Страница:
malenky hymnbooks, and the bully fierce warders creeched: "Stop talking
there, bastards. I'm watching you, 920537." Of course I had the disc ready
on the stereo, and then I let the simple music for organ only come belting
out with a growwwwowwwwowwww. Then the plennies started to sing real
horrible:
Weak tea are we, new brewed
But stirring make all strong.
We eat no angel's food,
Our times of trial are long.
They sort of howled and wept these stupid slovos with the charlie like
whipping them on with "Louder, damn you, sing up," and the warders
creeching: "Just you wait, 7749222", and "One on the turnip coming up for
you, filth." Then it was all over and the charlie said: "May the Holy
Trinity keep you always and make you good, amen," and the shamble out began
to a nice choice bit of Symphony No. 2 by Adrian Schweigselber, chosen by
your Humble Narrator, O my brothers. What a lot they were, I thought, as I
stood there by the starry chapel stereo, viddying them all shuffle out going
marrrrre and baaaaaa like animals and up-your-piping with their grahzny
fingers at me, because it looked like I was very special favoured. When the
last one had slouched out, his rookers hanging like an ape and the one
warder left giving him a fair loud tolchock on the back of the gulliver, and
when I had turned off the stereo, the charlie came up to me, puffing away at
a cancer, still in his starry bogman's platties, all lacy and white like a
devotchka's. He said:
"Thank you as always, little 6655321. And what news have you got for me
today?" The idea was, I knew, that this charlie was after becoming a very
great holy chelloveck in the world of Prison Religion, and he wanted a real
horrorshow testimonial from the Governor, so he would go and govoreet
quietly to the Governor now and then about what dark plots were brewing
among the plennies, and he would get a lot of this cal from me. A lot of it
would be all like made up, but some of it would be true, like for instance
the time it had come through to our cell on the waterpipes knock knock
knockiknockiknock knockiknock that big Harriman was going to break. He was
going to tolchock the warder at slop-time and get out in the warder's
platties. Then there was going to be a big throwing about of the horrible
pishcha we got in the dining-hall, and I knew about that and told. Then the
charlie passed it on and was complimented like by the Governor for his
Public Spirit and Keen Ear. So this time I said, and this was not true:
"Well, sir, it has come through on the pipes that a consignment of
cocaine has arrived by irregular means and that a cell somewhere along Tier
5 is to be the centre of distribution." I made all that up as I went along,
like I made up so many of these stories, but the prison charlie was very
grateful, saying: "Good, good, good. I shall pass that on to Himself," this
being what he called the Governor. Then I said:
"Sir, I have done my best, have I not?" I always used my very polite
gentleman's goloss govoreeting with those at the top. "I've tried, sir,
haven't I?"
"I think," said the charlie, "that on the whole you have, 6655321.
You've been very helpful and, I consider, shown a genuine desire to reform.
You will, if you continue in this manner, earn your remission with no
trouble at all."
"But sir," I said, "how about this new thing they're talking about? How
about this new like treatment that gets you out of prison in no time at all
and makes sure that you never get back in again?"
"Oh," he said, very like wary. "Where did you hear this? Who's been
telling you these things?"
"These things get around, sir," I said. "Two warders talk, as it might
be, and somebody can't help hearing what they say. And then somebody picks
up a scrap of newspaper in the workshops and the newspaper says all about
it. How about you putting me in for this thing, sir, if I may make so bold
as to make the suggestion?"
You could viddy him thinking about that while he puffed away at his
cancer, wondering how much to say to me about what he knew about this veshch
I'd mentioned. Then he said:
"I take it you're referring to Ludovico's Technique." He was still very
wary.
"I don't know what it's called, sir," I said. "All I know is that it
gets you out quickly and makes sure that you don't get in again."
"That is so," he said, his eyebrows like all beetling while he looked
down at me. "That is quite so, 6655321. Of course, it's only in the
experimental stage at the moment. It's very simple but very drastic."
"But it's being used here, isn't it, sir?" I said. "Those new like
white buildings by the South wall, sir. We've watched those being built,
sir, when we've been doing our exercise."
"It's not been used yet," he said, "not in this prison, 6655321.
Himself has grave doubts about it. I must confess I share those doubts. The
question is whether such a technique can really make a man good. Goodness
comes from within, 6655321. Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot
choose he ceases to be a man." He would have gone on with a lot more of this
cal, but we could slooshy the next lot of plennies marching clank clank down
the iron stairs to come for their bit of Religion. He said: "We'll have a
little chat about this some other time. Now you'd better start the
voluntary." So I went over to the starry stereo and put on J. S. Bach's
`Wachet Auf' Choral Prelude and in these grahzny vonny bastard criminals and
perverts came shambling like a lot of broke-down apes, the warders or
chassos like barking at them and lashing them. And soon the prison charlie
was asking them: "What's it going to be then, eh?" And that's where you came
in.
We had four of these lomticks of like Prison Religion that morning, but
the charles said no more to me about this Ludovico's Technique, whatever it
was, O my brothers. When I'd finished my rabbit with the stereo he just
govoreeted a few slovos of thanks and then I was privodeeted back to the
cell on Tier 6 which was my very vonny and crammed home. The chasso was not
really too bad of a veck and he did not tolchock or kick me in when he'd
opened up, he just said: "Here we are, sonny, back to the old waterhole."
And there I was with my new type droogs, all very criminal but, Bog be
praised, not given to perversions of the body. There was Zophar on his bunk,
a very thin and brown veck who went on and on and on in his like cancery
goloss, so that nobody bothered to slooshy. What he was saying now like to
nobody was "And at that time you couldn't get hold of a poggy" (whatever
that was, brothers), "not if you was to hand over ten million archibalds, so
what do I do, eh, I goes down to Turkey's and says I've got this sproog on
that morrow, see, and what can he do?" It was all this very old-time real
criminal's slang he spoke. Also there was Wall, who had only one glazzy, and
he was tearing bits of his toe-nails off in honour of Sunday. Also there was
Big Jew, a very fat sweaty veck lying flat on his bunk like dead. In
addition there was Jojohn and The Doctor. Jojohn was very mean and keen and
wiry and had specialized in like Sexual Assault, and The Doctor had
pretended to be able to cure syph and gon and gleet but he had only injected
water, also he had killed off two devotchkas instead, like he had promised,
of getting rid of their unwanted loads for them. They were a terrible
grahzny lot really, and I didn't enjoy being with them, O my brothers, any
more than you do now, but it won't be for much longer.
Now what I want you to know is that this cell was intended for only
three when it was built, but there were six of us there, all jammed together
sweaty and tight. And that was the state of all the cells in all the prisons
in those days, brothers, and a dirty cally disgrace it was, there not being
decent room for a chelloveck to stretch his limbs. And you will hardly
believe what I say now, which is that on this Sunday they brosatted in
another plenny. Yes, we had had our horrible pishcha of dumplings and vonny
stew and were smoking a quiet cancer each on our bunks when this veck was
thrown into our midst.
He was a chinny starry veck and it was him who started creeching
complaints before we even had a chance to viddy the position. He tried to
like shake the bars, creeching: "I demand my sodding rights, this one's
full-up, it's a bleeding imposition, that's what it is." But one of the
chassos came back to say that he had to make the best of it and share a bunk
with whoever would let him, otherwise it would have to be the floor. "And,"
said the warder, "it's going to get worse, not better. A right dirty
criminal world you lot are trying to build."
Well, it was the letting-in of this new chelloveck that was really the
start of my getting out of the old Staja, for he was such a nasty
quarrelsome type of plenny, with a very dirty mind and filthy intentions,
that trouble nachinatted that very same day. He was also very boastful and
started to make with a very sneery litso at us all and a loud proud goloss.
He made out that he was the only real horrorshow prestoopnick in the whole
zoo, going on that he'd done this and done the other and killed ten rozzes
with one crack of his rooker and all that cal. But nobody was very
impressed, O my brothers. So then he started on me, me being the youngest
there, trying to say that as the youngest I ought to be the one to zasnoot
on the floor and not him. But all the others were for me, creeching: "Leave
him alone, you grahzny bratchny," and then he began the old whine about how
nobody loved him. So that same nochy I woke up to find this horrible plenny
actually lying with me on my bunk, which was on the bottom of the three-tier
and also very narrow, and he was govoreeting dirty like love-slovos and
stroke stroke stroking away. So then I got real bezoomny and lashed out,
though I could not viddy all that horrorshow, there being only this malenky
little red light outside on the landing. But I knew it was this one, the
vonny bastard, and then when the trouble really got under way and the lights
were turned on I could viddy his horrible litso with all krovvy dripping
from his rot where I'd hit out with my clawing rooker.
What sloochatted then, of course, was that me cell-mates woke up and
started to join in, tolchocking a bit wild in the near-dark, and the shoom
seemed to wake up the whole tier, so that you could slooshy a lot of
creeching and banging about with tin mugs on the wall, as though all the
plennies in all the cells thought a big break was about to commence, O my
brothers. So then the lights came on and the chassos came along in their
shirts and trousers and caps, waving big sticks. We could viddy each other's
flushed litsos and the shaking of fisty rookers, and there was a lot of
creeching and cursing.
Then I put in my complaint and every chasso said it was probably your
Humble Narrator, brothers, that started it all anyway, me having no mark of
a scratch on me but this horrible plenny dipping red red krovvy from the rot
where I'd got him with my clawing rooker. That made me real bezoomny. I said
I would not sleep another nochy in that cell if the Prison Authorities were
going to allow horrible vonny stinking perverted prestoopnicks to leap on my
plott when I was in no position to defend myself, being asleep. "Wait till
the morning," they said. "Is it a private room with bath and television that
your honour requires? Well, all that will be seen to in the morning. But for
the present, little droog, get your bleeding gulliver down on your
straw-filled podooshka and let's have no more trouble from anyone. Right
right right?" Then off they went with stern warnings for all, then soon
after the lights went out, and then I said I would sit up all the rest of
the nochy, saying first to this horrible prestoopnick: "Go on, get on my
bunk if you wish it. I fancy it no longer. You have made it filthy and cally
with your horrible vonny plott lying on it already." But then the others
joined in. Big Jew said, still sweating from the bit of a bitva we'd had in
the dark:
"Not having that we're not, brotherth. Don't give in to the thquirt."
So this new one said:
"Crash your dermott, yid," meaning to shut up, but it was very
insulting. So then Big Jew got ready to launch a tolchock. The Doctor said:
"Come on, gentlemen, we donэt want any trouble, do we?" in his very
high-class goloss, but this new prestoopnick was really asking for it. You
could viddy that he thought he was a very big bolshy veck and it was beneath
his dignity to be sharing a cell with six and having to sleep on the floor
till I made this gesture at him. In his sneery way he tried to take off The
Doctor, saying:
"Owwww, yew wahnt noo moor trouble, is that it, Archiballs?" So Jojohn,
mean and keen and wiry, said:
"If we can't have sleep let's have some education. Our new friend here
had better be taught a lesson." Although he like specialized in Sexual
Assault he had a nice way of govoreeting, quiet and like precise. So the new
plenny sneered:
"Kish and kosh and koosh, you little terror." So then it all really
started, but in a queer like gentle way, with nobody raising his goloss
much. The new plenny creeched a malenky bit at first, but the Wall fisted
his rot while Big Jew held him up against the bars so that he could be
viddied in the malenky red light from the landing, and he just went oh oh
oh. He was not a very strong type of veck, being very feeble in his trying
to tolchock back, and I suppose he made up for this by being shoomny in the
goloss and very boastful. Anyway, seeing the old krovvy flow red in the red
light, I felt the old joy like rising up in my keeshkas and I said:
"Leave him to me, go on, let me have him now, brothers." So Big Jew
said:
"Yeth, yeth, boyth, that'th fair. Thlosh him then, Alekth." So they all
stood around while I cracked at this prestoopnick in the near dark. I fisted
him all over, dancing about with my boots on though unlaced, and then I
tripped him and he went crash crash on to the floor. I gave him one real
horrorshow kick on the gulliver and he went ohhhh, then he sort of snorted
off to like sleep, and The Doctor said:
"Very well, I think that wil be enough of a lesson," squinting to viddy
this downed and beaten-up veck on the floor. "Let him dream perhaps about
being a better boy in the future." So we all climbed back into our bunks,
being very tired now.
What I dreamt of, O my brothers, was of being in some very big
orchestra, hundreds and hundreds strong, and the conductor was a like
mixture of Ludwig van and G. F. Handel, looking very deaf and blind and
weary of the world. I was with the wind instruments, but what I was playing
was like a white pinky bassoon made of flesh and growing out of my plott,
right in the middle of my belly, and when I blew into it I had to smeck ha
ha ha very loud because it like tickled, and then Ludwig van G. F. got very
razdraz and bezoomny. Then he came right up to my litso and creeched loud in
my ooko, and then I woke up like sweating. Of course, what the loud shoom
really was was the prison buzzer going brrrrr brrrrr brrrrr. It was winter
morning and my glazzies were all cally with sleepglue, and when I opened up
they were very sore in the electric light that had been switched on all over
the zoo. Then I looked down and viddied this new prestoopnick lying on the
floor, very bloody and bruisy and still out out out. Then I remembered about
last night and that made me smeck a bit.
But when I got off the bunk and moved him with my bare noga, there was
a feel of like stiff coldness, so I went over to The Doctor's bunk and shook
him, him always being very slow at waking up in the morning. But he was off
his bunk skorry enough this time, and so were the others, except for Wall
who slept like dead meat. "Very unfortunate," The Doctor said. "A heart
attack, that's what it must have been."
Then he said, looking round at us all: "You really shouldn't have gone
for him like that. It was most ill-advised really."
Jojohn said:
"Come come, doc, you weren't all that backward yourself in giving him a
sly bit of fist." Then Big Jew turned on me, saying:
"Alekth, you were too impetuouth. That latht kick wath a very very
nathty one." I began to get razdraz about this and said:
"Who started it, eh? I only got in at the end, didn't I?" I pointed at
Jojohn and said: "It was your idea." Wall snored a bit loud, so I said:
"Wake that vonny bratchny up. It was him that kept on at his rot while Big
Jew here had him up against the bars." The Doctor said:
"Nobody will deny having a little hit at the man, to teach him a lesson
so to speak, but it's apparent that you, my dear boy, with the forcefulness
and, shall I say, heedlessness of youth, dealt him the coo de gras. It's a
great pity."
"Traitors," I said. "Traitors and liars," because I could viddy it was
all like before, two years before, when my so-called droogs had left me to
the brutal rookers of the millicents. There was no trust anywhere in the
world, O my brothers, the way I could see it. And Jojohn went and woke up
Wall, and Wall was only too ready to swear that it was Your Humble Narrator
that had done the real dirty tolchocking and brutality. When the chassos
came along, and then the Chief Chasso, and then the Governor himself, all
these cell-droogs of mine were very shoomny with tales of what I'd done to
oobivat this worthless pervert whose krovvy-covered plott lay sacklike on
the floor.
That was a very queer day, O my brothers. The dead plott was carried
off, and then everybody in the whole prison had to stay locked up until
further orders, and there was no pishcha given out, not even a mug of hot
chai. We just all sat there, and the warders or chassos sort of strode up
and down the tier, now and then creeching "Shut it" or "Close that hole"
whenever they slooshied even a whisper from any of the cells.
Then about eleven o'clock in the morning there was a sort of like
stiffening and excitement and like the von of fear spreading from outside
the cell, and then we could viddy the Governor and the Chief Chasso and some
very bolshy important-looking chellovecks walking by real skorry,
govoreeting like bezoomny. They seemed to walk right to the end of the tier,
then they could be slooshied walking back again, more slow this time, and
you could slooshy the Governor, a very sweaty fatty fair-haired veck, saying
slovos like "But, sir--" and "Well, what can be done, sir?" and so on. Then
the whole lot stopped at our cell and the Chief Chasso opened up. You could
viddy who was the real important veck right away, very tall and with blue
glazzies and with real horrorshow platties on him, the most lovely suit,
brothers, I have ever viddied, absolutely in the heighth of fashion. He just
sort of looked right through us poor plennies, saying, in a very beautiful
real educated goloss: "The Government cannot be concerned any longer with
outmoded penological theories. Cram criminals together and see what happens.
You get concentrated criminality, crime in the midst of punishment. Soon we
may be needing all our prison space for political offenders." I didn't pony
this at all, brothers, but after all he was not govoreeting to me. Then he
said: "Common criminals like this unsavoury crowd"--(that meant me,
brothers, as well as the others, who were real prestoopnicks and treacherous
with it)--"can best be dealt with on a purely curative basis. Kill the
criminal reflex, that's all. Full implementation in a year's time.
Punishment means nothing to them, you can see that. They enjoy their
so-called punishment. They start murdering each other." And he turned his
stern blue glazzies on me. So I said, bold:
"With respect, sir, I object very strongly to what you said then. I am
not a common criminal, sir, and I am not unsavoury. The others may be
unsavoury but I am not." The Chief Chasso went all purple and creeched:
"You shut your bleeding hole, you. Don't you know who this is?"
"All right, all right," said this big veck. Then he turned to the
Governor and said: "You can use him as a trail-blazer. He's young, bold,
vicious. Brodsky will deal with him tomorrow and you can sit in and watch
Brodsky. It works all right, don't worry about that. This vicious young
hoodlum will be transformed out of all recognition."
And those hard slovos, brothers, were like the beginning of my freedom.
That very same evening I was dragged down nice and gentle by brutal
tolchocking chassos to viddy the Governor in his holy of holies holy office.
The Governor looked very weary at me and said: "I don't suppose you know who
that was this morning, do you, 6655321?" And without waiting for me to say
no he said: "That was no less a personage than the Minister of the Interior,
the new Minister of the Interior and what they call a very new broom. Well,
these new ridiculous ideas have come at last and orders are orders, though I
may say to you in confidence that I do not approve. I most emphatically do
not approve. An eye for an eye, I say. If someone hits you you hit back, do
you not? Why then should not the State, very severely hit by you brutal
hooligans, not hit back also? But the new view is to say no. The new view is
that we turn the bad into the good. All of which seems to me grossly unjust.
Hm?"
So I said, trying to be like respectful and accomodating:
"Sir." And then the Chief Chasso, who was standing all red and burly
behind the Governor's chair, creeched:
"Shut your filthy hole, you scum."
"All right, all right," said the like tired and fagged-out Governor.
"You, 6655321, are to be reformed. Tomorrow you go to this man Brodsky. It
is believed that you will be able to leave State Custody in a little over a
fortnight. In a little over a fortnight you will be out again in the big
free world, no longer a number. I suppose," and he snorted a bit here, "that
prospect pleases you?" I said nothing so the Chief Chasso creeched:
"Answer, you filthy young swine, when the Governor asks you a
question." So I said:
"Oh, yes, sir. Thank you very much, sir. I've done my best here, really
I have. I'm very grateful to all concerned."
"Don't be," like sighed the Governor. "This is not a reward. This is
far from being a reward. Now, there is a form here to be signed. It says
that you are wiling to have the residue of your sentence commuted to
submission to what is called here, ridiculous expression, Reclamation
Treatment. Will you sign?"
"Most certainly I will sign," I said, "sir. And very many thanks." So I
was given an ink-pencil and I signed my name nice and flowy. The Governor
said:
"Right. That's the lot, I think." The Chief Chasso said:
"The Prison Chaplain would like a word with him, sir." So I was marched
out and off down the corridor towards the Wing Chapel, tolchocked on the
back and the gulliver all the way by one of the chassos, but in a very like
yawny and bored manner. And I was marched across the Wing Chapel to the
little cantora of the charles and then made to go in. The charles was
sitting at his desk, smelling loud and clear of a fine manny von of
expensive cancers and Scotch. He said:
"Ah, little 6655321, be seated." And to the chassos: "Wait outside,
eh?" Which they did. Then he spoke in a very like earnest way to me, saying:
"One thing I want you to understand, boy, is that this is nothing to do with
me. Were it expedient, I would protest about it, but it is not expedient.
There is the question of my own career, there is the question of the
weakness of my own voice when set against the shout of certain more powerful
elements in the polity. Do I make myself clear?" He didn't, brothers, but I
nodded that he did. "Very hard ethical questions are involved," he went on.
"You are to be made into a good boy, 6655321. Never again will you have the
desire to commit acts of violence or to offend in any way whatsoever against
the State's Peace. I hope you take all that in. I hope you are absolutely
clear in your own mind about that." I said:
"Oh, it will be nice to be good, sir." But I had a real horrorshow
smeck at that inside, brothers. He said:
"It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It may be horrible to
be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that
sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. What does God
want? Does God want woodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses
the bad perhaps in some ways better than a man who has the good imposed upon
him? Deep and hard questions, little 6655321. But all I want to say to you
now is this: if at any time in the future you look back to these times and
remember me, the lowest and humblest of all God's servitors, do not, I pray,
think evil of me in your heart, thinking me in any way involved in what is
now about to happen to you. And now, talking of praying, I realize sadly
that there will be little point in praying for you. You are passing now to a
region where you will be beyond the reach of the power of prayer. A terrible
terrible thing to consider. And yet, in a sense, in choosing to be deprive
of the ability to make an ethical choice, you have in a sense really chosen
the good. So I shall like to think. So, God help us all, 6655321, I shall
like to think." And then he began to cry. But I didn't really take much
notice of that, brothers only having a bit of a quiet smeck inside, because
you could viddy that he had been peeting away at the old whisky, and now he
took a bottle from a cupboard in his desk and started to pour himself a real
horrorshow bolshy slog into a very greasy and grahzny glass. He downed it
and the said: "All may be well, who knows? God works in a mysterious way."
Then he began to sing away at a hymn in a real loud rich goloss. Then the
door opened and the chassos came in to tolchock me back to my vonny cell,
but the old charles still went on singing this hymn.
Well, the next morning I had to say good-bye to the old Staja, and I
felt a malenky bit sad as you always will when you have to leave a place
you've like got used to. But I didn't go very far, O my brothers. I was
punched and kicked along to the new white building just beyond the yard
where we used to do our bit of exercise. This was a very new building and it
had a new cold like sizy smell which gave you a bit of the shivers. I stood
there in the horrible bolshy bare hall and I got new vons, sniffing away
there with my like very sensitive morder or sniffer. These were like
hospital vons, and the chelloveck the chassos handed me over to had a white
coat on, as he might be a hospital man. He signed for me, and one of the
brutal chassos who had brought me said: "You watch this one, sir. A right
brutal bastard he has been and will be again, in spite of all his sucking up
to the Prison Chaplain and reading the Bible." But this new chelloveck had
real horrorshow blue glazzies which like smiled when he govoreeted. He said:
"Oh, we don't anticipate any trouble. We're going to be friends, aren't
we?" And he smiled with his glazzies and his fine big rot which was full of
shining white zoobies and I sort of took to this veck right away. Anyway, he
passed me on to a like lesser veck in a white coat, and this one was very
nice too, and I was led off to a very nice white clean bedroom with curtains
and a bedside lamp, and just the one bed in it, all for Your Humble
Narrator. So I had a real horrorshow inner smeck at that, thinking I was
really a very lucky young malchickiwick. I was told to take off my horrible
prison platties and I was given a really beautiful set of pyjamas, O my
brothers, in plain green, the heighth of bedwear fashion. And I was given a
nice warm dressing-gown too and lovely toofles to put my bare nogas in, and
I thought: "Well, Alex boy, little 6655321 as was, you have copped it lucky
and no mistake. You are really going to enjoy it here."
After I had been given a nice chasha of real horrorshow coffee and some
old gazettas and mags to look at while peeting it, this first veck in white
came in, the one who had like signed for me, and he said: "Aha, there you
are," a silly sort of a veshch to say but it didn't sound silly, this veck
being so like nice. "My name," he said, "is Dr. Branom. I'm Dr. Brodsky's
assistant. With your permission, I'll just give you the usual brief overall
examination." And he took the old stetho out of his right carman. "We must
make sure you're quite fit, mustn't we? Yes indeed, we must." So while I lay
there with my pyjama top off and he did this, that and the other, I said:
"What exactly is it, sir, that you're going to do?"
"Oh," said Dr. Branom, his cold stetho going all down my back, "it's
quite simple, really. We just show you some films."
"Films?" I said. I could hardly believe my ookos, brothers, as you may
well understand. "You mean," I said, "it will be just like going to the
pictures?"
"They'll be special films," said Dr. Branom. "Very special films.
You'll be having the first session this afternoon. Yes," he said, getting up
from bending over me, "you seem to be quite a fit young boy. A bit
under-nourished perhaps. That will be the fault of the prison food. Put your
pyjama top back on. After every meal," he said, sitting on the edge of the
bed, "we shall be giving you a shot in the arm. That should help." I felt
really grateful to this very nice Dr. Branom. I said:
"Vitamins, sir, will it be?"
"Something like that," he said, smiling real horrorshow and friendly,
"just a jab in the arm after every meal." Then he went out. I lay on the bed
thinking this was like real heaven, and I read some of the mags they'd given
me--`Worldsport,' `Sinny' (this being a film mag) and `Goal.' Then I lay
back on the bed and shut my glazzies and thought how nice it was going to be
out there again, Alex with perhaps a nice easy job during the day, me being
now too old for the old skolliwoll, and then perhaps getting a new like gang
together for the nochy, and the first rabbit would be to get old Dim and
Pete, if they had not been got already by the millicents. This time I would
be very careful not to get loveted. They were giving another like chance, me
having done murder and all, and it would not be like fair to get loveted
again, after going to all this trouble to show me films that were going to
make me a real good malchick. I had a real horrorshow smeck at everybody's
like innocence, and I was smecking my gulliver off when they brought in my
lunch on a tray. The veck who brought it was the one who'd led me to this
malenky bedroom when I came into the mesto, and he said:
"It's nice to know somebody's happy." It was really a very nice
appetizing bit of pishcha they'd laid out on the tray--two or three lomticks
of like hot roastbeef with mashed kartoffel and vedge, then there was also
ice-cream and a nice hot chasha of chai. And there was even a cancer to
smoke and a matchbox with one match in. So this looked like it was the life,
O my brothers. Then, about half an hour after while I was lying a bit sleepy
on the bed, a woman nurse came in, a real nice young devotchka with real
horrorshow groodies (I had not seen such for two years) and she had a tray
and a hypodermic. I said:
"Ah, the old vitamins, eh?" And I clickclicked at her but she took no
notice. All she did was to slam the needle into my left arm, and then
swishhhh in went the vitamin stuff. Then she went out again, clack clack on
her high-heeled nogas. Then the white-coated veck who was like a male nurse
came in with a wheelchair. I was a malenky bit surprised to viddy that. I
said:
"What giveth then, brother? I can walk, surely, to wherever we have to
itty to." But he said:
"Best I push you there." And indeed, O my brothers, when I got off the
bed I found myself a malenky bit weak. It was the under-nourishment like Dr.
Branom had said, all that horrible prison pishcha. But the vitamins in the
after-meal injection would put me right. No doubt at all about that, I
thought.
Where I was wheeled to, brothers, was like no sinny I had ever viddied
before. True enough, one wall was all covered with silver screen, and direct
opposite was a wall with square holes in for the projector to project
through, and there were stereo speakers stuck all over the mesto. But
against the right-hand one of the other walls was a bank of all like little
meters, and in the middle of the floor facing the screen was like a
dentist's chair with all lengths of wire running from it, and I had to like
crawl from the wheelchair to this, being given some help by another like
male nurse veck in a white coat. Then I noticed that underneath the
projection holes was like all frosted glass and I thought I viddied shadows
of like people moving behind it and I thought I slooshied somebody cough
kashl kashl kashl. But then all I could like notice was how weak I seemed to
be, and I put that down to changing over from prison pishcha to this new
rich pishcha and the vitamins injected into me. "Right," said the
wheelchair-wheeling veck, "now I'll leave you. The show will commence as
soon as Dr. Brodsky arrives. Hope you enjoy it." To be truthful, brothers, I
did not really feel that I wanted to viddy any film-show this afternoon. I
was just not in the mood. I would have liked much better to have a nice
quiet spatchka on the bed, nice and quiet and all on my oddy knocky. I felt
very limp.
What happened now was that one white-coated veck strapped my gulliver
to a like head-rest, singing to himself all the time some vonny cally
pop-song. "What's this for?" I said. And this veck replied, interrupting his
like song an instant, that it was to keep my gulliver still and make me look
at the screen. "But," I said, "I want to look at the screen. I've been
brought here to viddy films and viddy films I shall." And then the other
white-coat veck (there were three altogether, one of them a devotchka who
was like sitting at the bank of meters and twiddling with knobs) had a bit
of a smeck at that.
He said:
"You never know. Oh, you never know. Trust us, friend. It's better this
way." And then I found they were strapping my rookers to the chair-arms and
my nogas were like stuck to a foot-rest. It seemed a bit bezoomny to me but
I let them get on with what they wanted to get on with. If I was to be a
free young malchick again in a fortnight's time I would put up with much in
the meantime, O my brothers. One veshch I did not like, though, was when
they put like clips on the skin of my forehead, so that my top glazz-lids
were pulled up and up and up and I could not shut my glazzies no matter how
I tried. I tried to smeck and said: "This must be a real horrorshow film if
you're so keen on my viddying it." And one of the white-coat vecks said,
smecking:
"Horrorshow is right, friend. A real show of horrors." And then I had
like a cap stuck on my gulliver and I could viddy all wires running away
from it, and they stuck a like suction pad on my belly and one on the old
tick-tocker, and I could just about viddy wires running away from those.
Then there was the shoom of a door opening and you could tell some very
important chelloveck was coming in by the way the white-coated under-vecks
went all stiff. And then I viddied this Dr. Brodsky. He was a malenky veck,
very fat, with all curly hair curling all over his gulliver, and on his
spuddy nose he had very thick ochkies. I could just viddy that he had a real
horrorshow suit on, absolutely the heighth of fashion, and he had a like
very delicate and subtle von of operating-theatres coming from him. With him
was Dr. Branom, all smiling like as though to give me confidence.
"Everything ready?" said Dr. Brodsky in a very breathy goloss. Then I could
slooshy voices saying Right right right from like a distance, then nearer
to, then there was a quiet like humming shoom as though things had been
switched on. And then the lights went out and there was Your Humble Narrator
And Friend sitting alone in the dark, all on his frightened oddy knocky, not
able to move nor shut his glazzies nor anything. And then, O my brothers,
the film-show started off with some very gromky atmosphere music coming from
the speakers, very fierce and full of discord. And then on the screen the
picture came on, but there was no title and no credits. What came on was a
street, as it might have been any street in any town, and it was a real dark
nochy and the lamps were lit. It was a very good like professional piece of
sinny, and there were none of these flickers and blobs you get, say, when
you viddy one of these dirty films in somebody's house in a back street. All
the time the music bumped out, very like sinister. And then you could viddy
an old man coming down the street, very starry, and then there leaped out on
this starry veck two malchicks dressed in the heighth of fashion, as it was
at this time (still thin trousers but no like cravat any more, more of a
real tie), and then they started to filly with him. You could slooshy the
screams and moans, very realistic, and you could even get the like heavy
breathing and panting of the two tolchocking malchicks. They made a real
pudding out of this starry veck, going crack crack crack at him with the
fisty rookers, tearing his platties off and then finishing up by booting his
nagoy plott (this lay all krovvy-red in the grahzny mud of the gutter) and
then running off very skorry. Then there was the close-up gulliver of this
beaten-up starry veck, and the krovvy flowed beautiful red. It's funny how
the colours of the like real world only seem really real when you viddy them
on the screen.
Now all the time I was watching this I was beginning to get very aware
of a like not feeling all that well, and this I put down to the
under-nourishment and my stomach not quite ready for tthe rich pishcha and
vitamins I was getting here. But I tried to forget this, concentrating on
the next film which came on at once, brothers, without any break at all.
This time the film jumped right away on a young devotchka who was being
given the old in-out by first one malchick then another then another then
another, she creeching away very gromky through the speakers and like very
pathetic and tragic music going on at the same time. This was real, very
real, though if you thought about it properly you couldn't imagine lewdies
actually agreeing to having all this done to them in a film, and if these
films were made by the Good or the State you couldn't imagine them being
allowed to take these films without like interfering with what was going on.
So it must have been very clever what they call cutting or editing or some
such veshch. For it was very real. And when it came to the sixth or seventh
malchick leering and smecking and then going into it and the devotchka
creeching on the sound-track like bezoomny, then I began to feel sick. I had
like pains all over and felt I could sick up and at the same time not sick
up, and I began to feel like in distress, O my brothers, being fixed rigid
too on this chair. When this bit of film was over I could slooshy the goloss
of this Dr. Brodsky from over by the switchboard saying: "Reaction about
twelve point five? Promising, promising."
Then we shot straight into another lomtick of film, and this time it
was of just a human litso, a very like pale human face held still and having
different nasty veshches done to it. I was sweating a malenky bit with the
pain in my guts and a horrible thirst and my gulliver going throb throb
throb, and it seemed to me that if I could not viddy this bit of film I
would perhaps be not so sick. But I could not shut my glazzies, and even if
I tried to move my glaz-balls about I still could not get like out of the
line of fire of this picture. So I had to go on viddying what was being done
and hearing the most ghastly creechings coming from this litso. I knew it
could not really be real, but that made no difference. I was heaving away
but could not sick, viddying first a britva cut out an eye, then slice down
the cheek, then go rip rip rip all over, while red krovvy shot on to the
camera lens. Then all the teeth were like wrenched out with a pair of
pliers, and the creeching and the blood were terrific. Then I slooshied this
very pleased goloss of Dr. Brodsky going: "Excellent, excellent, excellent."
The next lomtick of film was of an old woman who kept a shop being
kicked about amid very gromky laughter by a lot of malchicks, and these
malchicks broke up the shop and then set fire to it. You could viddy this
poor starry ptitsa trying to crawl out of the flames, screaming and
creeching, but having had her leg broke by these malchicks kicking her she
could not move. So then all the flames went roaring round her, and you could
viddy her agonized litso like appealing through the flames and the
disappearing in the flames, and then you could slooshy the most gromky and
agonized and agonizing screams that ever came from a human goloss. So this
time I knew I had to sick up, so I creeched:
"I want to be sick. Please let me be sick. Please bring something for
me to be sick into." But this Dr. Brodsky called back:
"Imagination only. You've nothing to worry about. Next film coming up."
That was perhaps meant to be a joke, for I heard a like smeck coming from
the dark. And then I was forced to viddy a most nasty film about Japanese
torture. It was the 1939-45 War, and there were soldiers being fixed to
trees with nails and having fires lit under them and having their yarbles
cut off, and you even viddied a gulliver being sliced off a soldier with a
sword, and then with his head rolling about and the rot and glazzies looking
alive still, the plott of this soldier actually ran about, krovvying like a
fountain out of the neck, and then it dropped, and all the time there was
very very loud laughter from the Japanese. The pains I felt now in my belly
and the headache and the thirst were terrible, and they all seemed to be
coming out of the screen. So I creeched:
"Stop the film! Please, please stop it! I can't stand any more." And
then the goloss of this Dr. Brodsky said:
"Stop it? Stop it, did you say? Why, we've hardly started." And he and
the others smecked quite loud.
I do not wish to describe, brothers, what other horrible veshches I was
like forced to viddy that afternoon. The like minds of this Dr. Brodsky and
Dr. Branom and the others in white coats, and remember there was this
devotchka twiddling with the knobs and watching the meters, they must have
been more cally and filthy than any prestoopnick in the Staja itself.
Because I did not think it was possible for any veck to even think of making
films of what I was forced to viddy, all tied to this chair and my glazzies
made to be wide open. All I could do was to creech very gromky for them to
turn it off, turn it off, and that like part drowned the noise of dratsing
and fillying and also the music that went with it all. You can imagine it
was like a terrible relief when I'd viddied the last bit of film, and this
Dr. Brodsky said, in a very yawny and bored like goloss: "I think that
should be enough for Day One, don't you, Branom?" And there I was with the
lights switched on, my gulliver throbbing like a bolshy big engine that
makes pain, and my rot all dry and cally inside, and feeling I could like
sick up every bit of pishcha I had ever eaten, O my brothers, since the day
I was like weaned. "All right," said this Dr. Brodsky, "he can be taken back
to his bed." Then he like patted me on the pletcho and said: "Good, good. A
very promising start," grinning all over his litso, then he like waddled
out, Dr. Branom after him, but Dr. Branom gave me a like very droogy and
sympathetic type smile as though he had nothing to do with all this veshch
but was like forced into it as I was.
Anyhow, they freed my plott from the chair and they let go the skin
above my glazzies so that I could open and shut them again, and I shut them,
O my brothers, with the pain and throb in my gulliver, and then I was like
there, bastards. I'm watching you, 920537." Of course I had the disc ready
on the stereo, and then I let the simple music for organ only come belting
out with a growwwwowwwwowwww. Then the plennies started to sing real
horrible:
Weak tea are we, new brewed
But stirring make all strong.
We eat no angel's food,
Our times of trial are long.
They sort of howled and wept these stupid slovos with the charlie like
whipping them on with "Louder, damn you, sing up," and the warders
creeching: "Just you wait, 7749222", and "One on the turnip coming up for
you, filth." Then it was all over and the charlie said: "May the Holy
Trinity keep you always and make you good, amen," and the shamble out began
to a nice choice bit of Symphony No. 2 by Adrian Schweigselber, chosen by
your Humble Narrator, O my brothers. What a lot they were, I thought, as I
stood there by the starry chapel stereo, viddying them all shuffle out going
marrrrre and baaaaaa like animals and up-your-piping with their grahzny
fingers at me, because it looked like I was very special favoured. When the
last one had slouched out, his rookers hanging like an ape and the one
warder left giving him a fair loud tolchock on the back of the gulliver, and
when I had turned off the stereo, the charlie came up to me, puffing away at
a cancer, still in his starry bogman's platties, all lacy and white like a
devotchka's. He said:
"Thank you as always, little 6655321. And what news have you got for me
today?" The idea was, I knew, that this charlie was after becoming a very
great holy chelloveck in the world of Prison Religion, and he wanted a real
horrorshow testimonial from the Governor, so he would go and govoreet
quietly to the Governor now and then about what dark plots were brewing
among the plennies, and he would get a lot of this cal from me. A lot of it
would be all like made up, but some of it would be true, like for instance
the time it had come through to our cell on the waterpipes knock knock
knockiknockiknock knockiknock that big Harriman was going to break. He was
going to tolchock the warder at slop-time and get out in the warder's
platties. Then there was going to be a big throwing about of the horrible
pishcha we got in the dining-hall, and I knew about that and told. Then the
charlie passed it on and was complimented like by the Governor for his
Public Spirit and Keen Ear. So this time I said, and this was not true:
"Well, sir, it has come through on the pipes that a consignment of
cocaine has arrived by irregular means and that a cell somewhere along Tier
5 is to be the centre of distribution." I made all that up as I went along,
like I made up so many of these stories, but the prison charlie was very
grateful, saying: "Good, good, good. I shall pass that on to Himself," this
being what he called the Governor. Then I said:
"Sir, I have done my best, have I not?" I always used my very polite
gentleman's goloss govoreeting with those at the top. "I've tried, sir,
haven't I?"
"I think," said the charlie, "that on the whole you have, 6655321.
You've been very helpful and, I consider, shown a genuine desire to reform.
You will, if you continue in this manner, earn your remission with no
trouble at all."
"But sir," I said, "how about this new thing they're talking about? How
about this new like treatment that gets you out of prison in no time at all
and makes sure that you never get back in again?"
"Oh," he said, very like wary. "Where did you hear this? Who's been
telling you these things?"
"These things get around, sir," I said. "Two warders talk, as it might
be, and somebody can't help hearing what they say. And then somebody picks
up a scrap of newspaper in the workshops and the newspaper says all about
it. How about you putting me in for this thing, sir, if I may make so bold
as to make the suggestion?"
You could viddy him thinking about that while he puffed away at his
cancer, wondering how much to say to me about what he knew about this veshch
I'd mentioned. Then he said:
"I take it you're referring to Ludovico's Technique." He was still very
wary.
"I don't know what it's called, sir," I said. "All I know is that it
gets you out quickly and makes sure that you don't get in again."
"That is so," he said, his eyebrows like all beetling while he looked
down at me. "That is quite so, 6655321. Of course, it's only in the
experimental stage at the moment. It's very simple but very drastic."
"But it's being used here, isn't it, sir?" I said. "Those new like
white buildings by the South wall, sir. We've watched those being built,
sir, when we've been doing our exercise."
"It's not been used yet," he said, "not in this prison, 6655321.
Himself has grave doubts about it. I must confess I share those doubts. The
question is whether such a technique can really make a man good. Goodness
comes from within, 6655321. Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot
choose he ceases to be a man." He would have gone on with a lot more of this
cal, but we could slooshy the next lot of plennies marching clank clank down
the iron stairs to come for their bit of Religion. He said: "We'll have a
little chat about this some other time. Now you'd better start the
voluntary." So I went over to the starry stereo and put on J. S. Bach's
`Wachet Auf' Choral Prelude and in these grahzny vonny bastard criminals and
perverts came shambling like a lot of broke-down apes, the warders or
chassos like barking at them and lashing them. And soon the prison charlie
was asking them: "What's it going to be then, eh?" And that's where you came
in.
We had four of these lomticks of like Prison Religion that morning, but
the charles said no more to me about this Ludovico's Technique, whatever it
was, O my brothers. When I'd finished my rabbit with the stereo he just
govoreeted a few slovos of thanks and then I was privodeeted back to the
cell on Tier 6 which was my very vonny and crammed home. The chasso was not
really too bad of a veck and he did not tolchock or kick me in when he'd
opened up, he just said: "Here we are, sonny, back to the old waterhole."
And there I was with my new type droogs, all very criminal but, Bog be
praised, not given to perversions of the body. There was Zophar on his bunk,
a very thin and brown veck who went on and on and on in his like cancery
goloss, so that nobody bothered to slooshy. What he was saying now like to
nobody was "And at that time you couldn't get hold of a poggy" (whatever
that was, brothers), "not if you was to hand over ten million archibalds, so
what do I do, eh, I goes down to Turkey's and says I've got this sproog on
that morrow, see, and what can he do?" It was all this very old-time real
criminal's slang he spoke. Also there was Wall, who had only one glazzy, and
he was tearing bits of his toe-nails off in honour of Sunday. Also there was
Big Jew, a very fat sweaty veck lying flat on his bunk like dead. In
addition there was Jojohn and The Doctor. Jojohn was very mean and keen and
wiry and had specialized in like Sexual Assault, and The Doctor had
pretended to be able to cure syph and gon and gleet but he had only injected
water, also he had killed off two devotchkas instead, like he had promised,
of getting rid of their unwanted loads for them. They were a terrible
grahzny lot really, and I didn't enjoy being with them, O my brothers, any
more than you do now, but it won't be for much longer.
Now what I want you to know is that this cell was intended for only
three when it was built, but there were six of us there, all jammed together
sweaty and tight. And that was the state of all the cells in all the prisons
in those days, brothers, and a dirty cally disgrace it was, there not being
decent room for a chelloveck to stretch his limbs. And you will hardly
believe what I say now, which is that on this Sunday they brosatted in
another plenny. Yes, we had had our horrible pishcha of dumplings and vonny
stew and were smoking a quiet cancer each on our bunks when this veck was
thrown into our midst.
He was a chinny starry veck and it was him who started creeching
complaints before we even had a chance to viddy the position. He tried to
like shake the bars, creeching: "I demand my sodding rights, this one's
full-up, it's a bleeding imposition, that's what it is." But one of the
chassos came back to say that he had to make the best of it and share a bunk
with whoever would let him, otherwise it would have to be the floor. "And,"
said the warder, "it's going to get worse, not better. A right dirty
criminal world you lot are trying to build."
Well, it was the letting-in of this new chelloveck that was really the
start of my getting out of the old Staja, for he was such a nasty
quarrelsome type of plenny, with a very dirty mind and filthy intentions,
that trouble nachinatted that very same day. He was also very boastful and
started to make with a very sneery litso at us all and a loud proud goloss.
He made out that he was the only real horrorshow prestoopnick in the whole
zoo, going on that he'd done this and done the other and killed ten rozzes
with one crack of his rooker and all that cal. But nobody was very
impressed, O my brothers. So then he started on me, me being the youngest
there, trying to say that as the youngest I ought to be the one to zasnoot
on the floor and not him. But all the others were for me, creeching: "Leave
him alone, you grahzny bratchny," and then he began the old whine about how
nobody loved him. So that same nochy I woke up to find this horrible plenny
actually lying with me on my bunk, which was on the bottom of the three-tier
and also very narrow, and he was govoreeting dirty like love-slovos and
stroke stroke stroking away. So then I got real bezoomny and lashed out,
though I could not viddy all that horrorshow, there being only this malenky
little red light outside on the landing. But I knew it was this one, the
vonny bastard, and then when the trouble really got under way and the lights
were turned on I could viddy his horrible litso with all krovvy dripping
from his rot where I'd hit out with my clawing rooker.
What sloochatted then, of course, was that me cell-mates woke up and
started to join in, tolchocking a bit wild in the near-dark, and the shoom
seemed to wake up the whole tier, so that you could slooshy a lot of
creeching and banging about with tin mugs on the wall, as though all the
plennies in all the cells thought a big break was about to commence, O my
brothers. So then the lights came on and the chassos came along in their
shirts and trousers and caps, waving big sticks. We could viddy each other's
flushed litsos and the shaking of fisty rookers, and there was a lot of
creeching and cursing.
Then I put in my complaint and every chasso said it was probably your
Humble Narrator, brothers, that started it all anyway, me having no mark of
a scratch on me but this horrible plenny dipping red red krovvy from the rot
where I'd got him with my clawing rooker. That made me real bezoomny. I said
I would not sleep another nochy in that cell if the Prison Authorities were
going to allow horrible vonny stinking perverted prestoopnicks to leap on my
plott when I was in no position to defend myself, being asleep. "Wait till
the morning," they said. "Is it a private room with bath and television that
your honour requires? Well, all that will be seen to in the morning. But for
the present, little droog, get your bleeding gulliver down on your
straw-filled podooshka and let's have no more trouble from anyone. Right
right right?" Then off they went with stern warnings for all, then soon
after the lights went out, and then I said I would sit up all the rest of
the nochy, saying first to this horrible prestoopnick: "Go on, get on my
bunk if you wish it. I fancy it no longer. You have made it filthy and cally
with your horrible vonny plott lying on it already." But then the others
joined in. Big Jew said, still sweating from the bit of a bitva we'd had in
the dark:
"Not having that we're not, brotherth. Don't give in to the thquirt."
So this new one said:
"Crash your dermott, yid," meaning to shut up, but it was very
insulting. So then Big Jew got ready to launch a tolchock. The Doctor said:
"Come on, gentlemen, we donэt want any trouble, do we?" in his very
high-class goloss, but this new prestoopnick was really asking for it. You
could viddy that he thought he was a very big bolshy veck and it was beneath
his dignity to be sharing a cell with six and having to sleep on the floor
till I made this gesture at him. In his sneery way he tried to take off The
Doctor, saying:
"Owwww, yew wahnt noo moor trouble, is that it, Archiballs?" So Jojohn,
mean and keen and wiry, said:
"If we can't have sleep let's have some education. Our new friend here
had better be taught a lesson." Although he like specialized in Sexual
Assault he had a nice way of govoreeting, quiet and like precise. So the new
plenny sneered:
"Kish and kosh and koosh, you little terror." So then it all really
started, but in a queer like gentle way, with nobody raising his goloss
much. The new plenny creeched a malenky bit at first, but the Wall fisted
his rot while Big Jew held him up against the bars so that he could be
viddied in the malenky red light from the landing, and he just went oh oh
oh. He was not a very strong type of veck, being very feeble in his trying
to tolchock back, and I suppose he made up for this by being shoomny in the
goloss and very boastful. Anyway, seeing the old krovvy flow red in the red
light, I felt the old joy like rising up in my keeshkas and I said:
"Leave him to me, go on, let me have him now, brothers." So Big Jew
said:
"Yeth, yeth, boyth, that'th fair. Thlosh him then, Alekth." So they all
stood around while I cracked at this prestoopnick in the near dark. I fisted
him all over, dancing about with my boots on though unlaced, and then I
tripped him and he went crash crash on to the floor. I gave him one real
horrorshow kick on the gulliver and he went ohhhh, then he sort of snorted
off to like sleep, and The Doctor said:
"Very well, I think that wil be enough of a lesson," squinting to viddy
this downed and beaten-up veck on the floor. "Let him dream perhaps about
being a better boy in the future." So we all climbed back into our bunks,
being very tired now.
What I dreamt of, O my brothers, was of being in some very big
orchestra, hundreds and hundreds strong, and the conductor was a like
mixture of Ludwig van and G. F. Handel, looking very deaf and blind and
weary of the world. I was with the wind instruments, but what I was playing
was like a white pinky bassoon made of flesh and growing out of my plott,
right in the middle of my belly, and when I blew into it I had to smeck ha
ha ha very loud because it like tickled, and then Ludwig van G. F. got very
razdraz and bezoomny. Then he came right up to my litso and creeched loud in
my ooko, and then I woke up like sweating. Of course, what the loud shoom
really was was the prison buzzer going brrrrr brrrrr brrrrr. It was winter
morning and my glazzies were all cally with sleepglue, and when I opened up
they were very sore in the electric light that had been switched on all over
the zoo. Then I looked down and viddied this new prestoopnick lying on the
floor, very bloody and bruisy and still out out out. Then I remembered about
last night and that made me smeck a bit.
But when I got off the bunk and moved him with my bare noga, there was
a feel of like stiff coldness, so I went over to The Doctor's bunk and shook
him, him always being very slow at waking up in the morning. But he was off
his bunk skorry enough this time, and so were the others, except for Wall
who slept like dead meat. "Very unfortunate," The Doctor said. "A heart
attack, that's what it must have been."
Then he said, looking round at us all: "You really shouldn't have gone
for him like that. It was most ill-advised really."
Jojohn said:
"Come come, doc, you weren't all that backward yourself in giving him a
sly bit of fist." Then Big Jew turned on me, saying:
"Alekth, you were too impetuouth. That latht kick wath a very very
nathty one." I began to get razdraz about this and said:
"Who started it, eh? I only got in at the end, didn't I?" I pointed at
Jojohn and said: "It was your idea." Wall snored a bit loud, so I said:
"Wake that vonny bratchny up. It was him that kept on at his rot while Big
Jew here had him up against the bars." The Doctor said:
"Nobody will deny having a little hit at the man, to teach him a lesson
so to speak, but it's apparent that you, my dear boy, with the forcefulness
and, shall I say, heedlessness of youth, dealt him the coo de gras. It's a
great pity."
"Traitors," I said. "Traitors and liars," because I could viddy it was
all like before, two years before, when my so-called droogs had left me to
the brutal rookers of the millicents. There was no trust anywhere in the
world, O my brothers, the way I could see it. And Jojohn went and woke up
Wall, and Wall was only too ready to swear that it was Your Humble Narrator
that had done the real dirty tolchocking and brutality. When the chassos
came along, and then the Chief Chasso, and then the Governor himself, all
these cell-droogs of mine were very shoomny with tales of what I'd done to
oobivat this worthless pervert whose krovvy-covered plott lay sacklike on
the floor.
That was a very queer day, O my brothers. The dead plott was carried
off, and then everybody in the whole prison had to stay locked up until
further orders, and there was no pishcha given out, not even a mug of hot
chai. We just all sat there, and the warders or chassos sort of strode up
and down the tier, now and then creeching "Shut it" or "Close that hole"
whenever they slooshied even a whisper from any of the cells.
Then about eleven o'clock in the morning there was a sort of like
stiffening and excitement and like the von of fear spreading from outside
the cell, and then we could viddy the Governor and the Chief Chasso and some
very bolshy important-looking chellovecks walking by real skorry,
govoreeting like bezoomny. They seemed to walk right to the end of the tier,
then they could be slooshied walking back again, more slow this time, and
you could slooshy the Governor, a very sweaty fatty fair-haired veck, saying
slovos like "But, sir--" and "Well, what can be done, sir?" and so on. Then
the whole lot stopped at our cell and the Chief Chasso opened up. You could
viddy who was the real important veck right away, very tall and with blue
glazzies and with real horrorshow platties on him, the most lovely suit,
brothers, I have ever viddied, absolutely in the heighth of fashion. He just
sort of looked right through us poor plennies, saying, in a very beautiful
real educated goloss: "The Government cannot be concerned any longer with
outmoded penological theories. Cram criminals together and see what happens.
You get concentrated criminality, crime in the midst of punishment. Soon we
may be needing all our prison space for political offenders." I didn't pony
this at all, brothers, but after all he was not govoreeting to me. Then he
said: "Common criminals like this unsavoury crowd"--(that meant me,
brothers, as well as the others, who were real prestoopnicks and treacherous
with it)--"can best be dealt with on a purely curative basis. Kill the
criminal reflex, that's all. Full implementation in a year's time.
Punishment means nothing to them, you can see that. They enjoy their
so-called punishment. They start murdering each other." And he turned his
stern blue glazzies on me. So I said, bold:
"With respect, sir, I object very strongly to what you said then. I am
not a common criminal, sir, and I am not unsavoury. The others may be
unsavoury but I am not." The Chief Chasso went all purple and creeched:
"You shut your bleeding hole, you. Don't you know who this is?"
"All right, all right," said this big veck. Then he turned to the
Governor and said: "You can use him as a trail-blazer. He's young, bold,
vicious. Brodsky will deal with him tomorrow and you can sit in and watch
Brodsky. It works all right, don't worry about that. This vicious young
hoodlum will be transformed out of all recognition."
And those hard slovos, brothers, were like the beginning of my freedom.
That very same evening I was dragged down nice and gentle by brutal
tolchocking chassos to viddy the Governor in his holy of holies holy office.
The Governor looked very weary at me and said: "I don't suppose you know who
that was this morning, do you, 6655321?" And without waiting for me to say
no he said: "That was no less a personage than the Minister of the Interior,
the new Minister of the Interior and what they call a very new broom. Well,
these new ridiculous ideas have come at last and orders are orders, though I
may say to you in confidence that I do not approve. I most emphatically do
not approve. An eye for an eye, I say. If someone hits you you hit back, do
you not? Why then should not the State, very severely hit by you brutal
hooligans, not hit back also? But the new view is to say no. The new view is
that we turn the bad into the good. All of which seems to me grossly unjust.
Hm?"
So I said, trying to be like respectful and accomodating:
"Sir." And then the Chief Chasso, who was standing all red and burly
behind the Governor's chair, creeched:
"Shut your filthy hole, you scum."
"All right, all right," said the like tired and fagged-out Governor.
"You, 6655321, are to be reformed. Tomorrow you go to this man Brodsky. It
is believed that you will be able to leave State Custody in a little over a
fortnight. In a little over a fortnight you will be out again in the big
free world, no longer a number. I suppose," and he snorted a bit here, "that
prospect pleases you?" I said nothing so the Chief Chasso creeched:
"Answer, you filthy young swine, when the Governor asks you a
question." So I said:
"Oh, yes, sir. Thank you very much, sir. I've done my best here, really
I have. I'm very grateful to all concerned."
"Don't be," like sighed the Governor. "This is not a reward. This is
far from being a reward. Now, there is a form here to be signed. It says
that you are wiling to have the residue of your sentence commuted to
submission to what is called here, ridiculous expression, Reclamation
Treatment. Will you sign?"
"Most certainly I will sign," I said, "sir. And very many thanks." So I
was given an ink-pencil and I signed my name nice and flowy. The Governor
said:
"Right. That's the lot, I think." The Chief Chasso said:
"The Prison Chaplain would like a word with him, sir." So I was marched
out and off down the corridor towards the Wing Chapel, tolchocked on the
back and the gulliver all the way by one of the chassos, but in a very like
yawny and bored manner. And I was marched across the Wing Chapel to the
little cantora of the charles and then made to go in. The charles was
sitting at his desk, smelling loud and clear of a fine manny von of
expensive cancers and Scotch. He said:
"Ah, little 6655321, be seated." And to the chassos: "Wait outside,
eh?" Which they did. Then he spoke in a very like earnest way to me, saying:
"One thing I want you to understand, boy, is that this is nothing to do with
me. Were it expedient, I would protest about it, but it is not expedient.
There is the question of my own career, there is the question of the
weakness of my own voice when set against the shout of certain more powerful
elements in the polity. Do I make myself clear?" He didn't, brothers, but I
nodded that he did. "Very hard ethical questions are involved," he went on.
"You are to be made into a good boy, 6655321. Never again will you have the
desire to commit acts of violence or to offend in any way whatsoever against
the State's Peace. I hope you take all that in. I hope you are absolutely
clear in your own mind about that." I said:
"Oh, it will be nice to be good, sir." But I had a real horrorshow
smeck at that inside, brothers. He said:
"It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It may be horrible to
be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that
sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. What does God
want? Does God want woodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses
the bad perhaps in some ways better than a man who has the good imposed upon
him? Deep and hard questions, little 6655321. But all I want to say to you
now is this: if at any time in the future you look back to these times and
remember me, the lowest and humblest of all God's servitors, do not, I pray,
think evil of me in your heart, thinking me in any way involved in what is
now about to happen to you. And now, talking of praying, I realize sadly
that there will be little point in praying for you. You are passing now to a
region where you will be beyond the reach of the power of prayer. A terrible
terrible thing to consider. And yet, in a sense, in choosing to be deprive
of the ability to make an ethical choice, you have in a sense really chosen
the good. So I shall like to think. So, God help us all, 6655321, I shall
like to think." And then he began to cry. But I didn't really take much
notice of that, brothers only having a bit of a quiet smeck inside, because
you could viddy that he had been peeting away at the old whisky, and now he
took a bottle from a cupboard in his desk and started to pour himself a real
horrorshow bolshy slog into a very greasy and grahzny glass. He downed it
and the said: "All may be well, who knows? God works in a mysterious way."
Then he began to sing away at a hymn in a real loud rich goloss. Then the
door opened and the chassos came in to tolchock me back to my vonny cell,
but the old charles still went on singing this hymn.
Well, the next morning I had to say good-bye to the old Staja, and I
felt a malenky bit sad as you always will when you have to leave a place
you've like got used to. But I didn't go very far, O my brothers. I was
punched and kicked along to the new white building just beyond the yard
where we used to do our bit of exercise. This was a very new building and it
had a new cold like sizy smell which gave you a bit of the shivers. I stood
there in the horrible bolshy bare hall and I got new vons, sniffing away
there with my like very sensitive morder or sniffer. These were like
hospital vons, and the chelloveck the chassos handed me over to had a white
coat on, as he might be a hospital man. He signed for me, and one of the
brutal chassos who had brought me said: "You watch this one, sir. A right
brutal bastard he has been and will be again, in spite of all his sucking up
to the Prison Chaplain and reading the Bible." But this new chelloveck had
real horrorshow blue glazzies which like smiled when he govoreeted. He said:
"Oh, we don't anticipate any trouble. We're going to be friends, aren't
we?" And he smiled with his glazzies and his fine big rot which was full of
shining white zoobies and I sort of took to this veck right away. Anyway, he
passed me on to a like lesser veck in a white coat, and this one was very
nice too, and I was led off to a very nice white clean bedroom with curtains
and a bedside lamp, and just the one bed in it, all for Your Humble
Narrator. So I had a real horrorshow inner smeck at that, thinking I was
really a very lucky young malchickiwick. I was told to take off my horrible
prison platties and I was given a really beautiful set of pyjamas, O my
brothers, in plain green, the heighth of bedwear fashion. And I was given a
nice warm dressing-gown too and lovely toofles to put my bare nogas in, and
I thought: "Well, Alex boy, little 6655321 as was, you have copped it lucky
and no mistake. You are really going to enjoy it here."
After I had been given a nice chasha of real horrorshow coffee and some
old gazettas and mags to look at while peeting it, this first veck in white
came in, the one who had like signed for me, and he said: "Aha, there you
are," a silly sort of a veshch to say but it didn't sound silly, this veck
being so like nice. "My name," he said, "is Dr. Branom. I'm Dr. Brodsky's
assistant. With your permission, I'll just give you the usual brief overall
examination." And he took the old stetho out of his right carman. "We must
make sure you're quite fit, mustn't we? Yes indeed, we must." So while I lay
there with my pyjama top off and he did this, that and the other, I said:
"What exactly is it, sir, that you're going to do?"
"Oh," said Dr. Branom, his cold stetho going all down my back, "it's
quite simple, really. We just show you some films."
"Films?" I said. I could hardly believe my ookos, brothers, as you may
well understand. "You mean," I said, "it will be just like going to the
pictures?"
"They'll be special films," said Dr. Branom. "Very special films.
You'll be having the first session this afternoon. Yes," he said, getting up
from bending over me, "you seem to be quite a fit young boy. A bit
under-nourished perhaps. That will be the fault of the prison food. Put your
pyjama top back on. After every meal," he said, sitting on the edge of the
bed, "we shall be giving you a shot in the arm. That should help." I felt
really grateful to this very nice Dr. Branom. I said:
"Vitamins, sir, will it be?"
"Something like that," he said, smiling real horrorshow and friendly,
"just a jab in the arm after every meal." Then he went out. I lay on the bed
thinking this was like real heaven, and I read some of the mags they'd given
me--`Worldsport,' `Sinny' (this being a film mag) and `Goal.' Then I lay
back on the bed and shut my glazzies and thought how nice it was going to be
out there again, Alex with perhaps a nice easy job during the day, me being
now too old for the old skolliwoll, and then perhaps getting a new like gang
together for the nochy, and the first rabbit would be to get old Dim and
Pete, if they had not been got already by the millicents. This time I would
be very careful not to get loveted. They were giving another like chance, me
having done murder and all, and it would not be like fair to get loveted
again, after going to all this trouble to show me films that were going to
make me a real good malchick. I had a real horrorshow smeck at everybody's
like innocence, and I was smecking my gulliver off when they brought in my
lunch on a tray. The veck who brought it was the one who'd led me to this
malenky bedroom when I came into the mesto, and he said:
"It's nice to know somebody's happy." It was really a very nice
appetizing bit of pishcha they'd laid out on the tray--two or three lomticks
of like hot roastbeef with mashed kartoffel and vedge, then there was also
ice-cream and a nice hot chasha of chai. And there was even a cancer to
smoke and a matchbox with one match in. So this looked like it was the life,
O my brothers. Then, about half an hour after while I was lying a bit sleepy
on the bed, a woman nurse came in, a real nice young devotchka with real
horrorshow groodies (I had not seen such for two years) and she had a tray
and a hypodermic. I said:
"Ah, the old vitamins, eh?" And I clickclicked at her but she took no
notice. All she did was to slam the needle into my left arm, and then
swishhhh in went the vitamin stuff. Then she went out again, clack clack on
her high-heeled nogas. Then the white-coated veck who was like a male nurse
came in with a wheelchair. I was a malenky bit surprised to viddy that. I
said:
"What giveth then, brother? I can walk, surely, to wherever we have to
itty to." But he said:
"Best I push you there." And indeed, O my brothers, when I got off the
bed I found myself a malenky bit weak. It was the under-nourishment like Dr.
Branom had said, all that horrible prison pishcha. But the vitamins in the
after-meal injection would put me right. No doubt at all about that, I
thought.
Where I was wheeled to, brothers, was like no sinny I had ever viddied
before. True enough, one wall was all covered with silver screen, and direct
opposite was a wall with square holes in for the projector to project
through, and there were stereo speakers stuck all over the mesto. But
against the right-hand one of the other walls was a bank of all like little
meters, and in the middle of the floor facing the screen was like a
dentist's chair with all lengths of wire running from it, and I had to like
crawl from the wheelchair to this, being given some help by another like
male nurse veck in a white coat. Then I noticed that underneath the
projection holes was like all frosted glass and I thought I viddied shadows
of like people moving behind it and I thought I slooshied somebody cough
kashl kashl kashl. But then all I could like notice was how weak I seemed to
be, and I put that down to changing over from prison pishcha to this new
rich pishcha and the vitamins injected into me. "Right," said the
wheelchair-wheeling veck, "now I'll leave you. The show will commence as
soon as Dr. Brodsky arrives. Hope you enjoy it." To be truthful, brothers, I
did not really feel that I wanted to viddy any film-show this afternoon. I
was just not in the mood. I would have liked much better to have a nice
quiet spatchka on the bed, nice and quiet and all on my oddy knocky. I felt
very limp.
What happened now was that one white-coated veck strapped my gulliver
to a like head-rest, singing to himself all the time some vonny cally
pop-song. "What's this for?" I said. And this veck replied, interrupting his
like song an instant, that it was to keep my gulliver still and make me look
at the screen. "But," I said, "I want to look at the screen. I've been
brought here to viddy films and viddy films I shall." And then the other
white-coat veck (there were three altogether, one of them a devotchka who
was like sitting at the bank of meters and twiddling with knobs) had a bit
of a smeck at that.
He said:
"You never know. Oh, you never know. Trust us, friend. It's better this
way." And then I found they were strapping my rookers to the chair-arms and
my nogas were like stuck to a foot-rest. It seemed a bit bezoomny to me but
I let them get on with what they wanted to get on with. If I was to be a
free young malchick again in a fortnight's time I would put up with much in
the meantime, O my brothers. One veshch I did not like, though, was when
they put like clips on the skin of my forehead, so that my top glazz-lids
were pulled up and up and up and I could not shut my glazzies no matter how
I tried. I tried to smeck and said: "This must be a real horrorshow film if
you're so keen on my viddying it." And one of the white-coat vecks said,
smecking:
"Horrorshow is right, friend. A real show of horrors." And then I had
like a cap stuck on my gulliver and I could viddy all wires running away
from it, and they stuck a like suction pad on my belly and one on the old
tick-tocker, and I could just about viddy wires running away from those.
Then there was the shoom of a door opening and you could tell some very
important chelloveck was coming in by the way the white-coated under-vecks
went all stiff. And then I viddied this Dr. Brodsky. He was a malenky veck,
very fat, with all curly hair curling all over his gulliver, and on his
spuddy nose he had very thick ochkies. I could just viddy that he had a real
horrorshow suit on, absolutely the heighth of fashion, and he had a like
very delicate and subtle von of operating-theatres coming from him. With him
was Dr. Branom, all smiling like as though to give me confidence.
"Everything ready?" said Dr. Brodsky in a very breathy goloss. Then I could
slooshy voices saying Right right right from like a distance, then nearer
to, then there was a quiet like humming shoom as though things had been
switched on. And then the lights went out and there was Your Humble Narrator
And Friend sitting alone in the dark, all on his frightened oddy knocky, not
able to move nor shut his glazzies nor anything. And then, O my brothers,
the film-show started off with some very gromky atmosphere music coming from
the speakers, very fierce and full of discord. And then on the screen the
picture came on, but there was no title and no credits. What came on was a
street, as it might have been any street in any town, and it was a real dark
nochy and the lamps were lit. It was a very good like professional piece of
sinny, and there were none of these flickers and blobs you get, say, when
you viddy one of these dirty films in somebody's house in a back street. All
the time the music bumped out, very like sinister. And then you could viddy
an old man coming down the street, very starry, and then there leaped out on
this starry veck two malchicks dressed in the heighth of fashion, as it was
at this time (still thin trousers but no like cravat any more, more of a
real tie), and then they started to filly with him. You could slooshy the
screams and moans, very realistic, and you could even get the like heavy
breathing and panting of the two tolchocking malchicks. They made a real
pudding out of this starry veck, going crack crack crack at him with the
fisty rookers, tearing his platties off and then finishing up by booting his
nagoy plott (this lay all krovvy-red in the grahzny mud of the gutter) and
then running off very skorry. Then there was the close-up gulliver of this
beaten-up starry veck, and the krovvy flowed beautiful red. It's funny how
the colours of the like real world only seem really real when you viddy them
on the screen.
Now all the time I was watching this I was beginning to get very aware
of a like not feeling all that well, and this I put down to the
under-nourishment and my stomach not quite ready for tthe rich pishcha and
vitamins I was getting here. But I tried to forget this, concentrating on
the next film which came on at once, brothers, without any break at all.
This time the film jumped right away on a young devotchka who was being
given the old in-out by first one malchick then another then another then
another, she creeching away very gromky through the speakers and like very
pathetic and tragic music going on at the same time. This was real, very
real, though if you thought about it properly you couldn't imagine lewdies
actually agreeing to having all this done to them in a film, and if these
films were made by the Good or the State you couldn't imagine them being
allowed to take these films without like interfering with what was going on.
So it must have been very clever what they call cutting or editing or some
such veshch. For it was very real. And when it came to the sixth or seventh
malchick leering and smecking and then going into it and the devotchka
creeching on the sound-track like bezoomny, then I began to feel sick. I had
like pains all over and felt I could sick up and at the same time not sick
up, and I began to feel like in distress, O my brothers, being fixed rigid
too on this chair. When this bit of film was over I could slooshy the goloss
of this Dr. Brodsky from over by the switchboard saying: "Reaction about
twelve point five? Promising, promising."
Then we shot straight into another lomtick of film, and this time it
was of just a human litso, a very like pale human face held still and having
different nasty veshches done to it. I was sweating a malenky bit with the
pain in my guts and a horrible thirst and my gulliver going throb throb
throb, and it seemed to me that if I could not viddy this bit of film I
would perhaps be not so sick. But I could not shut my glazzies, and even if
I tried to move my glaz-balls about I still could not get like out of the
line of fire of this picture. So I had to go on viddying what was being done
and hearing the most ghastly creechings coming from this litso. I knew it
could not really be real, but that made no difference. I was heaving away
but could not sick, viddying first a britva cut out an eye, then slice down
the cheek, then go rip rip rip all over, while red krovvy shot on to the
camera lens. Then all the teeth were like wrenched out with a pair of
pliers, and the creeching and the blood were terrific. Then I slooshied this
very pleased goloss of Dr. Brodsky going: "Excellent, excellent, excellent."
The next lomtick of film was of an old woman who kept a shop being
kicked about amid very gromky laughter by a lot of malchicks, and these
malchicks broke up the shop and then set fire to it. You could viddy this
poor starry ptitsa trying to crawl out of the flames, screaming and
creeching, but having had her leg broke by these malchicks kicking her she
could not move. So then all the flames went roaring round her, and you could
viddy her agonized litso like appealing through the flames and the
disappearing in the flames, and then you could slooshy the most gromky and
agonized and agonizing screams that ever came from a human goloss. So this
time I knew I had to sick up, so I creeched:
"I want to be sick. Please let me be sick. Please bring something for
me to be sick into." But this Dr. Brodsky called back:
"Imagination only. You've nothing to worry about. Next film coming up."
That was perhaps meant to be a joke, for I heard a like smeck coming from
the dark. And then I was forced to viddy a most nasty film about Japanese
torture. It was the 1939-45 War, and there were soldiers being fixed to
trees with nails and having fires lit under them and having their yarbles
cut off, and you even viddied a gulliver being sliced off a soldier with a
sword, and then with his head rolling about and the rot and glazzies looking
alive still, the plott of this soldier actually ran about, krovvying like a
fountain out of the neck, and then it dropped, and all the time there was
very very loud laughter from the Japanese. The pains I felt now in my belly
and the headache and the thirst were terrible, and they all seemed to be
coming out of the screen. So I creeched:
"Stop the film! Please, please stop it! I can't stand any more." And
then the goloss of this Dr. Brodsky said:
"Stop it? Stop it, did you say? Why, we've hardly started." And he and
the others smecked quite loud.
I do not wish to describe, brothers, what other horrible veshches I was
like forced to viddy that afternoon. The like minds of this Dr. Brodsky and
Dr. Branom and the others in white coats, and remember there was this
devotchka twiddling with the knobs and watching the meters, they must have
been more cally and filthy than any prestoopnick in the Staja itself.
Because I did not think it was possible for any veck to even think of making
films of what I was forced to viddy, all tied to this chair and my glazzies
made to be wide open. All I could do was to creech very gromky for them to
turn it off, turn it off, and that like part drowned the noise of dratsing
and fillying and also the music that went with it all. You can imagine it
was like a terrible relief when I'd viddied the last bit of film, and this
Dr. Brodsky said, in a very yawny and bored like goloss: "I think that
should be enough for Day One, don't you, Branom?" And there I was with the
lights switched on, my gulliver throbbing like a bolshy big engine that
makes pain, and my rot all dry and cally inside, and feeling I could like
sick up every bit of pishcha I had ever eaten, O my brothers, since the day
I was like weaned. "All right," said this Dr. Brodsky, "he can be taken back
to his bed." Then he like patted me on the pletcho and said: "Good, good. A
very promising start," grinning all over his litso, then he like waddled
out, Dr. Branom after him, but Dr. Branom gave me a like very droogy and
sympathetic type smile as though he had nothing to do with all this veshch
but was like forced into it as I was.
Anyhow, they freed my plott from the chair and they let go the skin
above my glazzies so that I could open and shut them again, and I shut them,
O my brothers, with the pain and throb in my gulliver, and then I was like