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By Root 1600 0

an event bordering on revelation, which takes place at the bedside of a child. It is late at night, and Babe cannot sleep. He sits alone in his room thinking of his sister, Mattie. To himself, he recites an appeal for the little sister he may never see again. The passage is an exquisite monologue cautioning little Mattie of the fleeting nature of childhood. Embedded within it is a prayer that she will retain the virtues of her youth as she grows. A strong sense of Babe’s nostalgia for his own childhood is detected as he whispers his prayer for Mattie. “Try to live up to the best that’s in you,” he implores, speaking as much to himself as to his sister. This is the last night before Babe goes overseas. He needs to look at his sister just one more time. He craves one last connection with her beauty and the remnants of his own innocence, virtues he fears he must leave behind. He sneaks into Mattie’s room and kisses her. Then he speaks an oath to himself that reminds us of Holden at the edge of the cliff, ready to prevent the descent of wayward innocence. It is, despite its gentleness, a rationalization of war when Babe vows to protect his sister with his gun. But this oath is also a definition of “home” as a spiritual place found through his sister. As Babe gently caresses Mattie and her innocence, he also reestablishes a connection with his own childhood and attains a level of purity he assumed had long since deserted him. In future stories, this connection will be a profound one. In “Furlough,” it is tempered by a sense of responsibility and uncertainty that he will ever see home again.

“Last Day of the Last Furlough” is, among other things, a resigned declaration of Salinger’s willingness to do his duty in combat. Through “Furlough” he acknowledged his responsibility to protect those he cherished. Yet knowledge of the author is not necessary to appreciate the story, for “Furlough” faithfully depicts sentiments and anxieties felt by soldiers about to go to war. When published in July 1944 in The Saturday Evening Post, “Last Day of the Last Furlough” was remarkably successful.

If present-day readers struggle to appreciate the circumstances that made “Furlough” attractive to readers in 1944, they can nevertheless understand the insights it provides into Salinger’s later works. Like most of the Caulfield stories, “Furlough” points to The Catcher in the Rye in both characters and themes. It may also refer directly to the novel when Vincent mentions that Holden is missing in action. Enveloping “Furlough” is Salinger’s fear that he might soon die in battle. Likely to be called overseas at any moment, he wrote this story as if it were his last. And had he died in Europe, Holden Caulfield would have died with him.

The greatest similarity between “Furlough” and Catcher appears at the end of both works and centers on the recognition of beauty and the preservation of innocence. The image of Babe in the act of emotional release at the bedside of his little sister inevitably reminds us of Holden beside Phoebe’s bed, confiding his dream of being the catcher in the rye. And while it will be years before we hear Holden’s confession, his voice is clearly heard in Babe’s prayer for Mattie’s innocence:

“You’re going to be smart when you grow up. But if you can’t be smart and a swell girl, too, then I don’t want to see you grow up. Be a swell girl, Mat.”

When Babe exhorts Mattie to be a “swell” girl, he of course means “genuine.” It’s the opposite of Holden Caulfield’s “phony,” and Salinger has already elevated the concept to a higher state of being, to a truth his characters must strive for and jealously maintain. Because he has already defined the concept of “home” through connection with Mattie’s childlike innocence, it gives double meaning to his desire to return home. “It would,” Babe says at the end of the story, “be swell to come back.”47

The implications of “Furlough” are straightforward but powerful. Babe’s capacity, in the face of death, to recognize the beauty of his sister’s innocence suggests that in a callous, superficial