flatblock or home. "Come, boy, out," said Z. Dolin, coughing
to make the cancer-end in his rot glow red like some malenky
furnace. "This is where you shall be installed." So we ittied in,
and there was like another of these Dignity of Labour vesh-
ches on the wall of the vestibule, and we upped in the lift,
brothers, and then went into a flat like all the flats of all the
flatblocks of the town. Very very malenky, with two bed-
rooms and one live-eat-work-room, the table of this all
covered with books and papers and ink and bottles and all
that cal. "Here is your new home," said D. B. da Silva. "Settle
here, boy. Food is in the food-cupboard. Pyjamas are in a
drawer. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit."
"Eh?" I said, not quite ponying that.
"All right," said Rubinstein, with his starry goloss. "We are
now leaving you. Work has to be done. We'll be with you
later. Occupy yourself as best you can."
"One thing," coughed Z. Dolin kashl kashl kashl. "You saw
what stirred in the tortured memory of our friend F. Alexan-
der. Was it, by chance - ? That is to say, did you - ? I think
you know what I mean. We won't let it go any further."
"I've paid," I said. "Bog knows I've paid for what I did. I've
paid not only for like myself but for those bratchnies too
that called themselves my droogs." I felt violent so then I felt a
bit sick. "I'll lay down a bit," I said. "I've been through terrible
terrible times."
"You have," said D. B. da Silva, showing all his thirty
zoobies. "You do that."
So they left me, brothers. They ittied off about their
business, which I took to be about politics and all that cal,
and I was on the bed, all on my oddy knocky with everything
very very quiet. I just laid there with my sabogs kicked off my
nogas and my tie loose, like all bewildered and not knowing
what sort of a jeezny I was going to live now. And all sorts of
like pictures kept like passing through my gulliver, of the
different chellovecks I'd met at school and in the Staja, and
the different veshches that had happened to me, and how
there was not one veck you could trust in the whole bolshy
world. And then I like dozed off, brothers.
When I woke up I could hear slooshy music coming out of
the wall, real gromky, and it was that that had dragged me out
of my bit of like sleep. It was a symphony that I knew real
horrorshow but had not slooshied for many a year, namely
the Symphony Number Three of the Danish veck Otto Skade-
lig, a very gromky and violent piece, especially in the first
movement, which was what was playing now. I slooshied for
two seconds in like interest and joy, but then it all came over
me, the start of the pain and the sickness, and I began to
groan deep down in my keeshkas. And then there I was, me
who had loved music so much, crawling off the bed and going
oh oh oh to myself and then bang bang banging on the wall
creching: "Stop, stop it, turn it off!" But it went on and it
seemed to be like louder. So I crashed at the wall till my
knuckles were all red red krovvy and torn skin, creeching and
creeching, but the music did not stop. Then I thought I had to
get away from it, so I lurched out of the malenky bedroom
and ittied skorry to the front door of the flat, but this had
been locked from the outside and I could not get out. And all
the time the music got more and more gromky, like it was all
a deliberate torture, O my brothers. So I stuck my little fingers
real deep in my ookos, but the trombones and kettledrums
blasted through gromky enough. So I creeched again for them
to stop and went hammer hammer hammer on the wall, but it
made not one malenky bit of difference. "Oh, what am I to
do?" I boohooed to myself. "Oh, Bog in Heaven help me." I
was like wandering all over the flat in pain and sickness, trying
to shut out the music and like groaning deep out of my guts,
and then on top of the pile of books and papers and all that
cal that was on the tablein the living room I viddied what I
had to do and what I had wanted to do until those old men in
the Public Biblio and then Dim and Billyboy disguised as
rozzes stopped me, and that was to do myself in, to snuff it,
to blast off for ever out of this wicked and cruel world. What
I viddied was the slovo DEATH on the cover of a like pam-
phlet, even though it was only DEATH to THE GOVERN-
MENT. And like it was Fate there was another malenky
booklet which had an open window on the cover, and it said:
"Open the window to fresh air, fresh ideas, a new way of
living." And so I knew that was like telling me to finish it all off
by jumping out. One moment of pain, perhaps, and then sleep
for ever and ever and ever.
The music was still pouring in all brass and drums and the
violins miles up through the wall. The window in the room
where I had laid down was open. I ittied to it and viddied a
fair drop to the autos and buses and waiting chellovecks
below. I creeched out to the world: "Good-bye, good-bye,
may Bog forgive you for a ruined life." Then I got on to the
sill, the music blasting away to my left, and I shut my glazzies
and felt the cold wind on my litso, then I jumped.
6
I jumped, O my brothers, and I fell on the sidewalk hard, but I
did not snuff it, oh no. If I had snuffed it I would not be here
to write what I written have. It seems that the jump was not
from a big enough heighth to kill. But I cracked my back and
my wrists and nogas and felt very bolshy pain before I passed
out, brothers, with astonished and surprised litsos of chello-
vecks in the streets looking at me from above. And just before
I passed out I viddied clear that not one chelloveck in the
whole horrid world was for me and that that music through
the wall had all been like arranged by those who were sup-
posed to be my like new droogs and that it was some veshch
like this that they wanted for their horrible selfish and boast-
ful politics. All that was in like a million millionth part of one
minoota before I threw over the world and the sky and the
litsos of the staring chellovecks that were above me.
Where I was when I came back to jeezny after a long black
black gap of it might have been a million years was a hospital,
all white and with this von of hospitals you get, all like sour
and smug and clean. These antiseptic veshches you get in hos-
pitals should have a real horrorshow von of like frying
onions or of flowers. I came very slow back to knowing who
I was and I was all bound up in white and I could not feel
anything in my plott, pain nor sensation nor any veshch at all.
All round my gulliver was a bandage and there were bits of
stuff like stuck to my litso, and my rookers were all in
bandages and like bits of stick were like fixed to my fingers like
on it might be flowers to make them grow straight, and my
poor old nogas were all straightened out too, and it was all
bandages and wire cages and into my right rooker, near the
pletcho, was red red krovvy dripping from a jar upside down.
But I could not feel anything, O my brothers. There was a
nurse sitting by my bed and she was reading some book that
was all very dim print and you could viddy it was a story
because of a lot of inverted commas, and she was like breath-
ing hard uh uh uh over it, so it must have been a story about
the old in-out in-out. She was a real horrorshow devotchka,
this nurse, with a very red rot and like long lashes over her
glazzies, and under her like very stiff uniform you could viddy
she had very horrorshow groodies. So I said to her: "What
gives, O my little sister? Come thou and have a nice lay-down
with your malenky droog in this bed." But the slovos didn't
come out horrorshow at all, it being as though my rot was all
stiffened up, and I could feel with my yahzick that some of my
zoobies were no longer there. But this nurse like jumped and
dropped her book on the floor and said:
"Oh, you've recovered consciousness."
That was like a big rotful for a malenky ptitsa like her, and
I tried to say so, but the slovos came out only like er er er.
She ittied off and left me on my oddy knocky, and I could
viddy now that I was in a malenky room of my own, not in
one of these long wards like I had been in as a very little
malchick, full of coughing dying starry vecks all around to
make you want to get well and fit again. It had been like
diphtheria I had had then, O my brothers.
It was like now as though I could not hold to being con-
scious all that long, because I was like asleep again almost
right away, very skorry, but in a minoota or two I was sure
that this nurse ptitsa had come back and had brought chello-
vecks in white coats with her and they were viddying me very
frowning and going hm hm hm at Your Humble Narrator. And
with them I was sure there was the old charles from the Staja
govoreeting: "Oh my son, my son," breathing a like very stale
von of whisky on to me and then saying: "But I would not
stay, oh no. I could not in no wise subscribe to what those
bratchnies are going to do to other poor prestoopnicks. O I
got out and am preaching sermons now about it all, my little
beloved son in J. C."
I woke up again later on and who should I viddy there
round the bed but the three from whose flat I had jumped out,
namely D. B. da Silva and Something Something Rubinstein
and Z. Dolin. "Friend," one of these vecks was saying, but I
could not viddy, or slooshy horrorshow which one, "friend,
little friend," this goloss was saying, "the people are on fire
with indignation. You have killed those horrible boastful
villains' chances of re-election. They will go and will go
for ever and ever. You have served Liberty well." I tried to
say:
"If I had died it would have been even better for you politi-
cal bratchnies, would it not, pretending and treacherous
droogs as you are." But all that came out was er er er. Then
one of these three seemed to hold out a lot of bits cut from
gazettas and what I could viddy was a horrible picture of me
all krovvy on a stretcher being carried off and I seemed to like
remember a kind of a popping of lights which must have been
photographer vecks. Out of one glazz I could read like head-
lines which were sort of trembling in the rooker of the
chelloveck that held them, like BOY VICTIM OF CRIMINAL
REFORM SCHEME and GOVERNMENT AS MUR-
DERER and there was like a picture of a veck that
looked familiar to me and it said OUT OUT OUT, and that
would be the Minister of the Inferior or Interior. Then the
nurse ptitsa said:
"You shouldn't be exciting him like that. You shouldn't be
doing anything that will make him upset. Now come on, let's
have you out." I tried to say:
"Out out out," but it was er er er again. Anyway, these three
political vecks went. And I went, too, only back to the land,
back to all blackness lit up by like odd dreams which I didn't
know whether they were dreams or not, O my brothers. Like
for instance I had this idea of my whole plott or body being
like emptied of as it might be dirty water and then filled up
again with clean. And then there were really lovely and horror-
show dreams of being in some veck's auto that had been crasted
by me and driving up and down the world all on my oddy
knocky running lewdies down and hearing them creech they
were dying, and in me no pain and no sickness. And also there
were dreams of doing the old in-out in-out with devotchkas,
forcing like them down on the ground and making them have
it and everybody standing around claping their rookers and
cheering like bezoomny. And then I woke up again and it was
my pee and em come to viddy their ill son, my em boohooing
real horrorshow. I could govoreet a lot better now and could say:
"Well well well well well, what gives? What makes you think
you are like welcome?" My papapa said, in a like ashamed
way:
"You were in the papers, son. It said they had done great
wrong to you. It said how the Government drove you to try
and do yourself in. And it was our fault too, in a way, son.
Your home's your home, when all's said and done, son." And
my mum kept on going boohoohoo and looking ugly as kiss-
my-sharries. So I said:
"And how beeth the new son Joe? Well and healthy and
prosperous, I trust and pray?" My mum said:
"Oh, Alex Alex. Owwwwwwww." My papapa said:
"A very awkward thing, son. He got into a bit of trouble
with the police and was done by the police."
"Really?" I said. "Really? Such a good sort of chelloveck and
all. Amazed proper I am, honest."
"Minding his own business he was," said my pee. "And the
police told him to move on. Waiting at a corner he was, son,
to see a girl he was going to meet. And they told him to move
on and he said he had rights like everybody else, and then they
sort of fell on top of him and hit him about cruel."
"Terrible," I said. "Really terrible. And where is the poor boy
now?"
"Owwwww," boohooed my mum. "Gone back owww-
wwwme."
"Yes," said dad. "He's gone back to his own home town to
get better. They've had to give his job here to somebody
else."
"So now," I said, "You're willing for me to move back in
again and things be like they were before."
"Yes, son," said my papapa. "Please, son."
"I'll consider it," I said. "I'll think about it real careful."
"Owwwww," went my mum.
"Ah, shut it," I said, "or I'll give you something proper to
