Bitcoin Inscription 142163


ANTHONY BURGESS 


i^«A| 












A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (UK Version) 

by ANTHONY BURGESS 


Contents 


Introduction (A Clockwork Orange Resucked) 
Part 1 

Part 2 

Part 3 

Glossary of Nadsat Lan auaae 








Anthony Burgess was born in Manchester in 1917 
and was a graduate of the University there. After 
six years in the Army he worked as an instructor for 
the Central Advisory Council for Forces Education, as 
a lecturer in Phonetics and as a grammar school 
master. From 1954 till 1960 he was an education 
officer in the Colonial Service, stationed in Malaya 
and Brunei. He has been called one of the very few 
literary geniuses of our time. Certainly he borrowed 
from no other literary source than himself. That 
source produced thirty-two novels, a volume of 
verse, two plays, and sixteen works of nonfiction- 
together with countless music compositions, 
including symphonies, operas, and jazz. His most 
recent work was A Mouthful of Air: Language, 
Languages...Especially English. Anthony Burgess 
died in 1993. 




Introduction 


A Clockwork Orange Resucked 


I first published the novella A Clockwork Orange in 
1962, which ought to be far enough in the past for it 
to be erased from the world's literary memory. It 
refuses to be erased, however, and for this the film 
version of the book made by Stanley Kubrick may be 
held chiefly responsible. I should myself be glad to 
disown it for various reasons, but this is not 
permitted. I receive mail from students who try to 
write theses about it or requests from Japanese 
dramaturges to turn 

It into a sort of Noh play. It seems likely to survive, 
while other works of mine that I value more bite the 
dust. This is not an unusual experience for an artist. 
Rachmaninoff used to groan because he was known 
mainly for a Prelude in C Sharp Minor which he wrote 
as a boy, while the works of his maturity never got 
into the programmes. Kids cut their pianistic teeth 
on a Minuet in G which Beethoven composed only so 
that he could detest it. I have to go on living with A 
Clockwork Orange, and this means I have a sort of 
authorial duty to it. I have a very special duty to it 
in the United States, and I had better now explain 
what this duty is. 

Let me put the situation baldly. A Clockwork Orange 
has never been published entire in America. The 
book I wrote is divided into three sections of seven 
chapters each. Take out your pocket calculator and 



you will find that these add up to a total of twenty- 
one chapters. 21 is the symbol for human maturity, 
or used to be, since at 21 you got the vote and 
assumed adult responsibility. Whatever its 
symbology, the number 21 was the number I started 
out with. Novelists of my stamp are interested in 
what is called arithmology, meaning that number has 
to mean something in human terms when they 
handle it. The number of chapters is never entirely 
arbitrary. Just as a musical composer starts off with 
a vague image of bulk and duration, so a novelist 
begins with an image of length, and this image is 
expressed in the number of sections and the number 
of chapters in which the work will be disposed. 

Those twenty-one chapters were important to me. 

But they were not important to my New York 
publisher. The book he brought out had only twenty 
chapters. He insisted on cutting out the twenty- 
first. I could, of course, have demurred at this and 
taken my book elsewhere, but it was considered that 
he was being charitable in accepting the work at all, 
and that all other New York, or Boston, pub-lishers 
would kick out the manuscript on its dog-ear. I 
needed money 

back in 1961, even the pittance I was being offered 
as an advance, and 

if the condition of the book's acceptance was also its 
truncation-well, 

so be it. So there is a profound difference between A 
Clockwork Orange 



as Great Britain knows it and the somewhat slimmer 
volume that bears the same name in the United 
States of America. 

Let us go further. The rest of the world was sold the 
book out of 

Great Britain, and so most versions-certainly the 
French, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Russian, Hebrew, 
Rumanian, and German translations-have the 
original twenty-one chapters. Now when Stanley 
Kubrick made his film-though he made it in England- 
he followed the American version and, so it seemed 
to his audiences outside America, ended the story 
somewhat prematurely. Audiences did not exactly 
clamour for their money back, but they wondered 
why Kubrick left out the denouement. People wrote 
to me about this-indeed much of my later life has 
been expended on Xeroxing statements of intention 
and the frustrations of intention-while both Kubrick 
and my New York publisher coolly bask in the 
rewards of their misdemeanor. Life is of course, 
terrible. 

What happens in that twenty-first chapter? You now 
have the chance to 

find out. Briefly, my young thuggish protagonist 
grows up. He grows bored with violence and 
recognizes that human energy is better expended on 
creation than destruction. Senseless violence is a 
prerogative of youth, which has much energy but 
little talent for the constructive. Its dynamism has 
to find an outlet in smashing telephone kiosks, 
derailing trains, stealing cars and smashing them 
and, of course, in the much more satisfactory 



activity of destroying human beings. There comes a 
time, however, when violence is seen as juvenile and 
boring. It is the repartee of the stupid and 
ignorant. My young hoodlum comes to the 
revelation of the need to get something done in life- 
to marry, to beget children, to keep the orange of 
the world turning in the 

Rookers of Bog, or hands of God, and perhaps even 
create something>music, say. After all, Mozart and 
Mendelssohn were composing deathless music in 
their teens or nadsats, and all my hero was doing 
was razrezzing and giving the old in-out. It is with a 
kind of shame that this growing youth looks back on 
his devastating past. He wants a different kind of 
future. 

There is no hint of this change of intention in the 
twentieth chapter. The boy is conditioned, then 
deconditioned, and he foresees with glee a 
resumption of the operation of free and violent will. 

'I was cured all right,' he says, and so the American 
book ends. So the film ends too. The twenty-first 
chapter gives the novel the quality of genuine 
fiction, an art founded on the principle that human 
beings change. Their is, in fact, not much point in 
writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of 
moral transformation, or an increase in wisdom, 
operating in your chief character or characters. 

Even trashy best-sellers show people changing. 

When a fictional work fails to show change, when it 
merely indicates that human character is set, stony, 
unregenerable, then you are out of the field of the 
novel and into that of the fable or the allegory. The 
American or Kubrickian Orange is a fable; the British 
or world one is a novel. 



But my New York publisher believed that my twenty- 
first chapter was a sellout. It was veddy veddy 
British, don't you know. It was bland and it showed a 
Pelagian unwillingness to accept that a human being 
could be a model for unregenerable evil. The 
Americans, he said in effect, were tougher than the 
British and could face up to reality. Soon they would 
be facing up to it in Vietnam. My book was 
Kennedyan and accepted the notion of moral 
progress. What was really wanted was a Nixonian 
book with no shred of optimism in it. Let us have evil 
prancing on the page and, up to the very last line, 
sneering in the face of all the inherited beliefs, 
Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Holy Roller, about 
people being able to make themselves better. Such 
a book would be sensational, and so it is. But I do 
not think it is a fair picture of human life. 

I do not think so because, by definition, a human 
being is endowed with free will. He can use this to 
choose between good and evil. If he can only 
perform good or only perform evil, then he is a 
clockwork orange-meaning that he has the 
appearance of an organism lovely with colour and 
juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound 
up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly 
replacing both) the Almighty State. It is as inhuman 
to be totally good as it is to be totally evil. The 
important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist 
along with good, in order that moral choice may 
operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition 
of moral entities. This is what the television news is 
about. Unfortunately there is so much original sin in 
us all that we find evil rather attractive. To 
devastate is easier and more spectacular than to 
create. We like to have the pants scared off us by 



visions of cosmic destruction. To sit down in a dull 
room and compose the Missa soiennis or The 
Anatomy of Melancholy does not make headlines or 
news flashes. Unfortunately my little squib of a 
book was found attractive to many because it was as 
odorous as a crateful of bad eggs with the miasma of 
original sin. 

It seems priggish or Pollyannaish to deny that my 
intention in writing the work was to titillate the 
nastier propensities of my readers. My own healthy 
inheritance of original sin comes out in the book and 
I enjoyed raping and ripping by proxy. It is the 
novelist's innate cowardice that makes him depute 
to imaginary personalities the sins that he is too 
cautious to commit for himself. But the book does 
also have a moral lesson, and it is the weary 
traditional one of the fundamental importance of 
moral choice. It is because this lesson sticks out like 
a sore thumb that I tend to disparage A Clockwork 
Orange as a work too didactic to be artistic. It is not 
the novelist's job to preach; it is his duty to show. I 
have shown enough, though the curtain of an 
invented lingo gets in the way-another aspect of my 
cowardice. Nadsat, a Russified version of English, 
was meant to muffle the raw response we expect 
from pornography. It turns the book into a linguistic 
adventure. People preferred the film because they 
are scared, rightly, of language. 

I don't think I have to remind readers what the title 
means. Clockwork oranges don't exist, except in the 
speech of old Londoners. The image was a bizarre 
one, always used for a bizarre thing. "He's as queer 
as a clockwork orange," meant he was queer to the 
limit of queerness. It did not primarily denote 



homosexuality, though a queer, before restrictive 
legislation came in, was a term used for a member 
of the inverted fraternity. Europeans who translated 
the title as Aranda a Orologeria or Orange 
Mecanique could not understand its Cockney 
resonance and they assumed that it meant a hand 
grenade, a cheaper kind of explosive pineapple. I 
mean it to stand for the application of a mechanistic 
morality to a living organism oozing with juice and 
sweetness. 

Readers of the twenty-first chapter must decide for 
themselves whether it enhances the book they 
presumably know or is really a discardable limb. I 
meant the book to end in this way, but my aesthetic 
judgement may have been faulty. Writers are rarely 
their own best critics, nor are critics. "Quod scripsi 
scripsi" said Pontius Pilate when he made Jesus 
Christ the King of the Jews. "What I have written I 
have written." We can destroy what we have written 
but we cannot unwrite it. I leave what I wrote with 
what Dr. Johnson called frigid indifference to the 
judgement of that .00000001 of the American 
population which cares about such things. Eat this 
sweetish segment or spit it out. You are free. 


Anthony Burgess 
November, 1986 




A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (UK Version) 


Part 1 


1 


"What's it going to be then, eh?" 

There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, 
that is 

Pete, Georgie, and Dim. Dim being really dim, and 
we sat in 

the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what 
to do 

with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard 
though dry. 

The Ko Part 1 rova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, 
and you may, O 

my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos 
were like, 

things changing so skorry these days and everybody 
very 



quick to forget, newspapers not being read much 
neither. 

Well, what they sold there was milk plus something 
else. They 

had no license for selling liquor, but there was no law 
yet 

against prodding some of the new veshches which 
they used 

to put into the old moloko, so you could peet it with 
vel- 

locet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other 
vesh¬ 
ches which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow 
fifteen 

minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels and 
Saints in 

your left shoe with lights bursting all over your 
mozg. Or you 

could peet milk with knives in it, as we used to say, 
and this 

would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit 
of dirty 

twenty-to-one, and that was what we were peeting 
this even¬ 


ing I'm starting off the story with. 



Our pockets were full of deng, so there was no real 
need 

from the point of view of crasting any more pretty 
polly to 

tolchock some old veck in an alley and viddy him 
swim in his 

blood while we counted the takings and divided by 
four, nor 

to do the ultra-violent on some shivering starry grey¬ 
haired 

ptitsa in a shop and go smecking off with the till's 
guts. But, as 

they say, money isn't everything. 

The four of us were dressed in the height of fashion, 

which in those days was a pair of black very tight 
tights with 

the old jelly mould, as we called it, fitting on the 
crotch 

underneath the tights, this being to protect and also 
a sort of 

a design you could viddy clear enough in a certain 
light, so 

that I had one in the shape of a spider, Pete had a 
rooker (a 



hand, that is), Georgia had a very fancy one of a 
flower, and 

poor old Dim had a very hound-and-horny one of a 
clown's 

litso (face, that is). Dim not ever having much of an 
idea of 

things and being, beyond all shadow of a doubting 
thomas, 

the dimmest of we four. Then we wore waisty 
jackets without 

lapels but with these very big built-up shoulders 
Cpletchoes' 

we called them) which were a kind of a mockery of 
having real 

shoulders like that. Then, my brothers, we had 
these off-white 

cravats which looked like whipped-up kartoffel or 
spud with a 

sort of a design made on it with a fork. We wore our 
hair not 

too long and we had flip horrorshow boots for 
kicking. 

"What's it going to be then, eh?" 

There were three devotchkas sitting at the counter 
all 



together, but there were four of us malchicks and it 
was 

usually like one for all and all for one. These sharps 
were 

dressed in the heighth of fashion too, with purple 
and green 

and orange wigs on their gullivers, each one not 
costing less 

than three or four weeks of those sharps' wages, I 
should 

reckon, and make-up to match (rainbows round the 
glazzies, 

that is, and the rot painted very wide). Then they 
had long 

black very straight dresses, and on the groody part 
of them 

they had little badges of like silver with different 
malchicks' 

names on them - Joe and Mike and suchlike. These 
were sup¬ 
posed to be the names of the different malchicks 
they'd 

spatted with before they were fourteen. They kept 
looking 

our way and I nearly felt like saying the three of us 
(out of the 



corner of my rot, that is) should go off for a bit of pol 
and 

leave poor old Dim behind, because it would be just 
a matter 

of kupetting Dim a demi-litre of white but this time 
with a 

dollop of synthemesc in it, but that wouldn't really 
have been 

playing like the game. Dim was very very ugly and 
like his 

name, but he was a horrorshow filthy fighter and 
very handy 

with the boot. 

"What's it going to be then, eh?" 

The chelloveck sitting next to me, there being this 
long big 

plushy seat that ran round three walls, was well 
away with his 

glazzies glazed and sort of burbling slovos like 
"Aristotle 

wishy washy works outing cyclamen get forficulate 
smartish". 

He was in the land all right, well away, in orbit, and I 
knew 



what it was like, having tried it like everybody else 
had done, 

but at this time I'd got to thinking it was a cowardly 
sort of a 

veshch, O my brothers. You'd lay there after you'd 
drunk the 

old moloko and then you got the messel that 
everything all 

round you was sort of in the past. You could viddy it 
all right, 

all of it, very clear - tables, the stereo, the lights, 
the sharps 

and the malchicks - but it was like some veshch that 
used to 

be there but was not there not no more. And you 
were sort of 

hypnotized by your boot or shoe or a finger-nail as it 
might 

be, and at the same time you were sort of picked up 
by the old 

scruff and shook like you might be a cat. You got 
shook and 

shook till there was nothing left. You lost your name 
and 

your body and your self and you just didn't care, and 
you 



waited until your boot or finger-nail got yellow, then 


yellower and yellower all the time. Then the lights 
started 

cracking like atomics and the boot or finger-nail or, 
as it 

might be, a bit of dirt on your trouser-bottom turned 
into a 

big big big mesto, bigger than the whole world, and 
you were 

just going to get introduced to old Bog or God when 
it was 

all over. You came back to here and now whimpering 
sort of, 

with your rot all squaring up for a boohoohoo. Now 
that's 

very nice but very cowardly. You were not put on 
this earth 

just to get in touch with God. That sort of thing 
could sap all 

the strength and the goodness out of a chelloveck. 

"What's it going to be then, eh?" 

The stereo was on and you got the idea that the 
singer's 

goloss was moving from one part of the bar to 
another. 



flying up to the ceiling and then swooping down 
again and 

whizzing from wall to wall. It was Berti Laski rasping 
a real 

starry oldie called 'You Blister My Paint'. One of the 
three 

ptitsas at the counter, the one with the green wig, 
kept push¬ 
ing her belly out and pulling it in in time to what 
they called 

the music. I could feel the knives in the old moloko 
starting 

to prick, and now I was ready for a bit of twenty-to- 
one. So I 

yelped: "Out out out out!" like a doggie, and then I 
cracked 

this veck who was sitting next to me and well away 
and 

burbling a horrorshow crack on the ooko or earhole, 
but he 

didn't feel it and went on with his "Telephonic 
hardware and 

when the farfarculule gets rubadubdub". He'd feel it 
all right 


when he came to, out of the land. 



"Where out?" said Georgie. 


"Oh, just to keep walking," I said, "and viddy what 
turns up, 

O my little brothers." 

So we scatted out into the big winter nochy and 
walked 

down Marghanita Boulevard and then turned into 
Boothby 

Avenue, and there we found what we were pretty 
well looking 

for, a malenky jest to start off the evening with. 
There was a 

doddery starry schoolmaster type veck, glasses on 
and his rot 

open to the cold nochy air. He had books under his 
arm and a 

crappy umbrella and was coming round the corner 
from the 

Public Biblio, which not many lewdies used these 
days. You 

never really saw many of the older bourgeois type 
out after 

nightfall those days, what with the shortage of 
police and we 



fine young malchickiwicks about, and this prof type 
chello- 

veck was the only one walking in the whole of the 
street. So 

we goolied up to him, very polite, and I said: "Pardon 
me, 

brother." 

He looked a malenky bit poogly when he viddied the 
four 

of us like that, coming up so quiet and polite and 
smiling, but 

he said: "Yes? What is it?" in a very loud teacher- 
type goloss, 

as if he was trying to show us he wasn't poogly. I 
said: 

"I see you have books under your arm, brother. It is 
indeed 

a rare pleasure these days to come across somebody 
that still 

reads, brother." 

"Oh," he said, all shaky. "Is it? Oh, I see." And he 
kept look¬ 
ing from one to the other of we four, finding himself 
now like 


in the middle of a very smiling and polite square. 



"Yes," I said. "It would interest me greatly, brother, 
if you 

would kindly allow me to see what books those are 
that you 

have under your arm. I like nothing better in this 
world than a 

good clean book, brother." 

"Clean," he said. "Clean, eh?" And then Pete 
skvatted these 

three books from him and handed them round real 
skorry. 

Being three, we all had one each to viddy at except 
for Dim. 

The one I had was called 'Elementary 
Crystallography', so I 

opened it up and said: "Excellent, really first-class," 
keeping 

turning the pages. Then I said in a very shocked 
type goloss: 

"But what is this here? What is this filthy slovo? I 
blush to 

look at this word. You disappoint me, brother, you 
do 

really." 

"But," he tried, "but, but." 



"Now," said Georgie, "here is what I should call real 
dirt. 

There's one slovo beginning with an f and another 
with a c." 

He had a book called 'The Miracle of the Snowflake.' 

"Oh," said poor old Dim, smotting over Pete's 
shoulder and 

going too far, like he always did, "it says here what 
he done to 

her, and there's a picture and all. Why," he said, 
"you're 

nothing but a filthy-minded old skitebird." 

"An old man of your age, brother," I said, and I 
started to 

rip up the book I'd got, and the others did the same 
with the 

ones they had. Dim and Pete doing a tug-of-war with 
'The 

Rhombohedral System'. The starry prof type began 
to creech: 

"But those are not mine, those are the property of 
the mu¬ 


nicipality, this is sheer wantonness and vandal 
work," or some 



such slovos. And he tried to sort of wrest the books 
back off 

of us, which was like pathetic. "You deserve to be 
taught a 

lesson, brother," I said, "that you do." This crystal 
book I had 

was very tough-bound and hard to razrez to bits, 
being real 

starry and made in days when things were made to 
last like, 

but I managed to rip the pages up and chuck them in 
handfuls 

of like snowflakes, though big, all over this creeching 
old 

veck, and then the others did the same with theirs, 
old Dim 

just dancing about like the clown he was. "There you 
are," said 

Pete. "There's the mackerel of the cornflake for you, 
you dirty 

reader of filth and nastiness." 

"You naughty old veck, you," I said, and then we 
began to 

filly about with him. Pete held his rookers and 
Georgia sort 



of hooked his rot wide open for him and Dim yanked 
out his 

false zoobies, upper and lower. He threw these 
down on the 

pavement and then I treated them to the old boot- 
crush, 

though they were hard bastards like, being made of 
some new 

horrorshow plastic stuff. The old veck began to 
make sort of 

chumbling shooms - "wuf waf wof" - so Georgia let go 
of 

holding his goobers apart and just let him have one 
in the 

toothless rot with his ringy fist, and that made the 
old veck 

start moaning a lot then, then out comes the blood, 
my 

brothers, real beautiful. So all we did then was to 
pull his 

outer platties off, stripping him down to his vest and 
long 

underpants (very starry; Dim smecked his head off 
near), and 

then Pete kicks him lovely in his pot, and we let him 
go. He 



went sort of staggering off, it not having been too 
hard of a 

tolchock really, going "Oh oh oh", not knowing where 
or 

what was what really, and we had a snigger at him 
and then 

riffled through his pockets. Dim dancing round with 
his 

crappy umbrella meanwhile, but there wasn't much 
in them. 

There were a few starry letters, some of them dating 
right 

back to 1960 with "My dearest dearest" in them and 
all that 

chepooka, and a keyring and a starry leaky pen. Old 
Dim gave 

up his umbrella dance and of course had to start 
reading one 

of the letters out loud, like to show the empty street 
he could 

read. "My darling one," he recited, in this very high 
type 

goloss, "I shall be thinking of you while you are away 
and 

hope you will remember to wrap up warm when you 
go out 



at night." Then he let out a very shoomny smeck - 
"Ho ho ho" 

- pretending to start wiping his yahma with it. "All 
right," I 

said. "Let it go, O my brothers." In the trousers of 
this starry 

veck there was only a malenky bit of cutter (money, 
that is) - 

not more than three gollies - so we gave all his 
messy little 

coin the scatter treatment, it being hen-korm to the 
amount 

of pretty polly we had on us already. Then we 
smashed the 

umbrella and razrezzed his platties and gave them 
to the 

blowing winds, my brothers, and then we'd finished 
with the 

starry teacher type veck. We hadn't done much, I 
know, but 

that was only like the start of the evening and I 
make no appy 

polly loggies to thee or thine for that. The knives in 
the milk 


plus were stabbing away nice and horrorshow now. 



The next thing was to do the sammy act, which was 
one 

way to unload some of our cutter so we'd have more 
of an 

incentive like for some shop-crasting, as well as it 
being a way 

of buying an alibi in advance, so we went into the 
Duke of 

New York on Amis Avenue and sure enough in the 
snug there 

were three or four old baboochkas peeting their 
black and 

suds on SA (State Aid). Now we were the very good 
mal- 

chicks, smiling good evensong to one and all, though 
these 

wrinkled old lighters started to get all shook, their 
veiny old 

rookers all trembling round their glasses, and 
making the suds 

spill on the table. "Leave us be, lads," said one of 
them, her 

face all mappy with being a thousand years old, 
"we're only 

poor old women." But we just made with the 
zoobies, flash 



flash flash, sat down, rang the bell, and waited for 
the boy to 

come. When he came, all nervous and rubbing his 
rookers on 

his grazzy apron, we ordered us four veterans > a 
veteran 

being rum and cherry brandy mixed, which was 
popular just 

then, some liking a dash of lime in it, that being the 
Canadian 

variation. Then I said to the boy: 

"Give these poor old baboochkas over there a 
nourishing 

something. Large Scotchmen all round and 
something to take 

away." And I poured my pocket of deng all over the 
table, and 

the other three did likewise, O my brothers. So 
double 

firegolds were bought in for the scared starry 
lighters, and 

they knew not what to do or say. One of them got 
out 

"Thanks, lads," but you could see they thought there 
was 



something dirty like coming. Anyway, they were 
each given a 

bottle of Yank General, cognac that is, to take away, 
and I 

gave money for them to be delivered each a dozen 
of black 

and suds that following morning, they to leave their 
stinking 

old cheenas' addresses at the counter. Then with 
the cutter 

that was left over we did purchase, my brothers, all 
the meat 

pies, pretzels, cheese-snacks, crisps and chocbars in 
that 

mesto, and those too were for the old sharps. Then 
we said: 

"Back in a minoota," and the old ptitsas were still 
saying: 

"Thanks, lads," and "God bless you, boys," and we 
were going 

out without one cent of cutter in our carmans. 

"Makes you feel real dobby, that does," said Pete. 
You could 

viddy that poor old Dim the dim didn't quite pony all 
that. 



but he said nothing for fear of being called gloopy 
and a 

domeless wonderboy. Well, we went off now round 
the 

corner to Attlee Avenue, and there was this sweets 
and cancers 

shop still open. We'd left them alone near three 
months now 

and the whole district had been very quiet on the 
whole, so 

the armed millicents or rozz patrols weren't round 
there 

much, being more north of the river these days. We 
put our 

maskies on - new jobs these were, real horrorshow, 
wonder¬ 
fully done really; they were like faces of historical 
per¬ 
sonalities (they gave you the names when you 
bought) and I 

had Disraeli, Pete had Elvis Presley, Georgie had 
Henry VIII 

and poor old Dim had a poet veck called Peebee 
Shelley; they 


were a real like disguise, hair and all, and they were 
some very 



special plastic veshch so you could roll it up when 
you'd done 

with it and hide it in your boot - then three of us 
went in. 

Pete keeping chasso without, not that there was 
anything to 

worry about out there. As soon as we launched on 
the shop 

we went for Slouse who ran it, a big portwine jelly of 
a veck 

who viddied at once what was coming and made 
straight for 

the inside where the telephone was and perhaps his 
well-oiled 

pooshka, complete with six dirty rounds. Dim was 
round that 

counter skorry as a bird, sending packets of snoutie 
flying and 

cracking over a big cut-out showing a sharp with all 
her 

zoobies going flash at the customers and her 
groodies near 

hanging out to advertise some new brand of 
cancers. What 

you could viddy then was a sort of a big ball rolling 
into the 



inside of the shop behind the curtain, this being old 
Dim and 

Slouse sort of locked in a death struggle. Then you 
could 

slooshy panting and snoring and kicking behind the 
curtain 

and veshches falling over and swearing and then 
glass going 

smash smash smash. Mother Slouse, the wife, was 
sort of 

froze behind the counter. We could tell she would 
creech 

murder given one chance, so I was round that 
counter very 

skorry and had a hold of her, and a horrorshow big 
lump she 

was too, all nuking of scent and with flipflop big 
bobbing 

groodies on her. I'd got my rooker round her rot to 
stop her 

belting out death and destruction to the four winds 
of 

heaven, but this lady doggie gave me a large foul big 
bite on it 

and it was me that did the creeching, and then she 
opened up 



beautiful with a flip yell for the millicents. Well, 
then she had 

to be tolchocked proper with one of the weights for 
the 

scales, and then a fair tap with a crowbar they had 
for opening 

cases, and that brought the red out like an old 
friend. So we 

had her down on the floor and a rip of her platties 
for fun and 

a gentle bit of the boot to stop her moaning. And, 
viddying 

her lying there with her groodies on show, I 
wondered should 

I or not, but that was for later on in the evening. 
Then we 

cleaned the till, and there was flip horrorshow 
takings that 

nochy, and we had a few packs of the very best top 
cancers 

apiece, then off we went, my brothers. 

"A real big heavy great bastard he was," Dim kept 
saying. I 

didn't like the look of Dim: he looked dirty and 
untidy, like a 



veck who'd been in a fight, which he had been, of 
course, but 

you should never look as though you have been. His 
cravat 

was like someone had trampled on it, his maskie had 
been 

pulled off and he had floor-dirt on his litso, so we got 
him in 

an alleyway and tidied him up a malenky bit, soaking 
our 

tashtooks in spit to cheest the dirt off. The things 
we did for 

old Dim. We were back in the Duke of New York very 
skorry 

and I reckoned by my watch we hadn't been more 
than ten 

minutes away. The starry old baboochkas were still 
there on 

the black and suds and Scotchmen we'd bought 
them, and we 

said: "Hallo there, girlies, what's it going to be?" 
They started 

on the old "Very kind, lads, God bless you, boys," and 
so we 

rang the collocol and brought a different waiter in 
this time 



and we ordered beers with rum in, being sore 
athirst, my 

brothers, and whatever the old ptitsas wanted. 

Then I said to 

the old baboochkas: "We haven't been out of here, 
have we? 

Been here all the time, haven't we?" They all caught 
on real 

skorry and said: 

"That's right, lads. Not been out of our sight, you 
haven't. 

God bless you, boys," drinking. 

Not that it mattered much, really. About half an 
hour went 

by before there was any sign of life among the 
millicents, and 

then it was only two very young rozzes that came in, 
very 

pink under their big copper's shlemmies. One said: 

"You lot know anything about the happenings at 
Slouse's 

shop this night?" 

"Us?" I said, innocent. "Why, what happened?" 



"Stealing and roughing. Two hospitalizations. 
Where've 

you lot been this evening?" 

"I don't go for that nasty tone," I said. "I don't care 
much 

for these nasty insinuations. A very suspicious 
nature all this 

betokeneth, my little brothers." 

"They've been in here all night, lads," the old sharps 
started 

to creech out. "God bless them, there's no better lot 
of boys 

living for kindness and generosity. Been here all the 
time they 

have. Not seen them move we haven't." 

"We're only asking," said the other young millicent. 
"We've 

got our job to do like anyone else." But they gave us 
the nasty 

warning look before they went out. As they were 
going out 

we handed them a bit of lip-music: brrrrzzzzrrrr. But, 
myself, I 

couldn't help a bit of disappointment at things as 
they were 



those days. Nothing to fight against really. 
Everything as easy 

as kiss-my-sharries. Still, the night was still very 
young. 


2 


When we got outside of the Duke of New York we 
viddied by 

the main bar's long lighted window, a burbling old 
pyahnitsa 

or drunkie, howling away at the filthy songs of his 
fathers and 

going blerp blerp in between as though it might be a 
filthy old 

orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. One veshch I 
could never 

stand was that. I could never stand to see a moodge 
all filthy 

and rolling and burping and drunk, whatever his age 
might be, 

but more especially when he was real starry like this 
one was. 



He was sort of flattened to the wall and his platties 
were a 

disgrace, all creased and untidy and covered in cal 
and mud 

and filth and stuff. So we got hold of him and 
cracked him 

with a few good horrorshow tolchocks, but he still 
went on 

singing. The song went: 


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


But when Dim fisted him a few times on his filthy 
drunkard's 

rot he shut up singing and started to creech: "Go on, 
do me in, 

you bastard cowards, I don't want to live anyway, 
not in a 

stinking world like this one." I told Dim to lay off a 
bit then. 


because it used to interest me sometimes to slooshy 
what 



some of these starry decreps had to say about life 
and the 

world. I said: "Oh. And what's stinking about it?" 

He cried out: "It's a stinking world because it lets the 
young 

get on to the old like you done, and there's no law 
nor order 

no more." He was creeching out loud and waving his 
rookers 

and making real horrorshow with the slovos, only the 
odd 

blurp blurp coming from his keeshkas, like something 
was 

orbiting within, or like some very rude interrupting 
sort of a 

moodge making a shoom, so that this old veck kept 
sort of 

threatening it with his fists, shouting: "It's no world 
for any 

old man any longer, and that means that I'm not one 
bit 

scared of you, my boyos, because I'm too drunk to 
feel the 


pain if you hit me, and if you kill me I'll be glad to be 
dead." 



We smecked and then grinned but said nothing, and 
then he 


said: "What sort of a world is it at all? Men on the 
moon and 

men spinning round the earth like it might be midges 
round a 

lamp, and there's not more attention paid to earthly 
law nor 

order no more. So your worst you may do, you filthy 
cow¬ 
ardly hooligans." Then he gave us some lip-music - 

"Prrrrzzzzrrrr" - like we'd done to those young 
millicents, and 

then he started singing again: 

Oh dear dear land, I fought for thee 
And brought thee peace and victory - 


So we cracked into him lovely, grinning all over our 
litsos, 

but he still went on singing. Then we tripped him so 
he laid 

down flat and heavy and a bucketload of beer-vomit 
came 



whooshing out. That was disgusting so we gave him 
the boot, 

one go each, and then it was blood, not song nor 
vomit, that 

came out of his filthy old rot. Then we went on our 
way. 

It was round by the Municipal Power Plant that we 
came 

across Billyboy and his five droogs. Now in those 
days, my 

brothers, the teaming up was mostly by fours or 
fives, these 

being like auto-teams, four being a comfy number 
for an 

auto, and six being the outside limit for gang-size. 
Sometimes 

gangs would gang up so as to make like malenky 
armies for 

big night-war, but mostly it was best to roam in 
these like 

small numbers. Billyboy was something that made 
me want to 

sick just to viddy his fat grinning litso, and he always 
had this 

von of very stale oil that's been used for frying over 
and over. 



even when he was dressed in his best platties, like 
now. They 

viddied us just as we viddied them, and there was 
like a very 

quit kind of watching each other now. This would be 
real, 

this would be proper, this would be the nozh, the 
oozy, the 

britva, not just fisties and boots. Billyboy and his 
droogs 

stopped what they were doing, which was just 
getting ready 

to perform something on a weepy young devotchka 
they had 

there, not more than ten, she creeching away but 
with her 

platties still on. Billyboy holding her by one rooker 
and his 

number-one, Leo, holding the other. They'd probably 
just 

been doing the dirty slovo part of the act before 
getting down 

to a malenky bit of ultra-violence. When they 
viddied us a- 

coming they let go of this boo-hooing little ptitsa, 
there 



being plenty more where she came from, and she ran 
with her 

thin white legs flashing through the dark, still going 
"Oh oh 

oh". I said, smiling very wide and droogie: "Well, if it 
isn't fat 

stinking billygoat Billyboy in poison. How art thou, 
thou 

globby bottle of cheap stinking chip-oil? Come and 
get one in 

the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunuch 
jelly, thou." 

And then we started. 

There were four of us to six of them, like I have 
already 

indicated, but poor old Dim, for all his dimness, was 
worth 

three of the others in sheer madness and dirty 
fighting. Dim 

had a real horrorshow length of oozy or chain round 
his 

waist, twice wound round, and he unwound this and 
began to 

swing it beautiful in the eyes or glazzies. Pete and 
Georgia had 



good sharp nozhes, but I for my own part had a fine 
starry 

horrorshow cut-throat britva which, at that time, I 
could flash 

and shine artistic. So there we were dratsing away 
in the dark, 

the old Luna with men on it just coming up, the stars 
stabbing 

away as it might be knives anxious to join in the 
dratsing. 

With my britva I managed to slit right down the front 
of one 

of Billyboy's droog's platties, very very neat and not 
even 

touching the plott under the cloth. Then in the 
dratsing this 

droog of Billyboy's suddenly found himself all opened 
up like 

a peapod, with his belly bare and his poor old 
yarbles show¬ 
ing, and then he got very razdraz, waving and 
screaming 

and losing his guard and letting in old Dim with his 
chain 

snaking whisssssshhhhhhhhh, so that old Dim 
chained him 



right in the glazzies, and this droog of Billyboy's 
went totter¬ 
ing off and howling his heart out. We were doing 
very hor- 

rorshow, and soon we had Billyboy's number-one 
down 

underfoot, blinded with old Dim's chain and crawling 
and 

howling about like an animal, but with one fair boot 
on the 

gulliver he was out and out and out. 

Of the four of us Dim, as usual, came out the worst 
in point 

of looks, that is to say his litso was all bloodied and 
his 

platties a dirty mess, but the others of us were still 
cool and 

whole. It was stinking fatty Billyboy I wanted now, 
and there I 

was dancing about with my britva like I might be a 
barber on 

board a ship on a very rough sea, trying to get in at 
him with a 

few fair slashes on his unclean oily litso. Billyboy 
had a nozh. 



a long flick-type, but he was a malenky bit too slow 
and heavy 

in his movements to vred anyone really bad. And, 
my 

brothers, it was real satisfaction to me to waltz - left 
two 

three, right two three - and carve left cheeky and 
right cheeky, 

so that like two curtains of blood seemed to pour out 
at the 

same time, one on either side of his fat filthy oily 
snout in the 

winter starlight. Down this blood poured in like red 
curtains, 

but you could viddy Billyboy felt not a thing, and he 
went 

lumbering on like a filthy fatty bear, poking at me 
with his 

nozh. 

Then we slooshied the sirens and knew the millicents 
were 

coming with pooshkas pushing out of the police- 
auto- 

windows at the ready. That weepy little devotchka 
had told 



them, no doubt, there being a box for calling the 
rozzes not 


too far behind the Muni Power Plant. "Get you soon, 
fear 

not," I called, "stinking billygoat. I'll have your 
yarbles off 

lovely." Then off they ran, slow and panting, except 
for 

Number One Leo out snoring on the ground, away 
north 

towards the river, and we went the other way. Just 
round the 

next turning was an alley, dark and empty and open 
at both 

ends, and we rested there, panting fast then slower, 
then 

breathing like normal. It was like resting between 
the feet of 

two terrific and very enormous mountains, these 
being the 

flatblocks, and in the windows of all the flats you 
could 

viddy like blue dancing light. This would be the 
telly. Tonight 

was what thy called a worldcast, meaning that the 
same pro- 



gramme was being viddied by everybody in the world 
that 

wanted to, that being mostly the middle-aged 
middle-class 

lewdies. There would be some big famous stupid 
comic 

chelloveck or black singer, and it was all being 
bounced off 

the special telly satellites in outer space, my 
brothers. We 

waited panting, and we could slooshy the sirening 
millicents 

going east, so we knew we were all right now. But 
poor old 

Dim kept looking up at the stars and planets and the 
Luna 

with his rot wide open like a kid who'd never viddied 
any such 

things before, and he said: 

"What's on them, I wonder. What would be up there 
on 

things like that?" 

I nudged him hard, saying: "Come, gloopy bastard as 
thou 



art. Think thou not on them. There'll be life like 
down here 

most likely, with some getting knifed and others 
doing the 

knifing. And now, with the nochy still molodoy, let us 
be on 

our way, O my brothers." The others smecked at 
this, but 

poor old Dim looked at me serious, then up again at 
the stars 

and the Luna. So we went on our way down the 
alley, with the 

worldcast blueing on on either side. What we 
needed now was 

an auto, so we turned left coming out of the alley, 
knowing 

right away we were in Priestly Place as soon as we 
viddied the 

big bronze statue of some starry poet with an apey 
upper lip 

and a pipe stuck in a droopy old rot. Going north we 
came to 

the filthy old Filmdrome, peeling and dropping to 
bits 

through nobody going there much except malchicks 
like me 



and my droogs, and then only for a yell or a razrez or 
a bit of 

in-out-in-out in the dark. We could viddy from the 
poster on 

the Filmdrome's face, a couple of fly-dirtied spots 
trained on 

it, that there was the usual cowboy riot, with the 
archangels 

on the side of the US marshal six-shooting at the 
rustlers out 

of hell's fighting legions, the kind of hound-and- 
horny veshch 

put out by Statefilm in those days. The autos parked 
by the 

sinny weren't all that horrorshow, crappy starry 
veshches 

most of them, but there was a newish Durango 95 
that I 

thought might do. Georgia had one of these 
polyclefs, as they 

called them, on his keyring, so we were soon aboard 
- Dim 


and Pete at the back, puffing away lordly at their 
cancers - and 


I turned on the ignition and started her up and she 
grumbled 



away real horrorshow, a nice warm vibraty feeling 
grumbling 

all through your guttiwuts. Then I made with the 
noga, 

and we backed out lovely, and nobody viddied us 
take off. 

We fillied round what was called the backtown for a 
bit, 

scaring old vecks and cheenas that were crossing 
the roads 

and zigzagging after cats and that. Then we took 
the road 

west. There wasn't much traffic about, so I kept 
pushing the 

old noga through the floorboards near, and the 
Durango 95 

ate up the road like spaghetti. Soon it was winter 
trees and 

dark, my brothers, with a country dark, and at one 
place I ran 

over something big with a snarling toothy rot in the 
head¬ 
lamps, then it screamed and squelched under and 
old Dim at 

the back near laughed his gulliver off - "Ho ho ho" - 
at that. 



Then we saw one young malchick with his sharp, 
lubbilubbing 

under a tree, so we stopped and cheered at them, 
then we 

bashed into them both with a couple of half-hearted 
tol- 

chocks, making them cry, and on we went. What we 
were after 

now was the old surprise visit. That was a real kick 
and good 

for smecks and lashings of the ultra-violent. We 
came at last 

to a sort of village, and just outside this village was 
a small 

sort of a cottage on its own with a bit of garden. 

The Luna 

was well up now, and we could viddy this cottage 
fine and clear 

as I eased up and put the brake on, the other three 
giggling like 

bezoomny, and we could viddy the name on the gate 
of this 

cottage veshch was HOME, a gloomy sort of a name. 
I got out 

of the auto, ordering my droogs to shush their 
giggles and act 



like serious, and I opened this malenky gate and 
walked up to 

the front door. I knocked nice and gentle and nobody 
came, 

so I knocked a bit more and this time I could slooshy 
some¬ 
body coming, then a bolt drawn, then the door 
inched open 

an inch or so, then I could viddy this one glazz 
looking out 

at me and the door was on a chain. "Yes? Who is 
it?" It 

was a sharp's goloss, a youngish devotchka by her 
sound,so 

I said in a very refined manner of speech, a real 
gentleman's 

goloss: 

"Pardon, madam, most sorry to disturb you, but my 
friend 

and me were out for a walk, and my friend has taken 
bad all of 

a sudden with a very troublesome turn, and he is out 
there on 

the road dead out and groaning. Would you have the 
good- 



ness to let me use your telephone to telephone for 
an am¬ 
bulance?" 

"We haven't a telephone," said this devotchka. "I'm 
sorry, 

but we haven't. You'll have to go somewhere else." 
From 

inside this malenky cottage I could slooshy the clack 
clack 

clacky clack clack clackity clackclack of some veck 
typing 

away, and then the typing stopped and there was 
this 

chelloveck's goloss calling: "What is it, dear?" 

"Well," I said, "could you of your goodness please let 
him 

have a cup of water? It's like a faint, you see. It 
seems as 

though he's passed out in a sort of a fainting fit." 

The devotchka sort of hesitated and then said: 
"Wait." Then 

she went off, and my three droogs had got out of the 
auto 

quiet and crept up horrorshow stealthy, putting their 
maskies 



on now, then I put mine on, then it was only a matter 
of me 

putting in the old rooker and undoing the chain, me 
having 

softened up this devotchka with my gent's goloss, so 
that she 

hadn't shut the door like she should have done, us 
being 

strangers of the night. The four of us then went 
roaring in, 

old Dim playing the shoot as usual with his jumping 
up and 

down and singing out dirty slovos, and it was a nice 
malenky 

cottage. I'll say that. We all went smecking into the 
room 

with a light on, and there was this devotchka sort of 
cower¬ 
ing, a young pretty bit of sharp with real horrorshow 

groodies on her, and with her was this chelloveck 
who was 

her moodge, youngish too with horn-rimmed 
otchkies on 

him, and on a table was a typewriter and all papers 
scattered 



everywhere, but there was one little pile of paper 
like that 

must have been what he'd already typed, so here 
was another 

intelligent type bookman type like that we'd fillied 
with some 

hours back, but this one was a writer not a reader. 
Anyway, he 

said: 

"What is this? Who are you? How dare you enter my 
house 

without permission." And all the time his goloss was 
trem¬ 
bling and his rookers too. So I said: 

"Never fear. If fear thou hast in thy heart, O brother, 
pray 

banish it forthwith." Then Georgie and Pete went 
out to find 

the kitchen, while old Dim waited for orders, 
standing next to 

me with his rot wide open. "What is this, then?" I 
said, picking 

up the pile like of typing from off of the table, and 
the horn¬ 
rimmed moodge said, dithering: 



"That's just what I want to know. What is this? What 
do 

you want? Get out at once before I throw you out." 
So poor 

old Dim, masked like Peebee Shelley, had a good 
loud smeck 

at that, roaring like some animal. 

"It's a book," I said. "It's a book what you are 
writing." I 

made the old goloss very coarse. "I have always had 
the strong¬ 
est admiration for them as can write books." Then I 
looked 

at its top sheet, and there was the name - A CLOG 
K W O R K 

ORANGE- and I said: "That's a fair gloopy title. 
Who ever 

heard of a clockwork orange?" Then I read a 
malenky bit out 

loud in a sort of very high type preaching goloss: " - 
The 

attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth 
and 


capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last 
round the 



bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, 
laws and 

conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, 
against this 

I raise my sword-pen - " Dim made the old lip-music 
at that and 

I had to smeck myself. Then I started to tear up the 
sheets and 

scatter the bits over the floor, and this writer 
moodge went 

sort of bezoomny and made for me with his zoobies 
clenched 

and showing yellow and his nails ready for me like 
claws. So 

that was old Dim's cue and he went grinning and 
going er er 

and a a a for this veck's dithering rot, crack crack, 
first left 

fistie then right, so that our dear old droog the red - 
red vino 

on tap and the same in all places, like it's put out by 
the same 

big firm - started to pour and spot the nice clean 
carpet and 

the bits of this book that I was still ripping away at, 
razrez 



razrez. All this time this devotchka, his loving and 
faithful 

wife, just stood like froze by the fireplace, and then 
she 

started letting out little malenky creeches, like in 
time to the 

like music of old Dim's fisty work. Then Georgie and 
Pete 

came in from the kitchen, both munching away, 
though with 

their maskies on, you could do that with them on and 
no 

trouble. Georgie with like a cold leg of something in 
one 

rooker and half a loaf of kleb with a big dollop of 
maslo on it 

in the other, and Pete with a bottle of beer frothing 
its gulli- 

ver off and a horrorshow rookerful of like plum cake. 
They 

went haw haw haw, viddying old Dim dancing round 
and 

fisting the writer veck so that the writer veck 
started to platch 

like his life's work was ruined, going boo hoo hoo 
with a 



very square bloody rot, but it was haw haw haw in a 
muffled 


eater's way and you could see bits of what they were 
eating. I 

didn't like that, it being dirty and slobbery, so I said: 

"Drop that mounch. I gave no permission. Grab hold 
of this 

veck here so he can viddy all and not get away." So 
they put 

down their fatty pishcha on the table among all the 
flying 

paper and they clopped over to the writer veck 
whose horn¬ 
rimmed otchkies were cracked but still hanging on, 
with old 

Dim still dancing round and making ornaments shake 
on the 

mantelpiece (I swept them all off then and they 
couldn't shake 

no more, little brothers) while he fillied with the 
author of 'A 

Clockwork Orange', making his litso all purple and 
dripping 

away like some very special sort of a juicy fruit. "All 
right. 



Dim," I said. "Now for the other veshch, Bog help us 
all." So he 

did the strong-man on the devotchka, who was still 
creech 

creech creeching away in very horrorshow four-in-a- 
bar, 

locking her rookers from the back, while I ripped 
away at this 

and that and the other, the others going haw haw 
haw still, 

and real good horrorshow groodies they were that 
then exhi¬ 
bited their pink glazzies, O my brothers, while I 
untrussed and 

got ready for the plunge. Plunging, I could slooshy 
cries of 

agony and this writer bleeding veck that Georgia and 
Pete held 

on to nearly got loose howling bezoomny with the 
filthiest 

of slovos that I already knew and others he was 
making up. 

Then after me it was right old Dim should have his 
turn, which 

he did in a beasty snorty howly sort of a way with his 
Peebee 



Shelley maskie taking no notice, while I held on to 
her. Then 

there was a changeover. Dim and me grabbing the 
slobbering 

writer veck who was past struggling really, only just 
coming 

out with slack sort of slovos like he was in the land 
in a milk- 

plus bar, and Pete and Georgia had theirs. Then 
there was like 

quiet and we were full of like hate, so smashed what 
was left 

to be smashed - typewriter, lamp, chairs - and Dim, it 
was 

typical of old Dim, watered the fire out and was 
going to dung 

on the carpet, there being plenty of paper, but I said 
no. "Out 

out out out," I howled. The writer veck and his 
zheena were 

not really there, bloody and torn and making noises. 
But 

they'd live. 

So we got into the waiting auto and I left it to 
Georgie to 



take the wheel, me feeling that malenky bit 
shagged, and we 


went back to town, running over odd squealing 
things on the 

way. 


3 


We yeckated back townwards, my brothers, but just 
outside, 

not far from what they called the Industrial Canal, 
we viddied 

the fuel needle had like collapsed, like our own ha ha 
ha 

needles had, and the auto was coughing kashi kashi 
kashl. Not 

to worry overmuch, though, because a rail station 
kept 

flashing blue - on off on off - just near. The point was 

whether to leave the auto to be sobiratted by the 
rozzes or, 

us feeling like in a hate and murder mood, to give it 
a fair 



tolchock into the starry watersfor a nice heavy loud 
plesk 

before the death of the evening. This latter we 
decided on, so 

we got out and, the brakes off, all four tolchocked it 
to the 

edge of the filthy water that was like treacle mixed 
with 

human hole products, then one good horrorshow 
tolchock 

and in she went. We had to dash back for fear of the 
filth 

splashing on our platties, but splussshhhh and glolp 
she went, 

down and lovely. "Farewell, old droog," called 
Georgie, and 

Dim obliged with a downy great guff - "Huh huh huh 
huh." 

Then we made for the station to ride the one stop to 
Center, 

as the middle of the town was called. We paid our 
fares nice 

and polite and waited gentlemanly and quiet on the 
platform, 

old Dim fillying with the slot machines, his carmans 
being full 



of small malenky coin, and ready if need be to 
distribute 

chocbars to the poor and starving, though there was 
none 

such about, and then the old espresso rapido came 
lumbering 

in and we climbed aboard, the train looking to be 
near empty. 

To pass the three-minute ride we fillied about with 
what they 

called the upholstery, doing some nice horrorshow 
tearing- 

out of the seats' guts and old Dim chaining the okno 
till the 

glass cracked and sparkled in the winter air, but we 
were all 

feeling that bit shagged and fagged and fashed, it 
having been 

an evening of some small energy expenditure, my 
brothers, 

only Dim, like the downy animal he was, full of the 
joys-of, 

but looking all dirtied over and too much von of 
sweat on 


him, which was one thing I had against old Dim. 



We got out at Center and walked slow back to the 


Korova Milkbar, all going yawwwww a malenky bit 
and exhi¬ 
biting to moon and star and lamplight our back 
fillings, be¬ 
cause we were still only growing malchicks and had 
school in 

the daytime, and when we got into the Korova we 
found it 

fuller than when we'd left earlier on. But the 
chelloveck that 

had been burbling away, in the land, on white and 
synthemesc 

or whatever, was still on at it, going: "Urchins of 
deadcast in 

the way-ho-hay glill platonic time weatherborn." It 
was prob¬ 
able that this was his third or fourth lot that 
evening, for he 

had that pale inhuman look, like he'd become a 
'thing', and like 

his litso was really a piece of chalk carved. Really, if 
he wanted 

to spend so long in the land, he should have gone 
into one of 



the private cubies at the back and not stayed in the 
big mesto, 

because here some of the malchickies would filly 
about with 

him a malenky bit, though not too much because 
there were 

powerful bruiseboys hidden away in the old Korova 
who 

could stop any riot. Anyway, Dim squeezed in next 
to this 

veck and, with his big clown's yawp that showed his 
hanging 

grape, he stabbed this veck's foot with his own large 
filthy 

sabog. But the veck, my brothers, heard nought, 
being now all 

above the body. 

It was nadsats milking and coking and fillying around 

(nadsats were what we used to call the teens), but 
there were a 

few of the more starry ones, vecks and cheenas alike 
(but not 

of the bourgeois, never them) laughing and 
govoreeting at the 



bar. You could tell them from their barberings and 
loose platties 

(big stringy sweaters mostly) that they'd been on 
rehearsals at 

the TV studios around the corner. The devotchkas 
among them 

had these very lively litsos and wide big rots, very 
red, show¬ 
ing a lot of teeth, and smecking away and not caring 
about 

the wicked world one whit. And then the disc on the 
stereo 

twanged off and out (it was Johnny Zhivago, a Russky 

koshka, singing 'Only Every Other Day'), and in the 
like inter¬ 
val, the short silence before the next one came on, 
one of 

these devotchkas - very fair and with a big smiling 
red rot and 

in her late thirties I'd say - suddenly came with a 
burst of 

singing, only a bar and a half and as though she was 
like giving 

an example of something they'd all been govoreeting 
about. 



and it was like for a moment, O my brothers, some 
great bird 

had flown into the milkbar, and I felt all the little 
malenky 

hairs on my plott standing endwise and the shivers 
crawling 

up like slow malenky lizards and then down again. 
Because I 

knew what she sang. It was from an opera by 
Friedrich Gitter- 

fenster called 'Das Bettzeug', and it was the bit 
where she's 

snuffing it with her throat cut, and the slovos are 
'Better like 

this maybe'. Anyway, I shivered. 

But old Dim, as soon as he'd slooshied this dollop of 
song 

like a lomtick of redhot meat plonked on your plate, 
let off 

one of his vulgarities, which in this case was a lip- 
trump fol¬ 
lowed by a dog-howl followed by two fingers 
pronging twice 

at the air followed by a downy guffaw. I felt myself 
all of a 



fever and like drowning in redhot blood, slooshying 
and 

viddying Dim's vulgarity, and I said: "Bastard. Filthy 
drooling 

mannerless bastard." Then I leaned across Georgia, 
who was 

between me and horrible Dim, and fisted Dim skorry 
on the 

rot. Dim looked very surprised, his rot open, wiping 
the 

krovvy off of his goober with his rook and in turn 
looking 

surprised at the red flowing krovvy and at me. 

"What for did 

you do that for?" he said in his ignorant way. Not 
many 

viddied what I'd done, and those that viddied cared 
not. The 

stereo was on again and was playing a very sick 
electronic 

guitar veshch. I said: 

"For being a bastard with no manners and not the 
dook of 

an idea how to comport yourself publicwise, O my 


brother." 



Dim put on a hound-and-horny look of evil, saying: "I 

don't like you should do what you done then. And I'm 
not 

your brother no more and wouldn't want to be." He'd 
taken a 

big snotty tashtook from his pocket and was 
mopping the red 

flow puzzled, keeping on looking at it frowning as if 
he 

thought that blood was for other vecks and not for 
him. It 

was like he was singing blood to make up for his 
vulgarity 

when that devotchka was singing music. But that 
devotchka 

was smecking away ha ha ha now with her droogs at 
the bar, 

her red rot working and her zoobies ashine, not 
having no¬ 
ticed Dim's filthy vulgarity. It was me really Dim had 
done 

wrong to. I said: 

"if you don't like this and you wouldn't want that, 
then you 



know what to do, little brother." Georgie said, in a 
sharp way 

that made me look: 

"All right. Let's not be starting." 

"That's clean up to Dim," I said. "Dim can't go on all 
his 

jeezny being as a little child." And I looked sharp at 
Georgie. 

Dim said, and the red krovvy was easing its flow 
now: 

"What natural right does he have to think he can 
give the 

orders and tolchock me whenever he likes? Yarbles 
is what I 

say to him, and I'd chain his glazzies out as soon as 
look." 

"Watch that," I said, as quiet as I could with the 
stereo 

bouncing all over the walls and ceiling and the in- 
the-land 

veck beyond Dim getting loud now with his "Spark 
nearer, 

ultoptimate", I said: "Do watch that, O Dim, if to 
continue to 


be on live thou dost wish." 



"Yarbles," said Dim, sneering, "great bolshy 
yarblockos to 

you. What you done then you had no right. I'll meet 
you with 

chain or nozh or britva any time, not having you 
aiming tol- 

chocks at me reasonless, it stands to reason I won't 
have 

it." 

"A nozh scrap any time you say," I snarled back. 

Pete said: 

"Oh now, don't, both of you malchicks. Droogs, 
aren't we? 

It isn't right droogs should behave thiswise. See, 
there are 

some loose-lipped malchicks over there smecking at 
us, leer¬ 
ing like. We mustn't let ourselves down." 

"Dim," I said, "has got to learn his place. Right?" 

"Wait," said Georgia. "What is all this about place? 
This is the 

first I ever hear about lewdies learning their place." 

Pete said: "If the truth is known, Alex, you shouldn't 
have 



given old Dim that uncalled-for tolchock. I'll say it 
once and 

no more. I say it with all respect, but if it had been 
me you'd 

given it to you'd have to answer. I say no more." 
And he 

drowned his litso in his milk-glass. 

I could feel myself getting all razdraz inside, but I 
tried to 

cover it, saying calm: "There has to be a leader. 
Discipline 

there has to be. Right?" None of them skazatted a 
word or 

nodded even. I got more razdraz inside, calmer out. 
"I," I said, 

"have been in charge long now. We are all droogs, 
but some¬ 
body has to be in charge. Right? Right?" They all 
like nodded, 

wary like. Dim was osooshing the last of the krovvy 
off. It 

was Dim who said now: 

"Right, right. Doobidoob. A bit tired, maybe, 
everybody is. 



Best not to say more." I was surprised and just that 
malenky 

bit poogly to sloosh Dim govoreeting that wise. Dim 
said: 

"Bedways is rightways now, so best we go 
homeways. Right?" I 

was very surprised. The other two nodded, going 
right right 

right. I said: 

"You understand about that tolchock on the rot. Dim. 

It was the music, see. I get all bezoomny when any 
veck 

interferes with a ptitsa singing, as it might be. Like 
that 

then." 

"Best we go off homeways and get a bit of spatchka," 
said 

Dim. "A long night for growing malchicks. Right?" 
Right right 

nodded the other two. I said: 

"I think it best we go home now. Dim has made a 
real 

horrorshow suggestion. If we don't meet day-wise, O 
my 



brothers, well then - same time same place 
tomorrow?" 


"Oh yes," said Georgia. "I think that can be 
arranged." 

"I might," said Dim, "be just that malenky bit late. 

But same 

place and near same time tomorrow surely." He was 
still 

wiping at his goober, though no krovvy flowed any 
longer 

now. "And," he said, "it is to be hoped there won't 
be no more 

of them singing ptitsas in here." Then he gave his 
old Dim guff, 

a downy big hohohohoho. It seemed like he was too 
dim to 

take much offence. 

So off we went our several ways, me belching arrrrgh 
on 

the cold coke I'd peeted. I had my cut-throat britva 
handy in 

case any of Billyboy's droogs should be around near 
the flat- 

block waiting, or for that matter any of the other 
bandas or 



gruppas or shaikas that from time to time were at 
war with 

one. Where I lived was with my dadda and mum in 
the flats of 

Municipal Flatblock 18A, between Kingsley Avenue 
and Wil- 

sonsway. I got to the big main door with no trouble, 
though I 

did pass one young malchick sprawling and creeching 
and 

moaning in the gutter, all cut about lovely, and saw 
in the 

lamplight also streaks of blood here and there like 
signatures, 

my brothers, of the night's fillying. And too I saw 
just by 18A 

a pair of devotchka's neezhnies doubtless rudely 
wrenched off 

in the heat of the moment, O my brothers. And so 
in. In the 

hallway was the good old municipal painting on the 
walls - 

vecks and ptitsas very well developed, stern in the 
dignity of 

labour, at workbench and machine with not one 
stitch of 



platties on their well-developed plotts. But of 
course some of 

the malchicks living in 18A had, as was to be 
expected, em¬ 
bellished and decorated the said big painting with 
handy 

pencil and ballpoint, adding hair and stiff rods and 
dirty bal¬ 
looning slovos out of the dignified rots of these 
nagoy (bare, 

that is) cheenas and vecks. I went to the lift, but 
there was no 

need to press the electric knopka to see if it was 
working or 

not, because it had been tolchocked real horrorshow 
this 

night, the metal doors all buckled, some feat of rare 
strength 

indeed, so I had to walk the ten floors up. I cursed 
and panted 

climbing, being tired in plott if not so much in brain. 

I wanted 

music very bad this evening, that singing devotchka 
in the 

Korova having perhaps started me off. I wanted like 
a big feast 



of it before getting my passport stamped, my 
brothers, at 

sleep's frontier and the stripy shest lifted to let me 
through. 

I opened the door of 10-8 with my own little klootch, 
and 

inside our malenky quarters all was quiet, the pee 
and em both 

being in sleepland, and mum had laid out on the 
table on 

malenky bit of supper - a couple of lomticks of tinned 
sponge- 

meat with a shive or so of kleb and butter, a glass of 
the old 

cold moloko. Hohoho, the old moloko, with no knives 
or 

synthemesc or drencrom in it. How wicked, my 
brothers, 

innocent milk must always seem to me now. Still I 
drank and 

ate growling, being more hungry than I thought at 
first, and I 

got fruit-pie from the larder and tore chunks off it to 
stuff 

into my greedy rot. Then I tooth-cleaned and 
clicked, cleaning 



out the old rot with my yahzick or tongue, then I 
went into 

my own little room or den, easing off my platties as I 
did so. 

Here was my bed and my stereo, pride of my jeezny, 
and my 

discs in their cupboard, and banners and flags on the 
wall, 

these being like remembrances of my corrective 
school life 

since I was eleven, O my brothers, each one shining 
and blaz¬ 
oned with name or number: SOUTH 4; METRO COR- 
SKOL BLUE DIVISION; THE BOYS OF ALPHA. 

The little speakers of my stereo were all arranged 
round the 

room, on ceiling, walls, floor, so, lying on my bed 
slooshying 

the music, I was like netted and meshed in the 
orchestra. Now 

what I fancied first tonight was this new violin 
concerto by 

the American Geoffrey Plautus, played by Odysseus 
Choerilos 



with the Macon (Georgia) Philharmonic, so I slid it 
from 

where it was neatly filed and switched on and 
waited. 

Then, brothers, it came. Oh, bliss, bliss and heaven. 

I lay all 

nagoy to the ceiling, my gulliver on my rookers on 
the pillow, 

glazzies closed, rot open in bliss, slooshying the 
sluice of 

lovely sounds. Oh, it was gorgeousness and 
gorgeosity made 

flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my 
bed, and 

behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise 
silverflamed, and 

there by the door the timps rolling through my guts 
and out 

again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was 
wonder of 

wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun 
heavenmetal, or 

like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all 
nonsense 

now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, 
and 



those strings were like a cage of silk around my bed. 
Then flute 

and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the 
thick 

thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my 
brothers. 

Pee and em in their bedroom next door had learnt 
now not to 

knock on the wall with complaints of what they 
called noise. 

I had taught them. Now they would take sleep-pills. 
Perhaps, 

knowing the joy I had in my night music, they had 
already 

taken them. As I slooshied, my glazzies tight shut to 
shut in 

the bliss that was better than any synthemesc Bog 
or God, I 

knew such lovely pictures. There were vecks and 
ptitsas, both 

young and starry, lying on the ground screaming for 
mercy, 

and I was smecking all over my rot and grinding my 
boot in 

their litsos. And there were devotchkas ripped and 
creeching 



against walls and I plunging like a shlaga into them, 
and 

indeed when the music, which was one movement 
only, rose 

to the top of its big highest tower, then, lying there 
on my 

bed with glazzies tight shut and rookers behind my 
gulliver, I 

broke and spattered and cried aaaaaaah with the 
bliss of it. 

And so the lovely music glided to its glowing close. 

After that I had lovely Mozart, the Jupiter, and there 
were 

new pictures of different litsos to be ground and 
splashed, and 

it was after this that I thought I would have just one 
last disc 

only before crossing the border, and I wanted 
something 

starry and strong and very firm, so it was J. S. Bach I 
had, the 

Brandenburg Concerto just for middle and lower 
strings. And, 

slooshying with different bliss than before, I viddied 
again this 



name on the paper I'd razrezzed that night, a long 
time ago it 

seemed, in that cottage called HOME. The name was 
about a 

clockwork orange. Listening to the J. S. Bach, I 
began to pony 

better what that meant now, and I thought, 
slooshying away 

to the brown gorgeousness of the starry German 
master, that 

I would like to have tolchecked them both harder and 
ripped 

them to ribbons on their own floor. 


4 


The next morning I woke up at oh eight oh oh hours, 
my 

brothers, and as I still felt shagged and fagged and 
fashed and 


bashed and my glazzies were stuck together real 
horrorshow 



with sleepgiue, I thought I would not go to school. I 
thought 

how I would have a malenky bit longer in the bed, an 
hour or 

two say, and then get dressed nice and easy, 
perhaps even 

having a splosh about in the bath, make toast for 
myself and 

slooshy the radio or read the gazetta, all on my oddy 
knocky. 

And then in the afterlunch I might perhaps, if I still 
felt like it, 

itty off to the old skolliwoll and see what was 
vareeting in 

the great seat of gloopy useless learning, O my 
brothers. I 

heard my papapa grumbling and trampling and then 
ittying off 

to the dyeworks where he rabbited, and then my 
mum called 

in in a very respectful goloss as she did now I was 
growing up 

big and strong: 

"It's gone eight, son. You don't want to be late 
again." 



So I called back: "A bit of pain in my gulliver. Leave 
us be 

and I'll try to sleep it off and then I'll be right as 
dodgers for 

this after." I slooshied her give a sort of a sigh and 
she said: 

"I'll put your breakfast in the oven then, son. I've 
got to be 

off myself now." Which was true, there being this 
law for 

everybody not a child nor with child nor ill to go out 
rab¬ 
biting. My mum worked at one of the Statemarts, as 
they 

called them, filling up the shelves with tinned soup 
and beans 

and all that cal. So I slooshied her clank a plate in 
the gas- 

oven like and then she was putting her shoes on and 
then 

getting her coat from behind the door and then 
sighing again, 

then she said: "I'm off now, son." But I let on to be 
back in 

sleepland and then I did doze off real horrorshow, 
and I had a 



queer and very real like sneety, dreaming for some 
reason of 

my droog Georgia. In this sneety he'd got like very 
much 

older and very sharp and hard and was govoreeting 
about 

discipline and obedience and how all the malchicks 
under his 

control had to jump hard at it and throw up the old 
salute 

like being in the army, and there was me in line like 
the rest 

saying yes sir and no sir, and the I viddied clear that 
Georgia 

had these stars on his pletchoes and he was like a 
general. And 

then he brought in old Dim with a whip, and Dim was 
a lot 

more starry and grey and had a few zoobies missing 
as you 

could see when he let out a smack, viddying me, and 
then my 

droog Georgia said, pointing like at me: "That man 
has filth 

and cal all over his platties," and it was true. Then I 
creeched: 



"Don't hit, please don't, brothers," and started to 
run. And I 

was running in like circles and Dim was after me, 
smecking his 

gulliver off, cracking with the old whip, and each 
time I got a 

real horrorshow tolchock with this whip there was 
like a very 

loud electric bell ringringring, and this bell was like a 
sort 

of a pain too. 

Then I woke up real skorry, my heart going bap bap 
bap, 

and of course there was really a bell going brrrrr, 
and it was 

our front-door bell. I let on that nobody was at 
home, but 

this brrrrr still ittied on, and then I heard a goloss 
shouting 

through the door: "Come on then, get out of it, I 
know 

you're in bed." I recognized the goloss right away. It 
was the 

goloss of P. R. Deltoid (a real gloopy nazz, that one) 
what 



they called my Post-Corrective Adviser, an 
overworked veck 

with hundreds on his books. I shouted right right 
right, in a 

goloss of like pain, and I got out of bed and attired 
myself, O 

my brothers, in a very lovely over-gown of like silk, 
with 

designs of like great cities all over this over-gown. 
Then I put 

my nogas into very comfy wooly toofles, combed my 

luscious glory, and was ready for P. R. Deltoid. When 
I 

opened up he came shambling in looking shagged, a 
battered 

old shlapa on his gulliver, his raincoat filthy. "Ah, 
Alex boy," 

he said to me. "I met your mother, yes. She said 
something 

about a pain somewhere. Hence not at schol, yes." 

"A rather intolerable pain in the head, brother, sir," I 
said in 

my gentleman's goloss. "I think it should clear by 
this after¬ 


noon." 



"Or certainly by this evening, yes," said P. R. 

Deltoid. "The 

evening is the great time, isn't it, Alex boy? Sit," he 
said, "sit, 

sit," as though this was his domy and me his guest. 
And he sat 

in this starry rocking-chair of my dad's and began 
rocking, as 

if that was all he had come for. I said: 

"A cup of the old chai, sir? Tea, I mean." 

"No time," he said. And he rocked, giving me the old 
glint 

under frowning brows, as if with all the time in the 
world. "No 

time, yes," he said, gloopy. So I put the kettle on. 
Then I 

said: 

"To what do I owe the extreme pleasure? Is anything 
wrong, sir?" 

"Wrong?" he said, very skorry and sly, sort of 
hunched 

looking at me but still rocking away. Then he caught 
sight of 



an advert in the gazetta, which was on the table - a 
lovely 

smecking young ptitsa with her groodies hanging out 
to ad¬ 
vertise, my brothers, the Glories of the Jugoslav 
Beaches. 

Then, after sort of eating her up in two swallows, he 
said: 

"Why should you think in terms of there being 
anything 

wrong? Have you been doing something you 
shouldn't. 


yes?" 


"Just a manner of speech," I said, "sir." 

"Well," said P. R. Deltoid, "it's just a manner of 
speech from 

me to you that you watch out, little Alex, because 
next time, 

as you very well know, it's not going to be the 
corrective 

school any more. Next time it's going to be the 
barry place 


and all my work ruined. If you have no consideration 
for your 



horrible self you at least might have some for me, 
who have 

sweated over you. A big black mark, I tell you in 
confidence, 

for every one we don't reclaim, a confession of 
failure for 

every one of you that ends up in the stripy hole." 

"I've been doing nothing I shouldn't, sir," I said. "The 
mil- 


licents have nothing on me, brother, sir I mean." 

"Cut out this clever talk about millicents," said P. R. 
Deltoid 

very weary, but still rocking. "Just because the 
police have not 

picked you up lately doesn't, as you very well know, 
mean 

you've not been up to some nastiness. There was a 
bit of a 

fight last night, wasn't there? There was a bit of 
shuffling with 

nozhes and bike-chains and the like. One of a 
certain fat boy's 


friends was ambulanced off late from near the Power 
Plant 



and hospitalized, cut about very unpleasantly, yes. 
Your name 

was mentioned. The word has got through to me by 
the usual 

channels. Certain friends of yours were named also. 
There 

seems to have been a fair amount of assorted 
nastiness last 

night. Oh, nobody can prove anything about 
anybody, as 

usual. But I'm warning you, little Alex, being a good 
friend to 

you as always, the one man in this sick and sore 
community 

who wants to save you from yourself." 

"I appreciate all that, sir," I said, "very sincerely." 

"Yes, you do, don't you?" he sort of sneered. "Just 
watch it, 

that's all, yes. We know more than you think, little 
Alex." 

Then he said, in a goloss of great suffering, but still 
rocking 

away: "What gets into you all? We study the 
problem and 



we've been studying it for damn well near a century, 
yes, but 

we get no further with our studies. You've got a 
good home 

here, good loving parents, you've got not too bad of 
a brain. 

Is it some devil that crawls inside you?" 

"Nobody's got anything on me, sir," I said. "I've been 
out of 

the rookers of the millicents for a long time now." 

"That's just what worries me," sighed P. R. Deltoid. 

"A bit 

too long of a time to be healthy. You're about due 
now by my 

reckoning. That's why I'm warning you, little Alex, to 
keep 

your handsome young proboscis out of the dirt, yes. 
Do I 

make myself clear?" 

"As an unmuddied lake, sir," I said. "Clear as an 
azure sky of 

deepest summer. You can rely on me, sir." And I 
gave him a 


nice zooby smile. 



But when he'd ookadeeted and I was making this 
very 

strong pot of chai, I grinned to myself over this 
veshch that 

P. R. Deltoid and his droogs worried about. All right, 

I do 

bad, what with crasting and tolchocks and carves 
with the 

britva and the old in-out-in-out, and if I get loveted, 
well, too 

bad for me, O my little brothers, and you can't run a 
country 

with every chelloveck comporting himself in my 
manner of 

the night. So if I get loveted and it's three months in 
this 

mesto and another six in that, and the, as P. R. 
Deltoid so 

kindly warns, next time, in spite of the great 
tenderness of my 

summers, brothers, it's the great unearthly zoo 
itself, well, I 

say: "Fair, but a pity, my lords, because I just cannot 
bear to 

be shut in. My endeavour shall be, in such future as 
stretches 



out its snowy and lilywhite arms to me before the 
nozh 

overtakes or the blood spatters its final chorus in 
twisted 

metal and smashed glass on the highroad, to not get 
loveted 

again." Which is fair speeching. But, brothers, this 
biting of 

their toe-nails over what is the cause of badness is 
what turns 

me into a fine laughing malchick. They don't go into 
the cause 

of goodness, so why the other shop? If lewdies are 
good 

that's because they like it, and I wouldn't ever 
interfere with 

their pleasures, and so of the other shop. And I was 
patron¬ 
izing the other shop. More, badness is of the self, 
the one, the 

you or me on our oddy knockies, and that self is 
made by old 

Bog or God and is his great pride and radosty. But 
the not-self 

cannot have the bad, meaning they of the 
government and the 



judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because 
they 

cannot allow the self. And is not our modern history, 
my 

brothers, the story of brave malenky selves fighting 
these big 

machines? I am serious with you, brothers, over 
this. But 

what I do I do because I like to do. 

So now, this smiling winter morning, I drink this very 

strong chai with moloko and spoon after spoon after 
spoon 

of sugar, me having a sladky tooth, and I dragged 
out of the 

oven the breakfast my poor old mum had cooked for 
me. It 

was an egg fried, that and no more, but I made toast 
and ate 

egg and toast and jam, smacking away at it while I 
read the 

gazetta. The gazetta was the usual about ultra¬ 
violence and 

bank robberies and strikes and footballers making 
everybody 



paralytic with fright by threatening to not play next 
Saturday 

if they did not get higher wages, naughty 
malchickiwicks as 

they were. Also there were more space-trips and 
bigger stereo 

TV screens and offers of free packets of soapflakes 
in ex¬ 
change for the labels on soup-tins, amazing offer for 
one 

week only, which made me smeck. And there was a 
bolshy big 

article on Modern Youth (meaning me, so I gave the 
old bow, 

grinning like bezoomny) by some very clever bald 
chelloveck. 

I read this with care, my brothers, slurping away at 
the old 

chai, cup after tass after chasha, crunching my 
lomticks of 

black toast dipped in jammiwam and eggiweg. This 
learned 

veck said the usual veshches, about no parental 
discipline, as 

he called it, and the shortage of real horrorshow 
teachers 



who would lambast bloody beggary out of their 
innocent 

poops and make them go boohoohoo for mercy. All 
this was 

gloopy and made me smeck, but it was like nice to 
go on 

knowing one was making the news all the time, O my 

brothers. Every day there was something about 
Modern 

Youth, but the best veshch they ever had in the old 
gazetta 

was by some starry pop in a doggy collar who said 
that in his 

considered opinion and he was govoreeting as a man 
of Bog 

IT WAS THE DEVIL THAT WAS ABROAD and was 

like ferreting his way into like young innocent flesh, 
and it was 

the adult world that could take the responsibility for 
this with 

their wars and bombs and nonsense. So that was all 
right. So 

he knew what he talked of, being a Godman. So we 
young 



innocent malchicks could take no blame. Right right 
right. 

When I'd gone erk erk a couple of razzes on my full 
inno¬ 
cent stomach, I started to get out day platties from 
my ward¬ 
robe, turning the radio on. There was music playing, 
a very 

nice malenky string quartet, my brothers, by 
Claudius Bird- 

man, one that I knew well. I had to have a smeck, 
though, 

thinking of what I'd viddied once in one of these like 
articles 

on Modern Youth, about how Modern Youth would be 
better 

off if A Lively Appreciation Of The Arts could be like 
en¬ 
couraged. Great Music, it said, and Great Poetry 
would like 

quieten Modern Youth down and make Modern Youth 
more 

Civilized. Civilized my syphilised yarbles. Music 
always sort of 

sharpened me up, O my brothers, and made me feel 
like 



old Bog himself, ready to make with the old donner 
and blit- 

zen and have vecks and ptitsas creeching away in my 
ha ha 

power. And when I'd cheested up my litso and 
rookers a bit 

and done dressing (my day platties were like 
student-wear: the 

old blue pantalonies with sweater with A for Alex) I 
thought 

here at last was time to itty off to the disc-bootick 
(and 

cutter too, my pockets being full of pretty polly) to 
see about 

this long-promised and long-ordered stereo 
Beethoven 

Number Nine (the Choral Symphony, that is), 
recorded on 

Masterstroke by the Esh Sham Sinfonia under L. 
Muhaiwir. So 

out I went, brothers. 

The day was very different from the night. The night 
be¬ 
longed to me and my droogs and all the rest of the 
nadsats. 



and the starry bourgeois lurked indoors drinking in 
the 


gloopy worldcasts, but the day was for the starry 
ones, and 

there always seemed to be more rozzes or millicents 
about 

during the day, too. I got the autobus from the 
corner and 

rode to Center, and then I walked back to Taylor 
Place, and 

there was the disc-bootick I favoured with my 
inestimable 

custom, O my brothers. It had the gloopy name of 
MEL- 

ODIA, but it was a real horrorshow mesto and skorry, 
most 

times, at getting the new recordings. I walked in 
and the only 

other customers were two young ptitsas sucking 
away at ice- 

sticks (and this, mark, was dead cold winter and sort 
of 

shuffling through the new pop-discs - Johnny 
Burnaway, 


Stash Kroh, The Mixers, Lay Quit Awhile With Ed And 
Id 



Molotov, and all the rest of that cal). These two 
ptitsas 

couldn't have been more than ten, and they too, like 
me, it 

seemed, evidently, had decided to take the morning 
off from 

the old skolliwoll. They saw themselves, you could 
see, as real 

grown-up devotchkas already, what with the old hip¬ 
swing 

when they saw your Faithful Narrator, brothers, and 
padded 

groodies and red all ploshed on their goobers. I 
went up to 

the counter, making with the polite zooby smile at 
old Andy 

behind it (always polite himself, always helpful, a 
real hor- 

rorshow type of a veck, though bald and very very 
thin). He 

said: 

"Aha. I know what you want, I think. Good news, 
good 

news. It has arrived." And with like big conductor's 
rookers 



beating time he went to get it. The two young 
ptitsas started 

giggling, as they will at that age, and I gave them a 
like cold 

glazzy. Andy was back real skorry, waving the great 
shiny 

white sleeve of the Ninth, which had on it, brothers, 
the 

frowning beetled like thunderbolted litso of Ludwig 
van him¬ 
self. "Here," said Andy. "Shall we give it the trial 
spin?" But I 

wanted it back home on my stereo to slooshy on my 
oddy 

knocky, greedy as hell. I fumbled out the deng to 
pay and one 

of the little ptitsas said: 

"Who you gotten, bratty? What biggy, what only?" 
These 

young devotchkas had their own like way of 
govoreeting. 

"The Heaven Seventeen? Luke Sterne? Goggly 
Gogol?" And 

both giggled, rocking and hippy. Then an idea hit me 
and 



made me near fall over with the anguish and ecstasy 
of it, O 

my brothers, so I could not breathe for near ten 
seconds. I 

recovered and made with my new-clean zoobies and 
said: 

"What you got back home, little sisters, to play your 
fuzzy 

warbles on?" Because I could viddy the discs they 
were buying 

were these teeny pop veshches. "I bet you got little 
save tiny 

portable like picnic spinners." And they sort of 
pushed their 

lower lips out at that. "Come with uncle," I said, 

"and hear all 

proper. Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones. 
You are 

invited." And I like bowed. They giggled again and 
one said: 

"Oh, but we're so hungry. Oh, but we could so eat." 
The 

other said: "Yah, she can say that, can't she just." 

So I said: 


"Eat with uncle. Name your place." 



Then they viddied themselves as real sophistoes, 
which was 

like pathetic, and started talking in big-lady golosses 
about 

the Ritz and the Bristol and the Hilton and II 
Ristorante Gran- 

turco. But I stopped that with "Follow uncle," and I 
led them 

to the Pasta Parlour just round the corner and let 
them fill 

their innocent young litsos on spaghetti and 
sausages and 

cream-puffs and banana-splits and hot choc-sauce, 
till I near 

sicked with the sight of it, I, brothers, lunching but 
frugally off 

a cold ham-slice and a growling dollop of chilli. 

These two 

young ptitsas were much alike, though not sisters. 
They had 

the same ideas or lack of, and the same colour hair - 
a like 

dyed strawy. Well, they would grow up real today. 
Today I 

would make a day of it. No school this afterlunch, 
but edu- 



cation certain, Alex as teacher. Their names, they 
said, were 

Marty and Sonietta, bezoomny enough and in the 
heighth of 

their childish fashion, so I said: 

"Righty right, Marty and Sonietta. Time for the big 
spin. 

Come." When we were outside on the cold street 
they 

thought they would not go by autobus, oh no, but by 
taxi, so 

I gave them the humour, though with a real 
horrorshow in¬ 
grin, and I called a taxi from the rank near Center. 
The driver, 

a starry whiskery veck in very stained platties, said: 

"No tearing up, now. No nonsense with them seats. 
Just re¬ 
upholstered they are." I quieted his gloopy fears 
and off we 

spun to Municipal Flatblock ISA, these two bold little 
ptitsas 

giggling and whispering. So, to cut all short, we 
arrived, O my 



brothers, and I led the way up to 10-8, and they 
panted and 

smecked away the way up, and then they were 
thirsty, they 

said, so I unlocked the treasure-chest in my room 
and gave 

these ten-year-young devotchkas a real horrorshow 
Scotch¬ 
man apiece, though well filled with sneezy pins-and- 
needles 

soda. They sat on my bed (yet unmade) and leg- 
swung, smeck- 

ing and peeting their highballs, while I spun their like 
pathetic 

malenky discs through my stereo. Like peeting some 
sweet 

scented kid's drink, that was, in like very beautiful 
and lovely 

and costly gold goblets. But they went oh oh oh and 
said, 

"Swoony" and "Hilly" and other weird slovos that 
were the 

heighth of fashion in that youth group. While I spun 
this cal 

for them I encouraged them to drink and have 
another, and 



they were nothing loath, O my brothers. So by the 
time their 

pathetic pop-discs had been twice spun each (there 
were two: 

'Honey Nose', sung by Ike Yard, and 'Night After Day 
After 

Night', moaned by two horrible yarbleless like 
eunuchs whose 

names I forget) they were getting near the pitch of 
like young 

ptitsa's hysterics, what with jumping all over my bed 
and me in 

the room with them. 

What was actually done that afternoon there is no 
need to 

describe, brothers, as you may easily guess all. 
Those two 

were unplattied and smecking fit to crack in no time 
at all, and 

they thought it the bolshiest fun to viddy old Uncle 
Alex 

standing there all nagoy and pan-handled, squirting 
the hypo¬ 
dermic like some bare doctor, then giving myself the 
old jab 



of growling jungle-cat secretion in the rooker. Then I 
pulled 

the lovely Ninth out of its sleeve, so that Ludwig van 
was now 

nagoy too, and I set the needle hissing on to the last 
move¬ 
ment, which was all bliss. There it was then, the 
bass strings 

like govoreeting away from under my bed at the rest 
of the 

orchestra, and then the male human goloss coming 
in and 

telling them all to be joyful, and then the lovely 
blissful tune 

all about Joy being a glorious spark like of heaven, 
and then I 

felt the old tigers leap in me and then I leapt on 
these two 

young ptitsas. This time they thought nothing fun 
and 

stopped creeching with high mirth, and had to 
submit to the 

strange and weird desires of Alexander the Large 
which, what 

with the Ninth and the hypo jab, were choodessny 
and zam- 



mechat and very demanding, O my brothers. But 
they were 

both very very drunken and could hardly feel very 
much. 

When the last movement had gone round for the 
second 

time with all the banging and creeching about Joy Joy 
Joy 

Joy, then these two young ptitsas were not acting 
the big lady 

sophisto no more. They were like waking up to what 
was 

being done to their malenky persons and saying that 
they 

wanted to go home and like I was a wild beast. They 
looked 

like they had been in some big bitva, as indeed they 
had, and 

were all bruised and pouty. Well, if they would not 
go to 

school they must stil have their education. And 
education 

they had had. They were creeching and going ow ow 
ow as 

they put their platties on, and they were like 
punchipunching 



me with their teeny fists as I lay there dirty and 
nagoy and fair 

shagged and fagged on the bed. This young Sonietta 
was ere- 

eching: "Beast and hateful animal. Filthy horror." So 
I let them 

get their things together and get out, which they 
did, talking 

about how the rozzes should be got on to me and all 
that cal. 

Then they were going down the stairs and I dropped 
off to 

sleep, still with the old Joy Joy Joy Joy crashing and 
howling away. 


5 


What happened, though, was that I woke up late 
(near seven- 

thirty by my watch) and, as it turned out, that was 
not so 


clever. You can viddy that everything in this wicked 
world 



counts. You can pony that one thing always leads to 
another. 

Right right right. My stereo was no longer on about 
Joy and I 

Embrace Ye O Ye Millions, so some veck had dealt it 
the off, 

and that would be either pee or em, both of them 
now being 

quite clear to the slooshying in the living-room and, 
from the 

clink clink of plates and slurp slurp of peeting tea 
from cups, 

at their tired meal after the day's rabbiting in 
factory the one, 

store the other. The poor old. The pitiable starry. I 
put on my 

over-gown and looked out, in guise of loving only 
son, to 

say: 

"Hi hi hi, there. A lot better after the day's rest. 
Ready now 

for evening work to earn that little bit." For that's 
what they 

said they believed I did these days. "Yum, yum, 
mum. Any of 



that for me?" It was like some frozen pie that she'd 
unfroze 

and then warmed up and it looked not so very 
appetitish, but 

I had to say what I said. Dad looked at me with a 
not-so- 

pleased suspicious like look but said nothing, 
knowing he 

dared not, and mum gave me a tired like little 
smeck, to thee 

fruit of my womb my only son sort of. I danced to 
the bath¬ 
room and had a real skorry cheest all over, feeling 
dirty and 

gluey, then back to my den for the evening's 
platties. Then, 

shining, combed, brushed and gorgeous, I sat to my 
lomtick 

of pie. Papapa said: 

"Not that I want to pry, son, but where exactly is it 
you go 

to work of evenings?" 

"Oh," I chewed, "it's mostly odd things, helping like. 
Here 



and there, as it might be." I gave him a straight 
dirty glazzy, as 

to say to mind his own and I'd mind mine. "I never 
ask for 

money, do I? Not money for clothes or for 
pleasures? All 

right, then, why ask?" 

My dad was like humble mumble chumble. "Sorry, 
son," he 

said. "But I get worried sometimes. Sometimes I 
have dreams. 

You can laugh if you like, but there's a lot in dreams. 
Last 

night I had this dream with you in it and I didn't like 
it one 

bit." 

"Oh?" He had gotten me interessovatted now, 
dreaming of 

me like that. I had like a feeling I had had a dream, 
too, but I 

could not remember proper what. "Yes?" I said, 
stopping 

chewing my gluey pie. 

"It was vivid," said my dad. "I saw you lying on the 
street and 



you had been beaten by other boys. These boys 
were like the 

boys you used to go around with before you were 
sent to 

that last Corrective School." 

"Oh?" I had an in-grin at that, papapa believing I had 
really 

reformed or believing he believed. And then I 
remembered my 

own dream, which was a dream of that morning, of 
Georgia 

giving his general's orders and old Dim smacking 
around 

toothless as he wielded the whip. But dreams go by 
opposites 

I was once told. "Never worry about thine only son 
and heir, 

O my father," I said. "Fear not. He canst taketh care 
of himself, 

verily." 

"And," said my dad, "you were like helpless in your 
blood 

and you couldn't fight back." That was real 
opposites, so I had 



another quiet malenky grin within and then I took all 
the deng 

out of my carmans and tinkled it on the saucy table¬ 
cloth. I 

said: 

"Here, dad, it's not much. It's what I earned last 
night. But 

perhaps for the odd peet of Scotchman in the snug 
some¬ 
where for you and mum." 

"Thanks, son," he said. "But we don't go out much 
now. We 

daren't go out much, the streets being what they 
are. Young 

hooligans and so on. Still, thanks. I'll bring her 
home a bottle 

of something tomorrow." And he scooped this ill- 
gotten 

pretty into his trouser carmans, mum being at the 
cheesting of 

the dishes in the kitchen. And I went out with loving 
smiles all 

round. 

When I got to the bottom of the stairs of the 
flatblock I 



was somewhat surprised. I was more than that. I 
opened my 

rot like wide in the old stony gapes. They had come 
to meet 

me. They were waiting by the all scrawled-over 
municipal 

wall-painting of the nagoy dignity of labour, bare 
vecks and 

cheenas stern at the wheels of industry, like I said, 
with all this 

dirt pencilled from their rots by naughty malchicks. 
Dim had a 

big thick stick of black greasepaint and was tracing 
filthy 

slovos real big over our municipal painting and doing 
the old 

Dim guff - wuh huh huh - while he did it. But he 
turned round 

when Georgie and Pete gave me the well hello, 
showing their 

shining droogy zoobies, and he horned out: "He are 
here, he 

have arrived, hooray," and did a clumsy turnitoe bit 
of danc¬ 


ing. 



"We got worried," said Georgie. "There we were 
awaiting 


and peeting away at the old knify moloko, and you 
might 

have been like offended by some veshch or other, so 
round 

we come to your abode. That's right, Pete, right?" 
"Oh, yes, right," said Pete. 

"Appy polly loggies," I said careful. "I had something 
of a pain 

in the gulliver so had to sleep. I was not wakened 
when I gave 

orders for wakening. Still, here we all are, ready for 
what 

the old nochy offers, yes?" I seemed to have picked 
up that 

yes? from P. R. Deltoid, my Post-Corrective Adviser. 
Very 

strange. 

"Sorry about the pain," said Georgie, like very 
concerned. 

"Using the gulliver too much like, maybe. Giving 
orders and 

discipline and such, perhaps. Sure the pain is gone? 
Sure you'll 



not be happier going back to the bed?" And they all 
had a bit 

of a malenky grin. 

"Wait," I said. "Let's get things nice and sparkling 
clear. This 

sarcasm, if I may call it such, does not become you, 
O my 

little friends. Perhaps you have been having a bit of 
a quiet 

govoreet behind my back, making your own little 
jokes and 

such-like. As I am your droog and leader, surely I am 
entitled 

to know what goes on, eh? Now then. Dim, what 
does that 

great big horsy gape of a grin portend?" For Dim 
had his rot 

open in a sort of bezoomny soundless smeck. 
Georgie got in 

very skorry with: 

"All right, no more picking on Dim, brother. That's 
part of 

the new way." 

"New way?" I said. "What's this about a new way? 
There's 



been some very large talk behind my sleeping back 
and no 

error. Let me slooshy more." And I sort of folded my 
rookers 

and leaned comfortable to listen against the broken 
banister- 

rail, me being still higher than them, droogs as they 
called 

themselves, on the third stair. 

"No offence, Alex," said Pete, "but we wanted to 
have things 

more democratic like. Not like you like saying what 
to do and 

what not all the time. But no offence." 

George said: "Offence is neither here nor elsewhere. 
It's the 

matter of who has ideas. What ideas has he had?" 
And he kept 

his very bold glazzies turned full on me. "It's all the 
small stuff, 

malenky veshches like last night. We're growing up, 
brothers." 

"More," I said, not moving. "Let me slooshy more." 

"Well," said Georgia, "if you must have it, have it 
then. We 



itty round, shop-crasting and the like, coming out 
with a piti¬ 
ful rookerful of cutter each. And there's Will the 
English in 

the Muscleman coffee mesto saying he can fence 
anything that 

any malchick cares to try to crast. The shiny stuff, 
the ice," he 

said, still with these like cold glazzies on me. "The 
big big big 

money is available is what Will the English says." 

"So," I said, very comfortable out but real razdraz 
within. 

"Since when have you been consorting and 
comporting with 

Will the English?" 

"Now and again," said Georgia, "I get around all on 
my oddy 

knocky. Like last Sabbath for instance. I can live my 
own 

jeezny, droogy, right?" 

I didn't care for any of this, my brothers. "And what 
will 

you do," I said, "with the big big big deng or money 
as you so 



highfaluting call it? Have you not every veshch you 
need? If 

you need an auto you pluck it from the trees. If you 
need 

pretty polly you take it. Yes? Why this sudden 
shilarny for 

being the big bloated capitalist?" 

"Ah," said Georgia, "you think and govoreet 
sometimes like 

a little child." Dim went huh huh huh at that. 
"Tonight," said 

Georgia, "we pull a mansize crast." 

So my dream had told truth, then. Georgia the 
general 

saying what we should do and what not do. Dim with 
the whip 

as mindless grinning bulldog. But I played with care, 
with great 

care, the greatest, saying, smiling: "Good. Real 
horrorshow. 

Initiative comes to them as wait. I have taught you 
much, 

little droogie. Now tell me what you have in mind, 
Georgie- 


boy." 



"Oh," said Georgie, cunning and crafty in his grin, 

"the old 

moloko-plus first, would you not say? Something to 
sharpen 

us up, boy, but you especially, we having the start on 
you." 

"You have govoreeted my thoughts for me," I smiled 
away. 

"I was about to suggest the dear old Korova. Good 
good 

good. Lead, little Georgie." And I made with a like 
deep bow, 

smiling like bezoomny but thinking all the time. But 
when we 

got into the street I viddied that thinking is for the 
gloopy 

ones and that the oomny ones use like inspiration 
and what 

Bog sends. For now it was lovely music that came to 
my aid. 

There was an auto ittying by and it had its radio on, 
and I 

could just slooshy a bar or so of Ludwig van (it was 
the Violin 

Concerto, last movement), and I viddied right at 
once what to 



do. I said, in like a thick deep goloss: "Right, 
Georgie, now," 

and I whisked out my cut-throat britva. Georgie 
said: "Uh?" 

but he was skorry enough with his nozh, the blade 
coming 

sloosh out of the handle, and we were on to each 
other. Old 

Dim said: "Oh no, not right that isn't, and made to 
uncoil the 

chain round his tally, but Pete said, putting his 
rooker firm on 

old Dim: "Leave them. It's right like that." So then 
Georgie and 

Your Humble did the old quiet cat-stalk, looking for 
openings, 

knowing each other's style a bit too horrorshow 
really. Georgie 

now and then going lurch lurch with his shining nozh 
but not 

no wise connecting. And all the time lewdies passed 
by and 

viddied all this but minded their own, it being 
perhaps a 

common street-sight. But then I counted odin dva 
tree and 



went ak ak ak with the britva, though not at litso or 
glazzies 

but at Georgia's nozh-holding rooker and, my little 
brothers, 

he dropped. He did. He dropped his nozh with a 
tinkle tankle 

on the hard winter sidewalk. I had just ticklewickled 
his fingers 

with my britva, and there he was looking at the 
malenky 

dribble of krovvy that was redding out in the 
lamplight. "Now," 

I said, and it was me that was starting, because Pete 
had given 

old Dim the soviet not to uncoil the oozy from round 
his 

tally and Dim had taken it, "now. Dim, let's thou and 
me have 

all this now, shall us?" Dim went, "Aaaaaaarhgh," 
like some 

bolshy bezoomny animal, and snaked out the chain 
from his 

waist real horrorshow and skorry, so you had to 
admire. Now 

the right style for me here was to keep low like in 
frog-dancing 



to protect litso and glazzies, and this I did, brothers, 
so that 

poor old Dim was a malenky bit surprised, him being 
accus¬ 
tomed to the straight face-on lash lash lash. Now I 
will say 

that he whished me horrible on the back so that it 
stung like 

bezoomny, but that pain told me to dig in skorry 
once and for 

all and be done with old Dim. So I swished with the 
britva at 

his left noga in its very tight tight and I slashed two 
inches of 

cloth and drew a malenky drop of krovvy to make 
Dim real 

bezoomny. Then while he went hauwwww hauwww 
ha u WWW 

like a doggie I tried the same style as for Georgia, 
banking all 

on one move - up, cross, cut - and I felt the britva go 
just deep 

enough in the meat of old Dim's wrist and he 
dropped his 

snaking oozy yelping like a little child. Then he tried 
to drink 



in all the blood from his wrist and howl at the same 
time, and 

there was too much krovvy to drink and he went 
bubble 

bubble bubble, the red like fountaining out lovely, 
but not for 

very long. I said: 

"Right, my droogies, now we should know. Yes, 
Pete?" 


"I never said anything," said Pete. "I never 
govoreeted one 

slovo. Look, old Dim's bleeding to death." 

"Never," I said. "One can die but once. Dim died 
before he 

was born. That red red krovvy will soon stop." 
Because I had 

not cut into the like main cables. And I myself took 
clean 

tashtook from my carman to wrap round poor old 
dying 

Dim's rooker, howling and moaning as he was, and 
the 

krovvy stopped like I said it would, O my brothers. 
So they 



knew now who was master and leader, sheep, 
thought I. 

It did not take long to quieten these two wounded 
soldiers 

down in the snug of the Duke of New York, what with 
large 

brandies (bought with their own cutter, me having 
given all to 

my dad, and a wipe with tashtooks dipped in the 
water-jug. 

The old ptitsas we'd been so horrorshow to last night 
were 

there again, going, "Thanks, lads" and "God bless 
you, boys" 

like they couldn't stop, though we had not repeated 
the old 

sammy act with them. But Pete said: "What's it to 
be, girls?" 

and bought black and suds for them, him seeming to 
have a 

fair amount of pretty polly in his carmans, so they 
were on 

louder than ever with their "God bless and keep you 
all,lads" 

and "We'd never split on you, boys" and "The best 
lads breath- 



ing, that's what you are." At last I said to Georgie: 


"Now we're back to where we were, yes? Just like 
before 

and all forgotten, right?" 

"Right right right," said Georgie. But old Dim still 
looked a 

bit dazed and he even said: "I could have got that big 
bastard, 

see, with my oozy, only some veck got in the way," 
as though 

he'd been dratsing not with me but with some other 
malchick. 

I said: 

"Well, Georgieboy, what did you have in mind?" 

"Oh," said Georgie, "not tonight. Not this nochy, 
please." 

"You're a big strong chelloveck," I said, "like us all. 
We're 

not little children, are we, Georgieboy? What, then, 
didst 

thou in thy mind have?" 

"I could have chained his glazzies real horrorshow," 
said 



Dim, and the old baboochkas were stil on with their 
"Thanks, 

lads." 

"It was this house, see," said Georgia. "The one with 
the two 

lamps outside. The one with the gloopy name like." 
"What gloopy name?" 

"The Mansion or the Manse or some such piece of 
gloop. 

Where this very starry ptitsa lives with her cats and 
all these 

very starry valuable veshches." 

"Such as?" 


"Gold and silver and like jewels. It was Will the 
English who 

like said." 

"I viddy," I said. "I viddy horrorshow." I knew where 
he 

meant - Oldtown, just beyond Victoria Flatblock. 
Well, the 

real horrorshow leader knows always when like to 
give and 


show generous to his like unders. "Very good, 
Georgie," I said. 



"A good thought, and one to be followed. Let us at 
once itty." 

And as we were going out the old baboochkas said: 
"We'll say 

nothing, lads. Been here all the time you have, 
boys." So I 

said: "Good old girls. Back to buy more in ten 
minutes." And 

so I led my three droogs out to my doom. 


6 


Just past the Duke of New York going east was offices 
and 

then there was the starry beat-up biblio and then 
was the 

bolshy flatblock called Victoria Flatblock after some 
victory 

or other, and then you came to the like starry type 
houses of 


the town in what was called Oldtown. You got some 
of the 



real horrorshow ancient domies here, my brothers, 
with 

starry lewdies living in them, thin old barking like 
colonels 

with sticks and old ptitsas who were widows and 
deaf starry 

damas with cats who, my brothers, had felt not the 
touch of 

any chelloveck in the whole of their pure like 
jeeznies. And 

here, true, there were starry veshches that would 
fetch their 

share of cutter on the tourist market - like pictures 
and jewels 

and other starry pre-plastic cal of that type. So we 
came nice 

and quiet to this domy called the Manse, and there 
were globe 

lights outside on iron stalks, like guarding the front 
door on 

each side, and there was a light like dim on in one of 
the 

rooms on the ground level, and we went to a nice 
patch of 

street dark to watch through the window what was 
ittying on. 



This window had iron bars in front of it, like the 
house was a 

prison, but we could viddy nice and clear what was 
ittying on. 

What was ittying on was that this starry ptitsa, very 
grey in 

the voloss and with a very liny like litso, was pouring 
the old 

moloko from a milk-bottle into saucers and then 
setting 

these saucers down on the floor, so you could tell 
there were 

plenty of mewing kots and koshkas writhing about 
down 

there. And we could viddy one or two, great fat 
scoteenas, 

jumping up on to the table with their rots open going 
mare 

mare mare. And you could viddy this old baboochka 
talking 

back to them, govoreeting in like scoldy language to 
her 

pussies. In the room you could viddy a lot of old 
pictures on 

the walls and starry very elaborate clocks, also some 
like 



vases and ornaments that looked starry and 
dorogoy. Georgia 

whispered: "Real horrorshow deng to be gotten for 
them, 

brothers. Will the English is real anxious." Pete 
said: "How in?" 

Now it was up to me, and skorry, before Georgia 
started 

telling us how. "First veshch," I whispered, "is to try 
the regular 

way, the front. I will go very polite and say that one 
of my 

droogs has had a like funny fainting turn on the 
street. Georgia 

can be ready to show, when she opens, thatwise. 
Then to 

ask for water or to phone the doc. Then in easy." 
Georgia 

said: 

"She may not open." I said: 

"We'll try it, yes?" And he sort of shrugged his 
pletchoes, 

making with a frog's rot. So I said to Pete and old 
Dim:"You 



two droogies get either side of the door. Right?" 
They 

nodded in the dark right right right. "So," I said to 
Georgia, 

and I made bold straight for the front door. There 
was a 

bellpush and I pushed, and brrrrrrr brrrrr sounded 
down the 

hall inside. Alike sense of slooshying followed, as 
though the 

ptitsa and her koshkas all had their ears back at the 
brrrrrr 

brrrrrr, wondering. So I pushed the old zvonock a 
malenky bit 

more urgent. I then bent down to the letter-slit and 
called 

through in a refined like goloss: "Help, madam, 
please. My 

friend has just had a funny turn on the street. Let 
me phone a 

doctor, please." Then I could viddy a light being put 
on in the 

hall, and then I could hear the old baboochka's nogas 

going flip flap in flip-flap slippers to nearer the front 
door. 



and I got the idea, I don't know why, that she had a 
big fat 

pussycat under each arm. Then she called out in a 
very sur¬ 
prising deep like goloss: 

"Go away. Go away or I shoot." Georgia heard that 
and 

wanted to giggle. I said, with like suffering and 
urgency in my 

gentleman's goloss: 

"Oh, please help, madam. My friend's very ill." 

"Go away," she called. "I know your dirty tricks, 
making me 

open the door and then buy things I don't want. Go 
away. I 

tell you." That was real lovely innocence, that was. 
"Go away," 

she said again, "or I'll set my cats on to you." A 
malenky bit 

bezoomny she was, you could tell that, through 
spending her 

jeezny all on her oddy knocky. Then I looked up and I 
viddied 

that there was a sash-window above the front door 
and that 



it would be a lot more skorry to just do the old 
pletcho climb 

and get in that way. Else there'd be this argument 
all the long 

nochy. So I said: 

"Very well, madam. If you won't help I must take my 

suffering friend elsewhere." And I winked my 
droogies all away 

quiet, only me crying out: "All right, old friend, you 
will surely 

meet some good Samaritan some place other. This 
old lady 

perhaps cannot be blamed for being suspicious with 
so many 

scoundrels and rogues of the night about. No, 
indeed not." 

Then we waited again in the dark and I whispered: 
"Right. 

Return to the door. Me stand on Dim's pletchoes. 
Open that 

window and me enter, droogies. Then to shut up 
that old 

ptitsa and open up for all. No trouble." For I was 
like showing 



who was leader and the chelloveck with the ideas. 
"See," I said. 

"Real horrorshow bit of stonework over that door, a 
nice 

hold for my nogas." They viddied all that, admiring 
perhaps I 

thought, and said and nodded Right right right in the 
dark. 

So back tiptoe to the door. Dim was our heavy 
strong 

malchick and Pete and Georgia like heaved me up on 
to Dim's 

bolshy manly pletchoes. All this time, O thanks to 
worldcasts 

on the gloopy TV and, more, lewdies' night-fear 
through lack 

of night-police, dead lay the street. Up there on 
Dim's plet¬ 
choes I viddied that this stonework above the door 
would 

take my boots lovely. I kneed up, brothers, and 
there I was. 

The window, as I had expected, was closed, but I 
outed with 

my britva and cracked the glass of the window smart 
with the 



bony handle thereof. All the time below my droogies 
were 

hard breathing. So I put in my rooker through the 
crack and 

made the lower half of the window sail up open 
silver- 

smooth and lovely. And I was, like getting into the 
bath,in. 

And there were my sheep down below, their rots 
open as they 

looked up, O brothers. 

I was in bumpy darkness, with beds and cupboards 
and 

bolshy heavy stoolies and piles of boxes and books 
about. 

But I strode manful towards the door of the room I 
was in, 

seeing a like crack of light under it. The door went 

squeeeeeeeeeeak and then I was on a dusty corridor 
with 

other doors. All this waste, brothers, meaning all 
these 

rooms and but one starry sharp and her pussies, but 
perhaps 



the kots and koshkas had like separate bedrooms, 
living on 

cream and fish-heads like royal queens and princes. 

I could 

hear the like muffled goloss of this old ptitsa down 
below 

saying: "Yes yes yes, that's it," but she would be 
govoreeting to 

these mewing sidlers going maaaaaaa for more 
moloko. 

Then I saw the stairs going down to the hall and I 
thought to 

myself that I would show these fickle and worthless 
droogs of 

mine that I was worth the whole three of them and 
more. I 

would do all on my oddy knocky. I would perform the 
old 

ultra-violence on the starry ptitsa and on her 
pusspots if need 

be, then I would take fair rookerfuls of what looked 
like real 

polezny stuff and go waltzing to the front door and 
open up 

showering gold and silver on my waiting droogs. 

They must 



learn all about leadership. 


So down I ittied, slow and gentle, admiring in the 
stairwell 

grahzny pictures of old time - devotchkas with long 
hair and 

high collars, the like country with trees and horses, 
the holy 

bearded veck all nagoy hanging on a cross. There 
was a real 

musty von of pussies and pussy-fish and starry dust 
in this 

domy, different from the flatblocks. And then I was 
down¬ 
stairs and I could viddy the light in this front room 
where she 

had been doling moloko to the kots and koshkas. 
More, I 

could viddy these great overstuffed scoteenas going 
in and 

out with their tails waving and like rubbing 
themselves on the 

door-bottom. On a like big wooden chest in the dark 
hall I 

could viddy a nice malenky statue that shone in the 
light of 



the room, so I crasted this for my own self, it being 
like a 

young thin devotchka standing on one noga with her 
rookers 

out, and I could see this was made of silver. So I had 
this 

when I ittied into the lit-up room, saying: "Hi hi hi. 

At last we 

meet. Our brief govoreet through the letter-hole 
was not, 

shall we say, satisfactory, yes? Let us admit not, oh 
verily not, 

you stinking starry old sharp." And I like blinked in 
the light at 

this room and the old ptitsa in it. It was full of kots 
and 

koshkas all crawling to and fro over the carpet, with 
bits of 

fur floating in the lower air, and these fat scoteenas 
were all 

different shapes and colours, black, white, tabby, 
ginger, tor¬ 
toise-shell, and of all ages, too, so that there were 
kittens 


fillying about with each other and there were pussies 
full- 



grown and there were real dribbling starry ones very 
bad- 

tempered. Their mistress, this old ptitsa, looked at 
me fierce 

like a man and said: 

"How did you get in? Keep your distance, you 
villainous 

young toad, or I shall be forced to strike you." 

I had a real horrorshow smeck at that, viddying that 
she 

had in her veiny rooker a crappy wood walking-stick 
which 

she raised at me threatening. So, making with my 
shiny 

zoobies, I ittied a bit nearer to her, taking my time, 
and on the 

way I saw on a like sideboard a lovely little veshch, 
the love¬ 
liest malenky veshch any malchick fond of music like 
myself 

could ever hope to viddy with his own two glazzies, 
for it was 

like the gulliver and pletchoes of Ludwig van himself, 
what 



they call a bust, a like stone veshch with stone long 
hair and 

blind glazzies and the big flowing cravat. I was off 
for that 

right away, saying: "Well, how lovely and all for me." 
But 

ittying towards it with my glazzies like full on it and 
my 

greedy rooker held out, I did not see the milk 
saucers on the 

floor and into one I went and sort of lost balance. 
"Whoops," 

I said, trying to steady, but this old ptitsa had come 
up behind 

me very sly and with great skorriness for her age 
and then she 

went crack crack on my gulliver with her bit of a 
stick. So I 

found myself on my rookers and knees trying to get 
up and 

saying: "Naughty, naughty naughty." And then she 
was going 

crack crack crack again, saying: "Wretched little 
slummy 

bedbug, breaking into real people's houses." I didn't 
like this 



crack crack eegra, so I grasped hold of one end of 
her stick as 

it came down again and then she lost her balance 
and was 

trying to steady herself against the table, but then 
the table¬ 
cloth came off with a milk-jug and a milk-bottle going 
all 

drunk then scattering white splosh in all directions, 
then she 

was down on the floor, grunting, going: "Blast you, 
boy, you 

shall suffer." Now all the cats were getting spoogy 
and running 

and jumping in a like cat-panic, and some were 
blaming each 

other, hitting out cat-tolchocks with the old lapa and 
ptaaaaa 

and grrrrr and kraaaaark. I got up on to my nogas, 
and there 

was this nasty vindictive starry forella with her 
wattles ashake 

and grunting as she like tried to lever herself up 
from the 


floor, so I gave her a malenky fair kick in the litso, 
and she 



didn't like that, crying: "Waaaaah," and you could 
viddy her 

veiny mottled litso going purplewurple where I'd 
landed the 

old noga. 

As I stepped back from the kick I must have like trod 
on the 

tail of one of these dratsing creeching pusspots, 
because I 

slooshied a gromky yauuuuuuuuw and found that like 
fur and 

teeth and claws had like fastened themselves around 
my leg, 

and there I was cursing away and trying to shake it 
off holding 

this silver malenky statue in one rooker and trying to 
climb 

over this old ptitsa on the floor to reach lovely 
Ludwig van in 

frowning like stone. And then I was into another 
saucer brim¬ 
ful of creamy moloko and near went flying again, the 
whole 

veshch really a very humorous one if you could 
imagine it 



sloochatting to some other veck and not to Your 
Humble 

Narrator. And then the starry ptitsa on the floor 
reached over 

all the dratsing yowling pusscats and grabbed at my 
noga, still 

going "Waaaaah" at me, and, my balance being a bit 
gone, I 

went really crash this time, on to sploshing moloko 
and 

skriking koshkas, and the old forella started to fist 
me on the 

litso, both of us being on the floor, creeching: 

"Thrash him, 

beat him, pull out his finger-nails, the poisonous 
young 

beetle," addressing her pusscats only, and then, as if 
like obey¬ 
ing the starry old ptitsa, a couple of koshkas got on 
to me 

and started scratching like bezoomny. So then I got 
real be¬ 
zoomny myself, brothers, and hit out at them, but 
this bab- 

oochka said: "Toad, don't touch my kitties," and like 



scratched my litso. So then I screeched: "You filthy 
old 

soomka", and upped with the little malenky like 
silver statue 

and cracked her a fine fair tolchock on the gulliver 
and that 

shut her up real horrorshow and lovely. 

Now as I got up from the floor among all the crarking 
kots 

and koshkas what should I slooshy but the shoom of 
the old 

police-auto siren in the distance, and it dawned on 
me skorry 

that the old forella of the pusscats had been on the 
phone to 

the millicents when I thought she'd been govoreeting 
to the 

mewlers and mowlers, her having got her suspicions 
skorry 

on the boil when I'd rung the old zvonock pretending 
for 

help. So now, slooshying this fearful shoom of the 
rozz- 

van, I belted for the front door and had a rabbiting 
time un- 



doing all the locks and chains and bolts and other 
protective 

veshches. Then I got it open, and who should be on 
the door¬ 
step but old Dim, me just being able to viddy the 
other two of 

my so-called droogs belting off. "Away," I creeched 
to Dim. 

"The rozzes are coming." Dim said: "You stay to 
meet them 

huh huh huh," and then I viddied that he had his oozy 
out, and 

then he upped with it and it snaked whishhh and he 
chained 

me gentle and artistic like on the glazlids, me just 
closing 

them up in time. Then I was howling around trying 
to viddy 

with this howling great pain, and Dim said: "I don't 
like you 

should do what you done, old droogy. Not right it 
wasn't to 

get on to me like the way you done, brat." And then 
I could 

slooshy his bolshy lumpy boots beating off, him 
going huh 



huh huh into the darkmans, and it was only about 
seven 

seconds after that I slooshied the millicent-van draw 
up with a 

filthy great dropping siren-howl, like some bezoomny 
animal 

snuffing it. I was howling too and like yawing about 
and I 

banged my gulliver smack on the hall-wall, my 
glazzies being 

tight shut and the juice astream from them, very 
agonizing. So 

there I was like groping in the hallway as the 
millicents ar¬ 
rived. I couldn't viddy them, of course, but I could 
slooshy 

and damn near smell the von of the bastards, and 
soon I could 

feel the bastards as they got rough and did the old 
twist-arm 

act, carrying me out. I could also slooshy one 
millicent goloss 

saying from like the room I'd come out of with all the 
kots 

and koshkas in it: "She's been nastily knocked but 
she's 



breathing," and there was loud mewing all the time. 

"A real pleasure this is," I heard another millicent 
goloss say 

as I was tolchocked very rough and skorry into the 
auto. 

"Little Alex all to our own selves." I creeched out: 

"I'm blind. Bog bust and bleed you, you grahzny 
bastards." 

"Language, language," like smecked a goloss, and 
then I got 

a like backhand tolchock with some ringy rooker or 
other 

full on the rot. I said: 

"Bog murder you, you vonny stinking bratchnies. 
Where are 

the others? Where are my stinking traitorous 
droogs? One of 

my cursed grahzny bratties chained me on the 
glazzies. Get 

them before they get away. It was all their idea, 
brothers. 

They like forced me to do it. I'm innocent. Bog 
butcher you." 

By this time they were all having like a good smeck 
at me with 



the heighth of like callousness, and they'd 
tolchocked me into 

the back of the auto, but I still kept on about these 
so-called 

droogs of mine and then I viddied it would be no 
good, be¬ 
cause they'd all be back now in the snug of the Duke 
of New 

York forcing black and suds and double Scotchmen 
down the 

unprotesting gorloes of those stinking starry ptitsas 
and 

they saying: "Thanks, lads. God bless you, boys. 
Been here 

all the time you have, lads. Not been out of our 
sight you 

haven't." 

All the time we were sirening off to the rozz-shop, 
me being 

wedged between two millicents and being given the 
odd 

thump and malenky tolchock by these smecking 
bullies. Then I 

found I could open up my glazlids a malenky bit and 
viddy 



like through all tears a kind of steamy city going by, 
all the 


lights like having run into one another. I could viddy 
now 

through smarting glazzies these two smecking 
millicents at the 

back with me and the thin-necked driver and the fat¬ 
necked 

bastard next to him, this one having a sarky like 
govoreet at 

me, saying: "Well, Alex boy, we all look forward to a 
pleasant 

evening together, don't we not?" I said: 

"How do you know my name, you stinking vonny 
bully? 

May Bog blast you to hell, grahzny bratchny as you 
are, you 

sod." So they all had a smeck at that and I had my 
ooko like 

twisted by one of these stinking millicents at the 
back with 

me. The fat-necked not-driver said: 

"Everybody knows little Alex and his droogs. Quite a 
famous young boy our Alex has become." 



"It's those others," I creeched. "Georgie and Dim 
and Pete. 

No droogs of mine, the bastards." 

"Well," said the fat-neck, "you've got the evening in 
front of 

you to tell the whole story of the daring exploits of 
those 

young gentlemen and how they led poor little 
innocent Alex 

astray." Then there was the shoom of another like 
police siren 

passing this auto but going the other way. 

"Is that for those bastards?" I said. "Are they being 
picked up 

by you bastards?" 

"That," said fat-neck, "is an ambulance. Doubtless 
for your 

old lady victim, you ghastly wretched scoundrel." 

"It was all their fault," I creeched, blinking my 
smarting glaz- 

zies. "The bastards will be peeting away in the Duke 
of New 

York. Pick them up blast you, you vonny sods." And 
then 



there was more smecking and another malenky 
tolchock, O 

my brothers, on my poor smarting rot. And then we 
arrived at 

the stinking rozz-shop and they helped me get out of 
the auto 

with kicks and pulls and they tolchocked me up the 
steps and I 

knew I was going to get nothing like fair play from 
these 

stinky grahzny bratchnies, Bog blast them. 


7 


They dragged me into this very bright-lit 
whitewashed can- 

tora, and it had a strong von that was a mixture of 
like sick 

and lavatories and beery rots and disinfectant, all 
coming 


from the barry places near by. You could hear some 
of the 



plennies in their cells cursing and singing and I 
fancied I could 

slooshy one belting out: 

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


But there were the golosses of millicents telling 
them to shut 

it and you could even slooshy the zvook of like 
somebody 

being tolchocked real horrorshow and going 

owwwwwwwww, and it was like the goloss of a 
drunken 

starry ptitsa, not a man. With me in this cantora 
were four 

millicents, all having a good loud peet of chai, a big 
pot of it 

being on the table and they sucking and belching 
away over 

their dirty bolshy mugs. They didn't offer me any. 
All that they 


gave me, my brothers, was a crappy starry mirror to 
look 



into, and indeed I was not your handsome young 
Narrator 

any longer but a real strack of a sight, my rot 
swollen and my 

glazzies all red and my nose bumped a bit also. 

They all had a 

real horrorshow smeck when they viddied my like 
dismay, and 

one of them said: "Love's young nightmare like." 

And then a 

top millicent came in with like stars on his pletchoes 
to show 

he was high high high, and he viddied me and said: 
"Hm." So 

then they started. I said: 

"I won't say one single solitary slovo unless I have 
my 

lawyer here. I know the law, you bastards." Of 
course they all 

had a good gromky smeck at that and then the 
stellar top millicent 

said: 

"Righty right, boys, we'll start off by showing him 
that we 



know the law, too, but that knowing the law isn't 
everything." 

He had a like gentleman's goloss and spoke in a very 
weary 

sort of a way, and he nodded with a like droogy smile 
at one 

very big fat bastard. This big fat bastard took off his 
tunic and 

you could viddy he had a real big starry pot on him, 
then he 

came up to me not too skorry and I could get the von 
of the 

milky chai he'd been peeting when he opened his rot 
in a like 

very tired leery grin at me. He was not too well 
shaved for a 

rozz and you could viddy like patches of dried sweat 
on his 

shirt under the arms, and you could get this von of 
like 

earwax from him as he came close. Then he 
clenched his stink¬ 
ing red rooker and let me have it right in the belly, 
which was 

unfair, and all the other millicents smecked their 
gullivers off 



at that, except the top one and he kept on with this 
weary like 

bored grin. I had to lean against the white-washed 
wall so 

that all the white got on to my platties, trying to 
drag the old 

breath back and in great agony, and then I wanted to 
sick up 

the gluey pie I'd had before the start of the evening. 
But I 

couldn't stand that sort of veshch, sicking all over 
the floor, 

so I held it back. Then I saw that this fatty bruiseboy 
was 

turning to his millicent droogs to have a real 
horrorshow 

smeck at what he'd done, so I raised my right noga 
and before 

they could creech at him to watch out I'd kicked him 
smart 

and lovely on the shin. And he creeched murder, 
hopping 

around. 

But after that they all had a turn, bouncing me from 
one to 



the other like some very weary bloody ball, O my 
brothers, 

and fisting me in the yarbles and the rot and the 
belly and 

dealing out kicks, and then at last I had to sick up on 
the floor 

and, like some real bezoomny veck, I evan said: 
"Sorry, 

brothers, that was not the right thing at all. Sorry 
sorry 

sorry." But they handed me starry bits of gazetta 
and made me 

wipe it, and then they made me make with the 
sawdust. And then 

they said, almost like dear old droogs, that I was to 
sit down 

and we'd all have a quiet like govoreet. And then P. 
R. Deltoid 

came in to have a viddy, his office being in the same 
building, 

looking very tired and grahzny, to say: "So it's 
happened, Alex 

boy, yes? Just as I thought it would. Dear dear dear, 
yes." 

Then he turned to the millicents to say: "Evening, 
inspector. 



Evening, sergeant. Evening, evening, all. Well, this 
is the end of 

the line for me, yes. Dear dear, this boy does look 
messy, 

doesn't he? Just look at the state of him." 

"Violence makes violence," said the top millicent in a 
very 

holy type goloss. "He resisted his lawful arresters." 

"End of the line, yes," said P. R. Deltoid again. He 
looked at 

me with very cold glazzies like I had become a thing 
and was 

no more a bleeding very tired battered chelloveck. 

"I suppose 

I'll have to be in court tomorrow." 

"It wasn't me, brother, sir," I said, a malenky bit 
weepy. 

"Speak up for me, sir, for I'm not so bad. I was led on 
by the 

treachery of the others,sir." 

"Sings like a linnet," said the top rozz, sneery. 

"Sings the 


roof off lovely, he does that." 



"I'll speak," said cold P. R. Deltoid. "I'll be there 
tomorrow, 

don't worry." 

"If you'd like to give him a bash in the chops, sir," 
said the 

top millicent, "don't mind us. We'll hold him down. 

He must 

be another great disappointment to you." 

P. R. Deltoid then did something I never thought any 
man 

like him who was supposed to turn us baddiwads into 
real 

horrorshow malchicks would do, especially with all 
those 

rozzes around. He came a bit nearer and he spat. 

He spat. He 

spat full in my litso and then wiped his wet spitty rot 
with the 

back of his rooker. And I wiped and wiped and wiped 
my spat- 

on litso with my bloody tashtook, saying "Thank you, 
sir, 

thank you very much, sir, that was very kind of you, 
sir, thank 



you." And then P. R. Deltoid walked out without 
another 

slovo. 

The millicents now got down to making this long 
state¬ 
ment for me to sign, and I thought to myself. Hell 
and blast 

you all, if all you bastards are on the side of the 
Good then 

I'm glad I belong to the other shop. "All right," I said 
to them, 

"you grahzny bratchnies as you are, you vonny sods. 
Take it, 

take the lot. I'm not going to crawl around on my 
brooko 

any more, you merzky gets. Where do you want it 
taking 

from, you cally vonning animals? From my last 
corrective? 

Horrorshow, horrorshow, here it is, then." So I gave 
it to 

them, and I had this shorthand milicent, a very quiet 
and 

scared type chelloveck, no real rozz at all, covering 
page after 



page after page after. I gave them the ultra¬ 
violence, the crest¬ 
ing, the dratsing, the old in-out-in-out, the lot, right 
up to 

this night's veshch with the bugatty starry ptitsa 
with the 

mewing kots and koshkas. And I made sure my so- 
called 

droogs were in it, right up to the shiyah. When I'd 
got 

through the lot the shorthand millicent looked a bit 
faint, 

poor old veck. The top rozz said to him, in a kind 
type goloss: 

"Right, son, you go off and get a nice cup of chai for 
your¬ 
self and then type all that filth and rottenness out 
with a 

clothes-peg on your nose, three copies. Then they 
can be 

brought to our handsome young friend here for 
signature. 

And you," he said to me, "can now be shown to your 
bridal 

suite with running water and all conveniences. All 
right," in 



this weary goloss to two of the real tough rozzes, 
"take him 

away." 

So I was kicked and punched and bullied off to the 
cells and 

put in with about ten or twelve other plennies, a lot 
of them 

drunk. There were real oozhassny animal type vecks 
among 

them, one with his nose all ate away and his rot 
open like a 

big black hole, one that was lying on the floor 
snoring away 

and all like slime dribbling all the time out of his rot, 
and one 

that had like done all cal in his pantalonies. Then 
there were 

two like queer ones who both took a fancy to me, 
and one of 

them made a jump onto my back, and I had a real 
nasty bit of 

dratsing with him and the von on him, like of meth 
and cheap 

scent, made me want to sick again, only my belly 
was empty 



now, O my brothers. Then the other queer one 
started putting 

his rookers on to me, and then there was a snarling 
bit of 

dratsing between these two, both of them wanting 
to get at 

my plott. The shoom became very loud, so that a 
couple of 

millicents came along and cracked into these two 
with like 

truncheons, so that both sat quiet then, looking like 
into 

space, and there was the old krovvy going drip drip 
drip down 

the litso of one of them. There were bunks in this 
cell, but all 

filled. I climbed up to the top one of one tier of 
bunks, there 

being four in a tier, and there was a starry drunken 
veck snor¬ 
ing away, most probably heaved up there to the top 
by the 

millicents. Anyway, I heaved him down again, him 
not being 

all that heavy, and he collapsed on top of a fat drunk 
chello- 



veck on the floor, and both woke and started 
creeching and 

punching pathetic at each other. So I lay down on 
this vonny 

bed, my brothers, and went to very tired and 
exhausted and 

hurt sleep. But it was not really like sleep, it was 
like passing 

out to another better world. And in this other better 
world, O 

my brothers, I was in like a big field with all flowers 
and trees, 

and there was a like goat with a man's litso playing 
away on a 

like flute. And there rose like the sun Ludwig van 
himself 

with thundery litso and cravat and wild windy voloss, 
and 

then I heard the Ninth, last movement, with the 
slovos all a 

bit mixed-up like they knew themselves they had to 
be mixed- 

up, this being a dream: 


Boy, thou uproarious shark of heaven. 



Slaughter of Elysium, 

Hearts on fire, aroused, enraptured. 

We will tolchock you on the rot and kick 
your grahzny vonny bum. 


But the tune was right, as I knew when I was being 
woke up 

two or ten minutes or twenty hours or days or years 
later, my 

watch having been taken away. There was a 
millicent like miles 

and miles down below and he was prodding at me 
with a long 

stick with a spike on the end, saying: 

"Wake up, son. Wake up, my beauty. Wake to real 
trouble." 

I said: 

"Why? Who? Where? What is it?" And the tune of 
the Joy 

ode in the Ninth was singing away real lovely and 
horrorshow 


within. The millicent said: 



"Come down and find out. There's some real lovely 
news 

for you, my son." So I scrambled down, very stiff and 
sore and 

not like real awake, and this rozz, who had a strong 
von of 

cheese and onions on him, pushed me out of the 
filthy snor¬ 
ing cell, and then along corridors, and all the time 
the old 

tune Joy Thou Glorious Spark Of Heaven was 
sparking away 

within. Then we came to a very neat like cantora 
with type¬ 
writers and flowers on the desks, and at the like 
chief desk the 

top millicent was sitting, looking very serious and 
fixing a like 

very cold glazzy on my sleepy litso. I said: 

"Well well well. What makes, bratty. What gives, 
this fine 

bright middle of the nochy?" He said: 

"I'll give you just ten seconds to wipe that stupid grin 
off of 


your face. Then I want you to listen." 



"Well, what?" I said, smecking. "Are you not 
satisfied with 

beating me near to death and having me spat upon 
and making 

me confess to crimes for hours on end and then 
shoving me 

among bezoomnies and vonny perverts in that 
grahzny cell? 

Have you some new torture for me, you bratchny?" 

"It'll be your own torture," he said, serious. "I hope 
to God 

it'll torture you to madness." 

And then, before he told me, I knew what it was. 

The old 

ptitsa who had all the kots and koshkas had passed 
on to a 

better world in one of the city hospitals. I'd cracked 
her a bit 

too hard, like. Well, well, that was everything. I 
thought of all 

those kots and koshkas mewling for moloko and 
getting 

none, not any more from their starry forella of a 
mistress. 



That was everything. I'd done the lot, now. and me 
still only 

fifteen. 




Part Two 


1 


"What's it going to be then, eh?" 

I take it up now, and this is the real weepy and like 
tragic 

part of the story beginning, my brothers and only 
friends, in 

Staja (State Jail, that is) Number 84F. You will have 
little 

desire to slooshy all the cally and horrible raskazz of 
the 

shock that sent my dad beating his bruised and 
krovvy rockers 

against unfair like Bog in his Heaven, and my mum 
squaring 

her rot for owwwww owwwww owwwww in her 
mother's grief 

at her only child and son of her bosom like letting 
every¬ 
body down real horrorshow. Then there was the 
starry very 



grim magistrate in the lower court govoreeting some 
very 

hard slovos against your Friend and Humble 
Narrator, after 

all the cally and grahzny slander spat forth by P. R. 
Deltoid 

and the rozzes. Bog blast them. Then there was 
being rem¬ 
anded in filthy custody among vonny perverts and 
pre- 

stoopnicks. Then there was the trial in the higher 
court with 

judges and a jury, and some very very nasty slovos 
indeed 

govoreeted in a very like solemn way, and then 
Guilty and my 

mum boohoohooing when they said Fourteen Years, 

O my 

brothers. So here I was now, two years just to the 
day of 

being kicked and clanged into Staja 84F, dressed in 
the heighth 

of prison fashion, which was a one-piece suit of a 
very filthy 

like cal colour, and the number sewn on the groody 
part just 



above the old tick-tocker and on the back as well, so 
that 

going and coming I was 6655321 and not your little 
droog 

Alex not no longer. 

"What's it going to be then, eh?" 

It had not been like edifying, indeed it had not, being 
in this 

grahzny hellhole and like human zoo for two years, 
being 

kicked and tolchocked by brutal bully warders and 
meeting 

vonny leering like criminals, some of them real 
perverts and 

ready to dribble all over a luscious young malchick 
like your 

story-teller. And there was having to rabbit in the 
workshop 

at making matchboxes and itty round and round and 
round 

the yard for like exercise, and in the evenings 
sometimes some 

starry prof type veck would give a talk on beetles or 
the Milky 



Way or the Glorious Wonders of the Snowflake, and I 
had a 

good smeck at this last one, because it reminded me 
of that 

time of the tolchocking and Sheer Vandalism with 
that ded 

coming from the public biblio on a winter's night 
when my 

droogs were stil not traitors and I was like happy and 
free. Of 

those droogs I had slooshied but one thing, and that 
was one 

day when my pee and em came to visit and I was told 
that 

Georgia was dead. Yes, dead, my brothers. Dead as 
a bit of 

dog-cal on the road. Georgie had led the other two 
into a like 

very rich chelloveck's house, and there they had 
kicked and 

tolchocked the owner on the floor, and then Georgie 
had 

started to razrez the cushions and curtains, and then 
old Dim 

had cracked at some very precious ornaments, like 
statues 



and so on, and this rich beat-up chelloveck had 
raged like real 

bezoomny and gone for them all with a very heavy 
iron bar. 

His being all razdraz had given him some gigantic 
strength, 

and Dim and Pete had got out through the window, 
but Georgie 

had tripped on the carpet and then brought this 
terrible 

swinging iron bar crack and splodge on the gulliver, 
and that 

was the end of traitorous Georgie. The starry 
murderer had 

got off with Self Defence, as was really right and 
proper. 

Georgie being killed, though it was more than one 
year after me 

being caught by the millicents, it all seemed right 
and proper 

and like Fate. 

"What's it going to be then, eh?" 

I was in the Wing Chapel, it being Sunday morning, 
and the 



prison Charlie was govoreeting the Word of the 
Lord. It was 

my rabbit to play the starry stereo, putting on 
solemn music 

before and after and in the middle too when hymns 
were sung. 

I was at the back of the Wing Chapel (there were 
four along 

here in Staja 84F) near where the warders or 
chassos were 

standing with their rifles and their dirty bolshy blue 
brutal 

jowls, and I could viddy all the plennies sitting down 
slooshy- 

ing the Slovo of the Lord in their horrible cal- 
coloured 

prison platties, and a sort of filthy von rose from 
them, not 

like real unwashed, not grazzy, but like a special real 
stinking 

von which you only got with the criminal types, my 
brothers, 

a like dusty, greasy, hopeless sort of a von. And I 
was thinking 

that perhaps I had this von too, having become a 
real plenny 



myself, though still very young. So it was important 
to 

me, O my brothers, to get out of this stinking 
grahzny zoo as 

soon as I could. And, as you will viddy if you keep 
reading on, 

it was not long before I did. 

"What's it going to be then, eh?" said the prison 
Charlie for 

the third raz. "Is it going to be in and out and in and 
out of 

institutions, like this, though more in than out for 
most of 

you, or are you going to attend to the Divine Word 
and 

realize the punishments that await the unrepentant 
sinner in 

the next world, as well as in this? A lot of blasted 
idiots you 

are, most of you, selling your birthright for a saucer 
of cold por¬ 
ridge. The thrill of theft, or violence, the urge to 
live easy - is 

it worth it when we have undeniable proof, yes yes, 
incon- 



trovertible evidence that hell exists? I know, I know, 
my 

friends, I have been informed in visions that there is 
a place, 

darker than any prison, hotter than any flame of 
human fire, 

where souls of unrepentant criminal sinners like 
yourselves - 

and don't leer at me, damn you, don't laugh - like 
yourselves, 

I say, scream in endless and intolerable agony, their 
noses 

choked with the smell of filth, their mouths crammed 
with 

burning ordure, their skin peeling and rotting, a 
fireball spin¬ 
ning in their screaming guts. Yes, yes, yes, I know" 

At this point, brothers, a plenny somewhere or other 
near 

the back row let out a shoom of lip-music - 'Prrrrrp' - 
and 

then the brutal chassos were on the job right away, 
rushing 


real skorry to what they thought was the scene of 
the 



schoom, then hitting out nasty and delivering 
tolchocks, left 

and right. Then they picked out one poor trembling 
plenny, 

very thin and malenky and starry too, and dragged 
him off, 

but all the time he kept creeching: "It wasn't me, it 
was him, 

see," but that made no difference. He was 
tolchocked real 

nasty and then dragged out of the Wing Chapel 
creeching his 

gulliver off. 

"Now," said the prison Charlie, "listen to the Word of 
the 

Lord." Then he picked up the big book and flipped 
over the 

pages, keeping on wetting his fingers to do this by 
licking 

them splurge splurge. He was a bolshy great burly 
bastard 

with a very red litso, but he was very fond of myself, 
me being 

young and also now very interested in the big book. 
It had 



been arranged as part of my like further education 
to read in 

the book and even have music on the chapel stereo 
while I 

was reading, O my brothers. And that was real 
horrorshow. 

They would like lock me in and let me slooshy holy 
music by 

J. S. Bach and G. F. Handel, and I would read of these 
starry 

yahoodies tolchocking each other and then peeting 
their 

Hebrew vino and getting on to the bed with their 
wives' like 

hand-maidens, real horrorshow. That kept me going, 

brothers. I didn't so much kopat the later part of the 
book, 

which is more like all preachy govoreeting than 
fighting and 

the old in-out. But one day the Charles said to me, 
squeezing 

me like tight with his bolshy beefy rooker: "Ah, 
6655321, 

think on the divine suffering. Meditate on that, my 
boy." And 



all the time he had this rich manny von of Scotch on 
him, and 

then he went off to his little cantora to peet some 
more. So I 

read all about the scourging and the crowning with 
thorns 

and then the cross veshch and all that cal, and I 
viddied better 

that there was something in it. While the stereo 
played bits of 

lovely Bach I closed my glazzies and viddied myself 
helping in 

and even taking charge of the tolchocking and the 
nailing in, 

being dressed in a like toga that was the heighth of 
Roman 

fashion. So being in Staja 84F was not all that 
wasted, and the 

Governor himself was very pleased to hear that I had 
taken to 

like Religion, and that was where I had my hopes. 

This Sunday morning the Charlie read out from the 
book 

about chellovecks who slooshied the slovo and didn't 
take a 



blind bit being like a domy built upon sand, and then 
the rain 

came splash and the old boomaboom cracked the sky 
and 

that was the end of that domy. But I thought that 
only a very 

dim veck would have built his domy upon sand, and a 
right lot of 

real sneering droogs and nasty neighbours a veck 
like that 

would have, them not telling him how dim he was 
doing that 

sort of building. Then the Charles creeched: "Right, 
you lot. 

We'll end with Hymn Number 435 in the Prisoners' 
Hymnal." 

Then there was a crash and plop and a whish whish 
while the 

plennies picked up and dropped and lickturned the 
pages of 

their grazzy 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 
Schweigsel- 

ber, 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 
tes¬ 
timonial 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 
con¬ 
signment of cocaine has arrived by irregular means 
and that a 

cell somewhere along Tier 5 is to be the centre of 
dis¬ 


tribution." 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 
work¬ 
shops 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 vol¬ 
untary." 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 Lu¬ 
dovico'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 tol- 

chock 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" (what¬ 
ever 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 crimi¬ 
nal'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 pre¬ 
tended 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 

chelloveckto 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 cree- 

ching 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 
im¬ 
position, 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." 


2 


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 prob¬ 
ably your Humble Narrator, brothers, that started it 
all 

anyway, me having no mark of a scratch on me but 
this hor¬ 
rible plenny dipping red red krovvy from the rot 
where I'd 

got him with my clawing rooker. That made me real 
be- 


zoomny. 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 
pre- 

stoopnick: "Go on, get on my bunk if you wish it. I 
fancy it no 

longer. You have made it filthy and cally with your 
horrible 



vonny plott 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 
tol- 

chock. The Doctor said: 

"Come on, gentlemen, we don't 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, 
Archi- 

balls?" 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. Thiosh 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 con¬ 
ductor 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 sleepgiue, 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 brut¬ 
ality. 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 spread¬ 
ing from outside the cell, and then we could viddy 
the 

Governor and the Chief Chasso and some very bolshy 
im¬ 
portant-looking chellovecks walking by real skorry, 
govoreet- 

ing 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 crimi¬ 
nality, 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. Pun¬ 
ishment 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 
un¬ 
savoury. 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 
trans¬ 
formed out of all recognition." 

And those hard slovos, brothers, were like the 
beginning of 

my freedom. 


3 


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 morn¬ 
ing, 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 
under¬ 
stand, 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 
hor- 

rorshow 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 re¬ 
member 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 nme said: "You watch this 
one, sir. A 

right brutal bastard he has been and will be again, in 
spite of 



all his sucking up to the Prison Chaplain and reading 
the 

Bible." But this new chelloveck had real horrorshow 
blue glaz- 

zies 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 mal- 

chickiwick. 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 gazettes and mags to look at 
while peet- 

ing 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 mal- 

chick. 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 hypo¬ 
dermic. 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 biy 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. 


4 



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 kashi 
kashi 



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 dis¬ 
cord. 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 
pro¬ 
fessional 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 mal¬ 
chicks. 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? Prom¬ 
ising, 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 some¬ 
thing 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. 


5 


I do not wish to describe, brothers, what other 
horrible vesh- 

ches 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 
twid¬ 
dling 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 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 blast¬ 
ing-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 gulli¬ 
ver, 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 mal¬ 
chicks 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 mal- 

enky 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. 


6 



"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 smil¬ 
ing 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 
mal- 

chicks 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 build¬ 
ings. 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 
pun¬ 
ishment 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 edu¬ 
cational method in the world. And what really 
causes you to 

feel ill?" 

"These grahzny sodding veshches that come out of 
my gulli- 

ver 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. Sub¬ 
liminal 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 want¬ 
ing 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 
aston¬ 
ished. 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 
gulli- 

ver. So what could it be but the films I was viddying 
that were 

doing this to me? Except, of course, brothers, that 
this Lu¬ 
dovico 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 scis¬ 
sored 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 moan¬ 
ing 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. 


7 


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 kashi kashi kashi 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 chello- 

veck 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 him¬ 
self. 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 danc¬ 
ing, 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 how¬ 
ling 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 flick- 

flickflicked 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 sick¬ 
ness 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 feel¬ 
ing 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 sub¬ 
ject 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 con¬ 
cerned 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 clock- 



work orange?" I didn't know what made me use 
those slovos, 

brothers, which just came like without asking into 
my gulli- 

ver. 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 audi¬ 
ence 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." 




Part Three 


1 


"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 embar¬ 
rassing 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 Nar¬ 
rator 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 gazettes, 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 gazette, my idea being to get ready for 
plunging 

back into normal jeezny again by viddying what was 
ittying on 

in the world. This gazette I had seemed to be like a 
Govern¬ 
ment gazette, 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 
hooli¬ 
gans and perverts and burglars and all that cal. 
Which inter- 

essovatted 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 Rec- 



lamation 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 clopciopciop 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 ga¬ 
zetta 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 for how long? I didn't like the tone of 
what 

you said just then. Watch it. Come on, speak up." 

He was a 

working-man type veck, very ugly, about thirty or 
forty, and 

he sat now with his rot open at me, not govoreeting 
one 

single slovo. Then my dad said: 

"This is all a bit bewildering, son. You should have 
let us 

know you were coming. We thought it would be at 
least 

another five or six years before they let you out. 
Not," he 

said, and he said it very like gloomy, "that we're not 
very 

pleased to see you again and a free man, too." 

"Who is this?" I said. "Why can't he speak up? 

What's going 

on in here?" 

"This is Joe," said my mum. "He lives here now. The 
lodger. 



that's what he is. Oh, dear dear dear," she went. 


"You," said this Joe. "I've heard all about you, boy. I 
know 

what you've done, breaking the hearts of your poor 
grieving 

parents. So you're back, eh? Back to make life a 
misery for 

them once more, is that it? Over my dead corpse 
you will, 

because they've let me be more like a son to them 
than like a 

lodger." I could nearly have smecked loud at that if 
the old 

razdraz within me hadn't started to wake up the 
feeling of 

wanting to sick, because this veck looked about the 
same age 

as my pee and em, and there he was like trying to 
put a son's 

protecting rooker round my crying mum, O my 
brothers. 

"So," I said, and I near felt like collapsing in all tears 
myself. 

"So that's it, then. Well, I give you five large 
minootas to clear 



all your horrible cally veshches out of my room." 
And I made 


for this room, this veck being a malenky bit too slow 
to stop 

me. When I opened the door my heart cracked to 
the carpet, 

because I viddied it was no longer like my room at 
all, 

brothers. All my flags had gone off the walls and this 
veck had 

put up pictures of boxers, also like a team sitting 
smug with 

folded rookers and silver like shield in front. And 
then I vid¬ 
died what else was missing. My stereo and my disc- 
cupboard 

were no longer there, nor was my locked treasure- 
chest that 

contained bottles and drugs and two shining clean 
syringes. 

"There's been some filthy vonny work going on here," 
I 

creeched. "What have you done with my own 
personal 

veshches, you horrible bastard?" This was to this 
Joe, but it was 



my dad that answered, saying: 

"That was all took away, son, by the police. This new 
regu¬ 
lation, see, about compensation for the victims." 

I found it very hard not to be very ill, but my gulliver 
was 

aching shocking and my rot was so dry that I had to 
take a 

skorry swig from the milk-bottle on the table, so that 
this Joe 

said: "Filthy piggish manners." I said: 

"But she died. That one died." 

"It was the cats, son," said my dad like sorrowful, 
"that were 

left with nobody to look after them till the will was 
read, so 

they had to have somebody in to feed them. So the 
police 

sold your things, clothes and all, to help with the 
looking 

after of them. That's the law, son. But you were 
never much 


of a one for following the law." 



I had to sit down then, and this Joe said: "Ask 
permission 

before you sit, you mannerless young swine," so I 
cracked 

back skorry with a "Shut your dirty big fat hole, you," 
feeling 

sick. Then I tried to be all reasonable and smiling 
for my 

health's sake like, so I said: "Well, that's my room, 
there's no 

denying that. This is my home also. What 
suggestions have 

you, my pee and em, to make?" But they just looked 
very 

glum, my mum shaking a bit, her litso all lines and 
wet with 

like tears, and then my dad said: 

"All this needs thinking about, son. We can't very 
well just 

kick Joe out, not just like that, can we? I mean, Joe's 
here 

doing a job, a contract it is, two years, and we made 
like an 

arrangement, didn't we, Joe? I mean son, thinking 
you were 



going to stay in prison a long time and that room 
going beg¬ 
ging." He was a bit ashamed, you could viddy that 
from his 

litso. So I just smiled and like nodded, saying: 

"I viddy all. You got used to a bit of peace and you 
got 

used to a bit of extra pretty polly. That's the way it 
goes. 

And your son has just been nothing but a terrible 
nuisance." 

And then, my brothers, believe me or kiss my 
sharries, I 

started to like cry, feeling very like sorry for myself. 
So my 

dad said: 

"Well, you see, son, Joe's paid next month's rent 
already. I 

mean, whatever we do in the future we can't say to 
Joe to get 

out, can we, Joe?" This Joe said: 

"It's you two I've got to think of, who've been like a 
father 

and mother to me. Would it be right or fair to go off 
and 



leave you to the tender mercies of this young 
monster who 

has been like no real son at all? He's weeping now, 
but that's 

his craft and artfulness. Let him go off and find a 
room some¬ 
where. Let him learn the error of his ways and that 
a bad boy 

like he's been doesn't deserve such a good mum and 
dad as 

what he's had." 

"All right," I said, standing up in all like tears still. "I 
know 

how things are now. Nobody wants or loves me. I've 
suffered 

and suffered and suffered and everybody wants me 
to go on 

suffering. I know." 

"You've made others suffer," said this Joe. "It's only 
right 

you should suffer proper. I've been told everything 
that 

you've done, sitting here at night round the family 
table, and 



pretty shocking it was to listen to. Made me real 
sick a lot of 

it did." 

"I wish," I said, "I was back in the prison. Dear old 
Staja as it 

was. I'm ittying off now," I said. "You won't ever 
viddy me no 

more. I'll make my own way, thank you very much. 
Let it lie 

heavy on your consciences." My dad said: 

"Don't take it like that, son," and my mum just went 
boo 

hoo hoo, her litso all screwed up real ugly, and this 
Joe put 

his rooker round her again, patting her and going 
there there 

there like bezoomny. And so I just sort of staggered 
to the 

door and went out, leaving them to their horrible 
guilt, O my 

brothers. 


2 



Ittying down the street in a like aimless sort of a way 


brothers, in these night platties which lewdies like 
stared at as 

I went by, cold too, it being a bastard cold winter 
day, all I felt 

I wanted was to be away from all this and not have 
to 

think any more about any sort of veshch at all. So I 
got the 

autobus to Center, then walked back to Taylor Place, 
and 

there was the disc-bootick 'MELODIA' - I had used to 
favour 

with my inestimable custom, O my brothers, and it 
looked 

much the same sort of mesto as it always had, and 
walking in I 

expected to viddy old Andy there, that bald and very 
very thin 

helpful little veckfrom whom I had kupetted discs in 
the old 

days. But there was no Andy there now, brothers, 
only a 



scream and a creech of nadsat (teenage, that is) 
malchicks and 

ptitsas slooshying some new horrible popsong and 
dancing 

to it as well, and the veck behind the counter not 
much more 

than a nadsat himself, clicking his rooker-bones and 
smecking 

like bezoomny. So I went up and waited till he like 
deigned to 

notice me, then I said: 

"I'd like to hear a disc of the Mozart Number Forty." 

I don't 

know why that should have come into my gulliver, 
but it did. 

The counter-veck said: 

"Forty what, friend?" 

I said: "Symphony. Symphony Number Forty in G 
Minor." 

"Ooooh," went one of the dancing nadsats, a 
malchick with 

his hair all over his glazzies, "seemfunnah. Don't it 
seem 


funny? He wants a seemfunnah." 



I could feel myself growing all razdraz within, but I 
had to 

watch that, so I like smiled at the veck who had 
taken over 

Andy's place and at all the dancing and creeching 
nadsats. This 

counter-veck said: "You go into that listen-booth 
over there, 

friend, and I'll pipe something through." 

So I went over to the malenky box where you could 
sloo- 

shy the discs you wanted to buy, and then this veck 
put a disc 

on for me, but it wasn't the Mozart Forty, it was the 
Mozart 

'Prague' - he seemingly having just picked up any 
Mozart he 

could find on the shelf - and that should have started 
making 

me real razdraz and I had to watch that for fear of 
the pain 

and sickness, but what I'd forgotten was something I 

shouldn't have forgotten and now made me want to 
snuff it. 



It was that these doctor bratchnies had so fixed 
things that 

any music that was like for the emotions would make 
me sick 

just like viddying or wanting to do violence. It was 
because all 

those violence films had music with them. And I 
remembered 

especially that horrible Nazi film with the Beethoven 
Fifth, 

last movement. And now here was lovely Mozart 
made hor¬ 
rible. I dashed out of the shop with these nadsats 
smecking 

after me and the counter-veck creeching: "Eh eh 
eh!" But I 

took no notice and went staggering almost like blind 
across 

the road and round the corner to the Korova 
Milkbar. I knew 

what I wanted. 

The mesto was near empty, it being still morning. It 
looked 


strange too, having been painted with all red mooing 
cows. 



and behind the counter was no veck I knew. But 
when I said: 

"Milk plus, large," the veck with a like lean litso very 
newly 

shaved knew what I wanted. I took the large moloko 
plus to 

one of the little cubies that were all around this 
mesto, there 

being like curtains to shut them off from the main 
mesto, and 

there I sat down in the plushy chair and sipped and 
sipped. 

When I'd finished the whole lot I began to feel that 
things 

were happening. I had my glazzies like fixed on a 
malenky bit 

of silver paper from a cancer packet that was on the 
floor, the 

sweeping-up of this mesto not being all that 
horrors how, 

brothers. This scrap of silver began to grow and 
grow and 

grow and it was so like bright and fiery that I had to 
squint my 


glazzies at it. It got so big that it became not only 
this whole 



cubie I was lolling in but like the whole Korova, the 
whole 

street, the whole city. Then it was the whole world, 
then it 

was the whole everything, brothers, and it was like a 
sea 

washing over every veshch that had ever been made 
or 

thought of even. I could sort of slooshy myself 
making 

special sort of shooms and govoreeting slovos like 
'Dear 

dead idlewilds, rot not in variform guises' and all 
that cal. 

Then I could like feel the vision beating up in all this 
silver, 

and then there were colours like nobody had ever 
viddied 

before, and then I could viddy like a group of statues 
a long 

long long way off that was like being pushed nearer 
and 

nearer and nearer, all lit up by very bright light from 
below 

and above alike, O my brothers. This group of 
statues was of 



God or Bog and all His Holy Angels and Saints, all 
very bright 


like bronze, with beards and bolshy great wings that 
waved 

about in a kind of wind, so that they could not really 
be of 

stone or bronze, really, and the eyes or glazzies like 
moved 

and were alive. These bolshy big figures came 
nearer and 

nearer and nearer till they were like going to crush 
me down, 

and I could slooshy my goloss going 'Eeeeee'. And I 
felt I had 

got rid of everything - platties, body, brain, name, 
the lot - 

and felt real horrorshow, like in heaven. Then there 
was the 

shoom of like crumbling and crumpling, and Bog and 
the 

Angels and Saints sort of shook their gullivers at me, 
as 

though to govoreet that there wasn't quite time now 
but I 

must try again, and then everything like leered and 
smecked 



and collapsed and the big warm light grew like cold, 
and then 

there I was as I was before, the empty glass on the 
table and 

wanting to cry and feeling like death was the only 
answer to 

everything. 

And that was it, that was what I viddied quite clear 
was the 

thing to do, but how to do it I did not properly know, 
never 

having thought of that before, O my brothers. In my 
little bag 

of personal veshches I had my cut-throat britva, but I 
at once 

felt very sick as I thought of myself going swishhhh 
at myself 

and all my own red red krovvy flowing. What I 
wanted was 

not something violent but something that would 
make me 

like just go off gentle to sleep and that be the end of 
Your 

Humble Narrator, no more trouble to anybody any 
more. 



Perhaps, i thought, if I ittied off to the Public Biblio 
around 

the corner I might find some book on the best way of 
snuffing 

it with no pain. I thought of myself dead and how 
sorry every¬ 
body was going to be, pee and em and that cally 
vonny Joe 

who was a like usurper, and also Dr. Brodsky and Dr. 
Branom 

and that Inferior Interior Minister and every veck 
else. And the 

boastful vonny Government too. So out I scatted 
into the 

winter, and it was afternoon now, near two o'clock, 
as I 

could viddy from the bolshy Center timepiece, so 
that me 

being in the land with the old moloko plus must have 
took 

like longer than I thought. I walked down 
Marghanita Boule¬ 
vard and then turned into Boothby Avenue, then 
round the 


corner again, and there was the Public Biblio. 



It was a starry cally sort of a mesto that I could not 
re¬ 
member going into since I was a very very malenky 
malchick, 

no more than about six years old, and there were 
two parts of 

it - one part to borrow books and one part to read in, 
full of 

gazettas and mags and like the von of very starry 
old men 

with their plotts stinking of like old age and poverty. 
These 

were standing at the gazetta stands all round the 
room, 

sniffling and belching and govoreeting to themselves 
and 

turning over the pages to read the news very sadly, 
or else 

they were sitting at the tables looking at the mags 
or pre¬ 
tending to, some of them asleep and one or two of 
them 

snoring real gromky. I couldn't remember what it 
was I 

wanted at first, then I remembered with a bit of a 
shock that 



I had ittied here to find out how to snuff it without 
pain, so I 

goolied over to the shelf full of reference veshches. 
There were 

a lot of books, but there was none with a title, 
brothers, that 

would really do. There was a medical book that I 
took down, 

but when I opened it it was full of drawings and 
photographs 

of horrible wounds and diseases, and that made me 
want to 

sick just a bit. So I put that back and took down the 
big 

book or Bible, as it was called, thinking that might 
give me 

like comfort as it had done in the old Staja days (not 
so old 

really, but it seemed a very very long time ago), and 
I staggered 

over to a chair to read in it. But all I found was 
about smiting 

seventy times seven and a lot of Jews cursing and 
tolchocking 

each other, and that made me want to sick, too. So 
then I 



near cried, so that a very starry ragged moodge 
opposite me 

said: 

"What is it, son? What's the trouble?" 

"I want to snuff it," I said. "I've had it, that's what it 
is. Life's 

become too much for me." 

A starry reading veck next to me said: "Shhhh," 
without 

looking up from some bezoomny mag he had full of 
drawings 

of like bolshy geometrical veshches. That rang a bell 
some¬ 
how. This other moodge said: 

"You're too young for that, son. Why, you've got 
every¬ 
thing in front of you." 

"Yes," I said, bitter. "Like a pair of false groodies." 
This mag¬ 
reading veck said: "Shhhh" again, looking up this 
time, and 

something clocked for both of us. I viddied who it 
was. He 


said, real gromky: 



"I never forget a shape, by God. I never forget the 
shape of 

anything. By God, you young swine, I've got you 
now." Crys¬ 
tallography, that was it. That was what he'd been 
taking away 

from the Biblio that time. False teeth crunched up 
real hor- 

rorshow. Flatties torn off. His books razrezzed, all 
about 

Crystallography. I thought I had best get out of here 
real 

skorry, brothers. But this starry old moodge was on 
his feet, 

creeching like bezoomny to all the starry old 
coughers at the 

gazettes round the walls and to them dozing over 
mags at the 

tables. "We have him," he creeched. "The poisonous 
young 

swine who ruined the books on Crystallography, rare 
books, 

books not to be obtained ever again, anywhere." 

This had a 

terrible mad shoom about it, as though this old veck 
was 



really off his gulliver. "A prize specimen of the 
cowardly brutal 

young," he creeched. "Here in our midst and at our 
mercy. He 

and his friends beat me and kicked me and thumped 
me. They 

stripped me and tore out my teeth. They laughed at 
my blood 

and my moans. They kicked me off home, dazed and 
naked." 

All this wasn't quite true, as you know, brothers. He 
had 

some platties on, he hadn't been completely nagoy. 

I creeched back: "That was over two years ago. I've 
been 

punished since then. I've learned my lesson. See 
over there - 

my picture's in the papers." 

"Punishment, eh?" said one starry like ex-soldier 
type. "You 

lot should be exterminated. Like so many noisome 
pests. Pun¬ 
ishment indeed." 

"All right, all right," I said. "Everybody's entitled to 
his 



opinion. Forgive me, all. I must go now." And I 
started to itty 

out of this mesto of bezoomny old men. Aspirin, 
that was it. 

You could snuff it on a hundred aspirin. Aspirin from 
the old 

drugstore. But the crystallography veck creeched: 

"Don't let him go. We'll teach him all about 
punishment, 

the murderous young pig. Get him." And, believe it, 
brothers, 

or do the other veshch, two or three starry 
dodderers, about 

ninety years old apiece, grabbed me with their 
trembly old 

rookers, and I was like made sick by the von of old 
age and 

disease which came from these near-dead moodges. 
The crys¬ 
tal veck was on to me now, starting to deal me 
malenky weak 

tolchocks on my litso, and I tried to get away and 
itty out, 

but these starry rookers that held me were stronger 
than I had 



thought. Then other starry vecks came hobbling 
from the 

gazettes to have a go at Your Humble Narrator. 

They were 

creeching veshches like: "Kill him, stamp on him, 
murder him, 

kick his teeth in," and all that cal, and I could viddy 
what it was 

clear enough. It was old age having a go at youth, 
that's what 

it was. But some of them were saying: "Poor old 
Jack, near 

killed poor old Jack he did, this is the young swine" 
and so on, 

as though it had all happened yesterday. Which to 
them I 

suppose it had. There was now like a sea of vonny 
runny dirty 

old men trying to get at me with their like feeble 
rookers and 

horny old claws, creeching and panting on to me, but 
our 

crystal droog was there in front, dealing out tolchock 
after 

tolchock. And I daren't do a solitary single veshch, O 
my 



brothers, it being better to be hit at like that than to 
want to 

sick and feel that horrible pain, but of course the 
fact that 

there was violence going on made me feel that the 
sickness 

was peeping round the corner to viddy whether to 
come out 

into the open and roar away. 

Then an attendant veck came along, a youngish 
veck,and he 

creeched: "What goes on here? Stop it at once. This 
is a read¬ 
ing room." But nobody took any notice. So the 
attendant 

veck said: "Right, I shall phone the police." So I 
creeched, and I 

never thought I would ever do that in all my jeezny: 

"Yes yes yes, do that, protect me from these old 
madmen." I 

noticed that the attendant veck was not too anxious 
to join 

in the dratsing and rescue me from the rage and 
madness of 



these starry vecks' claws; he just scatted off to his 
like office 

or wherever the telephone was. Now these old men 
were pan¬ 
ting a lot now, and I felt I could just flick at them and 
they 

would all fall over, but I just let myself be held, very 
patient, 

by these starry rookers, my glazzies closed, and feel 
the feeble 

tolchocks on my litso, also slooshy the panting 
breathy old 

golosses creeching: "Young swine, young murderer, 
hooligan, 

thug, kill him." Then I got such a real painful 
tolchock on the 

nose that I said to myself to hell to hell, and I 
opened my 

glazzies up and started to struggle to get free, which 
was not 

hard, brothers, and I tore off creeching to the sort of 
hallway 

outside the reading-room. But these starry 
avengers still came 

after me, panting like dying, with their animal claws 
all trem- 



bling to get at your friend and Humble Narrator. 
Then I was 


tripped up and was on the floor and was being kicked 
at, then 

I slooshied golosses of young vecks creeching: "All 
right, all 

right, stop it now," and I knew the police had arrived. 


3 


I was like dazed, O my brothers, and could not viddy 
very 

clear, but I was sure I had met these millicents some 
mesto 

before. The one who had hold of me, going: "There 
there 

there," just by the front door of the Public Biblio, 
him I did 

not know at all, but it seemed to me he was like very 
young to 

be a rozz. But the other two had backs that I was 
sure I had 



viddied before. They were lashing into these starry 
old vecks 

with great bolshy glee and joy, swishing away with 
malenky 

whips, creeching: "There, you naughty boys. That 
should 

teach you to stop rioting and breaking the State's 
Peace, you 

wicked villains, you." So they drove these panting 
and wheez¬ 
ing and near dying starry avengers back into the 
reading- 

room, then they turned round, smecking with the fun 
they'd 

had, to viddy me. The older one of the two said: 

"Well well well well well well well. If it isn't little 
Alex. Very 

long time no viddy, droog. How goes?" I was like 
dazed,the 

uniform and the shlem or helmet making it hard to 
viddy who 

this was, though litso and goloss were very familiar. 
Then I 

looked at the other one, and about him, with his 
grinning 



bezoomny litso, there was no doubt. Then, all numb 
and 

growing number, I looked back at the well well 
welling one. 

This one was then fatty old Billyboy, my old enemy. 
The 

other was, of course. Dim, who had used to be my 
droog and 

also the enemy of stinking fatty goaty Billyboy, but 
was now 

a millicent with uniform and shlem and whip to keep 
order. I 

said: 

"Oh no." 

"Surprise, eh?" And old Dim came out with the old 
guff I 

remembered so horrorshow: "Huh huh huh." 

"It's impossible," I said. "It can't be so. I don't 
believe 

it." 

"Evidence of the old glazzies," grinned Billyboy. 
"Nothing up 


our sleeves. No magic, droog. A job for two who are 
now of 



job-age. The police." 


"You're too young," I said. "Much too young. They 
don't 

make rozzes of malchicks of your age." 

"Was young," went old millicent Dim. I could not get 
over 

it, brothers, I really could not. "That's what we was, 
young 

droogie. And you it was that was always the 
youngest. And 

here now we are." 

"I still can't believe it," I said. Then Billyboy, rozz 
Billyboy 

that I couldn't get over, said to this young millicent 
that was 

like holding on to me and that I did not know: 

"More good would be done, I think, Rex, if we doled 
out a 

bit of the old summary. Boys will be boys, as always 
was. No 

need to go through the old station routine. This one 
here has 

been up to his old tricks, as we can well remember 
though 



you, of course, can't. He has been attacking the 
aged and 

defenceless, and they have properly been 
retaliating. But we 

must have our say in the State's name." 

"What is all this?" I said, not able hardly to believe 
my 

ookos. "It was them that went for me, brothers. 
You're not on 

their side and can't be. You can't be. Dim. It was a 
veck we 

fillied with once in the old days trying to get his own 
malenky 

bit of revenge after all this long time." 

"Long time is right," said Dim. "I don't remember 
them days 

too horrorshow. Don't call me Dim no more, either. 
Officer 

call me." 

"Enough is remembered, though," Billyboy kept 
nodding. 

He was not so fatty as he had been. "Naughty little 
malchicks 

handy with cut-throat britvas - these must be kept 
under." 



And they took me in a real strong grip and like 
walked me out 


of the Biblio. There was a millicent patrol-car 
waiting outside, 

and this veck they called Rex was the driver. They 
like tol- 

chocked me into the back of this auto, and I couldn't 
help 

feeling it was all really like a joke, and that Dim 
anyway would 

pull his shlem off his gulliver and go haw haw haw. 
But he 

didn't. I said, trying to fight the strack inside me: 

"And old Pete, what happened to old Pete? It was 
sad about 

Georgia," I said. "I slooshied all about that." 

"Pete, oh yes, Pete," said Dim. "I seem to remember 
like the 

name." I could viddy we were driving out of town. I 
said: 

"Where are we supposed to be going?" 

Billyboy turned round from the front to say: "It's 
light still. 

A little drive into the country, all winter-bare but 
lonely and 



lovely. It is not right, not always, for lewdies in the 
town to 

viddy too much of our summary punishments. 

Streets must be 

kept clean in more than one way." And he turned to 
the front 

again. 

"Come," I said. "I just don't get this at all. The old 
days are 

dead and gone days. For what I did in the past I 
have been 

punished. I have been cured." 

"That was read out to us," said Dim. "The Super 
read all that 

out to us. He said it was a very good way." 

"Read to you," I said, a malenky bit nasty. "You still 
too dim 

to read for yourself, O brother?" 

"Ah, no," said Dim, very like gentle and like 
regretful. "Not 

to speak like that. Not no more, droogie." And he 
launched a 

bolshy tolchock right on my cluve, so that all red red 
nose- 



krovvy started to drip drip drip. 


"There was never any trust," I said, bitter, wiping off 
the 

krovvy with my rooker. "I was always on my oddy 
knocky." 

"This will do," said Billyboy. We were now in the 
country 

and it was all bare trees and a few odd distant like 
twitters, 

and in the distance there was some like farm 
machine making 

a whirring shoom. It was getting all dusk now, this 
being the 

height of winter. There were no lewdies about, nor 
no 

animals. There was just the four. "Get out, Alex 
boy," said 

Dim. "Just a malenky bit of summary." 

All through what they did this driver veck just sat at 
the 

wheel of the auto, smoking a cancer, reading a 
malenky bit of 

a book. He had the light on in the auto to viddy by. 
He took 



no notice of what Billyboy and Dim did to your 
Humble 

Narrator. I will not go into what they did, but it was 
all like 

panting and thudding against this like background of 
whirring 

farm engines and the twittwittwittering in the bare 
or nagoy 

branches. You could viddy a bit of smoky breath in 
the auto 

light, this driver turning the pages over quite calm. 
And they 

were on to me all the time, O my brothers. Then 
Billyboy or 

Dim, I couldn't say which one, said: "About enough, 
droogie. I 

should think, shouldn't you?" Then they gave me 
one final 

tolchock on the litso each and I fell over and just laid 
there 

on the grass. It was cold but I was not feeling the 
cold. Then 

they dusted their rookers and put back on their 
shlems and 

tunics which they had taken off, and then they got 
back into 



the auto. "Be viddying you some more sometime, 
Alex," said 

Billyboy, and Dim just gave one of his old downy 
guffs. The 

driver finished the page he was reading and put his 
book away, 

then he started the auto and they were off 
townwards, my ex- 

droog and ex-enemy waving. But I just laid there, 
fagged and 

shagged. 

After a bit I was hurting bad, and then the rain 
started, all 

icy. I could viddy no lewdies in sight, nor no lights of 
houses. 

Where was I to go, who had no home and not much 
cutter in 

my carmans? I cried for myself boo hoo hoo. Then I 
got up 

and started walking. 


4 



Home, home, home, it was home I was wanting, and 
it was 

HOME I came to, brothers. I walked through the dark 
and 

followed not the town way but the way where the 
shoom of a 

like farm machine had been coming from. This 
brought me to 

a sort of village I felt I had viddied before, but was 
perhaps 

because all villages look the same, in the dark 
especially. Here 

were houses and there was a like drinking mesto, 
and right at 

the end of the village there was a malenky cottage 
on its oddy 

knocky, and I could viddy its name shining on the 
gate. 

HOME, it said. I was all dripping wet with this icy 
rain, so 

that my platties were no longer in the heighth of 
fashion but 

real miserable and like pathetic, and my luscious 
glory was a 

wet tangle cally mess all spread over my gulliver, 
and I was 



sure there were cuts and bruises all over my litso, 
and a couple 

of my zoobies sort of joggled loose when I touched 
them 

with my tongue or yahzick. And I was sore all over 
my plott 

and very thirsty, so that I kept opening my rot to the 
cold 

rain, and my stomach growled grrrrr all the time 
with not 

having had any pishcha since morning and then not 
very 

much, O my brothers. 

HOME, it said, and perhaps here would be some veck 
to 

help. I opened the gate and sort of slithered down 
the path, 

the rain like turning to ice, and then I knocked gentle 
and 

pathetic on the door. No veck came, so I knocked a 
malenky 

bit longer and louder, and then I heard the shoom of 
nogas 

coming to the door. Then the door opened and a 
male goloss 



said: "Yes, what is it?" 


"Oh," I said, "please help. I've been beaten up by the 
police 

and just left to die on the road. Oh, please give me 
a drink of 

something and a sit by the fire, please, sir." 

The door opened full then, and I could viddy like 
warm 

light and a fire going crackle crackle within. "Come 
in," said 

this veck, "whoever you are. God help you, you poor 
victim, 

come in and let's have a look at you." So I like 
staggered in, 

and it was no big act I was putting on, brothers, I 
really felt 

done and finished. This kind veck put his rookers 
round my 

pletchoes and pulled me into this room where the 
fire was, 

and of course I knew right away now where it was 
and why 

HOME on the gate looked so familiar. I looked at this 
veck 



and he looked at me in a kind sort of way, and I 
remembered 

him well now. Of course he would not remember me, 
for in 

those carefree days I and my so-called droogs did all 
our 

bolshy dratsing and fillying and crasting in maskies 
which were 

real horrorshow disguises. He was a shortish veck in 
middle 

age, thirty, forty, fifty, and he had otchkies on. "Sit 
down by 

the fire," he said, "and I'll get you some whisky and 
warm 

water. Dear dear dear, somebody has been beating 
you up." 

And he gave a like tender look at my gulliver and 
litso. 

"The police," I said. "The horrible ghastly police." 

"Another victim," he said, like sighing. "A victim of 
the 

modern age. I'll go and get you that whisky and then 
I must 

clean up your wounds a little." And off he went. I 
had a look 



round this malenky comfortable room. It was nearly 
all 


books now and a fire and a couple of chairs, and you 
could 

viddy somehow that there wasn't a woman living 
there. On 

the table was a typewriter and a lot of like tumbled 
papers, 

and I remembered that this veck was a writer veck. 
'A Clock¬ 
work Orange', that had been it. It was funny that 
that stuck in 

my mind. I must not let on, though, for I needed 
help and 

kindness now. Those horrible grahzny bratchnies in 
that ter¬ 
rible white mesto had done that to me, making me 
need help 

and kindness now and forcing me to want to give 
help and 

kindness myself, if anybody would take it. 

"Here we are, then," said this veck returning. He 
gave me this 

hot stimulating glassful to peet, and it made me feel 
better. 



and then he cleaned up these cuts on my litso. Then 
he said: 

"You have a nice hot bath. I'll draw it for you, and 
then you 

can tell me all about it over a nice hot supper which 
I'll get 

ready while you're having the bath." O my brothers, 

I could 

have wept at his kindness, and I think he must have 
viddied the 

old tears in my glazzies, for he said: "There there 
there," pat¬ 
ting me on the pletcho. 

Anyway, I went up and had this hot bath, and he 
brought in 

pyjamas and an over-gown for me to put on, all 
warmed by 

the fire, also a very worn pair of toofles. And now, 
brothers, 

though I was aching and full of pains all over, I felt I 
would 

soon feel a lot better. I ittied downstairs and viddied 
that in 

the kitchen he had set the table with knives and 
forks and a 



fine big loaf of kleb, also a bottle of PRIMA SAUCE, 
and 

soon he served out a nice fry of eggiwegs and 
lomticks of 

ham and bursting sausages and big bolshy mugs of 
hot sweet 

milky chai. It was nice sitting there in the warm, 
eating, and I 

found I was very hungry, so that after the fry I had to 
eat 

lomtick after lomtick of kleb and butter spread with 
straw¬ 
berry jam out of a bolshy great pot. "A lot better," I 
said. "How 

can I ever repay?" 

"I think I know who you are," he said. "If you are who 
I 

think you are, then you've come, my friend, to the 
right place. 

Wasn't that your picture in the papers this morning? 
Are you 

the poor victim of this horrible new technique? If so, 
then 

you have been sent here by Providence. Tortured in 
prison. 



then thrown out to be tortured by the police. My 
heart goes 


out to you, poor poor boy." Brothers, I could not get 
a slovo 

in, though I had my rot wide open to answer his 
questions. 

"You are not the first to come here in distress," he 
said. "The 

police are fond of bringing their victims to the 
outskirts of 

this village. But it is providential that you, who are 
also 

another kind of victim, should come here. Perhaps, 
then, you 

have heard of me?" 

I had to be very careful, brothers. I said: "I have 
heard of 'A 

Clockwork Orange'. I have not read it, but I have 
heard of 

it." 


"Ah," he said, and his litso shone like the sun in its 
flaming 

morning glory. "Now tell me about yourself." 

"Little enough to tell, sir," I said, all humble. "There 
was a 



foolish and boyish prank, my so-called friends 
persuading or 

rather forcing me to break into the house of an old 
ptitsa - 

lady, I mean. There was no real harm meant. 
Unfortunately 

the lady strained her good old heart in trying to 
throw me 

out, though I was quite ready to go of my own 
accord, and 

then she died. I was accused of being the cause of 
her death. 

So I was sent to prison,sir." 

"Yes yes yes, go on." 

"Then I was picked out by the Minister of the Inferior 
or 

Interior to have this Ludovico's veshch tried out on 
me." 

"Tell me all about it," he said, leaning forward eager, 
his 

pullover elbows with all strawberry jam on them 
from the 

plate I'd pushed to one side. So I told him all about 
it. I told 



him the lot, all, my brothers. He was very eager to 
hear all, his 

glazzies like shining and his goobers apart, while the 
grease 

on the plates grew harder harder harder. When I had 
finished 

he got up from the table, nodding a lot and going hm 
hm hm, 

picking up the plates and other veshches from the 
table and 

taking them to the sink for washing up. I said: 

"I will do that, sir, and gladly." 

"Rest, rest, poor lad," he said, turning the tap on so 
that all 

steam came burping out. "You've sinned, I suppose, 
but your 

punishment has been out of all proportion. They 
have turned 

you into something other than a human being. You 
have no 

power of choice any longer. You are committed to 
socially 

acceptable acts, a little machine capable only of 
good. And I 



see that clearly - that business about the marginal 
condition¬ 
ings. Music and the sexual act, literature and art, all 
must be a 

source now not of pleasure but of pain." 

"That's right, sir," I said, smoking one of this kind 
man's 

cork-tipped cancers. 

"They always bite off too much," he said, drying a 
plate like 

absent-mindedly. "But the essential intention is the 
real sin. A 

man who cannot choose ceases to be a man." 

"That's what the Charles said, sir," I said. "The 
prison chap¬ 
lain, I mean." 

"Did he, did he? Of course he did. He'd have to, 
wouldn't 

he, being a Christian? Well, now then," he said, still 
wiping the 

same plate he'd been wiping ten minutes ago, "we 
shall have a 

few people in to see you tomorrow. I think you can 
be used. 



poor boy. I think that you can help dislodge this 
overbearing 


Government. To turn a decent young man into a 
piece of 

clockwork should not, surely, be seen as any triumph 
for any 

government, save one that boasts of its 
repressiveness." He 

was still wiping this same plate. I said: 

"Sir, you're still wiping that same plate, I agree with 
you, sir, 

about boasting. This Government seems to be very 
boast¬ 
ful." 

"Oh," he said, like viddying this plate for the first 
time and 

then putting it down. "I'm still not too handy," he 
said, "with 

domestic chores. My wife used to do them all and 
leave me to 

my writing." 

"Your wife, sir?" I said. "Has she gone and left you?" 

I really 

wanted to know about his wife, remembering very 
well. 



"Yes, left me," he said, in a like loud and bitter 
goloss. "She 

died, you see. She was brutally raped and beaten. 
The shock 

was very great. It was in this house," his rookers 
were trem¬ 
bling, holding a wiping-up cloth, "in that room next 
door. I 

have had to steel myself to continue to live here, but 
she 

would have wished me to stay where her fragrant 
memory 

still lingers. Yes yes yes. Poor little girl." I viddied 
all clearly, 

my brothers, what had happened that far-off nochy, 
and vid- 

dying myself on that job, I began to feel I wanted to 
sick and 

the pain started up in my gulliver. This veck viddied 
this, be¬ 
cause my litso felt it was all drained of red red 
krovvy, very 

pale, and he would be able to viddy this. "You go to 
bed now," 

he said kindly. "I've got the spare room ready. Poor 
poor boy. 



you must have had a terrible time. A victim of the 
modern 

age, just as she was. Poor poor poor girl." 


5 


I had a real horrorshow night's sleep, brothers, with 
no 

dreams at all, and the morning was very clear and 
like frosty, 

and there was the very pleasant like von of 
breakfast frying 

away down below. It took me some little time to 
remember 

where I was, as it always does, but it soon came 
back to me 

and then I felt like warmed and protected. But, as I 
laid there 

in the bed, waiting to be called down to breakfast, it 
struck 


me that I ought to get to know the name of this kind 
pro- 



tecting and like motherly veck, so I had a pad round 
in my 

nagoy nogas looking for 'A Clockwork Orange', which 
would 

be bound to have his eemya in, he being the author. 
There was 

nothing in my bedroom except a bed and a chair and 
a light, 

so I ittied next door to this veck's own room, and 
there I 

viddied his wife on the wall, a bolshy blown-up 
photo, so I 

felt a malenky bit sick remembering. But there were 
two or 

three shelves of books there too, and there was, as I 
thought 

there must be, a copy of 'A Clockwork Orange', and 
on the 

back of the book, like on the spine, was the author's 
eemya - 

F. Alexander. Good Bog, I thought, he is another 
Alex. Then I 

leafed through, standing in his pyjamas and bare 
nogas but 

not feeling one malenky bit cold, the cottage being 
warm all 



through, and I could not viddy what the book was 
about. It 


seemed written in a very bezoomny like style, full of 
Ah and 

Oh and all that cal, but what seemed to come out of 
it was that 

all lewdies nowadays were being turned into 
machines and 

that they were really - you and me and him and kiss- 
my- 


sharries - more like a natural growth like a fruit. F. 
Alexander 

seemed to think that we all like grow on what he 
called the 

world-tree in the world-orchard that like Bog or God 

planted, and we were there because Bog or God had 
need of 

us to quench his thirsty love, or some such cal. I 
didn't like 

the shoom of this at all, O my brothers, and 
wondered how 

bezoomny this F. Alexander really was, perhaps 
driven be¬ 
zoomny by his wife's snuffing it. But then he called 
me down 



in a like sane veck's goloss, full of joy and love and 
all that 

cal, so down Your Humble Narrator went. 

'You've slept long," he said, ladling out boiled eggs 
and 

pulling black toast from under the grill. "It's nearly 
ten 

already. I've been up hours, working." 

"Writing another book, sir?" I said. 

"No no, not that now," he said, and we sat down nice 
and 

droogy to the old crack crack crack of eggs and 
crackle 

crunch crunch of this black toast, very milky chai 
standing by 

in bolshy great morning mugs. "No, I've been on the 
phone to 

various people." 

"I thought you didn't have a phone," I said, spooning 
egg in 

and not watching out what I was saying. 

"Why?" he said, very alert like some skorry animal 
with an 



egg-spoon in its rooker. "Why shouldn't you think I 
have a 

phone?" 

"Nothing," I said, "nothing, nothing." And I 
wondered, 

brothers, how much he remembered of the earlier 
part of that 

distant nochy, me coming to the door with the old 
tale and 

saying to phone the doctor and she saying no 
phone. He 

took a very close smot at me but then went back to 
being like 

kind and cheerful and spooning up the old eggiweg. 
Munching 

away, he said: 

"Yes, I've rung up various people who will be 
interested in 

your case. You can be a very potent weapon, you 
see, in en¬ 
suring that this present evil and wicked Government 
is not 

returned in the forthcoming election. The 
Government's big 



boast, you see, is the way it has dealt with crime 
these last 

months." He looked at me very close again over his 
steaming 

egg, and I wondered again if he was viddying what 
part I had so 

far played in his jeezny. But he said: "Recruiting 
brutal young 

roughs for the police. Proposing debilitating and 
will-sapping 

techniques of conditioning." All these long slovos, 
brothers, 

and a like mad or bezoomny look in his glazzies. 
"We've seen 

it all before," he said, "in other countries. The thin 
end of the 

wedge. Before we know where we are we shall have 
the full 

apparatus of totalitarianism." "Dear dear dear," I 
thought, 

egging away and toast-crunching. I said: 

"Where do I come into all this, sir?" 

"You," he said, still with this bezoomny look, "are a 
living 



witness to these diabolical proposals. The people, 
the 

common people must know, must see." He got up 
from his 

breakfast and started to walk up and down the 
kitchen, from 

the sink to the like larder, saying very gromky: 
"Would they 

like their sons to become what you, poor victim, 
have 

become? Will not the Government itself now decide 
what is 

and what is not crime and pump out the life and guts 
and will 

of whoever sees fit to displeasure the Government? 
He became 

quieter but did not go back to his egg. "I've written 
an article," 

he said, "this morning, while you were sleeping. 

That will be 

out in a day or so, together with your unhappy 
picture. You 

shall sign it, poor boy, a record of what they have 
done to 


you." I said: 



"And what do you get out of all this, sir? I mean, 
besides 

the pretty polly you'll get for the article, as you call 
it? I 

mean, why are you so hot and strong against this 
Govern¬ 
ment, if I may make like so bold as to ask?" 

He gripped the edge of the table and said, gritting 
his 

zoobies, which were very cally and all stained with 
cancer- 

smoke: "Some of us have to fight. There are great 
traditions 

of liberty to defend. I am no partisan man. Where I 
see the 

infamy I seek to erase it. Party names mean 
nothing. The tra¬ 
dition of liberty means all. The common people will 
let it go, 

oh yes. They will sell liberty for a quieter life. That 
is why they 

must be prodded, prodded - " And here, brothers, he 
picked 

up a fork and stuck it two or three razzes into the 
wall, so 



that it got all bent. Then he threw it on the floor. 
Very kindly 

he said: "Eat well, poor boy, poor victim of the 
modern 

world," and I could viddy quite clear he was going off 
his 

gulliver. "Eat, eat. Eat my egg as well." But I said: 

"And what do I get out of this? Do I get cured of the 
way I 

am? Do I find myself able to slooshy the old Choral 
Sym¬ 
phony without being sick once more? Can I live like a 
normal 

jeezny again? What, sir, happens to me?" 

He looked at me, brothers, as if he hadn't thought of 
that 

before and, anyway, it didn't matter compared with 
Liberty 

and all that cal, and he had a look of surprise at me 
saying 

what I said, as though I was being like selfish in 
wanting some¬ 
thing for myself. Then he said: "Oh, as I say, you're a 
living 



witness, poor boy. Eat up all your breakfast and 
then come 

and see what I've written, for it's going into 'The 
Weekly 

Trumpet' under your name, you unfortunate victim." 

Well, brothers, what he had written was a very long 
and 

very weepy piece of writing, and as I read it I felt 
very sorry 

for the poor malchick who was govoreeting about his 

sufferings and how the Government had sapped his 
will and 

how it was up to all lewdies to not let such a rotten 
and evil 

Government rule them again, and then of course I 
realized 

that the poor suffering malchick was none other than 
Y. H. N. 

"Very good," I said. "Real horrorshow. Written well 
thou 

hast, O sir." And then he looked at me very narrow 
and 

said: 


"What?" It was like he had not slooshied me before. 



"Oh, that," I said, "is what we call nadsat talk. All 
the teens 

use that, sir." So then he ittied off to the kitchen to 
wash up 

the dishes, and I was left in these borrowed night 
platties and 

toofles, waiting to have done to me what was going 
to be 

done to me, because I had no plans for myself, O my 
brothers. 

While the great F. Alexander was in the kitchen a 
ding- 

alingaling came at the door. "Ah," he creeched, 
coming out 

wiping his rookers, "it will be these people. I'll go." 
So he went 

and let them in, a kind of rumbling hahaha of talk 
and hallo 

and filthy weather and how are things in the hallway, 
then 

they ittied into the room with the fire and the book 
and the 

article about how I had suffered, viddying me and 
going 



Aaaaah as they did it. There were three lewdies, 
and F. Alex 

gave me their eemyas. Z.Dolin was a very wheezy 
smoky kind 

of a veck, coughing kashi kashi kashi with the end of 
a cancer 

in his rot, spilling ash all down his platties and then 
brushing 

it away with like very impatient rookers. He was a 
malenky 

round veck, fat, with big thick-framed otchkies on. 
Then there 

was Something Something Rubinstein, a very tall and 
polite 

chelloveck with a real gentleman's goloss, very 
starry with a 

like eggy beard. And lastly there was D. B. da Silva 
who was 

like skorry in his movements and had this strong von 
of scent 

coming from him. They all had a real horrorshow 
look at me 

and seemed like overjoyed with what they viddied. 

Z. Dolin 


said: 



"All right, all right, eh? What a superb device he can 
be, this 

boy. If anything, of course, he could for preference 
look even 

iller and more zombyish than he does. Anything for 
the cause. 

No doubt we can think of something." 

I did not like that crack about zombyish, brothers, 
and so I 

said: "What goes on, bratties? What dost thou in 
mind for thy 

little droog have?" And the F. Alexander swooshed in 
with: 

"Strange, strange, that manner of voice pricks me. 
We've 

come into contact before. I'm sure we have." And he 
brooded, 

like frowning. I would have to watch this, O my 
brothers. 

D. B. da Silva said: 

"Public meetings, mainly. To exhibit you at public 
meetings 

will be a tremendous help. And, of course, the 
newspaper 



angle is all tied up. A ruined life is the approach. 

We must 

inflame all hearts." He showed his thirty-odd 
zoobies, very 

white against his dark-coloured litso, he looking a 
malenky 

bit like some foreigner. I said: 

"Nobody will tell me what I get out of all this. 
Tortured in 

jail, thrown out of my home by my own parents and 
their 

filthy overbearing lodger, beaten by old men and 
near-killed 

by the millicents - what is to become of me?" The 
Rubinstein 

veck came in with: 

"You will see, boy, that the Party will not be 
ungrateful. Oh, 

no. At the end of it all there will be some very 
acceptable little 

surprise for you. Just you wait and see." 

"There's only one veshch I require," I creeched out, 
"and 

that's to be normal and healthy as I was in the starry 
days. 



having my malenky bit of fun with real droogs and 
not those 

who just call themselves that and are really more 
like traitors. 

Can you do that, eh? Can any veck restore me to 
what I was? 

That's what I want and that's what I want to know." 

Kashi kashi kashi, coughed this Z. Dolin. "A martyr 
to the 

cause of Liberty." he said. "You have your part to 
play and 

don't forget it. Meanwhile, we shall look after you." 
And he 

began to stroke my left rooker as if I was like an 
idiot, grin¬ 
ning in a bezoomny way. I creeched: 

"Stop treating me like a thing that's like got to be 
just used. 

I'm not an idiot you can impose on, you stupid 
bratchnies. 

Ordinary prestoopnicks are stupid, but I'm not 
ordinary and 

nor am I dim. Do you slooshy?" 

"Dim," said F. Alexander, like musing. "Dim. That 
was a name 



somewhere. Dim." 


"Eh?" I said. "What's Dim got to do with it? What do 
you 

know about Dim?" And then I said: "Oh, Bog help 
us." I didn't 

like the look in F. Alexander's glazzies. I made for 
the 

door, wanting to go upstairs and get my platties and 
then itty 

off. 

"I could almost believe," said F. Alexander, showing 
his 

stained zoobies, his glazzies mad. "But such things 
are impos¬ 
sible. For, by Christ, if he were I'd tear him. I'd split 
him, by 

God, yes yes, so I would." 

"There," said D. B. da Silva, stroking his chest like he 
was a 

doggie to calm him down. "It's all in the past. It was 
other 

people altogether. We must help this poor victim. 
That's what 

we must do now, remembering the Future and our 
Cause." 



"I'll just get my platties," I said, at the stair-foot, 
"that is to 

say clothes, and then I'll be ittying off all on my oddy 
knocky. 

I mean, my gratitude for all, but I have my own 
jeezny to live." 

Because, brothers, I wanted to get out of here real 
skorry. But 

Z. Dolin said: 

"Ah, no. We have you, friend, and we keep you. You 
come 

with us. Everything will be all right, you'll see." And 
he came 

up to me like to grab hold of my rooker again. Then, 

brothers, I thought of fight, but thinking of fight 
made me like 

want to collapse and sick, so I just stood. And then I 
saw this 

like madness in F. Alexander's glazzies and said: 

"Whatever you say. I am in your rookers. But let's 
get it 

started and all over, brothers." Because what I 
wanted now 


was to get out of this mesto called HOME. I was 
beginning 



not to like the look of the glazzies of F. Alexander 
one 

malenky bit. 

"Good," said this Rubinstein. "Get dressed and let's 
get 

started." 

"Dim dim dim," F. Alexander kept saying in a like low 

mutter. "What or who was this Dim?" I ittied 
upstairs real 

skorry and dressed in near two seconds flat. Then I 
was out 

with these three and into an auto, Rubinstein one 
side of me 

and Z. Dolin coughing kashi kashi kashi the other 
side. D. B. 

da Silva doing the driving, into the town and to a 
flatblock 

not really all that distant from what had used to be 
my own 

flatblock or home. "Come, boy, out," said Z. Dolin, 
coughing 

to make the cancer-end in his rot glow red like some 
malenky 

furnace. "This is where you shall be installed." So 
we ittied in. 



and there was like another of these Dignity of 
Labour vesh> 


ches on the wall of the vestibule, and we upped in 
the lift, 

brothers, and then went into a flat like all the flats 
of all the 

flatblocks of the town. Very very malenky, with two 
bed¬ 
rooms and one live-eat-work-room, the table of this 
all 

covered with books and papers and ink and bottles 
and all 

that cal. "Here is your new home," said D. B. da 
Silva. "Settle 

here, boy. Food is in the food-cupboard. Pyjamas 
are in a 

drawer. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit." 

"Eh?" I said, not quite ponying that. 

"All right," said Rubinstein, with his starry goloss. 
"We are 

now leaving you. Work has to be done. We'll be with 
you 

later. Occupy yourself as best you can." 

"One thing," coughed Z. Dolin kashi kashi kashl. 

"You saw 



what stirred in the tortured memory of our friend F. 
Alexan¬ 
der. Was it, by chance - ? That is to say, did you - ? 

I think 

you know what I mean. We won't let it go any 
further." 

"I've paid," I said. "Bog knows I've paid for what I 
did. I've 

paid not only for like myself but for those bratchnies 
too 

that called themselves my droogs." I felt violent so 
then I felt a 

bit sick. "I'll lay down a bit," I said. "I've been 
through terrible 

terrible times." 

"You have," said D. B. da Silva, showing all his thirty 
zoobies. "You do that." 

So they left me, brothers. They ittied off about their 

business, which I took to be about politics and all 
that cal, 

and I was on the bed, all on my oddy knocky with 
everything 

very very quiet. I just laid there with my sabogs 
kicked off my 



nogas and my tie loose, like all bewildered and not 
knowing 

what sort of a jeezny I was going to live now. And all 
sorts of 

like pictures kept like passing through my gulliver, of 
the 

different chellovecks I'd met at school and in the 
Staja, and 

the different veshches that had happened to me, and 
how 

there was not one veck you could trust in the whole 
bolshy 

world. And then I like dozed off, brothers. 

When I woke up I could hear slooshy music coming 
out of 

the wall, real gromky, and it was that that had 
dragged me out 

of my bit of like sleep. It was a symphony that I 
knew real 

horrorshow but had not slooshied for many a year, 
namely 

the Symphony Number Three of the Danish veck Otto 
Skade- 

lig, a very gromky and violent piece, especially in 
the first 



movement, which was what was playing now. I 
slooshied for 

two seconds in like interest and joy, but then it all 
came over 

me, the start of the pain and the sickness, and I 
began to 

groan deep down in my keeshkas. And then there I 
was, me 

who had loved music so much, crawling off the bed 
and going 

oh oh oh to myself and then bang bang banging on 
the wall 

creching: "Stop, stop it, turn it off!" But it went on 
and it 

seemed to be like louder. So I crashed at the wall till 
my 

knuckles were all red red krovvy and torn skin, 
creeching and 

creeching, but the music did not stop. Then I 
thought I had to 

get away from it, so I lurched out of the malenky 
bedroom 

and ittied skorry to the front door of the flat, but 
this had 

been locked from the outside and I could not get 
out. And all 



the time the music got more and more gromky, like 
it was all 

a deliberate torture, O my brothers. So I stuck my 
little fingers 

real deep in my ookos, but the trombones and 
kettledrums 

blasted through gromky enough. So I creeched again 
for them 

to stop and went hammer hammer hammer on the 
wall, but it 

made not one malenky bit of difference. "Oh, what 
am I to 

do?" I boohooed to myself. "Oh, Bog in Heaven help 
me." I 

was like wandering all over the flat in pain and 
sickness, trying 

to shut out the music and like groaning deep out of 
my guts, 

and then on top of the pile of books and papers and 
all that 

cal that was on the tablein the living room I viddied 
what I 

had to do and what I had wanted to do until those 
old men in 

the Public Biblio and then Dim and Billyboy disguised 
as 



rozzes stopped me, and that was to do myself in, to 
snuff it, 

to blast off for ever out of this wicked and cruel 
world. What 

I viddied was the slovo DEATH on the cover of a like 
pam¬ 
phlet, even though it was only DEATH to THE 
GOVERN¬ 
MENT. And like it was Fate there was another 
malenky 

booklet which had an open window on the cover, and 
it said: 

"Open the window to fresh air, fresh ideas, a new 
way of 

living." And so I knew that was like telling me to 
finish it all off 

by jumping out. One moment of pain, perhaps, and 
then sleep 

for ever and ever and ever. 

The music was still pouring in all brass and drums 
and the 

violins miles up through the wall. The window in the 
room 

where I had laid down was open. I ittied to it and 
viddied a 



fair drop to the autos and buses and waiting 
chellovecks 


below. I creeched out to the world: "Good-bye, good¬ 
bye, 

may Bog forgive you for a ruined life." Then I got on 
to the 

sill, the music blasting away to my left, and I shut 
my glazzies 

and felt the cold wind on my litso, then I jumped. 


6 

I jumped, O my brothers, and I fell on the sidewalk 
hard, but I 

did not snuff it, oh no. If I had snuffed it I would not 
be here 

to write what I written have. It seems that the jump 
was not 

from a big enough heighth to kill. But I cracked my 
back and 

my wrists and nogas and felt very bolshy pain before 
I passed 

out, brothers, with astonished and surprised litsos of 
chello- 



vecks in the streets looking at me from above. And 
just before 

I passed out I viddied clear that not one chelloveck 
in the 

whole horrid world was for me and that that music 
through 

the wall had all been like arranged by those who 
were sup¬ 
posed to be my like new droogs and that it was some 
veshch 

like this that they wanted for their horrible selfish 
and boast¬ 
ful politics. All that was in like a million millionth 
part of one 

minoota before I threw over the world and the sky 
and the 

litsos of the staring chellovecks that were above me. 

Where I was when I came back to jeezny after a long 
black 

black gap of it might have been a million years was a 
hospital, 

all white and with this von of hospitals you get, all 
like sour 

and smug and clean. These antiseptic veshches you 
get in hos- 



pitals should have a real horrorshow von of like 
frying 

onions or of flowers. I came very slow back to 
knowing who 

I was and I was all bound up in white and I could not 
feel 

anything in my plott, pain nor sensation nor any 
veshch at all. 

All round my gulliver was a bandage and there were 
bits of 

stuff like stuck to my litso, and my rookers were all 
in 

bandages and like bits of stick were like fixed to my 
fingers like 

on it might be flowers to make them grow straight, 
and my 

poor old nogas were all straightened out too, and it 
was all 

bandages and wire cages and into my right rooker, 
near the 

pletcho, was red red krovvy dripping from a jar 
upside down. 

But I could not feel anything, O my brothers. There 
was a 

nurse sitting by my bed and she was reading some 
book that 



was all very dim print and you could viddy it was a 
story 

because of a lot of inverted commas, and she was 
like breath¬ 
ing hard uh uh uh over it, so it must have been a 
story about 

the old in-out in-out. She was a real horrorshow 
devotchka, 

this nurse, with a very red rot and like long lashes 
over her 

glazzies, and under her like very stiff uniform you 
could viddy 

she had very horrorshow groodies. So I said to her: 
"What 

gives, O my little sister? Come thou and have a nice 
lay-down 

with your malenky droog in this bed." But the slovos 
didn't 

come out horrorshow at all, it being as though my 
rot was all 

stiffened up, and I could feel with my yahzick that 
some of my 

zoobies were no longer there. But this nurse like 
jumped and 


dropped her book on the floor and said: 



"Oh, you've recovered consciousness." 


That was like a big rotful for a malenky ptitsa like 
her, and 

I tried to say so, but the slovos came out only like er 
er er. 

She ittied off and left me on my oddy knocky, and I 
could 

viddy now that I was in a malenky room of my own, 
not in 

one of these long wards like I had been in as a very 
little 

malchick, full of coughing dying starry vecks all 
around to 

make you want to get well and fit again. It had been 
like 

diphtheria I had had then, O my brothers. 

It was like now as though I could not hold to being 
con¬ 
scious all that long, because I was like asleep again 
almost 

right away, very skorry, but in a minoota or two I was 
sure 

that this nurse ptitsa had come back and had 
brought chello- 



vecks in white coats with her and they were viddying 
me very 

frowning and going hm hm hm at Your Humble 
Narrator. And 

with them I was sure there was the old Charles from 
the Staja 

govoreeting: "Oh my son, my son," breathing a like 
very stale 

von of whisky on to me and then saying: "But I would 
not 

stay, oh no. I could not in no wise subscribe to what 
those 

bratchnies are going to do to other poor 
prestoopnicks. O I 

got out and am preaching sermons now about it all, 
my little 

beloved son in J. C." 

I woke up again later on and who should I viddy there 

round the bed but the three from whose flat I had 
jumped out, 

namely D. B. da Silva and Something Something 
Rubinstein 

and Z. Dolin. "Friend," one of these vecks was 
saying, but I 



could not viddy, or slooshy horrorshow which one, 
"friend, 

little friend," this goloss was saying, "the people are 
on fire 

with indignation. You have killed those horrible 
boastful 

villains' chances of re-election. They will go and will 
go 

for ever and ever. You have served Liberty well." I 
tried to 

say: 

"If I had died it would have been even better for you 
politi¬ 
cal bratchnies, would it not, pretending and 
treacherous 

droogs as you are." But all that came out was er er 
er. Then 

one of these three seemed to hold out a lot of bits 
cut from 

gazettas and what I could viddy was a horrible 
picture of me 

all krovvy on a stretcher being carried off and I 
seemed to like 

remember a kind of a popping of lights which must 
have been 



photographer vecks. Out of one glazz I could read 
like head¬ 
lines which were sort of trembling in the rooker of 
the 

chelloveck that held them, like BOY VICTIM OF 
CRIMINAL 

REFORM SCHEME and GOVERNMENT AS MUR¬ 
DERER and there was like a picture of a veck that 

looked familiar to me and it said OUT OUT OUT, and 
that 

would be the Minister of the Inferior or Interior. 

Then the 

nurse ptitsa said: 

"You shouldn't be exciting him like that. You 
shouldn't be 

doing anything that will make him upset. Now come 
on, let's 

have you out." I tried to say: 

"Out out out," but it was er er er again. Anyway, 
these three 

political vecks went. And I went, too, only back to 
the land, 

back to all blackness lit up by like odd dreams which 
I didn't 



know whether they were dreams or not, O my 
brothers. Like 

for instance I had this idea of my whole plott or body 
being 

like emptied of as it might be dirty water and then 
filled up 

again with clean. And then there were really lovely 
and horror- 

show dreams of being in some veck's auto that had 
been crasted 

by me and driving up and down the world all on my 
oddy 

knocky running lewdies down and hearing them 
creech they 

were dying, and in me no pain and no sickness. And 
also there 

were dreams of doing the old in-out in-out with 
devotchkas, 

forcing like them down on the ground and making 
them have 

it and everybody standing around claping their 
rookers and 

cheering like bezoomny. And then I woke up again 
and it was 

my pee and em come to viddy their ill son, my em 
boohooing 



real horrorshow. I could govoreet a lot better now 
and could say: 

"Well well well well well, what gives? What makes 
you think 

you are like welcome?" My papapa said, in a like 
ashamed 

way: 

"You were in the papers, son. It said they had done 
great 

wrong to you. It said how the Government drove you 
to try 

and do yourself in. And it was our fault too, in a 
way, son. 

Your home's your home, when all's said and done, 
son." And 

my mum kept on going boohoohoo and looking ugly 
as kiss- 

my-sharries. So I said: 

"And how beeth the new son Joe? Well and healthy 
and 

prosperous, I trust and pray?" My mum said: 

"Oh, Alex Alex. Owwwwwwww." My papapa said: 

"A very awkward thing, son. He got into a bit of 
trouble 



with the police and was done by the police." 


"Really?" I said. "Really? Such a good sort of 
chelloveck and 

all. Amazed proper I am, honest." 

"Minding his own business he was," said my pee. 

"And the 

police told him to move on. Waiting at a corner he 
was, son, 

to see a girl he was going to meet. And they told 
him to move 

on and he said he had rights like everybody else, and 
then they 

sort of fell on top of him and hit him about cruel." 

"Terrible," I said. "Really terrible. And where is the 
poor boy 

now?" 


"Owwwww," boohooed my mum. "Gone back owww- 
wwwme." 

"Yes," said dad. "He's gone back to his own home 
town to 

get better. They've had to give his job here to 
somebody 


else." 



"So now," I said, "You're willing for me to move back 
in 

again and things be like they were before." 

"Yes, son," said my papapa. "Please, son." 

"I'll consider it," I said. "I'll think about it real 
careful." 

"Owwwww," went my mum. 

"Ah, shut it," I said, "or I'll give you something proper 
to 

yowl and creech about. Kick your zoobies in I will." 
And, O 

my brothers, saying that made me feel a malenky bit 
better, as 

if all like fresh red red krovvy was flowing all through 
my 

plott. That was something I had to think about. It 
was like as 

though to get better I had had to get worse. 

"That's no way to speak to your mother, son," said 
my 

papapa. "After all, she brought you into the world." 

"Yes," I said. "And a right grahzny vonny world too." 

I shut 



my glazzies tight in like pain and said: "Go away 
now. I'll think 

about coming back. But things will have to be very 
different." 

"Yes, son," said my pee. "Anything you say." 

"You'll have to make up your mind," I said, "who's to 
be 

boss." 

"Owwwwww," my mum went on. 

"Very good, son," said my papapa. "Things will be as 
you 

like. Only get well." 

When they had gone I laid and thought a bit about 
different 

veshches, like all different pictures passing through 
my gulliver, 

and when the nurse ptitsa came back in and like 
straightened 

the sheets on the bed I said to her: 

"How long is it I've been in here?" 

"A week or so," she said. 

"And what have they been doing to me?" 



"Well," she said, "you were all broken up and bruised 
and 

had sustained severe concussion and had lost a lot 
of blood. 

They've had to put all that right, haven't they?" 

"But," I said, "has anyone been doing anything with 
my gulli- 

ver? What I mean is, have they been playing around 
with 

inside like my brain?" 

"Whatever they've done," she said, "it'll all be for 
the 

best." 

But a couple of days later a couple of like doctor 
vecks 

came in, both youngish vecks with these very sladky 
smiles, 

and they had like a picture book with them. One of 
them said: 

"We want you to have a look at these and to tell us 
what you 

think about them. All right?" 

"What giveth, O little droogies?" I said. "What new 
be- 



zoomny idea dost thou in mind have?" So they both 
had a 

like embarrassed smeck at that and then they sat 
down either 

side of the bed and opened up this book. On the first 
page 

there was like a photograph of a bird-nest full of 
eggs. 

"Yes?" one of these doctor vecks said. 

"A bird-nest," I said, "full of like eggs. Very very 
nice." 

"And what would you like to do about it?" the other 
one 

said. 

"Oh," I said, "smash them. Pick up the lot and like 
throw 

them against a wall or a cliff or something and then 
viddy 

them all smash up real horrorshow." 

"Good good," they both said, and then the page was 
turned. 

It was like a picture of one of these bolshy great 
birds called 

peacocks with all its tail spread out in all colours in a 
very 



boastful way. "Yes?" said one of these vecks. 

"I would like," I said, "to pull out like all those 
feathers in its 

tail and slooshy it creech blue murder. For being so 
like 

boastful." 

"Good," they both said, "good good good." And they 
went 

on turning the pages. There were like pictures of 
real hor- 

rorshow devotchkas, and I said I would like to give 
them the 

old in-out in-out with lots of ultra-violence. There 
were like 

pictures of chellovecks being given the boot straight 
in the 

litso and all red red krovvy everywhere and I said I 
would like 

to be in on that. And there was a picture of the old 
nagoy 

droog of the prison Charlie's carrying his cross up a 
hill, and I 

said I would like to have the old hammer and nails. 
Good 


good good, I said: 



"What is all this?" 


"Deep hypnopaedia," or some such slovo, said one of 
these 

two vecks. "You seem to be cured." 

"Cured?" I said. "Me tied down to this bed like this 
and you 

say cured? Kiss my sharries is what I say." 

So I waited and, O my brothers, I got a lot better, 
munching 

away at eggiwegs and lomticks of toast and peeting 
bolshy 

great mugs of milky chai, and then one day they said 
I was 

going to have a very very very special visitor. 

"Who?" I said, while they straightened the bed and 
combed 

my luscious glory for me, me having the bandage off 
now 

from my gulliver and the hair growing again. 

"You'll see, you'll see," they said. And I viddied all 
right. At 

two-thirty of the afternoon there were like all 
photographers 



and men from gazettas with noteboks and pencils 
and all 

that cal. And, brothers, they near trumpeted a 
bolshy fanfare 

for this great and important veck who was coming to 
viddy 

Your Humble Narrator. And in he came, and of 
course it was 

none other than the Minister of the Interior or 
Inferior, 

dressed in the heighth of fashion and with this very 
upper- 

class haw haw goloss. Flash flash bang went the 
cameras 

when he put out his rooker to me to shake it. I said: 

"Well well well well well. What giveth then, old 
droogie?" 

Nobody seemed to quite pony that, but somebody 
said in a 

like harsh goloss: 

"Be more respectful, boy, in addressing the 
Minister." 

"Yarbles," I said, like snarling like a doggie. "Bolshy 
great 

yarblockos to thee and thine." 



"All right, all right," said the Interior Inferior one 
very 


skorry. "He speaks to me as a friend, don't you, 
son?" 


"I am everyone's friend," I said. "Except to my 
enemies." 

"Well," said the Int Inf Min, sitting down by my bed. 

"I and 

the Government of which I am a member want you to 
regard 

us as friends. Yes, friends. We have put you right, 
yes? You are 

getting the best of treatment. We never wished you 
harm, but 

there are some who did and do. And I think you 
know who 

those are." 

"Yes yes yes," he said. "There are certain men who 
wanted to 

use you, yes, use you for political ends. They would 
have been 

glad, yes, glad for you to be dead, for they thought 
they could 

then blame it all on the Government. I think you 
know who 



those men are." 


"There is a man," said the Intinfmin, "called F. 
Alexander, a 

writer of subversive literature, who has been 
howling for your 

blood. He has been mad with desire to stick a knife 
in you. 

But you're safe from him now. We put him away." 

"He was supposed to be like a droogie," I said. "Like 
a 

mother to me was what he was." 

"He found out that you had done wrong to him. At 
least," 

said the Min very very skorry, "he believed you had 
done 

wrong. He formed this idea in his mind that you had 
been 

responsible for the death of someone near and dear 
to 

him." 

"What you mean," I said, "is that he was told." 

"He had this idea," said the Min. "He was a menace. 
We put 



him away for his own protection. And also," he said, 
"for 

yours." 

"Kind," I said. "Most kind of thou." 

"When you leave here," said the Min, "you will have 
no 

worries. We shall see to everything. A good job on a 
good 

salary. Because you are helping us." 

"Am I?" I said. 

"We always help our friends, don't we?" And then he 
took 

my rooker and some veck creeched: "Smile!" and I 
smiled 

like bezoomny without thinking, and then flash flash 
crack flash 

bang there were pictures being taken of me and the 
Intinfmin 

all droogy together. "Good boy," said this great 
chelloveck. 

"Good good boy. And now, see, a present." 

What was brought in now, brothers, was a big shiny 
box. 



and I viddied clear what sort of a veshch it was. It 
was a 

stereo. It was put down next to the bed and opened 
up and 

some veck plugged its lead into the wall-socket. 
"What shall it 

be?" asked a veck with otchkies on his nose, and he 
had in his 

rookers lovely shiny sleeves full of music. "Mozart? 
Beet¬ 
hoven? Schoenberg? Carl Orff?" 

"The Ninth," I said. "The glorious Ninth." 

And the Ninth it was, O my brothers. Everybody 
began to 

leave nice and quiet while I laid there with my 
glazzies closed, 

slooshying the lovely music. The Min said: "Good 
good boy," 

patting me on the pletcho, then he ittied off. Only 
one veck 

was left, saying: "Sign here, please." I opened my 
glazzies up to 

sign, not knowing what I was signing and not, O my 
brothers. 



caring either. Then I was left alone with the glorious 
Ninth of 


Ludwig van. 

Oh it was gorgeosity and yumyumyum. When it 
came to 

the Scherzo I could viddy myself very clear running 
and run¬ 
ning on like very light and mysterious nogas, carving 
the 

whole litso of the creeching world with my cut-throat 
britva. 

And there was the slow movement and the lovely 
last singing 

movement still to come. I was cured all right. 


7 


'What's it going to be then, eh?' 

There was me. Your Humble Narrator, and my three 
droogs, that is 

Len, Rick, and Bully being called Bully because of his 
bolshly big neck and very gromky goloss which was 
just like some bolshy great bull bellowing 



auuuuuuuuh. We were sitting in the Korova Milkbar 
making up our rassoodocks what to do with the 
evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. 
All round were chellovecks well away on milk plus 
vellocet and synthemesc and drencrom and other 
veshches which take you far far far away from this 
wicked and real world into the land to viddy Bog And 
All His Angels And Saints in your left sabog with 
lights bursting and spurting all over your mozg. 

What we were peeting was the old moloko with 
knives in it, as we used to say, to sharpen you up 
and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, 
but I've told you all that before. 

We were dressed in the heighth of fashion, which in 
those days was these very wide trousers and a very 
loose black shiny leather like jerkin over an open- 
necked shirt with a like scarf tucked in. At this time 
too it was the heighth of fashion to use the old 
britva on the gulliver, so that most of the gulliver 
was like bald and there was hair only on the sides. 
But it was always the same on the old nogas-real 
horrorshow bolshy big boots for kicking litsos in. 

'What's it going to be then, eh?' 

I was like the oldest of we four, and they all looked 
up to me as their leader, but I got the idea 
sometimes that Bully had the thought in his gulliver 
that he would like to take over, this being because of 
his bigness and the gromky goloss that bellowed out 
of him when he was on the warpath. But all the 
ideas came from Your Humble, O my brothers, and 
also there was this veshch that I had been famous 
and had had my pictures and articles and all that cal 
in the gazettes. Also I had by far the best job of all 



we four, being in the National Gramodisc Archives on 
the music side with a real horrorshow carman full of 
pretty polly at the week's end and a lot of nice free 
discs for my own malenky self on the side. 

This evening in the Korova there was a fair number 
of vecks and ptitsas and devotchkas and malchicks 
smecking and peeting away, and cutting through 
their govoreeting and the burbling of the in-the- 
landers with their 'Gorgor fallatuke and the worm 
sprays in filltip slaughterballs' and all that cal you 
could slooshy a pop-disc on the stereo, this being 
Ned Achimota singing 'That Day, Yeah, That Day'. At 
the counter were three devotchkas dressed in the 
heighth of nadsat fashion, that is to say long 
uncombed hair dyed white and false groodies 
sticking out a metre or more and very very tight 
short skirts with all like frothy white underneath, 
and Bully kept saying: 'Hey, get in there we could, 
three of us. Old Len is not interested. Leave old Len 
alone with his God.' And Len kept saying: 'Yarbles 
yarbles. Where is the spirit of all for one and one for 
all, eh boy?' Suddenly I felt both very very tired and 
also full of tingly energy, and I said: 

'Out out out out out.' 

'Where to?' said Rick, who had a litso like a frog's. 

'Oh, just to viddy what's doing in the great outside, 

'I said. But somehow, my brothers, I felt very bored 
and a bit hopeless, and I had been feeling that a lot 
these days. So I turned to the chelloveck nearest me 
on the big plush seat that ran right round the whole 
mesto, a chelloveck, that is, who was burbling away 
under the influence, and I fisted him real skorry ack 



ack ack in the belly. But he felt it not, brothers, only 
burbling away with his 'Cart cart virtue, where in 
toptails lieth the poppoppicorns?' So we scatted out 
into the big winter nochy. 

We walked down Marghanita Boulevard and there 
were no millicents patrolling that way, so when we 
met a starry veck coming away from a news-kiosk 
where he had been kupetting a gazetta I said to 
Bully: 'All right. Bully boy, thou canst if thou like 
wishest.' More and more these days I had been just 
giving the orders and standing back to viddy them 
being carried out. So Bully cracked into him er er er, 
and the other two tripped him and kicked at him, 
smecking away, while he was down and then let him 
crawl off to where he lived, like whimpering to 
himself. Bully said: 

'How about a nice yummy glass of something to keep 
out the cold, O Alex?' For we were not too far from 
the Duke of New York. The other two nodded yes yes 
yes but all looked at me to viddy whether that was 
all right. I nodded too and so off we ittied. Inside 
the snug there were these starry ptitsas or sharps or 
baboochkas you will remember from the beginning 
and they all started on their: 'Evening, lads, God 
bless you, boys, best lads living, that's what you 
are,' waiting for us to say 'What's it going to be 
girls?' Bully rang the collocoll and a waiter came in 
rubbing his rookers on his grazzy apron. 'Cutter on 
the table, droogies,' said Bully, pulling out his own 
rattling and chinking mound of deng. 'Scotchmen for 
us and the same for the old baboochkas, eh?' And 
then I said: 



'Ah, to hell. Let them buy their own.' I didn't know 
what it was, but these last days I had become like 
mean. There had come into my gulliver a like desire 
to keep all my pretty polly to myself, to like hoard it 
all up for some reason. Bully said: 

'What gives, bratty? What's coming over old Alex?' 

'Ah, to hell,' I said. 'I don't know. I don't know. 

What it is is I don't like just throwing away my hard- 
earned pretty polly, that's what it is.' 

'Earned?' said Rick. 'Earned? It doesn't have to be 
earned, as well thou knowest, old droogie. Took, 
that's all, just took, like.' And he smecked real 
gromky and I viddied one or two of his zoobies 
weren't all that horrorshow. 

'Ah,' I said, 'I've got some thinking to do.' But 
viddying these baboochkas looking all eager like for 
some free ale, I like shrugged my pletchoes and 
pulled out my own cutter from my trouser carman, 
notes and coin all mixed together, and plonked it 
tinkle crackle on the table. 

'Scotchmen all round, right,' said the waiter. But for 
some reason I said: 

'No, boy, for me make it one small beer, right.' Len 
said: 

'This I do not much go for,' and he began to put his 
rooker on my gulliver, like kidding I must have fever, 
but I like snarled doggy-wise for him to give over 
skorry. 'All right, all right, droog,' he said. 'As thou 
like sayest.' But Bully was having a smot with his rot 



open at something that had come out of my carman 
with the pretty polly I'd put on the table. He said: 

'Well well well. And we never knew.' 

'Give me that/ I snarled and grabbed it skorry. I 
couldn't explain how it had got there, brothers, but 
it was a photograph I had scissored out of the old 
gazetta and it was of a baby. It was of a baby 
gurgling goo goo goo with all like moloko dribbling 
from its rot and looking up and like smecking at 
everybody, and its was all nagoy and its flesh was 
like in all folds with being a very fat baby. There was 
then like a bit of haw haw haw struggling to get hold 
of this bit of paper from me, so I had to snarl again 
at them and I grabbed the photo and tore it up into 
tiny teeny pieces and let it fall like a bit of snow on 
to the floor. The whisky came in then and the starry 
baboochkas said: 'Good health, lads, God bless you, 
boys, the best lads living, that's what you are,' and 
all that cal. And one of them who was all lines and 
wrinkles and no zoobies in her shrunken old rot said: 
'Don't tear up money, son. If you don't need it give 
it them as does,' which was very bold and forward of 
her. But Rick said: 

'Money that was not, O baboochka. It was a picture 
of a dear little itsy witsy bitsy bit of a baby.' I said: 

'I'm getting just that bit tired, that I am. It's you 
who's the babies, you lot. Scoffing and grinning and 
all you can do is smeck and give people bolshy 
cowardly tolchocks when they can't give them back.' 
Bully said: 



'Well now, we always thought it was you who was the 
king of that and also the teacher. Not well, that's 
the trouble with thou, old droogie.' 

I viddied this sloppy glass of beer I had on the table 
in front of me and felt like all vomity within, so I 
went 'Aaaaah' and poured all the frothy vonny cal all 
over the floor. One of the starry ptitsas said: 

'Waste not want not.' I said: 

'Look, droogies. Listen. Tonight I am somehow just 
not in the mood. I know not why or how it is, but 
there it is. You three go your own ways this 
nightwise, leaving me out. Tomorrow we shall meet 
same place same time, me hoping to be like a lot 
better.' 

'Oh,' said Bully, 'right sorry I am.' But you could 
viddy a like gleam in his glazzies, because now he 
would be taking over for this nochy. Power power, 
everybody like wants power. 'We can postpone till 
tomorrow,' said Bully, 'what we in mind had. 

Namely, that bit of shopcrasting in Gagarin Street. 
Flip horrorshow takings there, droog, for the 
having.' 

'No,' I said. 'You postpone nothing. You just carry 
on in your own like style. Now,' I said, 'I itty off.' 

And I got up from my chair. 

'Where to, then?' asked Rick. 

'That know I not,' I said. 'Just to be on like my own 
and sort things out.' You could viddy the old 
baboochkas were real puzzled at me going out like 
that and like all morose and not the bright and 



smecking malchickiwick you will remember. But I 
said: 'Ah, to hell, to hell,' and scatted out all on my 
oddy knocky into the street. 

It was dark and there was a wind sharp as a nozh 
getting up, and there were very very few lewdies 
about. There were these patrol cars with brutal 
rozzes inside them like cruising about, and now and 
then on the corner you would viddy a couple of very 
young millicents stamping against the bitchy cold 
and letting out steam breath on the winter air, O my 
brothers. I suppose really a lot of the old ultra¬ 
violence and crasting was dying out now, the rozzes 
being so brutal with who they caught, though it had 
become like a fight between naughty nadsats and 
the rozzes who could be more skorry with the nozh 
and the britva and the stick and even the gun. But 
what was the matter with me these days was that I 
didn't like care much. It was like something soft 
getting into me and I could not pony why. What I 
wanted these days I did not know. Even the music I 
liked to slooshy in my own malenky den what what I 
would have smecked at before, brothers. I was 
slooshying more like malenky romantic songs, what 
they call Lieder, just a goloss and a piano, very quiet 
and like yearny, different from when it had been all 
bolshy orchestras and me lying on the bed between 
the violins and the trombones and kettledrums. 
There was something happening inside me, and I 
wondered if it was like some disease or if it was 
what they had done to me that time upsetting my 
gulliver and perhaps going to make me real 
bezoomny. 

So thinking like this with my gulliver bent and my 
rookers stuck in my trouser carmans I walked the 



town, brothers, and at last I began to feel very tired 
and also in great need of a nice bolshy chasha of 
milky chai. Thinking about this chai, I got a sudden 
like picture of me sitting before a bolshy fire in an 
armchair peeting away at this chai, and what was 
funny and very very strange was that I seemed to 
have turned into a very starry chelloveck, about 
seventy years old, because I could viddy my own 
voloss, which was very grey, and I also had whiskers, 
and these were very grey too. I could viddy myself 
as an old man, sitting by a fire, and then the like 
picture vanished. But it was very like strange. 

I came to one of these tea-and-coffee mestos, 
brothers, and I could viddy through the long long 
window that it was full of very dull lewdies, like 
ordinary, who had these very patient and 
expressionless litsos and would do no harm to no 
one, all sitting there and govoreeting like quietly 
and peeting away at their nice harmless chai and 
coffee. I ittied inside and went up to the counter and 
bought me a nice hot chai with plenty of moloko, 
then I ittied to one of these tables and sat down to 
peet it. There was a like young couple at this table, 
peeting and smoking filter-tip cancers, and 
govoreeting and smecking very quietly between 
themselves, but I took no notice of them and just 
went on peeting away and like dreaming and 
wondering what it was in me that was like changing 
and what was going to happen to me. But I viddied 
that the devotchka at this table who was with this 
chelloveck was real horrorshow, not the sort you 
would want to like throw down and give the old in- 
out in-out to, but with a horrorshow plott and litso 
and a smiling rot and very very fair voloss and all 
that cal. And then the veck with her, who had a hat 



on his gulliver and had his litso like turned away 
from me, swivelled round to viddy the bolshy big 
clock they had on the wall in this mesto, and then I 
viddied who he was and then he viddied who I was. 

It was Pete, one of my three droogs from those days 
when it was Georgia and Dim and him and me. It 
was Pete like looking a lot older though he could not 
now be more than nineteen and a bit, and he had a 
bit of a moustache and an ordinary day-suit and this 
hat on. I said: 

'Well well well, droogie, what gives? Very very long 
time no viddy.' He said: 

'It's little Alex, isn't it?' 

'None other,' I said. 'A long long long time since 
those dead and gone good days. And now poor 
Georgia, they told me, is underground and old Dim is 
a brutal millicent, and here is thou and here is I, and 
what news hast thou, old droogie?' 

'He talks funny, doesn't he?' said this devotchka, 
like giggling. 

'This, said Pete to the devotchka, 'is an old friend. 
His name is Alex. May I,' he said to me, 'introduce 
my wife?' 

My rot fell wide open then. 'Wife?' I like gaped. 

'Wife wife wife? Ah no, that cannot be. Too young 
art thou to be married, old droog. Impossible 
impossible.' 

This devotchka who was like Pete's wife (impossible 
impossible) giggled again and said to Pete: 'Did you 
used to talk like that too?' 



'Well/ said Pete, and he like smiled. 'I'm nearly 
twenty. Old enough to be hitched, and it's been two 
months already. You were very young and very 
forward, remember.' 

'Well,' I liked gaped still. 'Over this get can I not, old 
droogie. Pete married. Well well well.' 

'We have a small flat,' said Pete. 'I am earning very 
small money at State Marine Insurance, but things 
will get better, that I know. And Georgina here-' 

'What again is that name?' I said, rot still open like 
bezoomny. Pete's wife, (wife, brothers) like giggled 
again. 

'Georgina,' said Pete. 'Georgina works too. Typing, 
you know. We manage, we manage.' I could not, 
brothers, take my glazzies off him, really. He was 
like grown up now, with a grown-up goloss and all. 
'You must,' said Pete, 'come and see us sometime. 
You still,' he said, 'look very young, despite all your 
terrible experiences. Yes, yes, yes, we've read all 
about them. But, of course, you are very young 
still.' 

'Eighteen,' I said, 'Just gone.' 

'Eighteen, eh?' said Pete. 'As old as that. Well well 
well. Now,' he said, 'we have to be going.' And he 
like gave this Georgina of his a like loving look and 
pressed one of her rookers between his and she gave 
him one of these looks back, O my brothers. 'Yes,' 
said Pete, turning back to me, 'we're off to a little 
party at Greg's.' 


'Greg?' I said. 



'Oh, of course/ said Pete, 'you wouldn't know Greg, 
would you? Greg is after your time. While you were 
away Greg came into the picture. He runs little 
parties, you know. Mostly wine-cup and word- 
games. But very nice, very pleasant, you know. 
Harmless, if you see what I mean.' 

'Yes,' I said. 'Harmless. Yes, yes, I viddy that real 
horrorshow.' And this Georgina devotchka giggled 
again at my slovos. And then these two ittied off to 
their vonny word-games at this Greg's, whoever he 
was. I was left all on my oddy knocky with my milky 
chai, which was getting cold now, like thinking and 
wondering. 

Perhaps that was it, I kept thinking. Perhaps I was 
getting too old for the sort of jeezny I had been 
leading, brothers. I was eighteen now, just gone. 
Eighteen was not a young age. At eighteen old 
Wolfgang Amadeus had written concertos and 
symphonies and operas and oratorios and all that 
cal, no, not cal, heavenly music. And then there was 
old Felix M. with his Midsummer Night's Dream 
Overture. And there were others. And there was 
this like French poet set by old Benjy Britt, who had 
done all his best poetry by the age of fifteen, O my 
brothers. Arthur, his first name. Eighteen was not 
all that young an age, then. But what was I going to 
do? 

Walking the dark chill bastards of winter streets 
after ittying off from this chai-and-coffee mesto, I 
kept viddying like visions, like these cartoons in the 
gazettes. There was Your Humble Narrator Alex 
coming home from work to a good hot plate of 
dinner, and there was this ptitsa all welcoming and 



greeting like loving. But I could not viddy her all 
that horrorshow, brothers, I could not think who it 
might be. But I had this sudden very strong idea 
that if I walked into the room next to this room 
where the fire was burning away and my hot dinner 
laid on the table, there I should find what I really 
wanted, and now it all tied up, that picture scissored 
out of the gazetta and meeting old Pete like that. 

For in that other room in a cot was laying gurgling 
goo goo goo my son. Yes yes yes, brothers, my son. 
And now I felt this bolshy big hollow inside my plott, 
feeling very surprised too at myself. I knew what 
was happening, O my brothers. I was like growing 
up. 

Yes yes yes, there it was. Youth must go, ah yes. 

But youth is only being in a way like it might be an 
animal. No, it is not just like being an animal so 
much as being one of these malenky toys you viddy 
being sold in the streets, like little chellovecks made 
out of tin and with a spring inside and then a winding 
handle on the outside and you wind it up grrr grrr 
grrr and off it itties, like walking, O my brothers. But 
it itties in a straight line and bangs straight into 
things bang bang and it cannot help what it is doing. 
Being young is like being like one of these malenky 
machines. 

My son, my son. When I had my son I would explain 
all that to him when he was starry enough to like 
understand. But then I knew he would not 
understand or would not want to understand at all 
and would do all the veshches I had done, yes 
perhaps even killing some poor starry forella 
surrounded with mewing kots and koshkas, and I 
would not be able to really stop him. And nor would 



he be able to stop his own son, brothers. And so it 
would itty on until like the end of the world, round 
and round and round, like some bolshy gigantic like 
chelloveck, like old Bog Himself (by courtesy of 
Korova Milkbar) turning and turning and turning a 
vonny grahzny orange in his gigantic rookers. 

But first of all, brothers, there was this veshch of 
finding some devotchka or other who would be a 
mother to this son. I would have to start on that 
tomorrow, I kept thinking. That was something like 
new to do. That was something I would have to get 
started on, a new like chapter beginning. 

That's what it's going to be then, brothers, as I come 
to the like end of this tale. You have been 
everywhere with your little droog Alex, suffering 
with him, and you have viddied some of the most 
grahzny bratchnies old Bog ever made, all on to your 
old droog Alex. And all it was was that I was young. 
But now as I end this story, brothers, I am not young, 
not no longer, oh no. Alex like groweth up, oh yes. 

But where I itty now, O my brothers, is all on my 
oddy knocky, where you cannot go. Tomorrow is all 
like sweet flowers and the turning vonny earth and 
the stars and the old Luna up there and your old 
droog Alex all on his oddy knocky seeking like a 
mate. And all that cal. A terrible grahzny vonny 
world, really, O my brothers. And so farewell from 
your little droog. And to all others in this story 
profound shooms of lipmusic brrrrrr. And they can 
kiss my sharries. But you, O my brothers, remember 
sometimes thy little Alex that was. Amen. And all 
that cal. 




Glossary of Nadsat Language 


Words that do not appear to be of Russian origin are 
distinguished 

by asterisks. (For help with the Russian, I am 
indebted to the kind¬ 
ness of my colleague Nora Montesinos and a number 
of correspon¬ 
dents.) 


*appy polly loggy - apology 
wonderful 

baboochka - old woman 
mumble 

*baddiwad - bad 

banda - band 

bezoomny - mad 

biblio - library 
'bust' 

bitva - battle 
Bog - God 
bolnoy - sick 


choodesny - 

*chumble - to 

clop - to knock 
cluve - beak 
collocoll - bell 
*crack - to break up or 

*crark - to yowl? 
crast - to steal or rob; 
robbery 



bolshy - big, great 
scream 

brat, bratty - brother 

bratchny - bastard 

britva - razor 

brooko - belly 

brosay - to throw 

bugatty - rich 

cal - feces 

*cancer - cigarette 

cantora - office 
valuable 

carman - pocket 

chai- tea 

^Charles, Charlie - chaplain 
chasha - cup 
chasso - guard 
cheena - woman 
cheest- to wash 
chelloveck - person, man. 


creech - to shout or 

*cutter - money 
dama - lady 
ded - old man 
deng - money 
devotchka - girl 
dobby - good 
*dook - trace, ghost 
domy - house 
dorogoy - dear, 

dratsing - fighting 
*drencrom - drug 

droog - friend 
*dung - to defecate 
dva - two 
eegra - game 
eemya - name 
*eggiweg - egg 


fellow 


*filly - to play or fool with 



chepooka - nonsense 


*firegold - drink 


*fist - to punch 

*flip - wild? 
love 

forella - 'trout' 
gazetta - newspaper 
glazz - eye 
gloopy - stupid 
*golly - unit of money 
goloss - voice 
goober - lip 
gooly - to walk 
gorlo - throat 

govoreet - to speak or talk 

grahzny - dirty 

grazzy - soiled 

gromky - loud 

groody - breast 


loveted - caught 
lubbilubbing - making 

^luscious glory - hair 
malchick - boy 
malenky - little, tiny 
maslo - butter 
merzky - filthy 
messel - thought, fancy 
mesto - place 
millicent - policeman 
minoota - minute 

molodoy - young 
moloko - milk 
moodge - man 
morder - snout 


*mounch - snack 



gruppa - group 

*guff - guffaw 

gulliver - head 

*guttiwuts - guts 

*hen-korm - chickenfeed 

*horn - to cry out 

horrorshow - good, well 
underpants 

*in-out in-out - copulation 
interessovat - to interest 
itty - to go 
*jammiwam - jam 
jeezny - life 
kartoffel - potato 
keeshkas - guts 
kleb - bread 
klootch - key 
knopka - button 
kopat - to 'dig' 
koshka - cat 


mozg - brain 
nachinat - to begin 
nadmenny - arrogant 
nadsat- teenage 
nagoy - naked 
*nazz - fool 

neezhnies - 

nochy - night 
hoga - foot, leg 
nozh - knife 

nuking - smelling 
oddy knocky - lonesome 
odin - one 
okno - window 
oobivat - to kill 
ookadeet- to leave 
ooko - ear 
oomny - brainy 
oozhassny - terrible 



kot - tomcat 
krovvy - blood 
kupet - to buy 
lapa - paw 
lewdies - people 
^lighter - crone? 
litso - face 
lomtick, piece, bit 

platties - clothes 
pletcho - shoulder 
plenny - prisoner 
plesk - splash 
*plosh - to splash 
plott - body 
podooshka - pillow 
pol - sex 
polezny - useful 
*polyclef - skeleton key 


oozy - chain 
osoosh - to wipe 
otchkies - eyeglasses 
*pan-handle - erection 
*pee and em - parents 
peet - to drink 
pishcha - food 
platch - to cry 

*shlaga - club 
shlapa - hat 
shoom - noise 
shoot - fool 
*sinny - cinema 
skazat - to say 

*skolliwoll - school 
skorry - quick, quickly 
*skriking - scratching 
skvat - to grab 



pony - to understand 

poogly - frightened 

pooshka - 'cannon' 
hear, to 

prestoopnick - criminal 

privodeet - to lead 

somewhere 

*pretty polly - money 

prod - to produce 

ptitsa - 'chick' 

pyahnitsa - drunk 

rabbit - work, job 

radosty - joy 
fornicator 

raskazz - story 

rassoodock - mind 
order 

raz - time 

razdraz - upset 
splash 


sladky - sweet 
sloochat - to happen 
sloosh, slooshy - to 

listen 

slovo - word 
smeck - laugh 
smot - to look 
sneety - dream 
*snoutie - tobacco? 
*snuff it - to die 
sobirat - to pick up 
*sod - to fornicate, 

soomka - 'bag' 
soviet - advice, 

spat - to sleep 
^splodge, splosh - 


razrez - to rip, ripping 


*spoogy - terrified 



rook, rooker - hand, arm 

rot - mouth 

rozz - policeman 

sabog - shoe 

sakar- sugar 

sammy - generous 
handkerchief 

*sarky - sarcastic 

scoteena - 'cow' 
push; blow, 

shaika - gang 

*sharp - female 

sharries - buttocks 

shest - barrier 

*shilarny - concern 

*shive - slice 

shiyah - neck 

shlem - helmet 

viddy - to see or look 


*Staja - State Jail 
starry - ancient 
strack - horror 
*synthemesc - drug 
tally - waist 
*tashtook - 

*tass - cup 
tolchock - to hit or 

beating 

toofles - slippers 
tree - three 
vareet - to 'cook up' 
*vaysay - washroom 
veck - (see chelloveck) 
*vellocet - drug 
veshch - thing 

yeckate - to drive 



voloss - hair 

von - smell 
remarkable 

vred - to harm or damage 
yahma - hole 
*yahoodies - Jews 
yahzick - tongue 
*yarbles - testicles 


*warble - song 
zammechat - 

zasnoot - sleep 
zheena - wife 
zoobies - teeth 
zvonock - bellpull 
zvook - sound
Inscription142,162 Inscription142,164
Inscription number 142,163
Inscription id 5315ba9964ad1554d54563f83bb3dc1a0ef62890dc55ff7b632c9c88da7c3280i0
Owner address bc1pl2jl3xh4yuhrdsqreu2x8lqtwendsrltfza950f4md9p978rylts9l6mk4
Genesis block 777,235
File type text
File size 334.12 KB
Creation date Feb 18,2023 10:1 pm