Meeting with Granger and the book people

After killing Captain Beatty, destroying his own house, and fleeing the city, Guy Montag reaches the river and floats downstream, shedding his old identity. He emerges on the far bank, disoriented and alone, and follows an abandoned railroad track into the deep country. There, in the predawn darkness, he sees a fire ahead—not the destructive blaze of his former profession, but a small, warming campfire. Around it sit five old men in dark blue denim, and one of them, Granger, calls out to him: "All right, you can come out now!" Montag steps forward, and Granger welcomes him: "You're welcome here." This meeting marks Montag's passage from a solitary fugitive into a community of memory-keepers who have spent decades preserving the content of books by committing them to memory, a quiet resistance against the firemen's culture of destruction.

The Campfire and the Community

Montag approaches the fire cautiously, and Granger offers him coffee from a collapsible tin cup. The men watch him with curiosity as he sips the scalding liquid. Granger then hands him a small bottle of colorless fluid, explaining that it will change the chemical index of his perspiration, making him smell like two different people within half an hour—a necessary precaution against the Mechanical Hound. Montag drinks the bitter fluid, and Granger assures him he will "stink like a bobcat." Granger reveals that he knows Montag's name because they have been watching the chase on a portable battery TV set by the fire. He explains that they figured Montag would wind up south along the river, and when they heard him "plunging around out in the forest like a drunken elk," they did not hide as they usually do. Granger then shows Montag the television broadcast: the police, unable to admit they lost the trail, are faking the chase, using a scapegoat—an innocent man out for a morning walk—to end the hunt with a "snap ending." The Mechanical Hound seizes the victim, and the announcer declares Montag dead. Granger turns off the set and says, "Welcome back from the dead." Montag, trembling, says nothing.

The Book People: Identity and Purpose

Granger introduces the other men by their former academic identities: Fred Clement, once occupant of the Thomas Hardy chair at Cambridge before it became an Atomic Engineering School; Dr. Simmons from U.C.L.A., a specialist in Ortega y Gasset; Professor West, who taught ethics at Columbia University; and Reverend Padover, who lost his flock for his views. Granger himself wrote a book called The Fingers in the Glove; the Proper Relationship between the Individual and Society. Montag protests that he does not belong with them, calling himself "an idiot all the way." Granger reassures him: "We're used to that. We all made the right kind of mistakes, or we wouldn't be here." He explains that when they were separate individuals, all they had was rage; he himself struck a fireman years ago and has been running ever since. Granger asks Montag what he has to offer, and Montag replies, "Nothing. I thought I had part of the Book of Ecclesiastes and maybe a little of Revelation, but I haven't even that now." Granger's face lights up: "The Book of Ecclesiastes would be fine." When Montag touches his head, Granger smiles and nods. He reveals that the group has a man named Harris of Youngstown who carries Ecclesiastes, and tells Montag, "If anything should happen to Harris, you are the Book of Ecclesiastes." Montag protests that he has forgotten, but Granger insists, "No, nothing's ever lost. We have ways to shake down your clinkers for you." He explains that all of them have photographic memories, having spent a lifetime learning how to block off the things that are really in there. Granger gestures around the fire: "I am Plato's Republic. Like to read Marcus Aurelius? Mr. Simmons is Marcus." He introduces the others as Jonathan Swift, Charles Darwin, Schopenhauer, Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, Aristophanes, Mahatma Gandhi, Gautama Buddha, Confucius, Thomas Love Peacock, Thomas Jefferson, Mr. Lincoln, and the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Montag gasps, "It can't be," but Granger replies, "It is. We're book-burners, too. We read the books and burnt them, afraid they'd be found." He explains that microfilming did not pay off because they were always traveling, so they chose to keep the knowledge in their heads, where no one could see or suspect it.

The Method and the Mission

Granger describes their organization as flexible, loose, and fragmentary. Some members have had plastic surgery on their faces and fingerprints. They are waiting for the war to begin and, as quickly, end. He admits it is not pleasant, but they are "the odd minority crying in the wilderness." When the war is over, they hope to be of some use. Montag asks if people will listen then, and Granger replies, "If not, we'll just have to wait. We'll pass the books on to our children, by word of mouth." He estimates there are thousands on the roads and abandoned rail tracks, "bums on the outside, libraries inside." The network formed over twenty years, each man carrying a book he wanted to remember. Granger emphasizes that they are not important, not to feel superior: "We're nothing more than dust-jackets for books." He gives examples: Chapter One of Thoreau's Walden in Green River, Chapter Two in Willow Farm, Maine; a town in Maryland of only twenty-seven people that holds the complete essays of Bertrand Russell. When the war ends, the people will be called in one by one to recite what they know, and it will be set in type until another Dark Age requires the process to be repeated. Granger reflects on the wonder of man: "he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing."

The Night and the Bombing

As dawn approaches, the men move downstream along the riverbank. Montag asks why they trust him, and a voice in the darkness replies, "The look of you's enough." They walk in silence, and Montag studies their faces, looking for a brightness or resolve, but finds only tiredness. He realizes that all the light had come from the campfire, and these men seemed no different from others who had run a long race and seen good things destroyed. They are not certain that the things they carry in their heads will make every future dawn glow with a purer light; they are sure of nothing save that the books are on file behind their quiet eyes, waiting for customers who might come by in later years. Montag squints from one face to another, and someone says, "Don't judge a book by its cover," prompting quiet laughter. Then the war begins and ends in an instant. The bombs strike the city, and the concussion knocks the men over like dominoes. Montag, lying flat, remembers part of Ecclesiastes and Revelation, and recites the words silently. After the bombing, Granger rises, swearing, tears dripping from his face. He looks upstream and says, "City looks like a heap of baking-powder. It's gone." The men build a fire and cook bacon. Granger tells the story of the Phoenix, a bird that burns itself up and is reborn from the ashes, and says, "We've got one damn thing the Phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did." He concludes that as long as they remember, some day they will stop making funeral pyres.

The New Beginning

After eating, the men put out the fire and begin walking north. Montag finds himself at the front of the group, and Granger nods him on. Montag looks at the river, the sky, and the rusting track, thinking of the people who have walked by in the night from the city. He knows that later, in a month or six months, he will walk along here again, alone, and keep going until he catches up with the people. The men are silent because there is everything to think about and much to remember. Montag feels the slow stir of words, the slow simmer. He thinks of Ecclesiastes: "To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. Yes. A time to keep silence and a time to speak." And then he remembers the final lines from Revelation: "And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." He decides that is the one he will save for noon, when they reach the city. The group moves forward into the brightening day, carrying the weight of memory and the hope of renewal.