A Clockwork Orange (UK Version)

by Anthony Burgess

  5

  I had a real horrorshow night's sleep, brothers, with no 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 protecting 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 ensuring 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 Government, 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 tradition 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 Symphony 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 something 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 cou
ld 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, grinning 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 impossible. 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 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 bedrooms 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. Alexander. 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 pamphlet, even though it was only DEATH to THE GOVERNMENT. And like it was Fate there was another malenky booklet wh
ich 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 supposed to be my like new droogs and that it was some veshch like this that they wanted for their horrible selfish and boastful 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 hospitals 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 breathing 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 conscious 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."