Franny and Zooey

by Jerome D. Salinger

At first piecemeal, then point-blank, he let his attention be drawn to a little scene that was being acted out sublimely, unhampered by writers and directors and producers, five storeys below the window and across the street. A fair-sized maple tree stood in front of the girls' private school—one of four or five trees on that fortunate side of the street—and at the moment a child of seven or eight, female, was hiding behind it. She was wearing a navy-blue reefer and a tam that was very nearly the same shade of red as the blanket on the bed in Van Gogh's room at Arles. Her tam did, in fact, from Zooey's vantage point, appear not unlike a dab of paint. Some fifteen feet away from the child, her dog—a young dachshund, wearing a green leather collar and leash,—was sniffing to find her scurrying in frantic circles, his leash dragging behind him. The anguish of separation was scarcely bearable for him, and when at last he pick up his mistress's scent, it wasn't a second too soon. The joy of reunion, for both, was immense. The dachshund gave a little yelp, then cringed forward shimmying with ecstasy, till his mistress shouting some­thing at him, stepped hurriedly over the wire guard surrounding the tree and picked him up. She said a number of words of praise to him, in the private argot of the game, then put him down and picked up his leash and the two walked gaily west toward Fifth Avenue and the Park and out of Zooey's sight. Zooey reflexively put his hand on a crosspiece between panes of glass, as if he had a mind to raise the window and lean out of it to watch the two disappear. It was his cigar hand, however, and he hesitated a second too long. He dragged on his cigar. “God damn it,” he said “there are nice things in the world—and I mean nice things.” We're all such morons to get so sidetracked. Always, always, always referring every goddamn thing that happens right back to our lousy little egos. Behind him, just then, Franny blew her nose with guileless abandon; the report was considerably louder than might have been expected from so fine and delicate-appearing an organ. Zooey turned around to look at her, somewhat censoriously.

Notes and exercises:

1.     Read and learn the spelling of the following words: dachshund, schedule, schist, eschalot, schnapps, Schleswig, Schiller, Schumann, Bacchus, saccharine, lichen, scherzo, chasm.

2.     The name of Van Gogh is pronounced [væn ´goc] or [væn ´gok].

3.     The “n” is silent in the following words: damn, solemn, condemn, contemn, column, autumn, hymn.

4.     Spell the words given in phonetic transcription:

þ      He [´hær¶st] the life out of me, so I had to give in.

þ      Good [´kauns(¶)l] never comes amiss.

þ      [´kaunslz] of war never fight.

þ      Ben is very clever at [´profisaiih] after the event.

þ      His suit was so [wi¶(r)d] that he was laughed out of the room.

þ      After dinner the old man would light a pipe and [remi´nis].

þ      The Greeks had much faith in the [´profisiz] made by the priestess at Delphi.

þ      The term [¶´sæsineiò(¶)n] is mostly applied to the murder of a prominent personage.

5.     Word study:

piecemeal             piece by piece; a part at a time: work done piecemeal

point-blank          aimed and fired at very close range: fired at point-blank range (of a shot); in a manner that leaves no room for doubt: a point-blank refusal, to ask somebody point-blank whether he intends to help, to refuse point-blank to help

shimmy                 a jazz dance; a marked vibration or wobble as in a car’s front wheels; to vibrate or wobble

argot                      [´a:(r)gou]—jargon, slang

moron                   a feeble-minded person (with a mental level not so low as imbeciles or idiots)

6.     Translate the following expressions and use them in sentences of your own:

to dab one’s cheeks with powder, to make a dab at, to have a dab at, to be a dab at something;

to pick somebody’s pockets, to pick one’s teeth, to pick a bone, I have a bone to pick with him, to pick one’s words, to pick one’s way, to pick the winner (to make a successful guess at the winner), to pick holes in an argument (to find the weak points in an argument), she only picked at her food, to pick a foreign language, to pick a quarrel with somebody, to pick up a girl, enemy planes picked up by out searchlights, to pick up somebody, the escaped prisoner was picked up, you’ll soon pick up health, the pick of the bunch (the best of the bunch);

it is reported that, to report to someone, to report progress to someone, reported speech, to report to the police, I hate being reported upon, to report for duty, as report has it/goes, mere/idle reports, to know something by mere reports, it is a matter of current report, weather report, a man of good report, a man of evil report;

damn it, damn it all, I’ll be damned if I know, to damn with faint praise, not to give a damn for, it’s not worth a damn, I don’t give a damn, damnation take you, none of your damned nonsense, you can do your damnedest