Contents
Introduction (A
Clockwork Orange Resucked)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Glossary of Nadsat
(teenage) Language
Anthony Burgess
was born in Manchester in 1917 and was a graduate of the University there. After
six years in the Army he worked as an instructor for the Central Advisory
Council for Forces Education, as a lecturer in Phonetics and as a grammar
school master. From 1954 till 1960 he was an education officer in the Colonial
Service, stationed in Malaya and Brunei. He has been called one of the very few
literary geniuses of our time. Certainly he borrowed from no other literary
source than himself. That source produced thirty-two novels, a volume of verse,
two plays, and sixteen works of nonfiction-together with countless music
compositions, including symphonies, operas, and jazz. His most recent work was
A Mouthful of Air: Language, Languages...Especially English. Anthony Burgess
died in 1993.
I first
published the novella A Clockwork Orange in 1962, which ought to be far enough
in the past for it to be erased from the world's literary memory. It refuses to
be erased, however, and for this the film version of the book made by Stanley
Kubrick may be held chiefly responsible. I should myself be glad to disown it
for various reasons, but this is not permitted. I receive mail from students
who try to write theses about it or requests from Japanese dramaturges to turn
it into a sort of Noh play. It seems likely to survive, while other works of
mine that I value more bite the dust. This is not an unusual experience for an
artist. Rachmaninoff used to groan because he was known mainly for a Prelude in
C Sharp (female) Minor which he wrot (mouth)e as a boy, while the works of his
maturity never got into the programmes. Kids cut their pianistic teeth on a
Minuet in G which Beethoven composed only so that he could detest it. I have to
go on living with A Clockwork Orange, and this means I have a sort of authorial
duty to it. I have a very special duty to it in the United States, and I had
better now explain what this duty is.
Let me put the
situation baldly. A Clockwork Orange has never been published entire in
America. The book I wrot (mouth)e is divided into three sections of seven
chapters each. Take out your pocket calculator and you will find that these add
up to a total of twenty-one chapters. 21 is the symbol for human maturity, or
used to be, since at 21 you got the vote and assumed adult responsibility.
Whatever its symbology, the number 21 was the number I started out with.
Novelists of my stamp are interested in what is called arithmology, meaning
that number has to mean something in human terms when they handle it. The
number of chapters is never entirely arbitrary. Just as a musical composer
starts off with a vague image of bulk and duration, so a novelist begins with
an image of length, and this image is expressed in the number of sections and
the number of chapters in which the work will be disposed. Those twenty-one
chapters were important to me.
But they were
not important to my New York publisher. The book he brought out had only twenty
chapters. He insisted on cutting out the twenty-first. I could, of course, have
demurred at this and taken my book elsewhere, but it was considered that he was
being charitable in accepting the work at all, and that all other New York, or
Boston, pub-lishers would kick out the manuscript on its dog-ear. I needed
money back in 1961, even the pittance I was being offered as an advance, and if
the condition of the book's acceptance was also its truncation-well, so be it.
So there is a profound difference between A Clockwork Orange as Great Britain
knows it and the somewhat slimmer volume that bears the same name in the United
States of America.
Let us go
further. The rest of the world was sold the book out of Great Britain, and so
most versions-certainly the French, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Russian, Hebrew,
Rumanian, and German translations-have the original twenty-one chapters. Now
when Stanley Kubrick made his film-though he made it in England-he followed the
American version and, so it seemed to his audiences outside America, ended the
story somewhat prematurely. Audiences did not exactly clamour for their money
back, but they wondered why Kubrick left out the dénouement. People wrot
(mouth)e to me about this-indeed much of my later life has been expended on
Xeroxing statements of intention and the frustrations of intention-while both
Kubrick and my New York publisher coolly bask in the rewards of their misdemeanor.
Life is of course, terrible.
What happens in
that twenty-first chapter? You now have the chance to find out. Briefly, my
young thuggish prot (mouth)agonist grows up. He grows bored with violence and
recognizes that human energy is better expended on creation than destruction.
Senseless violence is a prerogative of youth, which has much energy but little
talent for the constructive. Its dynamism has to find an outlet in smashing
telephone kiosks, derailing trains, stealing cars and smashing them and, of course,
in the much more satisfactory activity of destroying human beings. There comes
a time, however, when violence is seen as juvenile and boring. It is the
repartee of the stupid and ignorant. My young hoodlum comes to the revelation
of the need to get something done in life-to marry, to beget children, to keep
the orange of the world turning in the Rooker (hand)s of Bog (God), or hands of
God, and perhaps even create something-music, say. After all, Mozart and
Mendelssohn were composing deathless music in their teens or nadsats, and all
my hero was doing was razrez (rip)zing and giving the old in-out. It is with a
kind of shame that this growing youth looks back on his devastating past. He
wants a different kind of future.
There is no
hint of this change of intention in the twentieth chapter. The boy is
conditioned, then deconditioned, and he foresees with glee a resumption of the
operation of free and violent will. 'I was cured all right,' he says, and so
the American book ends. So the film ends too. The twenty-first chapter gives
the novel the quality of genuine fiction, an art founded on the principle that
human beings change. Their is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel
unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation, or an increase in
wisdom, operating in your chief character or characters. Even trashy
best-sellers show people changing. When a fictional work fails to show change,
when it merely indicates that human character is set, stony, unregenerable,
then you are out of the field of the novel and into that of the fable or the
allegory. The American or Kubrickian Orange is a fable; the British or world
one is a novel.
But my New York
publisher believed that my twenty-first chapter was a sellout. It was veddy
veddy British, don't you know. It was bland and it showed a Pelagian
unwillingness to accept that a human being could be a model for unregenerable
evil. The Americans, he said in effect, were tougher than the British and could
face up to reality. Soon they would be facing up to it in Vietnam. My book was
Kennedyan and accepted the notion of moral progress. What was really wanted was
a Nixonian book with no shred of optimism in it. Let us have evil prancing on
the page and, up to the very last line, sneering in the face of all the inherited
beliefs, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Holy Roller, about people being able to
make themselves better. Such a book would be sensational, and so it is. But I
do not think it is a fair picture of human life.
I do not think
so because, by definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use
this to choose between good and evil. If he can only perform good or only
perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange-meaning that he has the appearance
of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy
to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing
both) the Almighty State. It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be
totally evil. The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with
good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding
opposition of moral entities. This is what the television news is about.
Unfortunately there is so much original sin in us all that we find evil rather
attractive. To devastate is easier and more spectacular than to create. We like
to have the pants scared off us by visions of cosmic destruction. To sit down
in a dull room and compose the Missa solennis or The Anatomy of
Melancholy does not make headlines or news flashes. Unfortunately my little
squib of a book was found attractive to many because it was as odorous as a
crateful of bad eggs with the miasma of original sin.
It seems
priggish or Pollyannaish to deny that my intention in writing the work was to
titillate the nastier propensities of my readers. My own healthy inheritance of
original sin comes out in the book and I enjoyed raping and ripping by proxy.
It is the novelist’s innate cowardice that makes him depute to imaginary
personalities the sins that he is too cautious to commit for himself. But the
book does also have a moral lesson, and it is the weary traditional one of the
fundamental importance of moral choice. It is because this lesson sticks out
like a sore thumb that I tend to disparage A Clockwork Orange as a work
too didactic to be artistic. It is not the novelist’s job to preach; it is his
duty to show. I have shown enough, though the curtain of an invented lingo gets
in the way-another aspect of my cowardice. Nadsat (teenage), a Russified
version of English, was meant to muffle the raw response we expect from
pornography. It turns the book into a linguistic adventure. People preferred
the film because they are scared, rightly, of language.
I don’t think I
have to remind readers what the title means. Clockwork oranges don’t exist,
except in the speech of old Londoners. The image was a bizarre one, always used
for a bizarre thing. “He’s as queer as a clockwork orange,” meant he was queer
to the limit of queerness. It did not primarily denote homosexuality, though a
queer, before restrictive legislation came in, was a term used for a member of
the inverted fraternity. Europeans who translated the title as Arancia a
Orologeria or Orange Mécanique could not understand its Cockney
resonance and they assumed that it meant a hand grenade, a cheaper kind of
explosive pineapple. I mean it to stand for the application of a mechanistic
morality to a living organism oozing with juice and sweetness.
Readers of the
twenty-first chapter must decide for themselves whether it enhances the book
they presumably know or is really a discardable limb. I meant the book to end
in this way, but my aesthetic judgement may have been faulty. Writers are
rarely their own best critics, nor are critics. “Quod scripsi scripsi” said
Pontius Pilate when he made Jesus Christ the King of the Jews. “What I have
written I have written.” We can destroy what we have written but we cannot
unwrite it. I leave what I wrot (mouth)e with what Dr. Johnson called frigid
indifference to the judgement of that .00000001 of the American population
which cares about such things. Eat this sweetish segment or spit it out. You
are free.
Anthony Burgess
November, 1986
"What's it
going to be then, eh?"
There was me,
that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim. Dim being
really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodock (mind)s
what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry.
The Korova
Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto (place), and you may, O my brothers, have
forgotten what these mesto (place)s were like, things changing so skorry
(quick) these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being
read much neither.
Well, what they
sold there was milk plus something else. They had no license for selling
liquor, but there was no law yet against prod (produce)ding some of the new veshches
(things) which they used to put into the old moloko (milk), so you could peet
(drink) it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom (drug) or one or two other veshches
(things) which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow (good) fifteen minutes
admiring Bog (God) And All His Holy Angels and Saints in your left shoe with
lights bursting all over your mozg (brain). Or you could peet (drink) milk with
knives in it, as we used to say, and this would sharpen you up and make you
ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, and that was what we were peet (drink)ing
this evening I'm starting off the story with.
Our pockets
were full of deng (money), so there was no real need from the point of view of
crasting any more pretty polly (money) to tolchock (hit) some old veck (person)
in an alley and viddy (see) him swim in his blood while we counted the takings
and divided by four, nor to do the ultra-violent on some shivering starry
(ancient) grey-haired ptitsa (chick) in a shop and go smecking off with the
till's guts. But, as they say, money isn't everything.
The four of us were
dressed in the height of fashion, which in those days was a pair of black very
tight tights with the old jelly mould, as we called it, fitting on the crot
(mouth)ch underneath the tights, this being to prot (mouth)ect and also a sort
of a design you could viddy (see) clear enough in a certain light, so that I
had one in the shape of a spider, Pete had a rooker (hand) (a hand, that is),
Georgie had a very fancy one of a flower, and poor old Dim had a very
hound-and-horn (cry out)y one of a clown's litso (face) (face, that is). Dim
not ever having much of an idea of things and being, beyond all shadow of a
doubting thomas, the dimmest of we four. Then we wore waisty jackets without
lapels but with these very big built-up shoulders ('pletcho (shoulder)es' we
called them) which were a kind of a mockery of having real shoulders like that.
Then, my brothers, we had these off-white cravats which looked like whipped-up kartoffel
(potato) or spud with a sort of a design made on it with a fork. We wore our
hair not too long and we had flip horrorshow (good) boots for kicking.
"What's it
going to be then, eh?"
There were
three devotchkas sitting at the counter all together, but there were four of us
malchick (boy)s and it was usually like one for all and all for one. These sharps
were dressed in the heighth of fashion too, with purple and green and orange
wigs on their gullivers, each one not costing less than three or four weeks of
those sharps' wages, I should reckon, and make-up to match (rainbows round the glazz
(eye)ies, that is, and the rot (mouth) painted very wide). Then they had long
black very straight dresses, and on the groody (breast) part of them they had
little badges of like silver with different malchick (boy)s' names on them —Joe
and Mike and suchlike. These were supposed to be the names of the different malchick
(boy)s they'd spatted with before they were fourteen. They kept looking our way
and I nearly felt like saying the three of us (out of the corner of my rot
(mouth), that is) should go off for a bit of pol (sex) and leave poor old Dim
behind, because it would be just a matter of kupetting Dim a demi-litre of
white but this time with a dollop of synthemesc in it, but that wouldn't really
have been playing like the game. Dim was very very ugly and like his name, but
he was a horrorshow (good) filthy fighter and very handy with the boot.
"What's it
going to be then, eh?"
The chelloveck
(person) sitting next to me, there being this long big plushy seat that ran
round three walls, was well away with his glazz (eye)ies glazed and sort of
burbling slovos like "Aristotle wishy washy works outing cyclamen get
forficulate smartish".
He was in the
land all right, well away, in orbit, and I knew what it was like, having tried
it like everybody else had done, but at this time I'd got to thinking it was a
cowardly sort of a veshch (thing), O my brothers. You'd lay there after you'd
drunk the old moloko (milk) and then you got the messel (thought) that
everything all round you was sort of in the past. You could viddy (see) it all
right, all of it, very clear —tables, the stereo, the lights, the sharps and
the malchick (boy)s —but it was like some veshch (thing) that used to be there
but was not there not no more. And you were sort of hypnotized by your boot or
shoe or a finger-nail as it might be, and at the same time you were sort of
picked up by the old scruff and shook like you might be a cat. You got shook
and shook till there was nothing left. You lost your name and your body and
your self and you just didn't care, and you waited until your boot or
finger-nail got yellow, then yellower and yellower all the time. Then the
lights started cracking like atomics and the boot or finger-nail or, as it might
be, a bit of dirt on your trouser-bottom turned into a big big big mesto
(place), bigger than the whole world, and you were just going to get introduced
to old Bog (God) or God when it was all over. You came back to here and now
whimpering sort of, with your rot (mouth) all squaring up for a boohoohoo. Now
that's very nice but very cowardly. You were not put on this earth just to get
in touch with God. That sort of thing could sap all the strength and the
goodness out of a chelloveck (person).
"What's it
going to be then, eh?"
The stereo was
on and you got the idea that the singer's goloss (voice) was moving from one
part of the bar to another, flying up to the ceiling and then swooping down
again and whizzing from wall to wall. It was Berti Laski rasping a real starry
(ancient) oldie called 'You Blister My Paint'. One of the three ptitsa (chick)s
at the counter, the one with the green wig, kept pushing her belly out and
pulling it in in time to what they called the music. I could feel the knives in
the old moloko (milk) starting to prick, and now I was ready for a bit of
twenty-to-one. So I yelped: "Out out out out!" like a doggie, and
then I cracked this veck (person) who was sitting next to me and well away and
burbling a horrorshow (good) crack (break) on the ooko (ear) or earhole, but he
didn't feel it and went on with his "Telephonic hardware and when the
farfarculule gets rubadubdub". He'd feel it all right when he came to, out
of the land.
"Where
out?" said Georgie.
"Oh, just
to keep walking," I said, "and viddy (see) what turns up, O my little
brothers."
So we scatted
out into the big winter nochy (night) and walked down Marghanita Boulevard and
then turned into Boothby Avenue, and there we found what we were pretty well
looking for, a malenky (little) jest to start off the evening with. There was a
doddery starry (ancient) schoolmaster type veck (person), glasses on and his rot
(mouth) open to the cold nochy (night) air. He had books under his arm and a
crappy umbrella and was coming round the corner from the Public Biblio
(library), which not many lewdies (people) used these days. You never really
saw many of the older bourgeois type out after nightfall those days, what with
the shortage of police and we fine young malchick (boy)iwicks about, and this
prof type chelloveck (person) was the only one walking in the whole of the
street. So we goolied up to him, very polite, and I said: "Pardon me, brot
(mouth)her."
He looked a malenky
(little) bit poogly (frightened) when he viddied the four of us like that,
coming up so quiet and polite and smiling, but he said: "Yes? What is
it?" in a very loud teacher-type goloss (voice), as if he was trying to
show us he wasn't poogly (frightened). I said:
"I see you
have books under your arm, brot (mouth)her. It is indeed a rare pleasure these
days to come across somebody that still reads, brot (mouth)her."
"Oh,"
he said, all shaky. "Is it? Oh, I see." And he kept looking from one
to the other of we four, finding himself now like in the middle of a very
smiling and polite square.
"Yes,"
I said. "It would interest me greatly, brot (mouth)her, if you would
kindly allow me to see what books those are that you have under your arm. I
like nothing better in this world than a good clean book, brot (mouth)her."
"Clean,"
he said. "Clean, eh?" And then Pete skvat (grab)ted these three books
from him and handed them round real skorry (quick).
Being three, we
all had one each to viddy (see) at except for Dim.
The one I had
was called 'Elementary Crystallography', so I opened it up and said:
"Excellent, really first-class," keeping turning the pages. Then I
said in a very shocked type goloss (voice):
"But what
is this here? What is this filthy slovo (word)? I blush to look at this word.
You disappoint me, brot (mouth)her, you do really."
"But,"
he tried, "but, but."
"Now,"
said Georgie, "here is what I should call real dirt.
There's one slovo
(word) beginning with an f and another with a c."
He had a book
called 'The Miracle of the Snowflake.'
"Oh,"
said poor old Dim, smotting over Pete's shoulder and going too far, like he
always did, "it says here what he done to her, and there's a picture and
all. Why," he said, "you're nothing but a filthy-minded old
skitebird."
"An old
man of your age, brot (mouth)her," I said, and I started to rip up the
book I'd got, and the others did the same with the ones they had. Dim and Pete
doing a tug-of-war with 'The Rhombohedral System'. The starry (ancient) prof
type began to creech (scream):
"But those
are not mine, those are the property of the mu- nicipality, this is sheer
wantonness and vandal work," or some such slovos. And he tried to sort of
wrest the books back off of us, which was like pathetic. "You deserve to
be taught a lesson, brot (mouth)her," I said, "that you do."
This crystal book I had was very tough-bound and hard to razrez (rip) to bits,
being real starry (ancient) and made in days when things were made to last
like, but I managed to rip the pages up and chuck them in handfuls of like
snowflakes, though big, all over this creeching old veck (person), and then the
others did the same with theirs, old Dim just dancing about like the clown he
was. "There you are," said Pete. "There's the mackerel of the
cornflake for you, you dirty reader of filth and nastiness."
"You
naughty old veck (person), you," I said, and then we began to filly (play)
about with him. Pete held his rooker (hand)s and Georgie sort of hooked his rot
(mouth) wide open for him and Dim yanked out his false zoobies (teeth), upper
and lower. He threw these down on the pavement and then I treated them to the
old boot-crush, though they were hard bastards like, being made of some new horrorshow
(good) plastic stuff. The old veck (person) began to make sort of chumbling shoom
(noise)s —"wuf waf wof" —so Georgie let go of holding his goober
(lip)s apart and just let him have one in the toothless rot (mouth) with his
ringy fist, and that made the old veck (person) start moaning a lot then, then
out comes the blood, my brothers, real beautiful. So all we did then was to
pull his outer platties (clothes) off, stripping him down to his vest and long
underpants (very starry (ancient); Dim smecked his head off near), and then
Pete kicks him lovely in his pot, and we let him go. He went sort of staggering
off, it not having been too hard of a tolchock (hit) really, going "Oh oh
oh", not knowing where or what was what really, and we had a snigger at
him and then riffled through his pockets, Dim dancing round with his crappy
umbrella meanwhile, but there wasn't much in them.
There were a
few starry (ancient) letters, some of them dating right back to 1960 with
"My dearest dearest" in them and all that chepooka (nonsense), and a
keyring and a starry (ancient) leaky pen. Old Dim gave up his umbrella dance
and of course had to start reading one of the letters out loud, like to show
the empty street he could read. "My darling one," he recited, in this
very high type goloss (voice), "I shall be thinking of you while you are
away and hope you will remember to wrap up warm when you go out at night."
Then he let out a very shoom (noise)ny (brainy) smeck (laugh) —"Ho ho
ho" pretending to start wiping his yahma (hole) with it. "All
right," I said. "Let it go, O my brothers." In the trousers of
this starry (ancient) veck (person) there was only a malenky (little) bit of cutter
(money) (money, that is) —not more than three gollies —so we gave all his messy
little coin the scatter treatment, it being hen-korm (chickenfeed) to the
amount of pretty polly (money) we had on us already. Then we smashed the
umbrella and razrez (rip)zed his platties (clothes) and gave them to the
blowing winds, my brothers, and then we'd finished with the starry (ancient)
teacher type veck (person). We hadn't done much, I know, but that was only like
the start of the evening and I make no appy (apology) polly loggies to thee or
thine for that. The knives in the milk plus were stabbing away nice and horrorshow
(good) now.
The next thing
was to do the sammy (generous) act, which was one way to unload some of our cutter
(money) so we'd have more of an incentive like for some shop-crasting, as well
as it being a way of buying an alibi in advance, so we went into the Duke of
New York on Amis Avenue and sure enough in the snug there were three or four
old baboochkas peet (drink)ing their black and suds on SA (State Aid). Now we
were the very good malchick (boy)s, smiling good evensong to one and all,
though these wrinkled old lighters started to get all shook, their veiny old rooker
(hand)s all trembling round their glasses, and making the suds spill on the
table. "Leave us be, lads," said one of them, her face all mappy with
being a thousand years old, "we're only poor old women." But we just
made with the zoobies (teeth), flash flash flash, sat down, rang the bell, and
waited for the boy to come. When he came, all nervous and rubbing his rooker
(hand)s on his grazzy (dirty) apron, we ordered us four veterans —a veteran
being rum and cherry brandy mixed, which was popular just then, some liking a
dash of lime in it, that being the Canadian variation. Then I said to the boy:
"Give
these poor old baboochkas over there a nourishing something. Large Scotchmen
all round and something to take away." And I poured my pocket of deng
(money) all over the table, and the other three did likewise, O my brothers. So
double firegold (drink)s were bought in for the scared starry (ancient)
lighters, and they knew not what to do or say. One of them got out
"Thanks, lads," but you could see they thought there was something
dirty like coming. Anyway, they were each given a bottle of Yank General,
cognac that is, to take away, and I gave money for them to be delivered each a
dozen of black and suds that following morning, they to leave their stinking
old cheenas' addresses at the counter. Then with the cutter (money) that was
left over we did purchase, my brothers, all the meat pies, pretzels,
cheese-snacks, crisps and chocbars in that mesto (place), and those too were
for the old sharps. Then we said:
"Back in a
minoota (minute)," and the old ptitsa (chick)s were still saying:
"Thanks,
lads," and "God bless you, boys," and we were going out without
one cent of cutter (money) in our carmans.
"Makes you
feel real dobby (dobby), that does," said Pete. You could viddy (see) that
poor old Dim the dim didn't quite pony (understand) all that, but he said
nothing for fear of being called gloopy (stupid) and a domeless wonderboy.
Well, we went off now round the corner to Attlee Avenue, and there was this
sweets and cancers shop still open. We'd left them alone near three months now
and the whole district had been very quiet on the whole, so the armed millicent
(police)s or rozz (police) patrols weren't round there much, being more north
of the river these days. We put our maskies on —new jobs these were, real horrorshow
(good), wonderfully done really; they were like faces of historical
personalities (they gave you the names when you bought) and I had Disraeli,
Pete had Elvis Presley, Georgie had Henry VIII and poor old Dim had a poet veck
(person) called Peebee Shelley; they were a real like disguise, hair and all,
and they were some very special plastic veshch (thing) so you could roll it up
when you'd done with it and hide it in your boot —then three of us went in.
Pete keeping chasso
(guard) without, not that there was anything to worry about out there. As soon
as we launched on the shop we went for Slouse who ran it, a big portwine jelly
of a veck (person) who viddied at once what was coming and made straight for
the inside where the telephone was and perhaps his well-oiled pooshka (cannon),
complete with six dirty rounds. Dim was round that counter skorry (quick) as a
bird, sending packets of snoutie (tabacoo) flying and cracking over a big
cut-out showing a sharp (female) with all her zoobies (teeth) going flash at
the customers and her groodies near hanging out to advertise some new brand of
cancers. What you could viddy (see) then was a sort of a big ball rolling into
the inside of the shop behind the curtain, this being old Dim and Slouse sort
of locked in a death struggle. Then you could slooshy (hear) panting and
snoring and kicking behind the curtain and veshches (things) falling over and
swearing and then glass going smash smash smash. Mother Slouse, the wife, was
sort of froze behind the counter. We could tell she would creech (scream)
murder given one chance, so I was round that counter very skorry (quick) and
had a hold of her, and a horrorshow (good) big lump she was too, all nuking
(smelling) of scent and with flipflop big bobbing groodies on her. I'd got my rooker
(hand) round her rot (mouth) to stop her belting out death and destruction to
the four winds of heaven, but this lady doggie gave me a large foul big bite on
it and it was me that did the creeching, and then she opened up beautiful with
a flip yell for the millicent (police)s. Well, then she had to be tolchocked
proper with one of the weights for the scales, and then a fair tap with a
crowbar they had for opening cases, and that brought the red out like an old
friend. So we had her down on the floor and a rip of her platties (clothes) for
fun and a gentle bit of the boot to stop her moaning. And, viddying her lying
there with her groodies on show, I wondered should I or not, but that was for
later on in the evening. Then we cleaned the till, and there was flip horrorshow
(good) takings that nochy (night), and we had a few packs of the very best top
cancers apiece, then off we went, my brothers.
"A real
big heavy great bastard he was," Dim kept saying. I didn't like the look
of Dim: he looked dirty and untidy, like a veck (person) who'd been in a fight,
which he had been, of course, but you should never look as though you have
been. His cravat was like someone had trampled on it, his maskie had been
pulled off and he had floor-dirt on his litso (face), so we got him in an
alleyway and tidied him up a malenky (little) bit, soaking our tashtooks in
spit to cheest (wash) the dirt off. The things we did for old Dim. We were back
in the Duke of New York very skorry (quick) and I reckoned by my watch we
hadn't been more than ten minutes away. The starry (ancient) old baboochkas
were still there on the black and suds and Scotchmen we'd bought them, and we
said: "Hallo there, girlies, what's it going to be?" They started on
the old "Very kind, lads, God bless you, boys," and so we rang the
collocol and brought a different waiter in this time and we ordered beers with
rum in, being sore athirst, my brothers, and whatever the old ptitsa (chick)s
wanted. Then I said to the old baboochkas: "We haven't been out of here,
have we?
Been here all
the time, haven't we?" They all caught on real skorry (quick) and said:
"That's
right, lads. Not been out of our sight, you haven't.
God bless you,
boys," drinking.
Not that it
mattered much, really. About half an hour went by before there was any sign of
life among the millicent (police)s, and then it was only two very young rozz
(police)es that came in, very pink under their big copper's shlem (helmet)mies.
One said:
"You lot
know anything about the happenings at Slouse's shop this night?"
"Us?"
I said, innocent. "Why, what happened?"
"Stealing
and roughing. Two hospitalizations. Where've you lot been this evening?"
"I don't
go for that nasty tone," I said. "I don't care much for these nasty
insinuations. A very suspicious nature all this betokeneth, my little brothers."
"They've
been in here all night, lads," the old sharps started to creech (scream)
out. "God bless them, there's no better lot of boys living for kindness
and generosity. Been here all the time they have. Not seen them move we
haven't."
"We're
only asking," said the other young millicent (police). "We've got our
job to do like anyone else." But they gave us the nasty warning look
before they went out. As they were going out we handed them a bit of lip-music:
brrrrzzzzrrrr. But, myself, I couldn't help a bit of disappointment at things
as they were those days. Nothing to fight against really. Everything as easy as
kiss-my-sharries (buttocks). Still, the night was still very young.
When we got
outside of the Duke of New York we viddied by the main bar's long lighted
window, a burbling old pyahnitsa (drunk) or drunkie, howling away at the filthy
songs of his fathers and going blerp blerp in between as though it might be a
filthy old orchestra in his stinking rot (mouth)ten guts. One veshch (thing) I
could never stand was that. I could never stand to see a moodge (man) all
filthy and rolling and burping and drunk, whatever his age might be, but more
especially when he was real starry (ancient) like this one was.
He was sort of
flattened to the wall and his platties (clothes) were a disgrace, all creased
and untidy and covered in cal (feces) and mud and filth and stuff. So we got
hold of him and cracked him with a few good horrorshow (good) tolchocks, but he
still went on singing. The song went:
And I will go
back to my darling, my darling,
When you, my
darling, are gone.
But when Dim
fisted him a few times on his filthy drunkard's rot (mouth) he shut up singing
and started to creech (scream): "Go on, do me in, you bastard cowards, I
don't want to live anyway, not in a stinking world like this one." I told
Dim to lay off a bit then, because it used to interest me sometimes to slooshy
(hear) what some of these starry (ancient) decreps had to say about life and
the world. I said: "Oh. And what's stinking about it?"
He cried out:
"It's a stinking world because it lets the young get on to the old like
you done, and there's no law nor order no more." He was creeching out loud
and waving his rooker (hand)s and making real horrorshow (good) with the
slovos, only the odd blurp blurp coming from his keeshkas (guts), like
something was orbiting within, or like some very rude interrupting sort of a moodge
(man) making a shoom (noise), so that this old veck (person) kept sort of threatening
it with his fists, shouting: "It's no world for any old man any longer,
and that means that I'm not one bit scared of you, my boyos, because I'm too
drunk to feel the pain if you hit me, and if you kill me I'll be glad to be
dead."
We smecked and
then grinned but said nothing, and then he said: "What sort of a world is
it at all? Men on the moon and men spinning round the earth like it might be
midges round a lamp, and there's not more attention paid to earthly law nor
order no more. So your worst you may do, you filthy cowardly hooligans."
Then he gave us some lip-music —"Prrrrzzzzrrrr" - like we'd done to
those young millicent (police)s, and then he started singing again:
Oh dear dear
land, I fought for thee
And brought
thee peace and victory -
So we cracked
into him lovely, grinning all over our litsos, but he still went on singing.
Then we tripped him so he laid down flat and heavy and a bucketload of
beer-vomit came whooshing out. That was disgusting so we gave him the boot, one
go each, and then it was blood, not song nor vomit, that came out of his filthy
old rot (mouth). Then we went on our way.
It was round by
the Municipal Power Plant that we came across Billyboy and his five droogs. Now
in those days, my brothers, the teaming up was mostly by fours or fives, these
being like auto-teams, four being a comfy number for an auto, and six being the
outside limit for gang-size. Sometimes gangs would gang up so as to make like malenky
(little) armies for big night-war, but mostly it was best to roam in these like
small numbers. Billyboy was something that made me want to sick just to viddy
(see) his fat grinning litso (face), and he always had this von (smell) of very
stale oil that's been used for frying over and over, even when he was dressed
in his best platties (clothes), like now. They viddied us just as we viddied
them, and there was like a very quit kind of watching each other now. This
would be real, this would be proper, this would be the nozh (knife), the oozy
(chain), the britva (razor), not just fisties and boots. Billyboy and his
droogs stopped what they were doing, which was just getting ready to perform
something on a weepy young devotchka (girl) they had there, not more than ten,
she creeching away but with her platties (clothes) still on. Billyboy holding
her by one rooker (hand) and his number-one, Leo, holding the other. They'd
probably just been doing the dirty slovo (word) part of the act before getting
down to a malenky (little) bit of ultra-violence. When they viddied us a-coming
they let go of this boo-hooing little ptitsa (chick), there being plenty more
where she came from, and she ran with her thin white legs flashing through the
dark, still going "Oh oh oh". I said, smiling very wide and droogie:
"Well, if it isn't fat stinking billygoat Billyboy in poison. How art
thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip-oil? Come and get one in the yarbles
(testicles), if you have any yarbles (testicles), you eunuch jelly, thou."
And then we
started.
There were four
of us to six of them, like I have already indicated, but poor old Dim, for all
his dimness, was worth three of the others in sheer madness and dirty fighting.
Dim had a real horrorshow (good) length of oozy (chain) or chain round his
waist, twice wound round, and he unwound this and began to swing it beautiful
in the eyes or glazz (eye)ies. Pete and Georgie had good sharp (female) nozhes,
but I for my own part had a fine starry (ancient) horrorshow (good) cut-throat britva
(razor) which, at that time, I could flash and shine artistic. So there we were
dratsing (fighting) away in the dark, the old Luna with men on it just coming
up, the stars stabbing away as it might be knives anxious to join in the dratsing
(fighting).
With my britva
(razor) I managed to slit right down the front of one of Billyboy's droog
(friend)'s platties (clothes), very very neat and not even touching the plott
(body) under the cloth. Then in the dratsing (fighting) this droog (friend) of
Billyboy's suddenly found himself all opened up like a peapod, with his belly
bare and his poor old yarbles (testicles) showing, and then he got very razdraz
(upset), waving and screaming and losing his guard and letting in old Dim with
his chain snaking whisssssshhhhhhhhh, so that old Dim chained him right in the glazz
(eye)ies, and this droog (friend) of Billyboy's went tottering off and howling
his heart out. We were doing very horrorshow (good), and soon we had Billyboy's
number-one down underfoot, blinded with old Dim's chain and crawling and
howling about like an animal, but with one fair boot on the gulliver (head) he
was out and out and out.
Of the four of
us Dim, as usual, came out the worst in point of looks, that is to say his litso
(face) was all bloodied and his platties (clothes) a dirty mess, but the others
of us were still cool and whole. It was stinking fatty Billyboy I wanted now,
and there I was dancing about with my britva (razor) like I might be a barber
on board a ship on a very rough sea, trying to get in at him with a few fair
slashes on his unclean oily litso (face). Billyboy had a nozh (knife), a long
flick-type, but he was a malenky (little) bit too slow and heavy in his
movements to vred (damage) anyone really bad. And, my brothers, it was real
satisfaction to me to waltz left two three, right two three and carve left
cheeky and right cheeky, so that like two curtains of blood seemed to pour out
at the same time, one on either side of his fat filthy oily snout in the winter
starlight. Down this blood poured in like red curtains, but you could viddy
(see) Billyboy felt not a thing, and he went lumbering on like a filthy fatty
bear, poking at me with his nozh (knife).
Then we
slooshied the sirens and knew the millicent (police)s were coming with pooshkas
pushing out of the police-auto-windows at the ready. That weepy little devotchka
(girl) had told them, no doubt, there being a box for calling the rozz (police)es
not too far behind the Muni Power Plant. "Get you soon, fear not," I
called, "stinking billygoat. I'll have your yarbles (testicles) off
lovely." Then off they ran, slow and panting, except for
Number One Leo
out snoring on the ground, away north towards the river, and we went the other
way. Just round the next turning was an alley, dark and empty and open at both
ends, and we rested there, panting fast then slower, then breathing like
normal. It was like resting between the feet of two terrific and very enormous
mountains, these being the flatblocks, and in the windows of all the flats you
could viddy (see) like blue dancing light. This would be the telly. Tonight was
what thy called a worldcast, meaning that the same programme was being viddied
by everybody in the world that wanted to, that being mostly the middle-aged
middle-class lewdies (people). There would be some big famous stupid comic chelloveck
(person) or black singer, and it was all being bounced off the special telly
satellites in outer space, my brothers. We waited panting, and we could slooshy
(hear) the sirening millicent (police)s going east, so we knew we were all
right now. But poor old Dim kept looking up at the stars and planets and the
Luna with his rot (mouth) wide open like a kid who'd never viddied any such
things before, and he said:
"What's on
them, I wonder. What would be up there on things like that?"
I nudged him
hard, saying: "Come, gloopy (stupid) bastard as thou art. Think thou not
on them. There'll be life like down here most likely, with some getting knifed
and others doing the knifing. And now, with the nochy (night) still molodoy
(young), let us be on our way, O my brothers." The others smecked at this,
but poor old Dim looked at me serious, then up again at the stars and the Luna.
So we went on our way down the alley, with the worldcast blueing on on either
side. What we needed now was an auto, so we turned left coming out of the
alley, knowing right away we were in Priestly Place as soon as we viddied the
big bronze statue of some starry (ancient) poet with an apey upper lip and a
pipe stuck in a droopy old rot (mouth). Going north we came to the filthy old
Filmdrome, peeling and dropping to bits through nobody going there much except malchick
(boy)s like me and my droogs, and then only for a yell or a razrez (rip) or a
bit of in-out-in-out in the dark. We could viddy (see) from the poster on the
Filmdrome's face, a couple of fly-dirtied spots trained on it, that there was
the usual cowboy riot, with the archangels on the side of the US marshal six-shoot
(fool)ing at the rustlers out of hell's fighting legions, the kind of
hound-and-horn (cry out)y veshch (thing) put out by Statefilm in those days.
The autos parked by the sinny (cinema) weren't all that horrorshow (good),
crappy starry (ancient) veshches (things) most of them, but there was a newish
Durango 95 that I thought might do. Georgie had one of these polyclefs, as they
called them, on his keyring, so we were soon aboard Dim and Pete at the back, puffing
away lordly at their cancers and I turned on the ignition and started her up
and she grumbled away real horrorshow (good), a nice warm vibraty feeling
grumbling all through your guttiwuts (guts). Then I made with the noga, and we
backed out lovely, and nobody viddied us take off.
We fillied
round what was called the backtown for a bit, scaring old vecks and cheenas
that were crossing the roads and zigzagging after cats and that. Then we took
the road west. There wasn't much traffic about, so I kept pushing the old noga
through the floorboards near, and the Durango 95 ate up the road like
spaghetti. Soon it was winter trees and dark, my brothers, with a country dark,
and at one place I ran over something big with a snarling toothy rot (mouth) in
the headlamps, then it screamed and squelched under and old Dim at the back
near laughed his gulliver (head) off —"Ho ho ho" —at that.
Then we saw one
young malchick (boy) with his sharp (female), lubbilubbing (making love) under
a tree (three), so we stopped and cheered at them, then we bashed into them
both with a couple of half-hearted tolchocks, making them cry, and on we went.
What we were after now was the old surprise visit. That was a real kick and
good for smecks and lashings of the ultra-violent. We came at last to a sort of
village, and just outside this village was a small sort of a cottage on its own
with a bit of garden. The Luna was well up now, and we could viddy (see) this
cottage fine and clear as I eased up and put the brake on, the other three
giggling like bezoomny (brainy) (mad), and we could viddy (see) the name on the
gate of this cottage veshch (thing) was HOME, a gloomy sort of a name. I got
out of the auto, ordering my droogs to shush their giggles and act like
serious, and I opened this malenky (little) gate and walked up to the front
door. I knocked nice and gentle and nobody came, so I knocked a bit more and
this time I could slooshy (hear) somebody coming, then a bolt drawn, then the
door inched open an inch or so, then I could viddy (see) this one glazz (eye)
looking out at me and the door was on a chain. "Yes? Who is it?" It
was a sharp (female)'s goloss (voice), a youngish devotchka (girl) by her
sound, so I said in a very refined manner of speech, a real gentleman's goloss
(voice):
"Pardon,
madam, most sorry to disturb you, but my friend and me were out for a walk, and
my friend has taken bad all of a sudden with a very troublesome turn, and he is
out there on the road dead out and groaning. Would you have the goodness to let
me use your telephone to telephone for an ambulance?"
"We
haven't a telephone," said this devotchka (girl). "I'm sorry, but we
haven't. You'll have to go somewhere else." From inside this malenky
(little) cottage I could slooshy (hear) the clack clack clacky clack clack
clackity clackclack of some veck (person) typing away, and then the typing
stopped and there was this chelloveck (person)'s goloss (voice) calling:
"What is it, dear?"
"Well,"
I said, "could you of your goodness please let him have a cup of water?
It's like a faint, you see. It seems as though he's passed out in a sort of a
fainting fit."
The devotchka
(girl) sort of hesitated and then said: "Wait." Then she went off,
and my three droogs had got out of the auto quiet and crept up horrorshow
(good) stealthy, putting their maskies on now, then I put mine on, then it was
only a matter of me putting in the old rooker (hand) and undoing the chain, me
having softened up this devotchka (girl) with my gent's goloss (voice), so that
she hadn't shut the door like she should have done, us being strangers of the
night. The four of us then went roaring in, old Dim playing the shoot (fool) as
usual with his jumping up and down and singing out dirty slovos, and it was a
nice malenky (little) cottage, I'll say that. We all went smecking into the
room with a light on, and there was this devotchka (girl) sort of cowering, a
young pretty bit of sharp (female) with real horrorshow (good) groodies on her,
and with her was this chelloveck (person) who was her moodge (man), youngish
too with horn (cry out)-rimmed otchkies (eyeglasses) on him, and on a table was
a typewriter and all papers scattered everywhere, but there was one little pile
of paper like that must have been what he'd already typed, so here was another
intelligent type bookman type like that we'd fillied with some hours back, but
this one was a writer not a reader. Anyway, he said:
"What is
this? Who are you? How dare you enter my house without permission." And
all the time his goloss (voice) was trembling and his rooker (hand)s too. So I
said:
"Never
fear. If fear thou hast in thy heart, O brot (mouth)her, pray banish it
forthwith." Then Georgie and Pete went out to find the kitchen, while old
Dim waited for orders, standing next to me with his rot (mouth) wide open.
"What is this, then?" I said, picking up the pile like of typing from
off of the table, and the horn (cry out)- rimmed moodge (man) said, dithering:
"That's
just what I want to know. What is this? What do you want? Get out at once
before I throw you out." So poor old Dim, masked like Peebee Shelley, had
a good loud smeck (laugh) at that, roaring like some animal.
"It's a
book," I said. "It's a book what you are writing." I made the
old goloss (voice) very coarse. "I have always had the strongest
admiration for them as can write books." Then I looked at its top sheet,
and there was the name —A C L O C K W O R K O R A N G E —and I
said: "That's a fair gloopy (stupid) title. Who ever heard of a clockwork
orange?" Then I read a malenky (little) bit out loud in a sort of very
high type preaching goloss (voice): " —The attempt to impose upon man, a
creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round
the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions
appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this I raise my sword-pen —"
Dim made the old lip-music at that and I had to smeck (laugh) myself. Then I
started to tear up the sheets and scatter the bits over the floor, and this
writer moodge (man) went sort of bezoomny (brainy) (mad) and made for me with
his zoobies (teeth) clenched and showing yellow and his nails ready for me like
claws. So that was old Dim's cue and he went grinning and going er er and a a a
for this veck (person)'s dithering rot (mouth), crack (break) crack (break),
first left fistie then right, so that our dear old droog (friend) the red —red
vino on tap and the same in all places, like it's put out by the same big firm
—started to pour and spot the nice clean carpet and the bits of this book that
I was still ripping away at, razrez (rip) razrez (rip). All this time this devotchka
(girl), his loving and faithful wife, just stood like froze by the fireplace,
and then she started letting out little malenky (little) creeches, like in time
to the like music of old Dim's fisty work. Then Georgie and Pete came in from
the kitchen, both munching away, though with their maskies on, you could do
that with them on and no trouble. Georgie with like a cold leg of something in
one rooker (hand) and half a loaf of kleb (bread) with a big dollop of maslo
(butter) on it in the other, and Pete with a bottle of beer frot (mouth)hing
its gulliver (head) off and a horrorshow (good) rooker (hand)ful of like plum
cake. They went haw haw haw, viddying old Dim dancing round and fisting the
writer veck (person) so that the writer veck (person) started to platch (cry)
like his life's work was ruined, going boo hoo hoo with a very square bloody rot
(mouth), but it was haw haw haw in a muffled eater's way and you could see bits
of what they were eating. I didn't like that, it being dirty and slobbery, so I
said:
"Drop that
mounch (snack). I gave no permission. Grab hold of this veck (person) here so
he can viddy (see) all and not get away." So they put down their fatty pishcha
(food) on the table among all the flying paper and they clopped over to the
writer veck (person) whose horn (cry out)- rimmed otchkies (eyeglasses) were
cracked but still hanging on, with old Dim still dancing round and making
ornaments shake on the mantelpiece (I swept them all off then and they couldn't
shake no more, little brothers) while he fillied with the author of 'A
Clockwork Orange', making his litso (face) all purple and dripping away like
some very special sort of a juicy fruit. "All right, Dim," I said.
"Now for the other veshch (thing), Bog (God) help us all." So he did
the strong-man on the devotchka (girl), who was still creech (scream) creech
(scream) creeching away in very horrorshow (good) four-in-a-bar, locking her rooker
(hand)s from the back, while I ripped away at this and that and the other, the
others going haw haw haw still, and real good horrorshow (good) groodies they
were that then exhibited their pink glazz (eye)ies, O my brothers, while I
untrussed and got ready for the plunge. Plunging, I could slooshy (hear) cries
of agony and this writer bleeding veck (person) that Georgie and Pete held on
to nearly got loose howling bezoomny (brainy) (mad) with the filthiest of
slovos that I already knew and others he was making up.
Then after me
it was right old Dim should have his turn, which he did in a beasty snorty
howly sort of a way with his Peebee Shelley maskie taking no notice, while I
held on to her. Then there was a changeover, Dim and me grabbing the slobbering
writer veck (person) who was past struggling really, only just coming out with
slack sort of slovos like he was in the land in a milk- plus bar, and Pete and
Georgie had theirs. Then there was like quiet and we were full of like hate, so
smashed what was left to be smashed —typewriter, lamp, chairs —and Dim, it was
typical of old Dim, watered the fire out and was going to dung on the carpet,
there being plenty of paper, but I said no. "Out out out out," I
howled. The writer veck (person) and his zheena (wife) were not really there,
bloody and torn and making noises. But they'd live.
So we got into
the waiting auto and I left it to Georgie to take the wheel, me feeling that malenky
(little) bit shagged, and we went back to town, running over odd squealing
things on the way.
We yeckated
back townwards, my brothers, but just outside, not far from what they called
the Industrial Canal, we viddied the fuel needle had like collapsed, like our
own ha ha ha needles had, and the auto was coughing kashl kashl kashl. Not to
worry overmuch, though, because a rail station kept flashing blue —on off on
off —just near. The point was whether to leave the auto to be sobirat (pick up)ted
by the rozz (police)es or, us feeling like in a hate and murder mood, to give
it a fair tolchock (hit) into the starry (ancient) watersfor a nice heavy loud plesk
(splash) before the death of the evening. This latter we decided on, so we got
out and, the brakes off, all four tolchocked it to the edge of the filthy water
that was like treacle mixed with human hole prod (produce)ucts, then one good horrorshow
(good) tolchock (hit) and in she went. We had to dash back for fear of the
filth splashing on our platties (clothes), but splussshhhh and glolp she went,
down and lovely. "Farewell, old droog (friend)," called Georgie, and
Dim obliged with a clowny great guff (guffaw) —"Huh huh huh huh."
Then we made
for the station to ride the one stop to Center, as the middle of the town was
called. We paid our fares nice and polite and waited gentlemanly and quiet on
the platform, old Dim filly (play)ing with the slot machines, his carmans being
full of small malenky (little) coin, and ready if need be to distribute
chocbars to the poor and starving, though there was none such about, and then
the old espresso rapido came lumbering in and we climbed aboard, the train
looking to be near empty.
To pass the
three-minute ride we fillied about with what they called the upholstery, doing
some nice horrorshow (good) tearing- out of the seats' guts and old Dim
chaining the okno (window) till the glass cracked and sparkled in the winter
air, but we were all feeling that bit shagged and fagged and fashed, it having
been an evening of some small energy expenditure, my brothers, only Dim, like
the clowny animal he was, full of the joys-of, but looking all dirtied over and
too much von (smell) of sweat on him, which was one thing I had against old
Dim.
We got out at
Center and walked slow back to the Korova Milkbar, all going yawwwww a malenky
(little) bit and exhibiting to moon and star and lamplight our back fillings,
because we were still only growing malchick (boy)s and had school in the
daytime, and when we got into the Korova we found it fuller than when we'd left
earlier on. But the chelloveck (person) that had been burbling away, in the
land, on white and synthemesc or whatever, was still on at it, going:
"Urchins of deadcast in the way-ho-hay glill platonic time
weatherborn." It was probable that this was his third or fourth lot that
evening, for he had that pale inhuman look, like he'd become a 'thing', and
like his litso (face) was really a piece of chalk carved. Really, if he wanted
to spend so long in the land, he should have gone into one of the private
cubies at the back and not stayed in the big mesto (place), because here some
of the malchick (boy)ies would filly (play) about with him a malenky (little)
bit, though not too much because there were powerful bruiseboys hidden away in
the old Korova who could stop any riot. Anyway, Dim squeezed in next to this veck
(person) and, with his big clown's yawp that showed his hanging grape, he
stabbed this veck (person)'s foot with his own large filthy sabog (shoe). But
the veck (person), my brothers, heard nought, being now all above the body.
It was nadsats
milking and coking and filly (play)ing around (nadsats were what we used to
call the teens), but there were a few of the more starry (ancient) ones, vecks
and cheenas alike (but not of the bourgeois, never them) laughing and
govoreeting at the bar. You could tell them from their barberings and loose platties
(clothes) (big stringy sweaters mostly) that they'd been on rehearsals at the
TV studios around the corner. The devotchkas among them had these very lively
litsos and wide big rot (mouth)s, very red, showing a lot of teeth, and
smecking away and not caring about the wicked world one whit. And then the disc
on the stereo twanged off and out (it was Johnny Zhivago, a Russky koshka (cat),
singing 'Only Every Other Day'), and in the like interval, the short silence
before the next one came on, one of these devotchkas —very fair and with a big
smiling red rot (mouth) and in her late thirties I'd say —suddenly came with a
burst of singing, only a bar and a half and as though she was like giving an
example of something they'd all been govoreeting about, and it was like for a
moment, O my brothers, some great bird had flown into the milkbar, and I felt
all the little malenky (little) hairs on my plott (body) standing endwise and
the shivers crawling up like slow malenky (little) lizards and then down again.
Because I knew what she sang. It was from an opera by Friedrich Gitterfenster
called 'Das Bettzeug', and it was the bit where she's snuffing it with her
throat cut, and the slovos are 'Better like this maybe'. Anyway, I shivered.
But old Dim, as
soon as he'd slooshied this dollop of song like a lomtick (piece) of redhot
meat plonked on your plate, let off one of his vulgarities, which in this case
was a lip-trump followed by a dog-howl followed by two fingers pronging twice
at the air followed by a clowny guffaw. I felt myself all of a fever and like drowning
in redhot blood, slooshying and viddying Dim's vulgarity, and I said:
"Bastard. Filthy drooling mannerless bastard." Then I leaned across
Georgie, who was between me and horrible Dim, and fisted Dim skorry (quick) on
the rot (mouth). Dim looked very surprised, his rot (mouth) open, wiping the krovvy
(blood) off of his goober (lip) with his rook (hand) and in turn looking
surprised at the red flowing krovvy (blood) and at me. "What for did you
do that for?" he said in his ignorant way. Not many viddied what I'd done,
and those that viddied cared not. The stereo was on again and was playing a
very sick electronic guitar veshch (thing). I said:
"For being
a bastard with no manners and not the dook (trace,ghost) of an idea how to
comport yourself publicwise, O my brot (mouth)her."
Dim put on a
hound-and-horn (cry out)y look of evil, saying: "I don't like you should
do what you done then. And I'm not your brot (mouth)her no more and wouldn't
want to be." He'd taken a big snotty tashtook (handkerchief) from his
pocket and was mopping the red flow puzzled, keeping on looking at it frowning
as if he thought that blood was for other vecks and not for him. It was like he
was singing blood to make up for his vulgarity when that devotchka (girl) was
singing music. But that devotchka (girl) was smecking away ha ha ha now with
her droogs at the bar, her red rot (mouth) working and her zoobies (teeth)
ashine, not having noticed Dim's filthy vulgarity. It was me really Dim had
done wrong to. I said:
"if you
don't like this and you wouldn't want that, then you know what to do, little brot
(mouth)her." Georgie said, in a sharp (female) way that made me look:
"All
right. Let's not be starting."
"That's
clean up to Dim," I said. "Dim can't go on all his jeezny (life)
being as a little child." And I looked sharp (female) at Georgie.
Dim said, and
the red krovvy (blood) was easing its flow now:
"What
natural right does he have to think he can give the orders and tolchock (hit)
me whenever he likes? Yarbles (testicles) is what I say to him, and I'd chain
his glazz (eye)ies out as soon as look."
"Watch
that," I said, as quiet as I could with the stereo bouncing all over the
walls and ceiling and the in-the-land veck (person) beyond Dim getting loud now
with his "Spark nearer, ultoptimate", I said: "Do watch that, O
Dim, if to continue to be on live thou dost wish."
"Yarbles
(testicles)," said Dim, sneering, "great bolshy (big, great)
yarblockos to you. What you done then you had no right. I'll meet you with
chain or nozh (knife) or britva (razor) any time, not having you aiming
tolchocks at me reasonless, it stands to reason I won't have it."
"A nozh
(knife) scrap any time you say," I snarled back. Pete said:
"Oh now,
don't, both of you malchick (boy)s. Droogs, aren't we?
It isn't right
droogs should behave thiswise. See, there are some loose-lipped malchick (boy)s
over there smecking at us, leering like. We mustn't let ourselves down."
"Dim,"
I said, "has got to learn his place. Right?"
"Wait,"
said Georgie. "What is all this about place? This is the first I ever hear
about lewdies (people) learning their place."
Pete said:
"If the truth is known, Alex, you shouldn't have given old Dim that
uncalled-for tolchock (hit). I'll say it once and no more. I say it with all
respect, but if it had been me you'd given it to you'd have to answer. I say no
more." And he drowned his litso (face) in his milk-glass.
I could feel
myself getting all razdraz (upset) inside, but I tried to cover it, saying
calm: "There has to be a leader. Discipline there has to be. Right?"
None of them skazat (say)ted a word or nodded even. I got more razdraz (upset)
inside, calmer out. "I," I said, "have been in charge long now.
We are all droogs, but somebody has to be in charge. Right? Right?" They
all like nodded, wary like. Dim was osoosh (wipe)ing the last of the krovvy
(blood) off. It was Dim who said now:
"Right,
right. Doobidoob. A bit tired, maybe, everybody is.
Best not to say
more." I was surprised and just that malenky (little) bit poogly
(frightened) to sloosh (hear) Dim govoreeting that wise. Dim said:
"Bedways
is rightways now, so best we go homeways. Right?" I was very surprised.
The other two nodded, going right right right. I said:
"You
understand about that tolchock (hit) on the rot (mouth), Dim.
It was the
music, see. I get all bezoomny (brainy) (mad) when any veck (person) interferes
with a ptitsa (chick) singing, as it might be. Like that then."
"Best we
go off homeways and get a bit of spatchka," said Dim. "A long night
for growing malchick (boy)s. Right?" Right right nodded the other two. I
said:
"I think
it best we go home now. Dim has made a real horrorshow (good) suggestion. If we
don't meet day-wise, O my brothers, well then —same time same place
tomorrow?"
"Oh
yes," said Georgie. "I think that can be arranged."
"I
might," said Dim, "be just that malenky (little) bit late. But same
place and near same time tomorrow surely." He was still wiping at his goober
(lip), though no krovvy (blood) flowed any longer now. "And," he
said, "it is to be hoped there won't be no more of them singing ptitsa
(chick)s in here." Then he gave his old Dim guff (guffaw), a clowny big
hohohohoho. It seemed like he was too dim to take much offence.
So off we went
our several ways, me belching arrrrgh on the cold coke I'd peet (drink)ed. I
had my cut-throat britva (razor) handy in case any of Billyboy's droogs should
be around near the flat- block waiting, or for that matter any of the other
bandas or gruppas or shaika (gang)s that from time to time were at war with
one. Where I lived was with my dadda and mum in the flats of Municipal
Flatblock 18A, between Kingsley Avenue and Wilsonsway. I got to the big main
door with no trouble, though I did pass one young malchick (boy) sprawling and
creeching and moaning in the gutter, all cut about lovely, and saw in the
lamplight also streaks of blood here and there like signatures, my brothers, of
the night's filly (play)ing. And too I saw just by 18A a pair of devotchka
(girl)'s neezhnies (underpants) doubtless rudely wrenched off in the heat of
the moment, O my brothers. And so in. In the hallway was the good old municipal
painting on the walls —vecks and ptitsa (chick)s very well developed, stern in
the dignity of labour, at workbench and machine with not one stitch of platties
(clothes) on their well-developed plott (body)s. But of course some of the malchick
(boy)s living in 18A had, as was to be expected, embellished and decorated the
said big painting with handy pencil and ballpoint, adding hair and stiff rods
and dirty ballooning slovos out of the dignified rot (mouth)s of these nagoy
(naked) (bare, that is) cheenas and vecks. I went to the lift, but there was no
need to press the electric knopka (button) to see if it was working or not,
because it had been tolchocked real horrorshow (good) this night, the metal
doors all buckled, some feat of rare strength indeed, so I had to walk the ten
floors up. I cursed and panted climbing, being tired in plott (body) if not so
much in brain. I wanted music very bad this evening, that singing devotchka
(girl) in the Korova having perhaps started me off. I wanted like a big feast
of it before getting my passport stamped, my brothers, at sleep's frontier and
the stripy shest (barrier) lifted to let me through.
I opened the
door of 10-8 with my own little klootch (key), and inside our malenky (little)
quarters all was quiet, the pee and em (parents) both being in sleepland, and
mum had laid out on the table on malenky (little) bit of supper —a couple of
lomticks of tinned sponge- meat with a shive (slice) or so of kleb (bread) and
butter, a glass of the old cold moloko (milk). Hohoho, the old moloko (milk),
with no knives or synthemesc or drencrom (drug) in it. How wicked, my brothers,
innocent milk must always seem to me now. Still I drank and ate growling, being
more hungry than I thought at first, and I got fruit-pie from the larder and
tore chunks off it to stuff into my greedy rot (mouth). Then I tooth-cleaned
and clicked, cleaning out the old rot (mouth) with my yahzick (tongue) or
tongue, then I went into my own little room or den, easing off my platties
(clothes) as I did so.
Here was my bed
and my stereo, pride of my jeezny (life), and my discs in their cupboard, and
banners and flags on the wall, these being like remembrances of my corrective
school life since I was eleven, O my brothers, each one shining and blazoned
with name or number: SOUTH 4; METRO CORSKOL BLUE DIVISION; THE BOYS OF ALPHA.
The little
speakers of my stereo were all arranged round the room, on ceiling, walls,
floor, so, lying on my bed slooshying the music, I was like netted and meshed
in the orchestra. Now what I fancied first tonight was this new violin concerto
by the American Geoffrey Plautus, played by Odysseus Choerilos with the Macon
(Georgia) Philharmonic, so I slid it from where it was neatly filed and
switched on and waited.
Then, brothers,
it came. Oh, bliss, bliss and heaven. I lay all nagoy (naked) to the ceiling,
my gulliver (head) on my rooker (hand)s on the pillow, glazz (eye)ies closed, rot
(mouth) open in bliss, slooshying the sluice of lovely sounds. Oh, it was
gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my
bed, and behind my gulliver (head) the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and
there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like
candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest
spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all
nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those
strings were like a cage of silk around my bed. Then flute and oboe bored, like
worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in
such bliss, my brothers.
Pee and em
(parents) in their bedroom next door had learnt now not to knock on the wall
with complaints of what they called noise.
I had taught
them. Now they would take sleep-pills. Perhaps, knowing the joy I had in my
night music, they had already taken them. As I slooshied, my glazz (eye)ies
tight shut to shut in the bliss that was better than any synthemesc Bog (God)
or God, I knew such lovely pictures. There were vecks and ptitsa (chick)s, both
young and starry (ancient), lying on the ground screaming for mercy, and I was
smecking all over my rot (mouth) and grinding my boot in their litsos. And
there were devotchkas ripped and creeching against walls and I plunging like a shlaga
(club) into them, and indeed when the music, which was one movement only, rose
to the top of its big highest tower, then, lying there on my bed with glazz
(eye)ies tight shut and rooker (hand)s behind my gulliver (head), I broke and
spattered and cried aaaaaaah with the bliss of it.
And so the
lovely music glided to its glowing close.
After that I
had lovely Mozart, the Jupiter, and there were new pictures of different litsos
to be ground and splashed, and it was after this that I thought I would have
just one last disc only before crossing the border, and I wanted something starry
(ancient) and strong and very firm, so it was J. S. Bach I had, the Brandenburg
Concerto just for middle and lower strings. And, slooshying with different
bliss than before, I viddied again this name on the paper I'd razrez (rip)zed
that night, a long time ago it seemed, in that cottage called HOME. The name
was about a clockwork orange. Listening to the J. S. Bach, I began to pony
(understand) better what that meant now, and I thought, slooshying away to the
brown gorgeousness of the starry (ancient) German master, that I would like to
have tolchecked them both harder and ripped them to ribbons on their own floor.
The next
morning I woke up at oh eight oh oh hours, my brothers, and as I still felt
shagged and fagged and fashed and bashed and my glazz (eye)ies were stuck
together real horrorshow (good) with sleepglue, I thought I would not go to
school. I thought how I would have a malenky (little) bit longer in the bed, an
hour or two say, and then get dressed nice and easy, perhaps even having a splosh
(splash) about in the bath, make toast for myself and slooshy (hear) the radio
or read the gazetta, all on my oddy knocky (lonesome).
And then in the
afterlunch I might perhaps, if I still felt like it, itty (to go) off to the
old skolliwoll (school) and see what was vareeting in the great seat of gloopy
(stupid) useless learning, O my brothers. I heard my papapa grumbling and
trampling and then itty (to go)ing off to the dyeworks where he rabbit (work)ed,
and then my mum called in in a very respectful goloss (voice) as she did now I
was growing up big and strong:
"It's gone
eight, son. You don't want to be late again."
So I called
back: "A bit of pain in my gulliver (head). Leave us be and I'll try to
sleep it off and then I'll be right as dodgers for this after." I
slooshied her give a sort of a sigh and she said:
"I'll put
your breakfast in the oven then, son. I've got to be off myself now."
Which was true, there being this law for everybody not a child nor with child
nor ill to go out rabbit (work)ing. My mum worked at one of the Statemarts, as
they called them, filling up the shelves with tinned soup and beans and all
that cal (feces). So I slooshied her clank a plate in the gas- oven like and
then she was putting her shoes on and then getting her coat from behind the
door and then sighing again, then she said: "I'm off now, son." But I
let on to be back in sleepland and then I did doze off real horrorshow (good),
and I had a queer and very real like sneety (dream), dreaming for some reason
of my droog (friend) Georgie. In this sneety (dream) he'd got like very much
older and very sharp (female) and hard and was govoreeting about discipline and
obedience and how all the malchick (boy)s under his control had to jump hard at
it and throw up the old salute like being in the army, and there was me in line
like the rest saying yes sir and no sir, and the I viddied clear that Georgie
had these stars on his pletcho (shoulder)es and he was like a general. And then
he brought in old Dim with a whip, and Dim was a lot more starry (ancient) and
grey and had a few zoobies (teeth) missing as you could see when he let out a smeck
(laugh), viddying me, and then my droog (friend) Georgie said, pointing like at
me: "That man has filth and cal (feces) all over his platties (clothes),"
and it was true. Then I creeched:
"Don't
hit, please don't, brothers," and started to run. And I was running in
like circles and Dim was after me, smecking his gulliver (head) off, cracking
with the old whip, and each time I got a real horrorshow (good) tolchock (hit)
with this whip there was like a very loud electric bell ringringring, and this
bell was like a sort of a pain too.
Then I woke up
real skorry (quick), my heart going bap bap bap, and of course there was really
a bell going brrrrr, and it was our front-door bell. I let on that nobody was
at home, but this brrrrr still ittied on, and then I heard a goloss (voice)
shouting through the door: "Come on then, get out of it, I know you're in
bed." I recognized the goloss (voice) right away. It was the goloss
(voice) of P. R. Deltoid (a real gloopy (stupid) nazz (fool), that one) what
they called my Post-Corrective Adviser, an overworked veck (person) with
hundreds on his books. I shouted right right right, in a goloss (voice) of like
pain, and I got out of bed and attired myself, O my brothers, in a very lovely
over-gown of like silk, with designs of like great cities all over this
over-gown. Then I put my nogas into very comfy wooly toofles (slippers), combed
my luscious glory (hair), and was ready for P. R. Deltoid. When I opened up he
came shambling in looking shagged, a battered old shlapa (hat) on his gulliver
(head), his raincoat filthy. "Ah, Alex boy," he said to me. "I
met your mother, yes. She said something about a pain somewhere. Hence not at
schol, yes."
"A rather
intolerable pain in the head, brot (mouth)her, sir," I said in my
gentleman's goloss (voice). "I think it should clear by this
afternoon."
"Or
certainly by this evening, yes," said P. R. Deltoid. "The evening is
the great time, isn't it, Alex boy? Sit," he said, "sit, sit,"
as though this was his domy (house) and me his guest. And he sat in this starry
(ancient) rocking-chair of my dad's and began rocking, as if that was all he
had come for. I said:
"A cup of
the old chai (tea), sir? Tea, I mean."
"No time,"
he said. And he rocked, giving me the old glint under frowning brows, as if
with all the time in the world. "No time, yes," he said, gloopy
(stupid). So I put the kettle on. Then I said:
"To what
do I owe the extreme pleasure? Is anything wrong, sir?"
"Wrong?"
he said, very skorry (quick) and sly, sort of hunched looking at me but still
rocking away. Then he caught sight of an advert in the gazetta, which was on
the table —a lovely smecking young ptitsa (chick) with her groodies hanging out
to advertise, my brothers, the Glories of the Jugoslav Beaches.
Then, after
sort of eating her up in two swallows, he said:
"Why
should you think in terms of there being anything wrong? Have you been doing
something you shouldn't, yes?"
"Just a
manner of speech," I said, "sir."
"Well,"
said P. R. Deltoid, "it's just a manner of speech from me to you that you
watch out, little Alex, because next time, as you very well know, it's not
going to be the corrective school any more. Next time it's going to be the
barry place and all my work ruined. If you have no consideration for your
horrible self you at least might have some for me, who have sweated over you. A
big black mark, I tell you in confidence, for every one we don't reclaim, a
confession of failure for every one of you that ends up in the stripy
hole."
"I've been
doing nothing I shouldn't, sir," I said. "The millicent (police)s
have nothing on me, brot (mouth)her, sir I mean."
"Cut out
this clever talk about millicent (police)s," said P. R. Deltoid very
weary, but still rocking. "Just because the police have not picked you up
lately doesn't, as you very well know, mean you've not been up to some
nastiness. There was a bit of a fight last night, wasn't there? There was a bit
of shuffling with nozhes and bike-chains and the like. One of a certain fat
boy's friends was ambulanced off late from near the Power Plant and
hospitalized, cut about very unpleasantly, yes. Your name was mentioned. The
word has got through to me by the usual channels. Certain friends of yours were
named also. There seems to have been a fair amount of assorted nastiness last
night. Oh, nobody can prove anything about anybody, as usual. But I'm warning
you, little Alex, being a good friend to you as always, the one man in this
sick and sore community who wants to save you from yourself."
"I appreciate
all that, sir," I said, "very sincerely."
"Yes, you
do, don't you?" he sort of sneered. "Just watch it, that's all, yes.
We know more than you think, little Alex."
Then he said,
in a goloss (voice) of great suffering, but still rocking away: "What gets
into you all? We study the problem and we've been studying it for damn well
near a century, yes, but we get no further with our studies. You've got a good
home here, good loving parents, you've got not too bad of a brain.
Is it some
devil that crawls inside you?"
"Nobody's
got anything on me, sir," I said. "I've been out of the rooker (hand)s
of the millicent (police)s for a long time now."
"That's
just what worries me," sighed P. R. Deltoid. "A bit too long of a
time to be healthy. You're about due now by my reckoning. That's why I'm
warning you, little Alex, to keep your handsome young proboscis out of the
dirt, yes. Do I make myself clear?"
"As an
unmuddied lake, sir," I said. "Clear as an azure sky of deepest
summer. You can rely on me, sir." And I gave him a nice zooby smile.
But when he'd ookadeet
(leave)ed and I was making this very strong pot of chai (tea), I grinned to
myself over this veshch (thing) that P. R. Deltoid and his droogs worried
about. All right, I do bad, what with crasting and tolchocks and carves with
the britva (razor) and the old in-out-in-out, and if I get loveted (caught),
well, too bad for me, O my little brothers, and you can't run a country with
every chelloveck (person) comporting himself in my manner of the night. So if I
get loveted (caught) and it's three months in this mesto (place) and another
six in that, and the, as P. R. Deltoid so kindly warns, next time, in spite of
the great tenderness of my summers, brothers, it's the great unearthly zoo
itself, well, I say: "Fair, but a pity, my lords, because I just cannot
bear to be shut in. My endeavour shall be, in such future as stretches out its
snowy and lilywhite arms to me before the nozh (knife) overtakes or the blood
spatters its final chorus in twisted metal and smashed glass on the highroad,
to not get loveted (caught) again." Which is fair speeching. But, brothers,
this biting of their toe-nails over what is the cause of badness is what turns
me into a fine laughing malchick (boy). They don't go into the cause of
goodness, so why the other shop? If lewdies (people) are good that's because
they like it, and I wouldn't ever interfere with their pleasures, and so of the
other shop. And I was patronizing the other shop. More, badness is of the self,
the one, the you or me on our oddy knockies, and that self is made by old Bog
(God) or God and is his great pride and radosty (joy). But the not-self cannot
have the bad, meaning they of the government and the judges and the schools
cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self. And is not our modern
history, my brothers, the story of brave malenky (little) selves fighting these
big machines? I am serious with you, brothers, over this. But what I do I do
because I like to do.
So now, this
smiling winter morning, I drink this very strong chai (tea) with moloko (milk)
and spoon after spoon after spoon of sugar, me having a sladky (sweet) tooth,
and I dragged out of the oven the breakfast my poor old mum had cooked for me.
It was an egg fried, that and no more, but I made toast and ate egg and toast
and jam, smacking away at it while I read the gazetta. The gazetta was the
usual about ultra-violence and bank robberies and strikes and footballers
making everybody paralytic with fright by threatening to not play next Saturday
if they did not get higher wages, naughty malchick (boy)iwicks as they were.
Also there were more space-trips and bigger stereo TV screens and offers of
free packets of soapflakes in exchange for the labels on soup-tins, amazing
offer for one week only, which made me smeck (laugh). And there was a bolshy
(big, great) big article on Modern Youth (meaning me, so I gave the old bow,
grinning like bezoomny (brainy) (mad)) by some very clever bald chelloveck
(person).
I read this
with care, my brothers, slurping away at the old chai (tea), cup after tass
(cup) after chasha (cup), crunching my lomticks of black toast dipped in jammiwam
(jam) and eggiweg (egg). This learned veck (person) said the usual veshches
(things), about no parental discipline, as he called it, and the shortage of
real horrorshow (good) teachers who would lambast bloody beggary out of their
innocent poops and make them go boohoohoo for mercy. All this was gloopy
(stupid) and made me smeck (laugh), but it was like nice to go on knowing one
was making the news all the time, O my brothers. Every day there was something
about Modern Youth, but the best veshch (thing) they ever had in the old
gazetta was by some starry (ancient) pop in a doggy collar who said that in his
considered opinion and he was govoreeting as a man of Bog (God) IT WAS THE DEVIL
THAT WAS ABROAD and was like ferreting his way into like young innocent flesh,
and it was the adult world that could take the responsibility for this with
their wars and bombs and nonsense. So that was all right. So he knew what he
talked of, being a Godman. So we young innocent malchick (boy)s could take no
blame. Right right right.
When I'd gone
erk erk a couple of razzes on my full innocent stomach, I started to get out
day platties (clothes) from my wardrobe, turning the radio on. There was music
playing, a very nice malenky (little) string quartet, my brothers, by Claudius
Birdman, one that I knew well. I had to have a smeck (laugh), though, thinking
of what I'd viddied once in one of these like articles on Modern Youth, about
how Modern Youth would be better off if A Lively Appreciation Of The Arts could
be like encouraged. Great Music, it said, and Great Poetry would like quieten
Modern Youth down and make Modern Youth more Civilized. Civilized my syphilised
yarbles (testicles). Music always sort of sharpened me up, O my brothers, and
made me feel like old Bog (God) himself, ready to make with the old donner and
blitzen and have vecks and ptitsa (chick)s creeching away in my ha ha power.
And when I'd cheested up my litso (face) and rooker (hand)s a bit and done
dressing (my day platties (clothes) were like student-wear: the old blue
pantalonies with sweater with A for Alex) I thought here at last was time to itty
(to go) off to the disc-bootick (and cutter (money) too, my pockets being full
of pretty polly (money)) to see about this long-promised and long-ordered
stereo Beethoven Number Nine (the Choral Symphony, that is), recorded on
Masterstroke by the Esh Sham Sinfonia under L. Muhaiwir. So out I went, brothers.
The day was
very different from the night. The night belonged to me and my droogs and all
the rest of the nadsats, and the starry (ancient) bourgeois lurked indoors
drinking in the gloopy (stupid) worldcasts, but the day was for the starry
(ancient) ones, and there always seemed to be more rozz (police)es or millicent
(police)s about during the day, too. I got the autobus from the corner and rode
to Center, and then I walked back to Taylor Place, and there was the
disc-bootick I favoured with my inestimable custom, O my brothers. It had the gloopy
(stupid) name of MELODIA, but it was a real horrorshow (good) mesto (place) and
skorry (quick), most times, at getting the new recordings. I walked in and the
only other customers were two young ptitsa (chick)s sucking away at ice- sticks
(and this, mark, was dead cold winter and sort of shuffling through the new
pop-discs —Johnny Burnaway, Stash Kroh, The Mixers, Lay Quit Awhile With Ed And
Id Molotov, and all the rest of that cal (feces)). These two ptitsa (chick)s
couldn't have been more than ten, and they too, like me, it seemed, evidently,
had decided to take the morning off from the old skolliwoll (school). They saw
themselves, you could see, as real grown-up devotchkas already, what with the
old hip-swing when they saw your Faithful Narrator, brothers, and padded
groodies and red all plosh (splash)ed on their goober (lip)s. I went up to the
counter, making with the polite zooby smile at old Andy behind it (always
polite himself, always helpful, a real horrorshow (good) type of a veck
(person), though bald and very very thin). He said:
"Aha. I
know what you want, I think. Good news, good news. It has arrived." And
with like big conductor's rooker (hand)s beating time he went to get it. The
two young ptitsa (chick)s started giggling, as they will at that age, and I
gave them a like cold glazz (eye)y. Andy was back real skorry (quick), waving
the great shiny white sleeve of the Ninth, which had on it, brothers, the
frowning beetled like thunderbolted litso (face) of Ludwig van himself.
"Here," said Andy. "Shall we give it the trial spin?" But I
wanted it back home on my stereo to slooshy (hear) on my oddy knocky (lonesome),
greedy as hell. I fumbled out the deng (money) to pay and one of the little ptitsa
(chick)s said:
"Who you
getten, bratty (brot (mouth)her)? What biggy, what only?" These young
devotchkas had their own like way of govoreeting.
"The
Heaven Seventeen? Luke Sterne? Goggly Gogol?" And both giggled, rocking
and hippy. Then an idea hit me and made me near fall over with the anguish and
ecstasy of it, O my brothers, so I could not breathe for near ten seconds. I
recovered and made with my new-clean zoobies (teeth) and said:
"What you
got back home, little sisters, to play your fuzzy warbles on?" Because I
could viddy (see) the discs they were buying were these teeny pop veshches
(things). "I bet you got little save tiny portable like picnic spinners."
And they sort of pushed their lower lips out at that. "Come with
uncle," I said, "and hear all proper. Hear angel trumpets and devil
trombones. You are invited." And I like bowed. They giggled again and one
said:
"Oh, but
we're so hungry. Oh, but we could so eat." The other said: "Yah, she
can say that, can't she just." So I said:
"Eat with
uncle. Name your place."
Then they
viddied themselves as real sophistoes, which was like pathetic, and started
talking in big-lady goloss (voice)es about the Ritz and the Bristol and the
Hilton and Il Ristorante Granturco. But I stopped that with "Follow
uncle," and I led them to the Pasta Parlour just round the corner and let
them fill their innocent young litsos on spaghetti and sausages and cream-puffs
and banana-splits and hot choc-sauce, till I near sicked with the sight of it,
I, brothers, lunching but frugally off a cold ham-slice and a growling dollop
of chilli. These two young ptitsa (chick)s were much alike, though not sisters.
They had the same ideas or lack of, and the same colour hair —a like dyed
strawy. Well, they would grow up real today. Today I would make a day of it. No
school this afterlunch, but education certain, Alex as teacher. Their names,
they said, were Marty and Sonietta, bezoomny (brainy) (mad) enough and in the
heighth of their childish fashion, so I said:
"Righty
right, Marty and Sonietta. Time for the big spin.
Come."
When we were outside on the cold street they thought they would not go by
autobus, oh no, but by taxi, so I gave them the humour, though with a real horrorshow
(good) ingrin, and I called a taxi from the rank near Center. The driver, a starry
(ancient) whiskery veck (person) in very stained platties (clothes), said:
"No
tearing up, now. No nonsense with them seats. Just reupholstered they
are." I quieted his gloopy (stupid) fears and off we spun to Municipal
Flatblock 18A, these two bold little ptitsa (chick)s giggling and whispering.
So, to cut all short, we arrived, O my brothers, and I led the way up to 10-8,
and they panted and smecked away the way up, and then they were thirsty, they
said, so I unlocked the treasure-chest in my room and gave these ten-year-young
devotchkas a real horrorshow (good) Scotchman apiece, though well filled with
sneezy pins-and-needles soda. They sat on my bed (yet unmade) and leg-swung,
smecking and peet (drink)ing their highballs, while I spun their like pathetic malenky
(little) discs through my stereo. Like peet (drink)ing some sweet scented kid's
drink, that was, in like very beautiful and lovely and costly gold goblets. But
they went oh oh oh and said, "Swoony" and "Hilly" and other
weird slovos that were the heighth of fashion in that youth group. While I spun
this cal (feces) for them I encouraged them to drink and have another, and they
were nothing loath, O my brothers. So by the time their pathetic pop-discs had
been twice spun each (there were two:
'Honey Nose',
sung by Ike Yard, and 'Night After Day After Night', moaned by two horrible
yarbleless like eunuchs whose names I forget) they were getting near the pitch
of like young ptitsa (chick)'s hysterics, what with jumping all over my bed and
me in the room with them.
What was
actually done that afternoon there is no need to describe, brothers, as you may
easily guess all. Those two were unplattied and smecking fit to crack (break)
in no time at all, and they thought it the bolshiest fun to viddy (see) old
Uncle Alex standing there all nagoy (naked) and pan-handle (erection)d,
squirting the hypodermic like some bare doctor, then giving myself the old jab
of growling jungle-cat secretion in the rooker (hand). Then I pulled the lovely
Ninth out of its sleeve, so that Ludwig van was now nagoy (naked) too, and I
set the needle hissing on to the last movement, which was all bliss. There it
was then, the bass strings like govoreeting away from under my bed at the rest
of the orchestra, and then the male human goloss (voice) coming in and telling
them all to be joyful, and then the lovely blissful tune all about Joy being a
glorious spark like of heaven, and then I felt the old tigers leap in me and
then I leapt on these two young ptitsa (chick)s. This time they thought nothing
fun and stopped creeching with high mirth, and had to submit to the strange and
weird desires of Alexander the Large which, what with the Ninth and the hypo
jab, were choodessny and zammechat (remarkable) and very demanding, O my brothers.
But they were both very very drunken and could hardly feel very much.
When the last
movement had gone round for the second time with all the banging and creeching
about Joy Joy Joy Joy, then these two young ptitsa (chick)s were not acting the
big lady sophisto no more. They were like waking up to what was being done to
their malenky (little) persons and saying that they wanted to go home and like
I was a wild beast. They looked like they had been in some big bitva (battle),
as indeed they had, and were all bruised and pouty. Well, if they would not go
to school they must stil have their education. And education they had had. They
were creeching and going ow ow ow as they put their platties (clothes) on, and
they were like punchipunching me with their teeny fists as I lay there dirty
and nagoy (naked) and fair shagged and fagged on the bed. This young Sonietta
was creeching: "Beast and hateful animal. Filthy horror." So I let
them get their things together and get out, which they did, talking about how
the rozz (police)es should be got on to me and all that cal (feces).
Then they were
going down the stairs and I dropped off to sleep, still with the old Joy Joy
Joy Joy crashing and howling away.
What happened,
though, was that I woke up late (near seven- thirty by my watch) and, as it
turned out, that was not so clever. You can viddy (see) that everything in this
wicked world counts. You can pony (understand) that one thing always leads to
another.
Right right
right. My stereo was no longer on about Joy and I Embrace Ye O Ye Millions, so
some veck (person) had dealt it the off, and that would be either pee or em,
both of them now being quite clear to the slooshying in the living-room and,
from the clink clink of plates and slurp slurp of peet (drink)ing tea from
cups, at their tired meal after the day's rabbit (work)ing in factory the one,
store the other. The poor old. The pitiable starry (ancient). I put on my
over-gown and looked out, in guise of loving only son, to say:
"Hi hi hi,
there. A lot better after the day's rest. Ready now for evening work to earn
that little bit." For that's what they said they believed I did these
days. "Yum, yum, mum. Any of that for me?" It was like some frozen
pie that she'd unfroze and then warmed up and it looked not so very appetitish,
but I had to say what I said. Dad looked at me with a not-so- pleased
suspicious like look but said nothing, knowing he dared not, and mum gave me a
tired like little smeck (laugh), to thee fruit of my womb my only son sort of.
I danced to the bathroom and had a real skorry (quick) cheest (wash) all over,
feeling dirty and gluey, then back to my den for the evening's platties
(clothes). Then, shining, combed, brushed and gorgeous, I sat to my lomtick
(piece) of pie. Papapa said:
"Not that
I want to pry, son, but where exactly is it you go to work of evenings?"
"Oh,"
I chewed, "it's mostly odd things, helping like. Here and there, as it
might be." I gave him a straight dirty glazz (eye)y, as to say to mind his
own and I'd mind mine. "I never ask for money, do I? Not money for clothes
or for pleasures? All right, then, why ask?"
My dad was like
humble mumble chumble (mumble). "Sorry, son," he said. "But I
get worried sometimes. Sometimes I have dreams.
You can laugh
if you like, but there's a lot in dreams. Last night I had this dream with you
in it and I didn't like it one bit."
"Oh?"
He had gotten me interessovat (interest)ted now, dreaming of me like that. I
had like a feeling I had had a dream, too, but I could not remember proper what.
"Yes?" I said, stopping chewing my gluey pie.
"It was
vivid," said my dad. "I saw you lying on the street and you had been
beaten by other boys. These boys were like the boys you used to go around with
before you were sent to that last Corrective School."
"Oh?"
I had an in-grin at that, papapa believing I had really reformed or believing
he believed. And then I remembered my own dream, which was a dream of that
morning, of Georgie giving his general's orders and old Dim smecking around
toothless as he wielded the whip. But dreams go by opposites I was once told.
"Never worry about thine only son and heir, O my father," I said.
"Fear not. He canst taketh care of himself, verily."
"And,"
said my dad, "you were like helpless in your blood and you couldn't fight
back." That was real opposites, so I had another quiet malenky (little)
grin within and then I took all the deng (money) out of my carmans and tinkled
it on the saucy table-cloth. I said:
"Here,
dad, it's not much. It's what I earned last night. But perhaps for the odd peet
(drink) of Scotchman in the snug somewhere for you and mum."
"Thanks,
son," he said. "But we don't go out much now. We daren't go out much,
the streets being what they are. Young hooligans and so on. Still, thanks. I'll
bring her home a bottle of something tomorrow." And he scooped this
ill-gotten pretty into his trouser carmans, mum being at the cheesting of the
dishes in the kitchen. And I went out with loving smiles all round.
When I got to
the bottom of the stairs of the flatblock I was somewhat surprised. I was more
than that. I opened my rot (mouth) like wide in the old stony gapes. They had
come to meet me. They were waiting by the all scrawled-over municipal
wall-painting of the nagoy (naked) dignity of labour, bare vecks and cheenas
stern at the wheels of industry, like I said, with all this dirt pencilled from
their rot (mouth)s by naughty malchick (boy)s. Dim had a big thick stick of
black greasepaint and was tracing filthy slovos real big over our municipal
painting and doing the old Dim guff (guffaw) —wuh huh huh —while he did it. But
he turned round when Georgie and Pete gave me the well hello, showing their
shining droogy zoobies (teeth), and he horn (cry out)ed out: "He are here,
he have arrived, hooray," and did a clumsy turnitoe bit of dancing.
"We got
worried," said Georgie. "There we were awaiting and peet (drink)ing
away at the old knify moloko (milk), and you might have been like offended by
some veshch (thing) or other, so round we come to your abode. That's right,
Pete, right?"
"Oh, yes,
right," said Pete.
"Appy
(apology) polly loggies," I said careful. "I had something of a pain
in the gulliver (head) so had to sleep. I was not wakened when I gave orders
for wakening. Still, here we all are, ready for what the old nochy (night)
offers, yes?" I seemed to have picked up that yes? from P. R. Deltoid, my
Post-Corrective Adviser. Very strange.
"Sorry
about the pain," said Georgie, like very concerned.
"Using the
gulliver (head) too much like, maybe. Giving orders and discipline and such,
perhaps. Sure the pain is gone? Sure you'll not be happier going back to the
bed?" And they all had a bit of a malenky (little) grin.
"Wait,"
I said. "Let's get things nice and sparkling clear. This sarcasm, if I may
call it such, does not become you, O my little friends. Perhaps you have been
having a bit of a quiet govoreet (talk) behind my back, making your own little
jokes and such-like. As I am your droog (friend) and leader, surely I am
entitled to know what goes on, eh? Now then, Dim, what does that great big
horsy gape of a grin portend?" For Dim had his rot (mouth) open in a sort
of bezoomny (brainy) (mad) soundless smeck (laugh). Georgie got in very skorry
(quick) with:
"All right,
no more picking on Dim, brot (mouth)her. That's part of the new way."
"New
way?" I said. "What's this about a new way? There's been some very
large talk behind my sleeping back and no error. Let me slooshy (hear)
more." And I sort of folded my rooker (hand)s and leaned comfortable to
listen against the broken banister- rail, me being still higher than them,
droogs as they called themselves, on the third stair.
"No
offence, Alex," said Pete, "but we wanted to have things more
democratic like. Not like you like saying what to do and what not all the time.
But no offence."
George said:
"Offence is neither here nor elsewhere. It's the matter of who has ideas.
What ideas has he had?" And he kept his very bold glazz (eye)ies turned
full on me. "It's all the small stuff, malenky (little) veshches (things)
like last night. We're growing up, brothers."
"More,"
I said, not moving. "Let me slooshy (hear) more."
"Well,"
said Georgie, "if you must have it, have it then. We itty (to go) round,
shop-crasting and the like, coming out with a pitiful rooker (hand)ful of cutter
(money) each. And there's Will the English in the Muscleman coffee mesto
(place) saying he can fence anything that any malchick (boy) cares to try to crast
(steal). The shiny stuff, the ice," he said, still with these like cold glazz
(eye)ies on me. "The big big big money is available is what Will the
English says."
"So,"
I said, very comfortable out but real razdraz (upset) within.
"Since
when have you been consorting and comporting with Will the English?"
"Now and
again," said Georgie, "I get around all on my oddy knocky (lonesome).
Like last Sabbath for instance. I can live my own jeezny (life), droogy,
right?"
I didn't care
for any of this, my brothers. "And what will you do," I said,
"with the big big big deng (money) or money as you so highfaluting call
it? Have you not every veshch (thing) you need? If you need an auto you pluck
it from the trees. If you need pretty polly (money) you take it. Yes? Why this
sudden shilarny (concern) for being the big bloated capitalist?"
"Ah,"
said Georgie, "you think and govoreet (talk) sometimes like a little
child." Dim went huh huh huh at that. "Tonight," said Georgie,
"we pull a mansize crast (steal)."
So my dream had
told truth, then. Georgie the general saying what we should do and what not do,
Dim with the whip as mindless grinning bulldog. But I played with care, with
great care, the greatest, saying, smiling: "Good. Real horrorshow (good).
Initiative
comes to them as wait. I have taught you much, little droogie. Now tell me what
you have in mind, Georgie- boy."
"Oh,"
said Georgie, cunning and crafty in his grin, "the old moloko (milk)-plus
first, would you not say? Something to sharpen us up, boy, but you especially,
we having the start on you."
"You have
govoreeted my thoughts for me," I smiled away.
"I was
about to suggest the dear old Korova. Good good good. Lead, little
Georgie." And I made with a like deep bow, smiling like bezoomny (brainy)
(mad) but thinking all the time. But when we got into the street I viddied that
thinking is for the gloopy (stupid) ones and that the oomny (brainy) ones use
like inspiration and what Bog (God) sends. For now it was lovely music that
came to my aid.
There was an
auto itty (to go)ing by and it had its radio on, and I could just slooshy
(hear) a bar or so of Ludwig van (it was the Violin Concerto, last movement),
and I viddied right at once what to do. I said, in like a thick deep goloss
(voice): "Right, Georgie, now," and I whisked out my cut-throat britva
(razor). Georgie said: "Uh?" but he was skorry (quick) enough with
his nozh (knife), the blade coming sloosh (hear) out of the handle, and we were
on to each other. Old Dim said: "Oh no, not right that isn't, and made to
uncoil the chain round his tally (waist), but Pete said, putting his rooker
(hand) firm on old Dim: "Leave them. It's right like that." So then
Georgie and Your Humble did the old quiet cat-stalk, looking for openings,
knowing each other's style a bit too horrorshow (good) really. Georgie now and
then going lurch lurch with his shining nozh (knife) but not no wise
connecting. And all the time lewdies (people) passed by and viddied all this
but minded their own, it being perhaps a common street-sight. But then I
counted odin (one) dva (two) tree (three) and went ak ak ak with the britva
(razor), though not at litso (face) or glazz (eye)ies but at Georgie's nozh
(knife)-holding rooker (hand) and, my little brothers, he dropped. He did. He
dropped his nozh (knife) with a tinkle tankle on the hard winter sidewalk. I
had just ticklewickled his fingers with my britva (razor), and there he was
looking at the malenky (little) dribble of krovvy (blood) that was redding out
in the lamplight. "Now,"
I said, and it
was me that was starting, because Pete had given old Dim the soviet (advice,
order) not to uncoil the oozy (chain) from round his tally (waist) and Dim had
taken it, "now, Dim, let's thou and me have all this now, shall us?"
Dim went, "Aaaaaaarhgh," like some bolshy (big, great) bezoomny
(brainy) (mad) animal, and snaked out the chain from his waist real horrorshow
(good) and skorry (quick), so you had to admire. Now the right style for me
here was to keep low like in frog-dancing to prot (mouth)ect litso (face) and glazz
(eye)ies, and this I did, brothers, so that poor old Dim was a malenky (little)
bit surprised, him being accustomed to the straight face-on lash lash lash. Now
I will say that he whished me horrible on the back so that it stung like bezoomny
(brainy) (mad), but that pain told me to dig in skorry (quick) once and for all
and be done with old Dim. So I swished with the britva (razor) at his left noga
in its very tight tight and I slashed two inches of cloth and drew a malenky
(little) drop of krovvy (blood) to make Dim real bezoomny (brainy) (mad). Then
while he went hauwwww hauwww hauwww like a doggie I tried the same style as for
Georgie, banking all on one move —up, cross, cut —and I felt the britva (razor)
go just deep enough in the meat of old Dim's wrist and he dropped his snaking oozy
(chain) yelping like a little child. Then he tried to drink in all the blood
from his wrist and howl at the same time, and there was too much krovvy (blood)
to drink and he went bubble bubble bubble, the red like fountaining out lovely,
but not for very long. I said:
"Right, my
droogies, now we should know. Yes, Pete?"
"I never
said anything," said Pete. "I never govoreeted one slovo (word).
Look, old Dim's bleeding to death."
"Never,"
I said. "One can die but once. Dim died before he was born. That red red krovvy
(blood) will soon stop." Because I had not cut into the like main cables.
And I myself took a clean tashtook (handkerchief) from my carman (pocket) to
wrap round poor old dying Dim's rooker (hand), howling and moaning as he was,
and the krovvy (blood) stopped like I said it would, O my brothers. So they
knew now who was master and leader, sheep, thought I.
It did not take
long to quieten these two wounded soldiers down in the snug of the Duke of New
York, what with large brandies (bought with their own cutter (money), me having
given all to my dad, and a wipe with tashtooks dipped in the water-jug.
The old ptitsa
(chick)s we'd been so horrorshow (good) to last night were there again, going,
"Thanks, lads" and "God bless you, boys" like they couldn't
stop, though we had not repeated the old sammy (generous) act with them. But
Pete said: "What's it to be, girls?" and bought black and suds for
them, him seeming to have a fair amount of pretty polly (money) in his carmans,
so they were on louder than ever with their "God bless and keep you
all,lads" and "We'd never split on you, boys" and "The best
lads breathing, that's what you are." At last I said to Georgie:
"Now we're
back to where we were, yes? Just like before and all forgotten, right?"
"Right
right right," said Georgie. But old Dim still looked a bit dazed and he
even said: "I could have got that big bastard, see, with my oozy (chain),
only some veck (person) got in the way," as though he'd been dratsing
(fighting) not with me but with some other malchick (boy).
I said:
"Well,
Georgieboy, what did you have in mind?"
"Oh,"
said Georgie, "not tonight. Not this nochy (night), please."
"You're a
big strong chelloveck (person)," I said, "like us all. We're not
little children, are we, Georgieboy? What, then, didst thou in thy mind
have?"
"I could
have chained his glazz (eye)ies real horrorshow (good)," said Dim, and the
old baboochkas were stil on with their "Thanks, lads."
"It was
this house, see," said Georgie. "The one with the two lamps outside.
The one with the gloopy (stupid) name like."
"What gloopy
(stupid) name?"
"The
Mansion or the Manse or some such piece of gloop.
Where this very
starry (ancient) ptitsa (chick) lives with her cats and all these very starry
(ancient) valuable veshches (things)."
"Such
as?"
"Gold and
silver and like jewels. It was Will the English who like said."
"I viddy
(see)," I said. "I viddy (see) horrorshow (good)." I knew where
he meant - Oldtown, just beyond Victoria Flatblock. Well, the real horrorshow
(good) leader knows always when like to give and show generous to his like
unders. "Very good, Georgie," I said.
"A good
thought, and one to be followed. Let us at once itty (to go)."
And as we were
going out the old baboochkas said: "We'll say nothing, lads. Been here all
the time you have, boys." So I said: "Good old girls. Back to buy
more in ten minutes." And so I led my three droogs out to my doom.
Just past the
Duke of New York going east was offices and then there was the starry (ancient)
beat-up biblio (library) and then was the bolshy (big, great) flatblock called
Victoria Flatblock after some victory or other, and then you came to the like starry
(ancient) type houses of the town in what was called Oldtown. You got some of
the real horrorshow (good) ancient domies here, my brothers, with starry
(ancient) lewdies (people) living in them, thin old barking like colonels with
sticks and old ptitsa (chick)s who were widows and deaf starry (ancient) damas
with cats who, my brothers, had felt not the touch of any chelloveck (person)
in the whole of their pure like jeeznies. And here, true, there were starry
(ancient) veshches (things) that would fetch their share of cutter (money) on
the tourist market —like pictures and jewels and other starry (ancient)
pre-plastic cal (feces) of that type. So we came nice and quiet to this domy
(house) called the Manse, and there were globe lights outside on iron stalks,
like guarding the front door on each side, and there was a light like dim on in
one of the rooms on the ground level, and we went to a nice patch of street
dark to watch through the window what was itty (to go)ing on.
This window had
iron bars in front of it, like the house was a prison, but we could viddy (see)
nice and clear what was itty (to go)ing on.
What was itty
(to go)ing on was that this starry (ancient) ptitsa (chick), very grey in the voloss
(hair) and with a very liny like litso (face), was pouring the old moloko
(milk) from a milk-bottle into saucers and then setting these saucers down on
the floor, so you could tell there were plenty of mewing kots and koshkas
writhing about down there. And we could viddy (see) one or two, great fat scoteena
(cow)s, jumping up on to the table with their rot (mouth)s open going mare mare
mare. And you could viddy (see) this old baboochka (old woman) talking back to
them, govoreeting in like scoldy language to her pussies. In the room you could
viddy (see) a lot of old pictures on the walls and starry (ancient) very
elaborate clocks, also some like vases and ornaments that looked starry
(ancient) and dorogoy (dear). Georgie whispered: "Real horrorshow (good) deng
(money) to be gotten for them, brothers. Will the English is real
anxious." Pete said: "How in?"
Now it was up
to me, and skorry (quick), before Georgie started telling us how. "First veshch
(thing)," I whispered, "is to try the regular way, the front. I will
go very polite and say that one of my droogs has had a like funny fainting turn
on the street. Georgie can be ready to show, when she opens, thatwise. Then to
ask for water or to phone the doc. Then in easy." Georgie said:
"She may
not open." I said:
"We'll try
it, yes?" And he sort of shrugged his pletcho (shoulder)es, making with a
frog's rot (mouth). So I said to Pete and old Dim: "You two droogies get
either side of the door. Right?" They nodded in the dark right right
right. "So," I said to Georgie, and I made bold straight for the
front door. There was a bellpush and I pushed, and brrrrrrr brrrrr sounded down
the hall inside. Alike sense of slooshying followed, as though the ptitsa
(chick) and her koshkas all had their ears back at the brrrrrr brrrrrr,
wondering. So I pushed the old zvonock (bellpull) a malenky (little) bit more
urgent. I then bent down to the letter-slit and called through in a refined
like goloss (voice): "Help, madam, please. My friend has just had a funny
turn on the street. Let me phone a doctor, please." Then I could viddy
(see) a light being put on in the hall, and then I could hear the old baboochka
(old woman)'s nogas going flip flap in flip-flap slippers to nearer the front
door, and I got the idea, I don't know why, that she had a big fat pussycat
under each arm. Then she called out in a very surprising deep like goloss
(voice):
"Go away.
Go away or I shoot (fool)." Georgie heard that and wanted to giggle. I
said, with like suffering and urgency in my gentleman's goloss (voice):
"Oh,
please help, madam. My friend's very ill."
"Go
away," she called. "I know your dirty tricks, making me open the door
and then buy things I don't want. Go away. I tell you." That was real
lovely innocence, that was. "Go away," she said again, "or I'll
set my cats on to you." A malenky (little) bit bezoomny (brainy) (mad) she
was, you could tell that, through spending her jeezny (life) all on her oddy
knocky (lonesome). Then I looked up and I viddied that there was a sash-window
above the front door and that it would be a lot more skorry (quick) to just do
the old pletcho (shoulder) climb and get in that way. Else there'd be this
argument all the long nochy (night). So I said:
"Very
well, madam. If you won't help I must take my suffering friend elsewhere."
And I winked my droogies all away quiet, only me crying out: "All right,
old friend, you will surely meet some good samaritan some place other. This old
lady perhaps cannot be blamed for being suspicious with so many scoundrels and
rogues of the night about. No, indeed not."
Then we waited
again in the dark and I whispered: "Right.
Return to the
door. Me stand on Dim's pletcho (shoulder)es. Open that window and me enter,
droogies. Then to shut up that old ptitsa (chick) and open up for all. No
trouble." For I was like showing who was leader and the chelloveck
(person) with the ideas. "See," I said.
"Real horrorshow
(good) bit of stonework over that door, a nice hold for my nogas." They
viddied all that, admiring perhaps I thought, and said and nodded Right right
right in the dark.
So back tiptoe
to the door. Dim was our heavy strong malchick (boy) and Pete and Georgie like
heaved me up on to Dim's bolshy (big, great) manly pletcho (shoulder)es. All
this time, O thanks to worldcasts on the gloopy (stupid) TV and, more, lewdies
(people)' night-fear through lack of night-police, dead lay the street. Up
there on Dim's pletcho (shoulder)es I viddied that this stonework above the
door would take my boots lovely. I kneed up, brothers, and there I was.
The window, as
I had expected, was closed, but I outed with my britva (razor) and cracked the
glass of the window smart with the bony handle thereof. All the time below my
droogies were hard breathing. So I put in my rooker (hand) through the crack
(break) and made the lower half of the window sail up open silver- smooth and
lovely. And I was, like getting into the bath, in.
And there were
my sheep down below, their rot (mouth)s open as they looked up, O brothers.
I was in bumpy
darkness, with beds and cupboards and bolshy (big, great) heavy stoolies and
piles of boxes and books about.
But I strode
manful towards the door of the room I was in, seeing a like crack (break) of
light under it. The door went squeeeeeeeeeeak and then I was on a dusty
corridor with other doors. All this waste, brothers, meaning all these rooms
and but one starry (ancient) sharp (female) and her pussies, but perhaps the kots
and koshkas had like separate bedrooms, living on cream and fish-heads like
royal queens and princes. I could hear the like muffled goloss (voice) of this
old ptitsa (chick) down below saying: "Yes yes yes, that's it," but
she would be govoreeting to these mewing sidlers going maaaaaaa for more moloko
(milk).
Then I saw the
stairs going down to the hall and I thought to myself that I would show these
fickle and worthless droogs of mine that I was worth the whole three of them
and more. I would do all on my oddy knocky (lonesome). I would perform the old
ultra-violence on the starry (ancient) ptitsa (chick) and on her pusspots if
need be, then I would take fair rooker (hand)fuls of what looked like real polezny
(useful) stuff and go waltzing to the front door and open up showering gold and
silver on my waiting droogs. They must learn all about leadership.
So down I
ittied, slow and gentle, admiring in the stairwell grahzny (dirty) pictures of
old time —devotchkas with long hair and high collars, the like country with
trees and horses, the holy bearded veck (person) all nagoy (naked) hanging on a
cross. There was a real musty von (smell) of pussies and pussy-fish and starry
(ancient) dust in this domy (house), different from the flatblocks. And then I
was downstairs and I could viddy (see) the light in this front room where she
had been doling moloko (milk) to the kots and koshkas. More, I could viddy
(see) these great overstuffed scoteena (cow)s going in and out with their tails
waving and like rubbing themselves on the door-bottom. On a like big wooden
chest in the dark hall I could viddy (see) a nice malenky (little) statue that
shone in the light of the room, so I crasted this for my own self, it being
like a young thin devotchka (girl) standing on one noga with her rooker (hand)s
out, and I could see this was made of silver. So I had this when I ittied into
the lit-up room, saying: "Hi hi hi. At last we meet. Our brief govoreet
(talk) through the letter-hole was not, shall we say, satisfactory, yes? Let us
admit not, oh verily not, you stinking starry (ancient) old sharp (female)."
And I like blinked in the light at this room and the old ptitsa (chick) in it.
It was full of kots and koshkas all crawling to and fro over the carpet, with
bits of fur floating in the lower air, and these fat scoteena (cow)s were all
different shapes and colours, black, white, tabby, ginger, tortoise-shell, and
of all ages, too, so that there were kittens filly (play)ing about with each
other and there were pussies full- grown and there were real dribbling starry
(ancient) ones very bad- tempered. Their mistress, this old ptitsa (chick),
looked at me fierce like a man and said:
"How did
you get in? Keep your distance, you villainous young toad, or I shall be forced
to strike you."
I had a real horrorshow
(good) smeck (laugh) at that, viddying that she had in her veiny rooker (hand)
a crappy wood walking-stick which she raised at me threatening. So, making with
my shiny zoobies (teeth), I ittied a bit nearer to her, taking my time, and on
the way I saw on a like sideboard a lovely little veshch (thing), the loveliest
malenky (little) veshch (thing) any malchick (boy) fond of music like myself
could ever hope to viddy (see) with his own two glazz (eye)ies, for it was like
the gulliver (head) and pletcho (shoulder)es of Ludwig van himself, what they
call a bust, a like stone veshch (thing) with stone long hair and blind glazz
(eye)ies and the big flowing cravat. I was off for that right away, saying:
"Well, how lovely and all for me." But itty (to go)ing towards it
with my glazz (eye)ies like full on it and my greedy rooker (hand) held out, I
did not see the milk saucers on the floor and into one I went and sort of lost
balance. "Whoops,"
I said, trying
to steady, but this old ptitsa (chick) had come up behind me very sly and with
great skorriness for her age and then she went crack (break) crack (break) on
my gulliver (head) with her bit of a stick. So I found myself on my rooker
(hand)s and knees trying to get up and saying: "Naughty, naughty
naughty." And then she was going crack (break) crack (break) crack (break)
again, saying: "Wretched little slummy bedbug, breaking into real people's
houses." I didn't like this crack (break) crack (break) eegra (game), so I
grasped hold of one end of her stick as it came down again and then she lost
her balance and was trying to steady herself against the table, but then the
tablecloth came off with a milk-jug and a milk-bottle going all drunk then
scattering white splosh (splash) in all directions, then she was down on the
floor, grunting, going: "Blast you, boy, you shall suffer." Now all
the cats were getting spoogy (terrified) and running and jumping in a like
cat-panic, and some were blaming each other, hitting out cat-tolchocks with the
old lapa (paw) and ptaaaaa and grrrrr and kraaaaark. I got up on to my nogas,
and there was this nasty vindictive starry (ancient) forella (trout) with her
wattles ashake and grunting as she like tried to lever herself up from the
floor, so I gave her a malenky (little) fair kick in the litso (face), and she
didn't like that, crying: "Waaaaah," and you could viddy (see) her
veiny mottled litso (face) going purplewurple where I'd landed the old noga.
As I stepped
back from the kick I must have like trod on the tail of one of these dratsing
(fighting) creeching pusspots, because I slooshied a gromky (loud) yauuuuuuuuw
and found that like fur and teeth and claws had like fastened themselves around
my leg, and there I was cursing away and trying to shake it off holding this
silver malenky (little) statue in one rooker (hand) and trying to climb over
this old ptitsa (chick) on the floor to reach lovely Ludwig van in frowning
like stone. And then I was into another saucer brimful of creamy moloko (milk)
and near went flying again, the whole veshch (thing) really a very humorous one
if you could imagine it sloochatting to some other veck (person) and not to
Your Humble Narrator. And then the starry (ancient) ptitsa (chick) on the floor
reached over all the dratsing (fighting) yowling pusscats and grabbed at my
noga, still going "Waaaaah" at me, and, my balance being a bit gone,
I went really crash this time, on to splosh (splash)ing moloko (milk) and skriking
(scratching) koshkas, and the old forella (trout) started to fist me on the litso
(face), both of us being on the floor, creeching: "Thrash him, beat him,
pull out his finger-nails, the poisonous young beetle," addressing her
pusscats only, and then, as if like obeying the starry (ancient) old ptitsa
(chick), a couple of koshkas got on to me and started scratching like bezoomny
(brainy) (mad). So then I got real bezoomny (brainy) (mad) myself, brothers,
and hit out at them, but this baboochka (old woman) said: "Toad, don't
touch my kitties," and like scratched my litso (face). So then I
screeched: "You filthy old soomka (bag)", and upped with the little malenky
(little) like silver statue and cracked her a fine fair tolchock (hit) on the gulliver
(head) and that shut her up real horrorshow (good) and lovely.
Now as I got up
from the floor among all the crarking kots and koshkas what should I slooshy
(hear) but the shoom (noise) of the old police-auto siren in the distance, and
it dawned on me skorry (quick) that the old forella (trout) of the pusscats had
been on the phone to the millicent (police)s when I thought she'd been
govoreeting to the mewlers and mowlers, her having got her suspicions skorry
(quick) on the boil when I'd rung the old zvonock (bellpull) pretending for
help. So now, slooshying this fearful shoom (noise) of the rozz (police)van, I
belted for the front door and had a rabbit (work)ing time undoing all the locks
and chains and bolts and other prot (mouth)ective veshches (things). Then I got
it open, and who should be on the doorstep but old Dim, me just being able to viddy
(see) the other two of my so-called droogs belting off. "Away," I
creeched to Dim.
"The rozz
(police)es are coming." Dim said: "You stay to meet them huh huh
huh," and then I viddied that he had his oozy (chain) out, and then he
upped with it and it snaked whishhh and he chained me gentle and artistic like
on the glazlids, me just closing them up in time. Then I was howling around
trying to viddy (see) with this howling great pain, and Dim said: "I don't
like you should do what you done, old droogy. Not right it wasn't to get on to
me like the way you done, brat (brot (mouth)her)." And then I could slooshy
(hear) his bolshy (big, great) lumpy boots beating off, him going huh huh huh
into the darkmans, and it was only about seven seconds after that I slooshied
the millicent (police)-van draw up with a filthy great dropping siren-howl,
like some bezoomny (brainy) (mad) animal snuffing it. I was howling too and
like yawing about and I banged my gulliver (head) smack on the hall-wall, my glazz
(eye)ies being tight shut and the juice astream from them, very agonizing. So
there I was like groping in the hallway as the millicent (police)s arrived. I
couldn't viddy (see) them, of course, but I could slooshy (hear) and damn near
smell the von (smell) of the bastards, and soon I could feel the bastards as
they got rough and did the old twist-arm act, carrying me out. I could also slooshy
(hear) one millicent (police) goloss (voice) saying from like the room I'd come
out of with all the kots and koshkas in it: "She's been nastily knocked
but she's breathing," and there was loud mewing all the time.
"A real
pleasure this is," I heard another millicent (police) goloss (voice) say
as I was tolchocked very rough and skorry (quick) into the auto.
"Little
Alex all to our own selves." I creeched out:
"I'm
blind, Bog (God) bust and bleed you, you grahzny (dirty) bastards."
"Language,
language," like smecked a goloss (voice), and then I got a like backhand tolchock
(hit) with some ringy rooker (hand) or other full on the rot (mouth). I said:
"Bog (God)
murder you, you vonny stinking bratchnies. Where are the others? Where are my
stinking traitorous droogs? One of my cursed grahzny (dirty) bratties chained
me on the glazz (eye)ies. Get them before they get away. It was all their idea,
brothers.
They like
forced me to do it. I'm innocent, Bog (God) butcher you."
By this time
they were all having like a good smeck (laugh) at me with the heighth of like
callousness, and they'd tolchocked me into the back of the auto, but I still
kept on about these so-called droogs of mine and then I viddied it would be no
good, because they'd all be back now in the snug of the Duke of New York
forcing black and suds and double Scotchmen down the unprot (mouth)esting
gorloes of those stinking starry (ancient) ptitsa (chick)s and they saying:
"Thanks, lads. God bless you, boys. Been here all the time you have, lads.
Not been out of our sight you haven't."
All the time we
were sirening off to the rozz (police)-shop, me being wedged between two millicent
(police)s and being given the odd thump and malenky (little) tolchock (hit) by
these smecking bullies. Then I found I could open up my glazlids a malenky
(little) bit and viddy (see) like through all tears a kind of steamy city going
by, all the lights like having run into one another. I could viddy (see) now
through smarting glazz (eye)ies these two smecking millicent (police)s at the
back with me and the thin-necked driver and the fat-necked bastard next to him,
this one having a sarky (sarcastic) like govoreet (talk) at me, saying:
"Well, Alex boy, we all look forward to a pleasant evening together, don't
we not?" I said:
"How do
you know my name, you stinking vonny bully?
May Bog (God)
blast you to hell, grahzny (dirty) bratchny (bastard) as you are, you sod
(fornicate)." So they all had a smeck (laugh) at that and I had my ooko
(ear) like twisted by one of these stinking millicent (police)s at the back
with me. The fat-necked not-driver said:
"Everybody
knows little Alex and his droogs. Quite a famous young boy our Alex has
become."
"It's
those others," I creeched. "Georgie and Dim and Pete.
No droogs of
mine, the bastards."
"Well,"
said the fat-neck, "you've got the evening in front of you to tell the
whole story of the daring exploits of those young gentlemen and how they led
poor little innocent Alex astray." Then there was the shoom (noise) of
another like police siren passing this auto but going the other way.
"Is that
for those bastards?" I said. "Are they being picked up by you
bastards?"
"That,"
said fat-neck, "is an ambulance. Doubtless for your old lady victim, you
ghastly wretched scoundrel."
"It was
all their fault," I creeched, blinking my smarting glazz (eye)ies.
"The bastards will be peet (drink)ing away in the Duke of New York. Pick
them up blast you, you vonny sods." And then there was more smecking and
another malenky (little) tolchock (hit), O my brothers, on my poor smarting rot
(mouth). And then we arrived at the stinking rozz (police)-shop and they helped
me get out of the auto with kicks and pulls and they tolchocked me up the steps
and I knew I was going to get nothing like fair play from these stinky grahzny
(dirty) bratchnies, Bog (God) blast them.
They dragged me
into this very bright-lit whitewashed cantora (office), and it had a strong von
(smell) that was a mixture of like sick and lavatories and beery rot (mouth)s
and disinfectant, all coming from the barry places near by. You could hear some
of the plennies in their cells cursing and singing and I fancied I could slooshy
(hear) one belting out:
'And I will go
back to my darling, my darling,
When you, my
darling, are gone.'
But there were
the goloss (voice)es of millicent (police)s telling them to shut it and you
could even slooshy (hear) the zvook (sound) of like somebody being tolchocked
real horrorshow (good) and going owwwwwwwww, and it was like the goloss (voice)
of a drunken starry (ancient) ptitsa (chick), not a man. With me in this cantora
(office) were four millicent (police)s, all having a good loud peet (drink) of chai
(tea), a big pot of it being on the table and they sucking and belching away
over their dirty bolshy (big, great) mugs. They didn't offer me any. All that
they gave me, my brothers, was a crappy starry (ancient) mirror to look into,
and indeed I was not your handsome young Narrator any longer but a real strack
(horror) of a sight, my rot (mouth) swollen and my glazz (eye)ies all red and
my nose bumped a bit also. They all had a real horrorshow (good) smeck (laugh)
when they viddied my like dismay, and one of them said: "Love's young
nightmare like." And then a top millicent (police) came in with like stars
on his pletcho (shoulder)es to show he was high high high, and he viddied me
and said: "Hm." So then they started. I said:
"I won't
say one single solitary slovo (word) unless I have my lawyer here. I know the
law, you bastards." Of course they all had a good gromky (loud) smeck
(laugh) at that and then the stellar top millicent (police) said:
"Righty
right, boys, we'll start off by showing him that we know the law, too, but that
knowing the law isn't everything."
He had a like
gentleman's goloss (voice) and spoke in a very weary sort of a way, and he
nodded with a like droogy smile at one very big fat bastard. This big fat
bastard took off his tunic and you could viddy (see) he had a real big starry
(ancient) pot on him, then he came up to me not too skorry (quick) and I could
get the von (smell) of the milky chai (tea) he'd been peet (drink)ing when he
opened his rot (mouth) in a like very tired leery grin at me. He was not too
well shaved for a rozz (police) and you could viddy (see) like patches of dried
sweat on his shirt under the arms, and you could get this von (smell) of like
earwax from him as he came close. Then he clenched his stinking red rooker
(hand) and let me have it right in the belly, which was unfair, and all the
other millicent (police)s smecked their gullivers off at that, except the top
one and he kept on with this weary like bored grin. I had to lean against the
white-washed wall so that all the white got on to my platties (clothes), trying
to drag the old breath back and in great agony, and then I wanted to sick up
the gluey pie I'd had before the start of the evening. But I couldn't stand
that sort of veshch (thing), sicking all over the floor, so I held it back.
Then I saw that this fatty bruiseboy was turning to his millicent (police)
droogs to have a real horrorshow (good) smeck (laugh) at what he'd done, so I
raised my right noga and before they could creech (scream) at him to watch out
I'd kicked him smart and lovely on the shin. And he creeched murder, hopping
around.
But after that
they all had a turn, bouncing me from one to the other like some very weary
bloody ball, O my brothers, and fisting me in the yarbles (testicles) and the rot
(mouth) and the belly and dealing out kicks, and then at last I had to sick up
on the floor and, like some real bezoomny (brainy) (mad) veck (person), I evan
said: "Sorry, brothers, that was not the right thing at all. Sorry sorry
sorry." But they handed me starry (ancient) bits of gazetta and made me
wipe it, and then they made me make with the sawdust. And then they said,
almost like dear old droogs, that I was to sit down and we'd all have a quiet
like govoreet (talk). And then P. R. Deltoid came in to have a viddy (see), his
office being in the same building, looking very tired and grahzny (dirty), to
say: "So it's happened, Alex boy, yes? Just as I thought it would. Dear
dear dear, yes."
Then he turned
to the millicent (police)s to say: "Evening, inspector.
Evening,
sergeant. Evening, evening, all. Well, this is the end of the line for me, yes.
Dear dear, this boy does look messy, doesn't he? Just look at the state of
him."
"Violence
makes violence," said the top millicent (police) in a very holy type goloss
(voice). "He resisted his lawful arresters."
"End of
the line, yes," said P. R. Deltoid again. He looked at me with very cold glazz
(eye)ies like I had become a thing and was no more a bleeding very tired
battered chelloveck (person). "I suppose I'll have to be in court
tomorrow."
"It wasn't
me, brot (mouth)her, sir," I said, a malenky (little) bit weepy.
"Speak up
for me, sir, for I'm not so bad. I was led on by the treachery of the
others,sir."
"Sings
like a linnet," said the top rozz (police), sneery. "Sings the roof
off lovely, he does that."
"I'll
speak," said cold P. R. Deltoid. "I'll be there tomorrow, don't
worry."
"If you'd
like to give him a bash in the chops, sir," said the top millicent
(police), "don't mind us. We'll hold him down. He must be another great
disappointment to you."
P. R. Deltoid
then did something I never thought any man like him who was supposed to turn us
baddiwads into real horrorshow (good) malchick (boy)s would do, especially with
all those rozz (police)es around. He came a bit nearer and he spat (sleep). He spat
(sleep). He spat (sleep) full in my litso (face) and then wiped his wet spitty
(to go) rot (mouth) with the back of his rooker (hand). And I wiped and wiped
and wiped my spaton litso (face) with my bloody tashtook (handkerchief), saying
"Thank you, sir, thank you very much, sir, that was very kind of you, sir,
thank you." And then P. R. Deltoid walked out without another slovo (word).
The millicent
(police)s now got down to making this long statement for me to sign, and I
thought to myself, Hell and blast you all, if all you bastards are on the side
of the Good then I'm glad I belong to the other shop. "All right," I
said to them, "you grahzny (dirty) bratchnies as you are, you vonny sods.
Take it, take the lot. I'm not going to crawl around on my brook (hand)o (ear)
(belly) any more, you merzky (filthy) gets. Where do you want it taking from,
you cally vonning animals? From my last corrective?
Horrorshow
(good), horrorshow (good), here it is, then." So I gave it to them, and I
had this shorthand milicent, a very quiet and scared type chelloveck (person),
no real rozz (police) at all, covering page after page after page after. I gave
them the ultra-violence, the crasting, the dratsing (fighting), the old
in-out-in-out, the lot, right up to this night's veshch (thing) with the bugatty
(rich) starry (ancient) ptitsa (chick) with the mewing kots and koshkas. And I
made sure my so-called droogs were in it, right up to the shiyah (neck). When
I'd got through the lot the shorthand millicent (police) looked a bit faint,
poor old veck (person). The top rozz (police) said to him, in a kind type goloss
(voice):
"Right,
son, you go off and get a nice cup of chai (tea) for yourself and then type all
that filth and rot (mouth)tenness out with a clothes-peg on your nose, three
copies. Then they can be brought to our handsome young friend here for
signature.
And you,"
he said to me, "can now be shown to your bridal suite with running water
and all conveniences. All right," in this weary goloss (voice) to two of
the real tough rozz (police)es, "take him away."
So I was kicked
and punched and bullied off to the cells and put in with about ten or twelve
other plennies, a lot of them drunk. There were real oozhassny (terrible)
animal type vecks among them, one with his nose all ate away and his rot (mouth)
open like a big black hole, one that was lying on the floor snoring away and
all like slime dribbling all the time out of his rot (mouth), and one that had
like done all cal (feces) in his pantalonies. Then there were two like queer
ones who both took a fancy to me, and one of them made a jump onto my back, and
I had a real nasty bit of dratsing (fighting) with him and the von (smell) on
him, like of meth and cheap scent, made me want to sick again, only my belly
was empty now, O my brothers. Then the other queer one started putting his rooker
(hand)s on to me, and then there was a snarling bit of dratsing (fighting)
between these two, both of them wanting to get at my plott (body). The shoom
(noise) became very loud, so that a couple of millicent (police)s came along
and cracked into these two with like truncheons, so that both sat quiet then,
looking like into space, and there was the old krovvy (blood) going drip drip
drip down the litso (face) of one of them. There were bunks in this cell, but
all filled. I climbed up to the top one of one tier of bunks, there being four
in a tier, and there was a starry (ancient) drunken veck (person) snoring away,
most probably heaved up there to the top by the millicent (police)s. Anyway, I
heaved him down again, him not being all that heavy, and he collapsed on top of
a fat drunk chelloveck (person) on the floor, and both woke and started
creeching and punching pathetic at each other. So I lay down on this vonny bed,
my brothers, and went to very tired and exhausted and hurt sleep. But it was
not really like sleep, it was like passing out to another better world. And in
this other better world, O my brothers, I was in like a big field with all
flowers and trees, and there was a like goat with a man's litso (face) playing
away on a like flute. And there rose like the sun Ludwig van himself with
thundery litso (face) and cravat and wild windy voloss (hair), and then I heard
the Ninth, last movement, with the slovos all a bit mixed-up like they knew
themselves they had to be mixed- up, this being a dream:
Boy, thou
uproarious shark of heaven,
Slaughter of
Elysium,
Hearts on fire,
aroused, enraptured,
We will tolchock
(hit) you on the rot (mouth) and kick your grahzny (dirty) vonny bum.
But the tune
was right, as I knew when I was being woke up two or ten minutes or twenty
hours or days or years later, my watch having been taken away. There was a millicent
(police) like miles and miles down below and he was prod (produce)ding at me
with a long stick with a spike on the end, saying:
"Wake up,
son. Wake up, my beauty. Wake to real trouble."
I said:
"Why? Who?
Where? What is it?" And the tune of the Joy ode in the Ninth was singing
away real lovely and horrorshow (good) within, The millicent (police) said:
"Come down
and find out. There's some real lovely news for you, my son." So I
scrambled down, very stiff and sore and not like real awake, and this rozz
(police), who had a strong von (smell) of cheese and onions on him, pushed me
out of the filthy snoring cell, and then along corridors, and all the time the
old tune Joy Thou Glorious Spark Of Heaven was sparking away within. Then we
came to a very neat like cantora (office) with typewriters and flowers on the
desks, and at the like chief desk the top millicent (police) was sitting,
looking very serious and fixing a like very cold glazz (eye)y on my sleepy litso
(face). I said:
"Well well
well. What makes, bratty (brot (mouth)her). What gives, this fine bright middle
of the nochy (night)?" He said:
"I'll give
you just ten seconds to wipe that stupid grin off of your face. Then I want you
to listen."
"Well,
what?" I said, smecking. "Are you not satisfied with beating me near
to death and having me spat (sleep) upon and making me confess to crimes for
hours on end and then shoving me among bezoomnies and vonny perverts in that grahzny
(dirty) cell?
Have you some
new torture for me, you bratchny (bastard)?"
"It'll be
your own torture," he said, serious. "I hope to God it'll torture you
to madness."
And then,
before he told me, I knew what it was. The old ptitsa (chick) who had all the
kots and koshkas had passed on to a better world in one of the city hospitals.
I'd cracked her a bit too hard, like. Well, well, that was everything. I
thought of all those kots and koshkas mewling for moloko (milk) and getting
none, not any more from their starry (ancient) forella (trout) of a mistress.
That was
everything. I'd done the lot, now. and me still only fifteen.
"What's it
going to be then, eh?"
I take it up
now, and this is the real weepy and like tragic part of the story beginning, my
brothers and only friends, in Staja (state jail) (State Jail, that is) Number
84F. You will have little desire to slooshy (hear) all the cally and horrible raskazz
(story) of the shock that sent my dad beating his bruised and krovvy (blood)
rockers against unfair like Bog (God) in his Heaven, and my mum squaring her rot
(mouth) for owwwww owwwww owwwww in her mother's grief at her only child and
son of her bosom like letting everybody down real horrorshow (good). Then there
was the starry (ancient) very grim magistrate in the lower court govoreeting
some very hard slovos against your Friend and Humble Narrator, after all the
cally and grahzny (dirty) slander spat (sleep) forth by P. R. Deltoid and the rozz
(police)es, Bog (God) blast them. Then there was being remanded in filthy
custody among vonny perverts and prestoopnicks. Then there was the trial in the
higher court with judges and a jury, and some very very nasty slovos indeed
govoreeted in a very like solemn way, and then Guilty and my mum boohoohooing
when they said Fourteen Years, O my brothers. So here I was now, two years just
to the day of being kicked and clanged into Staja (state jail) 84F, dressed in
the heighth of prison fashion, which was a one-piece suit of a very filthy like
cal (feces) colour, and the number sewn on the groody (breast) part just above
the old tick-tocker and on the back as well, so that going and coming I was
6655321 and not your little droog (friend) Alex not no longer.
"What's it
going to be then, eh?"
It had not been
like edifying, indeed it had not, being in this grahzny (dirty) hellhole and
like human zoo for two years, being kicked and tolchocked by brutal bully
warders and meeting vonny leering like criminals, some of them real perverts
and ready to dribble all over a luscious young malchick (boy) like your
story-teller. And there was having to rabbit (work) in the workshop at making
matchboxes and itty (to go) round and round and round the yard for like
exercise, and in the evenings sometimes some starry (ancient) prof type veck
(person) would give a talk on beetles or the Milky Way or the Glorious Wonders
of the Snowflake, and I had a good smeck (laugh) at this last one, because it
reminded me of that time of the tolchocking and Sheer Vandalism with that ded
(old man) coming from the public biblio (library) on a winter's night when my
droogs were stil not traitors and I was like happy and free. Of those droogs I
had slooshied but one thing, and that was one day when my pee and em (parents)
came to visit and I was told that Georgie was dead. Yes, dead, my brothers.
Dead as a bit of dog-cal (feces) on the road. Georgie had led the other two
into a like very rich chelloveck (person)'s house, and there they had kicked
and tolchocked the owner on the floor, and then Georgie had started to razrez
(rip) the cushions and curtains, and then old Dim had cracked at some very
precious ornaments, like statues and so on, and this rich beat-up chelloveck
(person) had raged like real bezoomny (brainy) (mad) and gone for them all with
a very heavy iron bar.
His being all razdraz
(upset) had given him some gigantic strength, and Dim and Pete had got out
through the window, but Georgie had tripped on the carpet and then brought this
terrible swinging iron bar crack (break) and splodge (splash) on the gulliver
(head), and that was the end of traitorous Georgie. The starry (ancient)
murderer had got off with Self Defence, as was really right and proper.
Georgie being
killed, though it was more than one year after me being caught by the millicent
(police)s, it all seemed right and proper and like Fate.
"What's it
going to be then, eh?"
I was in the
Wing Chapel, it being Sunday morning, and the prison charlie (chaplain) was
govoreeting the Word of the Lord. It was my rabbit (work) to play the starry
(ancient) stereo, putting on solemn music before and after and in the middle
too when hymns were sung.
I was at the
back of the Wing Chapel (there were four along here in Staja (state jail) 84F)
near where the warders or chassos were standing with their rifles and their
dirty bolshy (big, great) blue brutal jowls, and I could viddy (see) all the
plennies sitting down slooshying the Slovo (word) of the Lord in their horrible
cal (feces)-coloured prison platties (clothes), and a sort of filthy von
(smell) rose from them, not like real unwashed, not grazzy (dirty), but like a
special real stinking von (smell) which you only got with the criminal types,
my brothers, a like dusty, greasy, hopeless sort of a von (smell). And I was
thinking that perhaps I had this von (smell) too, having become a real plenny
(prisoner) myself, though still very young. So it was important to me, O my brothers,
to get out of this stinking grahzny (dirty) zoo as soon as I could. And, as you
will viddy (see) if you keep reading on, it was not long before I did.
"What's it
going to be then, eh?" said the prison charlie (chaplain) for the third raz
(time). "Is it going to be in and out and in and out of institutions, like
this, though more in than out for most of you, or are you going to attend to
the Divine Word and realize the punishments that await the unrepentant sinner
in the next world, as well as in this? A lot of blasted idiots you are, most of
you, selling your birthright for a saucer of cold porridge. The thrill of
theft, or violence, the urge to live easy —is it worth it when we have
undeniable proof, yes yes, incontrovertible evidence that hell exists? I know,
I know, my friends, I have been informed in visions that there is a place,
darker than any prison, hotter than any flame of human fire, where souls of
unrepentant criminal sinners like yourselves —and don't leer at me, damn you,
don't laugh —like yourselves, I say, scream in endless and intolerable agony,
their noses choked with the smell of filth, their mouths crammed with burning
ordure, their skin peeling and rot (mouth)ting, a fireball spinning in their
screaming guts. Yes, yes, yes, I know"
At this point, brothers,
a plenny (prisoner) somewhere or other near the back row let out a shoom
(noise) of lip-music —'Prrrrrp' —and then the brutal chassos were on the job
right away, rushing real skorry (quick) to what they thought was the scene of
the schoom, then hitting out nasty and delivering tolchocks, left and right.
Then they picked out one poor trembling plenny (prisoner), very thin and malenky
(little) and starry (ancient) too, and dragged him off, but all the time he
kept creeching: "It wasn't me, it was him, see," but that made no
difference. He was tolchocked real nasty and then dragged out of the Wing
Chapel creeching his gulliver (head) off.
"Now,"
said the prison charlie (chaplain), "listen to the Word of the Lord."
Then he picked up the big book and flipped over the pages, keeping on wetting
his fingers to do this by licking them splurge splurge. He was a bolshy (big,
great) great burly bastard with a very red litso (face), but he was very fond
of myself, me being young and also now very interested in the big book. It had
been arranged as part of my like further education to read in the book and even
have music on the chapel stereo while I was reading, O my brothers. And that
was real horrorshow (good).
They would like
lock me in and let me slooshy (hear) holy music by J. S. Bach and G. F. Handel,
and I would read of these starry (ancient) yahoodies (Jews) tolchocking each
other and then peet (drink)ing their Hebrew vino and getting on to the bed with
their wives' like hand-maidens, real horrorshow (good). That kept me going, brothers.
I didn't so much kopat (dig) the later part of the book, which is more like all
preachy govoreeting than fighting and the old in-out. But one day the charles
(chaplain) said to me, squeezing me like tight with his bolshy (big, great)
beefy rooker (hand): "Ah, 6655321, think on the divine suffering. Meditate
on that, my boy." And all the time he had this rich manny von (smell) of
Scotch on him, and then he went off to his little cantora (office) to peet
(drink) some more. So I read all about the scourging and the crowning with thorn
(cry out)s and then the cross veshch (thing) and all that cal (feces), and I
viddied better that there was something in it. While the stereo played bits of
lovely Bach I closed my glazz (eye)ies and viddied myself helping in and even
taking charge of the tolchocking and the nailing in, being dressed in a like
toga that was the heighth of Roman fashion. So being in Staja (state jail) 84F
was not all that wasted, and the Governor himself was very pleased to hear that
I had taken to like Religion, and that was where I had my hopes.
This Sunday
morning the charlie (chaplain) read out from the book about chellovecks who slooshied
the slovo (word) and didn't take a blind bit being like a domy (house) built
upon sand, and then the rain came splash and the old boomaboom cracked the sky
and that was the end of that domy (house). But I thought that only a very dim veck
(person) would have built his domy (house) upon sand, and a right lot of real
sneering droogs and nasty neighbours a veck (person) like that would have, them
not telling him how dim he was doing that sort of building. Then the charles
(chaplain) creeched: "Right, you lot.
We'll end with
Hymn Number 435 in the Prisoners' Hymnal."
Then there was
a crash and plop and a whish whish while the plennies picked up and dropped and
lickturned the pages of their grazzy (dirty) malenky (little) hymnbooks, and
the bully fierce warders creeched: "Stop talking there, bastards. I'm
watching you, 920537." Of course I had the disc ready on the stereo, and
then I let the simple music for organ only come belting out with a
growwwwowwwwowwww. Then the plennies started to sing real horrible:
Weak tea are
we, new brewed
But stirring
make all strong.
We eat no angel's
food,
Our times of
trial are long.
They sort of
howled and wept these stupid slovos with the charlie (chaplain) like whipping
them on with "Louder, damn you, sing up," and the warders creeching:
"Just you wait, 7749222", and "One on the turnip coming up for you,
filth." Then it was all over and the charlie (chaplain) said: "May
the Holy Trinity keep you always and make you good, amen," and the shamble
out began to a nice choice bit of Symphony No. 2 by Adrian Schweigselber,
chosen by your Humble Narrator, O my brothers. What a lot they were, I thought,
as I stood there by the starry (ancient) chapel stereo, viddying them all
shuffle out going marrrrre and baaaaaa like animals and up-your-piping with
their grahzny (dirty) fingers at me, because it looked like I was very special
favoured. When the last one had slouched out, his rooker (hand)s hanging like
an ape and the one warder left giving him a fair loud tolchock (hit) on the
back of the gulliver (head), and when I had turned off the stereo, the charlie
(chaplain) came up to me, puffing away at a cancer (cigarette), still in his starry
(ancient) bogman's platties (clothes), all lacy and white like a devotchka
(girl)'s. He said:
"Thank you
as always, little 6655321. And what news have you got for me today?" The
idea was, I knew, that this charlie (chaplain) was after becoming a very great
holy chelloveck (person) in the world of Prison Religion, and he wanted a real horrorshow
(good) testimonial from the Governor, so he would go and govoreet (talk)
quietly to the Governor now and then about what dark plots were brewing among
the plennies, and he would get a lot of this cal (feces) from me. A lot of it
would be all like made up, but some of it would be true, like for instance the
time it had come through to our cell on the waterpipes knock knock
knockiknockiknock knockiknock that big Harriman was going to break. He was
going to tolchock (hit) the warder at slop-time and get out in the warder's platties
(clothes). Then there was going to be a big throwing about of the horrible pishcha
(food) we got in the dining-hall, and I knew about that and told. Then the charlie
(chaplain) passed it on and was complimented like by the Governor for his
Public Spirit and Keen Ear. So this time I said, and this was not true:
"Well,
sir, it has come through on the pipes that a consignment of cocaine has arrived
by irregular means and that a cell somewhere along Tier 5 is to be the centre
of distribution." I made all that up as I went along, like I made up so
many of these stories, but the prison charlie (chaplain) was very grateful,
saying: "Good, good, good. I shall pass that on to Himself," this
being what he called the Governor. Then I said:
"Sir, I
have done my best, have I not?" I always used my very polite gentleman's goloss
(voice) govoreeting with those at the top.
"I've
tried, sir, haven't I?"
"I
think," said the charlie (chaplain), "that on the whole you have,
6655321. You've been very helpful and, I consider, shown a genuine desire to
reform. You will, if you continue in this manner, earn your remission with no
trouble at all."
"But
sir," I said, "how about this new thing they're talking about? How
about this new like treatment that gets you out of prison in no time at all and
makes sure that you never get back in again?"
"Oh,"
he said, very like wary. "Where did you hear this?
Who's been
telling you these things?"
"These
things get around, sir," I said. "Two warders talk, as it might be,
and somebody can't help hearing what they say. And then somebody picks up a
scrap of newspaper in the workshops and the newspaper says all about it. How
about you putting me in for this thing, sir, if I may make so bold as to make
the suggestion?"
You could viddy
(see) him thinking about that while he puffed away at his cancer (cigarette),
wondering how much to say to me about what he knew about this veshch (thing)
I'd mentioned. Then he said:
"I take it
you're referring to Ludovico's Technique." He was still very wary.
"I don't
know what it's called, sir," I said. "All I know is that it gets you
out quickly and makes sure that you don't get in again."
"That is
so," he said, his eyebrows like all beetling while he looked down at me.
"That is quite so, 6655321. Of course, it's only in the experimental stage
at the moment. It's very simple but very drastic."
"But it's
being used here, isn't it, sir?" I said. "Those new like white
buildings by the South wall, sir. We've watched those being built, sir, when
we've been doing our exercise."
"It's not
been used yet," he said, "not in this prison, 6655321. Himself has
grave doubts about it. I must confess I share those doubts. The question is
whether such a technique can really make a man good. Goodness comes from
within, 6655321. Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he
ceases to be a man." He would have gone on with a lot more of this cal
(feces), but we could slooshy (hear) the next lot of plennies marching clank
clank down the iron stairs to come for their bit of Religion. He said:
"We'll have a little chat about this some other time. Now you'd better
start the voluntary." So I went over to the starry (ancient) stereo and
put on J. S. Bach's 'Wachet Auf' Choral Prelude and in these grahzny (dirty)
vonny bastard criminals and perverts came shambling like a lot of broke-down
apes, the warders or chassos like barking at them and lashing them. And soon
the prison charlie (chaplain) was asking them: "What's it going to be
then, eh?" And that's where you came in.
We had four of
these lomticks of like Prison Religion that morning, but the charles (chaplain)
said no more to me about this Ludovico's Technique, whatever it was, O my brothers.
When I'd finished my rabbit (work) with the stereo he just govoreeted a few
slovos of thanks and then I was privodeeted back to the cell on Tier 6 which
was my very vonny and crammed home. The chasso (guard) was not really too bad
of a veck (person) and he did not tolchock (hit) or kick me in when he'd opened
up, he just said: "Here we are, sonny, back to the old waterhole."
And there I was with my new type droogs, all very criminal but, Bog (God) be
praised, not given to perversions of the body. There was Zophar on his bunk, a
very thin and brown veck (person) who went on and on and on in his like cancery
goloss (voice), so that nobody bothered to slooshy (hear). What he was saying
now like to nobody was "And at that time you couldn't get hold of a poggy"
(whatever that was, brothers), "not if you was to hand over ten million
archibalds, so what do I do, eh, I goes down to Turkey's and says I've got this
sproog on that morrow, see, and what can he do?" It was all this very
old-time real criminal's slang he spoke. Also there was Wall, who had only one glazz
(eye)y, and he was tearing bits of his toe-nails off in honour of Sunday. Also
there was Big Jew, a very fat sweaty veck (person) lying flat on his bunk like
dead. In addition there was Jojohn and The Doctor. Jojohn was very mean and
keen and wiry and had specialized in like Sexual Assault, and The Doctor had
pretended to be able to cure syph and gon and gleet but he had only injected
water, also he had killed off two devotchkas instead, like he had promised, of
getting rid of their unwanted loads for them. They were a terrible grahzny
(dirty) lot really, and I didn't enjoy being with them, O my brothers, any more
than you do now, but it won't be for much longer.
Now what I want
you to know is that this cell was intended for only three when it was built,
but there were six of us there, all jammed together sweaty and tight. And that
was the state of all the cells in all the prisons in those days, brothers, and
a dirty cally disgrace it was, there not being decent room for a chelloveck
(person) to stretch his limbs. And you will hardly believe what I say now,
which is that on this Sunday they brosatted in another plenny (prisoner). Yes,
we had had our horrible pishcha (food) of dumplings and vonny stew and were
smoking a quiet cancer (cigarette) each on our bunks when this veck (person)
was thrown into our midst.
He was a chinny
starry (ancient) veck (person) and it was him who started creeching complaints
before we even had a chance to viddy (see) the position. He tried to like shake
the bars, creeching: "I demand my sodding rights, this one's full-up, it's
a bleeding imposition, that's what it is." But one of the chassos came
back to say that he had to make the best of it and share a bunk with whoever
would let him, otherwise it would have to be the floor. "And," said
the warder, "it's going to get worse, not better. A right dirty criminal
world you lot are trying to build."
Well, it was
the letting-in of this new chelloveck (person) that was really the start of my
getting out of the old Staja (state jail), for he was such a nasty quarrelsome
type of plenny (prisoner), with a very dirty mind and filthy intentions, that
trouble nachinatted that very same day. He was also very boastful and started
to make with a very sneery litso (face) at us all and a loud proud goloss
(voice). He made out that he was the only real horrorshow (good) prestoopnick
(criminal) in the whole zoo, going on that he'd done this and done the other
and killed ten rozz (police)es with one crack (break) of his rooker (hand) and
all that cal (feces). But nobody was very impressed, O my brothers. So then he
started on me, me being the youngest there, trying to say that as the youngest
I ought to be the one to zasnoot (sleep) on the floor and not him. But all the
others were for me, creeching:
"Leave him
alone, you grahzny (dirty) bratchny (bastard)," and then he began the old
whine about how nobody loved him. So that same nochy (night) I woke up to find
this horrible plenny (prisoner) actually lying with me on my bunk, which was on
the bottom of the three-tier and also very narrow, and he was govoreeting dirty
like love-slovos and stroke stroke stroking away. So then I got real bezoomny
(brainy) (mad) and lashed out, though I could not viddy (see) all that horrorshow
(good), there being only this malenky (little) little red light outside on the
landing. But I knew it was this one, the vonny bastard, and then when the
trouble really got under way and the lights were turned on I could viddy (see)
his horrible litso (face) with all krovvy (blood) dripping from his rot (mouth)
where I'd hit out with my clawing rooker (hand).
What
sloochatted then, of course, was that me cell-mates woke up and started to join
in, tolchocking a bit wild in the near-dark, and the shoom (noise) seemed to
wake up the whole tier, so that you could slooshy (hear) a lot of creeching and
banging about with tin mugs on the wall, as though all the plennies in all the
cells thought a big break was about to commence, O my brothers. So then the
lights came on and the chassos came along in their shirts and trousers and
caps, waving big sticks.
We could viddy
(see) each other's flushed litsos and the shaking of fisty rooker (hand)s, and
there was a lot of creeching and cursing.
Then I put in
my complaint and every chasso (guard) said it was probably your Humble
Narrator, brothers, that started it all anyway, me having no mark of a scratch
on me but this horrible plenny (prisoner) dipping red red krovvy (blood) from
the rot (mouth) where I'd got him with my clawing rooker (hand). That made me
real bezoomny (brainy) (mad). I said I would not sleep another nochy (night) in
that cell if the Prison Authorities were going to allow horrible vonny stinking
perverted prestoopnicks to leap on my plott (body) when I was in no position to
defend myself, being asleep. "Wait till the morning," they said.
"Is it a private room with bath and television that your honour requires?
Well, all that will be seen to in the morning. But for the present, little droog
(friend), get your bleeding gulliver (head) down on your straw-filled podooshka
(pillow) and let's have no more trouble from anyone. Right right right?"
Then off they went with stern warnings for all, then soon after the lights went
out, and then I said I would sit up all the rest of the nochy (night), saying
first to this horrible pre-stoopnick: "Go on, get on my bunk if you wish
it. I fancy it no longer. You have made it filthy and cally with your horrible
vonny plott (body) lying on it already." But then the others joined in.
Big Jew said,
still sweating from the bit of a bitva (battle) we'd had in the dark:
"Not
having that we're not, brot (mouth)herth. Don't give in to the thquirt."
So this new one said:
"Crash
your dermott, yid," meaning to shut up, but it was very insulting. So then
Big Jew got ready to launch a tolchock (hit). The Doctor said:
"Come on,
gentlemen, we don't want any trouble, do we?" in his very high-class goloss
(voice), but this new prestoopnick (criminal) was really asking for it. You
could viddy (see) that he thought he was a very big bolshy (big, great) veck
(person) and it was beneath his dignity to be sharing a cell with six and
having to sleep on the floor till I made this gesture at him. In his sneery way
he tried to take off The Doctor, saying:
"Owwww,
yew wahnt noo moor trouble, is that it, Archiballs?" So Jojohn, mean and
keen and wiry, said:
"If we
can't have sleep let's have some education. Our new friend here had better be
taught a lesson." Although he like specialized in Sexual Assault he had a
nice way of govoreeting, quiet and like precise. So the new plenny (prisoner)
sneered:
"Kish and
kosh and koosh, you little terror." So then it all really started, but in
a queer like gentle way, with nobody raising his goloss (voice) much. The new plenny
(prisoner) creeched a malenky (little) bit at first, but the Wall fisted his rot
(mouth) while Big Jew held him up against the bars so that he could be viddied
in the malenky (little) red light from the landing, and he just went oh oh oh.
He was not a very strong type of veck (person), being very feeble in his trying
to tolchock (hit) back, and I suppose he made up for this by being shoom
(noise)ny (brainy) in the goloss (voice) and very boastful. Anyway, seeing the
old krovvy (blood) flow red in the red light, I felt the old joy like rising up
in my keeshkas (guts) and I said:
"Leave him
to me, go on, let me have him now, brothers."
So Big Jew
said:
"Yeth,
yeth, boyth, that'th fair. Thlosh him then, Alekth." So they all stood
around while I cracked at this prestoopnick (criminal) in the near dark. I
fisted him all over, dancing about with my boots on though unlaced, and then I
tripped him and he went crash crash on to the floor. I gave him one real horrorshow
(good) kick on the gulliver (head) and he went ohhhh, then he sort of snorted
off to like sleep, and The Doctor said:
"Very
well, I think that wil be enough of a lesson," squinting to viddy (see)
this downed and beaten-up veck (person) on the floor. "Let him dream
perhaps about being a better boy in the future." So we all climbed back
into our bunks, being very tired now.
What I dreamt
of, O my brothers, was of being in some very big orchestra, hundreds and
hundreds strong, and the conductor was a like mixture of Ludwig van and G. F.
Handel, looking very deaf and blind and weary of the world. I was with the wind
instruments, but what I was playing was like a white pinky bassoon made of
flesh and growing out of my plott (body), right in the middle of my belly, and
when I blew into it I had to smeck (laugh) ha ha ha very loud because it like
tickled, and then Ludwig van G. F. got very razdraz (upset) and bezoomny
(brainy) (mad). Then he came right up to my litso (face) and creeched loud in
my ooko (ear), and then I woke up like sweating. Of course, what the loud shoom
(noise) really was was the prison buzzer going brrrrr brrrrr brrrrr. It was
winter morning and my glazz (eye)ies were all cally with sleepglue, and when I
opened up they were very sore in the electric light that had been switched on
all over the zoo.
Then I looked
down and viddied this new prestoopnick (criminal) lying on the floor, very
bloody and bruisy and still out out out.
Then I
remembered about last night and that made me smeck (laugh) a bit.
But when I got
off the bunk and moved him with my bare noga, there was a feel of like stiff
coldness, so I went over to The Doctor's bunk and shook him, him always being
very slow at waking up in the morning. But he was off his bunk skorry (quick)
enough this time, and so were the others, except for Wall who slept like dead
meat. "Very unfortunate," The Doctor said. "A heart attack,
that's what it must have been."
Then he said,
looking round at us all: "You really shouldn't have gone for him like
that. It was most ill-advised really."
Jojohn said:
"Come
come, doc, you weren't all that backward yourself in giving him a sly bit of
fist." Then Big Jew turned on me, saying:
"Alekth,
you were too impetuouth. That latht kick wath a very very nathty one." I
began to get razdraz (upset) about this and said:
"Who
started it, eh? I only got in at the end, didn't I?" I pointed at Jojohn
and said: "It was your idea." Wall snored a bit loud, so I said:
"Wake that vonny bratchny (bastard) up. It was him that kept on at his rot
(mouth) while Big Jew here had him up against the bars." The Doctor said:
"Nobody
will deny having a little hit at the man, to teach him a lesson so to speak,
but it's apparent that you, my dear boy, with the forcefulness and, shall I
say, heedlessness of youth, dealt him the coo de gras. It's a great pity."
"Traitors,"
I said. "Traitors and liars," because I could viddy (see) it was all
like before, two years before, when my so-called droogs had left me to the
brutal rooker (hand)s of the millicent (police)s.
There was no
trust anywhere in the world, O my brothers, the way I could see it. And Jojohn
went and woke up Wall, and Wall was only too ready to swear that it was Your
Humble Narrator that had done the real dirty tolchocking and brutality. When
the chassos came along, and then the Chief Chasso (guard), and then the
Governor himself, all these cell-droogs of mine were very shoom (noise)ny
(brainy) with tales of what I'd done to oobivat (kill) this worthless pervert
whose krovvy (blood)-covered plott (body) lay sacklike on the floor.
That was a very
queer day, O my brothers. The dead plott (body) was carried off, and then
everybody in the whole prison had to stay locked up until further orders, and
there was no pishcha (food) given out, not even a mug of hot chai (tea). We
just all sat there, and the warders or chassos sort of strode up and down the
tier, now and then creeching "Shut it" or "Close that hole"
whenever they slooshied even a whisper from any of the cells.
Then about
eleven o'clock in the morning there was a sort of like stiffening and
excitement and like the von (smell) of fear spreading from outside the cell,
and then we could viddy (see) the Governor and the Chief Chasso (guard) and
some very bolshy (big, great) important-looking chellovecks walking by real skorry
(quick), govoreeting like bezoomny (brainy) (mad). They seemed to walk right to
the end of the tier, then they could be slooshied walking back again, more slow
this time, and you could slooshy (hear) the Governor, a very sweaty fatty
fair-haired veck (person), saying slovos like "But, sir —" and
"Well, what can be done, sir?" and so on. Then the whole lot stopped
at our cell and the Chief Chasso (guard) opened up. You could viddy (see) who
was the real important veck (person) right away, very tall and with blue glazz
(eye)ies and with real horrorshow (good) platties (clothes) on him, the most
lovely suit, brothers, I have ever viddied, absolutely in the heighth of
fashion. He just sort of looked right through us poor plennies, saying, in a
very beautiful real educated goloss (voice): "The Government cannot be
concerned any longer with outmoded penological theories. Cram criminals
together and see what happens. You get concentrated criminality, crime in the
midst of punishment. Soon we may be needing all our prison space for political
offenders." I didn't pony (understand) this at all, brothers, but after
all he was not govoreeting to me. Then he said: "Common criminals like
this unsavoury crowd" - (that meant me, brothers, as well as the others,
who were real prestoopnicks and treacherous with it) —"can best be dealt
with on a purely curative basis. Kill the criminal reflex, that's all. Full
implementation in a year's time. Punishment means nothing to them, you can see
that. They enjoy their so-called punishment. They start murdering each
other."
And he turned
his stern blue glazz (eye)ies on me. So I said, bold:
"With
respect, sir, I object very strongly to what you said then. I am not a common
criminal, sir, and I am not unsavoury. The others may be unsavoury but I am
not." The Chief Chasso (guard) went all purple and creeched:
"You shut
your bleeding hole, you. Don't you know who this is?"
"All
right, all right," said this big veck (person). Then he turned to the
Governor and said: "You can use him as a trail-blazer. He's young, bold,
vicious. Brodsky will deal with him tomorrow and you can sit in and watch
Brodsky. It works all right, don't worry about that. This vicious young hoodlum
will be transformed out of all recognition."
And those hard
slovos, brothers, were like the beginning of my freedom.
That very same
evening I was dragged down nice and gentle by brutal tolchocking chassos to viddy
(see) the Governor in his holy of holies holy office. The Governor looked very
weary at me and said: "I don't suppose you know who that was this morning,
do you, 6655321?" And without waiting for me to say no he said: "That
was no less a personage than the Minister of the Interior, the new Minister of
the Interior and what they call a very new broom. Well, these new ridiculous
ideas have come at last and orders are orders, though I may say to you in
confidence that I do not approve. I most emphatically do not approve. An eye
for an eye, I say. If someone hits you you hit back, do you not? Why then
should not the State, very severely hit by you brutal hooligans, not hit back
also? But the new view is to say no. The new view is that we turn the bad into
the good. All of which seems to me grossly unjust. Hm?"
So I said,
trying to be like respectful and accomodating:
"Sir."
And then the Chief Chasso (guard), who was standing all red and burly behind
the Governor's chair, creeched:
"Shut your
filthy hole, you scum."
"All
right, all right," said the like tired and fagged-out Governor. "You,
6655321, are to be reformed. Tomorrow you go to this man Brodsky. It is
believed that you will be able to leave State Custody in a little over a
fortnight. In a little over a fortnight you will be out again in the big free
world, no longer a number. I suppose," and he snorted a bit here,
"that prospect pleases you?" I said nothing so the Chief Chasso
(guard) creeched:
"Answer,
you filthy young swine, when the Governor asks you a question." So I said:
"Oh, yes,
sir. Thank you very much, sir. I've done my best here, really I have. I'm very
grateful to all concerned."
"Don't
be," like sighed the Governor. "This is not a reward.
This is far
from being a reward. Now, there is a form here to be signed. It says that you
are wiling to have the residue of your sentence commuted to submission to what
is called here, ridiculous expression, Reclamation Treatment. Will you
sign?"
"Most
certainly I will sign," I said, "sir. And very many thanks." So
I was given an ink-pencil and I signed my name nice and flowy. The Governor
said:
"Right.
That's the lot, I think." The Chief Chasso (guard) said:
"The
Prison Chaplain would like a word with him, sir." So I was marched out and
off down the corridor towards the Wing Chapel, tolchocked on the back and the gulliver
(head) all the way by one of the chassos, but in a very like yawny and bored
manner. And I was marched across the Wing Chapel to the little cantora (office)
of the charles (chaplain) and then made to go in. The charles (chaplain) was
sitting at his desk, smelling loud and clear of a fine manny von (smell) of
expensive cancers and Scotch. He said:
"Ah,
little 6655321, be seated." And to the chassos: "Wait outside,
eh?" Which they did. Then he spoke in a very like earnest way to me,
saying: "One thing I want you to understand, boy, is that this is nothing
to do with me. Were it expedient, I would prot (mouth)est about it, but it is
not expedient.
There is the
question of my own career, there is the question of the weakness of my own
voice when set against the shout of certain more powerful elements in the polity.
Do I make myself clear?" He didn't, brothers, but I nodded that he did.
"Very hard
ethical questions are involved," he went on. "You are to be made into
a good boy, 6655321. Never again will you have the desire to commit acts of
violence or to offend in any way whatsoever against the State's Peace. I hope
you take all that in. I hope you are absolutely clear in your own mind about
that." I said:
"Oh, it
will be nice to be good, sir." But I had a real horrorshow (good) smeck
(laugh) at that inside, brothers. He said:
"It may
not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It may be horrible to be good. And when
I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that sounds. I know I shall
have many sleepless nights about this. What does God want? Does God want
woodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in
some ways better than a man who has the good imposed upon him? Deep and hard
questions, little 6655321. But all I want to say to you now is this: if at any
time in the future you look back to these times and remember me, the lowest and
humblest of all God's servitors, do not, I pray, think evil of me in your
heart, thinking me in any way involved in what is now about to happen to you.
And now, talking of praying, I realize sadly that there will be little point in
praying for you. You are passing now to a region where you will be beyond the
reach of the power of prayer. A terrible terrible thing to consider. And yet,
in a sense, in choosing to be deprive of the ability to make an ethical choice,
you have in a sense really chosen the good. So I shall like to think. So, God
help us all, 6655321, I shall like to think." And then he began to cry.
But I didn't really take much notice of that, brothers only having a bit of a
quiet smeck (laugh) inside, because you could viddy (see) that he had been peet
(drink)ing away at the old whisky, and now he took a bottle from a cupboard in
his desk and started to pour himself a real horrorshow (good) bolshy (big,
great) slog into a very greasy and grahzny (dirty) glass. He downed it and the
said: "All may be well, who knows? God works in a mysterious way."
Then he began to sing away at a hymn in a real loud rich goloss (voice). Then
the door opened and the chassos came in to tolchock (hit) me back to my vonny
cell, but the old charles (chaplain) still went on singing this hymn.
Well, the next
morning I had to say good-bye to the old Staja (state jail), and I felt a malenky
(little) bit sad as you always will when you have to leave a place you've like
got used to. But I didn't go very far, O my brothers. I was punched and kicked
along to the new white building just beyond the yard where we used to do our
bit of exercise. This was a very new building and it had a new cold like sizy
smell which gave you a bit of the shivers. I stood there in the horrible bolshy
(big, great) bare hall and I got new vons, sniffing away there with my like
very sensitive morder (snout) or sniffer. These were like hospital vons, and
the chelloveck (person) the chassos handed me over to had a white coat on, as
he might be a hospital man. He signed for me, and one of the brutal chassos who
had brought nme said: "You watch this one, sir. A right brutal bastard he
has been and will be again, in spite of all his sucking up to the Prison
Chaplain and reading the Bible." But this new chelloveck (person) had real
horrorshow (good) blue glazz (eye)ies which like smiled when he govoreeted. He
said:
"Oh, we
don't anticipate any trouble. We're going to be friends, aren't we?" And
he smiled with his glazz (eye)ies and his fine big rot (mouth) which was full
of shining white zoobies (teeth) and I sort of took to this veck (person) right
away. Anyway, he passed me on to a like lesser veck (person) in a white coat,
and this one was very nice too, and I was led off to a very nice white clean
bedroom with curtains and a bedside lamp, and just the one bed in it, all for
Your Humble Narrator. So I had a real horrorshow (good) inner smeck (laugh) at
that, thinking I was really a very lucky young malchick (boy)iwick. I was told
to take off my horrible prison platties (clothes) and I was given a really
beautiful set of pyjamas, O my brothers, in plain green, the heighth of bedwear
fashion. And I was given a nice warm dressing-gown too and lovely toofles
(slippers) to put my bare nogas in, and I thought: "Well, Alex boy, little
6655321 as was, you have copped it lucky and no mistake.
You are really
going to enjoy it here."
After I had
been given a nice chasha (cup) of real horrorshow (good) coffee and some old gazettas
and mags to look at while peet (drink)ing it, this first veck (person) in white
came in, the one who had like signed for me, and he said: "Aha, there you
are," a silly sort of a veshch (thing) to say but it didn't sound silly,
this veck (person) being so like nice. "My name," he said, "is
Dr. Branom. I'm Dr. Brodsky's assistant. With your permission, I'll just give
you the usual brief overall examination." And he took the old stetho out
of his right carman (pocket). "We must make sure you're quite fit, mustn't
we? Yes indeed, we must." So while I lay there with my pyjama top off and
he did this, that and the other, I said:
"What
exactly is it, sir, that you're going to do?"
"Oh,"
said Dr. Branom, his cold stetho going all down my back, "it's quite
simple, really. We just show you some films."
"Films?"
I said. I could hardly believe my ooko (ear)s, brothers, as you may well
understand. "You mean," I said, "it will be just like going to
the pictures?"
"They'll
be special films," said Dr. Branom. "Very special films. You'll be
having the first session this afternoon. Yes," he said, getting up from
bending over me, "you seem to be quite a fit young boy. A bit
under-nourished perhaps. That will be the fault of the prison food. Put your
pyjama top back on. After every meal," he said, sitting on the edge of the
bed, "we shall be giving you a shot in the arm. That should help." I
felt really grateful to this very nice Dr. Branom. I said:
"Vitamins,
sir, will it be?"
"Something
like that," he said, smiling real horrorshow (good) and friendly,
"just a jab in the arm after every meal." Then he went out. I lay on
the bed thinking this was like real heaven, and I read some of the mags they'd
given me —'Worldsport', 'Sinny (cinema)'
(this being a
film mag) and 'Goal'. Then I lay back on the bed and shut my glazz (eye)ies and
thought how nice it was going to be out there again, Alex with perhaps a nice
easy job during the day, me being now too old for the old skolliwoll (school),
and then perhaps getting a new like gang together for the nochy (night), and
the first rabbit (work) would be to get old Dim and Pete, if they had not been
got already by the millicent (police)s. This time I would be very careful not
to get loveted (caught). They were giving another like chance, me having done
murder and all, and it would not be like fair to get loveted (caught) again,
after going to all this trouble to show me films that were going to make me a
real good malchick (boy). I had a real horrorshow (good) smeck (laugh) at
everybody's like innocence, and I was smecking my gulliver (head) off when they
brought in my lunch on a tray. The veck (person) who brought it was the one
who'd led me to this malenky (little) bedroom when I came into the mesto
(place), and he said:
"It's nice
to know somebody's happy." It was really a very nice appetizing bit of pishcha
(food) they'd laid out on the tray —two or three lomticks of like hot roastbeef
with mashed kartoffel (potato) and vedge, then there was also ice-cream and a
nice hot chasha (cup) of chai (tea). And there was even a cancer (cigarette) to
smoke and a matchbox with one match in. So this looked like it was the life, O
my brothers. Then, about half an hour after while I was lying a bit sleepy on
the bed, a woman nurse came in, a real nice young devotchka (girl) with real horrorshow
(good) groodies (I had not seen such for two years) and she had a tray and a
hypodermic. I said:
"Ah, the
old vitamins, eh?" And I clickclicked at her but she took no notice. All
she did was to slam the needle into my left arm, and then swishhhh in went the
vitamin stuff. Then she went out again, clack clack on her high-heeled nogas.
Then the white-coated veck (person) who was like a male nurse came in with a
wheelchair. I was a malenky (little) bit surprised to viddy (see) that. I said:
"What
giveth then, brot (mouth)her? I can walk, surely, to wherever we have to itty
(to go) to." But he said:
"Best I
push you there." And indeed, O my brothers, when I got off the bed I found
myself a malenky (little) biy weak. It was the under-nourishment like Dr.
Branom had said, all that horrible prison pishcha (food). But the vitamins in
the after-meal injection would put me right. No doubt at all about that, I
thought.
Where I was
wheeled to, brothers, was like no sinny (cinema) I had ever viddied before. True
enough, one wall was all covered with silver screen, and direct opposite was a
wall with square holes in for the projector to project through, and there were
stereo speakers stuck all over the mesto (place). But against the right-hand
one of the other walls was a bank of all like little meters, and in the middle
of the floor facing the screen was like a dentist's chair with all lengths of
wire running from it, and I had to like crawl from the wheelchair to this,
being given some help by another like male nurse veck (person) in a white coat.
Then I noticed that underneath the projection holes was like all frosted glass
and I thought I viddied shadows of like people moving behind it and I thought I
slooshied somebody cough kashl kashl kashl. But then all I could like notice
was how weak I seemed to be, and I put that down to changing over from prison pishcha
(food) to this new rich pishcha (food) and the vitamins injected into me.
"Right," said the wheelchair-wheeling veck (person), "now I'll
leave you. The show will commence as soon as Dr. Brodsky arrives.
Hope you enjoy
it." To be truthful, brothers, I did not really feel that I wanted to viddy
(see) any film-show this afternoon. I was just not in the mood. I would have
liked much better to have a nice quiet spatchka on the bed, nice and quiet and
all on my oddy knocky (lonesome). I felt very limp.
What happened
now was that one white-coated veck (person) strapped my gulliver (head) to a
like head-rest, singing to himself all the time some vonny cally pop-song.
"What's this for?" I said.
And this veck
(person) replied, interrupting his like song an instant, that it was to keep my
gulliver (head) still and make me look at the screen. "But," I said,
"I want to look at the screen. I've been brought here to viddy (see) films
and viddy (see) films I shall." And then the other white-coat veck (person)
(there were three altogether, one of them a devotchka (girl) who was like
sitting at the bank of meters and twiddling with knobs) had a bit of a smeck
(laugh) at that.
He said:
"You never
know. Oh, you never know. Trust us, friend. It's better this way." And
then I found they were strapping my rooker (hand)s to the chair-arms and my
nogas were like stuck to a foot-rest. It seemed a bit bezoomny (brainy) (mad)
to me but I let them get on with what they wanted to get on with. If I was to
be a free young malchick (boy) again in a fortnight's time I would put up with
much in the meantime, O my brothers. One veshch (thing) I did not like, though,
was when they put like clips on the skin of my forehead, so that my top glazz
(eye)-lids were pulled up and up and up and I could not shut my glazz (eye)ies
no matter how I tried. I tried to smeck (laugh) and said: "This must be a
real horrorshow (good) film if you're so keen on my viddying it." And one
of the white-coat vecks said, smecking:
"Horrorshow
(good) is right, friend. A real show of horrors." And then I had like a
cap stuck on my gulliver (head) and I could viddy (see) all wires running away
from it, and they stuck a like suction pad on my belly and one on the old
tick-tocker, and I could just about viddy (see) wires running away from those.
Then there was the shoom (noise) of a door opening and you could tell some very
important chelloveck (person) was coming in by the way the white-coated
under-vecks went all stiff. And then I viddied this Dr. Brodsky. He was a malenky
(little) veck (person), very fat, with all curly hair curling all over his gulliver
(head), and on his spuddy nose he had very thick ochkies. I could just viddy
(see) that he had a real horrorshow (good) suit on, absolutely the heighth of
fashion, and he had a like very delicate and subtle von (smell) of
operating-theatres coming from him. With him was Dr. Branom, all smiling like
as though to give me confidence. "Everything ready?" said Dr.
Brodsky in a
very breathy goloss (voice). Then I could slooshy (hear) voices saying Right
right right from like a distance, then nearer to, then there was a quiet like
humming shoom (noise) as though things had been switched on. And then the
lights went out and there was Your Humble Narrator And Friend sitting alone in
the dark, all on his frightened oddy knocky (lonesome), not able to move nor
shut his glazz (eye)ies nor anything. And then, O my brothers, the film-show
started off with some very gromky (loud) atmosphere music coming from the
speakers, very fierce and full of discord. And then on the screen the picture
came on, but there was no title and no credits. What came on was a street, as
it might have been any street in any town, and it was a real dark nochy (night)
and the lamps were lit. It was a very good like professional piece of sinny
(cinema), and there were none of these flickers and blobs you get, say, when
you viddy (see) one of these dirty films in somebody's house in a back street.
All the time the music bumped out, very like sinister. And then you could viddy
(see) an old man coming down the street, very starry (ancient), and then there
leaped out on this starry (ancient) veck (person) two malchick (boy)s dressed
in the heighth of fashion, as it was at this time (still thin trousers but no
like cravat any more, more of a real tie), and then they started to filly
(play) with him. You could slooshy (hear) the screams and moans, very
realistic, and you could even get the like heavy breathing and panting of the
two tolchocking malchick (boy)s. They made a real pudding out of this starry
(ancient) veck (person), going crack (break) crack (break) crack (break) at him
with the fisty rooker (hand)s, tearing his platties (clothes) off and then
finishing up by booting his nagoy (naked) plott (body) (this lay all krovvy
(blood)-red in the grahzny (dirty) mud of the gutter) and then running off very
skorry (quick). Then there was the close-up gulliver (head) of this beaten-up starry
(ancient) veck (person), and the krovvy (blood) flowed beautiful red. It's
funny how the colours of the like real world only seem really real when you viddy
(see) them on the screen.
Now all the
time I was watching this I was beginning to get very aware of a like not
feeling all that well, and this I put down to the under-nourishment and my
stomach not quite ready for tthe rich pishcha (food) and vitamins I was getting
here. But I tried to forget this, concentrating on the next film which came on
at once, brothers, without any break at all. This time the film jumped right
away on a young devotchka (girl) who was being given the old in-out by first
one malchick (boy) then another then another then another, she creeching away
very gromky (loud) through the speakers and like very pathetic and tragic music
going on at the same time. This was real, very real, though if you thought
about it properly you couldn't imagine lewdies (people) actually agreeing to
having all this done to them in a film, and if these films were made by the
Good or the State you couldn't imagine them being allowed to take these films
without like interfering with what was going on. So it must have been very
clever what they call cutting or editing or some such veshch (thing). For it
was very real. And when it came to the sixth or seventh malchick (boy) leering
and smecking and then going into it and the devotchka (girl) creeching on the
sound-track like bezoomny (brainy) (mad), then I began to feel sick. I had like
pains all over and felt I could sick up and at the same time not sick up, and I
began to feel like in distress, O my brothers, being fixed rigid too on this
chair. When this bit of film was over I could slooshy (hear) the goloss (voice)
of this Dr. Brodsky from over by the switchboard saying: "Reaction about
twelve point five? Promising, promising."
Then we shot
straight into another lomtick (piece) of film, and this time it was of just a
human litso (face), a very like pale human face held still and having different
nasty veshches (things) done to it. I was sweating a malenky (little) bit with
the pain in my guts and a horrible thirst and my gulliver (head) going throb
throb throb, and it seemed to me that if I could not viddy (see) this bit of
film I would perhaps be not so sick. But I could not shut my glazz (eye)ies,
and even if I tried to move my glaz-balls about I still could not get like out
of the line of fire of this picture. So I had to go on viddying what was being
done and hearing the most ghastly creechings coming from this litso (face). I
knew it could not really be real, but that made no difference. I was heaving
away but could not sick, viddying first a britva (razor) cut out an eye, then
slice down the cheek, then go rip rip rip all over, while red krovvy (blood)
shot on to the camera lens. Then all the teeth were like wrenched out with a
pair of pliers, and the creeching and the blood were terrific. Then I slooshied
this very pleased goloss (voice) of Dr.
Brodsky going:
"Excellent, excellent, excellent."
The next lomtick
(piece) of film was of an old woman who kept a shop being kicked about amid
very gromky (loud) laughter by a lot of malchick (boy)s, and these malchick
(boy)s broke up the shop and then set fire to it. You could viddy (see) this
poor starry (ancient) ptitsa (chick) trying to crawl out of the flames,
screaming and creeching, but having had her leg broke by these malchick (boy)s
kicking her she could not move. So then all the flames went roaring round her,
and you could viddy (see) her agonized litso (face) like appealing through the
flames and the disappearing in the flames, and then you could slooshy (hear)
the most gromky (loud) and agonized and agonizing screams that ever came from a
human goloss (voice). So this time I knew I had to sick up, so I creeched:
"I want to
be sick. Please let me be sick. Please bring something for me to be sick
into." But this Dr. Brodsky called back:
"Imagination
only. You've nothing to worry about. Next film coming up." That was
perhaps meant to be a joke, for I heard a like smeck (laugh) coming from the
dark. And then I was forced to viddy (see) a most nasty film about Japanese
torture. It was the 1939-45 War, and there were soldiers being fixed to trees
with nails and having fires lit under them and having their yarbles (testicles)
cut off, and you even viddied a gulliver (head) being sliced off a soldier with
a sword, and then with his head rolling about and the rot (mouth) and glazz
(eye)ies looking alive still, the plott (body) of this soldier actually ran
about, krovvying like a fountain out of the neck, and then it dropped, and all
the time there was very very loud laughter from the Japanese. The pains I felt
now in my belly and the headache and the thirst were terrible, and they all
seemed to be coming out of the screen. So I creeched:
"Stop the
film! Please, please stop it! I can't stand any more." And then the goloss
(voice) of this Dr. Brodsky said:
"Stop it?
Stop it, did you say? Why, we've hardly started."
And he and the
others smecked quite loud.
I do not wish
to describe, brothers, what other horrible veshches (things) I was like forced
to viddy (see) that afternoon. The like minds of this Dr. Brodsky and Dr.
Branom and the others in white coats, and remember there was this devotchka
(girl) twiddling with the knobs and watching the meters, they must have been
more cally and filthy than any prestoopnick (criminal) in the Staja (state
jail) itself. Because I did not think it was possible for any veck (person) to
even think of making films of what I was forced to viddy (see), all tied to
this chair and my glazz (eye)ies made to be wide open. All I could do was to creech
(scream) very gromky (loud) for them to turn it off, turn it off, and that like
part drowned the noise of dratsing (fighting) and filly (play)ing and also the
music that went with it all. You can imagine it was like a terrible relief when
I'd viddied the last bit of film, and this Dr. Brodsky said, in a very yawny
and bored like goloss (voice): "I think that should be enough for Day One,
don't you, Branom?" And there I was with the lights switched on, my gulliver
(head) throbbing like a bolshy (big, great) big engine that makes pain, and my rot
(mouth) all dry and cally inside, and feeling I could like sick up every bit of
pishcha (food) I had ever eaten, O my brothers, since the day I was like
weaned. "All right," said this Dr. Brodsky, "he can be taken
back to his bed." Then he like patted me on the pletcho (shoulder) and
said: "Good, good. A very promising start," grinning all over his litso
(face), then he like waddled out, Dr. Branom after him, but Dr. Branom gave me
a like very droogy and sympathetic type smile as though he had nothing to do
with all this veshch (thing) but was like forced into it as I was.
Anyhow, they
freed my plott (body) from the chair and they let go the skin above my glazz
(eye)ies so that I could open and shut them again, and I shut them, O my brothers,
with the pain and throb in my gulliver (head), and then I was like carried to
the old wheelchair and taken back to my malenky (little) bedroom, the under-veck
(person) who wheeled me singing away at some hound-and-horn (cry out)y popsong
so that I like snarled: "Shut it, thou," but he only smecked and
said: "Never mind, friend," and then sang louder.
So I was put
into the bed and still felt bolnoy (sick) but could not sleep, but soon I
started to feel that soon I might start to feel that I might soon start feeling
just a malenky (little) bit better, and then I was brought some nice hot chai
(tea) with plenty of moloko (milk) and sakar (sugar) and, peet (drink)ing that,
I knew that that like horrible nightmare was in the past and all over. And then
Dr. Branom came in, all nice and smiling. He said:
"Well, by
my calculations you should be starting to feel all right again. Yes?"
"Sir,"
I said, like wary. I did not quite kopat (dig) what he was getting at
govoreeting about calculations, seeing that getting better from feeling bolnoy
(sick) is like your own affair and nothing to do with calculations. He sat
down, all nice and droogy, on the bed's edge and said:
"Dr.
Brodsky is pleased with you. You had a very positive response. Tomorrow, of
course, there'll be two sessions, morning and afternoon, and I should imagine
that you'll be feeling a bit limp at the end of the day. But we have to be hard
on you, you have to be cured." I said:
"You mean
I have to sit through —? You mean I have to look at —? Oh, no," I said.
"It was horrible."
"Of course
it was horrible," smiled Dr. Branom. "Violence is a very horrible
thing. That's what you're learning now. Your body is learning it."
"But,"
I said, "I don't understand. I don't understand about feeling sick like I
did. I never used to feel sick before. I used to feel like very the opposite. I
mean, doing it or watching it I used to feel real horrorshow (good). I just
don't understand why or how or what —"
"Life is a
very wonderful thing," said Dr. Branom in a like very holy goloss (voice).
"The processes of life, the make-up of the human organism, who can fully
understand these miracles? Dr.
Brodsky is, of
course, a remarkable man. What is happening to you now is what should happen to
any normal healthy human organism contemplating the actions of the forces of
evil, the workings of the principle of destruction. You are being made sane,
you are being made healthy."
"That I
will not have," I said, "nor can understand at all.
What you've
been doing is to make me feel very ill."
"Do you
feel ill now?" he said, still with the old droogy smile on his litso
(face). "Drinking tea, resting, having a quiet chat with a friend —surely
you're not feeling anything but well?"
I like listened
and felt for pain and sickness in my gulliver (head) and plott (body), in a
like cautious way, but it was true, brothers, that I felt real horrorshow
(good) and even wanting my dinner. "I don't get it," I said.
"You must be doing something to me to make me feel ill." And I sort
of frowned about that, thinking.
"You felt
ill this afternoon," he said, "because you're getting better. When
we're healthy we respond to the presence of the hateful with fear and nausea.
You're becoming healthy, that's all. You'll be healthier still this time
tomorrow." Then he patted me on the noga and went out, and I tried to
puzzle the whole veshch (thing) out as best I could. What it seemed to me was
that the wire and other veshches (things) that were fixed to my plott (body)
perhaps were making me feel ill, and that it was all a trick really. I was
still puzzling out all this and wondering whether I should refuse to be
strapped down to this chair tomorrow and start a real bit of dratsing
(fighting) with them all, because I had my rights, when another chelloveck
(person) came in to see me. He was a like smiling starry (ancient) veck
(person) who said he was what he called the Discharge Officer, and he carried a
lot of bits of paper with him. He said:
"Where
will you go when you leave here?" I hadn't really thought about that sort
of veshch (thing) at all, and it only now really began to dawn on me that I'd
be a fine free malchick (boy) very soon, and then I viddied that would only be
if I played it everybody's way and did not start any dratsing (fighting) and
creeching and refusing and so on. I said:
"Oh, I
shall go home. Back to my pee and em (parents)."
"Your -
?" He didn't get nadsat (teenage)-talk at all, so I said:
"To my
parents in the dear old flatblock."
"I
see," he said. "And when did you last have a visit from your
parents?"
"A
month," I said, "very near. They like suspended visiting-day for a
bit because of one prestoopnick (criminal) getting some blasting-powder
smuggled in across the wires from his ptitsa (chick). A real cally trick to
play on the innocent, like punishing them as well. So it's near a month since I
had a visit."
"I
see," said this veck (person). "And have your parents been informed
of your transfer and impending release?" That had a real lovely zvook
(sound) that did, that slovo (word) 'release'. I said:
"No."
Then I said: "It will be a nice surprise for them, that, won't it? Me just
walking in through the door and saying:
'Here I am,
back, a free veck (person) again.' Yes, real horrorshow (good)."
"Right,"
said the Discharge Officer veck (person), "we'll leave it at that.
So long as you
have somewhere to live. Now, there's the question of your having a job, isn't
there?" And he showed me this long list of jobs I could have, but I
thought, well, there would be time enough for that. A nice malenky (little)
holiday first. I could do a crasting job soon as I got out and fill the old
carmans with pretty polly (money), but I would have to be very careful and I
would have to do the job all on my oddy knocky (lonesome). I did not trust
so-called droogs any more. So I told this veck (person) to leave it a bit and
we would govoreet (talk) about it again. He said right right right, then got
ready to leave. He showed himself to be a very queer sort of a veck (person),
because what he did now was to like giggle and then say: "Would you like
to punch me in the face before I go?" I did not think I could possibly
have slooshied that right, so I said:
"Eh?"
"Would
you," he giggled, "like to punch me in the face before I go?" I
frowned like at that, very puzzled, and said:
"Why?"
"Oh,"
he said, "just to see how you're getting on." And he brought his litso
(face) real near, a fat grin all over his rot (mouth). So I fisted up and went
smack at this litso (face), but he pulled himself away real skorry (quick), grinning
still, and my rooker (hand) just punched air. Very puzzling, this was, and I
frowned as he left, smecking his gulliver (head) off. And then, my brothers, I
felt real sick again, just like in the afternoon, just for a couple of minoota
(minute)s. It then passed off skorry (quick), and when they brought my dinner
in I found I had a fair appetite and was ready to crunk away at the roast
chicken. But it was funny that starry (ancient) chelloveck (person) asking for
a tolchock (hit) in the litso (face). And it was funny feeling sick like that.
What was even
funnier was when I went to sleep that night, O my brothers, I had a nightmare,
and, as you might expect, it was one of those bits of film I'd viddied in the
afternoon. A dream or nightmare is really only like a film inside your gulliver
(head), except that it is as though you could walk into it and be part of it.
And this is what happened to me. It was a nightmare of one of the bits of film
they showed me near the end of the afternoon like session, all of smecking malchick
(boy)s doing the ultra-violent on a young ptitsa (chick) who was creeching away
in her red red krovvy (blood), her platties (clothes) all razrez (rip)zed real horrorshow
(good). I was in this filly (play)ing about, smecking away and being like the
ring-leader, dressed in the heighth of nadsat (teenage) fashion. And then at
the heighth of all this dratsing (fighting) and tolchocking I felt like
paralysed and wanting to be very sick, and all the other malchick (boy)s had a
real gromky (loud) smeck (laugh) at me. Then I was dratsing (fighting) my way
back to being awake all through my own krovvy (blood), pints and quarts and
gallons of it, and then I found myself in my bed in this room. I wanted to be
sick, so I got out of the bed all trembly so as to go off down the corridor to
the old vaysay (washroom).
But, behold, brothers,
the door was locked. And turning round I viddied for like the first raz (time)
that there were bars on the window. And so, as I reached for the like pot in
the malenky (little) cupboard beside the bed, I viddied that there would be no
escaping from any of all this. Worse, I did not dare to go back into my own
sleeping gulliver (head). I soon found I did not want to be sick after all, but
then I was poogly (frightened) of getting back into bed to sleep. But soon I
fell smack into sleep and did not dream any more.
"Stop it,
stop it, stop it," I kept on creeching out. "Turn it off you grahzny
(dirty) bastards, for I can stand no more." It was the next day, brothers,
and I had truly done my best morning and afternoon to play it their way and sit
like a horrorshow (good) smiling cooperative malchick (boy) in their chair of
torture while they flashed nasty bits of ultra-violence on the screen, my glazz
(eye)ies clipped open to viddy (see) all, my plott (body) and rooker (hand)s
and nogas fixed to the chair so I could not get away. What I was being made to viddy
(see) now was not really a veshch (thing) I would have thought to be too bad
before, it being only three or four malchick (boy)s crasting in a shop and filling
their carmans with cutter (money), at the same time filly (play)ing about with
the creeching starry (ancient) ptitsa (chick) running the shop, tolchocking her
and letting the red red krovvy (blood) flow. But the throb and like crash crash
crash in my gulliver (head) and the wanting to be sick and the terrible dry
rasping thirstiness in my rot (mouth), all were worse than yesterday.
"Oh. I've
had enough" I cried. "It's not fair, you vonny sods," and I
tried to struggle out of the chair but it was not possible me being as good as
stuck to it.
"First-class,"
creeched out this Dr. Brodsky. "You're doing really well. Just one more
and then we're finished."
What it was now
was the starry (ancient) 1939-45 War again, and it was a very blobby and liny
and crackly film you could viddy (see) had been made by the Germans. It opened
with German eagles and the Nazi flag with that like crook (hand)ed cross that
all malchick (boy)s at school love to draw, and then there were very haughty
and nadmenny (arrogant) like German officers walking through streets that were
all dust and bomb-holes and broken buildings. Then you were allowed to viddy
(see) lewdies (people) being shot against walls, officers giving the orders,
and also horrible nagoy (naked) plott (body)s left lying in gutters, all like
cages of bare ribs and white thin nogas. Then there were lewdies (people) being
dragged off creeching though not on the sound-track, my brothers, the only
sound being music, and being tolchocked while they were dragged off. Then I
noticed, in all my pain and sickness, what music it was that like crackled and
boomed on the sound-track, and it was Ludwig van, the last movement of the
Fifth Symphony, and I creeched like bezoomny (brainy) (mad) at that.
"Stop!"
I creeched.
"Stop, you grahzny (dirty) disgusting sods. It's a sin, that's what it is,
a filthy unforgivable sin, you bratchnies!" They didn't stop right away,
because there was only a minute or two more to go —lewdies (people) being
beaten up and all krovvy (blood), then more firing squads, then the old Nazi
flag and THE END. But when the lights came on this Dr. Brodsky and also Dr.
Branom were standing in front of me, and Dr. Brodsky said:
"What's all
this about sin, eh?"
"That,"
I said, very sick. "Using Ludwig van like that. He did no harm to anyone.
Beethoven just wrot (mouth)e music." And then I was really sick and they
had to bring a bowl that was in the shape of like a kidney.
"Music,"
said Dr. Brodsky, like musing. "So you're keen on music. I know nothing
about it myself. It's a useful emotional heightener, that's all I know. Well,
well. What do you think about that, eh, Branom?"
"It can't
be helped," said Dr. Branom. "Each man kills the thing he loves, as
the poet-prisoner said. Here's the punishment element, perhaps. The Governor
ought to be pleased."
"Give me a
drink," I said, "for Bog (God)'s sake."
"Loosen
him," ordered Dr. Brodsky. "Fetch him a carafe of ice-cold
water." So then these under-vecks got to work and soon I was peet (drink)ing
gallons and gallons of water and it was like heaven, O my brothers. Dr. Brodsky
said:
"You seem
a sufficiently intelligent young man. You seem, too, to be not without taste.
You've just got this violence thing, haven't you? Violence and theft, theft
being an aspect of violence." I didn't govoreet (talk) a single slovo
(word), brothers, I was still feeling sick, though getting a malenky (little)
bit better now. But it had been a terrible day. "Now then," said Dr.
Brodsky, "how do you think this is done? Tell me, what do you think we're
doing to you?"
"You're
making me feel ill. I'm ill when I look at those filthy pervert films of yours.
But it's not really the films that's doing it. But I feel that if you'll stop
these films I'll stop feeling ill."
"Right,"
said Dr. Brodsky. "It's association, the oldest educational method in the
world. And what really causes you to feel ill?"
"These grahzny
(dirty) sodding veshches (things) that come out of my gulliver (head) and my plott
(body)," I said, "that's what it is."
"Quaint,"
said Dr. Brodsky, like smiling, "the dialect of the tribe. Do you know
anything of its provenance, Branom?"
"Odd bits
of old rhyming slang," said Dr. Branom, who did not look quite so much
like a friend any more. "A bit of gipsy talk, too. But most of the roots are
Slav. Propaganda. Subliminal penetration."
"All
right, all right, all right," said Dr. Brodsky, like impatient and not
interested any more. "Well," he said to me, "it isn't the wires.
It's nothing to do with what's fastened to you. Those are just for measuring
your reactions. What is it, then?"
I viddied then,
of course, what a bezoomny (brainy) (mad) shoot (fool) I was not to notice that
it was the hypodermic shots in the rooker (hand).
"Oh,"
I creeched, "oh, I viddy (see) all now. A filthy cally vonny trick. An act
of treachery, sod (fornicate) you, and you won't do it again."
"I'm glad
you've raised your objections now," said Dr.
Brodsky.
"Now we can be perfectly clear about it. We can get this stuff of
Ludovico's into your system in many different ways. Orally, for instance. But
the subcutaneous method is the best. Don't fight against it, please. There's no
point in your fighting. You can't get the better of us."
"Grahzny
(dirty) bratchnies," I said, like snivelling. Then I said: "I don't
mind about the ultra-violence and all that cal (feces). I put up with that. But
it's not fair on the music. It's not fair I should feel ill when I'm slooshying
lovely Ludwig van and G. F. Handel and others. All that shows you're an evil
lot of bastards and I shall never forgive you, sods."
They both
looked a bit like thoughtful. Then Dr. Brodsky said: "Delimitation is
always difficult. The world is one, life is one. The sweetest and most heavenly
of activities partake in some measure of violence —the act of love, for
instance; music, for instance. You must take your chance, boy. The choice has
been all yours." I didn't understand all these slovos, but now I said:
"You
needn't take it any further, sir." I'd changed my tune a malenky (little)
bit in my cunning way. "You've proved to me that all this dratsing
(fighting) and ultra-violence and killing is wrong wrong and terribly wrong.
I've learned my lesson, sirs. I see now what I've never seen before. I'm cured,
praise God." And I raised my glazz (eye)ies in a like holy way to the
ceiling. But both these doctors shook their gullivers like sadly and Dr.
Brodsky said:
"You're
not cured yet. There's still a lot to be done. Only when your body reacts
promptly and violently to violence, as to a snake, without further help from
us, without medication, only then —" I said:
"But, sir,
sirs, I see that it's wrong. It's wrong because it's against like society, it's
wrong because every veck (person) on earth has the right to live and be happy
without being beaten and tolchocked and knifed. I've learned a lot, oh really I
have."
But Dr. Brodsky
had a loud long smeck (laugh) at that, showing all his white zoobies (teeth),
and said:
"The
heresy of an age of reason," or some such slovos. "I see what is
right and approve, but I do what is wrong. No, no, my boy, you must leave it
all to us. But be cheerful about it. It will soon be all over. In less than a
fortnight now you'll be a free man." Then he patted me on the pletcho
(shoulder).
Less than a
fortnight, O my brothers and friends, it was like an age. It was like from the
beginning of the world to the end of it. To finish the fourteen years without
remission in the Staja (state jail) would have been nothing to it. Every day it
was the same. When the devotchka (girl) with the hypodermic came round, though,
four days after this govoreeting with Dr. Brodsky and Dr. Branom, I said:
"Oh, no you won't," and tolchocked her on the rooker (hand), and the
syringe went tinkle clatter on to the floor. That was like to viddy (see) what
they would do. What they did was to get four or five real bolshy (big, great)
white-coated bastards of under-vecks to hold me down on the bed, tolchocking me
with grinny litsos close to mine, and then this nurse ptitsa (chick) said:
"You wicked naughty little devil, you," while she jabbed my rooker
(hand) with another syringe and squirted this stuff in real brutal and nasty.
And then I was wheeled off exhausted to this like hell sinny (cinema) as
before.
Every day, my brothers,
these films were like the same, all kicking and tolchocking and red red krovvy
(blood) dripping off of litsos and plott (body)s and spattering all over the
camera lenses. It was usually grinning and smecking malchick (boy)s in the
heighth of nadsat (teenage) fashion, or else teeheeheeing Jap torturers or
brutal Nazi kickers and shoot (fool)ers. And each day the feeling of wanting to
die with the sickness and gulliver (head) pains and aches in the zoobies
(teeth) and horrible horrible thirst grew really worse. Until one morning I
tried to defeat the bastards by crash crash crashing my gulliver (head) against
the wall so that I should tolchock (hit) myself unconscious, but all that
happened was I felt sick with viddying that this kind of violence was like the
violence in the films, so I was just exhausted and was given the injection and
was wheeled off like before.
And then there
came a morning when I woke up and had my breakfast of eggs and toast and jam
and very hot milky chai (tea), and then I thought: "It can't be much
longer now. Now must be very near the end of the time. I have suffered to the
heighths and cannot suffer any more." And I waited and waited, brothers,
for this nurse ptitsa (chick) to bring in the syringe, but she did not come.
And then the white-coated under-veck (person) came and said:
"Today,
old friend, we are letting you walk."
"Walk?"
I said. "Where?"
"To the
usual place," he said. "Yes, yes, look not so astonished. You are to
walk to the films, me with you of course.
You are no
longer to be carried in a wheelchair."
"But,"
I said, "how about my horrible morning injection?"
For I was
really surprised at this, brothers, they being so keen on pushing this Ludovico
veshch (thing) into me, as they said. "Don't I get that horrible sicky
stuff rammed into my poor suffering rooker (hand) any more?"
"All
over," like smecked this veck (person). "For ever and ever amen.
You're on your
own now, boy. Walking and all to the chamber of horrors. But you're still to be
strapped down and made to see. Come on then, my little tiger." And I had
to put my over-gown and toofles (slippers) on and walk down the corridor to the
like sinny (cinema) mesto (place).
Now this time,
O my brothers, I was not only very sick but very puzzled. There it was again,
all the old ultra-violence and vecks with their gullivers smashed and torn krovvy
(blood)-dripping ptitsa (chick)s creeching for mercy, the like private and
individual filly (play)ing and nastiness. Then there were the prison-camps and
the Jews and the grey like foreign streets full of tanks and uniforms and vecks
going down in withering rifle-fire, this being the public side of it. And this
time I could blame nothing for me feeling sick and thirsty and full of aches
except what I was forced to viddy (see), my glazz (eye)ies still being clipped
open and my nogas and plott (body) fixed to the chair but this set of wires and
other veshches (things) no longer coming out of my plott (body) and gulliver
(head). So what could it be but the films I was viddying that were doing this
to me? Except, of course, brothers, that this Ludovico stuff was like a
vaccination and there it was cruising about in my krovvy (blood), so that I
would be sick always for ever and ever amen whenever I viddied any of this
ultra-violence.
So now I
squared my rot (mouth) and went boo hoo hoo, and the tears like blotted out
what I was forced to viddy (see) in like all blessed runny silvery dewdrops.
But these white-coat bratchnies were skorry (quick) with their tashtooks to
wipe the tears away, saying: "There there, wazzums all weepy-weepy
den."
And there it
was again all clear before my glazz (eye)ies, these Germans prod (produce)ding
like beseeching and weeping Jews —vecks and cheenas and malchick (boy)s and
devotchkas —into mesto (place)s where they would all snuff it (die) of poison
gas. Boo hoo hoo I had to go again, and along they came to wipe the tears off,
very skorry (quick), so I should not miss one solitary veshch (thing) of what
they were showing. It was a terrible and horrible day, O my brothers and only
friends.
I was lying on
the bed all alone that nochy (night) after my dinner of fat thick mutton stew
and fruit-pie and ice-cream, and I thought to myself: "Hell hell hell,
there might be a chance for me if I get out now." I had no weapon, though.
I was allowed no britva (razor) here, and I had been shaved every other day by
a fat bald-headed veck (person) who came to my bed before breakfast, two
white-coated bratchnies standing by to viddy (see) I was a good non-violent malchick
(boy). The nails on my rooker (hand)s had been scissored and filed real short
so I could not scratch. But I was still skorry (quick) on the attack, though
they had weakened me down, brothers, to a like shadow of what I had been in the
old free days. So now I got off the bed and went to the locked door and began
to fist it real horrorshow (good) and hard, creeching at the same time:
"Oh, help help. I'm sick, I'm dying. Doctor doctor doctor, quick. Please.
Oh, I'll die, I shall. Help." My gorlo (throat) was real dry and sore
before anyone came. Then I heard nogas coming down the corridor and a like
grumbling goloss (voice), and then I recognized the goloss (voice) of the
white-coated veck (person) who brought me pishcha (food) and like escorted me
to my daily doom.
He like
grumbled:
"What is
it? What goes on? What's your little nasty game in there?"
"Oh, I'm
dying," I like moaned. "Oh, I have a ghastly pain in my side.
Appendicitis, it is. Ooooooh."
"Appendy
shitehouse," grumbled this veck (person), and then to my joy, brothers, I
could slooshy (hear) the like clank of keys. "If you're trying it little
friend, my friends and me will beat and kick you all through the night."
Then he opened up and brought in like the sweet air of the promise of my
freedom. Now I was like behind the door when he pushed it open, and I could viddy
(see) him in the corridor light looking round for me puzzled. Then I raised my
two fisties to tolchock (hit) him on the neck nasty, and then, I swear, as I
viddied him in advance lying moaning or out out out and felt the like joy rise
in my guts, it was then that this sickness rose in me as it might be a wave and
I felt a horrible fear as if I was really going to die. I like tottered over to
the bed going urgh urgh urgh, and the veck (person), who was not in his white
coat but an over-gown, viddied clear enough what I had in mind for he said:
"Well,
everything's a lesson, isn't it? Learning all the time, as you could say. Come
on, little friend, get up from that bed and hit me. I want you to, yes, really.
A real good crack (break) across the jaw. Oh, I'm dying for it, really I
am." But all I could do, brothers, was to just lay there sobbing boo hoo
hoo. "Scum," like sneered this veck (person) now. "Filth."
And he pulled me up by like the scruff of my pyjama-top, me being very weak and
limp, and he raised and swung his right rooker (hand) so that I got a fair old tolchock
(hit) clean on the litso (face). "That," he said, "is for
getting me out of my bed, you young dirt." And he wiped his rooker (hand)s
against each other swish swish and went out. Crunch crunch went the key in the
lock.
And what, brothers,
I had to escape into sleep from then was the horrible and wrong feeling that it
was better to get the hit than give it. If that veck (person) had stayed I
might even have like presented the other cheek.
I could not
believe, brothers, what I was told. It seemed that I had been in that vonny mesto
(place) for near ever and would be there for near ever more. But it had always
been a fortnight and now they said the fortnight was near up. They said:
"Tomorrow,
little friend, out out out." And they made with the old thumb, like
pointing to freedom. And then the white-coated veck (person) who had tolchocked
me and who had still brought me my trays of pishcha (food) and like escorted me
to my everyday torture said: "But you still have one real big day in front
of you. It's to be your passing-out day," and he had a leery smeck (laugh)
at that.
I expected this
morning that I would be itty (to go)ing as usual to the sinny (cinema) mesto
(place) in my pyjamas and toofles (slippers) and over-gown.
But no. This
morning I was given my shirt and underveshches (things) and my platties
(clothes) of the night and my horrorshow (good) kick-boots, all lovely and
washed or ironed and polished. And I was even given my cut-throat britva
(razor) that I had used in those old happy days for filly (play)ing and dratsing
(fighting). So I gave with the puzzled frown at this as I got dressed, but the
white-coated under-veck (person) just like grinned and would govoreet (talk)
nothing, O my brothers.
I was led quite
kindly to the same old mesto (place), but there were changes there. Curtains
had been drawn in front of the sinny (cinema) screen and the frosted glass
under the projection holes was no longer there, it having perhaps been pushed
up or folded to the sides like blinds or shutters. And where there had been
just the noise of coughing kashl kashl kashl and like shadows of the lewdies
(people) was now a real audience, and in this audience there were litsos I
knew. There was the Staja (state jail) Governor and the holy man, the charlie
(chaplain) or charles (chaplain) as he was called, and the Chief Chasso (guard)
and this very important and well-dressed chelloveck (person) who was the
Minister of the Interior or Inferior. All the rest I did not know. Dr. Brodsky
and Dr. Branom were there, though not now white-coated, instead they were
dressed as doctors would dress who were big enough to want to dress in the
heighth of fashion. Dr. Branom just stood, but Dr. Brodsky stood and govoreeted
in a like learned manner to all the lewdies (people) assembled. When he viddied
me coming in he said:
"Aha. At
this stage, gentlemen, we introduce the subject himself. He is, as you will
percieve, fit and well nourished. He comes straight from a night's sleep and a
good breakfast, undrugged, unhypnotized. Tomorrow we send him with confidence
out into the world again, as decent a lad as you would meet on a May morning,
inclined to the kindly word and the helpful act. What a change is here,
gentlemen, from the wretched hoodlum the State committed to unprofitable
punishment some two years ago, unchanged after two years.
Unchanged, do I
say? Not quite. Prison taught him the false smile, the rubbed hands of
hypocrisy, the fawning greased obsequious leer. Other vices it taught him, as
well as confirming him in those he had long practised before. But gentlemen,
enough of words. Actions speak louder than.
Action now.
Observe, all."
I was a bit
dazed by all this govoreeting and I was trying to grasp in my mind that like
all this was about me. Then all the lights went out and then there came on two
like spotlights shining from the projection-squares, and one of them was full
on Your Humble and Suffering Narrator. And into the other spotlight there
walked a bolshy (big, great) big chelloveck (person) I had never viddied
before. He had a lardy like litso (face) and a moustache and like strips of
hair pasted over his near-bald gulliver (head). He was about thirty or forty or
fifty, some old age like that, starry (ancient).
He ittied up to
me and the spotlight ittied with him, and soon the two spotlights had made like
one big pool. He said to me, very sneery: "Hello, heap of dirt. Pooh, you
don't wash much, judging from the horrible smell." Then, as if he was like
dancing, he stamped on my nogas, left, right, then he gave me a finger-nail
flick on the nose that hurt like bezoomny (brainy) (mad) and brought the old
tears to my glazz (eye)ies then he twisted at my left ooko (ear) like it was a
radio dial. I could slooshy (hear) titters and a couple of real horrorshow
(good) hawhawhaws coming from like the audience. My nose and nogas and ear-hole
stung and pained like bezoomny (brainy) (mad), so I said:
"What do
you do that to me for? I've never done wrong to you, brot (mouth)her."
"Oh,"
this veck (person) said, "I do this" —flickedflicked nose again
"and that" —twisted smarting ear-hole —"and the other"
—stamped nasty on right noga —"because I don't care for your horrible
type. And if you want to do anything about it, start, start, please do."
Now I knew that I'd have to be real skorry (quick) and get my cut-throat britva
(razor) out before this horrible killing sickness whooshed up and turned the
like joy of battle into feeling I was going to snuff it (die). But, O brothers,
as my rooker (hand) reached for the britva (razor) in my inside carman (pocket)
I got this like picture in my mind's glazz (eye)y of this insulting chelloveck
(person) howling for mercy with the red red krovvy (blood) all streaming out of
his rot (mouth), and hot after this picture the sickness and dryness and pains
were rushing to overtake, and I viddied that I'd have to change the way I felt
about this rot (mouth)ten veck (person) very very skorry (quick) indeed, so I
felt in my carmans for cigarettes or for pretty polly (money), and, O my brothers,
there was not either of these veshches (things), I said, like all howly and
blubbery:
"I'd like
to give you a cigarette, brot (mouth)her, but I don't seem to have any."
This veck (person) went:
"Wah wah.
Boohoohoo. Cry, baby." Then he flickflickflicked with his bolshy (big,
great) horn (cry out)y nail at my nose again, and I could slooshy (hear) very
loud smecks of like mirth coming from the dark audience. I said, real
desperate, trying to be nice to this insulting and hurtful veck (person) to
stop the pains and sickness coming up:
"Please
let me do something for you, please." And I felt in my carmans but could
find only my cut-throat britva (razor), so I took this out and handed it to him
and said: "Please take this, please. A little present. Please have
it." But he said:
"Keep your
stinking bribes to yourself. You can't get round me that way." And he banged
at my rooker (hand) and my cut-throat britva (razor) fell on the floor. So I
said:
"Please, I
must do something. Shall I clean your boots? Look, I'll get down and lick
them." And, my brothers, believe it or kiss my sharries (buttocks), I got
down on my knees and pushed my red yahzick (tongue) out a mile and half to lick
his grahzny (dirty) vonny boots.
But all this veck
(person) did was to kick me not too hard on the rot (mouth).
So then it
seemed to me that it would not bring on the sickness and pain if I just gripped
his ankles with my rooker (hand)s tight round them and brought this grashzny bratchny
(bastard) down to the floor. So I did this and he got a real bolshy (big,
great) surprise, coming down crack (break) amid loud laughter from the vonny
audience. But viddying him on the floor I could feel the whole horrible feeling
coming over me, so I gave him my rooker (hand) to lift him up skorry (quick)
and up he came. Then just as he was going to give me a real nasty and earnest tolchock
(hit) on the litso (face) Dr. Brodsky said:
"All
right, that will do very well." Then this horrible veck (person) sort of
bowed and danced off like an actor while the lights came up on me blinking and
with my rot (mouth) square for howling.
Dr. Brodsky
said to the audience: "Our subject is, you see, impelled towards the good
by, paradoxically, being impelled towards evil. The intention to act violently
is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress. To counter these the
subject has to switch to a diametrically opposed attitude. Any questions?"
"Choice,"
rumbled a rich deep goloss (voice). I viddied it belonged to the prison charlie
(chaplain). "He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, fear of
physical pain, drove him to that grot (mouth)esque act of self-abasement. Its
insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also
to be a creature capable of moral choice."
"These are
subtleties," like smiled Dr. Brodsky. "We are not concerned with
motive, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down crime
—"
"And,"
chipped in this bolshy (big, great) well-dressed Minister, "with relieving
the ghastly congestion in our prisons."
"Hear
hear," said somebody.
There was a lot
of govoreeting and arguing then and I just stood there, brothers, like
completely ignored by all these ignorant bratchnies, so I creeched out:
"Me, me,
me. How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I just some animal or
dog?" And that started them off govoreeting real loud and throwing slovos
at me. So I creeched louder, still creeching: "Am I just to be like a
clockwork orange?" I didn't know what made me use those slovos, brothers,
which just came like without asking into my gulliver (head). And that shut all
those vecks up for some reason for a minoota (minute) or two. Then one very
thin starry (ancient) professor type chelloveck (person) stood up, his neck
like all cables carrying like power from his gulliver (head) to his plott
(body), and he said:
"You have
no cause to grumble, boy. You made your choice and all this is a consequence of
your choice. Whatever now ensues is what you yourself have chosen." And
the prison charlie (chaplain) creeched out:
"Oh, if
only I could believe that." And you could viddy (see) the Governor give
him a look like meaning that he would not climb so high in like Prison Religion
as he thought he would.
Then loud
arguing started again, and then I could slooshy (hear) the slovo (word) Love
being thrown around, the prison charles (chaplain) himself creeching as loud as
any about Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear and all that cal (feces). And now Dr.
Brodsky said, smiling all over his litso (face):
"I am
glad, gentlemen, this question of Love has been raised. Now we shall see in
action a manner of Love that was thought to be dead with the Middle Ages."
And then the lights went down and the spotlights came on again, one on your
poor and suffering Friend and Narrator, and into the other there like rolled or
sidled the most lovely young devotchka (girl) you could ever hope in all your jeezny
(life), O my brothers, to viddy (see). That is to say, she had real horrorshow
(good) groodies all of which you could like viddy (see), she having on platties
(clothes) which came down down down off her pletcho (shoulder)es. And her nogas
were like Bog (God) in His Heaven, and she walked like to make you groan in
your keeshkas (guts), and yet her litso (face) was a sweet smiling young like
innocent litso (face). She came up towards me with the light like it was the
like light of heavenly grace and all that cal (feces) coming with her, and the
first thing that flashed into my gulliver (head) was that I would like to have
her right down there on the floor with the old in-out real savage, but skorry
(quick) as a shot came the sickness, like a like detective that had been
watching round a corner and now followed to make his grahzny (dirty) arrest.
And now the von (smell) of lovely perfume that came off her made me want to
think of starting to heave in my keeshkas (guts), so I knew I had to think of
some new like way of thinking about her before all the pain and thirstiness and
horrible sickness come over me real horrorshow (good) and proper. So I creeched
out:
"O most
beautiful and beauteous of devotchkas, I throw like my heart at your feet for
you to like trample all over. If I had a rose I would give it to you. If it was
all rainy and cally now on the ground you could have my platties (clothes) to
walk on so as not to cover your dainty nogas with filth and cal (feces)."
And as I was saying all this, O my brothers, I could feel the sickness like
slinking back. "Let me," I creeched out, "worship you and be
like your helper and prot (mouth)ector from the wicked like world."
Then I thought
of the right slovo (word) and felt better for it, saying:
"Let me be
like your true knight," and down I went again on the old knees, bowing and
like scraping.
And then I felt
real shoot (fool)y and dim, it having been like an act again, for this devotchka
(girl) smiled and bowed to the audience and like danced off, the lights coming
up to a bit of applause. And the glazz (eye)ies of some of these starry
(ancient) vecks in the audience were like popping out at this young devotchka
(girl) with dirty and like unholy desire, O my brothers.
"He will
be your true Christian," Dr. Brodsky was creeching out, "ready to
turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than crucify, sick to the
very heart at the thought even of killing a fly." And that was right, brothers,
because when he said that I thought of killing a fly and felt just that tiny
bit sick, but I pushed the sickness and pain back by thinking of the fly being
fed with bits of sugar and looked after like a bleeding pet and all that cal
(feces). "Reclamation," he creeched. "Joy before the Angels of
God."
"The point
is," this Minister of the Inferior was saying real gromky (loud),
"that it works."
"Oh,"
the prison charlie (chaplain) said, like sighing, "it works all right, God
help the lot of us."
"What's it
going to be then, eh?"
That, my brothers,
was me asking myself the next morning, standing outside this white building
that was like tacked on to the old Staja (state jail), in my platties (clothes)
of the night of two years back in the grey light of dawn, with a malenky
(little) bit of a bag with my few personal veshches (things) in and a bit of cutter
(money) kindly donated by the vonny Authorities to like start me off in my new
life.
The rest of the
day before had been very tiring, what with interviews to go on tape for the
telenews and photographs being took flash flash flash and more like
demonstrations of me folding up in the face of ultra-violence and all that
embarrassing cal (feces). And then I had like fallen into the bed and then,as
it looked to me, been waked up to be told to get off out, to itty (to go) off
home, they did not want to viddy (see) Your Humble Narrator never not no more,
O my brothers. So there I was, very very early in the morning, with just this
bit of pretty polly (money) in my left carman (pocket), jingle-jangling it and
wondering:
"What's it
going to be then, eh?"
Some breakfast
some mesto (place), I thought, me not having eaten at all that morning, every veck
(person) being so anxious to tolchock (hit) me off out to freedom. A chasha
(cup) of chai (tea) only I had peet (drink)ed. This Staja (state jail) was in a
very like gloomy part of the town, but there were malenky (little) workers'
caffs all around and I soon found one of these, my brothers. It was very cally
and vonny, with one bulb in the ceiling with fly-dirt like obscuring its bit of
light, and there were early rabbit (work)ers slurping away at chai (tea) and
horrible-looking sausages and slices of kleb (bread) which they like wolfed,
going wolf wolf wolf and then creeching for more. They were served by a very
cally devotchka (girl) but with very bolshy (big, great) groodies on her, and
some of the eating vecks tried to grab her, going haw haw haw while she went he
he he, and the sight of them near made me want to sick, brothers.
But I asked for
some toast and jam and chai (tea) very politely and with my gentleman's goloss
(voice), then I sat in a dark corner to eat and peet (drink).
While I was
doing this, a malenky (little) little dwarf of a veck (person) ittied in,
selling the morning's gazettas, a twisted and grahzny (dirty) prestoopnick
(criminal) type with thick glasses on with steel rims, his platties (clothes)
like the colour of very starry (ancient) decaying currant pudding.
I kupetted a
gazetta, my idea being to get ready for plunging back into normal jeezny (life)
again by viddying what was itty (to go)ing on in the world. This gazetta I had
seemed to be like a Government gazetta, for the only news that was on the front
page was about the need for every veck (person) to make sure he put the
Government back in again on the next General Election, which seemed to be about
two or three weeks off. There were very boastful slovos about what the
Government had done, brothers, in the last year or so, what with increased
exports and a real horrorshow (good) foreign policy and improved social
services and all that cal (feces). But what the Government was really most
boastful about was the way in which they reckoned the streets had been made
safer for all peace-loving night-walking lewdies (people) in the last six
months, what with better pay for the police and the police getting like tougher
with young hooligans and perverts and burglars and all that cal (feces). Which interessovat
(interest)ted Your Humble Narrator some deal. And on the second page of the
gazetta there was a blurry like photograph of somebody who looked very
familiar, and it turned out to be none other than me me me. I looked very
gloomy and like scared, but that was really with the flashbulbs going pop pop
all the time. What it said undrneath my picture was that here was the first
graduate from the new State Institute for Reclamation of Criminal Types, cured
of his criminal instincts in a fortnight only, now a good law-fearing citizen
and all that cal (feces).
Then I viddied
there was a very boastful article about this Ludovico's Technique and how
clever the Government was and all that cal (feces). Then there was another
picture of some veck (person) I thought I knew, and it was this Minister of the
Inferior or Interior. It seemed that he had been doing a bit of boasting,
looking forward to a nice crime-free era in which there would be no more fear
of cowardly attacks from young hooligans and perverts and burglars and all that
cal (feces). So I went arghhhhhh and threw this gazetta on the floor, so that
it covered up stains of spilled chai (tea) and horrible spat (sleep) gobs from
the cally animals that used thus caff.
"What's it
going to be then, eh?"
What it was
going to be now, brothers, was homeways and a nice surprise for dadada and mum,
their only son and heir back in the family bosom. Then I could lay back on the
bed in my own malenky (little) den and slooshy (hear) some lovely music, and at
the same time I could think over what to do now with my jeezny (life). The
Discharge Officer had given me a long list the day before of jobs I could try
for, and he had telephoned to different vecks about me, but I had no intention,
my brothers, of going off to rabbit (work) right away. A malenky (little) bit
of a rest first, yes, and a quiet think on the bed to the sound of lovely
music.
And so the
autobus to Center, and then the autobus to Kingsley Avenue, the flats of
Flatblock 18A being just near.
You will believe
me, my brothers, when I say that my heart was going clopclopclop with the like
excitement. All was very quiet, it still being early winter morning, and when I
ittied into the vestibule of the flatblock there was no veck (person) about,
only the nagoy (naked) vecks and cheenas of the Dignity of Labour. What
surprised me, brothers, was the way that had been cleaned up, there being no
longer any dirty ballooning slovos from the rot (mouth)s of the Dignified
Labourers, not any dirty parts of the body added to their naked plott (body)s
by dirty-minded pencilling malchick (boy)s. And what also surprised me was that
the lift was working. It came purring down when I pressed the electric knopka
(button), and when I got in I was surprised again to viddy (see) all was clean
inside the like cage.
So up I went to
the tenth floor, and there I saw 10-8 as it had been before, and my rooker (hand)
trembled and shook as I took out of my carman (pocket) the little klootch (key)
I had for opening up. But I very firmly fitted the klootch (key) in the lock
and turned, then opened up then went in, and there I met three pairs of
surprised and almost frightened glazz (eye)ies looking at me, and it was pee
and em (parents) having their breakfast, but it was also another veck (person)
that I had never viddied in my jeezny (life) before, a bolshy (big, great)
thick veck (person) in his shirt and braces, quite at home, brothers, slurping
away at the milky chai (tea) and munchmunching at his eggiweg (egg) and toast.
And it was this stranger veck (person) who spoke first, saying:
"Who are
you, friend? Where did you get hold of a key?
Out, before I
push your face in. Get out there and knock.
Explain your
business, quick."
My dad and mum
sat like petrified, and I could viddy (see) they had not yet read the gazetta,
then I remembered that the gazetta did not arrive till papapa had gone off to
his work. But then mum said: "Oh, you've broken out. You've escaped.
Whatever shall
we do? We shall have the police here, oh oh oh. Oh, you bad and wicked boy,
disgracing us all like this."
And, believe it
or kiss my sharries (buttocks), she started to go boo hoo.
So I started to
try and explain, they could ring up the Staja (state jail) if they wanted, and
all the time this stranger veck (person) sat there like frowning and looking as
if he could push my litso (face) in with his hairy bolshy (big, great) beefy
fist. So I said:
"How about
you answering a few, brot (mouth)her? What are you doing here and for how long?
I didn't like the tone of what you said just then. Watch it. Come on, speak
up." He was a working-man type veck (person), very ugly, about thirty or
forty, and he sat now with his rot (mouth) open at me, not govoreeting one
single slovo (word). Then my dad said:
"This is
all a bit bewildering, son. You should have let us know you were coming. We
thought it would be at least another five or six years before they let you out.
Not," he said, and he said it very like gloomy, "that we're not very
pleased to see you again and a free man, too."
"Who is
this?" I said. "Why can't he speak up? What's going on in here?"
"This is
Joe," said my mum. "He lives here now. The lodger, that's what he is.
Oh, dear dear dear," she went.
"You,"
said this Joe. "I've heard all about you, boy. I know what you've done,
breaking the hearts of your poor grieving parents. So you're back, eh? Back to
make life a misery for them once more, is that it? Over my dead corpse you
will, because they've let me be more like a son to them than like a
lodger." I could nearly have smecked loud at that if the old razdraz
(upset) within me hadn't started to wake up the feeling of wanting to sick,
because this veck (person) looked about the same age as my pee and em (parents),
and there he was like trying to put a son's prot (mouth)ecting rooker (hand)
round my crying mum, O my brothers.
"So,"
I said, and I near felt like collapsing in all tears myself.
"So that's
it, then. Well, I give you five large minoota (minute)s to clear all your
horrible cally veshches (things) out of my room." And I made for this
room, this veck (person) being a malenky (little) bit too slow to stop me. When
I opened the door my heart cracked to the carpet, because I viddied it was no
longer like my room at all, brothers. All my flags had gone off the walls and
this veck (person) had put up pictures of boxers, also like a team sitting smug
with folded rooker (hand)s and silver like shield in front. And then I viddied
what else was missing. My stereo and my disc-cupboard were no longer there, nor
was my locked treasure-chest that contained bottles and drugs and two shining
clean syringes.
"There's been
some filthy vonny work going on here," I creeched. "What have you
done with my own personal veshches (things), you horrible bastard?" This
was to this Joe, but it was my dad that answered, saying:
"That was
all took away, son, by the police. This new regulation, see, about compensation
for the victims."
I found it very
hard not to be very ill, but my gulliver (head) was aching shocking and my rot
(mouth) was so dry that I had to take a skorry (quick) swig from the
milk-bottle on the table, so that this Joe said: "Filthy piggish manners."
I said:
"But she
died. That one died."
"It was
the cats, son," said my dad like sorrowful, "that were left with
nobody to look after them till the will was read, so they had to have somebody
in to feed them. So the police sold your things, clothes and all, to help with
the looking after of them. That's the law, son. But you were never much of a
one for following the law."
I had to sit
down then, and this Joe said: "Ask permission before you sit, you
mannerless young swine," so I cracked back skorry (quick) with a
"Shut your dirty big fat hole, you," feeling sick. Then I tried to be
all reasonable and smiling for my health's sake like, so I said: "Well,
that's my room, there's no denying that. This is my home also. What suggestions
have you, my pee and em (parents), to make?" But they just looked very
glum, my mum shaking a bit, her litso (face) all lines and wet with like tears,
and then my dad said:
"All this
needs thinking about, son. We can't very well just kick Joe out, not just like
that, can we? I mean, Joe's here doing a job, a contract it is, two years, and
we made like an arrangement, didn't we, Joe? I mean son, thinking you were
going to stay in prison a long time and that room going begging." He was a
bit ashamed, you could viddy (see) that from his litso (face). So I just smiled
and like nodded, saying:
"I viddy
(see) all. You got used to a bit of peace and you got used to a bit of extra pretty
polly (money). That's the way it goes.
And your son
has just been nothing but a terrible nuisance."
And then, my brothers,
believe me or kiss my sharries (buttocks), I started to like cry, feeling very
like sorry for myself. So my dad said:
"Well, you
see, son, Joe's paid next month's rent already. I mean, whatever we do in the
future we can't say to Joe to get out, can we, Joe?" This Joe said:
"It's you
two I've got to think of, who've been like a father and mother to me. Would it
be right or fair to go off and leave you to the tender mercies of this young
monster who has been like no real son at all? He's weeping now, but that's his
craft and artfulness. Let him go off and find a room somewhere. Let him learn
the error of his ways and that a bad boy like he's been doesn't deserve such a
good mum and dad as what he's had."
"All
right," I said, standing up in all like tears still. "I know how
things are now. Nobody wants or loves me. I've suffered and suffered and
suffered and everybody wants me to go on suffering. I know."
"You've
made others suffer," said this Joe. "It's only right you should
suffer proper. I've been told everything that you've done, sitting here at night
round the family table, and pretty shocking it was to listen to. Made me real
sick a lot of it did."
"I
wish," I said, "I was back in the prison. Dear old Staja (state jail)
as it was. I'm itty (to go)ing off now," I said. "You won't ever viddy
(see) me no more. I'll make my own way, thank you very much. Let it lie heavy
on your consciences." My dad said:
"Don't
take it like that, son," and my mum just went boo hoo hoo, her litso
(face) all screwed up real ugly, and this Joe put his rooker (hand) round her
again, patting her and going there there there like bezoomny (brainy) (mad).
And so I just sort of staggered to the door and went out, leaving them to their
horrible guilt, O my brothers.
Itty (to go)ing
down the street in a like aimless sort of a way brothers, in these night platties
(clothes) which lewdies (people) like stared at as I went by, cold too, it
being a bastard cold winter day, all I felt I wanted was to be away from all
this and not have to think any more about any sort of veshch (thing) at all. So
I got the autobus to Center, then walked back to Taylor Place, and there was
the disc-bootick 'MELODIA' —I had used to favour with my inestimable custom, O
my brothers, and it looked much the same sort of mesto (place) as it always
had, and walking in I expected to viddy (see) old Andy there, that bald and
very very thin helpful little veck (person) from whom I had kupetted discs in
the old days. But there was no Andy there now, brothers, only a scream and a creech
(scream) of nadsat (teenage) (teenage, that is) malchick (boy)s and ptitsa
(chick)s slooshying some new horrible popsong and dancing to it as well, and
the veck (person) behind the counter not much more than a nadsat (teenage)
himself, clicking his rooker (hand)-bones and smecking like bezoomny (brainy)
(mad). So I went up and waited till he like deigned to notice me, then I said:
"I'd like
to hear a disc of the Mozart Number Forty." I don't know why that should have
come into my gulliver (head), but it did.
The counter-veck
(person) said:
"Forty
what, friend?"
I said:
"Symphony. Symphony Number Forty in G Minor."
"Ooooh,"
went one of the dancing nadsats, a malchick (boy) with his hair all over his glazz
(eye)ies, "seemfunnah. Don't it seem funny? He wants a seemfunnah."
I could feel
myself growing all razdraz (upset) within, but I had to watch that, so I like
smiled at the veck (person) who had taken over Andy's place and at all the
dancing and creeching nadsats. This counter-veck (person) said: "You go
into that listen-booth over there, friend, and I'll pipe something
through."
So I went over
to the malenky (little) box where you could slooshy (hear) the discs you wanted
to buy, and then this veck (person) put a disc on for me, but it wasn't the
Mozart Forty, it was the Mozart 'Prague' - he seemingly having just picked up
any Mozart he could find on the shelf —and that should have started making me
real razdraz (upset) and I had to watch that for fear of the pain and sickness,
but what I'd forgotten was something I shouldn't have forgotten and now made me
want to snuff it (die).
It was that
these doctor bratchnies had so fixed things that any music that was like for
the emotions would make me sick just like viddying or wanting to do violence.
It was because all those violence films had music with them. And I remembered
especially that horrible Nazi film with the Beethoven Fifth, last movement. And
now here was lovely Mozart made horrible. I dashed out of the shop with these
nadsats smecking after me and the counter-veck (person) creeching: "Eh eh
eh!" But I took no notice and went staggering almost like blind across the
road and round the corner to the Korova Milkbar. I knew what I wanted.
The mesto
(place) was near empty, it being still morning. It looked strange too, having
been painted with all red mooing cows, and behind the counter was no veck
(person) I knew. But when I said:
"Milk
plus, large," the veck (person) with a like lean litso (face) very newly
shaved knew what I wanted. I took the large moloko (milk) plus to one of the
little cubies that were all around this mesto (place), there being like
curtains to shut them off from the main mesto (place), and there I sat down in
the plushy chair and sipped and sipped.
When I'd
finished the whole lot I began to feel that things were happening. I had my glazz
(eye)ies like fixed on a malenky (little) bit of silver paper from a cancer
(cigarette) packet that was on the floor, the sweeping-up of this mesto (place)
not being all that horrorshow (good), brothers. This scrap of silver began to
grow and grow and grow and it was so like bright and fiery that I had to squint
my glazz (eye)ies at it. It got so big that it became not only this whole cubie
I was lolling in but like the whole Korova, the whole street, the whole city.
Then it was the whole world, then it was the whole everything, brothers, and it
was like a sea washing over every veshch (thing) that had ever been made or
thought of even. I could sort of slooshy (hear) myself making special sort of shoom
(noise)s and govoreeting slovos like 'Dear dead idlewilds, rot (mouth) not in
variform guises' and all that cal (feces).
Then I could
like feel the vision beating up in all this silver, and then there were colours
like nobody had ever viddied before, and then I could viddy (see) like a group
of statues a long long long way off that was like being pushed nearer and
nearer and nearer, all lit up by very bright light from below and above alike,
O my brothers. This group of statues was of God or Bog (God) and all His Holy
Angels and Saints, all very bright like bronze, with beards and bolshy (big,
great) great wings that waved about in a kind of wind, so that they could not
really be of stone or bronze, really, and the eyes or glazz (eye)ies like moved
and were alive. These bolshy (big, great) big figures came nearer and nearer
and nearer till they were like going to crush me down, and I could slooshy
(hear) my goloss (voice) going 'Eeeeee'. And I felt I had got rid of everything
—platties (clothes), body, brain, name, the lot —and felt real horrorshow
(good), like in heaven. Then there was the shoom (noise) of like crumbling and
crumpling, and Bog (God) and the Angels and Saints sort of shook their
gullivers at me, as though to govoreet (talk) that there wasn't quite time now
but I must try again, and then everything like leered and smecked and collapsed
and the big warm light grew like cold, and then there I was as I was before,
the empty glass on the table and wanting to cry and feeling like death was the
only answer to everything.
And that was it,
that was what I viddied quite clear was the thing to do, but how to do it I did
not properly know, never having thought of that before, O my brothers. In my
little bag of personal veshches (things) I had my cut-throat britva (razor),
but I at once felt very sick as I thought of myself going swishhhh at myself
and all my own red red krovvy (blood) flowing. What I wanted was not something
violent but something that would make me like just go off gentle to sleep and
that be the end of Your Humble Narrator, no more trouble to anybody any more.
Perhaps, i
thought, if I ittied off to the Public Biblio (library) around the corner I
might find some book on the best way of snuffing it with no pain. I thought of
myself dead and how sorry everybody was going to be, pee and em (parents) and
that cally vonny Joe who was a like usurper, and also Dr. Brodsky and Dr.
Branom and that Inferior Interior Minister and every veck (person) else. And
the boastful vonny Government too. So out I scatted into the winter, and it was
afternoon now, near two o'clock, as I could viddy (see) from the bolshy (big,
great) Center timepiece, so that me being in the land with the old moloko
(milk) plus must have took like longer than I thought. I walked down Marghanita
Boulevard and then turned into Boothby Avenue, then round the corner again, and
there was the Public Biblio (library).
It was a starry
(ancient) cally sort of a mesto (place) that I could not remember going into
since I was a very very malenky (little) malchick (boy), no more than about six
years old, and there were two parts of it - one part to borrow books and one
part to read in, full of gazettas and mags and like the von (smell) of very starry
(ancient) old men with their plott (body)s stinking of like old age and
poverty. These were standing at the gazetta stands all round the room,
sniffling and belching and govoreeting to themselves and turning over the pages
to read the news very sadly, or else they were sitting at the tables looking at
the mags or pretending to, some of them asleep and one or two of them snoring
real gromky (loud). I couldn't remember what it was I wanted at first, then I
remembered with a bit of a shock that I had ittied here to find out how to snuff
it (die) without pain, so I goolied over to the shelf full of reference veshches
(things). There were a lot of books, but there was none with a title, brothers,
that would really do. There was a medical book that I took down, but when I
opened it it was full of drawings and photographs of horrible wounds and
diseases, and that made me want to sick just a bit. So I put that back and took
down the big book or Bible, as it was called, thinking that might give me like
comfort as it had done in the old Staja (state jail) days (not so old really,
but it seemed a very very long time ago), and I staggered over to a chair to
read in it. But all I found was about smiting seventy times seven and a lot of
Jews cursing and tolchocking each other, and that made me want to sick, too. So
then I near cried, so that a very starry (ancient) ragged moodge (man) opposite
me said:
"What is
it, son? What's the trouble?"
"I want to
snuff it (die)," I said. "I've had it, that's what it is. Life's
become too much for me."
A starry
(ancient) reading veck (person) next to me said: "Shhhh," without
looking up from some bezoomny (brainy) (mad) mag he had full of drawings of
like bolshy (big, great) geometrical veshches (things). That rang a bell
somehow. This other moodge (man) said:
"You're
too young for that, son. Why, you've got everything in front of you."
"Yes,"
I said, bitter. "Like a pair of false groodies." This mag-reading veck
(person) said: "Shhhh" again, looking up this time, and something
clocked for both of us. I viddied who it was. He said, real gromky (loud):
"I never
forget a shape, by God. I never forget the shape of anything. By God, you young
swine, I've got you now." Crystallography, that was it. That was what he'd
been taking away from the Biblio (library) that time. False teeth crunched up
real horrorshow (good). Platties (clothes) torn off. His books razrez (rip)zed,
all about Crystallography. I thought I had best get out of here real skorry
(quick), brothers. But this starry (ancient) old moodge (man) was on his feet,
creeching like bezoomny (brainy) (mad) to all the starry (ancient) old coughers
at the gazettas round the walls and to them dozing over mags at the tables.
"We have him," he creeched. "The poisonous young swine who
ruined the books on Crystallography, rare books, books not to be obtained ever
again, anywhere." This had a terrible mad shoom (noise) about it, as
though this old veck (person) was really off his gulliver (head). "A prize
specimen of the cowardly brutal young," he creeched. "Here in our
midst and at our mercy. He and his friends beat me and kicked me and thumped
me. They stripped me and tore out my teeth. They laughed at my blood and my
moans. They kicked me off home, dazed and naked."
All this wasn't
quite true, as you know, brothers. He had some platties (clothes) on, he hadn't
been completely nagoy (naked).
I creeched
back: "That was over two years ago. I've been punished since then. I've
learned my lesson. See over there —my picture's in the papers."
"Punishment,
eh?" said one starry (ancient) like ex-soldier type. "You lot should
be exterminated. Like so many noisome pests. Punishment indeed."
"All
right, all right," I said. "Everybody's entitled to his opinion.
Forgive me, all. I must go now." And I started to itty (to go) out of this
mesto (place) of bezoomny (brainy) (mad) old men. Aspirin, that was it.
You could snuff
it (die) on a hundred aspirin. Aspirin from the old drugstore. But the
crystallography veck (person) creeched:
"Don't let
him go. We'll teach him all about punishment, the murderous young pig. Get
him." And, believe it, brothers, or do the other veshch (thing), two or
three starry (ancient) dodderers, about ninety years old apiece, grabbed me
with their trembly old rooker (hand)s, and I was like made sick by the von
(smell) of old age and disease which came from these near-dead moodge (man)s.
The crystal veck (person) was on to me now, starting to deal me malenky
(little) weak tolchocks on my litso (face), and I tried to get away and itty
(to go) out, but these starry (ancient) rooker (hand)s that held me were
stronger than I had thought. Then other starry (ancient) vecks came hobbling
from the gazettas to have a go at Your Humble Narrator. They were creeching veshches
(things) like: "Kill him, stamp on him, murder him, kick his teeth
in," and all that cal (feces), and I could viddy (see) what it was clear
enough. It was old age having a go at youth, that's what it was. But some of
them were saying: "Poor old Jack, near killed poor old Jack he did, this
is the young swine" and so on, as though it had all happened yesterday.
Which to them I suppose it had. There was now like a sea of vonny runny dirty
old men trying to get at me with their like feeble rooker (hand)s and horn (cry
out)y old claws, creeching and panting on to me, but our crystal droog (friend)
was there in front, dealing out tolchock (hit) after tolchock (hit). And I
daren't do a solitary single veshch (thing), O my brothers, it being better to
be hit at like that than to want to sick and feel that horrible pain, but of
course the fact that there was violence going on made me feel that the sickness
was peeping round the corner to viddy (see) whether to come out into the open
and roar away.
Then an
attendant veck (person) came along, a youngish veck (person),and he creeched:
"What goes on here? Stop it at once. This is a reading room." But
nobody took any notice. So the attendant veck (person) said: "Right, I
shall phone the police." So I creeched, and I never thought I would ever
do that in all my jeezny (life):
"Yes yes
yes, do that, prot (mouth)ect me from these old madmen." I noticed that
the attendant veck (person) was not too anxious to join in the dratsing
(fighting) and rescue me from the rage and madness of these starry (ancient)
vecks' claws; he just scatted off to his like office or wherever the telephone
was. Now these old men were panting a lot now, and I felt I could just flick at
them and they would all fall over, but I just let myself be held, very patient,
by these starry (ancient) rooker (hand)s, my glazz (eye)ies closed, and feel
the feeble tolchocks on my litso (face), also slooshy (hear) the panting
breathy old goloss (voice)es creeching: "Young swine, young murderer,
hooligan, thug, kill him." Then I got such a real painful tolchock (hit)
on the nose that I said to myself to hell to hell, and I opened my glazz (eye)ies
up and started to struggle to get free, which was not hard, brothers, and I
tore off creeching to the sort of hallway outside the reading-room. But these starry
(ancient) avengers still came after me, panting like dying, with their animal
claws all trembling to get at your friend and Humble Narrator. Then I was
tripped up and was on the floor and was being kicked at, then I slooshied goloss
(voice)es of young vecks creeching: "All right, all right, stop it
now," and I knew the police had arrived.
I was like
dazed, O my brothers, and could not viddy (see) very clear, but I was sure I
had met these millicent (police)s some mesto (place) before. The one who had
hold of me, going: "There there there," just by the front door of the
Public Biblio (library), him I did not know at all, but it seemed to me he was
like very young to be a rozz (police). But the other two had backs that I was
sure I had viddied before. They were lashing into these starry (ancient) old
vecks with great bolshy (big, great) glee and joy, swishing away with malenky
(little) whips, creeching: "There, you naughty boys. That should teach you
to stop rioting and breaking the State's Peace, you wicked villains, you."
So they drove these panting and wheezing and near dying starry (ancient)
avengers back into the reading-room, then they turned round, smecking with the
fun they'd had, to viddy (see) me. The older one of the two said:
"Well well
well well well well well. If it isn't little Alex. Very long time no viddy
(see), droog (friend). How goes?" I was like dazed, the uniform and the shlem
(helmet) or helmet making it hard to viddy (see) who this was, though litso
(face) and goloss (voice) were very familiar. Then I looked at the other one,
and about him, with his grinning bezoomny (brainy) (mad) litso (face), there
was no doubt. Then, all numb and growing number, I looked back at the well well
welling one.
This one was
then fatty old Billyboy, my old enemy. The other was, of course, Dim, who had
used to be my droog (friend) and also the enemy of stinking fatty goaty
Billyboy, but was now a millicent (police) with uniform and shlem (helmet) and
whip to keep order. I said:
"Oh
no."
"Surprise,
eh?" And old Dim came out with the old guff (guffaw) I remembered so horrorshow
(good): "Huh huh huh."
"It's
impossible," I said. "It can't be so. I don't believe it."
"Evidence
of the old glazz (eye)ies," grinned Billyboy. "Nothing up our
sleeves. No magic, droog (friend). A job for two who are now of job-age. The
police."
"You're
too young," I said. "Much too young. They don't make rozz (police)es
of malchick (boy)s of your age."
"Was
young," went old millicent (police) Dim. I could not get over it, brothers,
I really could not. "That's what we was, young droogie. And you it was
that was always the youngest. And here now we are."
"I still
can't believe it," I said. Then Billyboy, rozz (police) Billyboy that I
couldn't get over, said to this young millicent (police) that was like holding
on to me and that I did not know:
"More good
would be done, I think, Rex, if we doled out a bit of the old summary. Boys
will be boys, as always was. No need to go through the old station routine.
This one here has been up to his old tricks, as we can well remember though
you, of course, can't. He has been attacking the aged and defenceless, and they
have properly been retaliating. But we must have our say in the State's
name."
"What is
all this?" I said, not able hardly to believe my ooko (ear)s. "It was
them that went for me, brothers. You're not on their side and can't be. You can't
be, Dim. It was a veck (person) we fillied with once in the old days trying to
get his own malenky (little) bit of revenge after all this long time."
"Long time
is right," said Dim. "I don't remember them days too horrorshow
(good). Don't call me Dim no more, either. Officer call me."
"Enough is
remembered, though," Billyboy kept nodding.
He was not so
fatty as he had been. "Naughty little malchick (boy)s handy with
cut-throat britvas —these must be kept under."
And they took
me in a real strong grip and like walked me out of the Biblio (library). There
was a millicent (police) patrol-car waiting outside, and this veck (person)
they called Rex was the driver. They like tolchocked me into the back of this
auto, and I couldn't help feeling it was all really like a joke, and that Dim
anyway would pull his shlem (helmet) off his gulliver (head) and go haw haw
haw. But he didn't. I said, trying to fight the strack (horror) inside me:
"And old
Pete, what happened to old Pete? It was sad about Georgie," I said.
"I slooshied all about that."
"Pete, oh
yes, Pete," said Dim. "I seem to remember like the name." I
could viddy (see) we were driving out of town. I said:
"Where are
we supposed to be going?"
Billyboy turned
round from the front to say: "It's light still.
A little drive
into the country, all winter-bare but lonely and lovely. It is not right, not
always, for lewdies (people) in the town to viddy (see) too much of our summary
punishments. Streets must be kept clean in more than one way." And he
turned to the front again.
"Come,"
I said. "I just don't get this at all. The old days are dead and gone
days. For what I did in the past I have been punished. I have been cured."
"That was
read out to us," said Dim. "The Super read all that out to us. He
said it was a very good way."
"Read to
you," I said, a malenky (little) bit nasty. "You still too dim to
read for yourself, O brot (mouth)her?"
"Ah,
no," said Dim, very like gentle and like regretful. "Not to speak
like that. Not no more, droogie." And he launched a bolshy (big, great) tolchock
(hit) right on my cluve (beak), so that all red red nose-krovvy (blood) started
to drip drip drip.
"There was
never any trust," I said, bitter, wiping off the krovvy (blood) with my rooker
(hand). "I was always on my oddy knocky (lonesome)."
"This will
do," said Billyboy. We were now in the country and it was all bare trees
and a few odd distant like twitters, and in the distance there was some like
farm machine making a whirring shoom (noise). It was getting all dusk now, this
being the height of winter. There were no lewdies (people) about, nor no
animals. There was just the four. "Get out, Alex boy," said Dim.
"Just a malenky (little) bit of summary."
All through
what they did this driver veck (person) just sat at the wheel of the auto,
smoking a cancer (cigarette), reading a malenky (little) bit of a book. He had
the light on in the auto to viddy (see) by. He took no notice of what Billyboy
and Dim did to your Humble Narrator. I will not go into what they did, but it
was all like panting and thudding against this like background of whirring farm
engines and the twittwittwittering in the bare or nagoy (naked) branches. You
could viddy (see) a bit of smoky breath in the auto light, this driver turning
the pages over quite calm. And they were on to me all the time, O my brothers.
Then Billyboy or Dim, I couldn't say which one, said: "About enough,
droogie. I should think, shouldn't you?" Then they gave me one final tolchock
(hit) on the litso (face) each and I fell over and just laid there on the grass.
It was cold but I was not feeling the cold. Then they dusted their rooker
(hand)s and put back on their shlem (helmet)s and tunics which they had taken
off, and then they got back into the auto. "Be viddying you some more
sometime, Alex," said Billyboy, and Dim just gave one of his old clowny
guffs. The driver finished the page he was reading and put his book away, then
he started the auto and they were off townwards, my ex-droog (friend) and
ex-enemy waving. But I just laid there, fagged and shagged.
After a bit I
was hurting bad, and then the rain started, all icy. I could viddy (see) no lewdies
(people) in sight, nor no lights of houses.
Where was I to
go, who had no home and not much cutter (money) in my carmans? I cried for
myself boo hoo hoo. Then I got up and started walking.
Home, home,
home, it was home I was wanting, and it was HOME I came to, brothers. I walked
through the dark and followed not the town way but the way where the shoom
(noise) of a like farm machine had been coming from. This brought me to a sort
of village I felt I had viddied before, but was perhaps because all villages
look the same, in the dark especially. Here were houses and there was a like
drinking mesto (place), and right at the end of the village there was a malenky
(little) cottage on its oddy knocky (lonesome), and I could viddy (see) its
name shining on the gate.
HOME, it said.
I was all dripping wet with this icy rain, so that my platties (clothes) were
no longer in the heighth of fashion but real miserable and like pathetic, and
my luscious glory (hair) was a wet tangle cally mess all spread over my gulliver
(head), and I was sure there were cuts and bruises all over my litso (face),
and a couple of my zoobies (teeth) sort of joggled loose when I touched them
with my tongue or yahzick (tongue). And I was sore all over my plott (body) and
very thirsty, so that I kept opening my rot (mouth) to the cold rain, and my
stomach growled grrrrr all the time with not having had any pishcha (food)
since morning and then not very much, O my brothers.
HOME, it said,
and perhaps here would be some veck (person) to help. I opened the gate and
sort of slithered down the path, the rain like turning to ice, and then I
knocked gentle and pathetic on the door. No veck (person) came, so I knocked a malenky
(little) bit longer and louder, and then I heard the shoom (noise) of nogas
coming to the door. Then the door opened and a male goloss (voice) said:
"Yes, what is it?"
"Oh,"
I said, "please help. I've been beaten up by the police and just left to
die on the road. Oh, please give me a drink of something and a sit by the fire,
please, sir."
The door opened
full then, and I could viddy (see) like warm light and a fire going crackle crackle
within. "Come in," said this veck (person), "whoever you are.
God help you, you poor victim, come in and let's have a look at you." So I
like staggered in, and it was no big act I was putting on, brothers, I really
felt done and finished. This kind veck (person) put his rooker (hand)s round my
pletcho (shoulder)es and pulled me into this room where the fire was, and of
course I knew right away now where it was and why HOME on the gate looked so
familiar. I looked at this veck (person) and he looked at me in a kind sort of
way, and I remembered him well now. Of course he would not remember me, for in
those carefree days I and my so-called droogs did all our bolshy (big, great) dratsing
(fighting) and filly (play)ing and crasting in maskies which were real horrorshow
(good) disguises. He was a shortish veck (person) in middle age, thirty, forty,
fifty, and he had otchkies (eyeglasses) on. "Sit down by the fire,"
he said, "and I'll get you some whisky and warm water. Dear dear dear,
somebody has been beating you up."
And he gave a
like tender look at my gulliver (head) and litso (face).
"The
police," I said. "The horrible ghastly police."
"Another
victim," he said, like sighing. "A victim of the modern age. I'll go
and get you that whisky and then I must clean up your wounds a little."
And off he went. I had a look round this malenky (little) comfortable room. It
was nearly all books now and a fire and a couple of chairs, and you could viddy
(see) somehow that there wasn't a woman living there. On the table was a
typewriter and a lot of like tumbled papers, and I remembered that this veck
(person) was a writer veck (person). 'A Clockwork Orange', that had been it. It
was funny that that stuck in my mind. I must not let on, though, for I needed
help and kindness now. Those horrible grahzny (dirty) bratchnies in that
terrible white mesto (place) had done that to me, making me need help and
kindness now and forcing me to want to give help and kindness myself, if
anybody would take it.
"Here we
are, then," said this veck (person) returning. He gave me this hot
stimulating glassful to peet (drink), and it made me feel better, and then he
cleaned up these cuts on my litso (face). Then he said:
"You have a
nice hot bath, I'll draw it for you, and then you can tell me all about it over
a nice hot supper which I'll get ready while you're having the bath." O my
brothers, I could have wept at his kindness, and I think he must have viddied
the old tears in my glazz (eye)ies, for he said: "There there there,"
patting me on the pletcho (shoulder).
Anyway, I went
up and had this hot bath, and he brought in pyjamas and an over-gown for me to
put on, all warmed by the fire, also a very worn pair of toofles (slippers).
And now, brothers, though I was aching and full of pains all over, I felt I
would soon feel a lot better. I ittied downstairs and viddied that in the
kitchen he had set the table with knives and forks and a fine big loaf of kleb
(bread), also a bottle of PRIMA SAUCE, and soon he served out a nice fry of eggiweg
(egg)s and lomticks of ham and bursting sausages and big bolshy (big, great)
mugs of hot sweet milky chai (tea). It was nice sitting there in the warm,
eating, and I found I was very hungry, so that after the fry I had to eat lomtick
(piece) after lomtick (piece) of kleb (bread) and butter spread with strawberry
jam out of a bolshy (big, great) great pot. "A lot better," I said.
"How can I ever repay?"
"I think I
know who you are," he said. "If you are who I think you are, then
you've come, my friend, to the right place.
Wasn't that
your picture in the papers this morning? Are you the poor victim of this
horrible new technique? If so, then you have been sent here by Providence.
Tortured in prison, then thrown out to be tortured by the police. My heart goes
out to you, poor poor boy." Brothers, I could not get a slovo (word) in,
though I had my rot (mouth) wide open to answer his questions.
"You are
not the first to come here in distress," he said. "The police are
fond of bringing their victims to the outskirts of this village. But it is
providential that you, who are also another kind of victim, should come here.
Perhaps, then, you have heard of me?"
I had to be
very careful, brothers. I said: "I have heard of 'A Clockwork Orange'. I
have not read it, but I have heard of it."
"Ah,"
he said, and his litso (face) shone like the sun in its flaming morning glory.
"Now tell me about yourself."
"Little
enough to tell, sir," I said, all humble. "There was a foolish and
boyish prank, my so-called friends persuading or rather forcing me to break
into the house of an old ptitsa (chick) —lady, I mean. There was no real harm
meant. Unfortunately the lady strained her good old heart in trying to throw me
out, though I was quite ready to go of my own accord, and then she died. I was
accused of being the cause of her death.
So I was sent
to prison,sir."
"Yes yes
yes, go on."
"Then I
was picked out by the Minister of the Inferior or Interior to have this
Ludovico's veshch (thing) tried out on me."
"Tell me
all about it," he said, leaning forward eager, his pullover elbows with
all strawberry jam on them from the plate I'd pushed to one side. So I told him
all about it. I told him the lot, all, my brothers. He was very eager to hear
all, his glazz (eye)ies like shining and his goober (lip)s apart, while the
grease on the plates grew harder harder harder. When I had finished he got up
from the table, nodding a lot and going hm hm hm, picking up the plates and
other veshches (things) from the table and taking them to the sink for washing
up. I said:
"I will do
that, sir, and gladly."
"Rest,
rest, poor lad," he said, turning the tap on so that all steam came
burping out. "You've sinned, I suppose, but your punishment has been out
of all proportion. They have turned you into something other than a human
being. You have no power of choice any longer. You are committed to socially
acceptable acts, a little machine capable only of good. And I see that clearly
—that business about the marginal conditionings. Music and the sexual act,
literature and art, all must be a source now not of pleasure but of pain."
"That's
right, sir," I said, smoking one of this kind man's cork-tipped cancers.
"They
always bite off too much," he said, drying a plate like absent-mindedly.
"But the essential intention is the real sin. A man who cannot choose
ceases to be a man."
"That's
what the charles (chaplain) said, sir," I said. "The prison chaplain,
I mean."
"Did he,
did he? Of course he did. He'd have to, wouldn't he, being a Christian? Well,
now then," he said, still wiping the same plate he'd been wiping ten
minutes ago, "we shall have a few people in to see you tomorrow. I think
you can be used, poor boy. I think that you can help dislodge this overbearing
Government. To turn a decent young man into a piece of clockwork should not,
surely, be seen as any triumph for any government, save one that boasts of its
repressiveness." He was still wiping this same plate. I said:
"Sir,
you're still wiping that same plate, I agree with you, sir, about boasting.
This Government seems to be very boastful."
"Oh,"
he said, like viddying this plate for the first time and then putting it down.
"I'm still not too handy," he said, "with domestic chores. My
wife used to do them all and leave me to my writing."
"Your
wife, sir?" I said. "Has she gone and left you?" I really wanted
to know about his wife, remembering very well.
"Yes, left
me," he said, in a like loud and bitter goloss (voice). "She died,
you see. She was brutally raped and beaten. The shock was very great. It was in
this house," his rooker (hand)s were trembling, holding a wiping-up cloth,
"in that room next door. I have had to steel myself to continue to live
here, but she would have wished me to stay where her fragrant memory still
lingers. Yes yes yes. Poor little girl." I viddied all clearly, my brothers,
what had happened that far-off nochy (night), and viddying myself on that job,
I began to feel I wanted to sick and the pain started up in my gulliver (head).
This veck (person) viddied this, because my litso (face) felt it was all
drained of red red krovvy (blood), very pale, and he would be able to viddy
(see) this. "You go to bed now," he said kindly. "I've got the
spare room ready. Poor poor boy, you must have had a terrible time. A victim of
the modern age, just as she was. Poor poor poor girl."
I had a real horrorshow
(good) night's sleep, brothers, with no dreams at all, and the morning was very
clear and like frosty, and there was the very pleasant like von (smell) of
breakfast frying away down below. It took me some little time to remember where
I was, as it always does, but it soon came back to me and then I felt like
warmed and prot (mouth)ected. But, as I laid there in the bed, waiting to be
called down to breakfast, it struck me that I ought to get to know the name of
this kind prot (mouth)ecting and like motherly veck (person), so I had a pad
round in my nagoy (naked) nogas looking for 'A Clockwork Orange', which would
be bound to have his eemya (name) in, he being the author. There was nothing in
my bedroom except a bed and a chair and a light, so I ittied next door to this veck
(person)'s own room, and there I viddied his wife on the wall, a bolshy (big,
great) blown-up photo, so I felt a malenky (little) bit sick remembering. But
there were two or three shelves of books there too, and there was, as I thought
there must be, a copy of 'A Clockwork Orange', and on the back of the book,
like on the spine, was the author's eemya (name) F. Alexander. Good Bog (God),
I thought, he is another Alex. Then I leafed through, standing in his pyjamas
and bare nogas but not feeling one malenky (little) bit cold, the cottage being
warm all through, and I could not viddy (see) what the book was about. It
seemed written in a very bezoomny (brainy) (mad) like style, full of Ah and Oh
and all that cal (feces), but what seemed to come out of it was that all lewdies
(people) nowadays were being turned into machines and that they were really
—you and me and him and kiss-my-sharries (buttocks) - more like a natural
growth like a fruit. F. Alexander seemed to think that we all like grow on what
he called the world-tree (three) in the world-orchard that like Bog (God) or
God planted, and we were there because Bog (God) or God had need of us to
quench his thirsty love, or some such cal (feces). I didn't like the shoom
(noise) of this at all, O my brothers, and wondered how bezoomny (brainy) (mad)
this F. Alexander really was, perhaps driven bezoomny (brainy) (mad) by his
wife's snuffing it. But then he called me down in a like sane veck (person)'s goloss
(voice), full of joy and love and all that cal (feces), so down Your Humble
Narrator went.
'You've slept
long," he said, ladling out boiled eggs and pulling black toast from under
the grill. "It's nearly ten already. I've been up hours, working."
"Writing
another book, sir?" I said.
"No no,
not that now," he said, and we sat down nice and droogy to the old crack
(break) crack (break) crack (break) of eggs and crackle crunch crunch of this
black toast, very milky chai (tea) standing by in bolshy (big, great) great
morning mugs. "No, I've been on the phone to various people."
"I thought
you didn't have a phone," I said, spooning egg in and not watching out
what I was saying.
"Why?"
he said, very alert like some skorry (quick) animal with an egg-spoon in its rooker
(hand). "Why shouldn't you think I have a phone?"
"Nothing,"
I said, "nothing, nothing." And I wondered, brothers, how much he
remembered of the earlier part of that distant nochy (night), me coming to the
door with the old tale and saying to phone the doctor and she saying no phone.
He took a very close smot (look) at me but then went back to being like kind
and cheerful and spooning up the old eggiweg (egg). Munching away, he said:
"Yes, I've
rung up various people who will be interested in your case. You can be a very
potent weapon, you see, in ensuring that this present evil and wicked
Government is not returned in the forthcoming election. The Government's big
boast, you see, is the way it has dealt with crime these last months." He
looked at me very close again over his steaming egg, and I wondered again if he
was viddying what part I had so far played in his jeezny (life). But he said:
"Recruiting brutal young roughs for the police. Proposing debilitating and
will-sapping techniques of conditioning." All these long slovos, brothers,
and a like mad or bezoomny (brainy) (mad) look in his glazz (eye)ies.
"We've seen it all before," he said, "in other countries. The
thin end of the wedge. Before we know where we are we shall have the full
apparatus of totalitarianism." "Dear dear dear," I thought,
egging away and toast-crunching. I said:
"Where do
I come into all this, sir?"
"You,"
he said, still with this bezoomny (brainy) (mad) look, "are a living
witness to these diabolical proposals. The people, the common people must know,
must see." He got up from his breakfast and started to walk up and down
the kitchen, from the sink to the like larder, saying very gromky (loud):
"Would they like their sons to become what you, poor victim, have become?
Will not the Government itself now decide what is and what is not crime and
pump out the life and guts and will of whoever sees fit to displeasure the
Government? He became quieter but did not go back to his egg. "I've
written an article," he said, "this morning, while you were sleeping.
That will be out in a day or so, together with your unhappy picture. You shall
sign it, poor boy, a record of what they have done to you." I said:
"And what
do you get out of all this, sir? I mean, besides the pretty polly (money)
you'll get for the article, as you call it? I mean, why are you so hot and
strong against this Government, if I may make like so bold as to ask?"
He gripped the
edge of the table and said, gritting his zoobies (teeth), which were very cally
and all stained with cancer (cigarette)-smoke: "Some of us have to fight.
There are great traditions of liberty to defend. I am no partisan man. Where I
see the infamy I seek to erase it. Party names mean nothing. The tradition of
liberty means all. The common people will let it go, oh yes. They will sell
liberty for a quieter life. That is why they must be prod (produce)ded, prod
(produce)ded —" And here, brothers, he picked up a fork and stuck it two
or three razzes into the wall, so that it got all bent. Then he threw it on the
floor. Very kindly he said: "Eat well, poor boy, poor victim of the modern
world," and I could viddy (see) quite clear he was going off his gulliver
(head). "Eat, eat. Eat my egg as well." But I said:
"And what
do I get out of this? Do I get cured of the way I am? Do I find myself able to slooshy
(hear) the old Choral Symphony without being sick once more? Can I live like a
normal jeezny (life) again? What, sir, happens to me?"
He looked at
me, brothers, as if he hadn't thought of that before and, anyway, it didn't
matter compared with Liberty and all that cal (feces), and he had a look of
surprise at me saying what I said, as though I was being like selfish in
wanting something for myself. Then he said: "Oh, as I say, you're a living
witness, poor boy. Eat up all your breakfast and then come and see what I've
written, for it's going into 'The Weekly Trumpet' under your name, you
unfortunate victim."
Well, brothers,
what he had written was a very long and very weepy piece of writing, and as I
read it I felt very sorry for the poor malchick (boy) who was govoreeting about
his sufferings and how the Government had sapped his will and how it was up to
all lewdies (people) to not let such a rot (mouth)ten and evil Government rule
them again, and then of course I realized that the poor suffering malchick
(boy) was none other than Y. H. N.
"Very
good," I said. "Real horrorshow (good). Written well thou hast, O
sir." And then he looked at me very narrow and said:
"What?"
It was like he had not slooshied me before.
"Oh,
that," I said, "is what we call nadsat (teenage) talk. All the teens
use that, sir." So then he ittied off to the kitchen to wash up the
dishes, and I was left in these borrowed night platties (clothes) and toofles
(slippers), waiting to have done to me what was going to be done to me, because
I had no plans for myself, O my brothers.
While the great
F. Alexander was in the kitchen a dingalingaling came at the door.
"Ah," he creeched, coming out wiping his rooker (hand)s, "it
will be these people. I'll go." So he went and let them in, a kind of
rumbling hahaha of talk and hallo and filthy weather and how are things in the
hallway, then they ittied into the room with the fire and the book and the
article about how I had suffered, viddying me and going Aaaaah as they did it.
There were three lewdies (people), and F. Alex gave me their eemya (name)s.
Z.Dolin was a very wheezy smoky kind of a veck (person), coughing kashl kashl
kashl with the end of a cancer (cigarette) in his rot (mouth), spilling ash all
down his platties (clothes) and then brushing it away with like very impatient rooker
(hand)s. He was a malenky (little) round veck (person), fat, with big
thick-framed otchkies (eyeglasses) on. Then there was Something Something
Rubinstein, a very tall and polite chelloveck (person) with a real gentleman's goloss
(voice), very starry (ancient) with a like eggy beard. And lastly there was D.
B. da Silva who was like skorry (quick) in his movements and had this strong von
(smell) of scent coming from him. They all had a real horrorshow (good) look at
me and seemed like overjoyed with what they viddied. Z. Dolin said:
"All
right, all right, eh? What a superb device he can be, this boy. If anything, of
course, he could for preference look even iller and more zombyish than he does.
Anything for the cause.
No doubt we can
think of something."
I did not like
that crack (break) about zombyish, brothers, and so I said: "What goes on,
bratties? What dost thou in mind for thy little droog (friend) have?" And
the F. Alexander swooshed in with:
"Strange,
strange, that manner of voice pricks me. We've come into contact before, I'm
sure we have." And he brooded, like frowning. I would have to watch this,
O my brothers.
D. B. da Silva said:
"Public
meetings, mainly. To exhibit you at public meetings will be a tremendous help.
And, of course, the newspaper angle is all tied up. A ruined life is the
approach. We must inflame all hearts." He showed his thirty-odd zoobies
(teeth), very white against his dark-coloured litso (face), he looking a malenky
(little) bit like some foreigner. I said:
"Nobody
will tell me what I get out of all this. Tortured in jail, thrown out of my
home by my own parents and their filthy overbearing lodger, beaten by old men
and near-killed by the millicent (police)s —what is to become of me?" The
Rubinstein veck (person) came in with:
"You will
see, boy, that the Party will not be ungrateful. Oh, no. At the end of it all
there will be some very acceptable little surprise for you. Just you wait and
see."
"There's
only one veshch (thing) I require," I creeched out, "and that's to be
normal and healthy as I was in the starry (ancient) days, having my malenky
(little) bit of fun with real droogs and not those who just call themselves
that and are really more like traitors.
Can you do
that, eh? Can any veck (person) restore me to what I was?
That's what I
want and that's what I want to know."
Kashl kashl
kashl, coughed this Z. Dolin. "A martyr to the cause of Liberty." he
said. "You have your part to play and don't forget it. Meanwhile, we shall
look after you." And he began to stroke my left rooker (hand) as if I was
like an idiot, grinning in a bezoomny (brainy) (mad) way. I creeched:
"Stop
treating me like a thing that's like got to be just used.
I'm not an
idiot you can impose on, you stupid bratchnies.
Ordinary
prestoopnicks are stupid, but I'm not ordinary and nor am I dim. Do you slooshy
(hear)?"
"Dim,"
said F. Alexander, like musing. "Dim. That was a name somewhere.
Dim."
"Eh?"
I said. "What's Dim got to do with it? What do you know about Dim?"
And then I said: "Oh, Bog (God) help us." I didn't like the look in
F. Alexander's glazz (eye)ies. I made for the door, wanting to go upstairs and
get my platties (clothes) and then itty (to go) off.
"I could
almost believe," said F. Alexander, showing his stained zoobies (teeth),
his glazz (eye)ies mad. "But such things are impossible. For, by Christ,
if he were I'd tear him. I'd split him, by God, yes yes, so I would."
"There,"
said D. B. da Silva, stroking his chest like he was a doggie to calm him down.
"It's all in the past. It was other people altogether. We must help this
poor victim. That's what we must do now, remembering the Future and our
Cause."
"I'll just
get my platties (clothes)," I said, at the stair-foot, "that is to
say clothes, and then I'll be itty (to go)ing off all on my oddy knocky
(lonesome).
I mean, my
gratitude for all, but I have my own jeezny (life) to live."
Because, brothers,
I wanted to get out of here real skorry (quick). But Z. Dolin said:
"Ah, no.
We have you, friend, and we keep you. You come with us. Everything will be all
right, you'll see." And he came up to me like to grab hold of my rooker
(hand) again. Then, brothers, I thought of fight, but thinking of fight made me
like want to collapse and sick, so I just stood. And then I saw this like
madness in F. Alexander's glazz (eye)ies and said:
"Whatever
you say. I am in your rooker (hand)s. But let's get it started and all over, brothers."
Because what I wanted now was to get out of this mesto (place) called HOME. I
was beginning not to like the look of the glazz (eye)ies of F. Alexander one malenky
(little) bit.
"Good,"
said this Rubinstein. "Get dressed and let's get started."
"Dim dim
dim," F. Alexander kept saying in a like low mutter. "What or who was
this Dim?" I ittied upstairs real skorry (quick) and dressed in near two
seconds flat. Then I was out with these three and into an auto, Rubinstein one
side of me and Z. Dolin coughing kashl kashl kashl the other side. D. B. da
Silva doing the driving, into the town and to a flatblock not really all that
distant from what had used to be my own flatblock or home. "Come, boy,
out," said Z. Dolin, coughing to make the cancer (cigarette)-end in his rot
(mouth) glow red like some malenky (little) furnace. "This is where you
shall be installed." So we ittied in, and there was like another of these
Dignity of Labour veshches (things) on the wall of the vestibule, and we upped
in the lift, brothers, and then went into a flat like all the flats of all the
flatblocks of the town. Very very malenky (little), with two bedrooms and one
live-eat-work-room, the table of this all covered with books and papers and ink
and bottles and all that cal (feces). "Here is your new home," said
D. B. da Silva. "Settle here, boy. Food is in the food-cupboard. Pyjamas
are in a drawer. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit."
"Eh?"
I said, not quite ponying that.
"All
right," said Rubinstein, with his starry (ancient) goloss (voice).
"We are now leaving you. Work has to be done. We'll be with you later.
Occupy yourself as best you can."
"One
thing," coughed Z. Dolin kashl kashl kashl. "You saw what stirred in
the tortured memory of our friend F. Alexander. Was it, by chance —? That is to
say, did you —? I think you know what I mean. We won't let it go any
further."
"I've
paid," I said. "Bog (God) knows I've paid for what I did. I've paid
not only for like myself but for those bratchnies too that called themselves my
droogs." I felt violent so then I felt a bit sick. "I'll lay down a
bit," I said. "I've been through terrible terrible times."
"You
have," said D. B. da Silva, showing all his thirty zoobies (teeth).
"You do that."
So they left
me, brothers. They ittied off about their business, which I took to be about
politics and all that cal (feces), and I was on the bed, all on my oddy knocky
(lonesome) with everything very very quiet. I just laid there with my sabog
(shoe)s kicked off my nogas and my tie loose, like all bewildered and not
knowing what sort of a jeezny (life) I was going to live now. And all sorts of
like pictures kept like passing through my gulliver (head), of the different
chellovecks I'd met at school and in the Staja (state jail), and the different veshches
(things) that had happened to me, and how there was not one veck (person) you
could trust in the whole bolshy (big, great) world. And then I like dozed off, brothers.
When I woke up
I could hear slooshy (hear) music coming out of the wall, real gromky (loud),
and it was that that had dragged me out of my bit of like sleep. It was a
symphony that I knew real horrorshow (good) but had not slooshied for many a
year, namely the Symphony Number Three of the Danish veck (person) Otto
Skadelig, a very gromky (loud) and violent piece, especially in the first
movement, which was what was playing now. I slooshied for two seconds in like
interest and joy, but then it all came over me, the start of the pain and the
sickness, and I began to groan deep down in my keeshkas (guts). And then there
I was, me who had loved music so much, crawling off the bed and going oh oh oh
to myself and then bang bang banging on the wall creching: "Stop, stop it,
turn it off!" But it went on and it seemed to be like louder. So I crashed
at the wall till my knuckles were all red red krovvy (blood) and torn skin,
creeching and creeching, but the music did not stop. Then I thought I had to
get away from it, so I lurched out of the malenky (little) bedroom and ittied skorry
(quick) to the front door of the flat, but this had been locked from the
outside and I could not get out. And all the time the music got more and more gromky
(loud), like it was all a deliberate torture, O my brothers. So I stuck my
little fingers real deep in my ooko (ear)s, but the trombones and kettledrums
blasted through gromky (loud) enough. So I creeched again for them to stop and
went hammer hammer hammer on the wall, but it made not one malenky (little) bit
of difference. "Oh, what am I to do?" I boohooed to myself. "Oh,
Bog (God) in Heaven help me." I was like wandering all over the flat in
pain and sickness, trying to shut out the music and like groaning deep out of
my guts, and then on top of the pile of books and papers and all that cal
(feces) that was on the tablein the living room I viddied what I had to do and
what I had wanted to do until those old men in the Public Biblio (library) and
then Dim and Billyboy disguised as rozz (police)es stopped me, and that was to
do myself in, to snuff it (die), to blast off for ever out of this wicked and
cruel world. What I viddied was the slovo (word) DEATH on the cover of a like
pamphlet, even though it was only DEATH to THE GOVERNMENT. And like it was Fate
there was another malenky (little) booklet which had an open window on the
cover, and it said:
"Open the
window to fresh air, fresh ideas, a new way of living." And so I knew that
was like telling me to finish it all off by jumping out. One moment of pain,
perhaps, and then sleep for ever and ever and ever.
The music was
still pouring in all brass and drums and the violins miles up through the wall.
The window in the room where I had laid down was open. I ittied to it and
viddied a fair drop to the autos and buses and waiting chellovecks below. I
creeched out to the world: "Good-bye, good-bye, may Bog (God) forgive you
for a ruined life." Then I got on to the sill, the music blasting away to
my left, and I shut my glazz (eye)ies and felt the cold wind on my litso (face),
then I jumped.
I jumped, O my brothers,
and I fell on the sidewalk hard, but I did not snuff it (die), oh no. If I had
snuffed it I would not be here to write what I written have. It seems that the
jump was not from a big enough heighth to kill. But I cracked my back and my
wrists and nogas and felt very bolshy (big, great) pain before I passed out, brothers,
with astonished and surprised litsos of chellovecks in the streets looking at
me from above. And just before I passed out I viddied clear that not one chelloveck
(person) in the whole horrid world was for me and that that music through the
wall had all been like arranged by those who were supposed to be my like new
droogs and that it was some veshch (thing) like this that they wanted for their
horrible selfish and boastful politics. All that was in like a million
millionth part of one minoota (minute) before I threw over the world and the
sky and the litsos of the staring chellovecks that were above me.
Where I was
when I came back to jeezny (life) after a long black black gap of it might have
been a million years was a hospital, all white and with this von (smell) of
hospitals you get, all like sour and smug and clean. These antiseptic veshches
(things) you get in hospitals should have a real horrorshow (good) von (smell)
of like frying onions or of flowers. I came very slow back to knowing who I was
and I was all bound up in white and I could not feel anything in my plott
(body), pain nor sensation nor any veshch (thing) at all.
All round my gulliver
(head) was a bandage and there were bits of stuff like stuck to my litso (face),
and my rooker (hand)s were all in bandages and like bits of stick were like
fixed to my fingers like on it might be flowers to make them grow straight, and
my poor old nogas were all straightened out too, and it was all bandages and
wire cages and into my right rooker (hand), near the pletcho (shoulder), was
red red krovvy (blood) dripping from a jar upside down.
But I could not
feel anything, O my brothers. There was a nurse sitting by my bed and she was
reading some book that was all very dim print and you could viddy (see) it was
a story because of a lot of inverted commas, and she was like breathing hard uh
uh uh over it, so it must have been a story about the old in-out in-out. She
was a real horrorshow (good) devotchka (girl), this nurse, with a very red rot
(mouth) and like long lashes over her glazz (eye)ies, and under her like very stiff
uniform you could viddy (see) she had very horrorshow (good) groodies. So I
said to her: "What gives, O my little sister? Come thou and have a nice
lay-down with your malenky (little) droog (friend) in this bed." But the
slovos didn't come out horrorshow (good) at all, it being as though my rot
(mouth) was all stiffened up, and I could feel with my yahzick (tongue) that
some of my zoobies (teeth) were no longer there. But this nurse like jumped and
dropped her book on the floor and said:
"Oh,
you've recovered consciousness."
That was like a
big rot (mouth)ful for a malenky (little) ptitsa (chick) like her, and I tried
to say so, but the slovos came out only like er er er.
She ittied off
and left me on my oddy knocky (lonesome), and I could viddy (see) now that I
was in a malenky (little) room of my own, not in one of these long wards like I
had been in as a very little malchick (boy), full of coughing dying starry
(ancient) vecks all around to make you want to get well and fit again. It had
been like diphtheria I had had then, O my brothers.
It was like now
as though I could not hold to being conscious all that long, because I was like
asleep again almost right away, very skorry (quick), but in a minoota (minute)
or two I was sure that this nurse ptitsa (chick) had come back and had brought
chellovecks in white coats with her and they were viddying me very frowning and
going hm hm hm at Your Humble Narrator. And with them I was sure there was the
old charles (chaplain) from the Staja (state jail) govoreeting: "Oh my
son, my son," breathing a like very stale von (smell) of whisky on to me
and then saying: "But I would not stay, oh no. I could not in no wise
subscribe to what those bratchnies are going to do to other poor prestoopnicks.
O I got out and am preaching sermons now about it all, my little beloved son in
J. C."
I woke up again
later on and who should I viddy (see) there round the bed but the three from
whose flat I had jumped out, namely D. B. da Silva and Something Something
Rubinstein and Z. Dolin. "Friend," one of these vecks was saying, but
I could not viddy (see), or slooshy (hear) horrorshow (good) which one,
"friend, little friend," this goloss (voice) was saying, "the
people are on fire with indignation. You have killed those horrible boastful
villains' chances of re-election. They will go and will go for ever and ever.
You have served Liberty well." I tried to say:
"If I had
died it would have been even better for you political bratchnies, would it not,
pretending and treacherous droogs as you are." But all that came out was
er er er. Then one of these three seemed to hold out a lot of bits cut from
gazettas and what I could viddy (see) was a horrible picture of me all krovvy
(blood) on a stretcher being carried off and I seemed to like remember a kind
of a popping of lights which must have been photographer vecks. Out of one glazz
(eye) I could read like headlines which were sort of trembling in the rooker
(hand) of the chelloveck (person) that held them, like BOY VICTIM OF CRIMINAL
REFORM SCHEME and GOVERNMENT AS MURDERER and there was like a picture of a veck
(person) that looked familiar to me and it said OUT OUT OUT, and that would be
the Minister of the Inferior or Interior. Then the nurse ptitsa (chick) said:
"You
shouldn't be exciting him like that. You shouldn't be doing anything that will
make him upset. Now come on, let's have you out." I tried to say:
"Out out
out," but it was er er er again. Anyway, these three political vecks went.
And I went, too, only back to the land, back to all blackness lit up by like
odd dreams which I didn't know whether they were dreams or not, O my brothers.
Like for instance I had this idea of my whole plott (body) or body being like
emptied of as it might be dirty water and then filled up again with clean. And
then there were really lovely and horrorshow (good) dreams of being in some veck
(person)'s auto that had been crasted by me and driving up and down the world
all on my oddy knocky (lonesome) running lewdies (people) down and hearing them
creech (scream) they were dying, and in me no pain and no sickness. And also
there were dreams of doing the old in-out in-out with devotchkas, forcing like
them down on the ground and making them have it and everybody standing around
claping their rooker (hand)s and cheering like bezoomny (brainy) (mad). And
then I woke up again and it was my pee and em (parents) come to viddy (see)
their ill son, my em boohooing real horrorshow (good). I could govoreet (talk)
a lot better now and could say:
"Well well
well well well, what gives? What makes you think you are like welcome?" My
papapa said, in a like ashamed way:
"You were
in the papers, son. It said they had done great wrong to you. It said how the
Government drove you to try and do yourself in. And it was our fault too, in a
way, son.
Your home's
your home, when all's said and done, son." And my mum kept on going
boohoohoo and looking ugly as kiss-my-sharries (buttocks). So I said:
"And how
beeth the new son Joe? Well and healthy and prosperous, I trust and pray?"
My mum said:
"Oh, Alex
Alex. Owwwwwwww." My papapa said:
"A very
awkward thing, son. He got into a bit of trouble with the police and was done
by the police."
"Really?"
I said. "Really? Such a good sort of chelloveck (person) and all. Amazed
proper I am, honest."
"Minding
his own business he was," said my pee. "And the police told him to
move on. Waiting at a corner he was, son, to see a girl he was going to meet.
And they told him to move on and he said he had rights like everybody else, and
then they sort of fell on top of him and hit him about cruel."
"Terrible,"
I said. "Really terrible. And where is the poor boy now?"
"Owwwww,"
boohooed my mum. "Gone back owwwwwwme."
"Yes,"
said dad. "He's gone back to his own home town to get better. They've had
to give his job here to somebody else."
"So
now," I said, "You're willing for me to move back in again and things
be like they were before."
"Yes,
son," said my papapa. "Please, son."
"I'll
consider it," I said. "I'll think about it real careful."
"Owwwww,"
went my mum.
"Ah, shut
it," I said, "or I'll give you something proper to yowl and creech
(scream) about. Kick your zoobies (teeth) in I will." And, O my brothers,
saying that made me feel a malenky (little) bit better, as if all like fresh
red red krovvy (blood) was flowing all through my plott (body). That was
something I had to think about. It was like as though to get better I had had
to get worse.
"That's no
way to speak to your mother, son," said my papapa. "After all, she
brought you into the world."
"Yes,"
I said. "And a right grahzny (dirty) vonny world too." I shut my glazz
(eye)ies tight in like pain and said: "Go away now. I'll think about
coming back. But things will have to be very different."
"Yes,
son," said my pee. "Anything you say."
"You'll
have to make up your mind," I said, "who's to be boss."
"Owwwwww,"
my mum went on.
"Very
good, son," said my papapa. "Things will be as you like. Only get
well."
When they had
gone I laid and thought a bit about different veshches (things), like all
different pictures passing through my gulliver (head), and when the nurse ptitsa
(chick) came back in and like straightened the sheets on the bed I said to her:
"How long
is it I've been in here?"
"A week or
so," she said.
"And what
have they been doing to me?"
"Well,"
she said, "you were all broken up and bruised and had sustained severe
concussion and had lost a lot of blood.
They've had to
put all that right, haven't they?"
"But,"
I said, "has anyone been doing anything with my gulliver (head)? What I
mean is, have they been playing around with inside like my brain?"
"Whatever
they've done," she said, "it'll all be for the best."
But a couple of
days later a couple of like doctor vecks came in, both youngish vecks with these
very sladky (sweet) smiles, and they had like a picture book with them. One of
them said:
"We want
you to have a look at these and to tell us what you think about them. All
right?"
"What
giveth, O little droogies?" I said. "What new bezoomny (brainy) (mad)
idea dost thou in mind have?" So they both had a like embarrassed smeck
(laugh) at that and then they sat down either side of the bed and opened up
this book. On the first page there was like a photograph of a bird-nest full of
eggs.
"Yes?"
one of these doctor vecks said.
"A bird-nest,"
I said, "full of like eggs. Very very nice."
"And what
would you like to do about it?" the other one said.
"Oh,"
I said, "smash them. Pick up the lot and like throw them against a wall or
a cliff or something and then viddy (see) them all smash up real horrorshow
(good)."
"Good
good," they both said, and then the page was turned.
It was like a
picture of one of these bolshy (big, great) great birds called peacocks with
all its tail spread out in all colours in a very boastful way. "Yes?"
said one of these vecks.
"I would
like," I said, "to pull out like all those feathers in its tail and slooshy
(hear) it creech (scream) blue murder. For being so like boastful."
"Good,"
they both said, "good good good." And they went on turning the pages.
There were like pictures of real horrorshow (good) devotchkas, and I said I
would like to give them the old in-out in-out with lots of ultra-violence.
There were like pictures of chellovecks being given the boot straight in the litso
(face) and all red red krovvy (blood) everywhere and I said I would like to be
in on that. And there was a picture of the old nagoy (naked) droog (friend) of
the prison charlie (chaplain)'s carrying his cross up a hill, and I said I
would like to have the old hammer and nails. Good good good, I said:
"What is
all this?"
"Deep
hypnopaedia," or some such slovo (word), said one of these two vecks.
"You seem to be cured."
"Cured?"
I said. "Me tied down to this bed like this and you say cured? Kiss my sharries
(buttocks) is what I say."
So I waited
and, O my brothers, I got a lot better, munching away at eggiweg (egg)s and
lomticks of toast and peet (drink)ing bolshy (big, great) great mugs of milky chai
(tea), and then one day they said I was going to have a very very very special
visitor.
"Who?"
I said, while they straightened the bed and combed my luscious glory (hair) for
me, me having the bandage off now from my gulliver (head) and the hair growing
again.
"You'll
see, you'll see," they said. And I viddied all right. At two-thirty of the
afternoon there were like all photographers and men from gazettas with noteboks
and pencils and all that cal (feces). And, brothers, they near trumpeted a bolshy
(big, great) fanfare for this great and important veck (person) who was coming
to viddy (see) Your Humble Narrator. And in he came, and of course it was none
other than the Minister of the Interior or Inferior, dressed in the heighth of
fashion and with this very upper-class haw haw goloss (voice). Flash flash bang
went the cameras when he put out his rooker (hand) to me to shake it. I said:
"Well well
well well well. What giveth then, old droogie?"
Nobody seemed
to quite pony (understand) that, but somebody said in a like harsh goloss
(voice):
"Be more
respectful, boy, in addressing the Minister."
"Yarbles
(testicles)," I said, like snarling like a doggie. "Bolshy (big,
great) great yarblockos to thee and thine."
"All
right, all right," said the Interior Inferior one very skorry (quick).
"He speaks to me as a friend, don't you, son?"
"I am everyone's
friend," I said. "Except to my enemies."
"Well,"
said the Int Inf Min, sitting down by my bed. "I and the Government of
which I am a member want you to regard us as friends. Yes, friends. We have put
you right, yes? You are getting the best of treatment. We never wished you
harm, but there are some who did and do. And I think you know who those
are."
"Yes yes
yes," he said. "There are certain men who wanted to use you, yes, use
you for political ends. They would have been glad, yes, glad for you to be
dead, for they thought they could then blame it all on the Government. I think
you know who those men are."
"There is
a man," said the Intinfmin, "called F. Alexander, a writer of
subversive literature, who has been howling for your blood. He has been mad
with desire to stick a knife in you.
But you're safe
from him now. We put him away."
"He was
supposed to be like a droogie," I said. "Like a mother to me was what
he was."
"He found
out that you had done wrong to him. At least," said the Min very very skorry
(quick), "he believed you had done wrong. He formed this idea in his mind
that you had been responsible for the death of someone near and dear to
him."
"What you
mean," I said, "is that he was told."
"He had
this idea," said the Min. "He was a menace. We put him away for his
own prot (mouth)ection. And also," he said, "for yours."
"Kind,"
I said. "Most kind of thou."
"When you
leave here," said the Min, "you will have no worries. We shall see to
everything. A good job on a good salary. Because you are helping us."
"Am
I?" I said.
"We always
help our friends, don't we?" And then he took my rooker (hand) and some veck
(person) creeched: "Smile!" and I smiled like bezoomny (brainy) (mad)
without thinking, and then flash flash crack (break) flash bang there were
pictures being taken of me and the Intinfmin all droogy together. "Good
boy," said this great chelloveck (person).
"Good good
boy. And now, see, a present."
What was
brought in now, brothers, was a big shiny box, and I viddied clear what sort of
a veshch (thing) it was. It was a stereo. It was put down next to the bed and
opened up and some veck (person) plugged its lead into the wall-socket.
"What shall it be?" asked a veck (person) with otchkies (eyeglasses)
on his nose, and he had in his rooker (hand)s lovely shiny sleeves full of
music. "Mozart? Beethoven? Schoenberg? Carl Orff?"
"The
Ninth," I said. "The glorious Ninth."
And the Ninth
it was, O my brothers. Everybody began to leave nice and quiet while I laid
there with my glazz (eye)ies closed, slooshying the lovely music. The Min said:
"Good good boy," patting me on the pletcho (shoulder), then he ittied
off. Only one veck (person) was left, saying: "Sign here, please." I
opened my glazz (eye)ies up to sign, not knowing what I was signing and not, O
my brothers, caring either. Then I was left alone with the glorious Ninth of Ludwig
van.
Oh it was
gorgeosity and yumyumyum. When it came to the Scherzo I could viddy (see)
myself very clear running and running on like very light and mysterious nogas,
carving the whole litso (face) of the creeching world with my cut-throat britva
(razor).
And there was the
slow movement and the lovely last singing movement still to come. I was cured
all right.
‘What’s it
going to be then, eh?’
There was me,
Your Humble Narrator, and my three droogs, that is Len, Rick, and Bully being
called Bully because of his bolshly big neck and very gromky (loud) goloss
(voice) which was just like some bolshy (big, great) great bull bellowing
auuuuuuuuh. We were sitting in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodock
(mind)s what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though
dry. All round were chellovecks well away on milk plus vellocet and synthemesc
and drencrom (drug) and other veshches (things) which take you far far far away
from this wicked and real world into the land to viddy (see) Bog (God) And All
His Angels And Saints in your left sabog (shoe) with lights bursting and
spurting all over your mozg (brain). What we were peet (drink)ing was the old moloko
(milk) with knives in it, as we used to say, to sharpen you up and make you
ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, but I’ve told you all that before.
We were dressed
in the heighth of fashion, which in those days was these very wide trousers and
a very loose black shiny leather like jerkin over an open-necked shirt with a
like scarf tucked in. At this time too it was the heighth of fashion to use the
old britva (razor) on the gulliver (head), so that most of the gulliver (head)
was like bald and there was hair only on the sides. But it was always the same
on the old nogas-real horrorshow (good) bolshy (big, great) big boots for
kicking litsos in.
‘What’s it
going to be then, eh?’
I was like the
oldest of we four, and they all looked up to me as their leader, but I got the
idea sometimes that Bully had the thought in his gulliver (head) that he would
like to take over, this being because of his bigness and the gromky (loud) goloss
(voice) that bellowed out of him when he was on the warpath. But all the ideas
came from Your Humble, O my brothers, and also there was this veshch (thing)
that I had been famous and had had my pictures and articles and all that cal
(feces) in the gazettas. Also I had by far the best job of all we four, being
in the National Gramodisc Archives on the music side with a real horrorshow
(good) carman (pocket) full of pretty polly (money) at the week’s end and a lot
of nice free discs for my own malenky (little) self on the side.
This evening in
the Korova there was a fair number of vecks and ptitsa (chick)s and devotchkas
and malchick (boy)s smecking and peet (drink)ing away, and cutting through
their govoreeting and the burbling of the in-the-landers with their ‘Gorgor
fallatuke and the worm sprays in filltip slaughterballs’ and all that cal
(feces) you could slooshy (hear) a pop-disc on the stereo, this being Ned
Achimota singing ‘That Day, Yeah, That Day’. At the counter were three
devotchkas dressed in the heighth of nadsat (teenage) fashion, that is to say
long uncombed hair dyed white and false groodies sticking out a metre or more
and very very tight short skirts with all like frot (mouth)hy white underneath,
and Bully kept saying: ‘Hey, get in there we could, three of us. Old Len is not
interested. Leave old Len alone with his God.’ And Len kept saying: ‘Yarbles
(testicles) yarbles (testicles). Where is the spirit of all for one and one for
all, eh boy?’ Suddenly I felt both very very tired and also full of tingly
energy, and I said:
‘Out out out
out out.’
‘Where to?’
said Rick, who had a litso (face) like a frog’s.
‘Oh, just to viddy
(see) what’s doing in the great outside, ’I said. But somehow, my brothers, I
felt very bored and a bit hopeless, and I had been feeling that a lot these
days. So I turned to the chelloveck (person) nearest me on the big plush seat
that ran right round the whole mesto (place), a chelloveck (person), that is,
who was burbling away under the influence, and I fisted him real skorry (quick)
ack ack ack in the belly. But he felt it not, brothers, only burbling away with
his ‘Cart cart virtue, where in toptails lieth the poppoppicorns?’ So we
scatted out into the big winter nochy (night).
We walked down
Marghanita Boulevard and there were no millicent (police)s patrolling that way,
so when we met a starry (ancient) veck (person) coming away from a news-kiosk
where he had been kupetting a gazetta I said to Bully: ‘All right, Bully boy,
thou canst if thou like wishest (barrier).’ More and more these days I had been
just giving the orders and standing back to viddy (see) them being carried out.
So Bully cracked into him er er er, and the other two tripped him and kicked at
him, smecking away, while he was down and then let him crawl off to where he
lived, like whimpering to himself. Bully said:
‘How about a
nice yummy glass of something to keep out the cold, O Alex?’ For we were not
too far from the Duke of New York. The other two nodded yes yes yes but all
looked at me to viddy (see) whether that was all right. I nodded too and so off
we ittied. Inside the snug there were these starry (ancient) ptitsa (chick)s or
sharps or baboochkas you will remember from the beginning and they all started
on their: ‘Evening, lads, God bless you, boys, best lads living, that’s what
you are,’ waiting for us to say ‘What’s it going to be girls?’ Bully rang the collocoll
(bell) and a waiter came in rubbing his rooker (hand)s on his grazzy (dirty)
apron. ‘Cutter (money) on the table, droogies,’ said Bully, pulling out his own
rattling and chinking mound of deng (money). ‘Scotchmen for us and the same for
the old baboochkas, eh?’ And then I said:
‘Ah, to hell.
Let them buy their own.’ I didn’t know what it was, but these last days I had
become like mean. There had come into my gulliver (head) a like desire to keep
all my pretty polly (money) to myself, to like hoard it all up for some reason.
Bully said:
‘What gives, bratty
(brot (mouth)her)? What’s coming over old Alex?’
‘Ah, to hell,’
I said. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. What it is is I don’t like just throwing
away my hard-earned pretty polly (money), that’s what it is.’
‘Earned?’ said
Rick. ‘Earned? It doesn’t have to be earned, as well thou knowest, old droogie.
Took, that’s all, just took, like.’ And he smecked real gromky (loud) and I
viddied one or two of his zoobies (teeth) weren’t all that horrorshow (good).
‘Ah,’ I said,
‘I’ve got some thinking to do.’ But viddying these baboochkas looking all eager
like for some free alc, I like shrugged my pletcho (shoulder)es and pulled out
my own cutter (money) from my trouser carman (pocket), notes and coin all mixed
together, and plonked it tinkle crackle on the table.
‘Scotchmen all
round, right,’ said the waiter. But for some reason I said:
‘No, boy, for
me make it one small beer, right.’ Len said:
‘This I do not
much go for,’ and he began to put his rooker (hand) on my gulliver (head), like
kidding I must have fever, but I like snarled doggy-wise for him to give over skorry
(quick). ‘All right, all right, droog (friend),’ he said. ‘As thou like
sayest.’ But Bully was having a smot (look) with his rot (mouth) open at
something that had come out of my carman (pocket) with the pretty polly (money)
I’d put on the table. He said:
‘Well well
well. And we never knew.’
‘Give me that,’
I snarled and grabbed it skorry (quick). I couldn’t explain how it had got
there, brothers, but it was a photograph I had scissored out of the old gazetta
and it was of a baby. It was of a baby gurgling goo goo goo with all like moloko
(milk) dribbling from its rot (mouth) and looking up and like smecking at
everybody, and its was all nagoy (naked) and its flesh was like in all folds
with being a very fat baby. There was then like a bit of haw haw haw struggling
to get hold of this bit of paper from me, so I had to snarl again at them and I
grabbed the photo and tore it up into tiny teeny pieces and let it fall like a
bit of snow on to the floor. The whisky came in then and the starry (ancient)
baboochkas said: ‘Good health, lads, God bless you, boys, the best lads living,
that’s what you are,’ and all that cal (feces). And one of them who was all
lines and wrinkles and no zoobies (teeth) in her shrunken old rot (mouth) said:
‘Don’t tear up money, son. If you don’t need it give it them as does,’ which
was very bold and forward of her. But Rick said:
‘Money that was
not, O baboochka (old woman). It was a picture of a dear little itsy witsy
bitsy bit of a baby.’ I said:
‘I’m getting
just that bit tired, that I am. It’s you who’s the babies, you lot. Scoffing
and grinning and all you can do is smeck (laugh) and give people bolshy (big,
great) cowardly tolchocks when they can’t give them back.’ Bully said:
‘Well now, we
always thought it was you who was the king of that and also the teacher. Not
well, that’s the trouble with thou, old droogie.’
I viddied this
sloppy glass of beer I had on the table in front of me and felt like all vomity
within, so I went ‘Aaaaah’ and poured all the frot (mouth)hy vonny cal (feces)
all over the floor. One of the starry (ancient) ptitsa (chick)s said:
‘Waste not want
not.’ I said:
‘Look,
droogies. Listen. Tonight I am somehow just not in the mood. I know not why or
how it is, but there it is. You three go your own ways this nightwise, leaving
me out. Tomorrow we shall meet same place same time, me hoping to be like a lot
better.’
‘Oh,’ said
Bully, ‘right sorry I am.’ But you could viddy (see) a like gleam in his glazz
(eye)ies, because now he would be taking over for this nochy (night). Power
power, everybody like wants power. ‘We can postpone till tomorrow,’ said Bully.
‘what we in mind had. Namely, that bit of shopcrasting in Gagarin Street. Flip horrorshow
(good) takings there, droog (friend), for the having.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘You postpone nothing. You just carry on in your own like style. Now,’ I said,
‘I itty (to go) off.’ And I got up from my chair.
‘Where to,
then?’ asked Rick.
‘That know I
not,’ I said. ‘Just to be on like my own and sort things out.’ You could viddy
(see) the old baboochkas were real puzzled at me going out like that and like
all morose and not the bright and smecking malchick (boy)iwick you will
remember. But I said: ‘Ah, to hell, to hell,’ and scatted out all on my oddy
knocky (lonesome) into the street.
It was dark and
there was a wind sharp (female) as a nozh (knife) getting up, and there were
very very few lewdies (people) about. There were these patrol cars with brutal rozz
(police)es inside them like cruising about, and now and then on the corner you
would viddy (see) a couple of very young millicent (police)s stamping against
the bitchy cold and letting out steam breath on the winter air, O my brothers.
I suppose really a lot of the old ultra-violence and crasting was dying out
now, the rozz (police)es being so brutal with who they caught, though it had
become like a fight between naughty nadsats and the rozz (police)es who could
be more skorry (quick) with the nozh (knife) and the britva (razor) and the
stick and even the gun. But what was the matter with me these days was that I
didn’t like care much. It was like something soft getting into me and I could
not pony (understand) why. What I wanted these days I did not know. Even the
music I liked to slooshy (hear) in my own malenky (little) den what what I
would have smecked at before, brothers. I was slooshying more like malenky
(little) romantic songs, what they call Lieder, just a goloss (voice)
and a piano, very quiet and like yearny, different from when it had been all bolshy
(big, great) orchestras and me lying on the bed between the violins and the
trombones and kettledrums. There was something happening inside me, and I
wondered if it was like some disease or if it was what they had done to me that
time upsetting my gulliver (head) and perhaps going to make me real bezoomny
(brainy) (mad).
So thinking
like this with my gulliver (head) bent and my rooker (hand)s stuck in my
trouser carmans I walked the town, brothers, and at last I began to feel very
tired and also in great need of a nice bolshy (big, great) chasha (cup) of
milky chai (tea). Thinking about this chai (tea), I got a sudden like picture
of me sitting before a bolshy (big, great) fire in an armchair peet (drink)ing
away at this chai (tea), and what was funny and very very strange was that I
seemed to have turned into a very starry (ancient) chelloveck (person), about
seventy years old, because I could viddy (see) my own voloss (hair), which was
very grey, and I also had whiskers, and these were very grey too. I could viddy
(see) myself as an old man, sitting by a fire, and then the like picture
vanished. But it was very like strange.
I came to one
of these tea-and-coffee mesto (place)s, brothers, and I could viddy (see)
through the long long window that it was full of very dull lewdies (people),
like ordinary, who had these very patient and expressionless litsos and would
do no harm to no one, all sitting there and govoreeting like quietly and peet
(drink)ing away at their nice harmless chai (tea) and coffee. I ittied inside
and went up to the counter and bought me a nice hot chai (tea) with plenty of moloko
(milk), then I ittied to one of these tables and sat down to peet (drink) it.
There was a like young couple at this table, peet (drink)ing and smoking
filter-tip cancers, and govoreeting and smecking very quietly between
themselves, but I took no notice of them and just went on peet (drink)ing away
and like dreaming and wondering what it was in me that was like changing and
what was going to happen to me. But I viddied that the devotchka (girl) at this
table who was with this chelloveck (person) was real horrorshow (good), not the
sort you would want to like throw down and give the old in-out in-out to, but
with a horrorshow (good) plott (body) and litso (face) and a smiling rot
(mouth) and very very fair voloss (hair) and all that cal (feces). And then the
veck (person) with her, who had a hat on his gulliver (head) and had his litso
(face) like turned away from me, swivelled round to viddy (see) the bolshy
(big, great) big clock they had on the wall in this mesto (place), and then I
viddied who he was and then he viddied who I was. It was Pete, one of my three
droogs from those days when it was Georgie and Dim and him and me. It was Pete
like looking a lot older though he could not now be more than nineteen and a
bit, and he had a bit of a moustache and an ordinary day-suit and this hat on.
I said:
‘Well well
well, droogie, what gives? Very very long time no viddy (see).’ He said:
‘It’s little
Alex, isn’t it?’
‘None other,’ I
said. ‘A long long long time since those dead and gone good days. And now poor
Georgie, they told me, is underground and old Dim is a brutal millicent
(police), and here is thou and here is I, and what news hast thou, old
droogie?’
‘He talks funny,
doesn’t he?’ said this devotchka (girl), like giggling.
‘This, said
Pete to the devotchka (girl), ‘is an old friend. His name is Alex. May I,’ he
said to me, ‘introduce my wife?’
My rot (mouth)
fell wide open then. ‘Wife?’ I like gaped. ‘Wife wife wife? Ah no, that cannot
be. Too young art thou to be married, old droog (friend). Impossible
impossible.’
This devotchka
(girl) who was like Pete’s wife (impossible impossible) giggled again and said
to Pete: ‘Did you used to talk like that too?’
‘Well,’ said
Pete, and he like smiled. ‘I’m nearly twenty. Old enough to be hitched, and
it’s been two months already. You were very young and very forward, remember.’
‘Well,’ I liked
gaped still. ‘Over this get can I not, old droogie. Pete married. Well well
well.’
‘We have a
small flat,’ said Pete. ‘I am earning very small money at State Marine
Insurance, but things will get better, that I know. And Georgina here-‘
‘What again is
that name?’ I said, rot (mouth) still open like bezoomny (brainy) (mad). Pete’s
wife. (wife, brothers) like giggled again.
‘Georgina,’
said Pete. ‘Georgina works too. Typing, you know. We manage, we manage.’ I
could not, brothers, take my glazz (eye)ies off him, really. He was like grown
up now, with a grown-up goloss (voice) and all. ‘You must,’ said Pete, ‘come
and see us sometime. You still,’ he said, ‘look very young, despite all your
terrible experiences. Yes, yes, yes, we’ve read all about them. But, of course,
you are very young still.’
‘Eighteen,’ I
said, ‘Just gone.’
‘Eighteen, eh?’
said Pete. ‘As old as that. Well well well. Now,’ he said, ‘we have to be
going.’ And he like gave this Georgina of his a like loving look and pressed
one of her rooker (hand)s between his and she gave him one of these looks back,
O my brothers. ‘Yes,’ said Pete, turning back to me, ‘we’re off to a little
party at Greg’s.’
‘Greg?’ I said.
‘Oh, of
course,’ said Pete, ‘you wouldn’t know Greg, would you? Greg is after your
time. While you were away Greg came into the picture. He runs little parties,
you know. Mostly wine-cup and word-games. But very nice, very pleasant, you know.
Harmless, if you see what I mean.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Harmless. Yes, yes, I viddy (see) that real horrorshow (good).’ And this
Georgina devotchka (girl) giggled again at my slovos. And then these two ittied
off to their vonny word-games at this Greg’s, whoever he was. I was left all on
my oddy knocky (lonesome) with my milky chai (tea), which was getting cold now,
like thinking and wondering.
Perhaps that
was it, I kept thinking. Perhaps I was getting too old for the sort of jeezny
(life) I had been leading, brothers. I was eighteen now, just gone. Eighteen
was not a young age. At eighteen old Wolfgang Amadeus had written concertos and
symphonies and operas and oratorios and all that cal (feces), no, not cal
(feces), heavenly music. And then there was old Felix M. with his Midsummer
Night’s Dream Overture. And there were others. And there was this like
French poet set by old Benjy Britt, who had done all his best poetry by the age
of fifteen, O my brothers. Arthur, his first name. Eighteen was not all that
young an age, then. But what was I going to do?
Walking the dark
chill bastards of winter streets after itty (to go)ing off from this chai (tea)-and-coffee
mesto (place), I kept viddying like visions, like these cartoons in the
gazettas. There was Your Humble Narrator Alex coming home from work to a good
hot plate of dinner, and there was this ptitsa (chick) all welcoming and
greeting like loving. But I could not viddy (see) her all that horrorshow
(good), brothers, I could not think who it might be. But I had this sudden very
strong idea that if I walked into the room next to this room where the fire was
burning away and my hot dinner laid on the table, there I should find what I
really wanted, and now it all tied up, that picture scissored out of the
gazetta and meeting old Pete like that. For in that other room in a cot was
laying gurgling goo goo goo my son. Yes yes yes, brothers, my son. And now I
felt this bolshy (big, great) big hollow inside my plott (body), feeling very
surprised too at myself. I knew what was happening, O my brothers. I was like
growing up.
Yes yes yes,
there it was. Youth must go, ah yes. But youth is only being in a way like it
might be an animal. No, it is not just like being an animal so much as being
one of these malenky (little) toys you viddy (see) being sold in the streets,
like little chellovecks made out of tin and with a spring inside and then a
winding handle on the outside and you wind it up grrr grrr grrr and off it
itties, like walking, O my brothers. But it itties in a straight line and bangs
straight into things bang bang and it cannot help what it is doing. Being young
is like being like one of these malenky (little) machines.
My son, my son.
When I had my son I would explain all that to him when he was starry (ancient)
enough to like understand. But then I knew he would not understand or would not
want to understand at all and would do all the veshches (things) I had done,
yes perhaps even killing some poor starry (ancient) forella (trout) surrounded
with mewing kots and koshkas, and I would not be able to really stop him. And
nor would he be able to stop his own son, brothers. And so it would itty (to
go) on until like the end of the world, round and round and round, like some bolshy
(big, great) gigantic like chelloveck (person), like old Bog (God) Himself (by
courtesy of Korova Milkbar) turning and turning and turning a vonny grahzny
(dirty) orange in his gigantic rooker (hand)s.
But first of
all, brothers, there was this veshch (thing) of finding some devotchka (girl)
or other who would be a mother to this son. I would have to start on that
tomorrow, I kept thinking. That was something like new to do. That was
something I would have to get started on, a new like chapter beginning.
That’s what
it’s going to be then, brothers, as I come to the like end of this tale. You
have been everywhere with your little droog (friend) Alex, suffering with him,
and you have viddied some of the most grahzny (dirty) bratchnies old Bog (God)
ever made, all on to your old droog (friend) Alex. And all it was was that I
was young. But now as I end this story, brothers, I am not young, not no
longer, oh no. Alex like groweth up, oh yes.
But where I itty
(to go) now, O my brothers, is all on my oddy knocky (lonesome), where you
cannot go. Tomorrow is all like sweet flowers and the turning vonny earth and
the stars and the old Luna up there and your old droog (friend) Alex all on his
oddy knocky (lonesome) seeking like a mate. And all that cal (feces). A
terrible grahzny (dirty) vonny world, really, O my brothers. And so farewell
from your little droog (friend). And to all others in this story profound shoom
(noise)s of lipmusic brrrrrr. And they can kiss my sharries (buttocks). But
you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little Alex that was. Amen. And all
that cal (feces).
Words that do
not appear to be of Russian origin are distinguished by asterisks. (For help
with the Russian, I am indebted to the kindness of my colleague Nora Montesinos
and a number of correspondents.)
*appy (apology)
polly loggy - apology
baboochka (old
woman) - old woman
*baddiwad (bad)
- bad
banda (band) -
band
bezoomny
(brainy) (mad) - mad
biblio
(library) - library
bitva (battle)
- battle
Bog (God) - God
bolnoy (sick) -
sick
bolshy (big,
great) - big, great
brat (brot
(mouth)her), bratty (brot (mouth)her) - brot (mouth)her
bratchny
(bastard) - bastard
britva (razor)
- razor
brook (hand)o
(ear) (belly) - belly
brosay (throw)
- to throw
bugatty (rich)
- rich
cal (feces) -
feces
*cancer
(cigarette) - cigarette
cantora
(office) - office
carman (pocket)
- pocket
chai (tea) -
tea
*charles
(chaplain), charlie (chaplain) - chaplain
chasha (cup) -
cup
chasso (guard)
- guard
cheena (woman)
- woman
cheest (wash) -
to wash
chelloveck
(person) - person, man, fellow
chepooka
(nonsense) - nonsense
choodesny
(wonderful) - wonderful
*chumble
(mumble) - to mumble
clop (knock) -
to knock
cluve (beak) -
beak
collocoll
(bell) - bell
*crack (break)
- to break up or 'bust'
*crark (yowl) -
to yowl?
crast (steal) -
to steal or rob;
robbery
creech (scream)
- to shout or scream
*cutter (money)
- money
dama (lady) -
lady
ded (old man) -
old man
deng (money) -
money
devotchka
(girl) - girl
dobby (dobby) -
good
*dook
(trace,ghost) - trace, ghost
domy (house) -
house
dorogoy (dear)
- dear, valuable
dratsing
(fighting) - fighting
*drencrom
(drug) - drug
droog (friend)
- friend
*dung - to
defecate
dva (two) - two
eegra (game) -
game
eemya (name) -
name
*eggiweg (egg)
- egg
*filly (play) -
to play or fool with
*firegold
(drink) - drink
*fist - to
punch
*flip - wild?
forella (trout)
- 'trout'
gazetta -
newspaper
glazz (eye) -
eye
gloopy (stupid)
- stupid
*golly (money
unit) - unit of money
goloss (voice)
- voice
goober (lip) -
lip
gooly (walk) -
to walk
gorlo (throat)
- throat
govoreet (talk)
- to speak or talk
grahzny (dirty)
- dirty
grazzy (dirty)
- soiled
gromky (loud) -
loud
groody (breast)
- breast
gruppa (group)
- group
*guff (guffaw)
- guffaw
gulliver (head)
- head
*guttiwuts
(guts) - guts
*hen-korm
(chickenfeed) - chickenfeed
*horn (cry out)
- to cry out
horrorshow
(good) - good, well
*in-out in-out
- copulation
interessovat
(interest) - to interest
itty (to go) -
to go
*jammiwam (jam)
- jam
jeezny (life) -
life
kartoffel
(potato) - potato
keeshkas (guts)
- guts
kleb (bread) -
bread
klootch (key) -
key
knopka (button)
- button
kopat (dig) -
to 'dig'
koshka (cat) -
cat
kot (tomcat) -
tomcat
krovvy (blood)
- blood
kupet (buy) -
to buy
lapa (paw) -
paw
lewdies
(people) - people
*lighter (crone)
- crone?
litso (face) -
face
lomtick (piece),
piece, bit
loveted
(caught) - caught
lubbilubbing
(making love) - making love
*luscious glory
(hair) - hair
malchick (boy)
- boy
malenky
(little) - little, tiny
maslo (butter)
- butter
merzky (filthy)
- filthy
messel (thought)
- thought, fancy
mesto (place) -
place
millicent
(police) - policeman
minoota
(minute) - minute
molodoy (young)
- young
moloko (milk) -
milk
moodge (man) -
man
morder (snout)
- snout
*mounch (snack)
- snack
mozg (brain) -
brain
nachinat
(begin) - to begin
nadmenny
(arrogant) - arrogant
nadsat
(teenage) - teenage
nagoy (naked) -
naked
*nazz (fool) -
fool
neezhnies
(underpants) - underpants
nochy (night) -
night
hoga (foot) -
foot, leg
nozh (knife) -
knife
nuking
(smelling) - smelling
oddy knocky
(lonesome) - lonesome
odin (one) -
one
okno (window) -
window
oobivat (kill)
- to kill
ookadeet
(leave) - to leave
ooko (ear) -
ear
oomny (brainy)
- brainy
oozhassny
(terrible) - terrible
oozy (chain) -
chain
osoosh (wipe) -
to wipe
otchkies
(eyeglasses) - eyeglasses
*pan-handle
(erection) - erection
*pee and em
(parents) - parents
peet (drink) -
to drink
pishcha (food)
- food
platch (cry) -
to cry
platties
(clothes) - clothes
pletcho
(shoulder) - shoulder
plenny (prisoner)
- prisoner
plesk (splash)
- splash
*plosh (splash)
- to splash
plott (body) -
body
podooshka
(pillow) - pillow
pol (sex) - sex
polezny
(useful) - useful
*polyclef
(skeleton key) - skeleton key
pony
(understand) - to understand
poogly
(frightened) - frightened
pooshka
(cannon) - 'cannon'
prestoopnick
(criminal) - criminal
privodeet (lead
somewhere) - to lead somewhere
*pretty polly
(money) - money
prod (produce)
- to prod (produce)uce
ptitsa (chick)
- 'chick'
pyahnitsa
(drunk) - drunk
rabbit (work) -
work, job
radosty (joy) -
joy
raskazz (story)
- story
rassoodock
(mind) - mind
raz (time) -
time
razdraz (upset)
- upset
razrez (rip) -
to rip, ripping
rook (hand), rooker
(hand) - hand, arm
rot (mouth) -
mouth
rozz (police) -
policeman
sabog (shoe) -
shoe
sakar (sugar) -
sugar
sammy
(generous) - generous
*sarky
(sarcastic) - sarcastic
scoteena (cow)
- 'cow'
shaika (gang) -
gang
*sharp (female)
- female
sharries
(buttocks) - buttocks
shest (barrier)
- barrier
*shilarny
(concern) - concern
*shive (slice)
- slice
shiyah (neck) -
neck
shlem (helmet)
- helmet
*shlaga (club)
- club
shlapa (hat) -
hat
shoom (noise) -
noise
shoot (fool) -
fool
*sinny (cinema)
- cinema
skazat (say) -
to say
*skolliwoll
(school) - school
skorry (quick)
- quick, quickly
*skriking
(scratching) - scratching
skvat (grab) -
to grab
sladky (sweet)
- sweet
sloochat
(happen) - to happen
sloosh (hear), slooshy
(hear) - to hear, to
listen
slovo (word) -
word
smeck (laugh) -
laugh
smot (look) -
to look
sneety (dream)
- dream
*snoutie
(tabacoo) - tobacco?
*snuff it (die)
- to die
sobirat (pick
up) - to pick up
*sod
(fornicate) - to fornicate, fornicator
soomka (bag) -
'bag'
soviet (advice,
order) - advice, order
spat (sleep) -
to sleep
*splodge
(splash), splosh (splash) - splash
*spoogy
(terrified) - terrified
*Staja (state
jail) - State Jail
starry
(ancient) - ancient
strack (horror)
- horror
*synthemesc -
drug
tally (waist) -
waist
*tashtook
(handkerchief) - handkerchief
*tass (cup) -
cup
tolchock (hit)
- to hit or push; blow, beating
toofles
(slippers) - slippers
tree (three) -
three
vareet (cook) -
to 'cook up'
*vaysay
(washroom) - washroom
veck (person) -
(see chelloveck (person))
*vellocet -
drug
veshch (thing)
- thing
viddy (see) -
to see or look
voloss (hair) -
hair
von (smell) -
smell
vred (damage) -
to harm or damage
*warble (song)
- song
yahma (hole) -
hole
*yahoodies
(Jews) - Jews
yahzick
(tongue) - tongue
*yarbles
(testicles) - testicles
yeckate - to
drive
zammechat
(remarkable) - remarkable
zasnoot (sleep)
- sleep
zheena (wife) -
wife
zoobies (teeth)
- teeth
zvonock
(bellpull) - bellpull
zvook (sound) -
sound