A Clockwork Orange

by Anthony Burgess

  'And how beeth thy 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 owwwwwwme.'

  '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 yowl and creech about. Kick your zoobies in I will.' And, O my brothers, saying that made me feel a malenky bit better, as if all like fresh red red krovvy was flowing all through my plott. That was something I had to think about. It was like as though to get better I had had to get worse.

  'That's no way to speak to your mother, son,' said my papapa. 'After all, she brought you into the world.'

  'Yes,' I said, 'and a right grahzny vonny world too.' I shut my glazzies tight in like pain and said: 'Go away now. I'll think about coming back. But things will have to be very different.'

  'Yes, son,' said my pee. 'Anything you say.'

  'You'll have to make up your mind,' I said, 'who's to be boss.'

  'Owwwwww,' my mum went on.

  'Very good, son,' said my papapa. 'Things will be as you like. Only get well.'

  When they had gone I laid and thought a bit about different veshches, like all different pictures passing through my gulliver, and when the nurse ptitsa came back in and like straightened the sheets on the bed I said to her:

  'How long is it I've been in here?'

  'A week or so,' she said.

  'And what have they been doing to me?'

  'Well,' she said, 'you were all broken up and bruised and had sustained severe concussion and had lost a lot of blood. They've had to put all that right, haven't they?'

  'But,' I said, 'has anyone been doing anything with my gulliver? What I mean is, have they been playing around with inside like my brain?'

  'Whatever they've done,' she said, 'it'll all be for the best.'

  But a couple of days later a couple of like doctor vecks came in, both youngish vecks with these very sladky smiles, and they had like a picture book with them. One of them said: 'We want you to have a look at these and to tell us what you think about them. All right?'

  'What giveth. O little droogies?' I said. 'What new bezoomny idea dost thou in mind have?' So they both had a like embarrassed smeck at that and then they sat down either side of the bed and opened up this book. On the first page there was like a photograph of a bird-nest full of eggs.

  'Yes?' one of these doctor vecks said.

  'A bird-nest,' I said, 'full of like eggs. Very very nice.'

  'And what would you like to do about it?' the other one said.

  'Oh,' I said, 'smash them. Pick up the lot and like throw them against a wall or a cliff or something and then viddy them all smash up real horrorshow.'

  'Good good,' they both said, and then the page was turned. It was like a picture of one of these bolshy great birds called peacocks with all its tail spread out in all colours in a very boastful way. 'Yes?' said one of these vecks.

  'I would like.' I said, 'to pull out like all those feathers in its tail and slooshy it creech blue murder. For being so like boastful.'

  'Good,' they both said, 'good good good.' And they went on turning the pages. There were like pictures of real horrorshow devotchkas, and I said I would like to give them the old in-out in-out with lots of ultra-violence. There were like pictures of chellovecks being given the boot straight in the litso and all red red krovvy everywhere and I said I would like to be in on that. And there was a picture of the old nagoy droog of the prison charlie's carrying his cross up a hill, and I said I would like to have the old hammer and nails. Good good good. I said:

  'What is all this?'

  'Deep hypnopaedia,' or some such slovo, said one of these two vecks. 'You seem to be cured.'

  'Cured?' I said. 'Me tied down to this bed like this and you say cured? Kiss my sharries is what I say.'

  'Wait,' the other said. 'It won't be long now.'

  So I waited and, O my brothers, I got a lot better, munching away at eggiwegs and lomticks of toast and peeting bolshy great mugs of milky chai, and then one day they said I was going to have a very very very special visitor.

  'Who?' I said, while they straightened the bed and combed my luscious glory for me, me having the bandage off now from my gulliver and the hair growing again.

  'You'll see, you'll see,' they said. And I viddied all right. At two-thirty of the afternoon there were like all photographers and men from gazettas with notebooks and pencils and all that cal. And, brothers, they near trumpeted a bolshy fanfare for this great and important veck who was coming to viddy Your Humble Narrator. And in he came, and of course it was none other than the Minister of the Interior or Inferior, dressed in the heighth of fashion and with this very upper-class haw haw haw goloss. Flash flash bang went the cameras when he put out his rooker to me to shake it. I said:

  'Well well well well well. What giveth then, old droogie?' Nobody seemed to quite pony that, but somebody said in a like harsh goloss:

  'Be more respectful, boy, in addressing the Minister.'

  'Yarbles,' I said, like snarling like a doggie. 'Bolshy great yarblockos to thee and thine.'

  'All right, all right,' said the Interior Inferior one very skorry. 'He speaks to me as a friend, don't you, son?'

  'I am everyone's friend,' I said. 'Except to my enemies.'

  'And who are your enemies?' said the Minister, while all the gazetta vecks went scribble scribble scribble. 'Tell us that, my boy.'

  'All who do me wrong,' I said, 'are my enemies.'

  'Well,' said the Int Inf Min, sitting down by my bed. 'I and the Government of which I am a member want you to regard us as friends. Yes, friends. We have put you right, yes? You are getting the best of treatment. We never wished you harm, but there are some who did and do. And I think you know who those are.'

  'All who do me wrong,' I said, 'are my enemies.'

  'Yes yes yes,' he said. 'There are certain men who wanted to use you, yes, use you for political ends. They would have been glad, yes, glad for you to be dead, for they thought they could then blame it all on the Government. I think you know who those men are.'

  'I did not,' I said, 'like the look of them.'

  'There is a man,' said the Intinfmin, 'called F. Alexander, a writer of subversive literature, who has been howling for your blood. He has been mad with desire to stick a knife in you. But you're safe from him now. We put him away.'

  'He was supposed to be like a droogie,' I said. 'Like a mother to me was what he was.'

  'He found out that you had done wrong to him. At least,' said the Min very very skorry, 'he believed you had done wrong. He formed this idea in his mind that you had been responsible for the death of someone near and dear to him.'

  'What you mean,' I said, 'is that he was told.'

  'He had this idea,' said the Min. 'He was a menace. We put him away for his own protection. And also,' he said, 'for yours.'

  'Kind,' I said. 'Most kind of thou.'

  'When you leave here,' said the Min, 'you will have no worries. We shall
see to everything. A good job on a good salary. Because you are helping us.'

  'Am I?' I said.

  'We always help our friends, don't we?' And then he took my rooker and some veck creeched: 'Smile!' and I smiled like bezoomny without thinking, and then flash flash crack flash bang there were pictures being taken of me and the Intinfmin all droogy together. 'Good boy,' said this great chelloveck. 'Good good boy. And now, see, a present.'

  What was brought in now, brothers, was a big shiny box, and I viddied clear what sort of a veshch it was. It was a stereo. It was put down next to the bed and opened up and some veck plugged its lead into the wall-socket. 'What shall it be?' asked a veck with ochkies on his nose, and he had in his rookers lovely shiny sleeves full of music. 'Mozart? Beethoven? Schoenberg? Carl Orff?'

  'The Ninth,' I said. 'The glorious Ninth.'

  And the Ninth it was, O my brothers. Everybody began to leave nice and quiet while I laid there with my glazzies closed, slooshying the lovely music. The Min said: 'Good good boy,' patting me on the pletcho, then he ittied off. Only one veck was left, saying: 'Sign here, please.' I opened my glazzies up to sign, not knowing what I was signing and not, O my brothers, caring either. Then I was left alone with the glorious Ninth of Ludwig van.

  Oh, it was gorgeosity and yumyumyum. When it came to the Scherzo I could viddy myself very clear running and running on like very light and mysterious nogas, carving the whole litso of the creeching world with my cut-throat britva. And there was the slow movement and the lovely last singing movement still to come. I was cured all right.

  7

  'What's it going to be then, eh?'

  There was me, Your Humble Narrator, and my three droogs, that is Len, Rick, and Bully, Bully being called Bully because of his bolshly big neck and very gromky goloss which was just like some bolshy great bull bellowing auuuuuuuuh. We were sitting in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. All round were chellovecks well away on milk plus vellocet and synthemesc and drencrom and other veshches which take you far far far away from this wicked and real world into the land to viddy Bog And All His Holy Angels And Saints in your left sabog with lights bursting and spurting all over your mozg. What we were peeting was the old moloko with knives in it, as we used to say, to sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, but I've told you all that before.

  We were dressed in the heighth of fashion, which in those days was these very wide trousers and a very loose black shiny leather like jerkin over an open-necked shirt with a like scarf tucked in. At this time too it was the heighth of fashion to use the old britva on the gulliver, so that most of the gulliver was like bald and there was hair only on the sides. But it was always the same on the old nogas--real horrorshow bolshy big boots for kicking litsos in.

  'What's it going to be then, eh?'

  I was like the oldest of we four, and they all looked up to me as their leader, but I got the idea sometimes that Bully had the thought in his gulliver that he would like to take over, this being because of his bigness and the gromky goloss that bellowed out of him when he was on the warpath. But all the ideas came from Your Humble, O my brothers, and also there was this veshch that I had been famous and had had my picture and articles and all that cal in the gazettas. Also I had by far the best job of all we four, being in the National Gramodisc Archives on the music side with a real horrorshow carman full of pretty polly at the week's end and a lot of nice free discs for my own malenky self on the side.

  This evening in the Korova there was a fair number of vecks and ptitsas and devotchkas and malchicks smecking and peeting away, and cutting through their govoreeting and the burbling of the in-the-landers with their 'Gorgor fallatuke and the worm sprays in filltip slaughterballs' and all that cal you could slooshy a popdisc on the stereo, this being Ned Achimota singing 'That Day, Yeah, That Day'. At the counter were three devotchkas dressed in the heighth of nadsat fashion, that is to say long uncombed hair dyed white and false groodies sticking out a metre or more and very very tight short skirts with all like frothy white underneath, and Bully kept saying: 'Hey, get in there we could, three of us. Old Len is not interested. Leave old Len alone with his God.' And Len kept saying: 'Yarbles yarbles. Where is the spirit of all for one and one for all, eh boy?' Suddenly I felt both very very tired and also full of tingly energy, and I said:

  'Out out out out out.'

  'Where to?' said Rick, who had a litso like a frog's.

  'Oh, just to viddy what's doing in the great outside,' I said. But somehow, my brothers, I felt very bored and a bit hopeless, and I had been feeling that a lot these days. So I turned to the chelloveck nearest me on the big plush seat that ran right round the whole mesto, a chelloveck, that is, who was burbling away under the influence, and I fisted him real skorry ack ack ack in the belly. But he felt it not, brothers, only burbling away with his 'Cart cart virtue, where in toptails lieth the poppoppicorns?' So we scatted out into the big winter nochy.

  We walked down Marghanita Boulevard and there were no millicents patrolling that way, so when we met a starry veck coming away from a news-kiosk where he had been kupetting a gazetta I said to Bully: "All right, Bully boy, thou canst if thou like wishest.' More and more these days I had been just giving the orders and standing back to viddy them being carried out. So Bully cracked into him er er er, and the other two tripped him and kicked at him, smecking away, while he was down and then let him crawl off to where he lived, like whimpering to himself. Bully said:

  'How about a nice yummy glass of something to keep out the cold, O Alex?' For we were not too far from the Duke of New York. The other two nodded yes yes yes but all looked at me to viddy whether that was all right. I nodded too and so off we ittied. Inside the snug there were these starry ptitsas or sharps or baboochkas you will remember from the beginning and they all started on their: 'Evening, lads, God bless you, boys, best lads living, that's what you are,' waiting for us to say 'What's it going to be, girls?' Bully rang the collocoll and a waiter came in rubbing his rookers on his grazzy apron. 'Cutter on the table, droogies,' said Bully, pulling out his own rattling and chinking mound of deng. 'Scotchmen for us and the same for the old baboochkas, eh?' And then I said:

  'Ah, to hell. Let them buy their own.' I didn't know what it was, but these last days I had become like mean. There had come into my gulliver a like desire to keep all my pretty polly to myself, to like hoard it all up for some reason. Bully said:

  'What gives, bratty? What's coming over old Alex?'

  'Ah, to hell,' I said. 'I don't know. I don't know. What it is is I don't like just throwing away my hard-earned pretty polly, that's what it is.'

  'Earned?' said Rick. 'Earned? It doesn't have to be earned, as well thou knowest, old droogie. Took, that's all, just took, like.' And he smecked real gromky and I viddied one or two of his zoobies weren't all that horrorshow.

  'Ah,' I said, 'I've got some thinking to do.' But viddying these baboochkas looking all eager like for some free alc, I like shrugged my pletchoes and pulled out my own cutter from my trouser carman, notes and coin all mixed together, and plonked it tinkle crackle on the table.

  'Scotchmen all round, right,' said the waiter. But for some reason I said:

  'No, boy, for me make it one small beer, right.' Len said:

  'This I do not much go for,' and he began to put his rooker on my gulliver, like kidding I must have fever, but I like snarled doggy-wise for him to give over skorry. 'All right, all right, droog,' he said. 'As thou like sayest.' But Bully was having a smot with his rot open at something that had come out of my carman with the pretty polly I'd put on the table. He said:

  'Well well well. And we never knew.'

  'Give me that,' I snarled and grabbed it skorry. I couldn't explain how it had got there, brothers, but it was a photograph I had scissored out of the old gazetta and it was of a baby. It was of a baby gurgling goo goo goo with all like moloko dribbling from its ro
t and looking up and like smecking at everybody, and its was all nagoy and its flesh was like in all folds with being a very fat baby. There was then like a bit of haw haw haw struggling to get hold of this bit of paper from me, so I had to snarl again at them and I grabbed the photo and tore it up into tiny teeny pieces and let it fall like a bit of snow on to the floor. The whisky came in then and the starry baboochkas said: 'Good health, lads, God bless you, boys, the best lads living, that's what you are,' and all that cal. And one of them who was all lines and wrinkles and no zoobies in her shrunken old rot said: 'Don't tear up money, son. If you don't need it give it them as does,' which was very bold and forward of her. But Rick said:

  'Money that was not, O baboochka. It was a picture of a dear little itsy witsy bitsy bit of a baby.' I said:

  'I'm getting just that bit tired, that I am. It's you who's the babies, you lot. Scoffing and grinning and all you can do is smeck and give people bolshy cowardly tolchocks when they can't give them back.' Bully said:

  'Well now, we always thought it was you who was the king of that and also the teacher. Not well, that's the trouble with thou, old droogie.'

  I viddied this sloppy glass of beer I had on the table in front of me and felt like all vomity within, so I went 'Aaaaah' and poured all the frothy vonny cal all over the floor. One of the starry ptitsas said:

  'Waste not want not.' I said:

  'Look, droogies. Listen. Tonight I am somehow just not in the mood. I know not why or how it is, but there it is. You three go your own ways this nightwise, leaving me out. Tomorrow we shall meet same place same time, me hoping to be like a lot better.'

  'Oh,' said Bully, 'right sorry I am.' But you could viddy a like gleam in his glazzies, because now he would be taking over for this nochy. Power power, everybody like wants power. 'We can postpone till tomorrow,' said Bully. 'what we in mind had. Namely, that bit of shop-crasting in Gagarin Street. Flip horrorshow takings there, droog, for the having.'

  'No,' I said. 'You postpone nothing. You just carry on in your own like style. Now,' I said, 'I itty off.' And I got up from my chair.