The Catcher in the Rye

by J. D. Salinger

  “Holden… One short, faintly stuffy, pedagogical question. Don’t you think there’s a time and place for everything? Don’t you think if someone starts out to tell you about his father’s farm, he should stick to his guns, then get around to telling you about his uncle’s brace? 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?”

  I didn’t feel much like thinking and answering and all. I had a headache and I felt lousy. I even had sort of a stomach-ache, if you want to know the truth.

  “Yes—I don’t know. I guess he should. I mean I guess he should’ve picked his uncle as a subject, instead of the farm, if that interested him most. But what I mean is, lots of time you don’t know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn’t interest you most. I mean you can’t help it sometimes. What I think is, you’re supposed to leave somebody alone if he’s at least being interesting and he’s getting all excited about something. I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It’s nice. You just didn’t know this teacher, Mr. Vinson. He could drive you crazy sometimes, him and the goddam class. I mean he’d keep telling you to unify and simplify all the time. Some things you just can’t do that to. I mean you can’t hardly ever simplify and unify something just because somebody wants you to. You didn’t know this guy, Mr. Vinson. I mean he was very intelligent and all, but you could tell he didn’t have too much brains.”

  “Coffee, gentlemen, finally,” Mrs. Antolini said. She came in carrying this tray with coffee and cakes and stuff on it. “Holden, don’t you even peek at me. I’m a mess.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Antolini,” I said. I started to get up and all, but Mr. Antolini got hold of my jacket and pulled me back down. Old Mrs. Antolini’s hair was full of those iron curler jobs, and she didn’t have any lipstick or anything on. She didn’t look too gorgeous. She looked pretty old and all.

  “I’ll leave this right here. Just dive in, you two,” she said. She put the tray down on the cigarette table, pushing all these glasses out of the way. “How’s your mother, Holden?”

  “She’s fine, thanks. I haven’t seen her too recently, but the last I—”

  “Darling, if Holden needs anything, everything’s in the linen closet. The top shelf. I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted,” Mrs. Antolini said. She looked it, too. “Can you boys make up the couch by yourselves?”

  “We’ll take care of everything. You run along to bed,” Mr. Antolini said. He gave Mrs. Antolini a kiss and she said good-by to me and went in the bedroom. They were always kissing each other a lot in public.

  I had part of a cup of coffee and about half of some cake that was about as hard as a rock. All old Mr. Antolini had was another highball, though. He makes them very strong, too, you could tell. He may get to be an alcoholic if he doesn’t watch his step.

  “I had lunch with your dad a couple of weeks ago,” he said all of a sudden. “Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You’re aware, of course, that he’s terribly concerned about you.”

  “I know it. I know he is,” I said.

  “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. Cutting classes. Coming unprepared to all your classes. In general, being an all-around—”

  “I didn’t cut any classes. You weren’t allowed to cut any. There were a couple of them I didn’t attend once in a while, like that Oral Expression I told you about, but I didn’t cut any.”

  I didn’t feel at all like discussing it. The coffee made my stomach feel a little better, but I still had this awful headache.

  Mr. Antolini lit another cigarette. He smoked like a fiend. Then he said, “Frankly, I don’t know what the hell to say to you, Holden.”

  “I know. I’m very hard to talk to. I realize that.”

  “I have a feeling that you’re riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. But I don’t honestly know what kind… Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes.”

  You could tell he was trying to concentrate and all.

  “It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college. Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, ‘It’s a secret between he and I.’ Or you may end up in some business office, throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer. I just don’t know. But do you know what I’m driving at, at all?”

  “Yes. Sure,” I said. I did, too. “But you’re wrong about that hating business. I mean about hating football players and all. You really are. I don’t hate too many guys. What I may do, I may hate them for a little while, like this guy Stradlater I knew at Pencey, and this other boy, Robert Ackley. I hated them once in a while—I admit it—but it doesn’t last too long, is what I mean. After a while, if I didn’t see them, if they didn’t come in the room, or if I didn’t see them in the dining room for a couple of meals, I sort of missed them. I mean I sort of missed them.”

  Mr. Antolini didn’t say anything for a while. He got up and got another hunk of ice and put it in his drink, then he sat down again. You could tell he was thinking. I kept wishing, though, that he’d continue the conversation in the morning, instead of now, but he was hot. People are mostly hot to have a discussion when you’re not.

  “All right. Listen to me a minute now.… I may not word this as memorably as I’d like to, but I’ll write you a letter about it in a day or two. Then you can get it all straight. But listen now, anyway.” He started concentrating again. Then he said, “This fall I think you’re riding for—it’s a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. 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. Or they thought their own environment couldn’t supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started. You follow me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He got up and poured some more booze in his glass. Then he sat down again. He didn’t say anything for quite a long time.

  “I don’t want to scare you,” he said, “but I can very clearly see you dying nobly, one way or another, for some highly unworthy cause.” He gave me a funny look. “If I write something down for you, will you read it carefully? And keep it?”

  “Yes. Sure,” I said. I did, too. I still have the paper he gave me.

  He went over to this desk on the other side of the room, and without sitting down wrote something on a piece of paper. Then he came back and sat down with the paper in his hand. “Oddly enough, this wasn’t written by a practicing poet. It was written by a psychoanalyst named Wilhelm Stekel. Here’s what he—Are you still with me?”

  “Yes, sure I am.”

  “Here’s what he said: ‘The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.’”

  He leaned over and handed it to me. I read it right when he gave it to me, and then I thanked him and all and put it in my pocket. It was nice of him to go to all that trouble. It really was. The thing was, though, I didn’t feel much like concentrating. Boy, I felt so damn tired all of a sudden.

  You could tell he wasn’t tired at all, though. He was pretty oiled up, for one thing. “I think that one of these days,” he said, “you’re going to have to find out where you want to go. And then you’ve got to start going there. But immediately. You can’t afford to lose a minute. Not you.”

  I nodded, because he was looking right at me and all, but I wasn’t too sure what he was talking about. I was pretty sure I knew, but I wasn’t too positive at the time. I was too dam
n tired.

  “And I hate to tell you,” he said, “but I think that once you have a fair idea where you want to go, your first move will be to apply yourself in school. You’ll have to. You’re a student—whether the idea appeals to you or not. You’re in love with knowledge. And I think you’ll find, once you get past all the Mr. Vineses and their Oral Comp—”

  “Mr. Vinsons,” I said. He meant all the Mr. Vinsons, not all the Mr. Vineses. I shouldn’t have interrupted him, though.

  “All right—the Mr. Vinsons. Once you get past all the Mr. Vinsons, you’re going to start getting closer and closer—that is, if you want to, and if you look for it and wait for it—to the kind of information that will be very, very dear to your heart. 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. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.” He stopped and took a big drink out of his highball. Then he started again. Boy, he was really hot. I was glad I didn’t try to stop him or anything. “I’m not trying to tell you,” he said, “that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It’s not so. 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. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And—most important—nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker. Do you follow me at all?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He didn’t say anything again for quite a while. I don’t know if you’ve ever done it, but it’s sort of hard to sit around waiting for somebody to say something when they’re thinking and all. It really is. I kept trying not to yawn. It wasn’t that I was bored or anything—I wasn’t—but I was so damn sleepy all of a sudden.

  “Something else an academic education will do for you. If you go along with it any considerable distance, it’ll begin to give you an idea what size mind you have. What it’ll fit and, maybe, what it won’t. After a while, you’ll have an idea what kind of thoughts your particular size mind should be wearing. For one thing, it may save you an extraordinary amount of time trying on ideas that don’t suit you, aren’t becoming to you. You’ll begin to know your true measurements and dress your mind accordingly.”

  Then, all of a sudden, I yawned. What a rude bastard, but I couldn’t help it!

  Mr. Antolini just laughed, though. “C’mon,” he said, and got up. “We’ll fix up the couch for you.”

  I followed him and he went over to this closet and tried to take down some sheets and blankets and stuff that was on the top shelf, but he couldn’t do it with this highball glass in his hand. So he drank it and then put the glass down on the floor and then he took the stuff down. I helped him bring it over to the couch. We both made the bed together. He wasn’t too hot at it. He didn’t tuck anything in very tight. I didn’t care, though. I could’ve slept standing up I was so tired.

  “How’re all your women?”

  “They’re okay.” I was being a lousy conversationalist, but I didn’t feel like it.

  “How’s Sally?” He knew old Sally Hayes. I introduced him once.

  “She’s all right. I had a date with her this afternoon.” Boy, it seemed like twenty years ago! “We don’t have too much in common any more.”

  “Helluva pretty girl. What about that other girl? The one you told me about, in Maine?”

  “Oh—Jane Gallagher. She’s all right. I’m probably gonna give her a buzz tomorrow.”

  We were all done making up the couch then. “It’s all yours,” Mr. Antolini said. “I don’t know what the hell you’re going to do with those legs of yours.”

  “That’s all right. I’m used to short beds,” I said. “Thanks a lot, sir. You and Mrs. Antolini really saved my life tonight.”

  “You know where the bathroom is. If there’s anything you want, just holler. I’ll be in the kitchen for a while—will the light bother you?”

  “No—heck, no. Thanks a lot.”

  “All right. Good night, handsome.”

  “G’night, sir. Thanks a lot.”

  He went out in the kitchen and I went in the bathroom and got undressed and all. I couldn’t brush my teeth because I didn’t have any toothbrush with me. I didn’t have any pajamas either and Mr. Antolini forgot to lend me some. So I just went back in the living room and turned off this little lamp next to the couch, and then I got in bed with just my shorts on. It was way too short for me, the couch, but I really could’ve slept standing up without batting an eyelash. I laid awake for just a couple of seconds thinking about all that stuff Mr. Antolini’d told me. About finding out the size of your mind and all. He was really a pretty smart guy. But I couldn’t keep my goddam eyes open, and I fell asleep.

  Then something happened. I don’t even like to talk about it.

  I woke up all of a sudden. I don’t know what time it was or anything, but I woke up. I felt something on my head, some guy’s hand. Boy, it really scared hell out of me. What it was, it was Mr. Antolini’s hand. What he was doing was, he was sitting on the floor right next to the couch, in the dark and all, and he was sort of petting me or patting me on the goddam head. Boy, I’ll bet I jumped about a thousand feet.

  “What the hellya doing?” I said.

  “Nothing! I’m simply sitting here, admiring—”

  “What’re ya doing, anyway?” I said over again. I didn’t know what the hell to say—I mean I was embarrassed as hell.

  “How ’bout keeping your voice down? I’m simply sitting here—”

  “I have to go, anyway,” I said—boy, was I nervous! I started putting on my damn pants in the dark. I could hardly get them on I was so damn nervous. I know more damn perverts, at schools and all, than anybody you ever met, and they’re always being perverty when I’m around.

  “You have to go where?” Mr. Antolini said. He was trying to act very goddam casual and cool and all, but he wasn’t any too goddam cool. Take my word.

  “I left my bags and all at the station. I think maybe I’d better go down and get them. I have all my stuff in them.”

  “They’ll be there in the morning. Now, go back to bed. I’m going to bed myself. What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing’s the matter, it’s just that all my money and stuff’s in one of my bags. I’ll be right back. I’ll get a cab and be right back,” I said. Boy, I was falling all over myself in the dark. “The thing is, it isn’t mine, the money. It’s my mother’s, and I—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Holden. Get back in that bed. I’m going to bed myself. The money will be there safe and sound in the morn—”

  “No, no kidding. I gotta get going. I really do.” I was damn near all dressed already, except that I couldn’t find my tie. I couldn’t remember where I’d put my tie. I put on my jacket and all without it. Old Mr. Antolini was sitting now in the big chair a little ways away from me, watching me. It was dark and all and I couldn’t see him so hot, but I knew he was watching me, all right. He was still boozing, too. I could see his trusty highball glass in his hand.

  “You’re a very, very strange boy.”

  “I know it,” I said. I didn’t even look around much for my tie. So I went without it. “Good-by, sir,” I said. “Thanks a lot. No kidding.”

  He kept walking right behind me when I went to the front door, and when I rang the elevator bell he stayed in the damn doorway. All he said was that business about my
being a “very, very strange boy” again. Strange, my ass. Then he waited in the doorway and all till the goddam elevator came. I never waited so long for an elevator in my whole goddam life. I swear.

  I didn’t know what the hell to talk about while I was waiting for the elevator, and he kept standing there, so I said, “I’m gonna start reading some good books. I really am.” I mean you had to say something. It was very embarrassing.

  “You grab your bags and scoot right on back here again. I’ll leave the door unlatched.”