice, rezervne baterije i elektricitet.
Montag swallowed. "Its calculators can be set to any combination, so many amino acids, so much sulphur, so much butterfat and alkaline. Right?"	Montag je progutao slinu. - Njegovi se kalkulatori mogu ugoditi na bilo koju kombinaciju: toliko aminokiselina, toliko sumpora, toliko masnoće, toliko lužine. Je li tako?
"We all know that."	- Svi to znamo.
"All of those chemical balances and percentages on all of us here in the house are recorded in the master file downstairs. It would be easy for someone to set up a partial combination on the Hound's 'memory,' a touch of amino acids, perhaps. That would account for what the animal did just now. Reacted toward me."	- Svi kemijski podaci i postoci za sve nas u ovoj kući pohranjeni su dolje u glavnoj kartoteci. Lako bi netko mogao unijeti djelomičnu kombinaciju u "memoriju" Psa, primjerice ono o aminokiselinama. Time bi se objasnilo ono što je životinja upravo učinila. Reagirala je na mene.
"Hell," said the Captain.	- Do vraga - rekao je kapetan.
"Irritated, but not completely angry. Just enough 'memory' set up in it by someone so it growled when I touched it."	- Razdražena, ali ne potpuno gnjevna. Netko joj je tek toliko ugodio "memoriju" da zareži kad je dodirnem.
"Who would do a thing like that?." asked the Captain. "You haven't any enemies here, Guy."	- Tko bi tako što učinio? - upitao je kapetan. - Nemaš ovdje neprijatelja, Guy.
"None that I know of."	- Koliko znam, nemam.
"We'll have the Hound checked by our technicians tomorrow.	- Sutra ćemo Psa dati na pregled tehničarima.
"This isn't the first time it's threatened me," said Montag. "Last month it happened twice."	- Nije ovo prvi put što mi prijeti - kazao je Montag. -Prošlog se mjeseca to dogodilo dva puta.
"We'll fix it up. Don't worry"	- Sredit ćemo to. Budi bez brige.
But Montag did not move and only stood thinking of the ventilator grille in the hall at home and what lay hidden behind the grille. If someone here in the firehouse knew about the ventilator then mightn't they "tell" the Hound...?	Ali Montag se nije pomaknuo; samo je stajao razmišljajući o rešetki ventilacije u svojem domu i o onome što je skriveno iza te rešetke. Da je netko od ovih u vatrogasnoj postaji znao za ventilaciju, ne bi li mogao "reći" Psu...?
The Captain came over to the drop-hole and gave Montag a questioning glance.	Kapetan je pristupio rupi i upitno pogledao Montaga.
"I was just figuring," said Montag, "what does the Hound think about down there nights? Is it coming alive on us, really? It makes me cold."	- Baš sam razmišljao - kazao je Montag - o čemu ovih noći razmišlja Pas. Hoće li oživjeti na nas? Zebem od te pomisli.
"It doesn't think anything we don't want it to think."	- Ne misli on ništa što mi ne želimo da misli.
"That's sad," said Montag, quietly, "because all we put into it is hunting and finding and killing. What a shame if that's all it can ever know."'	- Tužno je to - rekao je Montag tiho - jer smo u njega unijeli samo lov, traganje i ubijanje. Sramota je ako je to sve što će ikad znati.
Beatty snorted, gently. "Hell! It's a fine bit of craftsmanship, a good rifle that can fetch its own target and guarantees the bull's-eye every time."	Beatty je blago promrmljao. - Do vraga! Pa to je pravo remekd jelo: dobra puška koja može donijeti vlastitu metu, jamčeći svaki put pun pogodak.
"That's why," said Montag. "I wouldn't want to be its next victim.	- Zato i ne bih želio - rekao je Montag - biti njezina sljedeća žrtva.
"Why? You got a guilty conscience about something?" Montag glanced up swiftly.	- Zašto? Imaš zbog nečega nečistu savjest? Montag ga je brzo pogledao.

Beatty stood there looking at him steadily with his eyes, while his mouth opened and began to laugh, very softly.	Beatty je stajao i netremice ga gledao; usta su mu se otvorila i počeo se smijati, vrlo blago.
One two three four five six seven days. And as many times he came out of the house and Clarisse was there somewhere in the world. Once he saw her shaking a walnut tree, once he saw her sitting on the lawn knitting a blue sweater, three or four times he found a bouquet of late flowers on his porch, or a handful of chestnuts in a little sack, or some autumn leaves neatly pinned to a sheet of white paper and thumb-tacked to his door. Every day Clarisse walked him to the corner. One day it was raining, the next it was clear, the day after that the wind blew strong, and the day after that it was mild and calm, and the day after that calm day was a day like a furnace of summer and Clarisse with her face all sunburnt by late afternoon.	Jedan, dva, tri, četiri, pet, šest, sedam dana. I koliko god puta izašao iz kuće, svaki put je negdje naletio na Clarisse. Jednom ju je vidio kako trese orahe, jednom kako sjedi na tratini i plete plavi pulover, tri-četiri puta na svojoj je verandi našao stručak krasna cvijeća ili šaku kestenja u vrećici ili pak jesensko lišće uredno pričvršćeno na bijeli papir i utisnuto u njegova vrata. Svakoga dana Clarisse je s njim hodala do ugla. Jednoga je dana kišilo, drugoga je bilo vedro, dan potom vjetrovito, zatim opet tih i miran dan, pa iza njega dan poput ljetne jare, tako da je Clarissino lice bilo opaljeno od sunca.
"Why is it," he said, one time, at the subway entrance, "I feel I've known you so many years?"	- Kako to - rekao je jednom na ulazu u podzemnu željeznicu - da osjećam kao da vas poznam godinama?
"Because I like you," she said, "and I don't want anything from you. And because we know each other."	- Zato što mi se sviđate - rekla je - a ništa od vas ne tražim. I zato što se poznajemo.
"You make me feel very old and very much like a father."	- Uz vas se osjećam vrlo staro i nekako očinski.
"Now you explain," she said, "why you haven't any daughters like me, if you love children so much?"	- E pa - rekla je - objasnite mi sada zašto nemate kćeri poput mene, ako već toliko volite djecu?
"I don't know."	- Ne znam.
"You're joking!"	- Šalite se!
"I mean―" He stopped and shook his head. "Well, my wife, she... she just never wanted any children at all."	- Hoću reći - Zaustavio se i odmahnuo glavom. - No, moja žena, ona...ona nikad nije željela djecu.
The girl stopped smiling. "I'm sorry. I really, thought you were having fun at my expense. I'm a fool."	Djevojka se prestala smiješiti. - Oprostite mi. Zaista sam pomislila da se šalite sa mnom. Baš sam luda.
"No, no," he said. "It was a good question. It's been a long time since anyone cared enough to ask. A good question."	- Ne, ne - rekao je. - To je bilo dobro pitanje. Prošlo je puno vremena otkako se nekome prohtjelo da ga postavi. Dobro pitanje.
"Let's talk about something else. Have you ever smelled old leaves? Don't they smell like cinnamon? Here. Smell."	- Razgovarajmo o nečem drugom. Jeste li ikad pomirisali staro lišće? Ne miriše li vam ono na cimet? Evo, pomirišite!
"Why, yes, it is like cinnamon in a way."	- Pa, da, doista nekako miriše na cimet.
She looked at him with her clear dark eyes. "You always seem shocked."	Pogledala ga je jasnim tamnim očima. - Vi kao da ste uvijek zaprepašteni.
"It's just I haven't had time―"	- To je samo zato što nisam imao vremena...
"Did you look at the stretched-out billboards like I told you?"	- Jeste li pogledali goleme reklamne panoe kao što sam vam rekla?
"I think so. Yes." He had to laugh.	- Mislim da jesam. Da. - Morao se nasmijati.
"Your laugh sounds much nicer than it did"	- Vaš smijeh zvuči mnogo ljepše nego prije.
"Does it?"	- Je li?
"Much more relaxed."	- Mnogo opuštenije.
He felt at ease and comfortable. "Why aren't you in school? I see you every day wandering around."	Osjetio se lagodno i ugodno. - Zašto niste u školi? Vidim vas kako svakog dana lunjate.
"Oh, they don't miss me," she said. "I'm anti-social, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? Social to me means talking about things like this." She rattled some chestnuts that had fallen off the tree in the front yard. "Or talking about how strange the world is. Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you?	- Oh, ne nedostajem im - rekla je. - Nedruštvena sam, vele. Ne uklapam se. Čudno. Zapravo sam vrlo društvena. Sve ovisi o tome što razumijevaš pod društvenim, zar ne? Za mene "društveno" znači razgovarati o nečemu, kao ovo sada. -Začegrtala je kestenovima koji su otpali s drveta u prednjem dvorištu. - Ili pak razgovarati o tome kako je svijet čudan. Lijepo je biti s ljudima. No ne smatram društvenim okupiti gomilu ljudi koji mi potom neće dopustiti da govorim, je li tako?
An hour of TV class, an hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don't; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film-teacher. That's not social to me at all.	Sat TV nastave, sat košarke ili baseballa ili trčanja, zatim još jedan sat prepisivanja povijesti ili slikanja, pa opet sportovi...ali znate li da nikad ne postavljamo pitanja ili, bar, da ih većina ne postavlja? Samo vas obasipaju odgovorima, bum, bum, bum, a mi ondje samo sjedimo daljnja četiri sata na nastavi filmske umjetnosti. To nije nimalo društveno.
It's a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it's wine when it's not. They run us so ragged by the end of the day we can't do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun Park to bully people around, break windowpanes in the Window Smasher place or wreck cars in the Car Wrecker place with the big steel ball. Or go out in the cars and race on the streets, trying to see how close you can get to lamp-posts, playing 'chicken' and 'knock hub-caps.' I guess I'm everything they say I am, all right.	Mnogo lijevaka i mnogo vode koja se slijeva niz grlić i izlijeva na dnu, a nama govore da je to vino, premda nije. Na kraju dana toliko smo izmoždeni da nismo ni za što drugo doli da odemo u krevet ili se uputimo u zabavište da ondje zastrašujemo ljude, razbijamo okna u Razbijalištu prozora, da velikom metalnom kuglom razbijamo aute u Razbijalištu automobila. Ili pak da izlazimo u autima pa da se utrkujemo po ulicama, nastojeći utvrditi koliko se najbliže možemo zaustaviti pred uličnom svjetiljkom, da se igramo "kukavice" i "trganja radkapa". Držim da sam sve ono što vele da jesam. U redu.
I haven't any friends. That's supposed to prove I'm abnormal. But everyone I know is either shouting or dancing around like wild or beating up one another. Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays?"	Nemam prijatelja. To bi trebao biti dokaz da sam abnormalna. No svi koje znam deru se ili plešu kao divlji ili se pak međusobno mlate. Primjećujete li koliko se u zadnje vrijeme ljudi međusobno vrijeđaju?
"You sound so very old."	- Zvučite jako staro.
"Sometimes I'm ancient. I'm afraid of children my own age. They kill each other. Did it always used to be that way? My uncle says no. Six of my friends have been shot in the last year alone. Ten of them died in car wrecks. I'm afraid of them and they don't like me because I'm afraid. My uncle says his grandfather remembered when children didn't kill each other. But that was a long time ago when they had things different. They believed in responsibility, my uncle says. Do you know, I'm responsible. I was spanked when I needed it, years ago. And I do all the shopping and house-cleaning by hand.	- Ponekad sam prastara. Bojim se svojih vršnjaka. Ubijaju jedan drugoga. Je li uvijek bilo ovako? Moj ujo veli da nije. Šestero mojih prijatelja ustrijeljeno je samo u posljednjih godinu dana. Deset ih je poginulo u automobilskim nesrećama. Bojim ih se, a oni me ne vole zato što se bojim. Moj ujo veli da se njegov djed sjećao vremena kad se djeca nisu ubijala. No to je bilo jako davno, kad je sve bilo drukčije. Vjerovali su u odgovornost, veli moj ujo. Znate li, ja sam odgovorna. Prije puno godina dobila bih batina kad bih ih zaslužila. I svu kupovinu i čišćenje obavljam ručno.
"But most of all," she said, "I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they're going. Sometimes I even go to the Fun Parks and ride in the jet cars when they race on the edge of town at midnight and the police don't care as long as they're insured. As long as everyone has ten thousand insurance everyone's happy. Sometimes I sneak around and listen in subways. Or I listen at soda fountains, and do you know what?"	- No više od svega - rekla je - volim promatrati ljude. Kojiput se čitav dan vozim podzemnom željeznicom i gledam ih, slušam. Želim samo proniknuti tko su, što žele i kamo idu. Katkada odem u zabavište pa se vozim u mlaznim automobilima kad o ponoći jure rubom grada, a policija uopće ne haje, samo ako su osigurani. Dovoljno je da su osigurani na deset tisuća, i sve je u redu. Ponekad se šuljam okolo i prisluškujem u podzemnoj željeznici. Ili osluškujem po štandovima za točenje osvježavajućih napitaka, i znate što?
"What?"	-Što?
"People don't talk about anything."	- Ljudi uopće ni o čemu ne razgovaraju.

"Oh, they must!"	- Oh, moraju razgovarati!
"No, not anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming-pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else. And most of the time in the cafes they have the jokeboxes on and the same jokes most of the time, or the musical wall lit and all the coloured patterns running up and down, but it's only colour and all abstract. And at the museums, have you ever been? All abstract. That's all there is now. My uncle says it was different once. A long time back sometimes pictures said things or even showed people."	- Ne, uopće ne razgovaraju. Uglavnom spomenu svu silu automobila ili odjeće ili bazena za kupanje i reknu kako je to dobro! Ali svi govore isto i nitko ne kaže ništa po čemu bi se razlikovao od ostalih. U kafićima su najveći dio vremena uključeni automati sa šalama i stalno se vrte iste šale, ili je pak uključen muzički zid, pa stalno gore-dolje struje obojeni likovi, no sve je to ipak samo boja i gola apstrakcija. A u muzejima? Jeste li ikad tamo bili? Sve sama apstrakcija. Ondje je sada isključivo to. Moj ujo veli da je nekoć bilo drukčije. U davna vremena slike su znale prikazivati nešto, katkada čak i ljude.
"Your uncle said, your uncle said. Your uncle must be a remarkable man."	- Vaš ujo je rekao, vaš ujo je rekao. Vaš ujo mora da je izniman čovjek.
"He is. He certainly is. Well, I've got to be going. Goodbye, Mr. Montag."	- I jest. Bogme jest. No sada moram ići. Zbogom, gospodine Montag.
"Good-bye."	- Zbogom.
"Good-bye..."	- Zbogom...
One two three four five six seven days: the firehouse.	Jedan, dva, tri, četiri, pet, šest, sedam dana: vatrogasni dom.
"Montag, you shin that pole like a bird up a tree."	- Montag, penješ se uz tu motku kao ptica na drvo.
Third day.	Treći dan.
"Montag, I see you came in the back door this time. The Hound bother you?"	- Montag, vidim da si ovaj put ušao na stražnja vrata. Pas te gnjavi?
"No, no."	- Ne, ne.
Fourth day.	Četvrti dan.
"Montag, a funny thing. Heard tell this morning. Fireman in Seattle, purposely set a Mechanical Hound to his own chemical complex and let it loose. What kind of suicide would you call that?"	- Montag, smiješne li stvari! Čuo sam je jutros. Vatrogasac u Seattleu namjerno je programirao mehaničkog Psa na vlastitu kemijsku formulu i aktivirao ga. Kakvom bi vrstom samoubojstva to nazvao?
Five six seven days.	Pet, šest, sedam dana.
And then, Clarisse was gone. He didn't know what there was about the afternoon, but it was not seeing her somewhere in the world. The lawn was empty, the trees empty, the street empty, and while at first he did not even know he missed her or was even looking for her, the fact was that by the time he reached the subway, there were vague stirrings of un-ease in him. Something was the matter, his routine had been disturbed. A simple routine, true, established in a short few days, and yet ...? He almost turned back to make the walk again, to give her time to appear. He was certain if he tried the same route, everything would work out fine. But it was late, and the arrival of his train put a stop to his plan.	A onda je Clarisse nestala. Nije znao po čemu je čudno to popodne, ali znakovito je bilo to što je nigdje nije vidio. Travnjak je bio pust, drveće pusto, ulica pusta, i premda isprva nije niti znao da mu nedostaje, niti ju je pak tražio, činjenica je da je u trenutku kad je stigao do podzemne željeznice osjetio nekakvu nejasnu nelagodu. Nešto se desilo, njegove su navike poremećene. Jednostavna navika, doduše, uspostavljena u nekoliko kratkih dana, no ipak...Gotovo se okrenuo da ponovi šetnju, da joj dade vremena da se pojavi. Bio je siguran da će, prođe li istom rutom, sve ispasti kako valja. No bilo je kasno i dolazak vlaka okončao je njegovu nakanu.
The flutter of cards, motion of hands, of eyelids, the drone of the time-voice in the firehouse ceiling "... one thirty-five. Thursday morning, November 4th,... one thirty-six ... one thirty-seven A.M... " The tick of the playing-cards on the greasy table-top, all the sounds came to Montag, behind his closed eyes, behind the barrier he had momentarily erected. He could feel the firehouse full of glitter and shine and silence, of brass colours, the colours of coins, of gold, of silver: The unseen men across the table were sighing on their cards, waiting. "... one forty-five ..." The voice-clock mourned out the cold hour of a cold morning of a still colder year.	Lepršanje karata, pokreti ruku, vjeda, jednoličan glas točnoga vremena sa stropa vatrogasne stanice "...jedan trideset pet. Četvrtak, 4. studenog...jedan trideset šest...jedan trideset sedam..." Udaranje igraćim kartama po zamašćenom stolnjaku, svi su ti zvuči dopirali do Montaga iza njegovih zatvorenih očiju, iza ograde koju je na tren podigao. Osjećao je vatrogasnu stanicu punu sjaja, blještavila i tišine, mjedenih boja novčića, zlata, srebra. Nevidljivi ljudi s druge strane stola uzdisali su nad kartama, iščekivali. - ...jedan četrdeset pet... - Glas-sat oplakivao je hladnu uru hladnoga jutra još hladnije godine.
"What's wrong, Montag?" Montag opened his eyes.	- Što ne valja, Montag? Montag je otvorio oči.
A radio hummed somewhere. "... war may be declared any hour. This country stands ready to defend its ..."	Negdje je brojao radio: - ...svakog sata može biti objavljen rat. Ova zemlja stoji spremna na braniku svoje -
The firehouse trembled as a great flight of jet planes whistled a single note across the black morning sky.	Vatrogasni je dom zadrhtao kad je velika eskadra mlažnjaka jednu jedinu notu odzviždala crnim, noćnim nebom.
Montag blinked. Beatty was looking at him as if he were a museum statue. At any moment, Beatty might rise and walk about him, touching, exploring his guilt and self-consciousness. Guilt? What guilt was that?	Montag je žmirnuo. Beatty ga je gledao kao da je muzejski kip. U svakom trenutku Beatty se mogao dići i prići, dodirnuti ga da istraži njegovu krivnju i zbunjenost. Krivnju? Kakvu krivnju?
"Your play, Montag."	- Ti si na redu, Montag.
Montag looked at these men whose faces were sunburnt by a thousand real and ten thousand imaginary fires, whose work flushed their cheeks and fevered their eyes. These men who looked steadily into their platinum igniter flames as they lit their eternally burning black pipes. They and their charcoal hair and soot-coloured brows and bluish-ash-smeared cheeks where they had shaven close; but their heritage showed. Montag started up, his mouth opened. Had he ever seen a fireman that didn't have black hair, black brows, a fiery face, and a blue-steel shaved but unshaved look? These men were all mirror-images of himself! Were all firemen picked then for their looks as well as their proclivities? The colour of cinders and ash about them, and the continual smell of burning from their pipes. Captain Beatty there, rising in thunderheads of tobacco smoke. Beatty opening a fresh tobacco packet, crumpling the cellophane into a sound of fire.	Montag je gledao ove ljude čija su lica bila opaljena s tisuću stvarnih i deset tisuća zamišljenih vatri, ljude kojima je njihov poziv zarumenio lica i užagrio oči, ljude koji su netremice zurili u plamenove svojih platinastih upaljača dok su pripaljivali svoje vječno goruće crne lule. Oni i te njihove kose crne poput ugljena i čađava čela te plavkasto-pepeljasto umrljani a opet izbrijani obrazi; no njihova se tradicija razaznavala. Montag se prenuo otvorenih usta. Je li ikad vidio vatrogasca koji nije imao crnu kosu, crno čelo, usplamtjelo lice i plavičasto-čelično izbrijan a ipak neobrijan izgled? Svi su ovi ljudi bili zrcalni odraz njega samoga. Jesu li pak sve vatrogasce odabirali i po izgledu baš kao i prema njihovim sklonostima? Kod njih su prevladavale boje žeravice i pepela te neprekidan vonj gorenja iz njihovih lula. Eno ondje kapetana Beattyja kako se uzdiže iz sivila duhanskog dima, Beattyja koji otvara novi paketić duhana i gužvajući celofan stvara zvuk sličan pucketanju plamena.
Montag looked at the cards in his own hands. "I―I've been thinking. About the fire last week. About the man whose library we fixed. What happened to him?"	Montag je pogledao karte koje su mu bile u ruci. -Ovaj...razmišljao sam malo. O paljevini prošlog tjedna. O čovjeku čiju smo knjižnicu sredili. Što se s njim zbilo?
"They took him screaming off to the asylum"	Uz silnu je dernjavu aziliran.
"He. wasn't insane."	Nije bio lud.
Beatty arranged his cards quietly. "Any man's insane who thinks he can fool the Government and us."	Beatty je mirno poredao karte. - Lud je svatko tko misli da može nasamariti vladu i nas.
"I've tried to imagine," said Montag, "just how it would feel. I mean to have firemen burn our houses and our books."	- Pokušao sam zamisliti - rekao je Montag - kako bi to izgledalo. Hoću reći, kad bi vatrogasci palili naše domove i naše knjige.
"We haven't any books."	- Mi nemamo nikakvih knjiga.
"But if we did have some."	- Ali da ih imamo.
"You got some?"	- Imaš li ti koju?

Beatty blinked slowly.	Beatty je polagano trepnuo.
"No." Montag gazed beyond them to the wall with the typed lists of a million forbidden books. Their names leapt in fire, burning down the years under his axe and his hose which sprayed not water but kerosene. "No." But in his mind, a cool wind started up and blew out of the ventilator grille at home, softly, softly, chilling his face. And, again, he saw himself in a green park talking to an old man, a very old man, and the wind from the park was cold, too.	- Ne.- Montag se zagledao preko njih u zid s odštampanim popisima milijuna zabranjenih knjiga. Njihova su imena frcala u vatru, godinama plamsajući pod njegovom sjekirom i cijevi iz koje nije štrcala voda nego petrolej. - Ne.- Ali u njegovoj je svijesti puhnuo studen vjetar, začet iz rešetke ventilacije njegova doma, blago, blago mu rashlađujući lice. I opet je vidio sama sebe u zelenom perivoju u razgovoru s nekim starcem, s nekim vrlo starim starcem, a vjetar iz toga parka također je bio hladan.
Montag hesitated, "Was―was it always like this? The firehouse, our work? I mean, well, once upon a time..."	Montag je okolišao. - Je li, je li oduvijek bilo ovako? Mislim, vatrogasci, naš posao? Hoću reći, no, jednom davno...
"Once upon a time!" Beatty said. "What kind of talk is that?"	- Jednom davno! - rekao je Beatty. - Kakav je to uopće razgovor?
Fool, thought Montag to himself, you'll give it away. At the last fire, a book of fairy tales, he'd glanced at a single line. "I mean," he said, "in the old days, before homes were completely fireproofed―" Suddenly it seemed a much younger voice was speaking for him. He opened his mouth and it was Clarisse McClellan saying, "Didn't firemen prevent fires rather than stoke them up and get them going?"	Budalo, rekao je Montag samom sebi, odat ćeš se. Pri posljednjoj paljevini u nekoj je knjizi bajki krišom pročitao jedan jedini redak. - Hoću reći - kazao je - jednom davno, prije no što su domovi postali posve vatrostalni. - Odjednom mu se učinilo kao da umjesto njega govori neki mnogo mladi glas. Otvorio je usta, a Clarisse McClellan je govorila: - Nisu li vatrogasci gasili vatru umjesto da je potiču?
"That's rich!" Stoneman and Black drew forth their rulebooks, which also contained brief histories of the Firemen of America, and laid them out where Montag, though long familiar with them, might read:	- Komično! - Stoneman i Black izvukli su svoje pravilnike, u kojima se nalazila i kratka povijest Američkih vatrogasaca, te ih položili pred Montaga tako da je, iako odavno upoznat s njima, mogao pročitati:
"Established, 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the Colonies. First Fireman: Benjamin Franklin."	"Utemeljeni 1790. radi paljenja proengleskih knjiga u Kolonijama. Prvi vatrogasac: Benjamin Franklin."
RULE	PRAVILA:
1. Answer the alarm swiftly.	1. Brzo odgovoriti na uzbunu
2. Start the fire swiftly.	2. Brzo potpaliti vatru
3. Burn everything.	3. Spaliti sve
4. Report back to firehouse immediately.	4. Smjesta se vratiti u vatrogasnu postaju
5. Stand alert for other alarms.	5. Biti spreman za nove uzbune
Everyone watched Montag. He did not move. The alarm sounded.	Svi su promatrali Montaga. Nije se pomaknuo. Oglašena je uzbuna.
The bell in the ceiling kicked itself two hundred times. Suddenly there were four empty chairs. The cards fell in a flurry of snow. The brass pole shivered. The men were gone.	Zvono na stropu odjeknulo je dvjesto puta. Odjednom su četiri stolca ostala prazna. Karte su popadale poput mećave. Mjedena se motka tresla. Ljudi su nestali.
Montag sat in his chair. Below, the orange dragon coughed into life. Montag slid down the pole like a man in a dream. The Mechanical Hound leapt up in its kennel, its eyes all green flame.	Montag je kliznuo niz motku kao u snu. Mehanički je Pas skočio u svojoj kućici; oči su mu plamtjele zelenim ognjem.
"Montag, you forgot your helmet!"	- Montag, zaboravio si šljem!
He seized it off the wall behind him, ran, leapt, and they were off, the night wind hammering about their siren scream and their mighty metal thunder!	Strgnuo ga je sa zida pa potrčao, skočio, i već su odjurili, a noćni je vjetar tutnjao urlikom njihove sirene i njihovom moćnom metalnom grmljavinom.
It was a flaking three-storey house in the ancient part of the city, a century old if it was a day, but like all houses it had been given a thin fireproof plastic sheath many years ago, and this preservative shell seemed to be the only thing holding it in the sky.	Bila je to neka trošna trokatnica u starom dijelu grada, stara barem stotinjak godina, no poput svih ostalih zgrada i ova je prije mnogo godina bila presvučena tankom plastičnom vatrostalnom oblogom. Sada se činilo kao da je ova zaštitna ljuska ujedno i jedino što ovu zgradu održava uspravnom.
"Here we are!"	- Tu smo!
The engine slammed to a stop. Beatty, Stoneman, and Black ran up the sidewalk, suddenly odious and fat in the plump fireproof slickers. Montag followed.	Stroj se s treskom zaustavio. Beatty, Stoneman i Black potrčali su pločnikom, odjednom odvratni i debeli u svojim širokim vatrogasnim ogrtačima. Montag ih je slijedio.
They crashed the front door and grabbed at a woman, though she was not running, she was not trying to escape. She was only standing, weaving from side to side, her eyes fixed upon a nothingness in the wall as if they had struck her a terrible blow upon the head. Her tongue was moving in her mouth, and her eyes seemed to be trying to remember something, and then they remembered and her tongue moved again: "'Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.' "	Smrskali su ulazna vrata i ščepali neku ženu, premda nije trčala, premda nije pokušavala umaknuti. Samo je stajala, klateći se sad na jednu sad na drugu stranu, očiju uprtih u ništavilo zida, kao da su je strašnim udarcem pogodili u glavu. Jezik joj se pleo po ustima, a oči kao da su se nastojale prisjetiti nečega pa su se onda sjetile i njezin se jezik ponovno pokrenuo. - "Budite čovjek, gospodine Ridley; danas ćemo po milosti Božjoj upaliti u Engleskoj takvu svijeću koja se, ufam se, nikad neće utrnuti."
"Enough of that!" said Beatty. "Where are they?"	- Dosta toga! - rekao je Beatty. - Gdje su?
He slapped her face with amazing objectivity and repeated the question. The old woman's eyes came to a focus upon Beatty. "You know where they are or you wouldn't be here," she said.	Sa začuđujućom ju je ravnodušnošću pljusnuo i ponovio pitanje. Staričine su se oči usredotočile na Beattyja. - Znate gdje su. Inače ne biste bili ovdje - rekla je.
Stoneman held out the telephone alarm card with the complaint signed in telephone duplicate on the back "Have reason to suspect attic; 11 No. Elm, City. ―E. B."	Stoneman je izvadio karticu telefonskog alarma s potpisanom pritužbom na telefonskoj kopiji. "Utemeljeno sumnjam na potkrovlje; broj 11, Elm. Grad. E. B."
"That would be Mrs. Blake, my neighbour;" said the woman, reading the initials.	- To će biti gospoda Blake, moja susjeda - rekla je žena čitajući inicijale.
"All right, men, let's get 'em!"	- U redu, ljudi, pokupimo ih!
Next thing they were up in musty blackness, swinging silver hatchets at doors that were, after all, unlocked, tumbling through like boys all rollick and shout. "Hey!" A fountain of books sprang down upon Montag as he climbed shuddering up the sheer stair-well. How inconvenient! Always before it had been like snuffing a candle. The police went first and adhesive-taped the victim's mouth and bandaged him off into their glittering beetle cars, so when you arrived you found an empty house. You weren't hurting anyone, you were hurting only things! And since things really couldn't be hurt, since things felt nothing, and things don't scream or whimper, as this woman might begin to scream and cry out, there was nothing to tease your conscience later. You were simply cleaning up. Janitorial work, essentially. Everything to its proper place. Quick with the kerosene! Who's got a match!	Trenutak potom penjali su se zagušljivim mrakom, mlateći srebrnim sjekirama po vratima koja su ionako bila otključana, srljajući poput dječaka obijesno i bučno. - Hej! - Slap knjiga survao se na Montaga dok se, zgražajući se, penjao strmim stubama. Baš neugodno! Dosad je ovo uvijek bivalo kao da trneš svijeću. Prvo je dolazila policija te bi ljepljivom trakom čepila žrtvi usta, a zatim ju je odvozila svojim blistavim kornjačastim kolima, pa kad bi stigli vatrogasci, ulazili bi u praznu kuću. Nisu nikoga vrijeđali, vrijeđali su samo stvari! A kako se stvari zapravo ne mogu vrijeđati, kako stvari ništa ne osjećaju te niti jauču niti cvile, kao što bi ova žena mogla početi zapomagati i kričati, ništa ti kasnije nije žuljalo savjest.Jednostavno si raščišćavao. Kućepaziteljski posao, zapravo. Sve na svoje mjesto. Brzo petrolej! Tko ima šibicu?
But now, tonight, someone had slipped. This woman was spoiling the ritual. The men were making too much noise, laughing, joking to cover her terrible accusing silence below. She made the empty rooms roar with accusation and shake down a fine dust of guilt that was sucked in their nostrils as they plunged about. It was neither cricket nor correct. Montag felt an immense irritation. She shouldn't be here, on top of everything!	No sada, noćas, netko je skiksao. Ova je žena remetila obred. Ljudi su bili prebučni, smijali su se, šalili, kako bi zatomili njezin užasan optužujući muk. Ona je dovela do toga da prazne sobe grme od optužaba i stresaju finu prašinu krivnje koja im sada, dok haraju stanom, prodire u nosnice. Nije bilo ni pošteno ni po propisu. Montag se silno živcirao. Prije svega, nije smjela biti ovdje!
Books bombarded his shoulders, his arms, his upturned face A book alighted, almost obediently, like a white pigeon, in his hands, wings fluttering. In the dim, wavering light, a page hung. open and it was like a snowy feather, the words delicately painted thereon. In all the rush and fervour, Montag had only an instant to read a line, but it blazed in his mind for the next minute as if stamped there with fiery steel. "Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine." He dropped the book. Immediately, another fell into his arms.	Knjige su ga bombardirale po ramenima, rukama, uzdignutu licu. Neka je knjiga, gotovo poslušno, sletjela poput bijela goluba u njegove ruke, lepršajući krilima. U mutnom, treperavom svjetlu jedna je stranica ostala otvorena poput nekakva snježnog pera na koje su pažljivo upisane riječi. U čitavoj toj gužvi i strci Montagu je preostao samo časak da pročita jedan redak, no taj mu se sljedeće minute urezao u pamet kao da je utisnut usijanim željezom. "Vrijeme je usnulo na popodnevnom suncu." Ispustio je knjigu. Odmah mu je druga pala u naručaj.

"Montag, up here!"	- Montag, ovamo gore!
Montag's hand closed like a mouth, crushed the book with wild devotion, with an insanity of mindlessness to his chest. The men above were hurling shovelfuls of magazines into the dusty air. They fell like slaughtered birds and the woman stood below, like a small girl, among the bodies.	Montagova se ruka sklopila kao nekakva usta i pritisnula knjigu s divljom požrtvovnošc'u, ludošću bezumlja, na prsa. Ljudi iznad njega hitali su lopatama časopise u zrak pun prašine. Listovi su padali kao pobijene ptice, a ona je žena stajala dolje poput djevojčice medu truplima.
Montag had done nothing. His hand had done it all, his hand, with a brain of its own, with a conscience and a curiosity in each trembling finger, had turned thief.. Now, it plunged the book back under his arm, pressed it tight to sweating armpit, rushed out empty, with a magician's flourish! Look here! Innocent! Look!	Montag nije učinio ništa. Njegova je ruka učinila sve: da, njegova ruka, s nekim svojim vlastitim mozgom, s nekom savješću i sa znatiželjom u svakom uzdrhtalom prstu preobrazila se u lopova. Sada je gurnula knjigu duboko pod mišicu, stisnula je čvrsto u znojno pazuho, jurnula van prazna, čarobnjački vješto. Pogledajte ovamo! Nevina! Pogledajte!
He gazed, shaken, at that white hand. He held it way out, as if he were far-sighted. He held it close, as if he were blind.	Zabuljio se, potresen, u tu bijelu ruku. Ispružio ju je malo, kao da je dalekovidan. Približio ju je kao da je slijep.
"Montag!" He jerked about.	- Montag! Trgnuo se.
"Don't stand there, idiot!"	- Ne stoj tamo, idiote!
The books lay like great mounds of fishes left to dry. The men danced and slipped and fell over them. Titles glittered their golden eyes, falling, gone.	Knjige su ležale poput velikih hrpa riba ostavljenih da se suše. Ljudi su po njima plesali, posrtali i rušili se. Naslovi su iskrili svojim zlatnim očima, padajući, odlazeći.
"Kerosene! They pumped the cold fluid from the numbered 451 tanks strapped to their shoulders. They coated each book, they pumped rooms full of it.	- Petrolej! Pumpali su hladnu tekućinu iz spremnika označenih brojkom 451 koji su im bili o ramenima. Poprskali su svaku knjigu, dobrano natopili prostorije.
They hurried downstairs, Montag staggered after them in the kerosene fumes.	Pohrlili su u prizemlje. Montag je kroz petrolejske pare posrtao za njima.
"Come on, woman!"	- Hajde, ženo!
The woman knelt among the books, touching the drenched leather and cardboard, reading the gilt titles with her fingers while her eyes accused Montag.	Žena je kleknula medu knjige, dodirujući natopljenu kožu i karton, čitajući pozlaćene naslove prstima, dok je očima optuživala Montaga.
"You can't ever have my books," she said.	- Nikad se nećete domoći mojih knjiga - rekla je.
"You know the law," said Beatty. "Where's your common sense? None of those books agree with each other. You've been locked up here for years with a regular damned Tower of Babel. Snap out of it! The people in those books never lived. Come on now!"	- Znate zakon - rekao je Beatty. - Gdje vam je pamet! Nijedna od ovih knjiga ne slaže se s nekom drugom. Godinama ste bili ovdje zaključani u pravoj pravcatoj prokletoj Kuli babilonskoj.Tornjajte se van! Ljudi iz ovih knjiga nikada nisu živjeli. Hajde sad!
She shook her head.	Odmahnula je glavom.
"The whole house is going up;" said Beatty, The men walked clumsily to the door. They glanced back at Montag, who stood near the woman.	- Čitava će kuća u zrak - rekao je Beatty. Ljudi su nezgrapno otišli prema vratima. Osvrnuli su se prema Montagu, koji je stajao blizu žene.
"You're not leaving her here?" he protested.	- Nećete je valjda ostaviti ovdje? - prosvjedovao je.
"She won't come."	- Neće ići.
"Force her, then!"	- Onda je primorajte.
Beatty raised his hand in which was concealed the igniter. "We're due back at the house. Besides, these fanatics always try suicide; the pattern's familiar."	Beatty je podigao ruku u kojoj je bio sakriven upaljač. -Moramo se vratiti kući. Osim toga, ovi fanatici uvijek su skloni samoubojstvu; poznate stvari.
Montag placed his hand on the woman's elbow. "You can come with me."	Montag je položio ruku na ženin lakat. - Možete poći sa mnom.
"No," she said. "Thank you, anyway."	- Ne - kazala je. - Ipak, hvala vam.
"I'm counting to ten," said Beatty. "One. Two."	- Brojim do deset - rekao je Beatty. - Jedan. Dva.
"Please," said Montag.	- Molim vas - rekao je Montag.
"Go on," said the woman.	- Nastavite - rekla je žena.
"Three. Four."	- Tri. Četiri.
"Here." Montag pulled at the woman.	- Ovamo. - Montag je povukao ženu.
The woman replied quietly, "I want to stay here"	Žena je mirno odvratila: - Želim ostati ovdje.
"Five. Six."	- Pet. Šest.
"You can stop counting," she said. She opened the fingers of one hand slightly and in the palm of the hand was a single slender object.	- Možete prestati brojiti - rekla je. Rastvorila je malo prste jedne ruke, a na dlanu se ukazao jedan jedini maleni predmet.
An ordinary kitchen match.	Obična kuhinjska šibica.

The sight of it rushed the men out and down away from the house. Captain Beatty, keeping his dignity, backed slowly through the front door, his pink face burnt and shiny from a thousand fires and night excitements. God, thought Montag, how true! Always at night the alarm comes. Never by day! Is it because the fire is prettier by night? More spectacle, a better show? The pink face of Beatty now showed the faintest panic in the door. The woman's hand twitched on the single matchstick. The fumes of kerosene bloomed up about her. Montag felt the hidden book pound like a heart against his chest.	Pri pogledu na nju ljudi su žurno nahrupili van iz kuće. Kapetan Beatty, čuvajući svoje dostojanstvo, polako je uzmaknuo kroz ulazna vrata, a njegovo ružičasto lice gorjelo je i sjalo od tisuća plamenova i noćnih uzbuđenja. Bože, pomislio je Montag, istina je! Uzbuna je uvijek noću. Nikad danju. Je li to stoga što je vatra noću ljepša? Spektakl veći, predstava bolja? Na ružičastom Beattyjevom licu, sada pri vratima, ocrtavao se tračak panike. Ženina je ruka grčevito stiskala tu jednu jedinu šibicu. Petrolejske su se pare vijale oko nje. Montag je osjetio kako mu u prsima poput srca tuče skrivena knjiga.
"Go on," said the woman, and Montag felt himself back away and away out of the door, after Beatty, down the steps, across the lawn, where the path of kerosene lay like the track of some evil snail.	- Odlazite - rekla je žena, a Montag se povlačio unatraške kroz vrata za Beattyjem, niza stube, preko travnjaka, po petrolejskom putiću koji se pružao poput traga nekog opakog puža.
On the front porch where she had come to weigh them quietly with her eyes, her quietness a condemnation, the woman stood motionless. Beatty flicked his fingers to spark the kerosene. He was too late. Montag gasped.	Na verandi, na koju je izašla da ih spokojno odmjeri svojim očima, a njezina je mirnoća značila osudu, žena je stajala nepomično. Beatty je kvrcnuo prstima da upali petrolej. Zakasnio je. Montag je zinuo.
The woman on the porch reached out with contempt for them all, and struck the kitchen match against the railing. People ran out of houses all down the street.	Žena na verandi, prepuna prezira prema svima njima, ispružila je ruku i kresnula šibicom po ogradi. Ljudi iz kuća potrčali su niz ulicu.
They said nothing on their way back to the firehouse. Nobody looked at anyone else. Montag sat in the front seat with Beatty and Black. They did not even smoke their pipes. They sat there looking out of the front of the great salamander as they turned a corner and went silently on.	Putem prema vatrogasnoj postaji nisu ništa govorili. Nitko nikog nije gledao. Montag je sjeo na prednje sjedalo s Beattyjem i Blackom. Nisu čak ni pušili lule. Sjedili su i zurili preda se iz velikog daždevnjaka dok su zamicali za ugao i tiho se udaljavali.
"Master Ridley," said Montag at last.	- Gospodar Ridley - rekao je naposljetku Montag.
"What?" said Beatty.	- Što? - upitao je Beatty.
"She said, 'Master Ridley.' She said some crazy thing when we came in the door. 'Play the man,' she said, 'Master Ridley.' Something, something, something."	- Rekla je "Gospodaru Ridley." Kazala je nešto ludo kad smo joj došli na vrata. "Budite čovjek", kazala je, "gospodaru Ridley." Nešto tako, tako nekako.
"'We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out,"' said Beatty. Stoneman glanced over at the Captain, as did Montag, startled.	- "Danas ćemo, po milosti Božjoj, upaliti u Engleskoj takvu svijeću koja se, nadam se, nikad neće utrnuti" - rekao je Beatty. Stoneman je pogledao kapetana, kao i zatečeni Montag.
Beatty rubbed his chin. "A man named Latimer said that to a man named Nicholas Ridley, as they were being burnt alive at Oxford, for heresy, on October 16, 1555."	Beatty je protrljao bradu. - Jedan čovjek po imenu Latimer rekao je to jednom drugom čovjeku koji se zvao Nicholas Ridley, dok su ih žive spaljivali zbog krivovjerja u Oxfordu 16. listopada 1555. godine.
Montag and Stoneman went back to looking at the street as it moved under the engine wheels.	Montag i Stoneman ponovno su se zapiljili u ulicu koja je promicala pod točkovima.
"I'm full of bits and pieces," said Beatty. "Most fire captains have to be. Sometimes I surprise myself. Watch it, Stoneman!"	- Prepun sam kojekakvih citata - rekao je Beatty. - Kao i većina vatrogasnih kapetana. Katkada iznenadim sama sebe. Pazite, Stoneman!
Stoneman braked the truck.	Stoneman je zakočio.
"Damn!" said Beatty. "You've gone right by the corner where we turn for the firehouse."	- K vragu! - rekao je Beatty. - Upravo si prošao ugao na kojem zaokrećemo za stanicu.
"Who is it?"	- Tko je to?
"Who would it be?" said Montag, leaning back against the closed door in the dark.	- Tko bi bio? - rekao je Montag naslanjajući se na zatvorena vrata u mraku.
His wife said, at last, "Well, put on the light."	Njegova je žena napokon rekla: - Dobro, upali svjetlo.
"I don't want the light."	- Ne želim svjetlo.
"Come to bed."	- Dodi u krevet.
He heard her roll impatiently; the bedsprings squealed.	Čuo je kako se nestrpljivo okreće; opruge su zaškripale.
"Are you drunk?" she said.	- Jesi li pijan? - upitala je.
So it was the hand that started it all. He felt one hand and then the other work his coat free and let it slump to the floor. He held his pants out into an abyss and let them fall into darkness. His hands had been infected, and soon it would be his arms. He could feel the poison working up his wrists and into his elbows and his shoulders, and then the jump-over from shoulder-blade to shoulder-blade like a spark leaping a gap. His hands were ravenous. And his eyes were beginning to feel hunger, as if they must look at something, anything, everything.	Dakle, sve je to otpočela ruka. Osjetio je kako jedna pa onda druga ruka otkapča kaput i pušta ga da spuzne na pod. Gurnuo je hlače nad ponor i pustio ih da padnu u tminu. Šake su mu bile okužene, a doskora će se to dogoditi i s rukama. Mogao je osjetiti kako mu otrov obuzima zglavke, pa laktove i ramena, pa onda skače s lopatice na lopaticu poput iskre koja preskakuje prazninu. Ruke su mu bile pohlepne. I njegove su oči počinjale osjećati glad, kao da baš moraju gledati nešto, bilo što, svašta.
His wife said, "What are you doing?"	Žena je rekla: - Što ti to radiš?
He balanced in space with the book in his sweating cold fingers.	Balansirao je u prostoru s knjigom u znojnim hladnim prstima.
A minute later she said, "Well, just don't stand there in the middle of the floor." He made a small sound.	Trenutak kasnije rekla je: - Pa, nemoj tako stajati nasred sobe. Oglasio se jedva čujno.
"What?" she asked.	- Što? - upitala je.
He made more soft sounds. He stumbled towards the bed and shoved the book clumsily under the cold pillow. He fell into bed and his wife cried out, startled. He lay far across the room from her, on a winter island separated by an empty sea. She talked to him for what seemed a long while and she talked about this and she talked about that and it was only words, like the words he had heard once in a nursery at a friend's house, a two-year-old child building word patterns, talking jargon, making pretty sounds in the air. But Montag said nothing and after a long while when he only made the small sounds, he felt her move in the room and come to his bed and stand over him and put her hand down to feel his cheek. He knew that when she pulled her hand away from his face it was wet.	Proizveo je još nekoliko tihih glasova. Od teturao je prema postelji i nespretno tutnuo knjigu pod hladan jastuk. Srušio se u krevet, a njegova je žena zaprepašteno kriknula. Ležao je s druge strane sobe daleko od nje, na zimskom otoku odvojen pustim morem. Govorila mu je, kako mu se činilo, dugo, a pričala je čas o ovome pa o onome, a to su bile puke riječi, poput onih riječi koje je jednom čuo u dječjoj sobi u domu nekog prijatelja, riječi dvogodišnjeg djeteta koje gradi sklopove riječi, koje govori svojim jezikom, proizvodeći lijepe zvuke u zraku. No Montag nije govorio ništa, pa je, nakon dugog vremena, kad se glasao isključivo tihim zvucima, osjetio kako ona prelazi sobu i prilazi njegovu krevetu te staje nad njega i pruža ruku da mu opipa obraz. Znao je da će ruka kad je odmakne s njegova lica biti mokra.
Late in the night he looked over at Mildred. She was awake. There was a tiny dance of melody in the air, her Seashell was tamped in her ear again and she was listening to far people in far places, her eyes wide and staring at the fathoms of blackness above her in the ceiling.	Kasno noću pogledao je prema Mildred. Bila je budna. U zraku se čuo tih ples melodije, njezina je Morska školjka opet bila u uhu; slušala je daleke ljude u dalekim krajevima, a oči su joj bile širom otvorene i piljile su u crne dubine iznad nje na stropu.
Wasn't there an old joke about the wife who talked so much on the telephone that her desperate husband ran out to the nearest store and telephoned her to ask what was for dinner? Well, then, why didn't he buy himself an audio-Seashell broadcasting station and talk to his wife late at night, murmur, whisper, shout, scream, yell? But what would he whisper, what would he yell? What could he say?	Nije li neki stari vic govorio o supruzi koja je toliko telefonirala da je njezin očajni muž odjurio do najbliže govornice kako bi je upitao što je za večeru? Dobro, pa zašto si onda nije kupio radiostanicu pa razgovarao sa ženom kasno noću, mrmljao, šaptao, vikao, kričao, urlao? Ali što da joj šapće, što da urla? Što bi mogao reći?
And suddenly she was so strange he couldn't believe he knew her at all. He was in someone else's house, like those other jokes people told of the gentleman, drunk, coming home late at night, unlocking the wrong door, entering a wrong room, and bedding with a stranger and getting up early and going to work and neither of them the wiser.	Odjednom mu je bila toliko strana da nije mogao vjerovati da je uopće pozna. Bio je u kući neke druge osobe, baš kao u onim starim vicevima u kojima gospodin, pijan, kasno dolazi kući, otključava pogrešna vrata, ulazi u pogrešnu sobu i liježe u krevet k nepoznatoj osobi, pa se ujutro rano diže i odlazi na posao a da ni jedno ni drugo to ne primijete.

"Millie...?" he whispered.	- Millie...? - šapnuo je.
"What?"	- Što?
"I didn't mean to startle you. What I want to know is..."	- Nisam te želio prestrašiti. Htio bih samo znati -
"Well?"	- No?
"When did we meet. And where?"	- Kad smo se našli. I gdje?
"When did we meet for what?" she asked.	- Kad smo se našli za što? - upitala je.
"I mean originally."	- Mislim, prvi put.
He knew she must be frowning in the dark. He clarified it. "The first time we ever met, where was it, and when?"	Znao je da se ona sada u mraku mršti. Objasnio je. - Prvi put kad smo se uopće našli, gdje je to bilo i kada?
"Why, it was at ―" She stopped.	- Pa, bilo je to kod - Ušutjela je.
"I don't know," she said.	- Ne znam - rekla je.
He was cold. "Can't you remember?"	Osjetio je studen. - Ne možeš se sjetiti?
"It's been so long."	- Bilo je to tako davno.
"Only ten years, that's all, only ten!"	- Prije samo deset godina, to je sve, prije samo deset godina.
"Don't get excited, I'm trying to think." She laughed an odd little laugh that went up and up. "Funny, how funny, not to remember where or when you met your husband or wife."	- Ne uzbuduj se, nastojim se sjetiti. - Nasmijala se čudnim smijehom koji se dizao i dizao. - Smiješno, baš smiješno da se ne možeš sjetiti gdje si srela svoga muža ili ženu.
He lay massaging his eyes, his brow, and the back of his neck, slowly. He held both hands over his eyes and applied a steady pressure there as if to crush memory into place. It was suddenly more important than any other thing in a life-time that he knew where he had met Mildred.	Ležao je i polako trljao oči, čelo i zatiljak. Držao je obje ruke povrh očiju i postojano pritiskao kao da želi utisnuti sjećanje na pravo mjesto. Odjednom je važnije od ičega drugog u životu bilo to da se sjeti gdje je upoznao Mildred.
"It doesn't matter," She was up in the bathroom now, and he heard the water running, and the swallowing sound she made.	- Nije važno. - Sada je bila u kupaonici i čuo je kako voda teče i kako je ona guta.
"No, I guess not," he said.	- Ne, stvarno nije - rekao je.
He tried to count how many times she swallowed and he thought of the visit from the two zinc-oxide-faced men with the cigarettes in their straight-lined mouths and the electronic-eyed snake winding down into the layer upon layer of night and stone and stagnant spring water, and he wanted to call out to her, how many have you taken tonight! the capsules! how many will you take later and not know? and so on, every hour! or maybe not tonight, tomorrow night! And me not sleeping, tonight or tomorrow night or any night for a long while; now that this has started. And he thought of her lying on the bed with the two technicians standing straight over her, not bent with concern, but only standing straight, arms folded. And he remembered thinking then that if she died, he was certain he wouldn't cry. For it would be the dying of an unknown, a street face, a newspaper image, and it was suddenly so very wrong that he had begun to cry, not at death but at the thought of not crying at death, a silly empty man near a silly empty woman, while the hungry snake made her still more empty.	Pokušao je izbrojiti koliko je puta gutnula, pa se sjetio posjeta one dvojice muškaraca čija su lica bila poput cinkova oksida i koji su u svojim ravnim usnama imali cigarete te zmije elektronskog oka koja se spuštala jedan sloj za drugim, sloj noći, kamena i nepokretne izvorske vode, pa je poželio da joj dovikne: koliko si ih noćas uzela? Kapsula! Koliko ćeš ih još uzeti a da niti ne znaš? I tako dalje svakoga sata, ili možda ne noćas nego sutra. A ja neću večeras spavati, ni sutra neću, ni bilo koje noći još zadugo, otkako je ovo počelo. I pomislio je na to kako ona leži na krevetu a dva operatora stoje nad njom, ne pognuti od brige nego onako uspravno, prekriženih ruku. I sjetio se da je tada razmišljao da on, ako ona umre, sigurno neće plakati. Jer to bi bilo umiranje nepoznatog, neke face s ulice, novinskog lika, i to je sve odjednom bilo tako ružno da je bio počeo plakati, ne zbog smrti nego zbog neplakanja zbog smrti, glupi prazni muškarac pored glupe prazne žene koju gladna zmija čini još praznijom.
How do you get so empty? he wondered. Who takes it out of you? And that awful flower the other day, the dandelion! It had summed up everything, hadn't it? "What a shame! You're not in love with anyone!" And why not?	Odakle tolika ispražnjenost, upitao se. Tko vas to prazni? I onaj grozni cvijet prije neki dan, onaj maslačak! On je sve rezimirao, zar ne? "Sram vas budi! Niste ni u koga zaljubljeni!" A zašto ne?
Well, wasn't there a wall between him and Mildred, when you came down to it? Literally not just one, wall but, so far, three! And expensive, too! And the uncles, the aunts, the cousins, the nieces, the nephews, that lived in those walls, the gibbering pack of tree-apes that said nothing, nothing, nothing and said it loud, loud, loud. He had taken to calling them relatives from the very first. "How's Uncle Louis today?" "Who?" "And Aunt Maude?"	Dobro, kad smo već kod toga, nije li između njega i Mildred zid? Doslovce, ne jedan nego tri, zasad! I to skupa zida! I svi oni stričevi, strine, bratići, nećakinje, nećaci što žive u tim zidovima, to blebetavo krdo čovjekolikih majmuna samo isprazno priča, priča i priča, i to glasno, glasno, glasno. Otprve ih je prozvao rođacima. "Kako je danas stric Louis?" "Tko?" "A strina Mande?"
The most significant memory he had of Mildred, really, was of a little girl in a forest without trees (how odd!) or rather a little girl lost on a plateau where there used to be trees (you could feel the memory of their shapes all about) sitting in the centre of the "living-room." The living-room; what a good job of labelling that was now. No matter when he came in, the walls were always talking to Mildred.	Najkarakterističnija Mildredina slika koje se sjećao bila je zapravo slika curice u šumi bez drveća (čudno, doista) ili, bolje, djevojčice izgubljene na nekoj visoravni gdje je nekoć raslo drveće (njihovi su se obrisi mogli naslutiti), a koja sjedi nasred "dnevne sobe". Dnevna soba - kako li je dobro pogođen taj naziv! Kad god bi ušao, zidovi su uvijek nešto pričali Mildred.
"Something must be done!"	- Nešto se mora učiniti!
"Yes, something must be done!"	- Da, nešto se mora učiniti!
"Well, let's not stand and talk!"	- Pa, nemojmo samo stajati i pričati!
"Let's do it!"	- Učinimo nešto!
"I'm so mad I could spit!"	- Toliko sam ljut da bih mogao pljunuti!
What was it all about? Mildred couldn't say. Who was mad at whom? Mildred didn't quite know. What were they going to do? Well, said Mildred, wait around and see.	Što je posrijedi? Mildred nije znala reći. Tko se ljuti na koga? Mildred nije baš znala. Što će poduzeti? Pa, rekla je Mildred, pričekajmo da vidimo.
He had waited around to see.	Čekao je da vidi.
A great thunderstorm of sound gushed from the walls. Music bombarded him at such an immense volume that his bones were almost shaken from their tendons; he felt his jaw vibrate, his eyes wobble in his head. He was a victim of concussion. When it was all over he felt like a man who had been thrown from a cliff, whirled in a centrifuge and spat out over a waterfall that fell and fell into emptiness and emptiness and never―quite―touched―bottom―never―never―quite―no not quite―touched―bottom... and you fell so fast you didn't touch the sides either ... never ... quite ... touched ... anything.	Silna grmljavina zvuka slila se iz zidova. Glazba ga je bombardirala tolikom jakošću zvuka da su mu se kosti umalo istresle iz tetiva; osjetio je da mu podrhtava čeljust, da mu se oči njišu u glavi. Bio je žrtva trešnje. Kad je sve završilo, osjećao se poput čovjeka kojega su bacili s litice, kovitlali u centrifugi te ispljunuli nad vodopad koji se ruši i ruši u prazno, u prazninu, i - koji - nikad - nije - posve - dodirnuo - dno - nikad - nikad -nije - posve - ne, ne posve - dodirnuo - dno - a opet, padaš tako hitro da ne dodiruješ strane ...nikad...ništa...dodirnuti...ništa.
The thunder faded. The music died.	Grmljavina je jenjala. Glazba je zamrla.

"There," said Mildred, And it was indeed remarkable. Something had happened. Even though the people in the walls of the room had barely moved, and nothing had really been settled, you had the impression that someone had turned on a washing-machine or sucked you up in a gigantic vacuum. You drowned in music and pure cacophony. He came out of the room sweating and on the point of collapse. Behind him, Mildred sat in her chair and the voices went on again: "Well, everything will be all right now," said an "aunt."	- Eto - rekla je Mildred. I to je bilo zaista izvanredno. Nešto se bilo dogodilo. Ljudi u zidovima, doduše, jedva da su se i pomaknuli, a ništa se zapravo i nije sredilo, imao si dojam da je netko uključio stroj za pranje rublja ili te pak usisao divovskim vakuumom. Utopio si se u muzici i čistoj kakofoniji. Izašao je iz sobe znojeći se i na rubu sloma. Mildred je sjela na svoj stolac, a zvuči su se nastavili.
"Oh, don't be too sure," said a "cousin."	- E pa, sve će biti u redu - rekla je "strina".
"Now, don't get angry!"	- Nemoj biti previše sigurna - kazao je "bratić".
"Who's angry?"	- No, no, nemoj se ljutiti!
"You are!"	- Ti se ljutiš!
"I am?"	- Ja?
"You're mad!"	- Ti si bijesan!
"Why would I be mad!"	- Zašto bih ja bio bijesan?
"Because!"	- Zato!
"That's all very well," cried Montag, "but what are they mad about? Who are these people? Who's that man and who's that woman? Are they husband and wife, are they divorced, engaged, what? Good God, nothing's connected up."	- Sve je to jako dobro - viknuo je Montag - ali zbog čega oni bjesne? Tko su ti ljudi? Tko je taj muškarac i tko je ta žena? Jesu li muž i žena, jesu li rastavljeni, zaručeni, što li? Bože dragi, ništa nije povezano.
"They―" said Mildred. "Well, they―they had this fight, you see. They certainly fight a lot. You should listen. I think they're married. Yes, they're married. Why?"	- Oni - rekla je Mildred. - No, oni - oni se, vidiš, prepiru. Sigurno se često prepiru. Trebao bi poslušati. Mislim da su u braku. Da, u braku su. Zašto?
And if it was not the three walls soon to be four walls and the dream complete, then it was the open car and Mildred driving a hundred miles an hour across town, he shouting at her and she shouting back and both trying to hear what was said, but hearing only the scream of the car. "At least keep it down to the minimum!" he yelled: "What?" she cried. "Keep it down to fifty-five, the minimum!" he shouted. "The what?" she shrieked. "Speed!" he shouted. And she pushed it up to one hundred and five miles an hour and tore the breath from his mouth.	I ako nije riječ o trima zidovima koji će uskoro postati četiri a time i san dovršen, onda je posrijedi otvoren auto kojim se Mildred vozika gradom brzinom od stotinu milja; on se dere na nju, a ona pak na njega; oboje nastoje čuti što je izrečeno, ali čuju samo škripu automobila. "Barem skini na minimum!" zaurlao je. "Što?" viknula je. "Spusti ga na pedeset i pet, na minimum!" "Što da spustim?" vrisnula je. "Brzinu!" viknuo je. A ona je natjerala na sto pet milja na sat, tako da mu je ponestalo daha.
When they stepped out of the car, she had the Seashells stuffed in her ears.	Kad su izašli iz automobila, u ušima su joj bile Morske školjke.
Silence. Only the wind blowing softly.	Tišina. Samo lahor.
"Mildred." He stirred in bed.	- Mildred. - Promeškoljio se u krevetu.
He reached over and pulled one of the tiny musical insects out of her ear. "Mildred. Mildred?"	Ispružio je ruku i iz njezina uha izvukao jednog od dvaju sićušnih muzičkih kukaca. - Mildred, Mildred!
"Yes." Her voice was faint.	- Da. - Glas joj je bio slabašan.
He felt he was one of the creatures electronically inserted between the slots of the phono-colour walls, speaking, but the speech not piercing the crystal barrier. He could only pantomime, hoping she would turn his way and see him. They could not touch through the glass.	Osjetio je da je on jedan od stvorova elektronički umetnutih između pukotina fonokolornih zidova, da govori ali da taj govor ne probija kristalnu barijeru. Mogao je samo gestikulirati, nadajući se da će se Mildred okrenuti prema njemu i spaziti ga. Neće se dodirnuti kroz staklo.
"Mildred, do you know that girl I was telling you about?"	- Mildred, poznaješ li onu djevojku o kojoj sam ti pripovijedao?
"What girl?" She was almost asleep.	- Koju djevojku? - Samo što nije zaspala.
"The girl next door."	- Djevojku iz susjedstva.
"What girl next door?"	- Koju djevojku iz susjedstva?
"You know, the high-school girl. Clarisse, her name is."	- Znaš, onu srednjoškolku. Zove se Clarisse.
"Oh, yes," said his wife.	- Ah, da - kazala je njegova žena.
"I haven't seen her for a few days―four days to be exact. Have you seen her?"	- Nisam je vidio već nekoliko dana - da budem precizan, četiri dana. Jesi li je ti vidjela?
"No."	- Ne.
"I've meant to talk to you about her. Strange."	- Kanio sam ti pričati o njoj. Čudno.
"Oh, I know the one you mean."	- Oh, znam na koju misliš.
"I thought you would."	- I mislio sam da ćeš je znati.
"Her," said Mildred in the dark room.	- Nju - kazala je Mildred u mračnoj sobi.

"What about her?" asked Montag.	- Što je s njom? - upitao je Montag.
"I meant to tell you. Forgot. Forgot."	- Mislila sam ti reći. Zaboravila, pa zaboravila.
"Tell me now. What is it?"	- Reci mi sada. Što je?
"I think she's gone."	- Mislim da je otišla.
"Gone?"	- Otišla?
"Whole family moved out somewhere. But she's gone for good. I think she's dead."	- Čitava se obitelj nekamo preselila. Ali ona je otišla zauvijek. Mislim da je mrtva.
"We couldn't be talking about the same girl."	- Neće biti da govorimo o istoj djevojci.
"No. The same girl. McClellan. McClellan, Run over by a car. Four days ago. I'm not sure. But I think she's dead. The family moved out anyway. I don't know. But I think she's dead."	- Ne. Ista je to djevojka. McClellan. McClellan. Pregazio ju je auto. Prije četiri dana. Nisam sigurna, no mislim da je mrtva. Bilo kako bilo, obitelj se odselila. Ne znam, ali mislim da je mrtva.
"You're not sure of it!"	- Nisi u to sigurna?
"No, not sure. Pretty sure."	- Ne, nisam sigurna. Gotovo sigurna.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"	- Zašto mi to ranije nisi rekla?
"Forgot."	- Zaboravila.
"Four days ago!"	- Prije četiri dana!
"I forgot all about it."	- Posve sam zaboravila.
"Four days ago," he said, quietly, lying there.	- Prije četiri dana - rekao je tiho, ležeći i dalje.
They lay there in the dark room not moving, either of them. "Good night," she said.	Ležali su tako u mračnoj sobi, nepomični oboje. - Laku noć - kazala je.
He heard a faint rustle. Her hands moved. The electric thimble moved like a praying mantis on the pillow, touched by her hand. Now it was in her ear again, humming.	Čuo je tiho šušketanje. Pomaknula je ruke. Elektronički naprstak, dotaknut njezinom rukom, pokrenuo se na njezinu jastuku poput bogomoljke. Sad je opet dospio u njezino uho; zujao je.
He listened and his wife was singing under her breath.	Osluhnuo je: njegova je žena ispod glasa pjevušila.
Outside the house, a shadow moved, an autumn wind rose up and faded away But there was something else in the silence that he heard. It was like a breath exhaled upon the window. It was like a faint drift of greenish luminescent smoke, the motion of a single huge October leaf blowing across the lawn and away.	Pred kućom se pokrenula sjenka, jesenski je vjetar puhnuo pa zamro. No još je nešto čuo u tišini. Bilo je to nešto nalik dahu izdahnutu u prozor. Bilo je to poput slabašnog ćuha zelenkastog svjetlucavog dima, pokret jednog jedinog golemog listopadskog lista što ga vjetar odnosi preko tratine sve dalje.
The Hound, he thought. It's out there tonight. It's out there now. If I opened the window ...	Pas, pomislio je. On je noćas tamo vani. On je noćas tamo vani. Da otvorim prozor...
He did not open the window.	Nije otvorio prozor.
He had chills and fever in the morning.	Ujutro ga je tresla groznica.
"You can't be sick," said Mildred. He closed his eyes over the hotness. "Yes."	- Ne možeš biti bolestan - kazala je Mildred. Od vrućice je sklopio oči. - Da.
"But you were all right last night."	- Ali sinoć ti je bilo dobro.
"No, I wasn't all right " He heard the "relatives" shouting in the parlour. Mildred stood over his bed, curiously. He felt her there, he saw her without opening his eyes, her hair burnt by chemicals to a brittle straw, her eyes with a kind of cataract unseen but suspect far behind the pupils, the reddened pouting lips, the body as thin as a praying mantis from dieting, and her flesh like white bacon. He could remember her no other way.	- Ne, nije. - Čuo je kako "rođaci" viču u salonu. Mildred je začudo stala uz njegovu postelju. Osjetio je da je ondje, vidio ju je ne otvarajući oči: njezinu kosu spaljenu kemikalijama poput lomne slame, oči s nekakvom mrenom, nevidljivom ali naslućenom negdje daleko iza zjenica, narumenjene napućene usne, tijelo od silnih dijeta tanko kao u bogomoljke i put poput bijele slanine. Nije pamtio da je ikad izgledala drukčije.
"Will you bring me aspirin and water?"	- Hoćeš li mi donijeti aspirin i vode?
"You've got to get up," she said. "It's noon. You've slept five hours later than usual."	- Moraš ustati - rekla je. - Podne je. Spavao si pet sati duže nego obično.
"Will you turn the parlour off?" he asked.	- Hoćeš li isključiti salon?
"That's my family."	- To je moja obitelj.
"Will you turn it off for a sick man?"	- Hoćeš li je isključiti bolesnika radi?

"I'll turn it down."	- Stišat ću je.
She went out of the room and did nothing to the parlour and came back. "Is that better?"	Izašla je iz sobe; ništa nije učinila u salonu. Vratila se. - Je li ovako bolje?
"Thanks."	- Hvala.
"That's my favourite programme," she said.	- To mi je najdraži program - kazala je.
"What about the aspirin?"	- Što je s aspirinom?
"You've never been sick before." She went away again.	- Nikad prije nisi bio bolestan. - Ponovno se udaljila.
"Well, I'm sick now. I'm not going to work tonight. Call Beatty for me."	- Eto, sad sam bolestan. Noćas neću na posao. Nazovi mi Beattyja.
"You acted funny last night." She returned, humming.	- Sinoć si se čudno ponašao. - Vratila se pjevušeći.
"Where's the aspirin?" He glanced at the water-glass she handed him.	- Gdje je aspirin? - Pogledao je čašu s vodom koju mu je dodala.
"Oh." She walked to the bathroom again. "Did something happen?"	- Oh. - Ponovno se vratila u kupaonicu. - Je li se što dogodilo?
"A fire, is all."	- Požar, to je sve.
"I had a nice evening," she said, in the bathroom.	- Ja sam provela lijepu večer - kazala je u kupaonici.
"What doing?"	- Kako?
"The parlour."	- U salonu.
"What was on?"	- Što se davalo?
"Programmes."	- Razni programi.
"What programmes?"	- Kakvi programi?
"Some of the best ever."	- Neki od najboljih uopće.
"Who?".	- Čiji?
"Oh, you know, the bunch."	- Oh, pa znaš, klapa.
"Yes, the bunch, the bunch, the bunch." He pressed at the pain in his eyes and suddenly the odour of kerosene made him vomit.	- Da, klapa, klapa, klapa. - Pritisnuo je bolne oči, a iznenadni vonj petroleja prisilio ga je da povrati.
Mildred came in, humming. She was surprised. "Why'd you do that?" He looked with dismay at the floor. "We burned an old woman with her books."	Mildred je ušla pjevušeći. Iznenadila se. - Zašto si to učinio? Potišteno je gledao u pod. - Spalili smo jednu staricu zajedno s njezinim knjigama.
"It's a good thing the rug's washable." She fetched a mop and worked on it. "I went to Helen's last night."	- Divno je što se prostirač može prati. - Donijela je partviš i počistila. - Sinoć sam otišla k Helen.
"Couldn't you get the shows in your own parlour?"	- Nisi li te emisije mogla dobiti u svom salonu?
"Sure, but it's nice visiting." She went out into the parlour. He heard her singing.	- Ma jesam, no lijepo je otići u posjete. Izašla je u salon. Čuo ju je kako pjeva.
"Mildred?" he called.	- Mildred? - zazvao je.
She returned, singing, snapping her fingers softly.	Vratila se pjevušeći, tiho pucketajući prstima.
"Aren't you going to ask me about last night?" he said.	- Nećeš me ništa pitati o minuloj noći? - upitao je.
"What about it?"	- A što?
"We burned a thousand books. We burned a woman."	- Spalili smo tisuću knjiga. Spalili smo i jednu ženu.

"Well?"	- Pa?
The parlour was exploding with sound.	Salon je praštao zvukovima.
"We burned copies of Dante and Swift and Marcus Aurelius."	- Spalili smo primjerke Dantea, Swifta i Marka Aurelija.
"Wasn't he a European?"	- Nije li taj bio Evropljanin?
"Something like that."	- Tako nešto.
"Wasn't he a radical?"	- Nije li bio radikalan?
"I never read him."	- Nikad ga nisam čitao.
"He was a radical." Mildred fiddled with the telephone. "You don't expect me to call Captain Beatty, do you?"	- Bio je radikalan. - Mildred je petljala oko telefona. - Ne očekuješ valjda da ću ti ja zvati kapetana Beattyja?
"You must!"	- Moraš!
"Don't shout!"	- Ne viči!
"I wasn't shouting." He was up in bed, suddenly, enraged and flushed, shaking. The parlour roared in the hot air. "I can't call him. I can't tell him I'm sick."	- Nisam vikao. - Odjednom se tresući podigao u postelji, sav razgnjevljen i zajapuren. Salon je urlao na vrućem zraku. -Ja ga ne mogu nazvati. Ne mogu mu ja reći da sam bolestan.
"Why?"	- Zašto?
Because you're afraid, he thought. A child feigning illness, afraid to call because after a moment's discussion, the conversation would run so: "Yes, Captain, I feel better already. I'll be in at ten o'clock tonight."	Zato što se bojiš, pomislio je. Dijete koje hini bolest; boji se nazvati jer će već za koji časak razgovor poteći ovako:"Da, kapetane, već se osjećam bolje. Dolazim večeras u deset."
"You're not sick," said Mildred.	- Nisi bolestan - rekla je Mildred.
Montag fell back in bed. He reached under his pillow. The hidden book was still there.	Montag se svalio natrag u postelju. Posegnuo je pod jastuk. Skrivena je knjiga još bila ondje.
"Mildred, how would it be if, well, maybe, I quit my job awhile?"	- Mildred, što bi ti rekla kad bih možda na neko vrijeme napustio svoj posao?
"You want to give up everything? After all these years of working, because, one night, some woman and her books―"	- Želiš sve napustiti? Nakon svih ovih godina rada, samo zato što su jednu staricu i njezine knjige -
"You should have seen her, Millie!"	- Trebala si je vidjeti, Millie!
"She's nothing to me; she shouldn't have had books. It was her responsibility, she should have thought of that. I hate her. She's got you going and next thing you know we'll be out, no house, no job, nothing."	- Za me ona ne znači ništa. Nije trebala držati te knjige. Sama si je kriva, trebala je misliti prije. Mrzim je. Nahuškala te, i ti ćeš već sutra biti bez posla, bez kuće, bez ičega.
"You weren't there, you didn't see," he said. "There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't stay for nothing."	- Nisi bila ondje, nisi to vidjela - rekao je. - Mora da ima nečega u knjigama, nečega što ne možemo zamisliti, a što može navesti jednu ženu da ostane u zapaljenoj kući; mora u tome nečega biti. Ne ostaje se ni zbog čega.
"She was simple-minded."	- Bila je slaboumna.
"She was as rational as you and I, more so perhaps, and we burned her."	- Bila je jednako razborita kao i ja, možda i razboritija, a mi smo je spalili.
"That's water under the bridge."	- To je voda pod mostom.
"No, not water; fire. You ever seen a burned house? It smoulders for days. Well, this fire'll last me the rest of my life. God! I've been trying to put it out, in my mind, all night. I'm crazy with trying."	- Ne, ne voda; vatra. Jesi li ikad vidjela spaljenu kuću? Danima tinja. Pa, ova će me vatra pratiti do kraja života. Bože! Ja sam je u sebi čitave noći nastojao ugasiti, čitave noći. Poludio sam od nastojanja.
"You should have thought of that before becoming a fireman."	- O tome si trebao misliti prije nego što si postao vatrogasac.
"Thought!" he said. "Was I given a choice? My grandfather and father were firemen. In my sleep, I ran after them."	- Misliti! - rekao je. - Jesam li imao prilike? Moj djed i otac bili su također vatrogasci. I u snu sam ih slijedio.
The parlour was playing a dance tune.	Iz salona čula se plesna glazba.
"This is the day you go on the early shift," said Mildred. "You should have gone two hours ago. I just noticed."	- Danas je dan kada radiš u ranoj smjeni - kazala je Mildred. - Trebao si otići još prije dva sata. Upravo mi je sinulo.
"It's not just the woman that died," said Montag. "Last night I thought about all the kerosene I've used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I'd never even thought that thought before." He got out of bed.	- Nije riječ samo o ženi koja je umrla - rekao je Montag. -Sinoć sam razmišljao o svem onom petroleju što sam ga potrošio u proteklih deset godina. Razmišljao sam i o knjigama. I prvi put sam shvatio da se iza svake od njih nalazi neki čovjek. Neki ih je čovjek morao smisliti. Neki je čovjek morao utrošiti mnogo vremena da ih stavi na papir. A meni takva misao nikad nije pala na pamet. Digao se iz kreveta.
"It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life, and then I came along in two minutes and boom! it's all over."	- Nekom je čovjeku trebao možda i čitav život da zapiše neke od svojih misli koje su mu nadošle dok je promatrao svijet i život, a onda nastupim ja i bum, bum, za dvije minute svemu je kraj.

"Let me alone," said Mildred. "I didn't do anything."	- Pusti me na miru - rekla je Mildred. - Nisam ništa učinila.
"Let you alone! That's all very well, but how can I leave myself alone? We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?"	- Da te pustim na miru! Jako lijepo, ali kako da smirim sebe? Nije nam potrebno da nas puste na miru. Potrebno nam je da se s vremena na vrijeme istinski uzrujamo. Koliko je vremena prošlo od tvog zadnjeg istinskog uzrujavanja? Uzrujavanja zbog nečeg važnog, zbog nečeg stvarnog?
And then he shut up, for he remembered last week and the two white stones staring up at the ceiling and the pump-snake with the probing eye and the two soap-faced men with the cigarettes moving in their mouths when they talked. But that was another Mildred, that was a Mildred so deep inside this one, and so bothered, really bothered, that the two women had never met. He turned away.	A onda je umuknuo jer se sjetio prošlog tjedna i dvaju bijelih kamenova koji su zurili u strop, crpke-zmije s ispitivačkim okom i dvojice ljudi sapunskih lica s cigaretama koje su im se pokretale u ustima kad su govorili. Ali bila je to jedna druga Mildred, ta je Mildred bila toliko duboko ovdje i bila je toliko uzrujana, istinski uzrujana, da se te dvije žene nikad nisu niti srele. Okrenuo se.
Mildred said, "Well, now you've done it. Out front of the house. Look who's here.".	Mildred je rekla: - E pa, eto ti sad. Tamo, vani pred kućom. Pogledaj tko je došao.
"I don't care."	- Baš me briga.
"There's a Phoenix car just driven up and a man in a black shirt with an orange snake stitched on his arm coming up the front walk."	Upravo se dovezao Feniksov auto, a jedan muškarac u crnoj košulji s narančastom zmijom prišivenom na rukav dolazi puteljkom.
"Captain Beauty?" he said, "Captain Beatty."	- Kapetan Beatty? - rekao je. - Kapetan Beatty.
Montag did not move, but stood looking into the cold whiteness of the wall immediately before him.	Montag se nije pomaknuo; ostao je zuriti u hladnu bjelinu zida ispred sebe.
"Go let him in, will you? Tell him I'm sick."	- Hajde, uvedi ga, hoćeš li? Reci mu da sam bolestan.
"Tell him yourself!" She ran a few steps this way, a few steps that, and stopped, eyes wide, when the front door speaker called her name, softly, softly, Mrs. Montag, Mrs. Montag, someone here, someone here, Mrs. Montag, Mrs. Montag, someone's here. Fading.	- Reci mu sam! - Potrčala je nekoliko koraka na jednu pa na drugu stranu te se zaustavila iskolačenih očiju kad se zvučnik s ulaznih vrata tiho, tiho oglasio: gospodo Montag, gospodo Montag, netko je došao, netko je došao, gospodo Montag, gospodo Montag, netko je došao. Glas se gubio.
Montag made sure the book was well hidden behind the pillow, climbed slowly back into bed, arranged the covers over his knees and across his chest, half-sitting, and after a while Mildred moved and went out of the room and Captain Beatty strolled in, his hands in his pockets.	Montag je provjerio je li knjiga dobro skrivena pod jastukom pa se polako uspentrao natrag u krevet, poravnao pokrivače preko koljena i prsa, napola sjeo, a časak kasnije Mildred se pokrenula i izašla iz sobe, a kapetan Beatty je ušetao držeći ruke u džepovima.
"Shut the 'relatives' up," said Beatty, looking around at everything except Montag and his wife.	- Isključite "rodbinu" - kazao je Beatty, ogledajući se uokolo na sve, osim na Montaga i njegovu ženu.
This time, Mildred ran. The yammering voices stopped yelling in the parlour.	Ovaj put je Mildred potrčala. Blebetavi glasovi prestali su drečai iz salona.
Captain Beatty sat down in the most comfortable chair with a peaceful look on his ruddy face. He took time to prepare and light his brass pipe and puff out a great smoke cloud. "Just thought I'd come by and see how the sick man is."	Kapetan Beatty sjeo je u najudobniji naslonjač; njegovo rumeno lice izgledalo je smireno. Dao si je vremena da pripremi i zapali mjedenu lulu te da otpuhne oblačinu dima. - Baš mi je palo na um da navratim i pogledam kako je bolesniku.
"How'd you guess?"	- Kako si pogodio?
Beatty smiled his smile which showed the candy pinkness of his gums and the tiny candy whiteness of his teeth. "I've seen it all. You were going to call for a night off."	Beatty se nasmiješio onim svojim osmijehom koji je otkrio bombonski ružičaste desni i sićušnu bombonsku bjelinu zuba. -Sve mi je ovo poznato. Kanio si nazvati i zatražiti slobodnu noć.
Montag sat in bed.	Montag je sjeo u krevetu.
"Well," said Beatty, "take the night off!" He examined his eternal matchbox, the lid of which said GUARANTEED: ONE MILLION LIGHTS IN THIS IGNITER, and began to strike the chemical match abstractedly, blow out, strike, blow out, strike, speak a few words, blow out. He looked at the flame. He blew, he looked at the smoke. "When will you be well?"	- Dobro - rekao je Beatty - uzmi slobodnu noć! - Razgledao je svoju vječitu kutiju sa šibicama, na poklopcu koje je pisalo: ZAJAMČENO - MILIJUN PALJENJA OVIM UPALJAČEM, pa stao rastreseno kresati kemijsku šibicu, gasiti je, kresati, gasiti, kresati, govoriti nekoliko riječi, gasiti. Promatrao je plamen. Puhnuo je, gledao dim. - Kad će ti biti dobro?
"Tomorrow. The next day maybe. First of the week."	- Sutra. Možda preksutra. Početkom tjedna.
Beatty puffed his pipe. "Every fireman, sooner or later, hits this. They only need understanding, to know how the wheels run. Need to know the history of our profession. They don't feed it to rookies like they used to. Damn shame." Puff. "Only fire chiefs remember it now." Puff. "I'll let you in on it."	Beatty je pućnuo lulu. - Svakog vatrogasca, prije ili kasnije, to pogodi. Potrebno im je samo razumijevanja, da znaju kako se kotači okreću. Trebaju doznati povijest naše profesije. Ne predaju je više novacima kao nekoć. Prokletstvo. - Odbio je dim. - Sada je pamte samo još vatrogasni šefovi. - Još jedan dim. - Otkrit ću ti je.
Mildred fidgeted.	Mildred se uzvrpoljila.
Beatty took a full minute to settle himself in and think back for what he wanted to say.	Beattyju je trebala puna minuta da se namjesti i sredi ono što je naumio reći.
"When did it all start, you ask, this job of ours, how did it come about, where, when? Well, I'd say it really got started around about a thing called the Civil War. Even though our rule-book claims it was founded earlier. The fact is we didn't get along well until photography came into its own. Then―motion pictures in the early twentieth century. Radio. Television. Things began to have mass."	- Kako je sve ovo počelo, pitaš, ovaj naš posao, kako je do njega došlo, gdje, kada? Pa, rekao bih, sve je zapravo počelo u vezi s onim što se naziva Građanskim ratom.Mada naši pravilnici tvrde da je služba utemeljena ranije. Činjenica je da nam nije baš išlo sve dok fotografija nije došla do izražaja. Zatim pokretne slike na početku dvadesetog stoljeća. Radio. Televizija. Stvari su počele dobivati masu.
Montag sat in bed, not moving.	Montag je nepomično sjedio u krevetu.
"And because they had mass, they became simpler," said Beatty. "Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population. Films and radios, magazines, books levelled down to a sort of paste pudding norm, do you follow me?"	- A budući da su dobile masu, postale su jednostavnije -rekao je Beatty. - Nekoć su se knjige obraćale nekolicini ljudi, ovdje, ondje, posvuda. Ovi su si mogli priuštiti da budu različiti. Svijet je bio prostran. No tada je svijet postao prepun očiju, laktova, usta. Pučanstvo se udvostručilo, utrostručilo, učetverostručilo. Filmovi i radio, časopisi, knjige spali su se na vrlo niske grane. Pratiš li me?
"I think so."	- Pratim.
Beatty peered at the smoke pattern he had put out on the air. "Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations, Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending."	Beatty je sa zanimanjem pratio dimni oblak koji je stvorio u zraku. - Zamisli. Čovjek iz devetnaestog stoljeća sa svojim konjima, psima, jednoprezima, usporeno gibanje. A onda, u dvadesetom stoljeću, ubrzaj kameru. Knjige se skraćuju. Sažeci. Tabloidi. Sve se svodi na smicalice, nagli rez.
"Snap ending." Mildred nodded.	- Nagli rez - kimnula je Mildred.
"Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for reference. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet (you know the title certainly, Montag; it is probably only a faint rumour of a title to you, Mrs. Montag) whose sole knowledge, as I say, of Hamlet was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: now at least you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbours. Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there's your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more."	- Klasika se reže da stane u petnaestominutne radioemisije, a zatim ponovno krati da stane u dvominutnu rubriku o knjigama; potom mora stati u deset ili dvanaest redaka rječničkog rezimea. Pretjerujem, naravno. Rječnici su bili priručnici. No mnogo je bilo onih koji su jedino znanje o Hamletu (ti, Montag, sigurno znaš taj naslov; za vas je, gospođo Montag, to vjerojatno tek daleka jeka), koji su, dakle, jedino znanje o Hamletu stekli iz jednostraničnog sažetka u knjizi koja je isticala:sada, napokon, možete pročitati sve klasike; nemojte zaostati za susjedima. Shvaćaš? Iz dječje sobe na sveučilište, pa natrag u dječju sobu, eto ti tvoga intelektualnog uzorka za posljednjih pet stoljeća ili još više.
Mildred arose and began to move around the room, picking things up and putting them down. Beatty ignored her and continued "Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man's mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters, that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!"	Mildred se digla i uzšetala po sobi, podizala pa spuštala stvari. Beatty se na nju nije obazirao nego je nastavio. - Ubrzaj film, Montag, hitro. Klik? Pik? Vidi, Gle, Sad, Pljus, Ovamo, Onamo, Brzo, Kas, Gore, Dolje, Unutra, Van, Zašto, Kako, Tko, Što, Gdje, Eh,Uh! Bam! Tres! Bljuf, Bing, Beng, Bum! Sažeci sažetaka, sažeci sažetaka sažetka! Politika? Jedan stupac, dvije rečenice, naslov! A onda, odjednom, sve nestane. Snažnim rukama nakladnika, izrabljivača, ljudi s elektroničkih medija, zavrti se ljudski um tolikom silinom da centrifuga odbaci svaku nepotrebnu, dokoličarsku misao.

Mildred smoothed the bedclothes. Montag felt his heart jump and jump again as she patted his pillow. Right now she was pulling at his shoulder to try to get him to move so she could take the pillow out and fix it nicely and put it back. And perhaps cry out and stare or simply reach down her hand and say, "What's this?" and hold up the hidden book with touching innocence.	Mildred je zagladila posteljinu. Dok je tapšala po jastuku, Montag je osjetio da mu srce snažno tuče, tuče. Baš ovoga časa povlačila ga je za rame ne bi li ga navela da se pomakne kako bi izvukla jastuk, lijepo ga protresla i vratila na krevet. I možda uzviknula, ili pak blenula, ili jednostavno pružila ruku i rekla "Što je ovo", pa s dirljivom nevinošću podigla skrivenu knjigu.
"School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?"	- Škola je bila skraćena, stega olaba vijena, filozofija, povijest, jezici izostavljeni, engleski i gramatika postupno zapušteni, na kraju gotovo potpuno odbačeni. Život je izravan, posao bitan, ugoda se pruža posvuda nakon rada. Čemu učiti išta osim pritiskanja puceta, prebacivanja sklopki, pritezanja vijaka i matica?
"Let me fix your pillow," said Mildred.	- Daj da ti popravim jastuk - kazala je Mildred.
"No!" whispered Montag, "The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at. dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour."	- Ne! - šapnuo je Montag. - Smička zamjenjuje puceta; čovjek ostaje tako bez onog vremena za razmišljanje pri oblačenju zorom, onog misaonog pa stoga sjetnog sata.
Mildred said, "Here."	Mildred je rekla: - Daj!
"Get away," said Montag.	- Makni se - kazao je Montag.
"Life becomes one big pratfall, Montag; everything bang; boff, and wow!"	- Život postaje jedna velika burleska, Montag; sve bum, tras i uf!
"Wow," said Mildred, yanking at the pillow.	- Uf! - rekla je Mildred potežući jastuk.
"For God's sake, let me be!" cried Montag passionately.	- Za ime Božje, ostavi me na miru! - uzviknuo je Montag razdraženo.
Beatty opened his eyes wide.	Beatty je razrogačio oči.
Mildred's hand had frozen behind the pillow. Her fingers were tracing the book's outline and as the shape became familiar her face looked surprised and then stunned. Her mouth opened to ask a question...	Mildredina se ruka sledila pod jastukom. Prstima je pipala obrise knjige i kad je spoznala što je to, licem joj se prelilo iznenađenje, a zatim i zaprepaštenje. Otvorila je usta da postavi pitanje...
"Empty the theatres save for clowns and furnish the rooms with glass walls and pretty colours running up and down the walls like confetti or blood or sherry or sauterne. You like baseball, don't you, Montag?"	- Isprazni kazališta, osim za klaune, a sobe opremi staklenim zidovima i lijepim bojama koje struje gore-dolje po zidovima poput konfeta, krvi, serija ili finog francuskog bijelog vina. Voliš baseball, Montag, zar ne?
"Baseball's a fine game."	- Baseball je lijepa igra.
Now Beatty was almost invisible, a voice somewhere behind a screen of smoke "What's this?" asked Mildred, almost with delight. Montag heaved back against her arms. "What's this here?"	Beatty je sada bio gotovo nevidljiv - tek glas onkraj dimnog zastora. - Što je ovo? - upitala je Mildred gotovo s nasladom. Montag se pridigao odgurujući njezine ruke. - Što je ovo ovdje?
"Sit down!" Montag shouted. She jumped away, her hands empty. "We're talking!"	- Sjedni! - viknuo je Montag. Odskočio je praznih ruku. -Razgovaramo!
Beatty went on as if nothing had happened. "You like bowling, don't you, Montag?"	Beatty je nastavio kao da se ništa nije dogodilo. - Voliš kuglanje, Montag, zar ne?
"Bowling, yes."	- Kuglanje, da.
"And golf?"	- A golf?
"Golf is a fine game."	- Golf je lijepa igra.
"Basketball?"	- Košarku?
"A fine game.".	- Lijepa igra.
"Billiards, pool? Football?"	- Bilijar? Nogomet?
"Fine games, all of them."	- Sve su to lijepe igre.
"More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don't have to think, eh? Organize and organize and superorganize super-super sports. More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience. Highways full of crowds going somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, nowhere. The gasoline refugee. Towns turn into motels, people in nomadic surges from place to place, following the moon tides, living tonight in the room where you slept this noon and I the night before."	- Što više sportova za svakoga, grupnog duha, zabave, pa ne moraš razmišljati, ha? Organiziraj i organiziraj i superorganiziraj super-super sportove. Više crteža u knjigama. Više slika. Um se napaja sve manje i manje. Nestrpljivost. Autoceste prepune rulje koja odlazi nekamo, nekamo, nekamo, nikamo. Benzinsko izbjeglištvo. Gradovi se pretvaraju u motele, ljudi u nomadskim valovima od jednog mjesta do drugoga, prema mjesečevim mijenama, noćeći večeras u sobi u kojoj sam ja spavao u podne, a ti noć ranije.
Mildred went out of the room and slammed the door. The parlour "aunts" began to laugh at the parlour "uncles."	Mildred je izašla iz sobe zalupivši vratima. Salonske su se "strine" počele smijati salonskim "stričevima".
"Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca.	- Pozabavimo se sada manjinama u našoj civilizaciji, hoćeš li? Što veće pučanstvo, to više manjina. Nemoj nagaziti ljubitelje pasa, ljubitelje mačaka, liječnike, odvjetnike, trgovce, šefove, mormone, baptiste, unitarijance, Kineze u drugom naraštaju, Švedane, Talijane, Nijemce, Teksašane, Bruklince, Irce, ljude iz Orcgona ili Meksika. Ljudi u ovoj knjizi, ovoj drami, ovoj TV seriji nisu zamišljeni kao predstavnici bilo kojih i bilo kakvih slikara, kartografa, mehaničara. Što ti je veće tržište, upamti, Montag, to se manje baviš prepirkama. Sve te sitne, sićušne manjine moraju ostati čiste. Autori, puni zlih misli, zaključajte svoje pisaće strojeve. I zaključali su. Časopisi su poprimili ugodan okus vanilije i tapioke.
Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive. And the three-dimensional sex magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals."	Knjige su, kako su se izrazili prokleti kritičarski snobovi, postale spirine. Nije nikakvo čudo, rekli su, što su se knjige prestale prodavati. Ali publika, znajući što želi, u radosnoj je vrtnji dopustila stripovima da prežive. Naravno, i trodimenzionalni seks revijama. Evo ti, Montag. Nije do ovoga došlo odozgor, od vlade. Nije bilo nikakve naredbe, nikakve obznane, nikakve cenzure isprva, ne! Tehnologija, masovna eksploatacija i pritisak manjina polučili su cilj, Bogu hvala! Danas, zahvaljujući njima, sve vrijeme možeš biti sretan, dopušteno ti je čitati stripove, dobre, stare vjerske knjige ili stručne časopise.
"Yes, but what about the firemen, then?" asked Montag.	- Da, a čemu onda vatrogasci? - upitao je Montag.
"Ah." Beatty leaned forward in the faint mist of smoke from his pipe. "What more easily explained and natural? With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally 'bright,' did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against.	- Ah. - Beatty se nagnuo naprijed kroz izmaglicu dima iz svoje lule. - Što je objašnjivije i prirodnije? Sa školama koje su izbacivale sve više trkača, skakača, natjecatelja, šeprtlja, hvatača, grabljivaca, letača i plivača, umjesto istraživača, kritičara, znalaca i maštovitih stvaralaca, riječ "intelektualac" postala je, naravno, pogrdom, što je i za vrijedila. Uvijek se bojiš nepoznatoga. Sigurno se sjećaš dečka iz svog razreda koji je bio iznimno "bistar", koji je ponajviše recitirao i odgovarao dok su drugi sjedili kao lipovi sveci i mrzili ga. I niste li baš toga bistrog momka odabrali da ga lemate i mučite nakon nastave? Naravno da jeste. Svi moramo biti jednaki. Ne svi rođeni slobodni i ravnopravni, kako stoji u Ustavu, nego svi načinjeni jednakima. Svaki čovjek prema liku svih ostalih; da prema njima prosuđuju sami sebe.
So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won't stomach them for a minute. And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world (you were correct in your assumption the other night) there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior; official censors, judges, and executors. That's you, Montag, and that's me."	Eto tako! Knjiga je nabijena puška u susjednoj kući. Spali je. Izvadi metak iz oružja. Prodri u čovjekov mozak. Tko zna tko bi mogao biti meta načitana čovjeka? Ja? Ja ih neću podnositi ni časka. I onda kad su kuće konačno postale potpuno vatrostalne, u cijelom je svijetu (tvoja je pretpostavka one noći bila na mjestu) prestala potreba za vatrogascima u onom starom smislu. Dodijeljen im je nov posao čuvara mira našega uma, žarišta našeg razumljivog i zakonitog straha od osjećaja manje vrijednosti - službenih cenzora, sudaca i izvršitelja. To si ti, Montag, i to sam ja.

The door to the parlour opened and Mildred stood there looking in at them, looking at Beatty and then at Montag. Behind her the walls of the room were flooded with green and yellow and orange fireworks sizzling and bursting to some music composed almost completely of trap-drums, tom-toms, and cymbals. Her mouth moved and she was saying something but the sound covered it.	Vrata prema salonu su se otvorila i na njima se pokazala Mildred, koja je gledala u Beattyja a zatim u Montaga. Iza nje su zidovi sobe postali zelenim, žutim i narančastim vatrometom ugođenim na neku glazbu, skladanu gotovo isključivo za bubnjeve, tam-tam i činele. Usta su joj se pomicala, nešto je govorila, no zvuči iz sobe su je zaglušili.
Beatty knocked his pipe into the palm of his pink hand, studied the ashes as if they were a symbol to be diagnosed and searched for meaning.	Beatty je kucnuo lulom o dlan svoje ružičaste ruke te proučavao pepeo kao da je to neki simbol što ga valja pregledati pa mu odrediti smisao.
"You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these." "Yes."	- Moraš znati da je naša civilizacija toliko golema da ne možemo dopustiti da se naše manjine uzrujaju i uskomešaju. Upitaj sama sebe što mi u ovoj zemlji želimo više od svega ostaloga? Ljudi žele biti sretni, nije li tako? Ne slušaš li to čitav život? Želim biti sretan, tako ljudi govore. Pa, zar nisu? Zar im ne omogućujemo da se stalno kreću, ne pružamo li im zabavu? Upravo za to i živimo, zar ne? Za zabavu, za golicanje? A moraš priznati da naša kultura to osigurava u izobilju. -Da.
Montag could lip-read what Mildred was saying in the doorway. He tried not to look at her mouth, because then Beatty might turn and read what was there, too.	Montag je mogao s Mildredinih usnica pročitati što to ona govori s vrata. Nastojao je ne gledati u njezina usta, jer bi se i Beatty mogao okrenuti i pročitati što priča.
"Coloured people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator. Funerals are unhappy and pagan? Eliminate them, too. Five minutes after a person is dead he's on his way to the Big Flue, the Incinerators serviced by helicopters all over the country. Ten minutes after death a man's a speck of black dust. Let's not quibble over individuals with memoriams. Forget them. Burn them all, burn everything. Fire is bright and fire is clean."	- Obojeni ne vole Malog crnog Samba. Spali ga. Bijeli nisu oduševljeni Čiča Tominom kolibom. Spali je. Netko je napisao knjigu o duhanu i raku pluća? Proizvođači cigareta tule? Spali knjigu. Vedrina, Montag. Mir, Montag. Iznesi svoju borbu van. Još bolje, u spalionicu. Pogrebi su neveseli i poganski? Eliminirajmo i njih. Pet minuta nakon što osoba umre, već je na putu za Veliki dimnjak, spalioničari diljem zemlje opremljeni su helikopterima. Deset minuta nakon smrti čovjek je trun crna praha. Ne petljajmo se s nekakvim uspomenama pojedinaca. Zaboravimo ih. Spalimo ih potpuno, spalimo sve. Oganj je jasan, oganj je čist.
The fireworks died in the parlour behind Mildred. She had stopped talking at the same time; a miraculous coincidence. Montag held his breath.	U salonu iza Mildred vatromet je zamro. Istodobno je i ona prestala govoriti; čudesne li koincidencije! Montag je suspregnuo dah.
"There was a girl next door," he said, slowly. "She's gone now, I think, dead. I can't even remember her face. But she was different. How―how did she happen?"	- Tu, u susjedstvu, bila je neka djevojka - rekao je polako. - Nestala je, mislim da je mrtva. Ni lica joj se ne mogu sjetiti. Ali bila je drukčija. Kako, kako se ona desila?
Beatty smiled. "Here or there, that's bound to occur. Clarisse McClellan? We've a record on her family. We've watched them carefully. Heredity and environment are funny things. You can't rid yourselves of all the odd ducks in just a few years. The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle. We had some false alarms on the McClellans, when they lived in Chicago. Never found a book. Uncle had a mixed record; anti-social. The girl? She was a time bomb. The family had been feeding her subconscious, I'm sure, from what I saw of her school record. She didn't want to know how a thing was done, but why. That can be embarrassing. You ask Why to a lot of things and you wind up very unhappy indeed, if you keep at it. The poor girl's better off dead."	Beatty se nasmiješio. - Ovdje, ondje tako se nešto desi. Clarisse McClellan? Imamo dosje njezine obitelji. Pomno smo ih motrili. Naslijede i okoliš čudnovate su stvari. Ne možeš ih se otarasiti samo u nekoliko godina. Kućna atmosfera može poništiti mnogo od onoga što se nastoji postići u školi. Eto, zato smo iz godine u godinu stalno spuštali dob odlaska u dječji vrtić, tako da make sada grabimo gotovo već iz kolijevke. Na McClellane smo upozoreni još dok su živjeli u Chicagu. Nikad nismo pronašli ni jednu knjigu. Ujakov dosje je šarolik; antisocijalan je. Djevojka? Tempirana bomba. Prema onom što sam vidio u njezinom školskom dosjeu, obitelj je, siguran sam, utjecala na njezinu podsvijest. Nije željela saznati kako je nešto napravljeno, nego zašto. To može biti nezgodno. Upitaš li za veći broj stvari zašto, na kraju ćeš - ustraješ li - biti zaista nesretan. Za sirotu je djevojku bolje da je mrtva.
"Yes, dead."	- Da, mrtva.
"Luckily, queer ones like her don't happen, often. We know how to nip most of them in the bud, early. You can't build a house without nails and wood. If you don't want a house built, hide the nails and wood. If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the Government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information.	- Na sreću, čudaci poput nje ne sreću se često. Znamo kako ćemo većinu njih uništiti u samom začetku, rano. Ne možeš graditi kuću bez čavala i drva. Ako ne želiš da se kuća gradi, sakrij čavle i drvo. Ne želiš li da čovjek u političkom pogledu bude nesretan, ne pokazuj mu dvije strane problema koji ga tišti; pokaži mu samo jednu. Još bolje, ne daj mu ni jednu. Neka zaboravi tako nešto kao što je rat. Ako su vlasti nedjelotvorne, neuravnotežene, lude za porezima, bolje je i sve to skupa nego da si time ljudi razbijaju glavu. Mir, Montag. Neka se ljudi natječu tko će upamtiti riječi što većeg broja popularnih pjesama ili imena glavnih gradova država ili pak tko će znati koliko je žita prošle godine požnjela Iowa. Nakljukaj ih nezapaljivim podacima, potpuno zaguši "činjenicama" tako da se osjete ispunjeni, a apsolutno zadovoljni informacijama.
Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy. Any man who can take a TV wall apart and put it back together again, and most men can nowadays, is happier than any man who tries to slide-rule, measure, and equate the universe, which just won't be measured or equated without making man feel bestial and lonely. I know, I've tried it; to hell with it.	Tada će imati osjećaj da misle, dobit će dojam kretanja bez pomicanja. A bit će sretni, jer se činjenice takve vrsti ne mijenjaju. Nemoj im davati nikakvu sklisku materiju, kao što su filozofija ili sociologija, kojima se povezuju stvari. Tim se putem ide k sjeti. Svaki čovjek koji zna rastaviti TV zid i ponovno ga sastaviti, a to danas zna najveći broj ljudi, sretniji je od svakog onog tko pokušava logaritamskim računalom izmjeriti ili uskladiti svemir, koji se jednostavno neće izmjeriti ili uskladiti a da se pritom čovjek ne osjeti životinjski i osamljeno. Ja to znam, ja sam to pokušao; k vragu i to.
So bring on your clubs and parties, your acrobats and magicians, your dare-devils, jet cars, motor-cycle helicopters, your sex and heroin, more of everything to do with automatic reflex. If the drama is bad, if the film says nothing, if the play is hollow, sting me with the theremin, loudly. I'll think I'm responding to the play, when it's only a tactile reaction to vibration. But I don't care. I just like solid entertainment."	Stoga, amo s vašim klubovima i zabavama, vašim akrobatima i magičarima, vašim odvažnim pustolovima, mlaznim automobilima, motociklističkim helikopterima, vašim seksom i heroinom, sa svim onim što počiva na automatskom refleksu. Ako je drama loša, ako film ne govori ni o čemu, ako je igrokaz šupalj, ubodi me tereminom, i to glasno. Pomislit ću da reagiram na igrokaz, a bit će to tek puka osjetilna reakcija na vibraciju. No nije mi bitno. Ja ionako volim solidnu zabavu.
Beatty got up. "I must be going. Lecture's over. I hope I've clarified things. The important thing for you to remember, Montag, is we're the Happiness Boys, the Dixie Duo, you and I and the others. We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought. We have our fingers in the dyke. Hold steady. Don't let the torrent of melancholy and drear philosophy drown our world. We depend on you. I don't think you realize how important you are, we are, to our happy world as it stands now."	Beatty je ustao. - Morat ću ići. Nastava je završena. Nadam se da sam ti objasnio stvari. Za tebe je, Montag, važno zapamtiti da smo ti i ja, i ostali, Dečki radosti, Dixie Duo. Mi stojimo nasuprot neznatnom valu onih koji žele sve ostale unesrećiti proturječnim teorijama i nazorima. Mi smo se prstima ukopali u nasip. Drži se čvrsto. Ne dopusti da bujica sjete i turobne filozofije preplavi naš svijet. Ovisimo o tebi. Ne znam da li shvaćaš koliko si nam baš ti važan za naš radosni svijet kakav je sada.
Beatty shook Montag's limp hand. Montag still sat, as if the house were collapsing about him and he could not move, in the bed. Mildred had vanished from the door.	Beatty je potresao Montagovu mlohavu ruku. Montag je i dalje sjedio, kao da se kuća oko njega ruši, a on se u postelji ne može maknuti. Mildred je iščeznula kroz vrata.
"One last thing," said Beatty. "At least once in his career, every fireman gets an itch. What do the books say, he wonders. Oh, to scratch that itch, eh? Well, Montag, take my word for it, I've had to read a few in my time, to know what I was about, and the books say nothing! Nothing you can teach or believe. They're about non-existent people, figments of imagination, if they're fiction. And if they're non-fiction, it's worse, one professor calling another an idiot, one philosopher screaming down another's gullet. All of them running about, putting out the stars and extinguishing the sun. You come away lost."	- I na kraju još nešto - rekao je Beatty. - Bar jednom u karijeri, svakog vatrogasca nešto zagolica. Što piše u knjigama, pita se. Oh, kako utoliti tu znatiželju? Pa, Montag, vjeruj mi na riječ, u svoje sam ih vrijeme nekoliko morao pročitati da doznam o čemu je riječ, a u njima ne piše ništa! Ništo što bi poučilo ili čemu bih povjerovao. U njima se piše o nepostojećim ljudima, izmišljotinama mašte, ako je riječ o fikciji. A ako se ne radi o fikciji, onda je još gore: jedan profesor naziva drugoga idiotom, jedan filozof vrišti drugom u uho. Svi pak jure u krug, gaseći zvijezde i zamračujući sunce. Tu se čovjek posve izgubi.
"Well, then, what if a fireman accidentally, really not, intending anything, takes a book home with him?"	- No što ako vatrogasac slučajno, doista bez neke namjere, ponese kući neku knjigu?
Montag twitched. The open door looked at him with its great vacant eye.	Montag se trznuo. Otvorena vrata gledala su ga svojim velikim, praznim okom.
"A natural error. Curiosity alone," said Beatty. "We don't get over-anxious or mad. We let the fireman keep the book twenty-four hours. If he hasn't burned it by then, we simply come and burn it for him."	- Prirodna pogreška. Čista radoznalost - kazao je Beatty. - Ne zabrinjavamo se previše niti bjesnimo. Dopustimo vatrogascu da knjigu zadrži dvadeset i četiri sata. Ako je u tom roku ne spali, jednostavno dođemo i spalimo je umjesto njega.
"Of course." Montag's mouth was dry.	- Naravno. - Montagova su usta bila suha.
"Well, Montag. Will you take another, later shift, today? Will we see you tonight perhaps?"	- Pa, Montag. Hoćeš li doći u drugu, kasniju današnju smjenu? Hoćemo li te večeras ipak vidjeti?
"I don't know," said Montag.	- Ne znam - rekao je Montag.
"What?" Beatty looked faintly surprised.	- Što? - Beatty kao da se malko iznenadio.
Montag shut his eyes. "I'll be in later. Maybe."	Montag je zažmirio. - Doći ću kasnije. Možda.
"We'd certainly miss you if you didn't show," said Beatty, putting his pipe in his pocket thoughtfully.	- Svakako ćeš nam nedostajati ako se ne pojaviš - rekao je Beatty, zamišljeno spremajući lulu u džep.
I'll never come in again, thought Montag.	Nikad više neću doći, pomislio je Montag.
"Get well and keep well," said Beatty.	- Oporavi se i budi zdrav - kazao je Beatty.
He turned and went out through the open door.	Okrenuo se i izišao kroz otvorena vrata.
Montag watched through the window as Beatty drove away in his gleaming yellow-flame-coloured beetle with the black, char-coloured tyres.	Montag je kroz prozor promatrao kako se Beatty odvozi svojim blještavim vozilom boje žutog plamena s gumama crnim poput ugljena.
Across the street and down the way the other houses stood with their flat fronts. What was it Clarisse had said one afternoon? "No front porches. My uncle says there used to be front porches. And people sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and not talking when they didn't want to talk. Sometimes they just sat there and thought about things, turned things over. My uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because they didn't look well. But my uncle says that was merely rationalizing it; the real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn't want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong kind of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think. So they ran off with the porches.	S druge strane ulice i svuda niz cestu dizale su se kuće sploštenih pročelja. Što je ono jednog popodneva rekla Clarisse? -Nema verandi pred kućama. Moj ujo veli da su nekad postojale verande. I ljudi su ponekad na njima uvečer sjedili i razgovarali ako im se razgovaralo, ljuljali se i ne razgovarali ako im se tako htjelo. Katkada su pak samo sjedili i razmišljali o raznim stvarima i pretresali ih. Moj ujo kaže da su arhitekti odbacili verande jer ne izgledaju lijepo. No on veli da je to puka obrana; pravi razlog, onaj skriveni, mogao bi biti taj da nisu željeli da ljudi tamo samo sjede, ne radeći ništa, ljuljaju se i pripovijedaju; takav društveni život bio je nepoželjan. Ljudi su previše pričali. I imali su vremena za razmišljanje. Zato su i maknuli verande.
And the gardens, too. Not many gardens any more to sit around in. And look at the furniture. No rocking-chairs any more. They're too comfortable. Get people up and running around. My uncle says ... and ... my uncle ... and ... my uncle..." Her voice faded.	A i vrtove. Nema više mnogo vrtova u kojima bi se sjedilo. A pogledajte pokućstvo. Nema više stolaca za njihanje. Preudobni su. Podignite ljude i natjerajte ih da se gibaju. Moj ujo veli...i...moj ujo...i...moj ujo... - Glas joj se izgubio.

Montag turned and looked at his wife, who sat in the middle of the parlour talking to an announcer, who in turn was talking to her. "Mrs. Montag," he was saying. This, that and the other. "Mrs. Montag―" Something else and still another. The converter attachment, which had cost them one hundred dollars, automatically supplied her name whenever the announcer addressed his anonymous audience, leaving a blank where the proper syllables could be filled in. A special spot-wavex-scrambler also caused his televised image, in the area immediately about his lips, to mouth the vowels and consonants beautifully. He was a friend, no doubt of it, a good friend. "Mrs. Montag―now look right here."	Montag se okrenuo i pogledao svoju ženu koja je sjedila nasred salona i razgovarala s najavljivačem koji joj se povremeno obraćao. - Gospodo Montag - govorio je. O koječemu. - Gospodo Montag - Sad je govorio opet nešto drugo i tako dalje. Ukopčani pretvarač, koji ih je stajao sto dolara, automatski je ubacivao njezino ime kad god bi se spiker obratio svojem bezimenom slušateljstvu, ostavljajući prazan prostor u koji bi se umetali odgovarajući slogovi. Poseban uređaj za preinaku točkica njegovu je televizijsku sliku, u dijelu oko usnica, prilagođivao tako da su suglasnici i samoglasnici bili izgovoreni savršeno. Spiker je, bez ikakve dvojbe, bio prijatelj, pravi prijatelj. -Gospođo Montag, pogledajte sada ovamo.
Her head turned. Though she quite obviously was not listening.	Glava joj se okrenula. Premda je bilo posve očito da ga ne sluša.
Montag said, "It's only a step from not going to work today to not working tomorrow, to not working at the firehouse ever again."	Montag je rekao: - Samo me korak dijeli od neođlaska na posao danas do neodlaska sutra, do neodlaska u vatrogasnu postaju ikada više.
"You are going to work tonight, though, aren't you?" said Mildred.	- Ipak ćeš večeras otići na posao, zar ne? - upitala je Mildred.
"I haven't decided. Right now I've got an awful feeling I want to smash things and kill things:'	- Nisam još odlučio. Ovoga trenutka imam strašnu želju da nešto razbijem i uništim.
"Go take the beetle."	- Da odem po kukca?
"No thanks."	- Ne, hvala.
"The keys to the beetle are on the night table. I always like to drive fast when I feel that way. You get it up around ninety-five and you feel wonderful. Sometimes I drive all night and come back and you don't know it. It's fun out in the country. You hit rabbits, sometimes you hit dogs. Go take the beetle."	- Kukčevi su ključevi na noćnom ormariću. Kad se tako osjećam, uvijek se volim brzo provozati. Natjeraš ga na devedeset i pet i osjetiš se divno. Ponekad se vozim čitavu noć i vratim se kući a da ti to i ne primijetiš. Zabavno je vani, izvan grada. Gaziš zečeve, katkad poneko pseto. Hajde po kukca!
"No, I don't want to, this time. I want to hold on to this funny thing. God, it's gotten big on me. I don't know what it is. I'm so damned unhappy, I'm so mad, and I don't know why I feel like I'm putting on weight. I feel fat. I feel like I've been saving up a lot of things, and don't know what. I might even start reading books."	- Ne, ovaj put ga ne želim. Želim se zadržati na ovoj čudnoj stvari. Bože, baš me obuzela. Ne znam što je. Tako sam prokleto nesretan, tako bijesan i ne znam zašto se tako osjećam, ali kao da dobivam na težini. Osjećam se debelim. Osjećam se kao da štitim mnogo toga, ali ne znam što. Mogao bih čak početi čitati knjige.
"They'd put you in jail, wouldn't they?" She looked at him as if he were behind the glass wall.	- Strpali bi te u zatvor, nije li tako? - Gledala ga je kao da je za staklenim zidom.
He began to put on his clothes, moving restlessly about the bedroom. "Yes, and it might be a good idea. Before I hurt someone. Did you hear Beatty? Did you listen to him? He knows all the answers. He's right. Happiness is important. Fun is everything. And yet I kept sitting there saying to myself, I'm not happy, I'm not happy."	Počeo se odijevati, krećući se nemirno po spavaćoj sobi. - Da, i to bi mogla biti dobra zamisao. Prije nego što nekoga ozlijedim. Jesi li čula Beattyja? Jesi li ga slušala? On zna sve odgovore. Ima pravo. Važna je sreća. Zabava je sve. A opet, ja i dalje ovako sjedim i govorim samom sebi: nisam sretan, nisam.
"I am." Mildred's mouth beamed. "And proud of it."	- A ja jesam - Mildredina su se usta nasmiješila. - I ponosim se time.
"I'm going to do something," said Montag. "I don't even know what yet, but I'm going to do something big."	- Učinit ču nešto - rekao je Montag. - Ne znam još, doduše, što, ali učinit ću nešto veliko.
"I'm tired of listening to this junk," said Mildred, turning from him to the announcer again Montag touched the volume control in the wall and the announcer was speechless.	- Umorila sam se slušajući te gluposti - kazala je Mildred, okrećući se od njega opet spikeru. Montag je na zidu dodirnuo puce za jakost i najavljivač je ostao bez glasa.
"Millie?" He paused. "This is your house as well as mine. I feel it's only fair that I tell you something now. I should have told you before, but I wasn't even admitting it to myself. I have something I want you to see, something I've put away and hid during the past year, now and again, once in a while, I didn't know why, but I did it and I never told you."	- Millie? - Zastao je. - Ovo je tvoja kuća koliko i moja. Mislim da je pošteno da ti sada nešto reknem. Trebao sam ti reći ranije, ali nisam to ni sam sebi priznavao. Imam nešto što ti želim pokazati, nešto što sam tu i tamo s vremena na vrijeme sklanjao i skrivao tijekom prošle godine, ni sam ne znajući zašto, ali, eto, učinio sam to i nikad ti za to nisam rekao.
He took hold of a straight-backed chair and moved it slowly and steadily into the hall near the front door and climbed up on it and stood for a moment like a statue on a pedestal, his wife standing under him, waiting. Then he reached up and pulled back the grille of the air-conditioning system and reached far back inside to the right and moved still another sliding sheet of metal and took out a book. Without looking at it he dropped it to the floor. He put his hand back up and took out two books and moved his hand down and dropped the two books to the floor. He kept moving his hand and dropping books, small ones, fairly large ones, yellow, red, green ones. When he was done he looked down upon some twenty books lying at his wife's feet.	Dohvatio je stolac ravna naslona te ga polako i sigurno odvukao u predsoblje blizu ulaznih vrata. Popeo se na nj i na trenutak stajao poput kipa na pijedestalu. Žena je stajala pod njim i čekala. Ispružio je potom ruke i povukao rešetku uređaja za klimatizaciju pa posegnuo duboko udesno te, maknuvši u stranu još jednu metalnu ploču, izvukao jednu knjigu. Ne gledajući je, ispustio ju je na pod. Ponovno je uvukao ruku te uzeo dvije knjige, spustio ruku pa i njih ispustio na pod. Nastavio je gibati ruku i ispuštati knjige, male, razmjerno velike, žute, crvene, zelene. Kad je završio, pogledao je dvadesetak knjiga koje su ležale do nogu njegove žene.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't really think. But now it looks as if we're in this together."	- Oprosti - kazao je. - Nisam promislio. No sad smo, čini se, oboje umočeni.
Mildred backed away as if she were suddenly confronted by a pack of mice that had come up out of the floor. He could hear her breathing rapidly and her face was paled out and her eyes were fastened wide. She said his name over, twice, three times. Then moaning, she ran forward, seized a book and ran toward the kitchen incinerator.	Mildred je ustuknula kao da se iznenada našla pred čoporom miševa koji su navrli iz poda. Čuo ju je kako ubrzano diše; lice joj je problijedjelo, a oči se širom otvorile. Izgovorila je njegovo ime, dvaput, triput. Zatim je prostenjala, zgrabila knjigu i potrčala prema kuhinjskom uređaju za spaljivanje.
He caught her, shrieking. He held her and she tried to fight away from him, scratching.	Uhvatio ju je vrišteći. Ščepao ju je, a ona mu se pokušala oteti, grebući ga.
"No, Millie, no! Wait! Stop it, will you? You don't know... stop it!" He slapped her face, he grabbed her again and shook her.	- Ne, Millie, ne. Čekaj! Stani, daj! Ne znaš ti...prestani! -Pljusnuo ju je po licu, ponovno zgrabio pa je protresao.
She said his name and began to cry.	Izustila je njegovo ime i zaplakala.
"Millie!"' he said. "Listen. Give me a second, will you? We can't do anything. We can't burn these. I want to look at them, at least look at them once. Then if what the Captain says is true, we'll burn them together, believe me, we'll burn them together. You must help me." He looked down into her face and took hold of her chin and held her firmly. He was looking not only at her, but for himself and what he must do, in her face. "Whether we like this or not, we're in it.	- Millie! - rekao je. - Slušaj! Poslušaj me samo sekundu, molim te! Ništa ne možemo učiniti. Ne možemo ovo spaliti. Želim ih pogledati, pogledati bar jednom. Onda ćemo ih, ako je tako kao što kapetan veli, spaliti zajedno, vjeruj mi. Spalit ćemo ih zajedno. Moraš mi pomoći. - Zagledao joj se duboko u lice, primio je za bradu i čvrsto stisnuo. Gledao je ne samo nju nego u njezinu licu i sebe, a i to što mora učiniti. - Sviđalo nam se ovo ili ne, tu smo gdje smo.
I've never asked for much from you in all these years, but I ask it now, I plead for it. We've got to start somewhere here, figuring out why we're in such a mess, you and the medicine at night, and the car, and me and my work. We're heading right for the cliff, Millie. God, I don't want to go over. This isn't going to be easy. We haven't anything to go on, but maybe we can piece it out and figure it and help each other. I need you so much right now, I can't tell you. If you love me at all you'll put up with this, twenty-four, forty-eight hours, that's all I ask, then it'll be over. I promise, I swear! And if there is something here, just one little thing out of a whole mess of things, maybe we can pass it on to someone else."	Svih ovih godina nikad nisam od tebe tražio mnogo, ali sada tražim, preklinjem te. Moramo početi negdje odavde, otkriti zašto smo dopali takvih neprilika, ti i ljekarije noću, i auto, pa ja i moj posao. Srljamo ravno na rub litice, Millie. Bože, ne želim se survati. Neće ovo biti lako. Nemamo ništa od čega bismo pošli, ali bismo možda mogli rekonstruirati stvari i složiti ih te tako pomoći jedno drugomu. Ne mogu ti reći koliko te u ovom trenutku trebam. Ako me imalo voliš, otrpjet ćeš ovo dvadeset četiri, četrdeset osam sati, to je sve što tražim, i onda će tome doći kraj. Obećavam ti, prisežem! A ako ovdje nečeg ima, samo neka sitnica u čitavoj ovoj zbrci, možda je možemo dati nekom drugom.
She wasn't fighting any more, so he let her go. She sagged away from him and slid down the wall, and sat on the floor looking at the books. Her foot touched one and she saw this and pulled her foot away.	Nije se više otimala, pa ju je stoga pustio. Skljokala se i odmaknula od njega, otpuzala do zida pa sjela na pod i zagledala se u knjige. Nogom je jednu dotaknula. Primijetila je to pa povukla nogu k sebi.
"That woman, the other night, Millie, you weren't there. You didn't see her face. And Clarisse. You never talked to her. I talked to her. And men like Beatty are afraid of her. I can't understand it. Why should they be so afraid of someone like her? But I kept putting her alongside the firemen in the house last night, and I suddenly realized I didn't like them at all, and I didn't like myself at all any more. And I thought maybe it would be best if the firemen themselves were burnt."	- Ona žena, one noći, Millie, nisi bila tamo. Nisi joj vidjela lice. Pa Clarisse. Nikad s njom nisi razgovarala. Ja jesam. A ljudi poput Beattyja plaše je se. Ne mogu to shvatiti. Zašto bi se toliko bojali osobe poput nje? No ja sam je uspoređivao s vatrogascima u onoj kući sinoć i odjednom mi je sinulo da mi se nimalo ne sviđaju i da se ja samom sebi više nimalo ne sviđam. Pa sam pomislio da bi možda bilo najbolje kad bi sami vatrogasci izgorjeli.
"Guy!"	- Guy!
The front door voice called softly: "Mrs. Montag, Mrs. Montag, someone here, someone here, Mrs. Montag, Mrs. Montag, someone here."	Glas s ulaza tiho je zazvao: - Gospodo Montag, gospodo Montag, netko je stigao, netko je stigao, gospođo Montag, gospođo Montag, netko je stigao.
Softly.	Tiho.
They turned to stare at the door and the books toppled everywhere, everywhere in heaps.	Okrenuli su se i zablenuli u vrata i razasute knjige, kojih je bilo posvuda.
"Beatty!" said Mildred.	- Beatty! - kazala je Mildred.

"It can't be him."	- Ne može biti.
"He's come back!" she whispered.	- Vratio se! - šapnula je.
The front door voice called again softly. "Someone here..."	Glas s ulaza ponovno je tiho zazvao: - Netko je stigao...
"We won't answer." Montag lay back against the wall and then slowly sank to a crouching position and began to nudge the books, bewilderedly, with his thumb, his forefinger. He was shivering and he wanted above all to shove the books up through the ventilator again, but he knew he could not face Beatty again. He crouched and then he sat and the voice of the front door spoke again, more insistently. Montag picked a single small volume from the floor. "Where do we begin? " He opened the book half-way and peered at it. "We begin by beginning, I guess."	- Nećemo odgovoriti. - Montag se naslonio na zid, a onda polako spustio u čučanj te zbunjeno stao gurkati knjige palcem, kažiprstom. Tresao se i volio bi više od ičega da knjige ponovno gurne gore kroz ventilaciju, no znao je da se ne može ponovno suočiti s Beattyjem. Čučnuo je, pa sjeo, a glas s ulaza javio se ponovno, upornije. Montag je s poda podigao jednu knjižicu. -Odakle početi? - Otvorio je knjigu u sredini i zirnuo u nju. -Držim da počinjemo od početka.
"He'll come in," said Mildred, "and burn us and the books!" The front door voice faded at last. There was a silence. Montag felt the presence of someone beyond the door, waiting, listening. Then the footsteps going away down the walk and over the lawn.	- Ući će - rekla je Mildred - te spaliti i nas i knjige! Glas s ulaznih vrata napokon je umuknuo. Nastala je tišina. Montag je osjetio nečiju prisutnost s one strane vrata; netko je čekao, osluškivao. Zatim koraci što se udaljuju puteljkom i travnjakom.
"Let's see what this is," said Montag.	- Da vidimo što je ovo - rekao je Montag.
He spoke the words haltingly and with a terrible selfconsciousness. He read a dozen pages here and there and came at last to this: "'It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break eggs at the smaller end."'	Izgovorio je to kolebajući se i s užasnom nelagodom. Pročitao je desetak stranica nasumce te na kraju naišao na ovo: "Izračunato je da je u nekoliko razdoblja jedanaest tisuća osoba radije izabralo smrt nego da se podčini i tuca jaja na šiljatoj strani."
Mildred sat across the hall from him. "What does it mean? It doesn't mean anything! The Captain was right!"	Mildred je sjedila na drugoj strani predsoblja. - Što to znači? Ne znači baš ništa! Kapetan je imao pravo!
"Here now," said Montag. "We'll start over again, at the beginning."	- Samo malo - kazao je Montag. - Krenut ćemo ponovno, od početka.

>> Part 2