Энтони Берджес. Механический апельсин (engl)

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     Origin: Библиотека "Артефакт"--http://artefact.cns.ru/library/ Ў http://artefact.cns.ru/library/
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        Anthony Burgess. A Clockwork Orange



        INTRODUCTION

     Anthony Burgess was born in Manchester in 1917 and is a graduate of the
University there. After six years in the Army he worked as an instructor for
the  Central  Advisory  Council  for  Forces  Education,  as a  lecturer  in
Phonetics  and as  a grammar school master.  From 1954  till 1960 he  was an
education officer in the Colonial Service, stationed in Malaya and Brunei.
     He became a full-time writer in 1960, though  his first novel had  been
published four  years earlier. A late starter in the art of fiction,  he had
spent  his  creative energy previously on  music,  and  he has composed many
full-scale works for orchestra and other media.
     Anthony Burgess maintains his old interest in music and in linguistics,
and these have conditioned the style  and content of  the novels he  writes.
Though he and his wife no longer live abroad, foreign travel remains a great
source  of inspiration. He has, to  date,  published many novels,  a book on
linguistics, and various critical works.
     His other  books in Penguin are `Inside Mr Enderby,' `Tremor of Intent'
and `Nothing Like the Sun,' a story of Shakespeare's love-life.


        COVER NOTES

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


        PART 1

        1

     "What's it going to be then, eh?"
     There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie,
and Dim. Dim being  really dim, and we sat in the Korova  Milkbar  making up
our rassoodocks  what  to do with the  evening, a  flip  dark  chill  winter
bastard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O
my brothers, have  forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so
skorry these days and  everybody very quick to forget, newspapers  not being
read much neither. Well, what  they sold there was milk plus something else.
They had  no licence for selling liquor,  but there was no law  yet  against
prodding some  of  the new  veshches  which they  used to put  into  the old
moloko, so you could  peet it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one
or two other  veshches which would give you a nice  quiet horrorshow fifteen
minutes  admiring Bog  And  All His Holy Angels and Saints in your left shoe
with lights bursting  all over your mozg. Or you could peet milk with knives
in it, as we used to  say, and this would  sharpen you up and make you ready
for a bit of  dirty twenty-to-one, and that  was what we were  peeting  this
evening I'm starting off the story with.
     Our pockets were full of deng, so there was no real need from the point
of  view of crasting any more pretty polly to  tolchock some old veck  in an
alley and viddy him swim in  his  blood  while  we  counted the  takings and
divided  by four,  nor to  do  the  ultra-violent on some  shivering  starry
grey-haired ptitsa in a shop and  go smecking off with the till's guts. But,
as they say, money isn't everything.
     The four  of us were dressed in the height of  fashion,  which in those
days was a pair of black very tight  tights with the old jelly mould,  as we
called  it, fitting  on the  crotch  underneath  the tights,  this  being to
protect  and  also a  sort of a  design  you could viddy clear enough  in  a
certain light, so that I had one in the shape of a spider, Pete had a rooker
(a hand, that is), Georgie had a very fancy one of  a  flower, and poor  old
Dim  had  a very hound-and-horny one of a clown's litso (face, that is). Dim
not ever having much of an idea of  things and being, beyond all shadow of a
doubting thomas, the dimmest of we four. Then we wore waisty jackets without
lapels  but with these  very big built-up shoulders (`pletchoes'  we  called
them) which were  a kind of a mockery of having  real shoulders  like  that.
Then,  my  brothers,  we had  these  off-white  cravats  which  looked  like
whipped-up kartoffel or spud with a sort of a design made on it with a fork.
We wore our hair not too long and we had flip horrorshow boots for kicking.
     "What's it going to be then, eh?"
     There were three devotchkas sitting  at the  counter  all together, but
there were  four of us malchicks and it was usually like one for all and all
for  one.  These sharps  were  dressed  in  the heighth of fashion too, with
purple and  green and orange wigs on their gullivers, each one  not  costing
less than three or  four weeks of  those sharps' wages, I should reckon, and
make-up to match (rainbows round the glazzies, that is, and  the rot painted
very  wide).  Then they had  long black  very straight  dresses, and  on the
groody part of them  they had little  badges of  like silver  with different
malchicks' names on them--Joe and Mike and suchlike.  These were supposed to
be the names of the different malchicks they'd spatted with before they were
fourteen. They kept  looking our way and I nearly felt like saying the three
of  us (out of the corner of my rot, that is) should go off for a bit of pol
and  leave  poor old  Dim  behind,  because  it would  be just  a  matter of
kupetting  Dim  a  demi-litre  of  white but this  time  with  a  dollop  of
synthemesc in it, but that wouldn't really have been playing like  the game.
Dim was very very ugly and like  his  name,  but he  was a horrorshow filthy
fighter and very handy with the boot.
     "What's it going to be then, eh?"
     The chelloveck sitting  next to me, there  being this long  big  plushy
seat that ran round three walls, was well away with  his glazzies glazed and
sort of burbling slovos like  "Aristotle wishy  washy works  outing cyclamen
get forficulate  smartish." He was  in the  land  all  right,  well away, in
orbit,  and I knew what it was like, having tried it like everybody else had
done,  but  at this time  I'd got to thinking it  was  a  cowardly sort of a
veshch, O my brothers. You'd lay  there after you'd drunk the old moloko and
then you got  the messel that  everything  all  round you was sort of in the
past. You could  viddy it  all  right, all of it,  very  clear--tables,  the
stereo, the lights, the  sharps  and  the malchicks--but  it was  like  some
veshch that  used to be there but was  not  there not no more.  And you were
sort of hypnotized by your boot or shoe or a finger-nail as it might be, and
at the same time you were sort of picked up by the old scruff and shook like
you might be a cat. You got shook and shook till there was nothing left. You
lost your name and your body and your self and you just didn't care, and you
waited until your boot or finger-nail got yellow, then yellower and yellower
all the time. Then the lights started cracking like atomics and the boot  or
finger-nail or, as it might be, a bit  of dirt on your trouser-bottom turned
into a  big big  big mesto, bigger  than the whole world, and you were  just
going to get introduced to old  Bog or God when  it  was all over.  You came
back to here and now whimpering sort of, with your rot all squaring up for a
boohoohoo. Now that's very nice but very  cowardly. You were not put on this
earth just  to  get in touch with God. That sort of thing could sap  all the
strength and the goodness out of a chelloveck.
     "What's it going to be then, eh?"
     The stereo  was on and you  got the  idea that the singer's  goloss was
moving from  one  part of the bar to  another, flying up to the  ceiling and
then swooping  down again and whizzing from wall to wall. It was Berti Laski
rasping a real starry oldie called `You Blister My Paint.'  One of the three
ptitsas at the counter, the one with the green wig, kept  pushing  her belly
out and pulling it in  in time to what they called the music.  I could  feel
the knives in the  old  moloko starting to  prick, and now I was ready for a
bit  of twenty-to-one. So  I yelped:  "Out out out out!" like  a doggie, and
then  I cracked  this  veck who was  sitting  next to me  and well  away and
burbling a horrorshow crack  on the ooko  or earhole,  but he didn't feel it
and  went on with  his "Telephonic  hardware and when the  farfarculule gets
rubadubdub." He'd feel it all right when he came to, out of the land.
     "Where out?" said Georgie.
     "Oh, just to keep  walking," I  said,  "and  viddy what turns up,  O my
little brothers."
     So we scatted out into the big winter nochy and walked down  Marghanita
Boulevard and then  turned into Boothby Avenue, and there  we found what  we
were pretty well looking for,  a malenky jest to start off the evening with.
There was  a doddery starry schoolmaster type  veck, glasses on  and his rot
open to the cold nochy air. He had books under his arm and a crappy umbrella
and  was  coming round the corner from the  Public  Biblio,  which  not many
lewdies used these  days. You never really saw many of the  older  bourgeois
type out after nightfall those days, what with the shortage of police and we
fine young malchickiwicks  about, and this prof type chelloveck was the only
one walking  in the  whole  of  the  street.  So we goolied up  to him, very
polite, and I said: "Pardon me, brother."
     He  looked a  malenky bit  poogly  when he viddied the  four of us like
that, coming up so quiet and polite and smiling, but he said: "Yes? What  is
it?" in  a very loud teacher-type goloss,  as if he was trying to show us he
wasn't poogly. I said:
     "I see  you have  books  under your arm, brother. It  is indeed  a rare
pleasure these days to come across somebody that still reads, brother."
     "Oh," he said, all  shaky. "Is it? Oh, I see." And he kept looking from
one to the other of we  four, finding  himself now  like in  the middle of a
very smiling and polite square.
     "Yes," I said. "It  would interest  me greatly, brother,  if you  would
kindly allow me to see  what books those are that you have under your arm. I
like nothing better in this world than a good clean book, brother."
     "Clean," he said. "Clean, eh?" And then Pete skvatted these three books
from him and handed them round real skorry.
     Being three, we all had one each to viddy at except for Dim. The  one I
had was  called `Elementary Crystallography,'  so I opened  it  up and said:
"Excellent, really first-class," keeping turning the pages. Then I said in a
very shocked type goloss: "But what is this here? What is this filthy slovo?
I blush to look at this word. You disappoint me, brother, you do really."
     "But," he tried, "but, but."
     "Now," said Georgie, "here is what I should call real dirt. There's one
slovo beginning with an f  and another  with a c." He had a book called `The
Miracle of the Snowflake.'
     "Oh," said poor old Dim, smotting  over Pete's shoulder and  going  too
far, like he always did, "it says here  what he done to  her,  and there's a
picture  and  all. Why,"  he  said,  "you're nothing but a filthy-minded old
skitebird."
     "An old man of your  age, brother," I said, and I started to rip up the
book I'd  got, and the  others did  the same with the ones they had. Dim and
Pete doing a tug-of-war with `The Rhombohedral System.' The starry prof type
began to creech: "But those  are not  mine,  those  are the property  of the
municipality,  this  is  sheer wantonness and  vandal  work,"  or some  such
slovos. And he tried to  sort of wrest the books back off  of us,  which was
like pathetic. "You deserve  to be taught  a lesson, brother," I said, "that
you do." This crystal book  I had was very tough-bound and hard to razrez to
bits, being real starry and made in days when things were made to last like,
but  I managed  to rip the  pages up  and chuck  them  in  handfuls  of like
snowflakes,  though  big,  all over  this  creeching old veck, and  then the
others did the same  with theirs, old Dim  just dancing about like the clown
he  was. "There you are,"  said Pete. "There's the mackerel of the cornflake
for you, you dirty reader of filth and nastiness."
     "You naughty  old veck, you," I said, and then  we began to filly about
with him. Pete held his rookers and Georgie sort of hooked his rot wide open
for him and Dim yanked  out his  false  zoobies, upper  and lower. He  threw
these down  on  the pavement and then I  treated them to the old boot-crush,
though  they  were hard bastards  like, being  made  of some new  horrorshow
plastic stuff. The old veck began to make sort of chumbling shooms--"wuf waf
wof"--so Georgie let go of holding his  goobers  apart and just let him have
one  in the toothless rot  with his ringy fist, and  that made the old  veck
start moaning  a lot then, then  out  comes  the  blood, my  brothers,  real
beautiful. So all we did then was  to pull his outer platties off, stripping
him down to his vest and long  underpants (very starry; Dim smecked his head
off near), and then Pete kicks him lovely in his pot,  and we let him go. He
went  sort  of staggering off, it not  having  been  too  hard of a tolchock
really, going "Oh oh oh," not knowing where or  what was what really, and we
had a snigger at him and then riffled through his pockets, Dim dancing round
with his crappy umbrella meanwhile, but there wasn't much in them.
     There were a few starry letters, some of them dating right back to 1960
with "My dearest dearest" in them and all that chepooka, and a keyring and a
starry leaky pen.  Old Dim gave  up his  umbrella dance and of course had to
start reading one of the letters out loud, like  to show the empty street he
could read. "My darling one," he recited, in this  very high type goloss, "I
shall be thinking of you  while you  are away and hope you will  remember to
wrap up  warm  when you go  out at night." Then he  let  out a  very shoomny
smeck--"Ho ho  ho"--pretending to  start  wiping  his  yahma  with it.  "All
right,"  I said. "Let it go, O  my brothers." In the trousers of this starry
veck there was only  a malenky bit of cutter (money, that is)--not more than
three gollies--so we  gave  all his messy little coin the scatter treatment,
it being  hen-korm to the amount of pretty polly we had on  us already. Then
we  smashed  the  umbrella and  razrezzed  his platties and gave them to the
blowing  winds, my brothers, and then we'd finished  with the starry teacher
type veck. We hadn't done much, I know, but that was only like  the start of
the evening and I make no appy polly loggies to thee  or thine for that. The
knives in the milk plus were stabbing away nice and horrorshow now.
     The next  thing was  to do the  sammy act, which  was one way to unload
some of  our  cutter  so  we'd  have  more of an  incentive  like  for  some
shop-crasting, as well as it being a  way of buying an alibi  in advance, so
we went into the Duke of New York on Amis Avenue and sure enough in the snug
there  were three or four old baboochkas peeting their black  and suds on SA
(State Aid).  Now we  were the very good malchicks, smiling good evensong to
one and all, though these  wrinkled old lighters started  to get all  shook,
their  veiny  old  rookers all trembling round their glasses, and making the
suds spill on the table. "Leave us be, lads," said one of them, her face all
mappy with being a  thousand years old, "we're only poor old  women." But we
just made with the zoobies, flash flash flash, sat down, rang the bell,  and
waited  for  the boy  to  come.  When he  came, all nervous  and rubbing his
rookers  on his grazzy apron,  we ordered us  four veterans--a veteran being
rum and cherry brandy mixed, which was popular just then, some liking a dash
of lime in it, that being the Canadian variation. Then I said to the boy:
     "Give these  poor  old baboochkas  over  there  a nourishing something.
Large Scotchmen  all  round  and something to  take  away." And  I poured my
pocket  of  deng  all over the table, and the other three did likewise, O my
brothers. So double firegolds were bought in for the scared starry lighters,
and they knew not what to do or say. One of them got out "Thanks, lads," but
you could see they  thought there  was something dirty like  coming. Anyway,
they were each given a bottle of Yank General, cognac that is, to take away,
and I gave  money for them to be delivered  each  a  dozen of black and suds
that following morning,  they to leave their stinking old cheenas' addresses
at the counter. Then with the cutter that was  left over we did purchase, my
brothers, all the meat pies, pretzels, cheese-snacks, crisps and chocbars in
that mesto, and those too were for the old sharps.  Then we said: "Back in a
minoota," and the old ptitsas were  still saying:  "Thanks, lads,"  and "God
bless you, boys," and  we were  going out without one cent of cutter  in our
carmans.
     "Makes you feel real dobby, that does," said Pete. You could viddy that
poor old  Dim the dim didn't quite  pony all  that, but  he said nothing for
fear of being called gloopy and a domeless wonderboy.  Well, we went off now
round  the  corner to Attlee Avenue, and  there was  this sweets and cancers
shop still open. We'd left them alone near three  months  now and  the whole
district had been very quiet  on the whole,  so the armed millicents or rozz
patrols weren't round there much, being more north of the river  these days.
We put our  maskies on--new  jobs  these  were, real horrorshow, wonderfully
done really; they were like faces of historical personalities (they gave you
the names when you  bought)  and I had Disraeli,  Pete  had  Elvis  Presley,
Georgie had  Henry VIII and  poor  old Dim  had  a poet veck  called  Peebee
Shelley;  they  were a real like disguise, hair and all, and they were  some
very special plastic veshch so you could roll  it up when you'd done with it
and hide it in your boot--then three of us went in.
     Pete keeping chasso without, not that there was anything to worry about
out there. As soon as we launched on the shop we went for Slouse who ran it,
a big portwine jelly  of a veck who viddied at once what was coming and made
straight for the  inside where the telephone was and perhaps his  well-oiled
pooshka,  complete with six dirty rounds.  Dim was round that counter skorry
as a bird, sending packets of snoutie flying and cracking over a big cut-out
showing a sharp  with  all  her zoobies going flash at the customers and her
groodies  near hanging  out to advertise some new brand of cancers. What you
could viddy then  was a sort of a big ball rolling into the  inside  of  the
shop behind the curtain,  this being old  Dim and Slouse sort of locked in a
death  struggle. Then  you  could slooshy panting  and  snoring  and kicking
behind the curtain and veshches  falling  over  and swearing and then  glass
going  smash smash smash. Mother Slouse, the wife,  was sort of froze behind
the counter.  We could tell she would creech  murder given  one chance, so I
was round that counter  very skorry and had a hold of  her, and a horrorshow
big  lump she was  too, all  nuking  of scent  and with flipflop big bobbing
groodies  on her. I'd got my  rooker round  her rot  to stop her belting out
death and destruction to the four winds of heaven, but this lady doggie gave
me a large foul  big bite on it and it  was me that did  the  creeching, and
then she opened up beautiful with a flip yell for the millicents. Well, then
she had to be tolchocked proper with one of the weights for the  scales, and
then a fair tap with a crowbar they had for opening cases, and  that brought
the red out like an old friend. So we had her down on the floor and a rip of
her platties for fun  and a gentle bit of the boot to stop her moaning. And,
viddying  her lying there with her groodies on show, I  wondered should I or
not, but that was for later on in the evening. Then we cleaned the till, and
there was flip  horrorshow takings that nochy, and we had a few packs of the
very best top cancers apiece, then off we went, my brothers.
     "A real big heavy great bastard he was," Dim kept saying. I didn't like
the  look of Dim:  he looked dirty and  untidy,  like a veck who'd been in a
fight, which he had been, of course, but you should never look as though you
have been. His  cravat was like someone had trampled  on it,  his maskie had
been pulled off and he  had  floor-dirt on his litso, so we got  him  in  an
alleyway and tidied him up a malenky bit, soaking  our tashtooks in spit  to
cheest the dirt off. The things we did for old Dim. We were back in the Duke
of New York very skorry and I reckoned by my watch we  hadn't been more than
ten  minutes away. The starry old baboochkas  were still there on  the black
and suds and Scotchmen we'd bought them, and we said: "Hallo there, girlies,
what's it going to be?" They started on the old "Very kind,  lads, God bless
you, boys," and so we rang  the collocol and brought a different  waiter  in
this time and we ordered beers with rum in, being sore athirst, my brothers,
and whatever the old ptitsas wanted. Then I said to the  old baboochkas: "We
haven't been out of here, have we? Been here all the time, haven't we?" They
all caught on real skorry and said:
     "That's right, lads. Not been out of our  sight, you haven't. God bless
you, boys," drinking.
     Not that it mattered  much, really. About half  an hour went  by before
there was  any sign of  life among  the millicents, and then it was only two
very  young  rozzes  that  came  in,  very  pink under  their  big  copper's
shlemmies. One said:
     "You lot  know  anything about  the  happenings at Slouse's  shop  this
night?"
     "Us?" I said, innocent. "Why, what happened?"
     "Stealing  and roughing.  Two hospitalizations. Where've you  lot  been
this evening?"
     "I don't go for that nasty tone," I said. "I don't care  much for these
nasty insinuations. A very suspicious nature all this  betokeneth, my little
brothers."
     "They've been in  here  all night, lads,"  the  old  sharps  started to
creech out. "God  bless  them,  there's  no  better lot  of boys  living for
kindness  and generosity.  Been here  all the time they have. Not  seen them
move we haven't."
     "We're only asking," said the other young millicent. "We've got our job
to do like anyone else." But they gave us the nasty warning look before they
went  out. As  they  were  going out  we  handed them  a  bit of  lip-music:
brrrrzzzzrrrr.  But, myself,  I couldn't help  a  bit of  disappointment  at
things  as they were those days. Nothing to fight against really. Everything
as easy as kiss-my-sharries. Still, the night was still very young.


        2

     When  we  got outside  of the  Duke  of New York we viddied by the main
bar's long lighted window, a burbling old pyahnitsa or drunkie, howling away
at the  filthy songs  of his  fathers  and going blerp  blerp in between  as
though it might be a filthy old orchestra  in his  stinking rotten guts. One
veshch I could never stand was that. I could never stand to see a moodge all
filthy  and rolling  and burping and drunk, whatever his  age might be,  but
more  especially when he was  real starry like this  one was. He was sort of
flattened  to the wall and his platties were  a  disgrace,  all  creased and
untidy and covered in cal and mud and filth and stuff. So we got hold of him
and cracked him with a few good  horrorshow  tolchoks, but he still  went on
singing. The song went:

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

     But  when Dim fisted  him a  few times on  his filthy drunkard's rot he
shut up  singing and  started to  creech:  "Go  on, do me  in,  you  bastard
cowards, I  don't want  to live anyway,  not in  a stinking world  like this
one."  I told  Dim to  lay off  a bit then,  because it used to  interest me
sometimes to slooshy what some of these starry decreps had to say about life
and the world. I said: "Oh. And what's stinking about it?"
     He cried out:  "It's a stinking world because  it lets the young get on
to  the old like you done, and  there's  no law  nor order no more."  He was
creeching out  loud and waving  his  rookers and making real horrorshow with
the slovos,  only  the  odd blurp  blurp  coming  from  his  keeshkas,  like
something was orbiting within, or like some very rude interrupting sort of a
moodge  making a shoom, so  that this  old veck kept sort  of threatening it
with his fists,  shouting: "It's  no world for  any old  man any longer, and
that  means that I'm  not one bit  scared of you, my boyos, because I'm  too
drunk  to feel the pain if you hit me, and if you kill me I'll be glad to be
dead."
     We smecked and then grinned  but said  nothing, and then he said: "What
sort  of a world is it  at all?  Men on the moon and men spinning  round the
earth like it might be midges round a  lamp, and there's not  more attention
paid to earthly law nor order no more. So your  worst you may do, you filthy
cowardly  hooligans."  Then he gave us some lip-music--"Prrrrzzzzrrrr"--like
we'd done to those young millicents, and then he started singing again:

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

     So we cracked  into him  lovely,  grinning all over our litsos, but  he
still went on singing. Then we tripped  him so he laid down  flat and  heavy
and a bucketload of beer-vomit came whooshing out. That was disgusting so we
gave him the boot, one  go each, and then it  was blood, not song nor vomit,
that came out of his filthy old rot. Then we went on our way.
     It was round by the Municipal Power Plant  that we came across Billyboy
and his five droogs. Now  in  those days, my  brothers, the  teaming  up was
mostly  by  fours or fives, these being like auto-teams, four being a  comfy
number for an auto, and six being the outside limit for gang-size. Sometimes
gangs would gang up so as to make like malenky armies for big night-war, but
mostly it was best  to  roam  in  these  like  small numbers.  Billyboy  was
something that made me want  to sick just to  viddy  his fat grinning litso,
and he always had  this von  of very  stale oil  that's been used for frying
over and over, even when he was dressed in his best platties, like now. They
viddied us just as we viddied them, and  there was  like a very quit kind of
watching  each other  now.  This would be real, this  would be proper,  this
would  be  the  nozh, the  oozy,  the britva,  not just fisties  and  boots.
Billyboy and his droogs stopped what they were doing, which was just getting
ready  to perform something on  a weepy young devotchka  they had there, not
more than ten, she creeching away but  with her platties still  on. Billyboy
holding her by one rooker and his number-one, Leo, holding the other. They'd
probably just been doing the dirty slovo part of the act before getting down
to a malenky bit of ultra-violence. When they viddied us  a-coming they  let
go of this boo-hooing little ptitsa, there being plenty  more where she came
from, and she ran with her thin white legs flashing through  the dark, still
going "Oh oh oh." I said, smiling very wide and droogie: "Well, if it  isn't
fat stinking billygoat Billyboy in poison. How art  thou, thou globby bottle
of cheap stinking chip-oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any
yarbles, you eunuch jelly, thou." And then we started.
     There were four  of us to six of them, like I have  already  indicated,
but poor old  Dim, for  all his  dimness, was  worth three of the others  in
sheer madness and dirty fighting. Dim had a real horrorshow length  of  oozy
or  chain round his waist, twice wound round, and he unwound  this and began
to swing  it  beautiful in the eyes or glazzies.  Pete and Georgie  had good
sharp nozhes, but I for my  own part had a fine starry horrorshow cut-throat
britva which, at that time, I could  flash and shine  artistic. So there  we
were dratsing away in the dark, the old  Luna with men on it just coming up,
the  stars  stabbing  away as it  might  be  knives anxious to  join in  the
dratsing. With my britva I  managed to slit right down the  front  of one of
Billyboy's droog's platties, very  very neat and not even touching the plott
under the  cloth. Then in  the dratsing  this droog  of Billyboy's  suddenly
found himself all opened up like a peapod, with his belly bare  and his poor
old yarbles showing, and then he got very razdraz, waving and  screaming and
losing  his  guard   and  letting   in  old  Dim  with  his  chain   snaking
whisssssshhhhhhhhh, so that old  Dim chained him right in the  glazzies, and
this droog of  Billyboy's  went tottering off and  howling his heart out. We
were doing very  horrorshow, and  soon  we  had  Billyboy's  number-one down
underfoot, blinded with old Dim's chain and crawling and howling about  like
an animal, but with one  fair  boot on the  gulliver he  was out and out and
out.
     Of the four of us Dim, as usual, came out  the worst in point of looks,
that is to say his litso was all bloodied and his platties a dirty mess, but
the others of us were still cool and whole. It was stinking fatty Billyboy I
wanted  now, and there I was dancing about with my britva like I  might be a
barber on board a ship on a very rough sea,  trying  to get in at him with a
few  fair  slashes on his unclean oily  litso. Billyboy had  a nozh,  a long
flick-type, but he was a malenky bit too slow and heavy in his movements  to
vred anyone really bad. And, my brothers, it was real satisfaction to  me to
waltz--left  two three, right  two  three--and  carve  left cheeky and right
cheeky, so that like two curtains of  blood  seemed to pour  out at the same
time,  one  on  either  side of  his fat  filthy oily snout  in  the  winter
starlight.  Down this blood poured in like red curtains, but you could viddy
Billyboy felt  not  a thing,  and he  went  lumbering on like a filthy fatty
bear, poking at me with his nozh.
     Then we slooshied the  sirens and  knew the millicents were coming with
pooshkas  pushing out  of  the police-auto-windows  at the ready. That weepy
little devotchka had told them, no doubt, there being a box for calling  the
rozzes not too far behind  the Muni Power Plant. "Get you soon, fear not," I
called, "stinking billygoat.  I'll have your  yarbles off  lovely." Then off
they ran, slow and panting, except  for  Number One  Leo out  snoring on the
ground,  away north towards the river, and we went the other way. Just round
the next turning was an alley,  dark and empty and open at both ends, and we
rested there, panting fast then  slower, then breathing  like normal. It was
like resting between the feet of two terrific  and  very enormous mountains,
these being the  flatblocks, and  in the windows of all  the flats you could
viddy like blue dancing light. This would be the telly. Tonight was what thy
called a  worldcast, meaning that  the  same programme was  being viddied by
everybody  in  the world that wanted to,  that being  mostly the middle-aged
middle-class lewdies. There would be some big famous stupid comic chelloveck
or  black  singer,  and  it  was  all  being bounced off  the  special telly
satellites in  outer space, my  brothers.  We  waited panting, and  we could
slooshy the  sirening millicents  going  east, so we knew we were all  right
now. But poor old Dim kept looking up at  the stars and planets and the Luna
with his rot  wide  open  like a kid  who'd never  viddied  any  such things
before, and he said:
     "What's on them, I wonder. What would be up there on things like that?"
     I nudged him  hard,  saying: "Come,  gloopy  bastard as thou art. Think
thou not on  them. There'll  be life like down  here  most likely, with some
getting knifed and  others doing the knifing. And now, with  the nochy still
molodoy,  let us be on our way, O my brothers." The others smecked  at this,
but poor old Dim looked at me  serious, then up  again  at the stars and the
Luna. So we went on our way down the alley, with the worldcast blueing on on
either side. What we needed now was an auto, so we turned left coming out of
the  alley, knowing  right away  we were in Priestly Place  as  soon  as  we
viddied the big bronze statue of some starry poet with an apey upper lip and
a pipe  stuck in a  droopy old rot. Going  north we came to  the  filthy old
Filmdrome, peeling  and dropping  to  bits through nobody  going there  much
except malchicks like me and my droogs, and then only for a yell or a razrez
or a bit of in-out-in-out in the dark. We could viddy from the poster on the
Filmdrome's face, a  couple of fly-dirtied spots trained  on it, that  there
was the usual cowboy riot, with the archangels on the side of the US marshal
six-shooting  at the  rustlers out of hell's fighting legions,  the kind  of
hound-and-horny veshch  put out by Statefilm in those days. The autos parked
by the sinny  weren't  all that horrorshow, crappy starry  veshches  most of
them, but there was a newish Durango 95 that I thought might do. Georgie had
one of these polyclefs, as they called them, on his keyring, so we were soon
aboard--Dim and Pete at the back,  puffing away lordly at their cancers--and
I  turned  on the  ignition  and started her up and she  grumbled away  real
horrorshow,  a   nice  warm  vibraty  feeling  grumbling  all  through  your
guttiwuts. Then I made with the noga,  and we backed out lovely,  and nobody
viddied us take off.
     We  fillied round what  was called  the backtown for a bit, scaring old
vecks and cheenas that were crossing the roads and zigzagging after cats and
that. Then we took the road west. There wasn't much traffic about, so I kept
pushing the old noga through the floorboards near, and the Durango 95 ate up
the road  like spaghetti. Soon it was  winter  trees and dark, my  brothers,
with a country  dark,  and  at one  place I ran  over something big  with  a
snarling toothy  rot in the head-lamps, then it screamed and squelched under
and old Dim at the back near laughed his gulliver off--"Ho ho ho"--at that.
     Then we  saw one young  malchick  with his sharp, lubbilubbing  under a
tree, so we stopped and cheered at them, then we bashed into them both  with
a couple of half-hearted tolchocks, making them cry, and on we went. What we
were after now was the old surprise visit. That was a real kick and good for
smecks  and lashings of the  ultra-violent. We came  at last  to  a  sort of
village, and just outside this village was a small sort of a cottage on  its
own with a bit of garden. The Luna was well up now, and  we could viddy this
cottage  fine and  clear as I eased up and put the brake on, the other three
giggling  like  bezoomny, and we could viddy the name on the  gate  of  this
cottage veshch  was HOME, a gloomy sort of  a  name. I got out of the  auto,
ordering my droogs to shush their giggles and act like serious, and I opened
this malenky gate and walked up to the front door. I knocked nice and gentle
and nobody  came, so  I  knocked a  bit more  and this time  I could slooshy
somebody coming, then a bolt drawn, then the door inched open an inch or so,
then  I could viddy  this one glazz looking out at me and the door was on  a
chain. "Yes? Who  is it?" It was a sharp's  goloss, a  youngish devotchka by
her sound, so I said in  a very refined manner of speech, a real gentleman's
goloss:
     "Pardon,  madam, most sorry to disturb you, but my  friend and  me were
out for  a walk, and  my  friend  has taken bad all of  a sudden with a very
troublesome  turn, and he  is out  there on the road dead out and  groaning.
Would you have the goodness to let me use your telephone to telephone for an
ambulance?"
     "We haven't a telephone,"  said  this  devotchka. "I'm  sorry,  but  we
haven't. You'll have to go somewhere else." From inside this malenky cottage
I  could slooshy the clack clack  clacky clack  clack clackity clackclack of
some  veck  typing  away,  and then the typing  stopped  and  there was this
chelloveck's goloss calling: "What is it, dear?"
     "Well," I said, "could you of  your goodness please let him  have a cup
of water? It's like a faint,  you see. It seems as though he's passed out in
a sort of a fainting fit."
     The  devotchka sort of hesitated and then  said: "Wait."  Then she went
off,  and  my  three  droogs had  got out  of the  auto  quiet  and crept up
horrorshow stealthy, putting their maskies on now,  then I put mine on, then
it was only a matter of  me putting in the old rooker and undoing the chain,
me having softened  up  this devotchka with my gent's  goloss,  so  that she
hadn't shut the  door like she  should have  done, us being strangers of the
night. The  four of us  then went roaring in, old Dim  playing the  shoot as
usual with his jumping  up and down and singing out dirty slovos, and it was
a nice malenky  cottage, I'll say that. We  all  went smecking into the room
with a light on, and there was  this  devotchka sort  of  cowering, a  young
pretty bit  of sharp with real horrorshow groodies on her,  and with her was
this chelloveck who was  her  moodge, youngish too with horn-rimmed otchkies
on him, and on a table was a typewriter and all papers scattered everywhere,
but there was one little pile of  paper  like  that must have been what he'd
already typed, so here was another  intelligent type bookman type like  that
we'd fillied with some hours back,  but this one was a writer not a  reader.
Anyway, he said:
     "What  is  this?  Who  are you?  How  dare you enter my  house  without
permission." And all the time his goloss was trembling  and his rookers too.
So I said:
     "Never fear.  If fear thou hast in thy heart, O brother, pray banish it
forthwith."  Then Georgie and  Pete went out to find the kitchen, while  old
Dim waited  for orders, standing next to me with his rot wide open. "What is
this, then?" I  said,  picking up the  pile like  of  typing from off of the
table, and the horn-rimmed moodge said, dithering:
     "That's just what I want to  know. What  is this? What do you want? Get
out at once  before  I throw you out." So  poor old  Dim, masked like Peebee
Shelley, had a good loud smeck at that, roaring like some animal.
     "It's a book," I said. "It's a book  what you  are writing." I made the
old goloss very coarse. "I have always had the strongest admiration for them
as can write  books." Then I  looked  at  its top  sheet,  and there was the
name--A C L  O C  K W O R K O R A  N G E--and I said:  "That's a fair gloopy
title. Who ever heard of  a clockwork orange?" Then I read a malenky bit out
loud in  a sort of very high type preaching goloss: "--The attempt to impose
upon man, a creature of growth and  capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at
the  last round the bearded lips of God,  to attempt to impose,  I say, laws
and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this I raise my
sword-pen--" Dim made the old lip-music at that and I had  to  smeck myself.
Then  I started to tear up  the sheets  and scatter the bits over the floor,
and  this writer  moodge went  sort of bezoomny and  made  for  me with  his
zoobies clenched and showing yellow and his  nails  ready for me like claws.
So that was old Dim's cue and he went grinning and going er er and a a a for
this  veck's dithering rot,  crack  crack,  first left fistie then right, so
that our dear old droog the red--red vino on tap and the same in all places,
like it's put out by  the same big firm--started  to  pour and spot the nice
clean carpet and  the bits  of this book that I  was still ripping away  at,
razrez  razrez.  All this time this devotchka, his loving and faithful wife,
just stood like froze by the fireplace,  and  then  she started letting  out
little malenky  creeches, like  in time to the like music of old Dim's fisty
work. Then Georgie and  Pete came  in from the  kitchen, both munching away,
though with their maskies on, you could do that with them on and no trouble.
Georgie