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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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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