(the top movie ever on reading, books, and censorship, starring Julie Christie in 2 roles and Oskar Werner)
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Montag’s Speech Quoting Dickens’ David Copperfield in Francois Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451
“There can be no disparity
in marriage like unsuitability
of mind and purpose.
I had endeavoured to adapt Dora
to myself and found it impracticable.
It remained for me to adapt myself to Dora,
to share with her what I could and be happy.
It made my second year
much happier than my first,
and, what was better still,
made Dora’s life all sunshine.
But as that year wore on,
Dora was not strong.
I had hoped that lighter hands than mine
would help to mould her character
and that a baby’s smile upon her breast
might change my child-wife to a woman.
It was not to be.
My pretty Dora.
We thought she would be running
about as she used to do in a few days.
But they said wait a few days more
and then, wait a few days more,
and still she neither ran
nor walked.
I began to carry her downstairs
every morning and upstairs every night.
But sometimes when I took her up,
I felt that she was lighter in my arms.
A dead, blank feeling
came upon me,
as if I were approaching
some frozen region,
yet unseen,
that numbed my life.
I avoided direct recognition of this feeling
by any name, over any communing with myself
until one night when it was
very strong upon me
and my aunt had left her
with her parting cry,
‘Oh, good-bye,
little blossom.’
I sat down at my desk,
alone, and tried to think.
Oh, what a fatal name it was,
and how the blossom
withered in its bloom
up in the tree.”