brought the old tears to my glazzies then he twisted at my left
ooko like it was a radio dial. I could slooshy titters and a
couple of real horrorshow hawhawhaws coming from like
the audience. My nose and nogas and ear-hole stung and
pained like bezoomny, so I said:
"What do you do that to me for? I've never done wrong to
you, brother."
"Oh," this veck said, "I do this" - flickedflicked nose again -
"and that" - twisted smarting ear-hole - "and the other" -
stamped nasty on right noga - "because I don't care for your
horrible type. And if you want to do anything about it, start,
start, please do." Now I knew that I'd have to be real skorry
and get my cut-throat britva out before this horrible killing
sickness whooshed up and turned the like joy of battle into
feeling I was going to snuff it. But, O brothers, as my rooker
reached for the britva in my inside carman I got this like
picture in my mind's glazzy of this insulting chelloveck how-
ling for mercy with the red red krovvy all streaming out of his
rot, and hot after this picture the sickness and dryness and
pains were rushing to overtake, and I viddied that I'd have to
change the way I felt about this rotten veck very very skorry
indeed, so I felt in my carmans for cigarettes or for pretty
polly, and, O my brothers, there was not either of these
veshches, I said, like all howly and blubbery:
"I'd like to give you a cigarette, brother, but I don't seem to
have any." This veck went:
"Wah wah. Boohoohoo. Cry, baby." Then he flick-
flickflicked with his bolshy horny nail at my nose again, and I
could slooshy very loud smecks of like mirth coming from the
dark audience. I said, real desperate, trying to be nice to this
insulting and hurtful veck to stop the pains and sickness
coming up:
"Please let me do something for you, please." And I felt in
my carmans but could find only my cut-throat britva, so I
took this out and handed it to him and said: "Please take this,
please. A little present. Please have it." But he said:
"Keep your stinking bribes to yourself. You can't get round
me that way." And he banged at my rooker and my cut-throat
britva fell on the floor. So I said:
"Please, I must do something. Shall I clean your boots? Look,
I'll get down and lick them." And, my brothers, believe it or
kiss my sharries, I got down on my knees and pushed my red
yahzick out a mile and half to lick his grahzny vonny boots.
But all this veck did was to kick me not too hard on the rot.
So then it seemed to me that it would not bring on the sick-
ness and pain if I just gripped his ankles with my rookers tight
round them and brought this grashzny bratchny down to the
floor. So I did this and he got a real bolshy surprise, coming
down crack amid loud laughter from the vonny audience. But
viddying him on the floor I could feel the whole horrible feel-
ing coming over me, so I gave him my rooker to lift him up
skorry and up he came. Then just as he was going to give me
a real nasty and earnest tolchock on the litso Dr. Brodsky said:
"All right, that will do very well." Then this horrible veck
sort of bowed and danced off like an actor while the lights
came up on me blinking and with my rot square for howling.
Dr. Brodsky said to the audience: "Our subject is, you see,
impelled towards the good by, paradoxically, being impelled
towards evil. The intention to act violently is accompanied by
strong feelings of physical distress. To counter these the sub-
ject has to switch to a diametrically opposed attitude. Any
questions?"
"Choice," rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it belonged
to the prison charlie. "He has no real choice, has he? Self-
interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act
of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He
ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature
capable of moral choice."
"These are subtleties," like smiled Dr. Brodsky. "We are not
concerned with motive, with the higher ethics. We are con-
cerned only with cutting down crime - "
"And," chipped in this bolshy well-dressed Minister, "with
relieving the ghastly congestion in our prisons."
"Hear hear," said somebody.
There was a lot of govoreeting and arguing then and I just
stood there, brothers, like completely ignored by all these
ignorant bratchnies, so I creeched out:
"Me, me, me. How about me? Where do I come into all
this? Am I just some animal or dog?" And that started
them off govoreeting real loud and throwing slovos at me. So
I creeched louder, still creeching: "Am I just to be like a clock-
work orange?" I didn't know what made me use those slovos,
brothers, which just came like without asking into my gulli-
ver. And that shut all those vecks up for some reason for a
minoota or two. Then one very thin starry professor type
chelloveck stood up, his neck like all cables carrying like
power from his gulliver to his plott, and he said:
"You have no cause to grumble, boy. You made your choice
and all this is a consequence of your choice. Whatever now
ensues is what you yourself have chosen." And the prison
charlie creeched out:
"Oh, if only I could believe that." And you could viddy the
Governor give him a look like meaning that he would not
climb so high in like Prison Religion as he thought he would.
Then loud arguing started again, and then I could slooshy the
slovo Love being thrown around, the prison charles himself
creeching as loud as any about Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear
and all that cal. And now Dr. Brodsky said, smiling all over his
litso:
"I am glad, gentlemen, this question of Love has been
raised. Now we shall see in action a manner of Love that was
thought to be dead with the Middle Ages." And then the lights
went down and the spotlights came on again, one on your
poor and suffering Friend and Narrator, and into the other
there like rolled or sidled the most lovely young devotchka
you could ever hope in all your jeezny, O my brothers, to
viddy. That is to say, she had real horrorshow groodies all of
which you could like viddy, she having on platties which came
down down down off her pletchoes. And her nogas were like
Bog in His Heaven, and she walked like to make you groan in
your keeshkas, and yet her litso was a sweet smiling young
like innocent litso. She came up towards me with the light like
it was the like light of heavenly grace and all that cal coming
with her, and the first thing that flashed into my gulliver was
that I would like to have her right down there on the floor
with the old in-out real savage, but skorry as a shot came the
sickness, like a like detective that had been watching round a
corner and now followed to make his grahzny arrest. And
now the von of lovely perfume that came off her made me
want to think of starting to heave in my keeshkas, so I
knew I had to think of some new like way of thinking about
her before all the pain and thirstiness and horrible sickness
come over me real horrorshow and proper. So I creeched out:
"O most beautiful and beauteous of devotchkas, I throw
like my heart at your feet for you to like trample all over. If I
had a rose I would give it to you. If it was all rainy and cally
now on the ground you could have my platties to walk on so
as not to cover your dainty nogas with filth and cal." And as I
was saying all this, O my brothers, I could feel the sickness
like slinking back. "Let me," I creeched out, "worship you and
be like your helper and protector from the wicked like world."
Then I thought of the right slovo and felt better for it, saying:
"Let me be like your true knight," and down I went again on
the old knees, bowing and like scraping.
And then I felt real shooty and dim, it having been like an
act again, for this devotchka smiled and bowed to the audi-
ence and like danced off, the lights coming up to a bit of
applause. And the glazzies of some of these starry vecks in the
audience were like popping out at this young devotchka with
dirty and like unholy desire, O my brothers.
"He will be your true Christian," Dr. Brodsky was creeching
out, "ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified
rather than crucify, sick to the very heart at the thought even
of killing a fly." And that was right, brothers, because when he
said that I thought of killing a fly and felt just that tiny bit
sick, but I pushed the sickness and pain back by thinking of the
fly being fed with bits of sugar and looked after like a bleeding
pet and all that cal. "Reclamation," he creeched. "Joy before
the Angels of God."
"The point is," this Minister of the Inferior was saying real
gromky, "that it works."
"Oh," the prison charlie said, like sighing, "it works all right,
God help the lot of us."
Part Three
1
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
That, my brothers, was me asking myself the next morning,
standing outside this white building that was like tacked on to
the old Staja, in my platties of the night of two years back in
the grey light of dawn, with a malenky bit of a bag with my
few personal veshches in and a bit of cutter kindly donated by
the vonny Authorities to like start me off in my new life.
The rest of the day before had been very tiring, what with
interviews to go on tape for the telenews and photographs
being took flash flash flash and more like demonstrations of
me folding up in the face of ultra-violence and all that embar-
rassing cal. And then I had like fallen into the bed and then,as
it looked to me, been waked up to be told to get off out, to
itty off home, they did not want to viddy Your Humble Nar-
rator never not no more, O my brothers. So there I was, very
very early in the morning, with just this bit of pretty polly in
my left carman, jingle-jangling it and wondering:
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
Some breakfast some mesto, I thought, me not having
eaten at all that morning, every veck being so anxious to
tolchock me off out to freedom. A chasha of chai only I had
peeted. This Staja was in a very like gloomy part of the town,
but there were malenky workers' caffs all around and I soon
found one of these, my brothers. It was very cally and vonny,
with one bulb in the ceiling with fly-dirt like obscuring its bit
of light, and there were early rabbiters slurping away at chai
and horrible-looking sausages and slices of kleb which they
like wolfed, going wolf wolf wolf and then creeching for
more. They were served by a very cally devotchka but with
very bolshy groodies on her, and some of the eating vecks
tried to grab her, going haw haw haw while she went he he he,
and the sight of them near made me want to sick, brothers.
But I asked for some toast and jam and chai very politely and
with my gentleman's goloss, then I sat in a dark corner to eat
and peet.
While I was doing this, a malenky little dwarf of a veck
ittied in, selling the morning's 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 Govern-
ment 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 hooli-
gans and perverts and burglars and all that cal. Which inter-
essovatted Your Humble Narrator some deal. And on the
second page of the gazetta there was a blurry like photograph
of somebody who looked very familiar, and it turned out to
be none other than me me me. I looked very gloomy and like
scared, but that was really with the flashbulbs going pop pop
all the time. What it said undrneath my picture was that here
was the first graduate from the new State Institute for Rec-
lamation of Criminal Types, cured of his criminal instincts in a
fortnight only, now a good law-fearing citizen and all that cal.
Then I viddied there was a very boastful article about this
Ludovico's Technique and how clever the Government was
and all that cal. Then there was another picture of some veck I
thought I knew, and it was this Minister of the Inferior or
Interior. It seemed that he had been doing a bit of boasting,
looking forward to a nice crime-free era in which there would
be no more fear of cowardly attacks from young hooligans
and perverts and burglars and all that cal. So I went
arghhhhhh and threw this gazetta on the floor, so that it
covered up stains of spilled chai and horrible spat gobs from
the cally animals that used thus caff.
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
What it was going to be now, brothers, was homeways and
a nice surprise for dadada and mum, their only son and heir
back in the family bosom. Then I could lay back on the bed in
my own malenky den and slooshy some lovely music, and at
the same time I could think over what to do now with my
