A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess. A Clockwork Orange





INTRODUCTION



Anthony Burgess was born in Manchester in 1917 and is 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 became a full-time writer in 1960, though his first novel had been
published four years earlier. A late starter in the art of fiction, he had
spent his creative energy previously on music, and he has composed many
full-scale works for orchestra and other media.
Anthony Burgess maintains his old interest in music and in linguistics,
and these have conditioned the style and content of the novels he writes.
Though he and his wife no longer live abroad, foreign travel remains a great
source of inspiration. He has, to date, published many novels, a book on
linguistics, and various critical works.
His other books in Penguin are `Inside Mr Enderby,' `Tremor of Intent'
and `Nothing Like the Sun,' a story of Shakespeare's love-life.


COVER NOTES



Fifteen-year-old Alex and his three friends start an evening's mayhem
by hitting an old man, tearing up his books and stripping him of money and
clothes.
Or rather Alex and his three droogs tolchock an old veck, razrez his
books, pull off his outer platties and take a malenky bit of cutter.
For Alex's confessions are written in `nadsat'--the teenage argot of a
not-too-distant future.
Because of his delinquent excesses, Alex is jailed and made subject to
`Ludovico's Technique,' a chilling experiment in Reclamation Treatment...
Horror farce? Social prophecy? Penetrating study of human choice
between good and evil? A Clockwork Orange is all three, dazzling proof of
Anthony Burgess's vast talents.


PART 1



1



"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 rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter
bastard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O
my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so
skorry 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 licence for selling liquor, but there was no law yet against
prodding some of the new veshches which they used to put into the old
moloko, so you could peet it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one
or two other veshches which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen
minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels and Saints in your left shoe
with lights bursting all over your mozg. Or you could peet 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 peeting this
evening I'm starting off the story with.
Our pockets were full of deng, so there was no real need from the point
of view of crasting any more pretty polly to tolchock some old veck in an
alley and viddy him swim in his blood while we counted the takings and
divided by four, nor to do the ultra-violent on some shivering starry
grey-haired ptitsa 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 crotch underneath the tights, this being to
protect and also a sort of a design you could viddy clear enough in a
certain light, so that I had one in the shape of a spider, Pete had a rooker
(a hand, that is), Georgie had a very fancy one of a flower, and poor old
Dim had a very hound-and-horny one of a clown's litso (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 (`pletchoes' 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 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 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 malchicks 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 glazzies, that is, and the rot painted
very wide). Then they had long black very straight dresses, and on the
groody part of them they had little badges of like silver with different
malchicks' names on them--Joe and Mike and suchlike. These were supposed to
be the names of the different malchicks 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, that is) should go off for a bit of pol
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 filthy
fighter and very handy with the boot.
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
The chelloveck sitting next to me, there being this long big plushy
seat that ran round three walls, was well away with his glazzies 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, O my brothers. You'd lay there after you'd drunk the old moloko and
then you got the messel that everything all round you was sort of in the
past. You could viddy it all right, all of it, very clear--tables, the
stereo, the lights, the sharps and the malchicks--but it was like some
veshch 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, bigger than the whole world, and you were just
going to get introduced to old Bog or God when it was all over. You came
back to here and now whimpering sort of, with your rot 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.
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
The stereo was on and you got the idea that the singer's goloss 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 oldie called `You Blister My Paint.' One of the three
ptitsas 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 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 who was sitting next to me and well away and
burbling a horrorshow crack on the ooko 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 what turns up, O my
little brothers."
So we scatted out into the big winter nochy and walked down Marghanita
Boulevard and then turned into Boothby Avenue, and there we found what we
were pretty well looking for, a malenky jest to start off the evening with.
There was a doddery starry schoolmaster type veck, glasses on and his rot
open to the cold nochy air. He had books under his arm and a crappy umbrella
and was coming round the corner from the Public Biblio, which not many
lewdies 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 malchickiwicks about, and this prof type chelloveck was the only
one walking in the whole of the street. So we goolied up to him, very
polite, and I said: "Pardon me, brother."
He looked a malenky bit poogly 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, as if he was trying to show us he
wasn't poogly. I said:
"I see you have books under your arm, brother. It is indeed a rare
pleasure these days to come across somebody that still reads, brother."
"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, brother, 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, brother."
"Clean," he said. "Clean, eh?" And then Pete skvatted these three books
from him and handed them round real skorry.
Being three, we all had one each to viddy 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: "But what is this here? What is this filthy slovo?
I blush to look at this word. You disappoint me, brother, you do really."
"But," he tried, "but, but."
"Now," said Georgie, "here is what I should call real dirt. There's one
slovo 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, brother," 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 prof type
began to creech: "But those are not mine, those are the property of the
municipality, 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, brother," I said, "that
you do." This crystal book I had was very tough-bound and hard to razrez to
bits, being real starry 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, 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, you," I said, and then we began to filly about
with him. Pete held his rookers and Georgie sort of hooked his rot wide open
for him and Dim yanked out his false zoobies, 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
plastic stuff. The old veck began to make sort of chumbling shooms--"wuf waf
wof"--so Georgie let go of holding his goobers apart and just let him have
one in the toothless rot with his ringy fist, and that made the old veck
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 off, stripping
him down to his vest and long underpants (very starry; 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
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 letters, some of them dating right back to 1960
with "My dearest dearest" in them and all that chepooka, and a keyring and a
starry 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, "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 shoomny
smeck--"Ho ho ho"--pretending to start wiping his yahma with it. "All
right," I said. "Let it go, O my brothers." In the trousers of this starry
veck there was only a malenky bit of cutter (money, that is)--not more than
three gollies--so we gave all his messy little coin the scatter treatment,
it being hen-korm to the amount of pretty polly we had on us already. Then
we smashed the umbrella and razrezzed his platties and gave them to the
blowing winds, my brothers, and then we'd finished with the starry teacher
type veck. We hadn't done much, I know, but that was only like the start of
the evening and I make no appy polly loggies to thee or thine for that. The
knives in the milk plus were stabbing away nice and horrorshow now.
The next thing was to do the sammy act, which was one way to unload
some of our cutter 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 peeting their black and suds on SA
(State Aid). Now we were the very good malchicks, smiling good evensong to
one and all, though these wrinkled old lighters started to get all shook,
their veiny old rookers 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, flash flash flash, sat down, rang the bell, and
waited for the boy to come. When he came, all nervous and rubbing his
rookers on his grazzy 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 all over the table, and the other three did likewise, O my
brothers. So double firegolds were bought in for the scared starry 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 that was left over we did purchase, my
brothers, all the meat pies, pretzels, cheese-snacks, crisps and chocbars in
that mesto, and those too were for the old sharps. Then we said: "Back in a
minoota," and the old ptitsas were still saying: "Thanks, lads," and "God
bless you, boys," and we were going out without one cent of cutter in our
carmans.
"Makes you feel real dobby, that does," said Pete. You could viddy that
poor old Dim the dim didn't quite pony all that, but he said nothing for
fear of being called gloopy 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 millicents or rozz
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, 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 called Peebee
Shelley; they were a real like disguise, hair and all, and they were some
very special plastic veshch 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 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 who viddied at once what was coming and made
straight for the inside where the telephone was and perhaps his well-oiled
pooshka, complete with six dirty rounds. Dim was round that counter skorry
as a bird, sending packets of snoutie flying and cracking over a big cut-out
showing a sharp with all her zoobies going flash at the customers and her
groodies near hanging out to advertise some new brand of cancers. What you
could viddy 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 panting and snoring and kicking
behind the curtain and veshches 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 murder given one chance, so I
was round that counter very skorry and had a hold of her, and a horrorshow
big lump she was too, all nuking of scent and with flipflop big bobbing
groodies on her. I'd got my rooker round her rot 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 millicents. 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 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 takings that nochy, 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 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, so we got him in an
alleyway and tidied him up a malenky bit, soaking our tashtooks in spit to
cheest the dirt off. The things we did for old Dim. We were back in the Duke
of New York very skorry and I reckoned by my watch we hadn't been more than
ten minutes away. The starry 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 ptitsas 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 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 millicents, and then it was only two
very young rozzes that came in, very pink under their big copper's
shlemmies. 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 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. "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. Still, the night was still very young.


2



When we got outside of the Duke of New York we viddied by the main
bar's long lighted window, a burbling old pyahnitsa 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 rotten guts. One
veshch I could never stand was that. I could never stand to see a moodge all
filthy and rolling and burping and drunk, whatever his age might be, but
more especially when he was real starry like this one was. He was sort of
flattened to the wall and his platties were a disgrace, all creased and
untidy and covered in cal and mud and filth and stuff. So we got hold of him
and cracked him with a few good horrorshow tolchoks, 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 he
shut up singing and started to creech: "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 what some of these starry 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 rookers and making real horrorshow with
the slovos, only the odd blurp blurp coming from his keeshkas, like
something was orbiting within, or like some very rude interrupting sort of a
moodge making a shoom, so that this old veck 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 millicents, 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. 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 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 his fat grinning litso,
and he always had this von of very stale oil that's been used for frying
over and over, even when he was dressed in his best platties, 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, the oozy, the britva, 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 they had there, not
more than ten, she creeching away but with her platties still on. Billyboy
holding her by one rooker and his number-one, Leo, holding the other. They'd
probably just been doing the dirty slovo part of the act before getting down
to a malenky bit of ultra-violence. When they viddied us a-coming they let
go of this boo-hooing little ptitsa, 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, if you have any
yarbles, 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 length of oozy
or chain round his waist, twice wound round, and he unwound this and began
to swing it beautiful in the eyes or glazzies. Pete and Georgie had good
sharp nozhes, but I for my own part had a fine starry horrorshow cut-throat
britva which, at that time, I could flash and shine artistic. So there we
were dratsing 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. With my britva I managed to slit right down the front of one of
Billyboy's droog's platties, very very neat and not even touching the plott
under the cloth. Then in the dratsing this droog of Billyboy's suddenly
found himself all opened up like a peapod, with his belly bare and his poor
old yarbles showing, and then he got very razdraz, 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 glazzies, and
this droog of Billyboy's went tottering off and howling his heart out. We
were doing very horrorshow, 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 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 was all bloodied and his platties 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 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. Billyboy had a nozh, a long
flick-type, but he was a malenky bit too slow and heavy in his movements to
vred 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
Billyboy felt not a thing, and he went lumbering on like a filthy fatty
bear, poking at me with his nozh.
Then we slooshied the sirens and knew the millicents were coming with
pooshkas pushing out of the police-auto-windows at the ready. That weepy
little devotchka had told them, no doubt, there being a box for calling the
rozzes not too far behind the Muni Power Plant. "Get you soon, fear not," I
called, "stinking billygoat. I'll have your yarbles 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 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. There would be some big famous stupid comic chelloveck
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 the sirening millicents 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 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 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 still
molodoy, 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 poet with an apey upper lip and
a pipe stuck in a droopy old rot. Going north we came to the filthy old
Filmdrome, peeling and dropping to bits through nobody going there much
except malchicks like me and my droogs, and then only for a yell or a razrez
or a bit of in-out-in-out in the dark. We could viddy 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-shooting at the rustlers out of hell's fighting legions, the kind of
hound-and-horny veshch put out by Statefilm in those days. The autos parked
by the sinny weren't all that horrorshow, crappy starry veshches 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, a nice warm vibraty feeling grumbling all through your
guttiwuts. 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 in the head-lamps, then it screamed and squelched under
and old Dim at the back near laughed his gulliver off--"Ho ho ho"--at that.
Then we saw one young malchick with his sharp, lubbilubbing under a
tree, 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 this
cottage fine and clear as I eased up and put the brake on, the other three
giggling like bezoomny, and we could viddy the name on the gate of this
cottage veshch 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 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
somebody coming, then a bolt drawn, then the door inched open an inch or so,
then I could viddy this one glazz looking out at me and the door was on a
chain. "Yes? Who is it?" It was a sharp's goloss, a youngish devotchka by
her sound, so I said in a very refined manner of speech, a real gentleman's
goloss:
"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. "I'm sorry, but we
haven't. You'll have to go somewhere else." From inside this malenky cottage
I could slooshy the clack clack clacky clack clack clackity clackclack of
some veck typing away, and then the typing stopped and there was this
chelloveck's goloss 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 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 stealthy, putting their maskies on now, then I put mine on, then
it was only a matter of me putting in the old rooker and undoing the chain,
me having softened up this devotchka with my gent's goloss, 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 as
usual with his jumping up and down and singing out dirty slovos, and it was
a nice malenky cottage, I'll say that. We all went smecking into the room
with a light on, and there was this devotchka sort of cowering, a young
pretty bit of sharp with real horrorshow groodies on her, and with her was
this chelloveck who was her moodge, youngish too with horn-rimmed otchkies
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 was trembling and his rookers too.
So I said:
"Never fear. If fear thou hast in thy heart, O brother, 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 wide open. "What is
this, then?" I said, picking up the pile like of typing from off of the
table, and the horn-rimmed moodge 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 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 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
title. Who ever heard of a clockwork orange?" Then I read a malenky bit out
loud in a sort of very high type preaching goloss: "--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 myself.
Then I started to tear up the sheets and scatter the bits over the floor,
and this writer moodge went sort of bezoomny and made for me with his
zoobies 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's dithering rot, crack crack, first left fistie then right, so
that our dear old droog 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 razrez. All this time this devotchka, his loving and faithful wife,
just stood like froze by the fireplace, and then she started letting out
little malenky 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 and half a loaf of
kleb with a big dollop of maslo on it in the other, and Pete with a bottle
of beer frothing its gulliver off and a horrorshow rookerful of like plum
cake. They went haw haw haw, viddying old Dim dancing round and fisting the
writer veck so that the writer veck started to platch like his life's work
was ruined, going boo hoo hoo with a very square bloody rot, 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. I gave no permission. Grab hold of this veck here so
he can viddy all and not get away." So they put down their fatty pishcha on
the table among all the flying paper and they clopped over to the writer
veck whose horn-rimmed otchkies 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
all purple and dripping away like some very special sort of a juicy fruit.
"All right, Dim," I said. "Now for the other veshch, Bog help us all." So he
did the strong-man on the devotchka, who was still creech creech creeching
away in very horrorshow four-in-a-bar, locking her rookers 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 groodies they were that then exhibited
their pink glazzies, O my brothers, while I untrussed and got ready for the
plunge. Plunging, I could slooshy cries of agony and this writer bleeding
veck that Georgie and Pete held on to nearly got loose howling bezoomny 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 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 and
his zheena 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 bit shagged, and we went back to town,
running over odd squealing things on the way.


3



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 sobiratted by the rozzes or, us feeling like in a hate and
murder mood, to give it a fair tolchock into the starry watersfor a nice
heavy loud plesk 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 products, then one
good horrorshow tolchock and in she went. We had to dash back for fear of
the filth splashing on our platties, but splussshhhh and glolp she went,
down and lovely. "Farewell, old droog," called Georgie, and Dim obliged with
a clowny great guff--"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 fillying with the slot
machines, his carmans being full of small malenky 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 tearing-out of the seats' guts and old Dim chaining the okno 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 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 bit and exhibiting to moon and star and lamplight
our back fillings, because we were still only growing malchicks 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 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 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, because here some of the
malchickies would filly about with him a malenky 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 and, with his
big clown's yawp that showed his hanging grape, he stabbed this veck's foot
with his own large filthy sabog. But the veck, my brothers, heard nought,
being now all above the body.
It was nadsats milking and coking and fillying around (nadsats were
what we used to call the teens), but there were a few of the more starry
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 (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 rots, 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, 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 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 hairs on
my plott standing endwise and the shivers crawling up like slow malenky
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 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 on the rot. Dim looked very
surprised, his rot open, wiping the krovvy off of his goober with his rook
and in turn looking surprised at the red flowing krovvy 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. I said:
"For being a bastard with no manners and not the dook of an idea how to
comport yourself publicwise, O my brother."
Dim put on a hound-and-horny look of evil, saying: "I don't like you
should do what you done then. And I'm not your brother no more and wouldn't
want to be." He'd taken a big snotty tashtook 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 was singing
music. But that devotchka was smecking away ha ha ha now with her droogs at
the bar, her red rot working and her zoobies 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 brother." Georgie said, in a sharp 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 being
as a little child." And I looked sharp at Georgie.
Dim said, and the red krovvy was easing its flow now:
"What natural right does he have to think he can give the orders and
tolchock me whenever he likes? Yarbles is what I say to him, and I'd chain
his glazzies 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 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," said Dim, sneering, "great bolshy yarblockos to you. What
you done then you had no right. I'll meet you with chain or nozh or britva
any time, not having you aiming tolchocks at me reasonless, it stands to
reason I won't have it."
"A nozh scrap any time you say," I snarled back. Pete said:
"Oh now, don't, both of you malchicks. Droogs, aren't we? It isn't
right droogs should behave thiswise. See, there are some loose-lipped
malchicks 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 learning their place."
Pete said: "If the truth is known, Alex, you shouldn't have given old
Dim that uncalled-for tolchock. 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 in his milk-glass.
I could feel myself getting all razdraz inside, but I tried to cover
it, saying calm: "There has to be a leader. Discipline there has to be.
Right?" None of them skazatted a word or nodded even. I got more razdraz
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 osooshing the last of the krovvy 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 bit poogly to sloosh 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 on the rot, Dim. It was the music,
see. I get all bezoomny when any veck interferes with a ptitsa 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 malchicks. Right?" Right right nodded the other two. I
said:
"I think it best we go home now. Dim has made a real horrorshow
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 bit late. But same place and
near same time tomorrow surely." He was still wiping at his goober, though
no krovvy flowed any longer now. "And," he said, "it is to be hoped there
won't be no more of them singing ptitsas in here." Then he gave his old Dim
guff, 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 peeted. I had my cut-throat britva 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 shaikas 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 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 fillying. And too I saw just by 18A a pair of devotchka's
neezhnies 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 ptitsas very well developed, stern in the dignity of
labour, at workbench and machine with not one stitch of platties on their
well-developed plotts. But of course some of the malchicks 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 rots of these nagoy (bare, that is)
cheenas and vecks. I went to the lift, but there was no need to press the
electric knopka to see if it was working or not, because it had been
tolchocked real horrorshow 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 if not so much in brain. I wanted
music very bad this evening, that singing devotchka 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
lifted to let me through.
I opened the door of 10-8 with my own little klootch, and inside our
malenky quarters all was quiet, the pee and em both being in sleepland, and
mum had laid out on the table on malenky bit of supper--a couple of lomticks
of tinned sponge-meat with a shive or so of kleb and butter, a glass of the
old cold moloko. Hohoho, the old moloko, with no knives or synthemesc or
drencrom 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. Then I tooth-cleaned and clicked, cleaning out the old
rot with my yahzick or tongue, then I went into my own little room or den,
easing off my platties as I did so. Here was my bed and my stereo, pride of
my jeezny, 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
to the ceiling, my gulliver on my rookers on the pillow, glazzies closed,
rot 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 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 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 glazzies tight shut
to shut in the bliss that was better than any synthemesc Bog or God, I knew
such lovely pictures. There were vecks and ptitsas, both young and starry,
lying on the ground screaming for mercy, and I was smecking all over my rot
and grinding my boot in their litsos. And there were devotchkas ripped and
creeching against walls and I plunging like a shlaga 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 glazzies tight shut and
rookers behind my gulliver, 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 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 razrezzed 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 better what that meant now, and I thought,
slooshying away to the brown gorgeousness of the starry German master, that
I would like to have tolchecked them both harder and ripped them to ribbons
on their own floor.


4



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 glazzies were
stuck together real horrorshow with sleepglue, I thought I would not go to
school. I thought how I would have a malenky bit longer in the bed, an hour
or two say, and then get dressed nice and easy, perhaps even having a splosh
about in the bath, make toast for myself and slooshy the radio or read the
gazetta, all on my oddy knocky. And then in the afterlunch I might perhaps,
if I still felt like it, itty off to the old skolliwoll and see what was
vareeting in the great seat of gloopy useless learning, O my brothers. I
heard my papapa grumbling and trampling and then ittying off to the dyeworks
where he rabbited, and then my mum called in in a very respectful goloss 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. 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 rabbiting. 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. 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, and I had a queer and very real like sneety, dreaming for some
reason of my droog Georgie. In this sneety he'd got like very much older and
very sharp and hard and was govoreeting about discipline and obedience and
how all the malchicks 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 pletchoes and he was like a general. And then he brought
in old Dim with a whip, and Dim was a lot more starry and grey and had a few
zoobies missing as you could see when he let out a smeck, viddying me, and
then my droog Georgie said, pointing like at me: "That man has filth and cal
all over his platties," 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 off,
cracking with the old whip, and each time I got a real horrorshow tolchock
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, 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 shouting through the door: "Come on then, get out of it, I
know you're in bed." I recognized the goloss right away. It was the goloss
of P. R. Deltoid (a real gloopy nazz, that one) what they called my
Post-Corrective Adviser, an overworked veck with hundreds on his books. I
shouted right right right, in a goloss 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, combed my luscious glory, and was ready
for P. R. Deltoid. When I opened up he came shambling in looking shagged, a
battered old shlapa on his gulliver, 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, brother, sir," I said in my
gentleman's goloss. "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 and me his guest. And he sat in this starry 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, 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. 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 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 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 millicents
have nothing on me, brother, sir I mean."
"Cut out this clever talk about millicents," 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 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
rookers of the millicents 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 ookadeeted and I was making this very strong pot of chai,
I grinned to myself over this veshch that P. R. Deltoid and his droogs
worried about. All right, I do bad, what with crasting and tolchocks and
carves with the britva and the old in-out-in-out, and if I get loveted,
well, too bad for me, O my little brothers, and you can't run a country with
every chelloveck comporting himself in my manner of the night. So if I get
loveted and it's three months in this mesto 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 overtakes or the blood spatters its
final chorus in twisted metal and smashed glass on the highroad, to not get
loveted 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. They don't go into the cause of goodness, so why the
other shop? If lewdies 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 or God and is
his great pride and radosty. 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 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 with
moloko and spoon after spoon after spoon of sugar, me having a sladky 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 malchickiwicks
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. And there
was a bolshy big article on Modern Youth (meaning me, so I gave the old bow,
grinning like bezoomny) by some very clever bald chelloveck.
I read this with care, my brothers, slurping away at the old chai, cup
after tass after chasha, crunching my lomticks of black toast dipped in
jammiwam and eggiweg. This learned veck said the usual veshches, about no
parental discipline, as he called it, and the shortage of real horrorshow
teachers who would lambast bloody beggary out of their innocent poops and
make them go boohoohoo for mercy. All this was gloopy and made me smeck, 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 they ever had in the old gazetta was by some starry pop in a doggy
collar who said that in his considered opinion and he was govoreeting as a
man of Bog 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 malchicks 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 from my wardrobe, turning the radio on.
There was music playing, a very nice malenky string quartet, my brothers, by
Claudius Birdman, one that I knew well. I had to have a smeck, 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. Music always sort of sharpened me up, O my
brothers, and made me feel like old Bog himself, ready to make with the old
donner and blitzen and have vecks and ptitsas creeching away in my ha ha
power. And when I'd cheested up my litso and rookers a bit and done dressing
(my day platties were like student-wear: the old blue pantalonies with
sweater with A for Alex) I thought here at last was time to itty off to the
disc-bootick (and cutter too, my pockets being full of pretty polly) 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 bourgeois lurked
indoors drinking in the gloopy worldcasts, but the day was for the starry
ones, and there always seemed to be more rozzes or millicents 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 name of
MELODIA, but it was a real horrorshow mesto and skorry, most times, at
getting the new recordings. I walked in and the only other customers were
two young ptitsas 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). These two ptitsas 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. 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 ploshed on
their goobers. 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 type of a veck, 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 rookers beating time he went to get
it. The two young ptitsas started giggling, as they will at that age, and I
gave them a like cold glazzy. Andy was back real skorry, waving the great
shiny white sleeve of the Ninth, which had on it, brothers, the frowning
beetled like thunderbolted litso 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 on my oddy knocky, greedy as hell. I fumbled out the deng to pay and
one of the little ptitsas said:
"Who you getten, bratty? 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 and said:
"What you got back home, little sisters, to play your fuzzy warbles
on?" Because I could viddy the discs they were buying were these teeny pop
veshches. "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 golosses 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 ptitsas 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 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 in-grin, and I called a taxi from the rank near Center. The
driver, a starry whiskery veck in very stained platties, said:
"No tearing up, now. No nonsense with them seats. Just re-upholstered
they are." I quieted his gloopy fears and off we spun to Municipal Flatblock
18A, these two bold little ptitsas 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 Scotchman apiece, though well filled with
sneezy pins-and-needles soda. They sat on my bed (yet unmade) and leg-swung,
smecking and peeting their highballs, while I spun their like pathetic
malenky discs through my stereo. Like peeting 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
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'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 in no time at all, and they thought it the bolshiest
fun to viddy old Uncle Alex standing there all nagoy and pan-handled,
squirting the hypodermic like some bare doctor, then giving myself the old
jab of growling jungle-cat secretion in the rooker. Then I pulled the lovely
Ninth out of its sleeve, so that Ludwig van was now nagoy 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 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 ptitsas. 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 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 ptitsas
were not acting the big lady sophisto no more. They were like waking up to
what was being done to their malenky 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, 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 on, and they were like punchipunching me with their teeny fists as
I lay there dirty and nagoy 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 rozzes should be got on to me and all that cal. 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.


5



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 that
everything in this wicked world counts. You can pony 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 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 peeting tea from cups, at their tired meal after the day's
rabbiting in factory the one, store the other. The poor old. The pitiable
starry. 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, to thee fruit of my womb my only
son sort of. I danced to the bathroom and had a real skorry cheest all over,
feeling dirty and gluey, then back to my den for the evening's platties.
Then, shining, combed, brushed and gorgeous, I sat to my lomtick 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 glazzy, 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. "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 interessovatted 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 grin within and then I took all the deng 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 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 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 dignity of labour, bare vecks and
cheenas stern at the wheels of industry, like I said, with all this dirt
pencilled from their rots by naughty malchicks. 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--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, and he horned 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 peeting
away at the old knify moloko, and you might have been like offended by some
veshch or other, so round we come to your abode. That's right, Pete, right?"
"Oh, yes, right," said Pete.
"Appy polly loggies," I said careful. "I had something of a pain in the
gulliver 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 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 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 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 behind my back,
making your own little jokes and such-like. As I am your droog 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 open in a sort
of bezoomny soundless smeck. Georgie got in very skorry with:
"All right, no more picking on Dim, brother. 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 more." And I
sort of folded my rookers 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 glazzies
turned full on me. "It's all the small stuff, malenky veshches like last
night. We're growing up, brothers."
"More," I said, not moving. "Let me slooshy more."
"Well," said Georgie, "if you must have it, have it then. We itty
round, shop-crasting and the like, coming out with a pitiful rookerful of
cutter each. And there's Will the English in the Muscleman coffee mesto
saying he can fence anything that any malchick cares to try to crast. The
shiny stuff, the ice," he said, still with these like cold glazzies on me.
"The big big big money is available is what Will the English says."
"So," I said, very comfortable out but real razdraz 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.
Like last Sabbath for instance. I can live my own jeezny, 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 or money as you so highfaluting call it?
Have you not every veshch you need? If you need an auto you pluck it from
the trees. If you need pretty polly you take it. Yes? Why this sudden
shilarny for being the big bloated capitalist?"
"Ah," said Georgie, "you think and govoreet sometimes like a little
child." Dim went huh huh huh at that. "Tonight," said Georgie, "we pull a
mansize crast."
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. 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-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 but thinking all the time.
But when we got into the street I viddied that thinking is for the gloopy
ones and that the oomny ones use like inspiration and what Bog sends. For
now it was lovely music that came to my aid. There was an auto ittying by
and it had its radio on, and I could just slooshy 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: "Right, Georgie, now," and
I whisked out my cut-throat britva. Georgie said: "Uh?" but he was skorry
enough with his nozh, the blade coming sloosh 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, but Pete said, putting his rooker 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 really. Georgie now and then going lurch lurch
with his shining nozh but not no wise connecting. And all the time lewdies
passed by and viddied all this but minded their own, it being perhaps a
common street-sight. But then I counted odin dva tree and went ak ak ak with
the britva, though not at litso or glazzies but at Georgie's nozh-holding
rooker and, my little brothers, he dropped. He did. He dropped his nozh with
a tinkle tankle on the hard winter sidewalk. I had just ticklewickled his
fingers with my britva, and there he was looking at the malenky dribble of
krovvy 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 not to uncoil
the oozy from round his tally and Dim had taken it, "now, Dim, let's thou
and me have all this now, shall us?" Dim went, "Aaaaaaarhgh," like some
bolshy bezoomny animal, and snaked out the chain from his waist real
horrorshow and skorry, so you had to admire. Now the right style for me here
was to keep low like in frog-dancing to protect litso and glazzies, and this
I did, brothers, so that poor old Dim was a malenky 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, but that
pain told me to dig in skorry once and for all and be done with old Dim. So
I swished with the britva at his left noga in its very tight tight and I
slashed two inches of cloth and drew a malenky drop of krovvy to make Dim
real bezoomny. 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 go just deep enough in the meat of old Dim's
wrist and he dropped his snaking oozy 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 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.
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 will soon stop." Because I had not cut into the like
main cables. And I myself took a clean tashtook from my carman to wrap round
poor old dying Dim's rooker, howling and moaning as he was, and the krovvy
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, me having given all to my dad, and a wipe with tashtooks dipped
in the water-jug. The old ptitsas we'd been so horrorshow 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 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 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,
only some veck got in the way," as though he'd been dratsing not with me but
with some other malchick. I said:
"Well, Georgieboy, what did you have in mind?"
"Oh," said Georgie, "not tonight. Not this nochy, please."
"You're a big strong chelloveck," 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 glazzies real horrorshow," 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 name like."
"What gloopy name?"
"The Mansion or the Manse or some such piece of gloop. Where this very
starry ptitsa lives with her cats and all these very starry valuable
veshches."
"Such as?"
"Gold and silver and like jewels. It was Will the English who like
said."
"I viddy," I said. "I viddy horrorshow." I knew where he
meant--Oldtown, just beyond Victoria Flatblock. Well, the real horrorshow
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."
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.


6



Just past the Duke of New York going east was offices and then there
was the starry beat-up biblio and then was the bolshy flatblock called
Victoria Flatblock after some victory or other, and then you came to the
like starry type houses of the town in what was called Oldtown. You got some
of the real horrorshow ancient domies here, my brothers, with starry lewdies
living in them, thin old barking like colonels with sticks and old ptitsas
who were widows and deaf starry damas with cats who, my brothers, had felt
not the touch of any chelloveck in the whole of their pure like jeeznies.
And here, true, there were starry veshches that would fetch their share of
cutter on the tourist market--like pictures and jewels and other starry
pre-plastic cal of that type. So we came nice and quiet to this domy 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 ittying on. This window had iron bars in
front of it, like the house was a prison, but we could viddy nice and clear
what was ittying on.
What was ittying on was that this starry ptitsa, very grey in the
voloss and with a very liny like litso, was pouring the old moloko 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 one or two, great fat scoteenas,
jumping up on to the table with their rots open going mare mare mare. And
you could viddy this old baboochka talking back to them, govoreeting in like
scoldy language to her pussies. In the room you could viddy a lot of old
pictures on the walls and starry very elaborate clocks, also some like vases
and ornaments that looked starry and dorogoy. Georgie whispered: "Real
horrorshow deng to be gotten for them, brothers. Will the English is real
anxious." Pete said: "How in?"
Now it was up to me, and skorry, before Georgie started telling us how.
"First veshch," 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 pletchoes, making with
a frog's rot. 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 and her koshkas all
had their ears back at the brrrrrr brrrrrr, wondering. So I pushed the old
zvonock a malenky bit more urgent. I then bent down to the letter-slit and
called through in a refined like goloss: "Help, madam, please. My friend has
just had a funny turn on the street. Let me phone a doctor, please." Then I
could viddy a light being put on in the hall, and then I could hear the old
baboochka'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:
"Go away. Go away or I shoot." Georgie heard that and wanted to giggle.
I said, with like suffering and urgency in my gentleman's goloss:
"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 bit bezoomny she was, you could tell that, through
spending her jeezny all on her oddy knocky. 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 to just do the old pletcho climb and get in that way. Else
there'd be this argument all the long nochy. 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 pletchoes. Open that window and me enter, droogies.
Then to shut up that old ptitsa and open up for all. No trouble." For I was
like showing who was leader and the chelloveck with the ideas. "See," I
said. "Real horrorshow 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 and Pete
and Georgie like heaved me up on to Dim's bolshy manly pletchoes. All this
time, O thanks to worldcasts on the gloopy TV and, more, lewdies' night-fear
through lack of night-police, dead lay the street. Up there on Dim's
pletchoes 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
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
through the crack 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 rots open as they looked up, O
brothers.
I was in bumpy darkness, with beds and cupboards and bolshy 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 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 sharp
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 of this old ptitsa down below saying:
"Yes yes yes, that's it," but she would be govoreeting to these mewing
sidlers going maaaaaaa for more moloko.
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. I would
perform the old ultra-violence on the starry ptitsa and on her pusspots if
need be, then I would take fair rookerfuls of what looked like real polezny
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
pictures of old time--devotchkas with long hair and high collars, the like
country with trees and horses, the holy bearded veck all nagoy hanging on a
cross. There was a real musty von of pussies and pussy-fish and starry dust
in this domy, different from the flatblocks. And then I was downstairs and I
could viddy the light in this front room where she had been doling moloko to
the kots and koshkas. More, I could viddy these great overstuffed scoteenas
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 a
nice malenky statue that shone in the light of the room, so I crasted this
for my own self, it being like a young thin devotchka standing on one noga
with her rookers 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 through the letter-hole was not, shall we say, satisfactory,
yes? Let us admit not, oh verily not, you stinking starry old sharp." And I
like blinked in the light at this room and the old ptitsa 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 scoteenas were all different
shapes and colours, black, white, tabby, ginger, tortoise-shell, and of all
ages, too, so that there were kittens fillying about with each other and
there were pussies full-grown and there were real dribbling starry ones very
bad-tempered. Their mistress, this old ptitsa, 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 smeck at that, viddying that she had in her
veiny rooker a crappy wood walking-stick which she raised at me threatening.
So, making with my shiny zoobies, I ittied a bit nearer to her, taking my
time, and on the way I saw on a like sideboard a lovely little veshch, the
loveliest malenky veshch any malchick fond of music like myself could ever
hope to viddy with his own two glazzies, for it was like the gulliver and
pletchoes of Ludwig van himself, what they call a bust, a like stone veshch
with stone long hair and blind glazzies and the big flowing cravat. I was
off for that right away, saying: "Well, how lovely and all for me." But
ittying towards it with my glazzies like full on it and my greedy rooker
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 had come up behind me very sly and with great skorriness for her age
and then she went crack crack on my gulliver with her bit of a stick. So I
found myself on my rookers and knees trying to get up and saying: "Naughty,
naughty naughty." And then she was going crack crack crack again, saying:
"Wretched little slummy bedbug, breaking into real people's houses." I
didn't like this crack crack eegra, 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 table-cloth came off with a
milk-jug and a milk-bottle going all drunk then scattering white splosh 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 and running and
jumping in a like cat-panic, and some were blaming each other, hitting out
cat-tolchocks with the old lapa and ptaaaaa and grrrrr and kraaaaark. I got
up on to my nogas, and there was this nasty vindictive starry forella with
her wattles ashake and grunting as she like tried to lever herself up from
the floor, so I gave her a malenky fair kick in the litso, and she didn't
like that, crying: "Waaaaah," and you could viddy her veiny mottled litso
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 creeching pusspots, because I slooshied a gromky
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 statue in one rooker and trying to climb
over this old ptitsa on the floor to reach lovely Ludwig van in frowning
like stone. And then I was into another saucer brimful of creamy moloko and
near went flying again, the whole veshch really a very humorous one if you
could imagine it sloochatting to some other veck and not to Your Humble
Narrator. And then the starry ptitsa on the floor reached over all the
dratsing 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
sploshing moloko and skriking koshkas, and the old forella started to fist
me on the litso, 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 old ptitsa, a couple
of koshkas got on to me and started scratching like bezoomny. So then I got
real bezoomny myself, brothers, and hit out at them, but this baboochka
said: "Toad, don't touch my kitties," and like scratched my litso. So then I
screeched: "You filthy old soomka," and upped with the little malenky like
silver statue and cracked her a fine fair tolchock on the gulliver and that
shut her up real horrorshow and lovely.
Now as I got up from the floor among all the crarking kots and koshkas
what should I slooshy but the shoom of the old police-auto siren in the
distance, and it dawned on me skorry that the old forella of the pusscats
had been on the phone to the millicents when I thought she'd been
govoreeting to the mewlers and mowlers, her having got her suspicions skorry
on the boil when I'd rung the old zvonock pretending for help. So now,
slooshying this fearful shoom of the rozz-van, I belted for the front door
and had a rabbiting time undoing all the locks and chains and bolts and
other protective veshches. Then I got it open, and who should be on the
doorstep but old Dim, me just being able to viddy the other two of my
so-called droogs belting off. "Away," I creeched to Dim. "The rozzes are
coming." Dim said: "You stay to meet them huh huh huh," and then I viddied
that he had his oozy 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 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."
And then I could slooshy his bolshy 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-van draw up with a filthy great dropping siren-howl,
like some bezoomny animal snuffing it. I was howling too and like yawing
about and I banged my gulliver smack on the hall-wall, my glazzies being
tight shut and the juice astream from them, very agonizing. So there I was
like groping in the hallway as the millicents arrived. I couldn't viddy
them, of course, but I could slooshy and damn near smell the von 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 one millicent
goloss 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 goloss say as I
was tolchocked very rough and skorry into the auto. "Little Alex all to our
own selves." I creeched out:
"I'm blind, Bog bust and bleed you, you grahzny bastards."
"Language, language," like smecked a goloss, and then I got a like
backhand tolchock with some ringy rooker or other full on the rot. I said:
"Bog murder you, you vonny stinking bratchnies. Where are the others?
Where are my stinking traitorous droogs? One of my cursed grahzny bratties
chained me on the glazzies. Get them before they get away. It was all their
idea, brothers. They like forced me to do it. I'm innocent, Bog butcher
you."
By this time they were all having like a good smeck 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
unprotesting gorloes of those stinking starry ptitsas 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-shop, me being wedged
between two millicents and being given the odd thump and malenky tolchock by
these smecking bullies. Then I found I could open up my glazlids a malenky
bit and viddy like through all tears a kind of steamy city going by, all the
lights like having run into one another. I could viddy now through smarting
glazzies these two smecking millicents at the back with me and the
thin-necked driver and the fat-necked bastard next to him, this one having a
sarky like govoreet 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 blast you
to hell, grahzny bratchny as you are, you sod." So they all had a smeck at
that and I had my ooko like twisted by one of these stinking millicents 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 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 glazzies.
"The bastards will be peeting away in the Duke of New York. Pick them up
blast you, you vonny sods." And then there was more smecking and another
malenky tolchock, O my brothers, on my poor smarting rot. And then we
arrived at the stinking rozz-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 bratchnies,
Bog blast them.


7



They dragged me into this very bright-lit whitewashed cantora, and it
had a strong von that was a mixture of like sick and lavatories and beery
rots 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 one belting out:

`And I will go back to my darling, my darling,
When you, my darling, are gone.'

But there were the golosses of millicents telling them to shut it and
you could even slooshy the zvook of like somebody being tolchocked real
horrorshow and going owwwwwwwww, and it was like the goloss of a drunken
starry ptitsa, not a man. With me in this cantora were four millicents, all
having a good loud peet of chai, a big pot of it being on the table and they
sucking and belching away over their dirty bolshy mugs. They didn't offer me
any. All that they gave me, my brothers, was a crappy starry mirror to look
into, and indeed I was not your handsome young Narrator any longer but a
real strack of a sight, my rot swollen and my glazzies all red and my nose
bumped a bit also. They all had a real horrorshow smeck when they viddied my
like dismay, and one of them said: "Love's young nightmare like." And then a
top millicent came in with like stars on his pletchoes 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 unless I have my lawyer here. I
know the law, you bastards." Of course they all had a good gromky smeck at
that and then the stellar top millicent 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