Stanley Kubrick's A clockwork orange: based on the novel by Anthony Burgess (12 page)

on the boil when I'd rung the old zvonock pretending for

help.  So now, slooshying this fearful shoom of the rozz-

van, I belted for the front door and had a rabbiting time un-

doing all the locks and chains and bolts and other protective

veshches.  Then I got it open, and who should be on the door-

step but old Dim, me just being able to viddy the other two of

my so-called droogs belting off.  "Away," I creeched to Dim.

"The rozzes are coming."  Dim said: "You stay to meet them

huh huh huh," and then I viddied that he had his oozy out, and

then he upped with it and it snaked whishhh and he chained

me gentle and artistic like on the glazlids, me just closing

them up in time.  Then I was howling around trying to viddy

with this howling great pain, and Dim said: "I don't like you

should do what you done, old droogy.  Not right it wasn't to

get on to me like the way you done, brat."  And then I could

slooshy his bolshy lumpy boots beating off, him going huh

huh huh into the darkmans, and it was only about seven

seconds after that I slooshied the millicent-van draw up with a

filthy great dropping siren-howl, like some bezoomny animal

snuffing it.  I was howling too and like yawing about and I

banged my gulliver smack on the hall-wall, my glazzies being

tight shut and the juice astream from them, very agonizing.  So

there I was like groping in the hallway as the millicents ar-

rived.  I couldn't viddy them, of course, but I could slooshy

and damn near smell the von of the bastards, and soon I could

feel the bastards as they got rough and did the old twist-arm

act, carrying me out.  I could also slooshy one millicent goloss

saying from like the room I'd come out of with all the kots

and koshkas in it: "She's been nastily knocked but she's

breathing," and there was loud mewing all the time.

"A real pleasure this is," I heard another millicent goloss say

as I was tolchocked very rough and skorry into the auto.

"Little Alex all to our own selves."  I creeched out:

"I'm blind, Bog bust and bleed you, you grahzny bastards."

"Language, language," like smecked a goloss, and then I got

a like backhand tolchock with some ringy rooker or other

full on the rot.  I said:

"Bog murder you, you vonny stinking bratchnies.  Where are

the others?  Where are my stinking traitorous droogs?  One of

my cursed grahzny bratties chained me on the glazzies.  Get

them before they get away.  It was all their idea, brothers.

They like forced me to do it.  I'm innocent, Bog butcher you."

By this time they were all having like a good smeck at me with

the heighth of like callousness, and they'd tolchocked me into

the back of the auto, but I still kept on about these so-called

droogs of mine and then I viddied it would be no good, be-

cause they'd all be back now in the snug of the Duke of New

York forcing black and suds and double Scotchmen down the

unprotesting gorloes of those stinking starry ptitsas and

they saying: "Thanks, lads.  God bless you, boys.  Been here

all the time you have, lads.  Not been out of our sight you

haven't."

All the time we were sirening off to the rozz-shop, me being

wedged between two millicents and being given the odd

thump and malenky tolchock by these smecking bullies.  Then I

found I could open up my glazlids a malenky bit and viddy

like through all tears a kind of steamy city going by, all the

lights like having run into one another.  I could viddy now

through smarting glazzies these two smecking millicents at the

back with me and the thin-necked driver and the fat-necked

bastard next to him, this one having a sarky like govoreet at

me, saying: "Well, Alex boy, we all look forward to a pleasant

evening together, don't we not?"  I said:

"How do you know my name, you stinking vonny bully?

May Bog blast you to hell, grahzny bratchny as you are, you

sod."  So they all had a smeck at that and I had my ooko like

twisted by one of these stinking millicents at the back with

me.  The fat-necked not-driver said:

"Everybody knows little Alex and his droogs.  Quite a

famous young boy our Alex has become."

"It's those others," I creeched.  "Georgie and Dim and Pete.

No droogs of mine, the bastards."

"Well," said the fat-neck, "you've got the evening in front of

you to tell the whole story of the daring exploits of those

young gentlemen and how they led poor little innocent Alex

astray."  Then there was the shoom of another like police siren

passing this auto but going the other way.

"Is that for those bastards?" I said.  "Are they being picked up

by you bastards?"

"That," said fat-neck, "is an ambulance.  Doubtless for your

old lady victim, you ghastly wretched scoundrel."

"It was all their fault," I creeched, blinking my smarting glaz-

zies.  "The bastards will be peeting away in the Duke of New

York.  Pick them up blast you, you vonny sods."  And then

there was more smecking and another malenky tolchock, O

my brothers, on my poor smarting rot.  And then we arrived at

the stinking rozz-shop and they helped me get out of the auto

with kicks and pulls and they tolchocked me up the steps and I

knew I was going to get nothing like fair play from these

stinky grahzny bratchnies, Bog blast them.

7

They dragged me into this very bright-lit whitewashed can-

tora, and it had a strong von that was a mixture of like sick

and lavatories and beery rots and disinfectant, all coming

from the barry places near by.  You could hear some of the

plennies in their cells cursing and singing and I fancied I could

slooshy one belting out:

    'And I will go back to my darling, my darling,

    When you, my darling, are gone.'

But there were the golosses of millicents telling them to shut

it and you could even slooshy the zvook of like somebody

being tolchocked real horrorshow and going

owwwwwwwww, and it was like the goloss of a drunken

starry ptitsa, not a man.  With me in this cantora were four

millicents, all having a good loud peet of chai, a big pot of it

being on the table and they sucking and belching away over

their dirty bolshy mugs.  They didn't offer me any.  All that they

gave me, my brothers, was a crappy starry mirror to look

into, and indeed I was not your handsome young Narrator

any longer but a real strack of a sight, my rot swollen and my

glazzies all red and my nose bumped a bit also.  They all had a

real horrorshow smeck when they viddied my like dismay, and

one of them said: "Love's young nightmare like."  And then a

top millicent came in with like stars on his pletchoes to show

he was high high high, and he viddied me and said: "Hm."  So

then they started.  I said:

"I won't say one single solitary slovo unless I have my

lawyer here.  I know the law, you bastards."  Of course they all

had a good gromky smeck at that and then the stellar top millicent

said:

"Righty right, boys, we'll start off by showing him that we

know the law, too, but that knowing the law isn't everything."

He had a like gentleman's goloss and spoke in a very weary

sort of a way, and he nodded with a like droogy smile at one

very big fat bastard.  This big fat bastard took off his tunic and

you could viddy he had a real big starry pot on him, then he

came up to me not too skorry and I could get the von of the

milky chai he'd been peeting when he opened his rot in a like

very tired leery grin at me.  He was not too well shaved for a

rozz and you could viddy like patches of dried sweat on his

shirt under the arms, and you could get this von of like

earwax from him as he came close.  Then he clenched his stink-

ing red rooker and let me have it right in the belly, which was

unfair, and all the other millicents smecked their gullivers off

at that, except the top one and he kept on with this weary like

bored grin.  I had to lean against the white-washed wall so

that all the white got on to my platties, trying to drag the old

breath back and in great agony, and then I wanted to sick up

the gluey pie I'd had before the start of the evening.  But I

couldn't stand that sort of veshch, sicking all over the floor,

so I held it back.  Then I saw that this fatty bruiseboy was

turning to his millicent droogs to have a real horrorshow

smeck at what he'd done, so I raised my right noga and before

they could creech at him to watch out I'd kicked him smart

and lovely on the shin.  And he creeched murder, hopping

around.

But after that they all had a turn, bouncing me from one to

the other like some very weary bloody ball, O my brothers,

and fisting me in the yarbles and the rot and the belly and

dealing out kicks, and then at last I had to sick up on the floor

and, like some real bezoomny veck, I evan said: "Sorry,

brothers, that was not the right thing at all.  Sorry sorry

sorry."  But they handed me starry bits of gazetta and made me

wipe it, and then they made me make with the sawdust.  And then

they said, almost like dear old droogs, that I was to sit down

and we'd all have a quiet like govoreet.  And then P. R. Deltoid

came in to have a viddy, his office being in the same building,

looking very tired and grahzny, to say: "So it's happened, Alex

boy, yes?  Just as I thought it would.  Dear dear dear, yes."

Then he turned to the millicents to say: "Evening, inspector.

Evening, sergeant.  Evening, evening, all.  Well, this is the end of

the line for me, yes.  Dear dear, this boy does look messy,

doesn't he?  Just look at the state of him."

"Violence makes violence," said the top millicent in a very

holy type goloss.  "He resisted his lawful arresters."

"End of the line, yes," said P. R. Deltoid again.  He looked at

me with very cold glazzies like I had become a thing and was

no more a bleeding very tired battered chelloveck.  "I suppose

I'll have to be in court tomorrow."

"It wasn't me, brother, sir," I said, a malenky bit weepy.

"Speak up for me, sir, for I'm not so bad.  I was led on by the

treachery of the others,sir."

"Sings like a linnet," said the top rozz, sneery.  "Sings the

roof off lovely, he does that."

"I'll speak," said cold P. R. Deltoid.  "I'll be there tomorrow,

don't worry."

"If you'd like to give him a bash in the chops, sir," said the

top millicent, "don't mind us.  We'll hold him down.  He must

be another great disappointment to you."

P. R. Deltoid then did something I never thought any man

like him who was supposed to turn us baddiwads into real

horrorshow malchicks would do, especially with all those

rozzes around.  He came a bit nearer and he spat.  He spat.  He

spat full in my litso and then wiped his wet spitty rot with the