Free Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

an understanding wife."
    And then inside the Happiness Machine, Lena Auffmann began to weep.
    The inventor's smile faded.
    "She's crying" said Naomi.
    "She can't be!"
    "She is," said Saul.
    "She simply can't be crying!" Leo Auffmann, blinking, pressed his ear to the machine. "But ... yes ... like a baby.. ."
    He could only open the door.
    "Wait." There his wife sat, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Let me finish." She cried some more.
    Leo Auffmann turned off the machine, stunned.
    "Oh, it's the saddest thing in the world!" she wailed. "I feel awful, terrible." She climbed out through the door "First, there was Paris..."
    "What's wrong with Paris?"
    "I never even thought of being in Paris in my life. But now you got me thinking: Paris! So suddenly I want to be in Paris and I know I'm not!"
    "It's almost as good, this machine."
    "No. Sitting in there, I knew. I thought, it's not real!"
    "Stop crying, Mama."
    She looked at him with great dark wet eyes. "You had me dancing. We haven't danced in twenty years."
    "I'll take you dancing tomorrow night!"
    "No, no! It's not important, it shouldn't be important. But your machine says it's important! So I believe! It'll be all right, Lee, after I cry some more."
    "What else?"
    "What else? The machine says,'You're young.' I'm not. It lies, that Sadness Machine!"
    "Sad in what way?"
    His wife was quieter now. "Lee, the mistake you made is you forgot some hour, some day, we all got to climb out of that thing and go back to dirty dishes and the beds not made. While you're in that thing, sure, a sunset lasts forever almost, the air smells good, the temperature is fine. All the things you want to last, last. But outside, the children wait on lunch, the clothes need buttons. And then let's be frank, Lee, how long can you look at a sunset? Who wants a sunset to last? Who wants perfect temperature? Who wants air smelling good always? So after awhile, who would notice? Better, for a minute or two, a sunset. After that, let's have something else. People are like that, Lee. How could you forget?"
    "Did I?"
    "Sunsets we always liked because they only happen once and go away."
    "But Lena, that's sad."
    "No, if the sunset stayed and we got bored, that would be a real sadness. So two things you did you should never have. You made quick things go slow and stay around. You brought things faraway to our backyard where they don't belong, where they just tell you,'No, you'll never travel, Lena Auffmann, Paris you'll never see! Pome you'll never visit.' But I always knew that, so why tell me? Better to forget and make do, Lee, make do, eh?"
    Leo Auffmann leaned against the machine for support. He snatched his burned hand away, surprised.
    "So now what, Lena?" he said.
    "It's not for me to say. I know only so long as this thing is here I'll want to come out, or Saul will want to come out like he did last night, and against our judgment sit in it and look at all those places so far away and every time we will cry and be no fit family for you."
    "I don't understand," he said, "how I could be so wrong. Just let me check to see what you say is true." He sat down inside the machine. "You won't go away?"
    His wife nodded. "We'll wait, Lee."
    He shut the door. In the warm darkness he hesitated, pressed the button, and was just relaxing back in color and music, when he heard someone screaming.
    "Fire, Papa! The machine's on fire!"
    Someone hammered the door. He leaped up, bumped his head, and fell as the door gave way and the boys dragged him out. Behind him he heard a muffled explosion. The entire family was running now. Leo Auffmann turned and gasped, "Saul, call the fire department!"
    Lena Auffmann caught Saul as he ran. "Saul," she said. "Wait."
    There was a gush of flame, another muffled explosion. When the machine was burning very well indeed, Lena Auffmann nodded.
    "All right, Saul," she said. "Run call the fire department."
    Everybody who was anybody came to the fire. There was Grandpa Spaulding and Douglas and