A Clockwork Orange (UK Version)

by Anthony Burgess

  Then an attendant veck came along, a youngish veck,and he creeched: "What goes on here? Stop it at once. This is a reading room." But nobody took any notice. So the attendant veck said: "Right, I shall phone the police." So I creeched, and I never thought I would ever do that in all my jeezny: "Yes yes yes, do that, protect me from these old madmen." I noticed that the attendant veck was not too anxious to join in the dratsing and rescue me from the rage and madness of these starry vecks' claws; he just scatted off to his like office or wherever the telephone was. Now these old men were panting a lot now, and I felt I could just flick at them and they would all fall over, but I just let myself be held, very patient, by these starry rookers, my glazzies closed, and feel the feeble tolchocks on my litso, also slooshy the panting breathy old golosses creeching: "Young swine, young murderer, hooligan, thug, kill him." Then I got such a real painful tolchock on the nose that I said to myself to hell to hell, and I opened my glazzies up and started to struggle to get free, which was not hard, brothers, and I tore off creeching to the sort of hallway outside the reading-room. But these starry avengers still came after me, panting like dying, with their animal claws all trembling to get at your friend and Humble Narrator. Then I was tripped up and was on the floor and was being kicked at, then I slooshied golosses of young vecks creeching: "All right, all right, stop it now," and I knew the police had arrived.

  3

  I was like dazed, O my brothers, and could not viddy very clear, but I was sure I had met these millicents some mesto before. The one who had hold of me, going: "There there there," just by the front door of the Public Biblio, him I did not know at all, but it seemed to me he was like very young to be a rozz. But the other two had backs that I was sure I had viddied before. They were lashing into these starry old vecks with great bolshy glee and joy, swishing away with malenky whips, creeching: "There, you naughty boys. That should teach you to stop rioting and breaking the State's Peace, you wicked villains, you." So they drove these panting and wheezing and near dying starry avengers back into the reading-room, then they turned round, smecking with the fun they'd had, to viddy me. The older one of the two said: "Well well well well well well well. If it isn't little Alex. Very long time no viddy, droog. How goes?" I was like dazed, the uniform and the shlem or helmet making it hard to viddy who this was, though litso and goloss were very familiar. Then I looked at the other one, and about him, with his grinning bezoomny litso, there was no doubt. Then, all numb and growing number, I looked back at the well well welling one. This one was then fatty old Billyboy, my old enemy. The other was, of course, Dim, who had used to be my droog and also the enemy of stinking fatty goaty Billyboy, but was now a millicent with uniform and shlem and whip to keep order. I said: "Oh no."

  "Surprise, eh?" And old Dim came out with the old guff I remembered so horrorshow: "Huh huh huh."

  "It's impossible," I said. "It can't be so. I don't believe it."

  "Evidence of the old glazzies," grinned Billyboy. "Nothing up our sleeves. No magic, droog. A job for two who are now of job-age. The police."

  "You're too young," I said. "Much too young. They don't make rozzes of malchicks of your age."

  "Was young," went old millicent Dim. I could not get over it, brothers, I really could not. "That's what we was, young droogie. And you it was that was always the youngest. And here now we are."

  "I still can't believe it," I said. Then Billyboy, rozz Billyboy that I couldn't get over, said to this young millicent that was like holding on to me and that I did not know: "More good would be done, I think, Rex, if we doled out a bit of the old summary. Boys will be boys, as always was. No need to go through the old station routine. This one here has been up to his old tricks, as we can well remember though you, of course, can't. He has been attacking the aged and defenceless, and they have properly been retaliating. But we must have our say in the State's name."

  "What is all this?" I said, not able hardly to believe my ookos. "It was them that went for me, brothers. You're not on their side and can't be. You can't be, Dim. It was a veck we fillied with once in the old days trying to get his own malenky bit of revenge after all this long time."

  "Long time is right," said Dim. "I don't remember them days too horrorshow. Don't call me Dim no more, either. Officer call me."

  "Enough is remembered, though," Billyboy kept nodding. He was not so fatty as he had been. "Naughty little malchicks handy with cut-throat britvas – these must be kept under." And they took me in a real strong grip and like walked me out of the Biblio. There was a millicent patrol-car waiting outside, and this veck they called Rex was the driver. They like tol-chocked me into the back of this auto, and I couldn't help feeling it was all really like a joke, and that Dim anyway would pull his shlem off his gulliver and go haw haw haw. But he didn't. I said, trying to fight the strack inside me: "And old Pete, what happened to old Pete? It was sad about Georgie," I said. "I slooshied all about that."

  "Pete, oh yes, Pete," said Dim. "I seem to remember like the name." I could viddy we were driving out of town. I said: "Where are we supposed to be going?"

  Billyboy turned round from the front to say: "It's light still. A little drive into the country, all winter-bare but lonely and lovely. It is not right, not always, for lewdies in the town to viddy too much of our summary punishments. Streets must be kept clean in more than one way." And he turned to the front again.

  "Come," I said. "I just don't get this at all. The old days are dead and gone days. For what I did in the past I have been punished. I have been cured."

  "That was read out to us," said Dim. "The Super read all that out to us. He said it was a very good way."

  "Read to you," I said, a malenky bit nasty. "You still too dim to read for yourself, O brother?"

  "Ah, no," said Dim, very like gentle and like regretful. "Not to speak like that. Not no more, droogie." And he launched a bolshy tolchock right on my cluve, so that all red red nose-krovvy started to drip drip drip.

  "There was never any trust," I said, bitter, wiping off the krovvy with my rooker. "I was always on my oddy knocky."

  "This will do," said Billyboy. We were now in the country and it was all bare trees and a few odd distant like twitters, and in the distance there was some like farm machine making a whirring shoom. It was getting all dusk now, this being the height of winter. There were no lewdies about, nor no animals. There was just the four. "Get out, Alex boy," said Dim. "Just a malenky bit of summary." All through what they did this driver veck just sat at the wheel of the auto, smoking a cancer, reading a malenky bit of a book. He had the light on in the auto to viddy by. He took no notice of what Billyboy and Dim did to your Humble Narrator. I will not go into what they did, but it was all like panting and thudding against this like background of whirring farm engines and the twittwittwittering in the bare or nagoy branches. You could viddy a bit of smoky breath in the auto light, this driver turning the pages over quite calm. And they were on to me all the time, O my brothers. Then Billyboy or Dim, I couldn't say which one, said: "About enough, droogie. I should think, shouldn't you?" Then they gave me one final tolchock on the litso each and I fell over and just laid there on the grass. It was cold but I was not feeling the cold. Then they dusted their rookers and put back on their shlems and tunics which they had taken off, and then they got back into the auto. "Be viddying you some more sometime, Alex," said Billyboy, and Dim just gave one of his old clowny guffs. The driver finished the page he was reading and put his book away, then he started the auto and they were off townwards, my ex-droog and ex-enemy waving. But I just laid there, fagged and shagged.

  After a bit I was hurting bad, and then the rain started, all icy. I could viddy no lewdies in sight, nor no lights of houses. Where was I to go, who had no home and not much cutter in my carmans? I cried for myself boo hoo hoo. Then I got up and started walking.

  4

  Home, home, home, it was home I was wanting, and it was HOME I came to, brothers. I walked through the dark and followed not th
e town way but the way where the shoom of a like farm machine had been coming from. This brought me to a sort of village I felt I had viddied before, but was perhaps because all villages look the same, in the dark especially. Here were houses and there was a like drinking mesto, and right at the end of the village there was a malenky cottage on its oddy knocky, and I could viddy its name shining on the gate. HOME, it said. I was all dripping wet with this icy rain, so that my platties were no longer in the heighth of fashion but real miserable and like pathetic, and my luscious glory was a wet tangle cally mess all spread over my gulliver, and I was sure there were cuts and bruises all over my litso, and a couple of my zoobies sort of joggled loose when I touched them with my tongue or yahzick. And I was sore all over my plott and very thirsty, so that I kept opening my rot to the cold rain, and my stomach growled grrrrr all the time with not having had any pishcha since morning and then not very much, O my brothers.

  HOME, it said, and perhaps here would be some veck to help. I opened the gate and sort of slithered down the path, the rain like turning to ice, and then I knocked gentle and pathetic on the door. No veck came, so I knocked a malenky bit longer and louder, and then I heard the shoom of nogas coming to the door. Then the door opened and a male goloss said: "Yes, what is it?"

  "Oh," I said, "please help. I've been beaten up by the police and just left to die on the road. Oh, please give me a drink of something and a sit by the fire, please, sir." The door opened full then, and I could viddy like warm light and a fire going crackle crackle within. "Come in," said this veck, "whoever you are. God help you, you poor victim, come in and let's have a look at you." So I like staggered in, and it was no big act I was putting on, brothers, I really felt done and finished. This kind veck put his rookers round my pletchoes and pulled me into this room where the fire was, and of course I knew right away now where it was and why HOME on the gate looked so familiar. I looked at this veck and he looked at me in a kind sort of way, and I remembered him well now. Of course he would not remember me, for in those carefree days I and my so-called droogs did all our bolshy dratsing and fillying and crasting in maskies which were real horrorshow disguises. He was a shortish veck in middle age, thirty, forty, fifty, and he had otchkies on. "Sit down by the fire," he said, "and I'll get you some whisky and warm water. Dear dear dear, somebody has been beating you up." And he gave a like tender look at my gulliver and litso. "The police," I said. "The horrible ghastly police."

  "Another victim," he said, like sighing. "A victim of the modern age. I'll go and get you that whisky and then I must clean up your wounds a little." And off he went. I had a look round this malenky comfortable room. It was nearly all books now and a fire and a couple of chairs, and you could viddy somehow that there wasn't a woman living there. On the table was a typewriter and a lot of like tumbled papers, and I remembered that this veck was a writer veck. 'A Clockwork Orange', that had been it. It was funny that that stuck in my mind. I must not let on, though, for I needed help and kindness now. Those horrible grahzny bratchnies in that terrible white mesto had done that to me, making me need help and kindness now and forcing me to want to give help and kindness myself, if anybody would take it.

  "Here we are, then," said this veck returning. He gave me this hot stimulating glassful to peet, and it made me feel better, and then he cleaned up these cuts on my litso. Then he said: "You have a nice hot bath, I'll draw it for you, and then you can tell me all about it over a nice hot supper which I'll get ready while you're having the bath." O my brothers, I could have wept at his kindness, and I think he must have viddied the old tears in my glazzies, for he said: "There there there," patting me on the pletcho.

  Anyway, I went up and had this hot bath, and he brought in pyjamas and an over-gown for me to put on, all warmed by the fire, also a very worn pair of toofles. And now, brothers, though I was aching and full of pains all over, I felt I would soon feel a lot better. I ittied downstairs and viddied that in the kitchen he had set the table with knives and forks and a fine big loaf of kleb, also a bottle of PRIMA SAUCE, and soon he served out a nice fry of eggiwegs and lomticks of ham and bursting sausages and big bolshy mugs of hot sweet milky chai. It was nice sitting there in the warm, eating, and I found I was very hungry, so that after the fry I had to eat lomtick after lomtick of kleb and butter spread with strawberry jam out of a bolshy great pot. "A lot better," I said. "How can I ever repay?"

  "I think I know who you are," he said. "If you are who I think you are, then you've come, my friend, to the right place. Wasn't that your picture in the papers this morning? Are you the poor victim of this horrible new technique? If so, then you have been sent here by Providence. Tortured in prison, then thrown out to be tortured by the police. My heart goes out to you, poor poor boy." Brothers, I could not get a slovo in, though I had my rot wide open to answer his questions. "You are not the first to come here in distress," he said. "The police are fond of bringing their victims to the outskirts of this village. But it is providential that you, who are also another kind of victim, should come here. Perhaps, then, you have heard of me?"

  I had to be very careful, brothers. I said: "I have heard of 'A Clockwork Orange'. I have not read it, but I have heard of it."

  "Ah," he said, and his litso shone like the sun in its flaming morning glory. "Now tell me about yourself."

  "Little enough to tell, sir," I said, all humble. "There was a foolish and boyish prank, my so-called friends persuading or rather forcing me to break into the house of an old ptitsa -lady, I mean. There was no real harm meant. Unfortunately the lady strained her good old heart in trying to throw me out, though I was quite ready to go of my own accord, and then she died. I was accused of being the cause of her death. So I was sent to prison,sir."

  "Yes yes yes, go on."

  "Then I was picked out by the Minister of the Inferior or Interior to have this Ludovico's veshch tried out on me."

  "Tell me all about it," he said, leaning forward eager, his pullover elbows with all strawberry jam on them from the plate I'd pushed to one side. So I told him all about it. I told him the lot, all, my brothers. He was very eager to hear all, his glazzies like shining and his goobers apart, while the grease on the plates grew harder harder harder. When I had finished he got up from the table, nodding a lot and going hm hm hm, picking up the plates and other veshches from the table and taking them to the sink for washing up. I said: "I will do that, sir, and gladly."

  "Rest, rest, poor lad," he said, turning the tap on so that all steam came burping out. "You've sinned, I suppose, but your punishment has been out of all proportion. They have turned you into something other than a human being. You have no power of choice any longer. You are committed to socially acceptable acts, a little machine capable only of good. And I see that clearly – that business about the marginal conditionings. Music and the sexual act, literature and art, all must be a source now not of pleasure but of pain."

  "That's right, sir," I said, smoking one of this kind man's cork-tipped cancers.

  "They always bite off too much," he said, drying a plate like absent-mindedly. "But the essential intention is the real sin. A man who cannot choose ceases to be a man."

  "That's what the charles said, sir," I said. "The prison chaplain, I mean."

  "Did he, did he? Of course he did. He'd have to, wouldn't he, being a Christian? Well, now then," he said, still wiping the same plate he'd been wiping ten minutes ago, "we shall have a few people in to see you tomorrow. I think you can be used, poor boy. I think that you can help dislodge this overbearing Government. To turn a decent young man into a piece of clockwork should not, surely, be seen as any triumph for any government, save one that boasts of its repressiveness." He was still wiping this same plate. I said:

  "Sir, you're still wiping that same plate, I agree with you, sir, about boasting. This Government seems to be very boastful."

  "Oh," he said, like viddying this plate for the first time and then putting it down. "I'm still not too handy," he said, "with d
omestic chores. My wife used to do them all and leave me to my writing."

  "Your wife, sir?" I said. "Has she gone and left you?" I really wanted to know about his wife, remembering very well. "Yes, left me," he said, in a like loud and bitter goloss. "She died, you see. She was brutally raped and beaten. The shock was very great. It was in this house," his rookers were trembling, holding a wiping-up cloth, "in that room next door. I have had to steel myself to continue to live here, but she would have wished me to stay where her fragrant memory still lingers. Yes yes yes. Poor little girl." I viddied all clearly, my brothers, what had happened that far-off nochy, and vid-dying myself on that job, I began to feel I wanted to sick and the pain started up in my gulliver. This veck viddied this, because my litso felt it was all drained of red red krovvy, very pale, and he would be able to viddy this. "You go to bed now," he said kindly. "I've got the spare room ready. Poor poor boy, you must have had a terrible time. A victim of the modern age, just as she was. Poor poor poor girl."