there it was cruising about in my krovvy, so that I would be
sick  always  for  ever  and  ever amen  whenever  I  viddied  any  of  this
ultra-violence. So now I squared my rot and  went boo hoo hoo, and the tears
like blotted  out what  I  was forced to viddy in  like  all  blessed  runny
silvery  dewdrops. But  these white-coat bratchnies  were  skorry with their
tashtooks  to  wipe the  tears  away,  saying:  "There  there,  wazzums  all
weepy-weepy den." And there it was again all clear before my glazzies, these
Germans prodding like  beseeching  and weeping  Jews--vecks and  cheenas and
malchicks  and  devotchkas--into mestos where  they would all  snuff  it  of
poison gas.  Boo hoo hoo I had to go  again, and along they came to wipe the
tears  off,  very skorry,  so I should not miss  one solitary veshch of what
they were showing. It  was  a terrible and horrible day,  O  my brothers and
only friends.
     I  was lying on the  bed  all alone  that nochy after  my dinner of fat
thick  mutton stew and fruit-pie  and ice-cream, and  I  thought  to myself:
"Hell hell  hell, there might be a chance for me if I get out now." I had no
weapon, though. I was allowed no britva  here, and I had been  shaved  every
other day by a fat bald-headed veck who came to my bed before breakfast, two
white-coated  bratchnies  standing  by  to  viddy  I  was a good non-violent
malchick. The nails on my rookers had been scissored and filed real short so
I could not  scratch. But I was still skorry on  the attack, though they had
weakened me down, brothers, to a like  shadow of what I  had been in the old
free days. So now I got off the bed and went to the locked door and began to
fist  it real horrorshow and  hard, creeching  at the same time:  "Oh,  help
help. I'm  sick, I'm dying. Doctor doctor  doctor, quick. Please.  Oh,  I'll
die, I shall. Help." My gorlo was real dry and sore before anyone came. Then
I heard nogas coming down the corridor and a like grumbling goloss, and then
I recognized the goloss of the white-coated  veck who brought me pishcha and
like escorted me to my daily doom.
     He like grumbled:
     "What is it? What goes on? What's your little nasty game in there?"
     "Oh, I'm dying," I like moaned.  "Oh, I have a ghastly pain in my side.
Appendicitis, it is. Ooooooh."
     "Appendy shitehouse," grumbled this veck, and then to my joy, brothers,
I could slooshy the like clank of keys. "If you're  trying it little friend,
my friends  and me  will beat and kick  you all  through the night." Then he
opened up and brought in like  the sweet  air of the promise  of my freedom.
Now I was like behind the door when he pushed it open, and I could viddy him
in  the corridor light looking round for me puzzled.  Then  I raised my  two
fisties to tolchock him on the neck  nasty, and then, I swear, as  I viddied
him in advance lying moaning or out out out and felt the like joy rise in my
guts, it was then that this sickness rose in me as it  might be a wave and I
felt a horrible fear as if I was really going  to die.  I like tottered over
to the bed going urgh urgh urgh, and the veck, who was not in his white coat
but an over-gown, viddied clear enough what I had in mind for he said:
     "Well,  everything's a lesson, isn't it? Learning all  the time, as you
could say. Come  on, little friend, get up from that bed and hit me. I  want
you to, yes, really. A real good crack across the jaw. Oh, I'm dying for it,
really I am." But all I could do,  brothers, was to just lay  there  sobbing
boo hoo hoo. "Scum," like sneered  this veck now. "Filth."  And he pulled me
up by like the scruff of my pyjama-top, me being very weak and limp,  and he
raised and swung his right rooker so that I got a fair old tolchock clean on
the  litso.  "That,"  he said, "is  for getting me  out of my bed, you young
dirt." And he wiped his rookers against each other swish swish and went out.
Crunch crunch went the key in the lock.
     And  what,  brothers, I had to  escape  into  sleep  from then  was the
horrible and wrong feeling that it was better to get  the  hit than give it.
If that veck had stayed I might even have like presented the other cheek.


        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 kashl  kashl kashl and like shadows of
the lewdies was now a real audience, and in  this audience there were litsos
I knew.  There was the Staja Governor  and  the holy  man,  the  charlie  or
charles as he was called, and  the Chief Chasso and this very important  and
well-dressed chelloveck who  was the  Minister of the Interior  or Inferior.
All the rest I did not know. Dr. Brodsky and Dr. Branom  were there,  though
not now white-coated, instead they were dressed as  doctors  would dress who
were big enough to want to dress in the heighth of fashion.  Dr. Branom just
stood, but Dr. Brodsky stood and govoreeted  in a like learned manner to all
the lewdies assembled. When he viddied me coming in he said:
     "Aha. At this  stage, gentlemen,  we introduce the subject  himself. He
is, as you will percieve, fit  and well  nourished. He comes straight from a
night's  sleep  and a good breakfast, undrugged,  unhypnotized. Tomorrow  we
send him with confidence  out  into the world again, as decent a lad as  you
would meet  on  a May morning, inclined to the kindly  word  and the helpful
act. What a change is  here,  gentlemen, from the wretched hoodlum the State
committed to unprofitable punishment some two years ago, unchanged after two
years. Unchanged,  do  I say?  Not quite. Prison taught him the false smile,
the rubbed hands  of hypocrisy, the  fawning greased  obsequious leer. Other
vices  it  taught  him,  as  well as  confirming  him in those he  had  long
practised before. But gentlemen, enough of words. Actions speak louder than.
Action now. Observe, all."
     I was a bit dazed by all this govoreeting and I  was trying to grasp in
my mind that like all this was about me. Then all the  lights  went out  and
then there came on two like spotlights shining from the  projection-squares,
and one of them was full on Your Humble and Suffering Narrator. And into the
other  spotlight there  walked  a  bolshy big chelloveck I had never viddied
before. He had a  lardy like litso and a  moustache and like  strips of hair
pasted over his  near-bald gulliver. He was about thirty  or forty or fifty,
some old age  like that, starry. He ittied up to me and the spotlight ittied
with him, and soon the two spotlights had made like one big pool. He said to
me, very sneery:  "Hello, heap of dirt.  Pooh, you don't  wash much, judging
from the horrible smell." Then,  as if he was like dancing, he stamped on my
nogas,  left, right, then he gave me  a  finger-nail flick on the  nose that
hurt like bezoomny and brought the old  tears to my glazzies then he twisted
at my left ooko  like  it  was a radio  dial. I could  slooshy titters and a
couple of real horrorshow hawhawhaws coming from like the audience. My  nose
and nogas and ear-hole stung and pained like bezoomny, so I said:
     "What do you do that to me for? I've never done wrong to you, brother."
     "Oh,"  this  veck said, "I  do  this"--flickedflicked nose  again--"and
that"--twisted  smarting ear-hole--"and the  other"--stamped nasty  on right
noga--"because I don't care for your horrible type.  And if you  want to  do
anything about it, start, start, please do." Now I knew that  I'd have to be
real  skorry and get my cut-throat britva out  before this  horrible killing
sickness whooshed up  and turned the like  joy of battle into  feeling I was
going  to snuff it. But, O brothers, as my rooker  reached for the britva in
my inside  carman I  got this  like  picture in  my  mind's glazzy  of  this
insulting chelloveck howling for mercy with the red red krovvy all streaming
out  of his  rot, and hot after  this  picture  the sickness and dryness and
pains were rushing to overtake, and  I viddied  that  I'd have to change the
way I felt about this  rotten veck  very very skorry indeed, so I felt in my
carmans for  cigarettes  or for pretty polly, and,  O my brothers, there was
not either of these veshches, I said, like all howly and blubbery:
     "I'd like to give you  a cigarette, brother, but  I don't seem to  have
any." This veck went:
     "Wah  wah.  Boohoohoo.  Cry, baby." Then  he flickflickflicked with his
bolshy horny nail at my nose again, and I could slooshy very loud  smecks of
like mirth coming from the dark audience.  I said, real desperate, trying to
be nice to this insulting and hurtful veck  to stop the pains  and  sickness
coming up:
     "Please let me do something for you, please." And I felt in my  carmans
but could find only my cut-throat britva, so I took  this out  and handed it
to him and  said: "Please take this,  please. A little present. Please  have
it." But  he  said: "Keep your stinking  bribes  to yourself. You can't  get
round me that way." And he banged at my rooker and my cut-throat britva fell
on the floor. So I said:
     "Please, I must do something. Shall I  clean your boots? Look, I'll get
down and lick them." And, my brothers, believe it or kiss my sharries, I got
down on my knees  and pushed my red yahzick out a mile and  half to lick his
grahzny vonny boots. But  all this veck  did was  to kick me not too hard on
the rot. So then it seemed to me that it would not bring on the sickness and
pain if  I just  gripped  his  ankles with  my rookers tight  round them and
brought this grashzny bratchny down to the floor. So I did this and he got a
real bolshy surprise, coming down  crack amid  loud laughter from the  vonny
audience.  But viddying  him on the  floor I could  feel  the whole horrible
feeling coming over me, so I gave him my rooker to lift him up skorry and up
he came.  Then just as he was going  to  give  me a real nasty  and  earnest
tolchock on the litso Dr. Brodsky said:
     "All  right,  that  will do very well." Then this horrible veck sort of
bowed and danced off like  an actor while the lights came up on  me blinking
and with my rot square for howling. Dr. Brodsky said to the  audience:  "Our
subject  is, you see,  impelled towards the  good by,  paradoxically,  being
impelled  towards  evil. The intention  to  act  violently is accompanied by
strong feelings of  physical distress. To  counter these the subject  has to
switch to a diametrically opposed attitude. Any questions?"
     "Choice,"  rumbled a  rich  deep goloss.  I viddied it belonged to  the
prison charlie. "He  has  no  real choice,  has he?  Self-interest, fear  of
physical  pain,  drove  him  to  that grotesque act  of  self-abasement. Its
insincerity was clearly to be  seen. He ceases to be  a wrongdoer. He ceases
also to be a creature capable of moral choice."
     "These are subtleties," like smiled Dr. Brodsky.  "We are not concerned
with motive, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down
crime--"
     "And," chipped in  this bolshy  well-dressed Minister, "with  relieving
the ghastly congestion in our prisons."
     "Hear hear," said somebody.
     There was a lot of govoreeting and arguing then and I just stood there,
brothers,  like completely ignored by all these  ignorant  bratchnies,  so I
creeched out:
     "Me, me,  me. How about me?  Where  do I come into  all this? Am I just
some animal  or  dog?" And that  started  them off govoreeting real loud and
throwing slovos at me. So  I creeched louder, still creeching: "Am I just to
be like a clockwork  orange?" I  didn't know what made me use those  slovos,
brothers,  which  just came like without asking into  my  gulliver. And that
shut all those vecks up for some reason for a minoota or two.  Then one very
thin starry  professor type  chelloveck stood up, his  neck like all  cables
carrying like power from his gulliver to his plott, and he said:
     "You have no cause to grumble,  boy.  You made your choice and all this
is a consequence of your choice.  Whatever  now ensues  is what you yourself
have chosen." And the prison charlie creeched out:
     "Oh, if only I could believe that."  And  you could viddy  the Governor
give him a look like meaning that he would not climb so high  in like Prison
Religion as he thought he would. Then loud arguing started again, and then I
could slooshy the slovo Love being thrown around, the prison charles himself
creeching as loud as any about Perfect Love  Casteth Out  Fear and all  that
cal. And now Dr. Brodsky said, smiling all over his litso:
     "I am glad,  gentlemen, this question of  Love  has been raised. Now we
shall see in action a  manner of Love that  was thought to be dead with  the
Middle Ages."  And  then the lights went  down and  the spotlights  came  on
again,  one on your  poor and suffering  Friend and  Narrator, and  into the
other there like rolled or sidled the most lovely young devotchka  you could
ever hope in all your  jeezny, O my brothers, to  viddy. That is to say, she
had real horrorshow groodies all of which you could like  viddy, she  having
on platties which came down down down off her pletchoes. And  her nogas were
like  Bog in His  Heaven,  and  she  walked  like to make you groan in  your
keeshkas, and yet her litso was  a sweet smiling young like  innocent litso.
She came up towards me with the light like it was the like light of heavenly
grace and  all that cal  coming with  her, and the first thing  that flashed
into my gulliver was that I  would like to  have her right down there on the
floor with the  old  in-out real savage,  but  skorry  as  a shot  came  the
sickness, like a like detective  that  had been watching round  a corner and
now  followed to make his grahzny arrest. And now the  von of lovely perfume
that came off her made me want to think of starting to heave in my keeshkas,
so  I knew I  had to think of some new like way of thinking about her before
all  the  pain  and  thirstiness  and horrible sickness  come  over  me real
horrorshow and proper. So I creeched out:
     "O most beautiful and beauteous of devotchkas, I throw like my heart at
your feet for you to like trample all over. If I had  a rose I would give it
to you. If it was all rainy and cally now on  the  ground you could  have my
platties to walk  on so as  not to cover  your dainty nogas  with  filth and
cal." And as I was saying all this, O my brothers, I could feel the sickness
like slinking back. "Let me," I creeched out, "worship you  and be like your
helper and  protector  from  the wicked like world." Then  I thought of  the
right  slovo  and  felt better for  it,  saying: "Let  me  be like your true
knight," and down I went again on the old knees, bowing and like scraping.
     And then I  felt real shooty and dim, it having been like an act again,
for this devotchka smiled and bowed to the audience and like danced off, the
lights coming up to  a  bit of  applause. And the glazzies  of some of these
starry vecks in  the audience were like popping out at this  young devotchka
with dirty and like unholy desire, O my brothers.
     "He will be your true Christian," Dr. Brodsky was creeching out, "ready
to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than  crucify, sick to
the very  heart at  the  thought even of killing a fly." And that was right,
brothers, because when he said that I thought of killing a fly and felt just
that tiny  bit  sick, but I pushed the sickness and pain back by thinking of
the  fly  being fed with bits of sugar and looked after like a bleeding  pet
and all  that  cal.  "Reclamation," he creeched. "Joy before  the Angels  of
God."
     "The point is," this  Minister of  the Inferior was saying real gromky,
"that it works."
     "Oh," the prison charlie said, like sighing, "it  works  all right, God
help the lot of us."


        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 embarrassing cal. And then I had  like fallen into  the bed and
then, as it looked to me, been waked up to be told to  get off out,  to itty
off home, they did not want to viddy Your Humble Narrator never not no more,
O  my brothers. So there I  was,  very very early in the  morning, with just
this  bit  of  pretty  polly  in  my left  carman,  jingle-jangling  it  and
wondering:
     "What's it going to be then, eh?"
     Some breakfast  some mesto, I thought, me  not having eaten at all that
morning, every veck  being  so anxious to  tolchock me off out to freedom. A
chasha of chai only I had peeted. This Staja was in a very  like gloomy part
of  the  town, but there were malenky workers' caffs all  around and I  soon
found one of these, my brothers. It was very cally and  vonny, with one bulb
in the ceiling with fly-dirt like obscuring its bit of light, and there were
early  rabbiters  slurping away  at chai and horrible-looking  sausages  and
slices  of kleb  which  they  like wolfed,  going  wolf wolf  wolf and  then
creeching for more. They were served by a very cally devotchka but with very
bolshy groodies  on her, and some  of  the eating vecks  tried to grab  her,
going haw haw haw while she  went he he he, and the sight of them near  made
me want to  sick, brothers. But I asked for some toast and jam and chai very
politely and with my gentleman's  goloss, then I sat in a dark corner to eat
and peet.
     While I  was doing this, a malenky little dwarf  of  a veck ittied  in,
selling the morning's gazettas, a twisted and grahzny prestoopnick type with
thick glasses  on with steel  rims,  his platties  like  the colour of  very
starry decaying currant pudding. I kupetted  a gazetta, my idea being to get
ready for  plunging  back into  normal  jeezny again  by  viddying what  was
ittying  on in the world. This gazetta I had seemed to be  like a Government
gazetta, for the only news that was on the front page was about the need for
every  veck to make sure he  put the Government back  in  again on  the next
General  Election, which seemed  to be about two or three weeks  off.  There
were very boastful slovos about  what the  Government had done, brothers, in
the last  year  or so,  what  with  increased exports and a  real horrorshow
foreign policy and improved  social services and  all that cal. But what the
Government was really most boastful about was the way in which they reckoned
the streets had been  made safer for  all peace-loving night-walking lewdies
in the last six months, what  with better  pay for the police and the police
getting  like tougher with young hooligans and perverts and burglars and all
that cal. Which interessovatted Your Humble Narrator  some deal.  And on the
second page of  the gazetta  there was  a blurry like photograph of somebody
who looked very familiar, and it turned out to be  none other than me me me.
I  looked  very  gloomy  and  like  scared,  but  that was really  with  the
flashbulbs going pop pop all the time. What it said undrneath my picture was
that  here  was  the  first  graduate  from  the  new  State  Institute  for
Reclamation  of Criminal  Types,  cured  of  his  criminal  instincts  in  a
fortnight  only, now a  good law-fearing  citizen and  all that cal.  Then I
viddied there  was a  very  boastful article about this Ludovico's Technique
and how clever the Government was and  all that cal. Then there was  another
picture  of some veck I thought I  knew, and  it was  this  Minister of  the
Inferior or Interior. It  seemed that he had been doing  a bit  of boasting,
looking forward to a nice  crime-free era  in  which there would  be no more
fear of cowardly attacks from young hooligans and perverts and burglars  and
all that  cal. So  I went arghhhhhh and threw this gazetta on the  floor, so
that it covered  up stains  of spilled chai  and horrible spat gobs from the
cally animals that used thus caff.
     "What's it going to be then, eh?"
     What it was going to be now, brothers, was homeways and a nice surprise
for dadada and mum, their only son and heir back in the family bosom. Then I
could  lay back on  the bed in my own  malenky  den and slooshy some  lovely
music, and  at  the  same time  I could think  over what  to  do now with my
jeezny. The  Discharge Officer had  given me  a  long list the day before of
jobs I could try for, and he had telephoned to different vecks about me, but
I had  no intention, my brothers,  of  going  off to  rabbit  right away.  A
malenky bit of a rest  first, yes, and a quiet think on the bed to the sound
of lovely music.
     And so the autobus to Center, and then the autobus to  Kingsley Avenue,
the flats of  Flatblock 18A  being  just  near.  You  will  believe  me,  my
brothers,  when I say  that my heart  was going clopclopclop  with the  like
excitement. All  was  very quiet, it still  being early  winter morning, and
when I ittied into  the vestibule of the flatblock there was no  veck about,
only  the nagoy vecks  and cheenas of the Dignity of Labour. What  surprised
me,  brothers, was the way  that  had been cleaned up, there being no longer
any dirty  ballooning  slovos from the  rots of the Dignified Labourers, not
any dirty  parts of the body  added to  their  naked  plotts by dirty-minded
pencilling  malchicks. And  what  also surprised me was that  the  lift  was
working. It came purring down when I pressed the electric knopka, and when I
got in I was surprised again to viddy all was clean inside the like cage.
     So  up I  went to  the tenth floor, and there I saw 10-8 as it had been
before,  and  my  rooker trembled and  shook as I took out  of my carman the
little klootch I had for opening up. But I very firmly fitted the klootch in
the lock  and turned, then opened  up then went in,  and  there I  met three
pairs of surprised  and almost frightened glazzies looking at me, and it was
pee and em having their breakfast, but it was also  another  veck that I had
never viddied  in my jeezny  before, a bolshy  thick veck  in his shirt  and
braces,  quite at home,  brothers,  slurping  away  at the  milky  chai  and
munchmunching at his  eggiweg and toast. And  it was  this stranger veck who
spoke first, saying:
     "Who  are you, friend? Where did  you get hold  of a key? Out, before I
push your face in. Get out there and knock. Explain your business, quick."
     My dad and mum sat like  petrified,  and I could viddy they had not yet
read the gazetta, then I remembered  that the  gazetta did  not arrive  till
papapa had gone off  to his work. But then mum said: "Oh, you've broken out.
You've  escaped. Whatever  shall we do? We shall have the police here, oh oh
oh.  Oh, you bad and wicked boy, disgracing us all like this."  And, believe
it or kiss my sharries, she  started to go boo hoo. So I  started to try and
explain, they could ring up the  Staja if they wanted, and all the time this
stranger veck sat there like  frowning and  looking  as if he  could push my
litso in with his hairy bolshy beefy fist. So I said:
     "How  about you answering a few, brother?  What are you  doing here and
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  viddied  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 regulation,  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 begging." 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 somewhere. 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 veck from 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 slooshy 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
horrible. 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 horrorshow,
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 everybody  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 Boulevard 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  remember 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
pretending  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 somehow. This other moodge said:
     "You're too young for that, son. Why, you've got everything 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." Crystallography, that was it.
That was what he'd been taking away from  the Biblio that time.  False teeth
crunched up  real  horrorshow. Platties torn  off. His books razrezzed,  all
about Crystallography.  I