{"id":"01KG07252MX4J6CZDGDQKZRH28","cid":"bafkreibvwuexevjk7cnyj2m22xn53oyjt2oivrmozlc7hqrmcak7b5yuau","type":"chapter","properties":{"description":"# Chapter 17 \n## Overview \nThis entity is Chapter 17 of a literary work, extracted from a source file and structured as part of a larger text. It spans lines 3066 to 3367 of the original document and corresponds to pages 67 through 72 of the physical or digital edition. The chapter is written in first-person narrative and presents a continuous, introspective account of a young man’s date with Sally in New York City. It is part of a collection titled [More Classics](arke:01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS), which includes canonical Western literature.\n\n## Context \nThe chapter is one of several in a novel preserved within the [More Classics](arke:01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS) collection, which also contains other significant literary works. The narrative voice is characteristic of adolescent alienation and emotional volatility, reflecting themes common in mid-20th-century American literature. The protagonist, unnamed in this chapter but consistent with Holden Caulfield from *The Catcher in the Rye*, recounts his experiences with cynicism, longing, and a deep sensitivity to social phoniness. His observations of theatergoers, romantic interactions, and societal expectations align with the broader thematic concerns of the novel.\n\n## Contents \nThe chapter details the narrator’s date with Sally, beginning with his early arrival at a theater lobby, where he observes young women and reflects on their uncertain futures. He reunites with Sally, whom he finds attractive but ultimately frustrating. They attend a play by Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, which the narrator finds dull and overly polished. During intermission, he grows irritated by the pretentiousness of the audience, particularly a snobbish acquaintance of Sally’s from Andover. After the show, they go ice-skating at Radio City, where they struggle and feel self-conscious. Over drinks, the narrator impulsively proposes that they run away together to New England, expressing a desperate desire to escape societal conformity. Sally rejects the idea, leading to a heated argument and their eventual separation. The chapter ends with the narrator reflecting on his own emotional instability, acknowledging that while he likely wouldn’t have followed through, he genuinely meant his proposal—a moment of raw vulnerability amidst his usual irony.","description_generated_at":"2026-01-27T17:21:36.542Z","description_model":"Qwen/Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507","description_title":"Chapter 17","end_line":3367,"extracted_at":"2026-01-27T17:12:16.505Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"17","source_file":"01KFYTG9MG93RTB6YAW34V48XG","start_line":3066,"text":" 2935\t17\n 2936\tI was way early when I got there, so I just sat down on one of those leather\n 2937\tcouches right near the clock in the lobby and watched the girls. A lot of schools were\n 2938\thome for vacation already, and there were about a million girls sitting and standing\n 2939\taround waiting for their dates to show up. Girls with their legs crossed, girls with their\n 2940\tlegs not crossed, girls with terrific legs, girls with lousy legs, girls that looked like swell\n 2941\tgirls, girls that looked like they'd be bitches if you knew them. It was really nice\n 2942\tsightseeing, if you know what I mean. In a way, it was sort of depressing, too, because\n 2943\tyou kept wondering what the hell would happen to all of them. When they got out of\n 2944\tschool and college, I mean. You figured most of them would probably marry dopey guys.\n 2945\tGuys that always talk about how many miles they get to a gallon in their goddam cars.\n 2946\tGuys that get sore and childish as hell if you beat them at golf, or even just some stupid\n 2947\tgame like ping-pong. Guys that are very mean. Guys that never read books. Guys that are\n 2948\tvery boring--But I have to be careful about that. I mean about calling certain guys bores. I\n 2949\tdon't understand boring guys. I really don't. When I was at Elkton Hills, I roomed for\n 2950\tabout two months with this boy, Harris Mackim. He was very intelligent and all, but he\n 2951\twas one of the biggest bores I ever met. He had one of these very raspy voices, and he\n 2952\tnever stopped talking, practically. He never stopped talking, and what was awful was, he\n 2953\tnever said anything you wanted to hear in the first place. But he could do one thing. The\n 2954\tsonuvabitch could whistle better than anybody I ever heard. He'd be making his bed, or\n 2955\thanging up stuff in the closet--he was always hanging up stuff in the closet--it drove me\n 2956\tcrazy--and he'd be whistling while he did it, if he wasn't talking in this raspy voice. He\n 2957\tcould even whistle classical stuff, but most of the time he just whistled jazz. He could\n 2958\ttake something very jazzy, like \"Tin Roof Blues,\" and whistle it so nice and easy--right\n\n\n 2959\twhile he was hanging stuff up in the closet--that it could kill you. Naturally, I never told\n 2960\thim I thought he was a terrific whistler. I mean you don't just go up to somebody and say,\n 2961\t\"You're a terrific whistler.\" But I roomed with him for about two whole months, even\n 2962\tthough he bored me till I was half crazy, just because he was such a terrific whistler, the\n 2963\tbest I ever heard. So I don't know about bores. Maybe you shouldn't feel too sorry if you\n 2964\tsee some swell girl getting married to them. They don't hurt anybody, most of them, and\n 2965\tmaybe they're secretly all terrific whistlers or something. Who the hell knows? Not me.\n 2966\tFinally, old Sally started coming up the stairs, and I started down to meet her. She\n 2967\tlooked terrific. She really did. She had on this black coat and sort of a black beret. She\n 2968\thardly ever wore a hat, but that beret looked nice. The funny part is, I felt like marrying\n 2969\ther the minute I saw her. I'm crazy. I didn't even like her much, and yet all of a sudden I\n 2970\tfelt like I was in love with her and wanted to marry her. I swear to God I'm crazy. I admit\n 2971\tit.\n 2972\t\"Holden!\" she said. \"It's marvelous to see you! It's been ages.\" She had one of\n 2973\tthese very loud, embarrassing voices when you met her somewhere. She got away with it\n 2974\tbecause she was so damn good-looking, but it always gave me a pain in the ass.\n 2975\t\"Swell to see you,\" I said. I meant it, too. \"How are ya, anyway?\"\n 2976\t\"Absolutely marvelous. Am I late?\"\n 2977\tI told her no, but she was around ten minutes late, as a matter of fact. I didn't give\n 2978\ta damn, though. All that crap they have in cartoons in the Saturday Evening Post and all,\n 2979\tshowing guys on street corners looking sore as hell because their dates are late--that's\n 2980\tbunk. If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late? Nobody.\n 2981\t\"We better hurry,\" I said. \"The show starts at two-forty.\" We started going down the\n 2982\tstairs to where the taxis are.\n 2983\t\"What are we going to see?\" she said.\n 2984\t\"I don't know. The Lunts. It's all I could get tickets for.\"\n 2985\t\"The Lunts! Oh, marvelous!\" I told you she'd go mad when she heard it was for\n 2986\tthe Lunts.\n 2987\tWe horsed around a little bit in the cab on the way over to the theater. At first she\n 2988\tdidn't want to, because she had her lipstick on and all, but I was being seductive as hell\n 2989\tand she didn't have any alternative. Twice, when the goddam cab stopped short in traffic,\n 2990\tI damn near fell off the seat. Those damn drivers never even look where they're going, I\n 2991\tswear they don't. Then, just to show you how crazy I am, when we were coming out of\n 2992\tthis big clinch, I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I\n 2993\tmeant it when I said it. I'm crazy. I swear to God I am.\n 2994\t\"Oh, darling, I love you too,\" she said. Then, right in the same damn breath, she\n 2995\tsaid, \"Promise me you'll let your hair grow. Crew cuts are getting corny. And your hair's\n 2996\tso lovely.\"\n 2997\tLovely my ass.\n 2998\tThe show wasn't as bad as some I've seen. It was on the crappy side, though. It\n 2999\twas about five hundred thousand years in the life of this one old couple. It starts out when\n 3000\tthey're young and all, and the girl's parents don't want her to marry the boy, but she\n 3001\tmarries him anyway. Then they keep getting older and older. The husband goes to war,\n 3002\tand the wife has this brother that's a drunkard. I couldn't get very interested. I mean I\n 3003\tdidn't care too much when anybody in the family died or anything. They were all just a\n 3004\tbunch of actors. The husband and wife were a pretty nice old couple--very witty and all--\n\n\n 3005\tbut I couldn't get too interested in them. For one thing, they kept drinking tea or some\n 3006\tgoddam thing all through the play. Every time you saw them, some butler was shoving\n 3007\tsome tea in front of them, or the wife was pouring it for somebody. And everybody kept\n 3008\tcoming in and going out all the time--you got dizzy watching people sit down and stand\n 3009\tup. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were the old couple, and they were very good, but I\n 3010\tdidn't like them much. They were different, though, I'll say that. They didn't act like\n 3011\tpeople and they didn't act like actors. It's hard to explain. They acted more like they knew\n 3012\tthey were celebrities and all. I mean they were good, but they were too good. When one\n 3013\tof them got finished making a speech, the other one said something very fast right after it.\n 3014\tIt was supposed to be like people really talking and interrupting each other and all. The\n 3015\ttrouble was, it was too much like people talking and interrupting each other. They acted a\n 3016\tlittle bit the way old Ernie, down in the Village, plays the piano. If you do something too\n 3017\tgood, then, after a while, if you don't watch it, you start showing off. And then you're not\n 3018\tas good any more. But anyway, they were the only ones in the show--the Lunts, I mean--\n 3019\tthat looked like they had any real brains. I have to admit it.\n 3020\tAt the end of the first act we went out with all the other jerks for a cigarette. What\n 3021\ta deal that was. You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their\n 3022\tears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they\n 3023\twere. Some dopey movie actor was standing near us, having a cigarette. I don't know his\n 3024\tname, but he always plays the part of a guy in a war movie that gets yellow before it's\n 3025\ttime to go over the top. He was with some gorgeous blonde, and the two of them were\n 3026\ttrying to be very blasé and all, like as if he didn't even know people were looking at him.\n 3027\tModest as hell. I got a big bang out of it. Old Sally didn't talk much, except to rave about\n 3028\tthe Lunts, because she was busy rubbering and being charming. Then all of a sudden, she\n 3029\tsaw some jerk she knew on the other side of the lobby. Some guy in one of those very\n 3030\tdark gray flannel suits and one of those checkered vests. Strictly Ivy League. Big deal.\n 3031\tHe was standing next to the wall, smoking himself to death and looking bored as hell.\n 3032\tOld Sally kept saying, \"I know that boy from somewhere.\" She always knew somebody,\n 3033\tany place you took her, or thought she did. She kept saying that till I got bored as hell,\n 3034\tand I said to her, \"Why don't you go on over and give him a big soul kiss, if you know\n 3035\thim? He'll enjoy it.\" She got sore when I said that. Finally, though, the jerk noticed her\n 3036\tand came over and said hello. You should've seen the way they said hello. You'd have\n 3037\tthought they hadn't seen each other in twenty years. You'd have thought they'd taken\n 3038\tbaths in the same bathtub or something when they were little kids. Old buddyroos. It was\n 3039\tnauseating. The funny part was, they probably met each other just once, at some phony\n 3040\tparty. Finally, when they were all done slobbering around, old Sally introduced us. His\n 3041\tname was George something--I don't even remember--and he went to Andover. Big, big\n 3042\tdeal. You should've seen him when old Sally asked him how he liked the play. He was\n 3043\tthe kind of a phony that have to give themselves room when they answer somebody's\n 3044\tquestion. He stepped back, and stepped right on the lady's foot behind him. He probably\n 3045\tbroke every toe in her body. He said the play itself was no masterpiece, but that the\n 3046\tLunts, of course, were absolute angels. Angels. For Chrissake. Angels. That killed me.\n 3047\tThen he and old Sally started talking about a lot of people they both knew. It was the\n 3048\tphoniest conversation you ever heard in your life. They both kept thinking of places as\n 3049\tfast as they could, then they'd think of somebody that lived there and mention their name.\n 3050\tI was all set to puke when it was time to go sit down again. I really was. And then, when\n\n\n 3051\tthe next act was over, they continued their goddam boring conversation. They kept\n 3052\tthinking of more places and more names of people that lived there. The worst part was,\n 3053\tthe jerk had one of those very phony, Ivy League voices, one of those very tired, snobby\n 3054\tvoices. He sounded just like a girl. He didn't hesitate to horn in on my date, the bastard. I\n 3055\teven thought for a minute that he was going to get in the goddam cab with us when the\n 3056\tshow was over, because he walked about two blocks with us, but he had to meet a bunch\n 3057\tof phonies for cocktails, he said. I could see them all sitting around in some bar, with\n 3058\ttheir goddam checkered vests, criticizing shows and books and women in those tired,\n 3059\tsnobby voices. They kill me, those guys.\n 3060\tI sort of hated old Sally by the time we got in the cab, after listening to that phony\n 3061\tAndover bastard for about ten hours. I was all set to take her home and all--I really was--\n 3062\tbut she said, \"I have a marvelous idea!\" She was always having a marvelous idea.\n 3063\t\"Listen,\" she said. \"What time do you have to be home for dinner? I mean are you in a\n 3064\tterrible hurry or anything? Do you have to be home any special time?\"\n 3065\t\"Me? No. No special time,\" I said. Truer word was never spoken, boy. \"Why?\"\n 3066\t\"Let's go ice-skating at Radio City!\"\n 3067\tThat's the kind of ideas she always had.\n 3068\t\"Ice-skating at Radio City? You mean right now?\"\n 3069\t\"Just for an hour or so. Don't you want to? If you don't want to--\"\n 3070\t\"I didn't say I didn't want to,\" I said. \"Sure. If you want to.\"\n 3071\t\"Do you mean it? Don't just say it if you don't mean it. I mean I don't give a darn,\n 3072\tone way or the other.\"\n 3073\tNot much she didn't.\n 3074\t\"You can rent those darling little skating skirts,\" old Sally said. \"Jeannette Cultz\n 3075\tdid it last week.\"\n 3076\tThat's why she was so hot to go. She wanted to see herself in one of those little\n 3077\tskirts that just come down over their butt and all.\n 3078\tSo we went, and after they gave us our skates, they gave Sally this little blue butt-\n 3079\ttwitcher of a dress to wear. She really did look damn good in it, though. I save to admit it.\n 3080\tAnd don't think she didn't know it. The kept walking ahead of me, so that I'd see how\n 3081\tcute her little ass looked. It did look pretty cute, too. I have to admit it.\n 3082\tThe funny part was, though, we were the worst skaters on the whole goddam rink.\n 3083\tI mean the worst. And there were some lulus, too. Old Sally's ankles kept bending in till\n 3084\tthey were practically on the ice. They not only looked stupid as hell, but they probably\n 3085\thurt like hell, too. I know mine did. Mine were killing me. We must've looked gorgeous.\n 3086\tAnd what made it worse, there were at least a couple of hundred rubbernecks that didn't\n 3087\thave anything better to do than stand around and watch everybody falling all over\n 3088\tthemselves.\n 3089\t\"Do you want to get a table inside and have a drink or something?\" I said to her\n 3090\tfinally.\n 3091\t\"That's the most marvelous idea you've had all day,\" the said. She was killing\n 3092\therself. It was brutal. I really felt sorry for her.\n 3093\tWe took off our goddam skates and went inside this bar where you can get drinks\n 3094\tand watch the skaters in just your stocking feet. As soon as we sat down, old Sally took\n 3095\toff her gloves, and I gave her a cigarette. She wasn't looking too happy. The waiter came\n 3096\tup, and I ordered a Coke for her--she didn't drink--and a Scotch and soda for myself, but\n\n\n 3097\tthe sonuvabitch wouldn't bring me one, so I had a Coke, too. Then I sort of started\n 3098\tlighting matches. I do that quite a lot when I'm in a certain mood. I sort of let them burn\n 3099\tdown till I can't hold them any more, then I drop them in the ashtray. It's a nervous habit.\n 3100\tThen all of a sudden, out of a clear blue sky, old Sally said, \"Look. I have to\n 3101\tknow. Are you or aren't you coming over to help me trim the tree Christmas Eve? I have\n 3102\tto know.\" She was still being snotty on account of her ankles when she was skating.\n 3103\t\"I wrote you I would. You've asked me that about twenty times. Sure, I am.\"\n 3104\t\"I mean I have to know,\" she said. She started looking all around the goddam\n 3105\troom.\n 3106\tAll of a sudden I quit lighting matches, and sort of leaned nearer to her over the\n 3107\ttable. I had quite a few topics on my mind. \"Hey, Sally,\" I said.\n 3108\t\"What?\" she said. She was looking at some girl on the other side of the room.\n 3109\t\"Did you ever get fed up?\" I said. \"I mean did you ever get scared that everything\n 3110\twas going to go lousy unless you did something? I mean do you like school, and all that\n 3111\tstuff?\"\n 3112\t\"It's a terrific bore.\"\n 3113\t\"I mean do you hate it? I know it's a terrific bore, but do you hate it, is what I\n 3114\tmean.\"\n 3115\t\"Well, I don't exactly hate it. You always have to--\"\n 3116\t\"Well, I hate it. Boy, do I hate it,\" I said. \"But it isn't just that. It's everything. I\n 3117\thate living in New York and all. Taxicabs, and Madison Avenue buses, with the drivers\n 3118\tand all always yelling at you to get out at the rear door, and being introduced to phony\n 3119\tguys that call the Lunts angels, and going up and down in elevators when you just want to\n 3120\tgo outside, and guys fitting your pants all the time at Brooks, and people always--\"\n 3121\t\"Don't shout, please,\" old Sally said. Which was very funny, because I wasn't\n 3122\teven shouting.\n 3123\t\"Take cars,\" I said. I said it in this very quiet voice. \"Take most people, they're\n 3124\tcrazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always\n 3125\ttalking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car\n 3126\talready they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer. I don't even like\n 3127\told cars. I mean they don't even interest me. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at\n 3128\tleast human, for God's sake. A horse you can at least--\"\n 3129\t\"I don't know what you're even talking about,\" old Sally said. \"You jump from\n 3130\tone--\"\n 3131\t\"You know something?\" I said. \"You're probably the only reason I'm in New\n 3132\tYork right now, or anywhere. If you weren't around, I'd probably be someplace way the\n 3133\thell off. In the woods or some goddam place. You're the only reason I'm around,\n 3134\tpractically.\"\n 3135\t\"You're sweet,\" she said. But you could tell she wanted me to change the damn\n 3136\tsubject.\n 3137\t\"You ought to go to a boys' school sometime. Try it sometime,\" I said. \"It's full of\n 3138\tphonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be\n 3139\table to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give\n 3140\ta damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all\n 3141\tday, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques. The guys that are\n 3142\ton the basketball team stick together, the Catholics stick together, the goddam\n\n\n 3143\tintellectuals stick together, the guys that play bridge stick together. Even the guys that\n 3144\tbelong to the goddam Book-of-the-Month Club stick together. If you try to have a little\n 3145\tintelligent--\"\n 3146\t\"Now, listen,\" old Sally said. \"Lots of boys get more out of school than that.\"\n 3147\t\"I agree! I agree they do, some of them! But that's all I get out of it. See? That's\n 3148\tmy point. That's exactly my goddam point,\" I said. \"I don't get hardly anything out of\n 3149\tanything. I'm in bad shape. I'm in lousy shape.\"\n 3150\t\"You certainly are.\"\n 3151\tThen, all of a sudden, I got this idea.\n 3152\t\"Look,\" I said. \"Here's my idea. How would you like to get the hell out of here?\n 3153\tHere's my idea. I know this guy down in Greenwich Village that we can borrow his car\n 3154\tfor a couple of weeks. He used to go to the same school I did and he still owes me ten\n 3155\tbucks. What we could do is, tomorrow morning we could drive up to Massachusetts and\n 3156\tVermont, and all around there, see. It's beautiful as hell up there, It really is.\" I was\n 3157\tgetting excited as hell, the more I thought of it, and I sort of reached over and took old\n 3158\tSally's goddam hand. What a goddam fool I was. \"No kidding,\" I said. \"I have about a\n 3159\thundred and eighty bucks in the bank. I can take it out when it opens in the morning, and\n 3160\tthen I could go down and get this guy's car. No kidding. We'll stay in these cabin camps\n 3161\tand stuff like that till the dough runs out. Then, when the dough runs out, I could get a\n 3162\tjob somewhere and we could live somewhere with a brook and all and, later on, we could\n 3163\tget married or something. I could chop all our own wood in the wintertime and all.\n 3164\tHonest to God, we could have a terrific time! Wuddaya say? C'mon! Wuddaya say? Will\n 3165\tyou do it with me? Please!\"\n 3166\t\"You can't just do something like that,\" old Sally said. She sounded sore as hell.\n 3167\t\"Why not? Why the hell not?\"\n 3168\t\"Stop screaming at me, please,\" she said. Which was crap, because I wasn't even\n 3169\tscreaming at her.\n 3170\t\"Why can'tcha? Why not?\"\n 3171\t\"Because you can't, that's all. In the first place, we're both practically children.\n 3172\tAnd did you ever stop to think what you'd do if you didn't get a job when your money ran\n 3173\tout? We'd starve to death. The whole thing's so fantastic, it isn't even--\"\n 3174\t\"It isn't fantastic. I'd get a job. Don't worry about that. You don't have to worry\n 3175\tabout that. What's the matter? Don't you want to go with me? Say so, if you don't.\"\n 3176\t\"It isn't that. It isn't that at all,\" old Sally said. I was beginning to hate her, in a\n 3177\tway. \"We'll have oodles of time to do those things--all those things. I mean after you go\n 3178\tto college and all, and if we should get married and all. There'll be oodles of marvelous\n 3179\tplaces to go to. You're just--\"\n 3180\t\"No, there wouldn't be. There wouldn't be oodles of places to go to at all. It'd be\n 3181\tentirely different,\" I said. I was getting depressed as hell again.\n 3182\t\"What?\" she said. \"I can't hear you. One minute you scream at me, and the next\n 3183\tyou--\"\n 3184\t\"I said no, there wouldn't be marvelous places to go to after I went to college and\n 3185\tall. Open your ears. It'd be entirely different. We'd have to go downstairs in elevators\n 3186\twith suitcases and stuff. We'd have to phone up everybody and tell 'em good-by and send\n 3187\t'em postcards from hotels and all. And I'd be working in some office, making a lot of\n 3188\tdough, and riding to work in cabs and Madison Avenue buses, and reading newspapers,\n\n\n 3189\tand playing bridge all the time, and going to the movies and seeing a lot of stupid shorts\n 3190\tand coming attractions and newsreels. Newsreels. Christ almighty. There's always a\n 3191\tdumb horse race, and some dame breaking a bottle over a ship, and some chimpanzee\n 3192\triding a goddam bicycle with pants on. It wouldn't be the same at all. You don't see what\n 3193\tI mean at all.\"\n 3194\t\"Maybe I don't! Maybe you don't, either,\" old Sally said. We both hated each\n 3195\tother's guts by that time. You could see there wasn't any sense trying to have an\n 3196\tintelligent conversation. I was sorry as hell I'd started it.\n 3197\t\"C'mon, let's get outa here,\" I said. \"You give me a royal pain in the ass, if you\n 3198\twant to know the truth.\"\n 3199\tBoy, did she hit the ceiling when I said that. I know I shouldn't've said it, and I\n 3200\tprobably wouldn't've ordinarily, but she was depressing the hell out of me. Usually I\n 3201\tnever say crude things like that to girls. Boy, did she hit the ceiling. I apologized like a\n 3202\tmadman, but she wouldn't accept my apology. She was even crying. Which scared me a\n 3203\tlittle bit, because I was a little afraid she'd go home and tell her father I called her a pain\n 3204\tin the ass. Her father was one of those big silent bastards, and he wasn't too crazy about\n 3205\tme anyhow. He once told old Sally I was too goddam noisy.\n 3206\t\"No kidding. I'm sorry,\" I kept telling her.\n 3207\t\"You're sorry. You're sorry. That's very funny,\" she said. She was still sort of\n 3208\tcrying, and all of a sudden I did feel sort of sorry I'd said it.\n 3209\t\"C'mon, I'll take ya home. No kidding.\"\n 3210\t\"I can go home by myself, thank you. If you think I'd let you take me home,\n 3211\tyou're mad. No boy ever said that to me in my entire life.\"\n 3212\tThe whole thing was sort of funny, in a way, if you thought about it, and all of a\n 3213\tsudden I did something I shouldn't have. I laughed. And I have one of these very loud,\n 3214\tstupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I'd probably\n 3215\tlean over and tell myself to please shut up. It made old Sally madder than ever.\n 3216\tI stuck around for a while, apologizing and trying to get her to excuse me, but she\n 3217\twouldn't. She kept telling me to go away and leave her alone. So finally I did it. I went\n 3218\tinside and got my shoes and stuff, and left without her. I shouldn't've, but I was pretty\n 3219\tgoddam fed up by that time.\n 3220\tIf you want to know the truth, I don't even know why I started all that stuff with\n 3221\ther. I mean about going away somewhere, to Massachusetts and Vermont and all. I\n 3222\tprobably wouldn't've taken her even if she'd wanted to go with me. She wouldn't have\n 3223\tbeen anybody to go with. The terrible part, though, is that I meant it when I asked her.\n 3224\tThat's the terrible part. I swear to God I'm a madman.","title":"17"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS","peer_label":"More Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG07AF7NMRXMF38XMBG6PN90","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"contains"},{"peer":"01KG07AF1N7ARX5KCD8F4Q7FDY","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"contains"},{"peer":"01KG07AF1FMH20SSSJ2P0P2Q9V","peer_label":"Chunk 3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"contains"},{"peer":"01KG07AF1NF7ZD1JW7R6SXF5DG","peer_label":"Chunk 4","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"contains"},{"peer":"01KG07AF1MEDXEWQMC4WBWV95P","peer_label":"Chunk 5","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"contains"},{"peer":"01KG07AF1G0S1YSTP07XF7QY87","peer_label":"Chunk 6","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"contains"},{"peer":"01KG07AF1FAR1SBCM591V9JA0E","peer_label":"Chunk 7","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"contains"},{"peer":"01KG07B02HZ48C7E735TN916FS","peer_label":"Chunk 8","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"contains"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-27T17:12:16.936Z","ts":"2026-01-27T17:21:36.804Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF5C36SQEVDHC9CBNZZJH9K"}}