Stanley Kubrick's A clockwork orange: based on the novel by Anthony Burgess (15 page)

"Not having that we're not, brotherth.  Don't give in to the

thquirt."  So this new one said:

"Crash your dermott, yid," meaning to shut up, but it was

very insulting.  So then Big Jew got ready to launch a tol-

chock.  The Doctor said:

"Come on, gentlemen, we don't want any trouble, do we?"

in his very high-class goloss, but this new prestoopnick was

really asking for it.  You could viddy that he thought he was a

very big bolshy veck and it was beneath his dignity to be

sharing a cell with six and having to sleep on the floor till I

made this gesture at him.  In his sneery way he tried to take off

The Doctor, saying:

"Owwww, yew wahnt noo moor trouble, is that it, Archi-

balls?"  So Jojohn, mean and keen and wiry, said:

"If we can't have sleep let's have some education.  Our new

friend here had better be taught a lesson."  Although he like

specialized in Sexual Assault he had a nice way of govoreeting,

quiet and like precise.  So the new plenny sneered:

"Kish and kosh and koosh, you little terror."  So then it all

really started, but in a queer like gentle way, with nobody

raising his goloss much.  The new plenny creeched a malenky

bit at first, but the Wall fisted his rot while Big Jew held him

up against the bars so that he could be viddied in the malenky

red light from the landing, and he just went oh oh oh.  He was

not a very strong type of veck, being very feeble in his trying

to tolchock back, and I suppose he made up for this by being

shoomny in the goloss and very boastful.  Anyway, seeing the

old krovvy flow red in the red light, I felt the old joy like rising

up in my keeshkas and I said:

"Leave him to me, go on, let me have him now, brothers."

So Big Jew said:

"Yeth, yeth, boyth, that'th fair.  Thlosh him then, Alekth."  So

they all stood around while I cracked at this prestoopnick in

the near dark.  I fisted him all over, dancing about with my

boots on though unlaced, and then I tripped him and he went

crash crash on to the floor.  I gave him one real horrorshow

kick on the gulliver and he went ohhhh, then he sort of

snorted off to like sleep, and The Doctor said:

"Very well, I think that wil be enough of a lesson," squinting

to viddy this downed and beaten-up veck on the floor.  "Let

him dream perhaps about being a better boy in the future."  So

we all climbed back into our bunks, being very tired now.

What I dreamt of, O my brothers, was of being in some very

big orchestra, hundreds and hundreds strong, and the con-

ductor was a like mixture of Ludwig van and G. F. Handel,

looking very deaf and blind and weary of the world.  I was

with the wind instruments, but what I was playing was like a

white pinky bassoon made of flesh and growing out of my

plott, right in the middle of my belly, and when I blew into it I

had to smeck ha ha ha very loud because it like tickled, and

then Ludwig van G. F. got very razdraz and bezoomny.  Then

he came right up to my litso and creeched loud in my ooko,

and then I woke up like sweating.  Of course, what the loud

shoom really was was the prison buzzer going brrrrr brrrrr

brrrrr.  It was winter morning and my glazzies were all cally

with sleepglue, and when I opened up they were very sore in

the electric light that had been switched on all over the zoo.

Then I looked down and viddied this new prestoopnick lying

on the floor, very bloody and bruisy and still out out out.

Then I remembered about last night and that made me smeck

a bit.

But when I got off the bunk and moved him with my bare

noga, there was a feel of like stiff coldness, so I went over to

The Doctor's bunk and shook him, him always being very

slow at waking up in the morning.  But he was off his bunk

skorry enough this time, and so were the others, except for

Wall who slept like dead meat.  "Very unfortunate," The

Doctor said.  "A heart attack, that's what it must have been."

Then he said, looking round at us all: "You really shouldn't

have gone for him like that.  It was most ill-advised really."

Jojohn said:

"Come come, doc, you weren't all that backward yourself

in giving him a sly bit of fist."  Then Big Jew turned on me,

saying:

"Alekth, you were too impetuouth.  That latht kick wath a

very very nathty one."  I began to get razdraz about this and

said:

"Who started it, eh?  I only got in at the end, didn't I?" I

pointed at Jojohn and said: "It was your idea."  Wall snored a

bit loud, so I said: "Wake that vonny bratchny up.  It was him

that kept on at his rot while Big Jew here had him up against

the bars."  The Doctor said:

"Nobody will deny having a little hit at the man, to teach

him a lesson so to speak, but it's apparent that you, my dear

boy, with the forcefulness and, shall I say, heedlessness of

youth, dealt him the coo de gras.  It's a great pity."

"Traitors," I said.  "Traitors and liars," because I could viddy

it was all like before, two years before, when my so-called

droogs had left me to the brutal rookers of the millicents.

There was no trust anywhere in the world, O my brothers, the

way I could see it.  And Jojohn went and woke up Wall, and

Wall was only too ready to swear that it was Your Humble

Narrator that had done the real dirty tolchocking and brut-

ality.  When the chassos came along, and then the Chief

Chasso, and then the Governor himself, all these cell-droogs

of mine were very shoomny with tales of what I'd done to

oobivat this worthless pervert whose krovvy-covered plott

lay sacklike on the floor.

That was a very queer day, O my brothers.  The dead plott

was carried off, and then everybody in the whole prison had

to stay locked up until further orders, and there was no pishcha

given out, not even a mug of hot chai.  We just all sat there,

and the warders or chassos sort of strode up and down the

tier, now and then creeching "Shut it" or "Close that hole"

whenever they slooshied even a whisper from any of the cells.

Then about eleven o'clock in the morning there was a sort of

like stiffening and excitement and like the von of fear spread-

ing from outside the cell, and then we could viddy the

Governor and the Chief Chasso and some very bolshy im-

portant-looking chellovecks walking by real skorry, govoreet-

ing like bezoomny.  They seemed to walk right to the end

of the tier, then they could be slooshied walking back again,

more slow this time, and you could slooshy the Governor, a

very sweaty fatty fair-haired veck, saying slovos like "But, sir - "

and "Well, what can be done, sir?" and so on.  Then the whole

lot stopped at our cell and the Chief Chasso opened up.  You

could viddy who was the real important veck right away, very

tall and with blue glazzies and with real horrorshow platties

on him, the most lovely suit, brothers, I have ever viddied,

absolutely in the heighth of fashion.  He just sort of looked

right through us poor plennies, saying, in a very beautiful real

educated goloss: "The Government cannot be concerned any

longer with outmoded penological theories.  Cram criminals

together and see what happens.  You get concentrated crimi-

nality, crime in the midst of punishment.  Soon we may be

needing all our prison space for political offenders."  I didn't

pony this at all, brothers, but after all he was not govoreeting

to me.  Then he said: "Common criminals like this unsavoury

crowd" - (that meant me, brothers, as well as the others, who

were real prestoopnicks and treacherous with it) - "can best

be dealt with on a purely curative basis.  Kill the criminal

reflex, that's all.  Full implementation in a year's time.  Pun-

ishment means nothing to them, you can see that.  They enjoy

their so-called punishment.  They start murdering each other."

And he turned his stern blue glazzies on me.  So I said, bold:

"With respect, sir, I object very strongly to what you said

then.  I am not a common criminal, sir, and I am not un-

savoury.  The others may be unsavoury but I am not."  The

Chief Chasso went all purple and creeched:

"You shut your bleeding hole, you.  Don't you know who

this is?"

"All right, all right," said this big veck.  Then he turned to the

Governor and said: "You can use him as a trail-blazer.  He's

young, bold, vicious.  Brodsky will deal with him tomorrow

and you can sit in and watch Brodsky.  It works all right, don't

worry about that.  This vicious young hoodlum will be trans-

formed out of all recognition."

And those hard slovos, brothers, were like the beginning of

my freedom.

3

That very same evening I was dragged down nice and gentle by

brutal tolchocking chassos to viddy the Governor in his holy

of holies holy office.  The Governor looked very weary at me

and said:  "I don't suppose you know who that was this morn-

ing, do you, 6655321?"  And without waiting for me to say no

he said: "That was no less a personage than the Minister of the

Interior, the new Minister of the Interior and what they call a

very new broom.  Well, these new ridiculous ideas have come

at last and orders are orders, though I may say to you in

confidence that I do not approve.  I most emphatically do not

approve.  An eye for an eye, I say.  If someone hits you you hit

back, do you not?  Why then should not the State, very

severely hit by you brutal hooligans, not hit back also?  But the

new view is to say no.  The new view is that we turn the bad

into the good.  All of which seems to me grossly unjust.  Hm?"

So I said, trying to be like respectful and accomodating:

"Sir."  And then the Chief Chasso, who was standing all red

and burly behind the Governor's chair, creeched:

"Shut your filthy hole, you scum."

"All right, all right," said the like tired and fagged-out

Governor.  "You, 6655321, are to be reformed.  Tomorrow

you go to this man Brodsky.  It is believed that you will be

able to leave State Custody in a little over a fortnight.  In a

little over a fortnight you will be out again in the big free

world, no longer a number.  I suppose," and he snorted a bit

here, "that prospect pleases you?"  I said nothing so the Chief

Chasso creeched:

"Answer, you filthy young swine, when the Governor asks

you a question."  So I said:

"Oh, yes, sir.  Thank you very much, sir.  I've done my best

here, really I have.  I'm very grateful to all concerned."

"Don't be," like sighed the Governor.  "This is not a reward.

This is far from being a reward.  Now, there is a form here to

be signed.  It says that you are wiling to have the residue of

your sentence commuted to submission to what is called

here, ridiculous expression, Reclamation Treatment.  Will you