Mildred stood over his bed, curiously. He felt her there, he saw her without opening his eyes, her hair burnt by chemicals to astraw, 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.

brittle

Explanation:

Brittle means hard but liable to break into small pieces or burst.

In the passage from Ray Bradbury's "Farenheit 451," Montag, who feels ill and has temperature, describes his wife as he is lying in bed. Thus, he makes reference to her thin hair, her eyes, lips and body. The reason why he did not feel alright is that previous night, he and his team of firefighters burnt down a woman's house with her books, one of which he stole and hid under his pillow. Besides, Mildred told him that her neighbor Clarisse had been killed and that her family had moved away, which also hurt Montag and now makes him question his job and the reason why books are burnt.