J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" Chapters 15-26

It was nauseating.

He had one of these very raspy voices, and he never stopped talking, practically.

That's why he sticks this blanket over her face and everything and makes her suffocate.

He was with some gorgeous blonde, and the two of them were trying to be very blase and all, like as if he didn't even know people were looking at him.

Must we go on with this inane conversation?"

She was ostracizing the hell out of me.

It was so putrid I couldn't take my eyes off it.

Some guy in one of those very dark gray flannel suits and one of those checkered vests.

He was supposed to be incognito or something.

Sally said I was a sacrilegious atheist.

I'm a goddam spendthrift at heart.

Your mind is immature."

While the father kept giving him a lot of advice, old Ophelia was sort of horsing around with her brother, taking his dagger out of the holster, and teasing him and all while he was trying to look interested in the bull his father was shooting.

The cars zoomed by, brakes screeched all over the place, his parents paid no attention to him, and he kept on walking next to the curb and singing "If a body catch a body coming through the rye."

I think he knew we were horsing around, because old Phoebe always starts giggling.

"Apparently before he phoned me he'd just had a long, rather harrowing letter from your latest headmaster, to the effect that you were making absolutely no effort at all.

That digression business got on my nerves.

"It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques.

The floor was all stone, and if you had some marbles in your hand and you dropped them, they bounced like madmen all over the floor and made a helluva racket, and the teacher would hold up the class and go back and see what the hell was going on.

Or, if his uncle's brace is such a provocative subject, shouldn't he have selected it in the first place as his subject--not the farm?"

The cars zoomed by, brakes screeched all over the place, his parents paid no attention to him, and he kept on walking next to the curb and singing "If a body catch a body coming through the rye."

Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior.

I mean he'd keep telling you to unify and simplify all the time.

Another reason I know he's quite well off, he's always investing money in shows on Broadway.

It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement.

The one thing I did, though, I was careful as hell not to get boisterous or anything.

In a way, it was sort of depressing, too, because you kept wondering what the hell would happen to all of them.

He was in my math class, but he was way over on the other side of the room, and he hardly ever got up to recite or go to the blackboard or anything.

Old Spencer'd practically kill himself chuckling and smiling and all, like as if Thurmer was a goddam prince or something."

I've lived in New York all my life, and I know Central Park like the back of my hand, because I used to roller-skate there all the time and ride my bike when I was a kid, but I had the most terrific trouble finding that lagoon that night.

He kept saying they were too new and bourgeois.

They're not as bad as movies, but they're certainly nothing to rave about.

She liked shows that are supposed to be very sophisticated and dry and all, with the Lunts and all.

The trouble was, I couldn't concentrate too hot.

He graduated from the Whooton School after I left.

The other end of the bar was full of flits.

Then you'd pass by this long, long Indian war canoe, about as long as three goddam Cadillacs in a row, with about twenty Indians in it, some of them paddling, some of them just standing around looking tough, and they all had war paint all over their faces.

"I like a mature person, if that's what you mean.

He comes out of the hospital carrying a cane and limping all over the place, all over London, not knowing who the hell he is.

He was with some gorgeous blonde, and the two of them were trying to be very blase and all, like as if he didn't even know people were looking at him.

Like somebody'd just taken a leak on them.

I told him, in this very casual voice, to take me up to the Dicksteins'.

Anyway, they fell in love right away, on account of they're both so nuts about Charles Dickens and all, and he helps her run her publishing business.

I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.

The audience applauded like mad, and some guy behind me kept saying to his wife, "You know what that is?

But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they're brilliant and creative to begin with--which, unfortunately, is rarely the case--tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them than men do who are merely brilliant and creative.

The whole thing's so fantastic, it isn't even--" "It isn't fantastic.

Then you'd pass by this big glass case, with Indians inside it rubbing sticks together to make a fire, and a squaw weaving a blanket.

He said he wanted to see if his initials were still in one of the can doors.

He graduated from the Whooton School after I left.

What he did was, Richard Kinsella, he'd start telling you all about that stuff--then all of a sudden he'd start telling you about this letter his mother got from his uncle, and how his uncle got polio and all when he was forty-two years old, and how he wouldn't let anybody come to see him in the hospital because he didn't want anybody to see him with a brace on.

The sonuvabitch could whistle better than anybody I ever heard.

I didn't feel like getting involved in a long conversation and all with her.

I apologized like a madman, and they were very polite and nice about it, but it was very embarrassing anyway.

He's a very bitter guy, the brother, because he was a doctor in the war and now he can't operate any more because his nerves are shot, so he boozes all the time, but he's pretty witty and all.

They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer.

The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with.

"Is this going to be a typical Caulfield conversation?

Finally, when they were all done slobbering around, old Sally introduced us.

I swung the conversation around to general topics and asked them where they were going.

"I thought if you were taking up a collection," I told her, "I could make a small contribution.

What I did, I finally put my suitcases under my bed, instead of on the rack, so that old Slagle wouldn't get a goddam inferiority complex about it.

If you want to sit here and have a quiet, peaceful drink and a quiet, peaceful conver--" "All right, all right," I said.

My father's quite wealthy, though.

I was pretty sure I knew, but I wasn't too positive at the time.

I used to think she was quite intelligent, in my stupidity.

And whenever he went to the can, he always left the goddam door open and talked to you while you were brushing your teeth or something.

I passed by this playground and stopped and watched a couple of very tiny kids on a seesaw.

He was very smart and entertaining and all.