one of the other walls was a bank of all like little meters, and
in the middle of the floor facing the screen was like a dentist's
chair with all lengths of wire running from it, and I had to like
crawl from the wheelchair to this, being given some help by
another like male nurse veck in a white coat. Then I noticed
that underneath the projection holes was like all frosted glass
and I thought I viddied shadows of like people moving behind
it and I thought I slooshied somebody cough kashl kashl
kashl. But then all I could like notice was how weak I seemed
to be, and I put that down to changing over from prison
pishcha to this new rich pishcha and the vitamins injected into
me. "Right," said the wheelchair-wheeling veck, "now I'll leave
you. The show will commence as soon as Dr. Brodsky arrives.
Hope you enjoy it." To be truthful, brothers, I did not really
feel that I wanted to viddy any film-show this afternoon. I was
just not in the mood. I would have liked much better to have
a nice quiet spatchka on the bed, nice and quiet and all on my
oddy knocky. I felt very limp.
What happened now was that one white-coated veck
strapped my gulliver to a like head-rest, singing to himself all
the time some vonny cally pop-song. "What's this for?" I said.
And this veck replied, interrupting his like song an instant,
that it was to keep my gulliver still and make me look at the
screen. "But," I said, "I want to look at the screen. I've been
brought here to viddy films and viddy films I shall." And then
the other white-coat veck (there were three altogether, one
of them a devotchka who was like sitting at the bank of
meters and twiddling with knobs) had a bit of a smeck at that.
He said:
"You never know. Oh, you never know. Trust us, friend. It's
better this way." And then I found they were strapping my
rookers to the chair-arms and my nogas were like stuck to a
foot-rest. It seemed a bit bezoomny to me but I let them get
on with what they wanted to get on with. If I was to be a free
young malchick again in a fortnight's time I would put up with
much in the meantime, O my brothers. One veshch I did not
like, though, was when they put like clips on the skin of my
forehead, so that my top glazz-lids were pulled up and up and
up and I could not shut my glazzies no matter how I tried. I
tried to smeck and said: "This must be a real horrorshow film
if you're so keen on my viddying it." And one of the white-
coat vecks said, smecking:
"Horrorshow is right, friend. A real show of horrors." And
then I had like a cap stuck on my gulliver and I could viddy
all wires running away from it, and they stuck a like suction
pad on my belly and one on the old tick-tocker, and I could
just about viddy wires running away from those. Then there
was the shoom of a door opening and you could tell some
very important chelloveck was coming in by the way the
white-coated under-vecks went all stiff. And then I viddied this
Dr. Brodsky. He was a malenky veck, very fat, with all curly
hair curling all over his gulliver, and on his spuddy nose he
had very thick ochkies. I could just viddy that he had a real
horrorshow suit on, absolutely the heighth of fashion, and he
had a like very delicate and subtle von of operating-theatres
coming from him. With him was Dr. Branom, all smiling like as
though to give me confidence. "Everything ready?" said Dr.
Brodsky in a very breathy goloss. Then I could slooshy voices
saying Right right right from like a distance, then nearer to,
then there was a quiet like humming shoom as though things
had been switched on. And then the lights went out and there
was Your Humble Narrator And Friend sitting alone in the
dark, all on his frightened oddy knocky, not able to move nor
shut his glazzies nor anything. And then, O my brothers, the
film-show started off with some very gromky atmosphere
music coming from the speakers, very fierce and full of 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
