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carried to the old wheel-chair and taken back to my malenky bedroom, the
under-veck who wheeled me singing away at some hound-and-horny popsong so
that I like snarled: "Shut it, thou," but he only smecked and said: "Never
mind, friend," and then sang louder. So I was put into the bed and still
felt bolnoy but could not sleep, but soon I started to feel that soon I
might start to feel that I might soon start feeling just a malenky bit
better, and then I was brought some nice hot chai with plenty of moloko and
sakar and, peeting that, I knew that that like horrible nightmare was in the
past and all over. And then Dr. Branom came in, all nice and smiling. He
said:
"Well, by my calculations you should be starting to feel all right
again. Yes?"
"Sir," I said, like wary. I did not quite kopat what he was getting at
govoreeting about calculations, seeing that getting better from feeling
bolnoy is like your own affair and nothing to do with calculations. He sat
down, all nice and droogy, on the bed's edge and said:
"Dr. Brodsky is pleased with you. You had a very positive response.
Tomorrow, of course, there'll be two sessions, morning and afternoon, and I
should imagine that you'll be feeling a bit limp at the end of the day. But
we have to be hard on you, you have to be cured." I said:
"You mean I have to sit through--? You mean I have to look at--? Oh,
no," I said. "It was horrible."
"Of course it was horrible," smiled Dr. Branom. "Violence is a very
horrible thing. That's what you're learning now. Your body is learning it."
"But," I said, "I don't understand. I don't understand about feeling
sick like I did. I never used to feel sick before. I used to feel like very
the opposite. I mean, doing it or watching it I used to feel real
horrorshow. I just don't understand why or how or what--"
"Life is a very wonderful thing," said Dr. Branom in a like very holy
goloss. "The processes of life, the make-up of the human organism, who can
fully understand these miracles? Dr. Brodsky is, of course, a remarkable
man. What is happening to you now is what should happen to any normal
healthy human organism contemplating the actions of the forces of evil, the
workings of the principle of destruction. You are being made sane, you are
being made healthy."
"That I will not have," I said, "nor can understand at all. What you've
been doing is to make me feel very ill."
"Do you feel ill now?" he said, still with the old droogy smile on his
litso. "Drinking tea, resting, having a quiet chat with a friend--surely
you're not feeling anything but well?"
I like listened and felt for pain and sickness in my gulliver and
plott, in a like cautious way, but it was true, brothers, that I felt real
horrorshow and even wanting my dinner. "I don't get it," I said. "You must
be doing something to me to make me feel ill." And I sort of frowned about
that, thinking.
"You felt ill this afternoon," he said, "because you're getting better.
When we're healthy we respond to the presence of the hateful with fear and
nausea. You're becoming healthy, that's all. You'll be healthier still this
time tomorrow." Then he patted me on the noga and went out, and I tried to
puzzle the whole veshch out as best I could. What it seemed to me was that
the wire and other veshches that were fixed to my plott perhaps were making
me feel ill, and that it was all a trick really. I was still puzzling out
all this and wondering whether I should refuse to be strapped down to this
chair tomorrow and start a real bit of dratsing with them all, because I had
my rights, when another chelloveck came in to see me. He was a like smiling
starry veck who said he was what he called the Discharge Officer, and he
carried a lot of bits of paper with him. He said:
"Where will you go when you leave here?" I hadn't really thought about
that sort of veshch at all, and it only now really began to dawn on me that
I'd be a fine free malchick very soon, and then I viddied that would only be
if I played it everybody's way and did not start any dratsing and creeching
and refusing and so on. I said:
"Oh, I shall go home. Back to my pee and em."
"Your--?" He didn't get nadsat-talk at all, so I said:
"To my parents in the dear old flatblock."
"I see," he said. "And when did you last have a visit from your
parents?"
"A month," I said, "very near. They like suspended visiting-day for a
bit because of one prestoopnick getting some blasting-powder smuggled in
across the wires from his ptitsa. A real cally trick to play on the
innocent, like punishing them as well. So it's near a month since I had a
visit."
"I see," said this veck. "And have your parents been informed of your
transfer and impending release?" That had a real lovely zvook that did, that
slovo `release.' I said:
"No." Then I said: "It will be a nice surprise for them, that, won't
it? Me just walking in through the door and saying: `Here I am, back, a free
veck again.' Yes, real horrorshow."
"Right," said the Discharge Officer veck, "we'll leave it at that. So
long as you have somewhere to live. Now, there's the question of your having
a job, isn't there?" And he showed me this long list of jobs I could have,
but I thought, well, there would be time enough for that. A nice malenky
holiday first. I could do a crasting job soon as I got out and fill the old
carmans with pretty polly, but I would have to be very careful and I would
have to do the job all on my oddy knocky. I did not trust so-called droogs
any more. So I told this veck to leave it a bit and we would govoreet about
it again. He said right right right, then got ready to leave. He showed
himself to be a very queer sort of a veck, because what he did now was to
like giggle and then say: "Would you like to punch me in the face before I
go?" I did not think I could possibly have slooshied that right, so I said:
"Eh?"
"Would you," he giggled, "like to punch me in the face before I go?" I
frowned like at that, very puzzled, and said:
"Why?"
"Oh," he said, "just to see how you're getting on." And he brought his
litso real near, a fat grin all over his rot. So I fisted up and went smack
at this litso, but he pulled himself away real skorry, grinning still, and
my rooker just punched air. Very puzzling, this was, and I frowned as he
left, smecking his gulliver off. And then, my brothers, I felt real sick
again, just like in the afternoon, just for a couple of minootas. It then
passed off skorry, and when they brought my dinner in I found I had a fair
appetite and was ready to crunk away at the roast chicken. But it was funny
that starry chelloveck asking for a tolchock in the litso. And it was funny
feeling sick like that.
What was even funnier was when I went to sleep that night, O my
brothers, I had a nightmare, and, as you might expect, it was one of those
bits of film I'd viddied in the afternoon. A dream or nightmare is really
only like a film inside your gulliver, except that it is as though you could
walk into it and be part of it. And this is what happened to me. It was a
nightmare of one of the bits of film they showed me near the end of the
afternoon like session, all of smecking malchicks doing the ultra-violent on
a young ptitsa who was creeching away in her red red krovvy, her platties
all razrezzed real horrorshow. I was in this fillying about, smecking away
and being like the ring-leader, dressed in the heighth of nadsat fashion.
And then at the heighth of all this dratsing and tolchocking I felt like
paralysed and wanting to be very sick, and all the other malchicks had a
real gromky smeck at me. Then I was dratsing my way back to being awake all
through my own krovvy, pints and quarts and gallons of it, and then I found
myself in my bed in this room. I wanted to be sick, so I got out of the bed
all trembly so as to go off down the corridor to the old vaysay. But,
behold, brothers, the door was locked. And turning round I viddied for like
the first raz that there were bars on the window. And so, as I reached for
the like pot in the malenky cupboard beside the bed, I viddied that there
would be no escaping from any of all this. Worse, I did not dare to go back
into my own sleeping gulliver. I soon found I did not want to be sick after
all, but then I was poogly of getting back into bed to sleep. But soon I
fell smack into sleep and did not dream any more.
"Stop it, stop it, stop it," I kept on creeching out. "Turn it off you
grahzny bastards, for I can stand no more." It was the next day, brothers,
and I had truly done my best morning and afternoon to play it their way and
sit like a horrorshow smiling cooperative malchick in their chair of torture
while they flashed nasty bits of ultra-violence on the screen, my glazzies
clipped open to viddy all, my plott and rookers and nogas fixed to the chair
so I could not get away. What I was being made to viddy now was not really a
veshch I would have thought to be too bad before, it being only three or
four malchicks crasting in a shop and filling their carmans with cutter, at
the same time fillying about with the creeching starry ptitsa running the
shop, tolchocking her and letting the red red krovvy flow. But the throb and
like crash crash crash in my gulliver and the wanting to be sick and the
terrible dry rasping thirstiness in my rot, all were worse than yesterday.
"Oh. I've had enough" I cried. "It's not fair, you vonny sods," and I tried
to struggle out of the chair but it was not possible me being as good as
stuck to it.
"First-class," creeched out this Dr. Brodsky. "You're doing really
well. Just one more and then we're finished."
What it was now was the starry 1939-45 War again, and it was a very
blobby and liny and crackly film you could viddy had been made by the
Germans. It opened with German eagles and the Nazi flag with that like
crooked cross that all malchicks at school love to draw, and then there were
very haughty and nadmenny like German officers walking through streets that
were all dust and bomb-holes and broken buildings. Then you were allowed to
viddy lewdies being shot against walls, officers giving the orders, and also
horrible nagoy plotts left lying in gutters, all like cages of bare ribs and
white thin nogas. Then there were lewdies being dragged off creeching though
not on the sound-track, my brothers, the only sound being music, and being
tolchocked while they were dragged off. Then I noticed, in all my pain and
sickness, what music it was that like crackled and boomed on the
sound-track, and it was Ludwig van, the last movement of the Fifth Symphony,
and I creeched like bezoomny at that. "Stop!" I creeched. "Stop, you grahzny
disgusting sods. It's a sin, that's what it is, a filthy unforgivable sin,
you bratchnies!" They didn't stop right away, because there was only a
minute or two more to go--lewdies being beaten up and all krovvy, then more
firing squads, then the old Nazi flag and THE END. But when the lights came
on this Dr. Brodsky and also Dr. Branom were standing in front of me, and
Dr. Brodsky said:
"What's all this about sin, eh?"
"That," I said, very sick. "Using Ludwig van like that. He did no harm
to anyone. Beethoven just wrote music." And then I was really sick and they
had to bring a bowl that was in the shape of like a kidney.
"Music," said Dr. Brodsky, like musing. "So you're keen on music. I
know nothing about it myself. It's a useful emotional heightener, that's all
I know. Well, well. What do you think about that, eh, Branom?"
"It can't be helped," said Dr. Branom. "Each man kills the thing he
loves, as the poet-prisoner said. Here's the punishment element, perhaps.
The Governor ought to be pleased."
"Give me a drink," I said, "for Bog's sake."
"Loosen him," ordered Dr. Brodsky. "Fetch him a carafe of ice-cold
water." So then these under-vecks got to work and soon I was peeting gallons
and gallons of water and it was like heaven, O my brothers. Dr. Brodsky
said:
"You seem a sufficiently intelligent young man. You seem, too, to be
not without taste. You've just got this violence thing, haven't you?
Violence and theft, theft being an aspect of violence." I didn't govoreet a
single slovo, brothers, I was still feeling sick, though getting a malenky
bit better now. But it had been a terrible day. "Now then," said Dr.
Brodsky, "how do you think this is done? Tell me, what do you think we're
doing to you?"
"You're making me feel ill. I'm ill when I look at those filthy pervert
films of yours. But it's not really the films that's doing it. But I feel
that if you'll stop these films I'll stop feeling ill."
"Right," said Dr. Brodsky. "It's association, the oldest educational
method in the world. And what really causes you to feel ill?"
"These grahzny sodding veshches that come out of my gulliver and my
plott," I said, "that's what it is."
"Quaint," said Dr. Brodsky, like smiling, "the dialect of the tribe. Do
you know anything of its provenance, Branom?"
"Odd bits of old rhyming slang," said Dr. Branom, who did not look
quite so much like a friend any more. "A bit of gipsy talk, too. But most of
the roots are Slav. Propaganda. Subliminal penetration."
"All right, all right, all right," said Dr. Brodsky, like impatient and
not interested any more. "Well," he said to me, "it isn't the wires. It's
nothing to do with what's fastened to you. Those are just for measuring your
reactions. What is it, then?"
I viddied then, of course, what a bezoomny shoot I was not to notice
that it was the hypodermic shots in the rooker.
"Oh," I creeched, "oh, I viddy all now. A filthy cally vonny trick. An
act of treachery, sod you, and you won't do it again."
"I'm glad you've raised your objections now," said Dr. Brodsky. "Now we
can be perfectly clear about it. We can get this stuff of Ludovico's into
your system in many different ways. Orally, for instance. But the
subcutaneous method is the best. Don't fight against it, please. There's no
point in your fighting. You can't get the better of us."
"Grahzny bratchnies," I said, like snivelling. Then I said: "I don't
mind about the ultra-violence and all that cal. I put up with that. But it's
not fair on the music. It's not fair I should feel ill when I'm slooshying
lovely Ludwig van and G. F. Handel and others. All that shows you're an evil
lot of bastards and I shall never forgive you, sods."
They both looked a bit like thoughtful. Then Dr. Brodsky said:
"Delimitation is always difficult. The world is one, life is one. The
sweetest and most heavenly of activities partake in some measure of
violence--the act of love, for instance; music, for instance. You must take
your chance, boy. The choice has been all yours." I didn't understand all
these slovos, but now I said:
"You needn't take it any further, sir." I'd changed my tune a malenky
bit in my cunning way. "You've proved to me that all this dratsing and
ultra-violence and killing is wrong wrong and terribly wrong. I've learned
my lesson, sirs. I see now what I've never seen before. I'm cured, praise
God." And I raised my glazzies in a like holy way to the ceiling. But both
these doctors shook their gullivers like sadly and Dr. Brodsky said:
"You're not cured yet. There's still a lot to be done. Only when your
body reacts promptly and violently to violence, as to a snake, without
further help from us, without medication, only then--" I said:
"But, sir, sirs, I see that it's wrong. It's wrong because it's against
like society, it's wrong because every veck on earth has the right to live
and be happy without being beaten and tolchocked and knifed. I've learned a
lot, oh really I have."
But Dr. Brodsky had a loud long smeck at that, showing all his white
zoobies, and said:
"The heresy of an age of reason," or some such slovos. "I see what is
right and approve, but I do what is wrong. No, no, my boy, you must leave it
all to us. But be cheerful about it. It will soon be all over. In less than
a fortnight now you'll be a free man." Then he patted me on the pletcho.
Less than a fortnight, O my brothers and friends, it was like an age.
It was like from the beginning of the world to the end of it. To finish the
fourteen years without remission in the Staja would have been nothing to it.
Every day it was the same. When the devotchka with the hypodermic came
round, though, four days after this govoreeting with Dr. Brodsky and Dr.
Branom, I said: "Oh, no you won't," and tolchocked her on the rooker, and
the syringe went tinkle clatter on to the floor. That was like to viddy what
they would do. What they did was to get four or five real bolshy
white-coated bastards of under-vecks to hold me down on the bed, tolchocking
me with grinny litsos close to mine, and then this nurse ptitsa said: "You
wicked naughty little devil, you," while she jabbed my rooker with another
syringe and squirted this stuff in real brutal and nasty. And then I was
wheeled off exhausted to this like hell sinny as before.
Every day, my brothers, these films were like the same, all kicking and
tolchocking and red red krovvy dripping off of litsos and plotts and
spattering all over the camera lenses. It was usually grinning and smecking
malchicks in the heighth of nadsat fashion, or else teeheeheeing Jap
torturers or brutal Nazi kickers and shooters. And each day the feeling of
wanting to die with the sickness and gulliver pains and aches in the zoobies
and horrible horrible thirst grew really worse. Until one morning I tried to
defeat the bastards by crash crash crashing my gulliver against the wall so
that I should tolchock myself unconscious, but all that happened was I felt
sick with viddying that this kind of violence was like the violence in the
films, so I was just exhausted and was given the injection and was wheeled
off like before.
And then there came a morning when I woke up and had my breakfast of
eggs and toast and jam and very hot milky chai, and then I thought: "It
can't be much longer now. Now must be very near the end of the time. I have
suffered to the heighths and cannot suffer any more." And I waited and
waited, brothers, for this nurse ptitsa to bring in the syringe, but she did
not come. And then the white-coated under-veck came and said:
"Today, old friend, we are letting you walk."
"Walk?" I said. "Where?"
"To the usual place," he said. "Yes, yes, look not so astonished. You
are to walk to the films, me with you of course. You are no longer to be
carried in a wheelchair."
"But," I said, "how about my horrible morning injection?"
For I was really surprised at this, brothers, they being so keen on
pushing this Ludovico veshch into me, as they said. "Don't I get that
horrible sicky stuff rammed into my poor suffering rooker any more?"
"All over," like smecked this veck. "For ever and ever amen. You're on
your own now, boy. Walking and all to the chamber of horrors. But you're
still to be strapped down and made to see. Come on then, my little tiger."
And I had to put my over-gown and toofles on and walk down the corridor to
the like sinny mesto.
Now this time, O my brothers, I was not only very sick but very
puzzled. There it was again, all the old ultra-violence and vecks with their
gullivers smashed and torn krovvy-dripping ptitsas creeching for mercy, the
like private and individual fillying and nastiness. Then there were the
prison-camps and the Jews and the grey like foreign streets full of tanks
and uniforms and vecks going down in withering rifle-fire, this being the
public side of it. And this time I could blame nothing for me feeling sick
and thirsty and full of aches except what I was forced to viddy, my glazzies
still being clipped open and my nogas and plott fixed to the chair but this
set of wires and other veshches no longer coming out of my plott and
gulliver. So what could it be but the films I was viddying that were doing
this to me? Except, of course, brothers, that this Ludovico stuff was like a
vaccination and there it was cruising about in my krovvy, so that I would be
sick always for ever and ever amen whenever I viddied any of this
ultra-violence. So now I squared my rot and went boo hoo hoo, and the tears
like blotted out what I was forced to viddy in like all blessed runny
silvery dewdrops. But these white-coat bratchnies were skorry with their
tashtooks to wipe the tears away, saying: "There there, wazzums all
weepy-weepy den." And there it was again all clear before my glazzies, these
Germans prodding like beseeching and weeping Jews--vecks and cheenas and
malchicks and devotchkas--into mestos where they would all snuff it of
poison gas. Boo hoo hoo I had to go again, and along they came to wipe the
tears off, very skorry, so I should not miss one solitary veshch of what
they were showing. It was a terrible and horrible day, O my brothers and
only friends.
I was lying on the bed all alone that nochy after my dinner of fat
thick mutton stew and fruit-pie and ice-cream, and I thought to myself:
"Hell hell hell, there might be a chance for me if I get out now." I had no
weapon, though. I was allowed no britva here, and I had been shaved every
other day by a fat bald-headed veck who came to my bed before breakfast, two
white-coated bratchnies standing by to viddy I was a good non-violent
malchick. The nails on my rookers had been scissored and filed real short so
I could not scratch. But I was still skorry on the attack, though they had
weakened me down, brothers, to a like shadow of what I had been in the old
free days. So now I got off the bed and went to the locked door and began to
fist it real horrorshow and hard, creeching at the same time: "Oh, help
help. I'm sick, I'm dying. Doctor doctor doctor, quick. Please. Oh, I'll
die, I shall. Help." My gorlo was real dry and sore before anyone came. Then
I heard nogas coming down the corridor and a like grumbling goloss, and then
I recognized the goloss of the white-coated veck who brought me pishcha and
like escorted me to my daily doom.
He like grumbled:
"What is it? What goes on? What's your little nasty game in there?"
"Oh, I'm dying," I like moaned. "Oh, I have a ghastly pain in my side.
Appendicitis, it is. Ooooooh."
"Appendy shitehouse," grumbled this veck, and then to my joy, brothers,
I could slooshy the like clank of keys. "If you're trying it little friend,
my friends and me will beat and kick you all through the night." Then he
opened up and brought in like the sweet air of the promise of my freedom.
Now I was like behind the door when he pushed it open, and I could viddy him
in the corridor light looking round for me puzzled. Then I raised my two
fisties to tolchock him on the neck nasty, and then, I swear, as I viddied
him in advance lying moaning or out out out and felt the like joy rise in my
guts, it was then that this sickness rose in me as it might be a wave and I
felt a horrible fear as if I was really going to die. I like tottered over
to the bed going urgh urgh urgh, and the veck, who was not in his white coat
but an over-gown, viddied clear enough what I had in mind for he said:
"Well, everything's a lesson, isn't it? Learning all the time, as you
could say. Come on, little friend, get up from that bed and hit me. I want
you to, yes, really. A real good crack across the jaw. Oh, I'm dying for it,
really I am." But all I could do, brothers, was to just lay there sobbing
boo hoo hoo. "Scum," like sneered this veck now. "Filth." And he pulled me
up by like the scruff of my pyjama-top, me being very weak and limp, and he
raised and swung his right rooker so that I got a fair old tolchock clean on
the litso. "That," he said, "is for getting me out of my bed, you young
dirt." And he wiped his rookers against each other swish swish and went out.
Crunch crunch went the key in the lock.
And what, brothers, I had to escape into sleep from then was the
horrible and wrong feeling that it was better to get the hit than give it.
If that veck had stayed I might even have like presented the other cheek.
I could not believe, brothers, what I was told. It seemed that I had
been in that vonny mesto for near ever and would be there for near ever
more. But it had always been a fortnight and now they said the fortnight was
near up. They said:
"Tomorrow, little friend, out out out." And they made with the old
thumb, like pointing to freedom. And then the white-coated veck who had
tolchocked me and who had still brought me my trays of pishcha and like
escorted me to my everyday torture said: "But you still have one real big
day in front of you. It's to be your passing-out day," and he had a leery
smeck at that.
I expected this morning that I would be ittying as usual to the sinny
mesto in my pyjamas and toofles and over-gown. But no. This morning I was
given my shirt and underveshches and my platties of the night and my
horrorshow kick-boots, all lovely and washed or ironed and polished. And I
was even given my cut-throat britva that I had used in those old happy days
for fillying and dratsing. So I gave with the puzzled frown at this as I got
dressed, but the white-coated under-veck just like grinned and would
govoreet nothing, O my brothers.
I was led quite kindly to the same old mesto, but there were changes
there. Curtains had been drawn in front of the sinny screen and the frosted
glass under the projection holes was no longer there, it having perhaps been
pushed up or folded to the sides like blinds or shutters. And where there
had been just the noise of coughing kashl kashl kashl and like shadows of
the lewdies was now a real audience, and in this audience there were litsos
I knew. There was the Staja Governor and the holy man, the charlie or
charles as he was called, and the Chief Chasso and this very important and
well-dressed chelloveck who was the Minister of the Interior or Inferior.
All the rest I did not know. Dr. Brodsky and Dr. Branom were there, though
not now white-coated, instead they were dressed as doctors would dress who
were big enough to want to dress in the heighth of fashion. Dr. Branom just
stood, but Dr. Brodsky stood and govoreeted in a like learned manner to all
the lewdies assembled. When he viddied me coming in he said:
"Aha. At this stage, gentlemen, we introduce the subject himself. He
is, as you will percieve, fit and well nourished. He comes straight from a
night's sleep and a good breakfast, undrugged, unhypnotized. Tomorrow we
send him with confidence out into the world again, as decent a lad as you
would meet on a May morning, inclined to the kindly word and the helpful
act. What a change is here, gentlemen, from the wretched hoodlum the State
committed to unprofitable punishment some two years ago, unchanged after two
years. Unchanged, do I say? Not quite. Prison taught him the false smile,
the rubbed hands of hypocrisy, the fawning greased obsequious leer. Other
vices it taught him, as well as confirming him in those he had long
practised before. But gentlemen, enough of words. Actions speak louder than.
Action now. Observe, all."
I was a bit dazed by all this govoreeting and I was trying to grasp in
my mind that like all this was about me. Then all the lights went out and
then there came on two like spotlights shining from the projection-squares,
and one of them was full on Your Humble and Suffering Narrator. And into the
other spotlight there walked a bolshy big chelloveck I had never viddied
before. He had a lardy like litso and a moustache and like strips of hair
pasted over his near-bald gulliver. He was about thirty or forty or fifty,
some old age like that, starry. He ittied up to me and the spotlight ittied
with him, and soon the two spotlights had made like one big pool. He said to
me, very sneery: "Hello, heap of dirt. Pooh, you don't wash much, judging
from the horrible smell." Then, as if he was like dancing, he stamped on my
nogas, left, right, then he gave me a finger-nail flick on the nose that
hurt like bezoomny and brought the old tears to my glazzies then he twisted
at my left ooko like it was a radio dial. I could slooshy titters and a
couple of real horrorshow hawhawhaws coming from like the audience. My nose
and nogas and ear-hole stung and pained like bezoomny, so I said:
"What do you do that to me for? I've never done wrong to you, brother."
"Oh," this veck said, "I do this"--flickedflicked nose again--"and
that"--twisted smarting ear-hole--"and the other"--stamped nasty on right
noga--"because I don't care for your horrible type. And if you want to do
anything about it, start, start, please do." Now I knew that I'd have to be
real skorry and get my cut-throat britva out before this horrible killing
sickness whooshed up and turned the like joy of battle into feeling I was
going to snuff it. But, O brothers, as my rooker reached for the britva in
my inside carman I got this like picture in my mind's glazzy of this
insulting chelloveck howling for mercy with the red red krovvy all streaming
out of his rot, and hot after this picture the sickness and dryness and
pains were rushing to overtake, and I viddied that I'd have to change the
way I felt about this rotten veck very very skorry indeed, so I felt in my
carmans for cigarettes or for pretty polly, and, O my brothers, there was
not either of these veshches, I said, like all howly and blubbery:
"I'd like to give you a cigarette, brother, but I don't seem to have
any." This veck went:
"Wah wah. Boohoohoo. Cry, baby." Then he flickflickflicked with his
bolshy horny nail at my nose again, and I could slooshy very loud smecks of
like mirth coming from the dark audience. I said, real desperate, trying to
be nice to this insulting and hurtful veck to stop the pains and sickness
coming up:
"Please let me do something for you, please." And I felt in my carmans
but could find only my cut-throat britva, so I took this out and handed it
to him and said: "Please take this, please. A little present. Please have
it." But he said: "Keep your stinking bribes to yourself. You can't get
round me that way." And he banged at my rooker and my cut-throat britva fell
on the floor. So I said:
"Please, I must do something. Shall I clean your boots? Look, I'll get
down and lick them." And, my brothers, believe it or kiss my sharries, I got
down on my knees and pushed my red yahzick out a mile and half to lick his
grahzny vonny boots. But all this veck did was to kick me not too hard on
the rot. So then it seemed to me that it would not bring on the sickness and
pain if I just gripped his ankles with my rookers tight round them and
brought this grashzny bratchny down to the floor. So I did this and he got a
real bolshy surprise, coming down crack amid loud laughter from the vonny
audience. But viddying him on the floor I could feel the whole horrible
feeling coming over me, so I gave him my rooker to lift him up skorry and up
he came. Then just as he was going to give me a real nasty and earnest
tolchock on the litso Dr. Brodsky said:
"All right, that will do very well." Then this horrible veck sort of
bowed and danced off like an actor while the lights came up on me blinking
and with my rot square for howling. Dr. Brodsky said to the audience: "Our
subject is, you see, impelled towards the good by, paradoxically, being
impelled towards evil. The intention to act violently is accompanied by
strong feelings of physical distress. To counter these the subject has to
switch to a diametrically opposed attitude. Any questions?"
"Choice," rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it belonged to the
prison charlie. "He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, fear of
physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its
insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases
also to be a creature capable of moral choice."
"These are subtleties," like smiled Dr. Brodsky. "We are not concerned
with motive, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down
crime--"
"And," chipped in this bolshy well-dressed Minister, "with relieving
the ghastly congestion in our prisons."
"Hear hear," said somebody.
There was a lot of govoreeting and arguing then and I just stood there,
brothers, like completely ignored by all these ignorant bratchnies, so I
creeched out:
"Me, me, me. How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I just
some animal or dog?" And that started them off govoreeting real loud and
throwing slovos at me. So I creeched louder, still creeching: "Am I just to
be like a clockwork orange?" I didn't know what made me use those slovos,
brothers, which just came like without asking into my gulliver. And that
shut all those vecks up for some reason for a minoota or two. Then one very
thin starry professor type chelloveck stood up, his neck like all cables
carrying like power from his gulliver to his plott, and he said:
"You have no cause to grumble, boy. You made your choice and all this
is a consequence of your choice. Whatever now ensues is what you yourself
have chosen." And the prison charlie creeched out:
"Oh, if only I could believe that." And you could viddy the Governor
give him a look like meaning that he would not climb so high in like Prison
Religion as he thought he would. Then loud arguing started again, and then I
could slooshy the slovo Love being thrown around, the prison charles himself
creeching as loud as any about Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear and all that
cal. And now Dr. Brodsky said, smiling all over his litso:
"I am glad, gentlemen, this question of Love has been raised. Now we
shall see in action a manner of Love that was thought to be dead with the
Middle Ages." And then the lights went down and the spotlights came on
again, one on your poor and suffering Friend and Narrator, and into the
other there like rolled or sidled the most lovely young devotchka you could
ever hope in all your jeezny, O my brothers, to viddy. That is to say, she
had real horrorshow groodies all of which you could like viddy, she having
on platties which came down down down off her pletchoes. And her nogas were
like Bog in His Heaven, and she walked like to make you groan in your
keeshkas, and yet her litso was a sweet smiling young like innocent litso.
She came up towards me with the light like it was the like light of heavenly
grace and all that cal coming with her, and the first thing that flashed
into my gulliver was that I would like to have her right down there on the
floor with the old in-out real savage, but skorry as a shot came the
sickness, like a like detective that had been watching round a corner and
now followed to make his grahzny arrest. And now the von of lovely perfume
that came off her made me want to think of starting to heave in my keeshkas,
so I knew I had to think of some new like way of thinking about her before
all the pain and thirstiness and horrible sickness come over me real
horrorshow and proper. So I creeched out:
"O most beautiful and beauteous of devotchkas, I throw like my heart at
your feet for you to like trample all over. If I had a rose I would give it
to you. If it was all rainy and cally now on the ground you could have my
platties to walk on so as not to cover your dainty nogas with filth and
cal." And as I was saying all this, O my brothers, I could feel the sickness
like slinking back. "Let me," I creeched out, "worship you and be like your
helper and protector from the wicked like world." Then I thought of the
right slovo and felt better for it, saying: "Let me be like your true
knight," and down I went again on the old knees, bowing and like scraping.
And then I felt real shooty and dim, it having been like an act again,
for this devotchka smiled and bowed to the audience and like danced off, the
lights coming up to a bit of applause. And the glazzies of some of these
starry vecks in the audience were like popping out at this young devotchka
with dirty and like unholy desire, O my brothers.
"He will be your true Christian," Dr. Brodsky was creeching out, "ready
to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than crucify, sick to
the very heart at the thought even of killing a fly." And that was right,
brothers, because when he said that I thought of killing a fly and felt just
that tiny bit sick, but I pushed the sickness and pain back by thinking of
the fly being fed with bits of sugar and looked after like a bleeding pet
and all that cal. "Reclamation," he creeched. "Joy before the Angels of
God."
"The point is," this Minister of the Inferior was saying real gromky,
"that it works."
"Oh," the prison charlie said, like sighing, "it works all right, God
help the lot of us."
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
That, my brothers, was me asking myself the next morning, standing
outside this white building that was like tacked on to the old Staja, in my
platties of the night of two years back in the grey light of dawn, with a
malenky bit of a bag with my few personal veshches in and a bit of cutter
kindly donated by the vonny Authorities to like start me off in my new life.
The rest of the day before had been very tiring, what with interviews
to go on tape for the telenews and photographs being took flash flash flash
and more like demonstrations of me folding up in the face of ultra-violence
and all that embarrassing cal. And then I had like fallen into the bed and
then, as it looked to me, been waked up to be told to get off out, to itty
off home, they did not want to viddy Your Humble Narrator never not no more,
O my brothers. So there I was, very very early in the morning, with just
this bit of pretty polly in my left carman, jingle-jangling it and
wondering:
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
Some breakfast some mesto, I thought, me not having eaten at all that
morning, every veck being so anxious to tolchock me off out to freedom. A
chasha of chai only I had peeted. This Staja was in a very like gloomy part
of the town, but there were malenky workers' caffs all around and I soon
found one of these, my brothers. It was very cally and vonny, with one bulb
in the ceiling with fly-dirt like obscuring its bit of light, and there were
early rabbiters slurping away at chai and horrible-looking sausages and
slices of kleb which they like wolfed, going wolf wolf wolf and then
creeching for more. They were served by a very cally devotchka but with very
bolshy groodies on her, and some of the eating vecks tried to grab her,
going haw haw haw while she went he he he, and the sight of them near made
me want to sick, brothers. But I asked for some toast and jam and chai very
politely and with my gentleman's goloss, then I sat in a dark corner to eat
and peet.
While I was doing this, a malenky little dwarf of a veck ittied in,
selling the morning's gazettas, a twisted and grahzny prestoopnick type with
thick glasses on with steel rims, his platties like the colour of very
starry decaying currant pudding. I kupetted a gazetta, my idea being to get
ready for plunging back into normal jeezny again by viddying what was
ittying on in the world. This gazetta I had seemed to be like a Government
gazetta, for the only news that was on the front page was about the need for
every veck to make sure he put the Government back in again on the next
General Election, which seemed to be about two or three weeks off. There
were very boastful slovos about what the Government had done, brothers, in
the last year or so, what with increased exports and a real horrorshow
foreign policy and improved social services and all that cal. But what the
Government was really most boastful about was the way in which they reckoned
the streets had been made safer for all peace-loving night-walking lewdies
in the last six months, what with better pay for the police and the police
getting like tougher with young hooligans and perverts and burglars and all
that cal. Which interessovatted Your Humble Narrator some deal. And on the
second page of the gazetta there was a blurry like photograph of somebody
who looked very familiar, and it turned out to be none other than me me me.
I looked very gloomy and like scared, but that was really with the
flashbulbs going pop pop all the time. What it said undrneath my picture was
that here was the first graduate from the new State Institute for
Reclamation of Criminal Types, cured of his criminal instincts in a
fortnight only, now a good law-fearing citizen and all that cal. Then I
viddied there was a very boastful article about this Ludovico's Technique
and how clever the Government was and all that cal. Then there was another
picture of some veck I thought I knew, and it was this Minister of the
Inferior or Interior. It seemed that he had been doing a bit of boasting,
looking forward to a nice crime-free era in which there would be no more
fear of cowardly attacks from young hooligans and perverts and burglars and
all that cal. So I went arghhhhhh and threw this gazetta on the floor, so
that it covered up stains of spilled chai and horrible spat gobs from the
cally animals that used thus caff.
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
What it was going to be now, brothers, was homeways and a nice surprise
for dadada and mum, their only son and heir back in the family bosom. Then I
could lay back on the bed in my own malenky den and slooshy some lovely
music, and at the same time I could think over what to do now with my
jeezny. The Discharge Officer had given me a long list the day before of
jobs I could try for, and he had telephoned to different vecks about me, but
I had no intention, my brothers, of going off to rabbit right away. A
malenky bit of a rest first, yes, and a quiet think on the bed to the sound
of lovely music.
And so the autobus to Center, and then the autobus to Kingsley Avenue,
the flats of Flatblock 18A being just near. You will believe me, my
brothers, when I say that my heart was going clopclopclop with the like
excitement. All was very quiet, it still being early winter morning, and
when I ittied into the vestibule of the flatblock there was no veck about,
only the nagoy vecks and cheenas of the Dignity of Labour. What surprised
me, brothers, was the way that had been cleaned up, there being no longer
any dirty ballooning slovos from the rots of the Dignified Labourers, not
any dirty parts of the body added to their naked plotts by dirty-minded
pencilling malchicks. And what also surprised me was that the lift was
working. It came purring down when I pressed the electric knopka, and when I
got in I was surprised again to viddy all was clean inside the like cage.
So up I went to the tenth floor, and there I saw 10-8 as it had been
before, and my rooker trembled and shook as I took out of my carman the
little klootch I had for opening up. But I very firmly fitted the klootch in
the lock and turned, then opened up then went in, and there I met three
pairs of surprised and almost frightened glazzies looking at me, and it was
pee and em having their breakfast, but it was also another veck that I had
never viddied in my jeezny before, a bolshy thick veck in his shirt and
braces, quite at home, brothers, slurping away at the milky chai and
munchmunching at his eggiweg and toast. And it was this stranger veck who
spoke first, saying:
"Who are you, friend? Where did you get hold of a key? Out, before I
push your face in. Get out there and knock. Explain your business, quick."
My dad and mum sat like petrified, and I could viddy they had not yet
read the gazetta, then I remembered that the gazetta did not arrive till
papapa had gone off to his work. But then mum said: "Oh, you've broken out.
You've escaped. Whatever shall we do? We shall have the police here, oh oh
oh. Oh, you bad and wicked boy, disgracing us all like this." And, believe
it or kiss my sharries, she started to go boo hoo. So I started to try and
explain, they could ring up the Staja if they wanted, and all the time this
stranger veck sat there like frowning and looking as if he could push my
litso in with his hairy bolshy beefy fist. So I said:
"How about you answering a few, brother? What are you doing here and
under-veck who wheeled me singing away at some hound-and-horny popsong so
that I like snarled: "Shut it, thou," but he only smecked and said: "Never
mind, friend," and then sang louder. So I was put into the bed and still
felt bolnoy but could not sleep, but soon I started to feel that soon I
might start to feel that I might soon start feeling just a malenky bit
better, and then I was brought some nice hot chai with plenty of moloko and
sakar and, peeting that, I knew that that like horrible nightmare was in the
past and all over. And then Dr. Branom came in, all nice and smiling. He
said:
"Well, by my calculations you should be starting to feel all right
again. Yes?"
"Sir," I said, like wary. I did not quite kopat what he was getting at
govoreeting about calculations, seeing that getting better from feeling
bolnoy is like your own affair and nothing to do with calculations. He sat
down, all nice and droogy, on the bed's edge and said:
"Dr. Brodsky is pleased with you. You had a very positive response.
Tomorrow, of course, there'll be two sessions, morning and afternoon, and I
should imagine that you'll be feeling a bit limp at the end of the day. But
we have to be hard on you, you have to be cured." I said:
"You mean I have to sit through--? You mean I have to look at--? Oh,
no," I said. "It was horrible."
"Of course it was horrible," smiled Dr. Branom. "Violence is a very
horrible thing. That's what you're learning now. Your body is learning it."
"But," I said, "I don't understand. I don't understand about feeling
sick like I did. I never used to feel sick before. I used to feel like very
the opposite. I mean, doing it or watching it I used to feel real
horrorshow. I just don't understand why or how or what--"
"Life is a very wonderful thing," said Dr. Branom in a like very holy
goloss. "The processes of life, the make-up of the human organism, who can
fully understand these miracles? Dr. Brodsky is, of course, a remarkable
man. What is happening to you now is what should happen to any normal
healthy human organism contemplating the actions of the forces of evil, the
workings of the principle of destruction. You are being made sane, you are
being made healthy."
"That I will not have," I said, "nor can understand at all. What you've
been doing is to make me feel very ill."
"Do you feel ill now?" he said, still with the old droogy smile on his
litso. "Drinking tea, resting, having a quiet chat with a friend--surely
you're not feeling anything but well?"
I like listened and felt for pain and sickness in my gulliver and
plott, in a like cautious way, but it was true, brothers, that I felt real
horrorshow and even wanting my dinner. "I don't get it," I said. "You must
be doing something to me to make me feel ill." And I sort of frowned about
that, thinking.
"You felt ill this afternoon," he said, "because you're getting better.
When we're healthy we respond to the presence of the hateful with fear and
nausea. You're becoming healthy, that's all. You'll be healthier still this
time tomorrow." Then he patted me on the noga and went out, and I tried to
puzzle the whole veshch out as best I could. What it seemed to me was that
the wire and other veshches that were fixed to my plott perhaps were making
me feel ill, and that it was all a trick really. I was still puzzling out
all this and wondering whether I should refuse to be strapped down to this
chair tomorrow and start a real bit of dratsing with them all, because I had
my rights, when another chelloveck came in to see me. He was a like smiling
starry veck who said he was what he called the Discharge Officer, and he
carried a lot of bits of paper with him. He said:
"Where will you go when you leave here?" I hadn't really thought about
that sort of veshch at all, and it only now really began to dawn on me that
I'd be a fine free malchick very soon, and then I viddied that would only be
if I played it everybody's way and did not start any dratsing and creeching
and refusing and so on. I said:
"Oh, I shall go home. Back to my pee and em."
"Your--?" He didn't get nadsat-talk at all, so I said:
"To my parents in the dear old flatblock."
"I see," he said. "And when did you last have a visit from your
parents?"
"A month," I said, "very near. They like suspended visiting-day for a
bit because of one prestoopnick getting some blasting-powder smuggled in
across the wires from his ptitsa. A real cally trick to play on the
innocent, like punishing them as well. So it's near a month since I had a
visit."
"I see," said this veck. "And have your parents been informed of your
transfer and impending release?" That had a real lovely zvook that did, that
slovo `release.' I said:
"No." Then I said: "It will be a nice surprise for them, that, won't
it? Me just walking in through the door and saying: `Here I am, back, a free
veck again.' Yes, real horrorshow."
"Right," said the Discharge Officer veck, "we'll leave it at that. So
long as you have somewhere to live. Now, there's the question of your having
a job, isn't there?" And he showed me this long list of jobs I could have,
but I thought, well, there would be time enough for that. A nice malenky
holiday first. I could do a crasting job soon as I got out and fill the old
carmans with pretty polly, but I would have to be very careful and I would
have to do the job all on my oddy knocky. I did not trust so-called droogs
any more. So I told this veck to leave it a bit and we would govoreet about
it again. He said right right right, then got ready to leave. He showed
himself to be a very queer sort of a veck, because what he did now was to
like giggle and then say: "Would you like to punch me in the face before I
go?" I did not think I could possibly have slooshied that right, so I said:
"Eh?"
"Would you," he giggled, "like to punch me in the face before I go?" I
frowned like at that, very puzzled, and said:
"Why?"
"Oh," he said, "just to see how you're getting on." And he brought his
litso real near, a fat grin all over his rot. So I fisted up and went smack
at this litso, but he pulled himself away real skorry, grinning still, and
my rooker just punched air. Very puzzling, this was, and I frowned as he
left, smecking his gulliver off. And then, my brothers, I felt real sick
again, just like in the afternoon, just for a couple of minootas. It then
passed off skorry, and when they brought my dinner in I found I had a fair
appetite and was ready to crunk away at the roast chicken. But it was funny
that starry chelloveck asking for a tolchock in the litso. And it was funny
feeling sick like that.
What was even funnier was when I went to sleep that night, O my
brothers, I had a nightmare, and, as you might expect, it was one of those
bits of film I'd viddied in the afternoon. A dream or nightmare is really
only like a film inside your gulliver, except that it is as though you could
walk into it and be part of it. And this is what happened to me. It was a
nightmare of one of the bits of film they showed me near the end of the
afternoon like session, all of smecking malchicks doing the ultra-violent on
a young ptitsa who was creeching away in her red red krovvy, her platties
all razrezzed real horrorshow. I was in this fillying about, smecking away
and being like the ring-leader, dressed in the heighth of nadsat fashion.
And then at the heighth of all this dratsing and tolchocking I felt like
paralysed and wanting to be very sick, and all the other malchicks had a
real gromky smeck at me. Then I was dratsing my way back to being awake all
through my own krovvy, pints and quarts and gallons of it, and then I found
myself in my bed in this room. I wanted to be sick, so I got out of the bed
all trembly so as to go off down the corridor to the old vaysay. But,
behold, brothers, the door was locked. And turning round I viddied for like
the first raz that there were bars on the window. And so, as I reached for
the like pot in the malenky cupboard beside the bed, I viddied that there
would be no escaping from any of all this. Worse, I did not dare to go back
into my own sleeping gulliver. I soon found I did not want to be sick after
all, but then I was poogly of getting back into bed to sleep. But soon I
fell smack into sleep and did not dream any more.
"Stop it, stop it, stop it," I kept on creeching out. "Turn it off you
grahzny bastards, for I can stand no more." It was the next day, brothers,
and I had truly done my best morning and afternoon to play it their way and
sit like a horrorshow smiling cooperative malchick in their chair of torture
while they flashed nasty bits of ultra-violence on the screen, my glazzies
clipped open to viddy all, my plott and rookers and nogas fixed to the chair
so I could not get away. What I was being made to viddy now was not really a
veshch I would have thought to be too bad before, it being only three or
four malchicks crasting in a shop and filling their carmans with cutter, at
the same time fillying about with the creeching starry ptitsa running the
shop, tolchocking her and letting the red red krovvy flow. But the throb and
like crash crash crash in my gulliver and the wanting to be sick and the
terrible dry rasping thirstiness in my rot, all were worse than yesterday.
"Oh. I've had enough" I cried. "It's not fair, you vonny sods," and I tried
to struggle out of the chair but it was not possible me being as good as
stuck to it.
"First-class," creeched out this Dr. Brodsky. "You're doing really
well. Just one more and then we're finished."
What it was now was the starry 1939-45 War again, and it was a very
blobby and liny and crackly film you could viddy had been made by the
Germans. It opened with German eagles and the Nazi flag with that like
crooked cross that all malchicks at school love to draw, and then there were
very haughty and nadmenny like German officers walking through streets that
were all dust and bomb-holes and broken buildings. Then you were allowed to
viddy lewdies being shot against walls, officers giving the orders, and also
horrible nagoy plotts left lying in gutters, all like cages of bare ribs and
white thin nogas. Then there were lewdies being dragged off creeching though
not on the sound-track, my brothers, the only sound being music, and being
tolchocked while they were dragged off. Then I noticed, in all my pain and
sickness, what music it was that like crackled and boomed on the
sound-track, and it was Ludwig van, the last movement of the Fifth Symphony,
and I creeched like bezoomny at that. "Stop!" I creeched. "Stop, you grahzny
disgusting sods. It's a sin, that's what it is, a filthy unforgivable sin,
you bratchnies!" They didn't stop right away, because there was only a
minute or two more to go--lewdies being beaten up and all krovvy, then more
firing squads, then the old Nazi flag and THE END. But when the lights came
on this Dr. Brodsky and also Dr. Branom were standing in front of me, and
Dr. Brodsky said:
"What's all this about sin, eh?"
"That," I said, very sick. "Using Ludwig van like that. He did no harm
to anyone. Beethoven just wrote music." And then I was really sick and they
had to bring a bowl that was in the shape of like a kidney.
"Music," said Dr. Brodsky, like musing. "So you're keen on music. I
know nothing about it myself. It's a useful emotional heightener, that's all
I know. Well, well. What do you think about that, eh, Branom?"
"It can't be helped," said Dr. Branom. "Each man kills the thing he
loves, as the poet-prisoner said. Here's the punishment element, perhaps.
The Governor ought to be pleased."
"Give me a drink," I said, "for Bog's sake."
"Loosen him," ordered Dr. Brodsky. "Fetch him a carafe of ice-cold
water." So then these under-vecks got to work and soon I was peeting gallons
and gallons of water and it was like heaven, O my brothers. Dr. Brodsky
said:
"You seem a sufficiently intelligent young man. You seem, too, to be
not without taste. You've just got this violence thing, haven't you?
Violence and theft, theft being an aspect of violence." I didn't govoreet a
single slovo, brothers, I was still feeling sick, though getting a malenky
bit better now. But it had been a terrible day. "Now then," said Dr.
Brodsky, "how do you think this is done? Tell me, what do you think we're
doing to you?"
"You're making me feel ill. I'm ill when I look at those filthy pervert
films of yours. But it's not really the films that's doing it. But I feel
that if you'll stop these films I'll stop feeling ill."
"Right," said Dr. Brodsky. "It's association, the oldest educational
method in the world. And what really causes you to feel ill?"
"These grahzny sodding veshches that come out of my gulliver and my
plott," I said, "that's what it is."
"Quaint," said Dr. Brodsky, like smiling, "the dialect of the tribe. Do
you know anything of its provenance, Branom?"
"Odd bits of old rhyming slang," said Dr. Branom, who did not look
quite so much like a friend any more. "A bit of gipsy talk, too. But most of
the roots are Slav. Propaganda. Subliminal penetration."
"All right, all right, all right," said Dr. Brodsky, like impatient and
not interested any more. "Well," he said to me, "it isn't the wires. It's
nothing to do with what's fastened to you. Those are just for measuring your
reactions. What is it, then?"
I viddied then, of course, what a bezoomny shoot I was not to notice
that it was the hypodermic shots in the rooker.
"Oh," I creeched, "oh, I viddy all now. A filthy cally vonny trick. An
act of treachery, sod you, and you won't do it again."
"I'm glad you've raised your objections now," said Dr. Brodsky. "Now we
can be perfectly clear about it. We can get this stuff of Ludovico's into
your system in many different ways. Orally, for instance. But the
subcutaneous method is the best. Don't fight against it, please. There's no
point in your fighting. You can't get the better of us."
"Grahzny bratchnies," I said, like snivelling. Then I said: "I don't
mind about the ultra-violence and all that cal. I put up with that. But it's
not fair on the music. It's not fair I should feel ill when I'm slooshying
lovely Ludwig van and G. F. Handel and others. All that shows you're an evil
lot of bastards and I shall never forgive you, sods."
They both looked a bit like thoughtful. Then Dr. Brodsky said:
"Delimitation is always difficult. The world is one, life is one. The
sweetest and most heavenly of activities partake in some measure of
violence--the act of love, for instance; music, for instance. You must take
your chance, boy. The choice has been all yours." I didn't understand all
these slovos, but now I said:
"You needn't take it any further, sir." I'd changed my tune a malenky
bit in my cunning way. "You've proved to me that all this dratsing and
ultra-violence and killing is wrong wrong and terribly wrong. I've learned
my lesson, sirs. I see now what I've never seen before. I'm cured, praise
God." And I raised my glazzies in a like holy way to the ceiling. But both
these doctors shook their gullivers like sadly and Dr. Brodsky said:
"You're not cured yet. There's still a lot to be done. Only when your
body reacts promptly and violently to violence, as to a snake, without
further help from us, without medication, only then--" I said:
"But, sir, sirs, I see that it's wrong. It's wrong because it's against
like society, it's wrong because every veck on earth has the right to live
and be happy without being beaten and tolchocked and knifed. I've learned a
lot, oh really I have."
But Dr. Brodsky had a loud long smeck at that, showing all his white
zoobies, and said:
"The heresy of an age of reason," or some such slovos. "I see what is
right and approve, but I do what is wrong. No, no, my boy, you must leave it
all to us. But be cheerful about it. It will soon be all over. In less than
a fortnight now you'll be a free man." Then he patted me on the pletcho.
Less than a fortnight, O my brothers and friends, it was like an age.
It was like from the beginning of the world to the end of it. To finish the
fourteen years without remission in the Staja would have been nothing to it.
Every day it was the same. When the devotchka with the hypodermic came
round, though, four days after this govoreeting with Dr. Brodsky and Dr.
Branom, I said: "Oh, no you won't," and tolchocked her on the rooker, and
the syringe went tinkle clatter on to the floor. That was like to viddy what
they would do. What they did was to get four or five real bolshy
white-coated bastards of under-vecks to hold me down on the bed, tolchocking
me with grinny litsos close to mine, and then this nurse ptitsa said: "You
wicked naughty little devil, you," while she jabbed my rooker with another
syringe and squirted this stuff in real brutal and nasty. And then I was
wheeled off exhausted to this like hell sinny as before.
Every day, my brothers, these films were like the same, all kicking and
tolchocking and red red krovvy dripping off of litsos and plotts and
spattering all over the camera lenses. It was usually grinning and smecking
malchicks in the heighth of nadsat fashion, or else teeheeheeing Jap
torturers or brutal Nazi kickers and shooters. And each day the feeling of
wanting to die with the sickness and gulliver pains and aches in the zoobies
and horrible horrible thirst grew really worse. Until one morning I tried to
defeat the bastards by crash crash crashing my gulliver against the wall so
that I should tolchock myself unconscious, but all that happened was I felt
sick with viddying that this kind of violence was like the violence in the
films, so I was just exhausted and was given the injection and was wheeled
off like before.
And then there came a morning when I woke up and had my breakfast of
eggs and toast and jam and very hot milky chai, and then I thought: "It
can't be much longer now. Now must be very near the end of the time. I have
suffered to the heighths and cannot suffer any more." And I waited and
waited, brothers, for this nurse ptitsa to bring in the syringe, but she did
not come. And then the white-coated under-veck came and said:
"Today, old friend, we are letting you walk."
"Walk?" I said. "Where?"
"To the usual place," he said. "Yes, yes, look not so astonished. You
are to walk to the films, me with you of course. You are no longer to be
carried in a wheelchair."
"But," I said, "how about my horrible morning injection?"
For I was really surprised at this, brothers, they being so keen on
pushing this Ludovico veshch into me, as they said. "Don't I get that
horrible sicky stuff rammed into my poor suffering rooker any more?"
"All over," like smecked this veck. "For ever and ever amen. You're on
your own now, boy. Walking and all to the chamber of horrors. But you're
still to be strapped down and made to see. Come on then, my little tiger."
And I had to put my over-gown and toofles on and walk down the corridor to
the like sinny mesto.
Now this time, O my brothers, I was not only very sick but very
puzzled. There it was again, all the old ultra-violence and vecks with their
gullivers smashed and torn krovvy-dripping ptitsas creeching for mercy, the
like private and individual fillying and nastiness. Then there were the
prison-camps and the Jews and the grey like foreign streets full of tanks
and uniforms and vecks going down in withering rifle-fire, this being the
public side of it. And this time I could blame nothing for me feeling sick
and thirsty and full of aches except what I was forced to viddy, my glazzies
still being clipped open and my nogas and plott fixed to the chair but this
set of wires and other veshches no longer coming out of my plott and
gulliver. So what could it be but the films I was viddying that were doing
this to me? Except, of course, brothers, that this Ludovico stuff was like a
vaccination and there it was cruising about in my krovvy, so that I would be
sick always for ever and ever amen whenever I viddied any of this
ultra-violence. So now I squared my rot and went boo hoo hoo, and the tears
like blotted out what I was forced to viddy in like all blessed runny
silvery dewdrops. But these white-coat bratchnies were skorry with their
tashtooks to wipe the tears away, saying: "There there, wazzums all
weepy-weepy den." And there it was again all clear before my glazzies, these
Germans prodding like beseeching and weeping Jews--vecks and cheenas and
malchicks and devotchkas--into mestos where they would all snuff it of
poison gas. Boo hoo hoo I had to go again, and along they came to wipe the
tears off, very skorry, so I should not miss one solitary veshch of what
they were showing. It was a terrible and horrible day, O my brothers and
only friends.
I was lying on the bed all alone that nochy after my dinner of fat
thick mutton stew and fruit-pie and ice-cream, and I thought to myself:
"Hell hell hell, there might be a chance for me if I get out now." I had no
weapon, though. I was allowed no britva here, and I had been shaved every
other day by a fat bald-headed veck who came to my bed before breakfast, two
white-coated bratchnies standing by to viddy I was a good non-violent
malchick. The nails on my rookers had been scissored and filed real short so
I could not scratch. But I was still skorry on the attack, though they had
weakened me down, brothers, to a like shadow of what I had been in the old
free days. So now I got off the bed and went to the locked door and began to
fist it real horrorshow and hard, creeching at the same time: "Oh, help
help. I'm sick, I'm dying. Doctor doctor doctor, quick. Please. Oh, I'll
die, I shall. Help." My gorlo was real dry and sore before anyone came. Then
I heard nogas coming down the corridor and a like grumbling goloss, and then
I recognized the goloss of the white-coated veck who brought me pishcha and
like escorted me to my daily doom.
He like grumbled:
"What is it? What goes on? What's your little nasty game in there?"
"Oh, I'm dying," I like moaned. "Oh, I have a ghastly pain in my side.
Appendicitis, it is. Ooooooh."
"Appendy shitehouse," grumbled this veck, and then to my joy, brothers,
I could slooshy the like clank of keys. "If you're trying it little friend,
my friends and me will beat and kick you all through the night." Then he
opened up and brought in like the sweet air of the promise of my freedom.
Now I was like behind the door when he pushed it open, and I could viddy him
in the corridor light looking round for me puzzled. Then I raised my two
fisties to tolchock him on the neck nasty, and then, I swear, as I viddied
him in advance lying moaning or out out out and felt the like joy rise in my
guts, it was then that this sickness rose in me as it might be a wave and I
felt a horrible fear as if I was really going to die. I like tottered over
to the bed going urgh urgh urgh, and the veck, who was not in his white coat
but an over-gown, viddied clear enough what I had in mind for he said:
"Well, everything's a lesson, isn't it? Learning all the time, as you
could say. Come on, little friend, get up from that bed and hit me. I want
you to, yes, really. A real good crack across the jaw. Oh, I'm dying for it,
really I am." But all I could do, brothers, was to just lay there sobbing
boo hoo hoo. "Scum," like sneered this veck now. "Filth." And he pulled me
up by like the scruff of my pyjama-top, me being very weak and limp, and he
raised and swung his right rooker so that I got a fair old tolchock clean on
the litso. "That," he said, "is for getting me out of my bed, you young
dirt." And he wiped his rookers against each other swish swish and went out.
Crunch crunch went the key in the lock.
And what, brothers, I had to escape into sleep from then was the
horrible and wrong feeling that it was better to get the hit than give it.
If that veck had stayed I might even have like presented the other cheek.
I could not believe, brothers, what I was told. It seemed that I had
been in that vonny mesto for near ever and would be there for near ever
more. But it had always been a fortnight and now they said the fortnight was
near up. They said:
"Tomorrow, little friend, out out out." And they made with the old
thumb, like pointing to freedom. And then the white-coated veck who had
tolchocked me and who had still brought me my trays of pishcha and like
escorted me to my everyday torture said: "But you still have one real big
day in front of you. It's to be your passing-out day," and he had a leery
smeck at that.
I expected this morning that I would be ittying as usual to the sinny
mesto in my pyjamas and toofles and over-gown. But no. This morning I was
given my shirt and underveshches and my platties of the night and my
horrorshow kick-boots, all lovely and washed or ironed and polished. And I
was even given my cut-throat britva that I had used in those old happy days
for fillying and dratsing. So I gave with the puzzled frown at this as I got
dressed, but the white-coated under-veck just like grinned and would
govoreet nothing, O my brothers.
I was led quite kindly to the same old mesto, but there were changes
there. Curtains had been drawn in front of the sinny screen and the frosted
glass under the projection holes was no longer there, it having perhaps been
pushed up or folded to the sides like blinds or shutters. And where there
had been just the noise of coughing kashl kashl kashl and like shadows of
the lewdies was now a real audience, and in this audience there were litsos
I knew. There was the Staja Governor and the holy man, the charlie or
charles as he was called, and the Chief Chasso and this very important and
well-dressed chelloveck who was the Minister of the Interior or Inferior.
All the rest I did not know. Dr. Brodsky and Dr. Branom were there, though
not now white-coated, instead they were dressed as doctors would dress who
were big enough to want to dress in the heighth of fashion. Dr. Branom just
stood, but Dr. Brodsky stood and govoreeted in a like learned manner to all
the lewdies assembled. When he viddied me coming in he said:
"Aha. At this stage, gentlemen, we introduce the subject himself. He
is, as you will percieve, fit and well nourished. He comes straight from a
night's sleep and a good breakfast, undrugged, unhypnotized. Tomorrow we
send him with confidence out into the world again, as decent a lad as you
would meet on a May morning, inclined to the kindly word and the helpful
act. What a change is here, gentlemen, from the wretched hoodlum the State
committed to unprofitable punishment some two years ago, unchanged after two
years. Unchanged, do I say? Not quite. Prison taught him the false smile,
the rubbed hands of hypocrisy, the fawning greased obsequious leer. Other
vices it taught him, as well as confirming him in those he had long
practised before. But gentlemen, enough of words. Actions speak louder than.
Action now. Observe, all."
I was a bit dazed by all this govoreeting and I was trying to grasp in
my mind that like all this was about me. Then all the lights went out and
then there came on two like spotlights shining from the projection-squares,
and one of them was full on Your Humble and Suffering Narrator. And into the
other spotlight there walked a bolshy big chelloveck I had never viddied
before. He had a lardy like litso and a moustache and like strips of hair
pasted over his near-bald gulliver. He was about thirty or forty or fifty,
some old age like that, starry. He ittied up to me and the spotlight ittied
with him, and soon the two spotlights had made like one big pool. He said to
me, very sneery: "Hello, heap of dirt. Pooh, you don't wash much, judging
from the horrible smell." Then, as if he was like dancing, he stamped on my
nogas, left, right, then he gave me a finger-nail flick on the nose that
hurt like bezoomny and brought the old tears to my glazzies then he twisted
at my left ooko like it was a radio dial. I could slooshy titters and a
couple of real horrorshow hawhawhaws coming from like the audience. My nose
and nogas and ear-hole stung and pained like bezoomny, so I said:
"What do you do that to me for? I've never done wrong to you, brother."
"Oh," this veck said, "I do this"--flickedflicked nose again--"and
that"--twisted smarting ear-hole--"and the other"--stamped nasty on right
noga--"because I don't care for your horrible type. And if you want to do
anything about it, start, start, please do." Now I knew that I'd have to be
real skorry and get my cut-throat britva out before this horrible killing
sickness whooshed up and turned the like joy of battle into feeling I was
going to snuff it. But, O brothers, as my rooker reached for the britva in
my inside carman I got this like picture in my mind's glazzy of this
insulting chelloveck howling for mercy with the red red krovvy all streaming
out of his rot, and hot after this picture the sickness and dryness and
pains were rushing to overtake, and I viddied that I'd have to change the
way I felt about this rotten veck very very skorry indeed, so I felt in my
carmans for cigarettes or for pretty polly, and, O my brothers, there was
not either of these veshches, I said, like all howly and blubbery:
"I'd like to give you a cigarette, brother, but I don't seem to have
any." This veck went:
"Wah wah. Boohoohoo. Cry, baby." Then he flickflickflicked with his
bolshy horny nail at my nose again, and I could slooshy very loud smecks of
like mirth coming from the dark audience. I said, real desperate, trying to
be nice to this insulting and hurtful veck to stop the pains and sickness
coming up:
"Please let me do something for you, please." And I felt in my carmans
but could find only my cut-throat britva, so I took this out and handed it
to him and said: "Please take this, please. A little present. Please have
it." But he said: "Keep your stinking bribes to yourself. You can't get
round me that way." And he banged at my rooker and my cut-throat britva fell
on the floor. So I said:
"Please, I must do something. Shall I clean your boots? Look, I'll get
down and lick them." And, my brothers, believe it or kiss my sharries, I got
down on my knees and pushed my red yahzick out a mile and half to lick his
grahzny vonny boots. But all this veck did was to kick me not too hard on
the rot. So then it seemed to me that it would not bring on the sickness and
pain if I just gripped his ankles with my rookers tight round them and
brought this grashzny bratchny down to the floor. So I did this and he got a
real bolshy surprise, coming down crack amid loud laughter from the vonny
audience. But viddying him on the floor I could feel the whole horrible
feeling coming over me, so I gave him my rooker to lift him up skorry and up
he came. Then just as he was going to give me a real nasty and earnest
tolchock on the litso Dr. Brodsky said:
"All right, that will do very well." Then this horrible veck sort of
bowed and danced off like an actor while the lights came up on me blinking
and with my rot square for howling. Dr. Brodsky said to the audience: "Our
subject is, you see, impelled towards the good by, paradoxically, being
impelled towards evil. The intention to act violently is accompanied by
strong feelings of physical distress. To counter these the subject has to
switch to a diametrically opposed attitude. Any questions?"
"Choice," rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it belonged to the
prison charlie. "He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, fear of
physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its
insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases
also to be a creature capable of moral choice."
"These are subtleties," like smiled Dr. Brodsky. "We are not concerned
with motive, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down
crime--"
"And," chipped in this bolshy well-dressed Minister, "with relieving
the ghastly congestion in our prisons."
"Hear hear," said somebody.
There was a lot of govoreeting and arguing then and I just stood there,
brothers, like completely ignored by all these ignorant bratchnies, so I
creeched out:
"Me, me, me. How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I just
some animal or dog?" And that started them off govoreeting real loud and
throwing slovos at me. So I creeched louder, still creeching: "Am I just to
be like a clockwork orange?" I didn't know what made me use those slovos,
brothers, which just came like without asking into my gulliver. And that
shut all those vecks up for some reason for a minoota or two. Then one very
thin starry professor type chelloveck stood up, his neck like all cables
carrying like power from his gulliver to his plott, and he said:
"You have no cause to grumble, boy. You made your choice and all this
is a consequence of your choice. Whatever now ensues is what you yourself
have chosen." And the prison charlie creeched out:
"Oh, if only I could believe that." And you could viddy the Governor
give him a look like meaning that he would not climb so high in like Prison
Religion as he thought he would. Then loud arguing started again, and then I
could slooshy the slovo Love being thrown around, the prison charles himself
creeching as loud as any about Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear and all that
cal. And now Dr. Brodsky said, smiling all over his litso:
"I am glad, gentlemen, this question of Love has been raised. Now we
shall see in action a manner of Love that was thought to be dead with the
Middle Ages." And then the lights went down and the spotlights came on
again, one on your poor and suffering Friend and Narrator, and into the
other there like rolled or sidled the most lovely young devotchka you could
ever hope in all your jeezny, O my brothers, to viddy. That is to say, she
had real horrorshow groodies all of which you could like viddy, she having
on platties which came down down down off her pletchoes. And her nogas were
like Bog in His Heaven, and she walked like to make you groan in your
keeshkas, and yet her litso was a sweet smiling young like innocent litso.
She came up towards me with the light like it was the like light of heavenly
grace and all that cal coming with her, and the first thing that flashed
into my gulliver was that I would like to have her right down there on the
floor with the old in-out real savage, but skorry as a shot came the
sickness, like a like detective that had been watching round a corner and
now followed to make his grahzny arrest. And now the von of lovely perfume
that came off her made me want to think of starting to heave in my keeshkas,
so I knew I had to think of some new like way of thinking about her before
all the pain and thirstiness and horrible sickness come over me real
horrorshow and proper. So I creeched out:
"O most beautiful and beauteous of devotchkas, I throw like my heart at
your feet for you to like trample all over. If I had a rose I would give it
to you. If it was all rainy and cally now on the ground you could have my
platties to walk on so as not to cover your dainty nogas with filth and
cal." And as I was saying all this, O my brothers, I could feel the sickness
like slinking back. "Let me," I creeched out, "worship you and be like your
helper and protector from the wicked like world." Then I thought of the
right slovo and felt better for it, saying: "Let me be like your true
knight," and down I went again on the old knees, bowing and like scraping.
And then I felt real shooty and dim, it having been like an act again,
for this devotchka smiled and bowed to the audience and like danced off, the
lights coming up to a bit of applause. And the glazzies of some of these
starry vecks in the audience were like popping out at this young devotchka
with dirty and like unholy desire, O my brothers.
"He will be your true Christian," Dr. Brodsky was creeching out, "ready
to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than crucify, sick to
the very heart at the thought even of killing a fly." And that was right,
brothers, because when he said that I thought of killing a fly and felt just
that tiny bit sick, but I pushed the sickness and pain back by thinking of
the fly being fed with bits of sugar and looked after like a bleeding pet
and all that cal. "Reclamation," he creeched. "Joy before the Angels of
God."
"The point is," this Minister of the Inferior was saying real gromky,
"that it works."
"Oh," the prison charlie said, like sighing, "it works all right, God
help the lot of us."
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
That, my brothers, was me asking myself the next morning, standing
outside this white building that was like tacked on to the old Staja, in my
platties of the night of two years back in the grey light of dawn, with a
malenky bit of a bag with my few personal veshches in and a bit of cutter
kindly donated by the vonny Authorities to like start me off in my new life.
The rest of the day before had been very tiring, what with interviews
to go on tape for the telenews and photographs being took flash flash flash
and more like demonstrations of me folding up in the face of ultra-violence
and all that embarrassing cal. And then I had like fallen into the bed and
then, as it looked to me, been waked up to be told to get off out, to itty
off home, they did not want to viddy Your Humble Narrator never not no more,
O my brothers. So there I was, very very early in the morning, with just
this bit of pretty polly in my left carman, jingle-jangling it and
wondering:
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
Some breakfast some mesto, I thought, me not having eaten at all that
morning, every veck being so anxious to tolchock me off out to freedom. A
chasha of chai only I had peeted. This Staja was in a very like gloomy part
of the town, but there were malenky workers' caffs all around and I soon
found one of these, my brothers. It was very cally and vonny, with one bulb
in the ceiling with fly-dirt like obscuring its bit of light, and there were
early rabbiters slurping away at chai and horrible-looking sausages and
slices of kleb which they like wolfed, going wolf wolf wolf and then
creeching for more. They were served by a very cally devotchka but with very
bolshy groodies on her, and some of the eating vecks tried to grab her,
going haw haw haw while she went he he he, and the sight of them near made
me want to sick, brothers. But I asked for some toast and jam and chai very
politely and with my gentleman's goloss, then I sat in a dark corner to eat
and peet.
While I was doing this, a malenky little dwarf of a veck ittied in,
selling the morning's gazettas, a twisted and grahzny prestoopnick type with
thick glasses on with steel rims, his platties like the colour of very
starry decaying currant pudding. I kupetted a gazetta, my idea being to get
ready for plunging back into normal jeezny again by viddying what was
ittying on in the world. This gazetta I had seemed to be like a Government
gazetta, for the only news that was on the front page was about the need for
every veck to make sure he put the Government back in again on the next
General Election, which seemed to be about two or three weeks off. There
were very boastful slovos about what the Government had done, brothers, in
the last year or so, what with increased exports and a real horrorshow
foreign policy and improved social services and all that cal. But what the
Government was really most boastful about was the way in which they reckoned
the streets had been made safer for all peace-loving night-walking lewdies
in the last six months, what with better pay for the police and the police
getting like tougher with young hooligans and perverts and burglars and all
that cal. Which interessovatted Your Humble Narrator some deal. And on the
second page of the gazetta there was a blurry like photograph of somebody
who looked very familiar, and it turned out to be none other than me me me.
I looked very gloomy and like scared, but that was really with the
flashbulbs going pop pop all the time. What it said undrneath my picture was
that here was the first graduate from the new State Institute for
Reclamation of Criminal Types, cured of his criminal instincts in a
fortnight only, now a good law-fearing citizen and all that cal. Then I
viddied there was a very boastful article about this Ludovico's Technique
and how clever the Government was and all that cal. Then there was another
picture of some veck I thought I knew, and it was this Minister of the
Inferior or Interior. It seemed that he had been doing a bit of boasting,
looking forward to a nice crime-free era in which there would be no more
fear of cowardly attacks from young hooligans and perverts and burglars and
all that cal. So I went arghhhhhh and threw this gazetta on the floor, so
that it covered up stains of spilled chai and horrible spat gobs from the
cally animals that used thus caff.
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
What it was going to be now, brothers, was homeways and a nice surprise
for dadada and mum, their only son and heir back in the family bosom. Then I
could lay back on the bed in my own malenky den and slooshy some lovely
music, and at the same time I could think over what to do now with my
jeezny. The Discharge Officer had given me a long list the day before of
jobs I could try for, and he had telephoned to different vecks about me, but
I had no intention, my brothers, of going off to rabbit right away. A
malenky bit of a rest first, yes, and a quiet think on the bed to the sound
of lovely music.
And so the autobus to Center, and then the autobus to Kingsley Avenue,
the flats of Flatblock 18A being just near. You will believe me, my
brothers, when I say that my heart was going clopclopclop with the like
excitement. All was very quiet, it still being early winter morning, and
when I ittied into the vestibule of the flatblock there was no veck about,
only the nagoy vecks and cheenas of the Dignity of Labour. What surprised
me, brothers, was the way that had been cleaned up, there being no longer
any dirty ballooning slovos from the rots of the Dignified Labourers, not
any dirty parts of the body added to their naked plotts by dirty-minded
pencilling malchicks. And what also surprised me was that the lift was
working. It came purring down when I pressed the electric knopka, and when I
got in I was surprised again to viddy all was clean inside the like cage.
So up I went to the tenth floor, and there I saw 10-8 as it had been
before, and my rooker trembled and shook as I took out of my carman the
little klootch I had for opening up. But I very firmly fitted the klootch in
the lock and turned, then opened up then went in, and there I met three
pairs of surprised and almost frightened glazzies looking at me, and it was
pee and em having their breakfast, but it was also another veck that I had
never viddied in my jeezny before, a bolshy thick veck in his shirt and
braces, quite at home, brothers, slurping away at the milky chai and
munchmunching at his eggiweg and toast. And it was this stranger veck who
spoke first, saying:
"Who are you, friend? Where did you get hold of a key? Out, before I
push your face in. Get out there and knock. Explain your business, quick."
My dad and mum sat like petrified, and I could viddy they had not yet
read the gazetta, then I remembered that the gazetta did not arrive till
papapa had gone off to his work. But then mum said: "Oh, you've broken out.
You've escaped. Whatever shall we do? We shall have the police here, oh oh
oh. Oh, you bad and wicked boy, disgracing us all like this." And, believe
it or kiss my sharries, she started to go boo hoo. So I started to try and
explain, they could ring up the Staja if they wanted, and all the time this
stranger veck sat there like frowning and looking as if he could push my
litso in with his hairy bolshy beefy fist. So I said:
"How about you answering a few, brother? What are you doing here and