dreams at all, and the morning was very clear and like frosty,
and there was the very pleasant like von of breakfast frying
away down below. It took me some little time to remember
where I was, as it always does, but it soon came back to me
and then I felt like warmed and protected. But, as I laid there
in the bed, waiting to be called down to breakfast, it struck
me that I ought to get to know the name of this kind pro-
tecting and like motherly veck, so I had a pad round in my
nagoy nogas looking for 'A Clockwork Orange', which would
be bound to have his eemya in, he being the author. There was
nothing in my bedroom except a bed and a chair and a light,
so I ittied next door to this veck's own room, and there I
viddied his wife on the wall, a bolshy blown-up photo, so I
felt a malenky bit sick remembering. But there were two or
three shelves of books there too, and there was, as I thought
there must be, a copy of 'A Clockwork Orange', and on the
back of the book, like on the spine, was the author's eemya -
F. Alexander. Good Bog, I thought, he is another Alex. Then I
leafed through, standing in his pyjamas and bare nogas but
not feeling one malenky bit cold, the cottage being warm all
through, and I could not viddy what the book was about. It
seemed written in a very bezoomny like style, full of Ah and
Oh and all that cal, but what seemed to come out of it was that
all lewdies nowadays were being turned into machines and
that they were really - you and me and him and kiss-my-
sharries - more like a natural growth like a fruit. F. Alexander
seemed to think that we all like grow on what he called the
world-tree in the world-orchard that like Bog or God
planted, and we were there because Bog or God had need of
us to quench his thirsty love, or some such cal. I didn't like
the shoom of this at all, O my brothers, and wondered how
bezoomny this F. Alexander really was, perhaps driven be-
zoomny by his wife's snuffing it. But then he called me down
in a like sane veck's goloss, full of joy and love and all that
cal, so down Your Humble Narrator went.
'You've slept long," he said, ladling out boiled eggs and
pulling black toast from under the grill. "It's nearly ten
already. I've been up hours, working."
"Writing another book, sir?" I said.
"No no, not that now," he said, and we sat down nice and
droogy to the old crack crack crack of eggs and crackle
crunch crunch of this black toast, very milky chai standing by
in bolshy great morning mugs. "No, I've been on the phone to
various people."
"I thought you didn't have a phone," I said, spooning egg in
and not watching out what I was saying.
"Why?" he said, very alert like some skorry animal with an
egg-spoon in its rooker. "Why shouldn't you think I have a
phone?"
"Nothing," I said, "nothing, nothing." And I wondered,
brothers, how much he remembered of the earlier part of that
distant nochy, me coming to the door with the old tale and
saying to phone the doctor and she saying no phone. He
took a very close smot at me but then went back to being like
kind and cheerful and spooning up the old eggiweg. Munching
away, he said:
"Yes, I've rung up various people who will be interested in
your case. You can be a very potent weapon, you see, in en-
suring that this present evil and wicked Government is not
returned in the forthcoming election. The Government's big
boast, you see, is the way it has dealt with crime these last
months." He looked at me very close again over his steaming
egg, and I wondered again if he was viddying what part I had so
far played in his jeezny. But he said: "Recruiting brutal young
roughs for the police. Proposing debilitating and will-sapping
techniques of conditioning." All these long slovos, brothers,
and a like mad or bezoomny look in his glazzies. "We've seen
it all before," he said, "in other countries. The thin end of the
wedge. Before we know where we are we shall have the full
apparatus of totalitarianism." "Dear dear dear," I thought,
egging away and toast-crunching. I said:
"Where do I come into all this, sir?"
"You," he said, still with this bezoomny look, "are a living
witness to these diabolical proposals. The people, the
common people must know, must see." He got up from his
breakfast and started to walk up and down the kitchen, from
the sink to the like larder, saying very gromky: "Would they
like their sons to become what you, poor victim, have
become? Will not the Government itself now decide what is
and what is not crime and pump out the life and guts and will
of whoever sees fit to displeasure the Government? He became
quieter but did not go back to his egg. "I've written an article,"
he said, "this morning, while you were sleeping. That will be
out in a day or so, together with your unhappy picture. You
shall sign it, poor boy, a record of what they have done to
you." I said:
"And what do you get out of all this, sir? I mean, besides
the pretty polly you'll get for the article, as you call it? I
mean, why are you so hot and strong against this Govern-
ment, if I may make like so bold as to ask?"
He gripped the edge of the table and said, gritting his
zoobies, which were very cally and all stained with cancer-
smoke: "Some of us have to fight. There are great traditions
of liberty to defend. I am no partisan man. Where I see the
infamy I seek to erase it. Party names mean nothing. The tra-
dition of liberty means all. The common people will let it go,
oh yes. They will sell liberty for a quieter life. That is why they
must be prodded, prodded - " And here, brothers, he picked
up a fork and stuck it two or three razzes into the wall, so
that it got all bent. Then he threw it on the floor. Very kindly
he said: "Eat well, poor boy, poor victim of the modern
world," and I could viddy quite clear he was going off his
gulliver. "Eat, eat. Eat my egg as well." But I said:
"And what do I get out of this? Do I get cured of the way I
am? Do I find myself able to slooshy the old Choral Sym-
phony without being sick once more? Can I live like a normal
jeezny again? What, sir, happens to me?"
He looked at me, brothers, as if he hadn't thought of that
before and, anyway, it didn't matter compared with Liberty
and all that cal, and he had a look of surprise at me saying
what I said, as though I was being like selfish in wanting some-
thing for myself. Then he said: "Oh, as I say, you're a living
witness, poor boy. Eat up all your breakfast and then come
and see what I've written, for it's going into 'The Weekly
Trumpet' under your name, you unfortunate victim."
Well, brothers, what he had written was a very long and
very weepy piece of writing, and as I read it I felt very sorry
for the poor malchick who was govoreeting about his
sufferings and how the Government had sapped his will and
how it was up to all lewdies to not let such a rotten and evil
Government rule them again, and then of course I realized
that the poor suffering malchick was none other than Y. H. N.
"Very good," I said. "Real horrorshow. Written well thou
hast, O sir." And then he looked at me very narrow and
said:
"What?" It was like he had not slooshied me before.
"Oh, that," I said, "is what we call nadsat talk. All the teens
use that, sir." So then he ittied off to the kitchen to wash up
the dishes, and I was left in these borrowed night platties and
toofles, waiting to have done to me what was going to be
done to me, because I had no plans for myself, O my
brothers.
While the great F. Alexander was in the kitchen a ding-
alingaling came at the door. "Ah," he creeched, coming out
wiping his rookers, "it will be these people. I'll go." So he went
and let them in, a kind of rumbling hahaha of talk and hallo
and filthy weather and how are things in the hallway, then
they ittied into the room with the fire and the book and the
article about how I had suffered, viddying me and going
Aaaaah as they did it. There were three lewdies, and F. Alex
gave me their eemyas. Z.Dolin was a very wheezy smoky kind
of a veck, coughing kashl kashl kashl with the end of a cancer
in his rot, spilling ash all down his platties and then brushing
it away with like very impatient rookers. He was a malenky
round veck, fat, with big thick-framed otchkies on. Then there
was Something Something Rubinstein, a very tall and polite
chelloveck with a real gentleman's goloss, very starry with a
like eggy beard. And lastly there was D. B. da Silva who was
like skorry in his movements and had this strong von of scent
coming from him. They all had a real horrorshow look at me
and seemed like overjoyed with what they viddied. Z. Dolin
said:
"All right, all right, eh? What a superb device he can be, this
boy. If anything, of course, he could for preference look even
iller and more zombyish than he does. Anything for the cause.
No doubt we can think of something."
I did not like that crack about zombyish, brothers, and so I
said: "What goes on, bratties? What dost thou in mind for thy
little droog have?" And the F. Alexander swooshed in
with:
"Strange, strange, that manner of voice pricks me. We've
come into contact before, I'm sure we have." And he brooded,
like frowning. I would have to watch this, O my brothers.
D. B. da Silva said:
"Public meetings, mainly. To exhibit you at public meetings
will be a tremendous help. And, of course, the newspaper
angle is all tied up. A ruined life is the approach. We must
inflame all hearts." He showed his thirty-odd zoobies, very
white against his dark-coloured litso, he looking a malenky
bit like some foreigner. I said:
"Nobody will tell me what I get out of all this. Tortured in
jail, thrown out of my home by my own parents and their
filthy overbearing lodger, beaten by old men and near-killed
by the millicents - what is to become of me?" The Rubinstein
veck came in with:
"You will see, boy, that the Party will not be ungrateful. Oh,
no. At the end of it all there will be some very acceptable little
surprise for you. Just you wait and see."
"There's only one veshch I require," I creeched out, "and
that's to be normal and healthy as I was in the starry days,
having my malenky bit of fun with real droogs and not those
who just call themselves that and are really more like traitors.
Can you do that, eh? Can any veck restore me to what I was?
That's what I want and that's what I want to know."
Kashl kashl kashl, coughed this Z. Dolin. "A martyr to the
cause of Liberty." he said. "You have your part to play and
don't forget it. Meanwhile, we shall look after you." And he
began to stroke my left rooker as if I was like an idiot, grin-
ning in a bezoomny way. I creeched:
"Stop treating me like a thing that's like got to be just used.
I'm not an idiot you can impose on, you stupid bratchnies.
Ordinary prestoopnicks are stupid, but I'm not ordinary and
nor am I dim. Do you slooshy?"
"Dim," said F. Alexander, like musing. "Dim. That was a name
somewhere. Dim."
"Eh?" I said. "What's Dim got to do with it? What do you
know about Dim?" And then I said: "Oh, Bog help us." I didn't
like the look in F. Alexander's glazzies. I made for the
door, wanting to go upstairs and get my platties and then itty
off.
"I could almost believe," said F. Alexander, showing his
stained zoobies, his glazzies mad. "But such things are impos-
sible. For, by Christ, if he were I'd tear him. I'd split him, by
God, yes yes, so I would."
"There," said D. B. da Silva, stroking his chest like he was a
doggie to calm him down. "It's all in the past. It was other
people altogether. We must help this poor victim. That's what
we must do now, remembering the Future and our Cause."
"I'll just get my platties," I said, at the stair-foot, "that is to
say clothes, and then I'll be ittying off all on my oddy knocky.
I mean, my gratitude for all, but I have my own jeezny to live."
Because, brothers, I wanted to get out of here real skorry. But
Z. Dolin said:
"Ah, no. We have you, friend, and we keep you. You come
with us. Everything will be all right, you'll see." And he came
up to me like to grab hold of my rooker again. Then,
brothers, I thought of fight, but thinking of fight made me like
want to collapse and sick, so I just stood. And then I saw this
like madness in F. Alexander's glazzies and said:
"Whatever you say. I am in your rookers. But let's get it
started and all over, brothers." Because what I wanted now
was to get out of this mesto called HOME. I was beginning
not to like the look of the glazzies of F. Alexander one
malenky bit.
"Good," said this Rubinstein. "Get dressed and let's get
started."
"Dim dim dim," F. Alexander kept saying in a like low
mutter. "What or who was this Dim?" I ittied upstairs real
skorry and dressed in near two seconds flat. Then I was out
with these three and into an auto, Rubinstein one side of me
and Z. Dolin coughing kashl kashl kashl the other side. D. B.
da Silva doing the driving, into the town and to a flatblock
not really all that distant from what had used to be my own
