Mrs. Morrow on the Train — The Catcher in the Rye

On the train Holden meets Mrs. Morrow, mother of Ernest, a boy he considers a conceited bore. She asks if he knows her son. He lies with pleasure. Ernest is wonderful, mature, popular, almost class president. She believes him because she wants to. He gives his name as Rudolf Schmidt, the janitor at Pencey, so the expelled Holden Caulfield stays off the record.

She is attractive and worried that Ernest is too sensitive for boarding school. Holden feeds the worry with more praise. In the vestibule he offers a cigarette and plays the charming young man. When she asks why he is leaving early, he says he is going home for an operation, a tiny tumour on the brain. She is sincerely sorry. Near New York he helps with her bags. She invites him to visit Ernest over Christmas. He says he will, and knows he will not.

At Penn Station the warmth ends as soon as she is in the crowd. He feels a little guilty and a little pleased that he made her happy. Then he is alone again, with no plan except not to go home. The performance of sincerity worked. The person who used it is empty the moment the crowd takes her.