Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger

troubles?"
     
        Mrs. Glass sat slightly and avidly forward, and said, "Well, Lane says it all has to do--this entire thing--with that little book she's got with her all the time. You know. That little book she kept reading all yesterday and dragging with her everywhere she--"
     
        "I know that little book. Go on."
     
        "Well, he says, Lane says, it's a terribly religious little book--fanatical and all like that-- and that she got it out of the library at college and now she thinks maybe she's--" Mrs. Glass broke off. Zooey had turned toward her with somewhat menacing alertness. "What's the matter?" she asked.
     
        "He said she got it where?"
     
        "Out of the library. At college. Why?"
     
        Zooey shook his head, and turned back to the washbowl. He put down his shaving brush and opened the medicine cabinet.
     
        "What's the matter?" Mrs. Glass demanded. "What's the matter with that? Why such a look, young man?"
     
        Zooey didn't reply till he had opened a new package of razor blades. Then, dismantling his razor, he said, "You're so stupid, Bessie." He ejected the blade from his razor.
     
        "Why am I so stupid? Incidentally, you just put a new razor blade in yesterday."
     
        Zooey, his face expressionless, locked a new blade into his razor and began his second-time-over shave.
     
        "I asked you a question, young man. Why am I so stupid? Didn't she get that little book out of her college library, or what?"
     
        "No, she didn't, Bessie," Zooey said, shaving. "That little book is called 'The Pilgrim Continues His Way,' and it's a sequel to another little book, called 'The Way of a Pilgrim,' which she's also dragging around with her, and she got both books out of Seymour and Buddy's old room, where they've been sitting on Seymour's desk for as long as I can remember. Jesus God almighty."
     
        "Well, don't get abusive about it! Is it so terrible to think she might have gotten them out of her college library and simply brought them--"
     
        "Yes! It is terrible. It is terrible when both books have been sitting on Seymour's goddam desk for years. It's depressing."
     
        An unexpected, a singularly noncombatant, note came into Mrs. Glass's voice. "I don't go in that room if I can help it, and you know it," she said. "1 don't look at Seymour's old--at his things."
     
        Zooey said, quickly, "All right, I'm sorry." Without looking at her, and although he hadn't quite finished his second-time-over shave, he pulled the face towel down from his shoulders and wiped the remaining lather off his face. "Let's just drop this for a while," he said, and tossed the face towel over onto the radiator; it landed on the title page of the Rick-Tina manuscript. He unscrewed his razor and held it under the cold-water tap.
     
        His apology had been genuine, and Mrs. Glass knew it, but evidently she couldn't resist taking advantage of it, perhaps because of its rarity. "You're not kind," she said, watching him rinse his razor. "You're not kind at all, Zooey. You're old enough to at least try for some kind of kindness when you're feeling mean. Buddy, at least, when he's feeling--" She simultaneously took in her breath and gave a great start as Zooey's razor, new blade and all, slam-banged down into the metal wastebasket.
     
        Quite probably Zooey hadn't intended to send his razor crashing into the wastebasket but had merely brought his left hand down with such suddenness and violence that the razor got away from him. In any case, it was certain that he hadn't intended to strike and hurt his wrist on the side of the washbowl. "Buddy, Buddy, Buddy," he said. "Seymour, Seymour, Seymour." He had turned toward his mother, whom the crash of the razor had startled and alarmed but not really frightened. "I'm so sick of their names I could cut my throat." His face was pale but very nearly expressionless. "This whole goddam house