Stanley Kubrick's A clockwork orange: based on the novel by Anthony Burgess (17 page)

me.  "Right," said the wheelchair-wheeling veck, "now I'll leave

you.  The show will commence as soon as Dr. Brodsky arrives.

Hope you enjoy it."  To be truthful, brothers, I did not really

feel that I wanted to viddy any film-show this afternoon.  I was

just not in the mood.  I would have liked much better to have

a nice quiet spatchka on the bed, nice and quiet and all on my

oddy knocky.  I felt very limp.

What happened now was that one white-coated veck

strapped my gulliver to a like head-rest, singing to himself all

the time some vonny cally pop-song.  "What's this for?" I said.

And this veck replied, interrupting his like song an instant,

that it was to keep my gulliver still and make me look at the

screen.  "But," I said, "I want to look at the screen.  I've been

brought here to viddy films and viddy films I shall."  And then

the other white-coat veck (there were three altogether, one

of them a devotchka who was like sitting at the bank of

meters and twiddling with knobs) had a bit of a smeck at that.

He said:

"You never know.  Oh, you never know.  Trust us, friend.  It's

better this way."  And then I found they were strapping my

rookers to the chair-arms and my nogas were like stuck to a

foot-rest.  It seemed a bit bezoomny to me but I let them get

on with what they wanted to get on with.  If I was to be a free

young malchick again in a fortnight's time I would put up with

much in the meantime, O my brothers.  One veshch I did not

like, though, was when they put like clips on the skin of my

forehead, so that my top glazz-lids were pulled up and up and

up and I could not shut my glazzies no matter how I tried.  I

tried to smeck and said: "This must be a real horrorshow film

if you're so keen on my viddying it."  And one of the white-

coat vecks said, smecking:

"Horrorshow is right, friend.  A real show of horrors."  And

then I had like a cap stuck on my gulliver and I could viddy

all wires running away from it, and they stuck a like suction

pad on my belly and one on the old tick-tocker, and I could

just about viddy wires running away from those.  Then there

was the shoom of a door opening and you could tell some

very important chelloveck was coming in by the way the

white-coated under-vecks went all stiff.  And then I viddied this

Dr. Brodsky.  He was a malenky veck, very fat, with all curly

hair curling all over his gulliver, and on his spuddy nose he

had very thick ochkies.  I could just viddy that he had a real

horrorshow suit on, absolutely the heighth of fashion, and he

had a like very delicate and subtle von of operating-theatres

coming from him.  With him was Dr. Branom, all smiling like as

though to give me confidence.  "Everything ready?" said Dr.

Brodsky in a very breathy goloss.  Then I could slooshy voices

saying Right right right from like a distance, then nearer to,

then there was a quiet like humming shoom as though things

had been switched on.  And then the lights went out and there

was Your Humble Narrator And Friend sitting alone in the

dark, all on his frightened oddy knocky, not able to move nor

shut his glazzies nor anything.  And then, O my brothers, the

film-show started off with some very gromky atmosphere

music coming from the speakers, very fierce and full of dis-

cord.  And then on the screen the picture came on, but there

was no title and no credits.  What came on was a street, as it

might have been any street in any town, and it was a real dark

nochy and the lamps were lit.  It was a very good like pro-

fessional piece of sinny, and there were none of these flickers

and blobs you get, say, when you viddy one of these dirty

films in somebody's house in a back street.  All the time the

music bumped out, very like sinister.  And then you could

viddy an old man coming down the street, very starry, and

then there leaped out on this starry veck two malchicks

dressed in the heighth of fashion, as it was at this time (still

thin trousers but no like cravat any more, more of a real tie),

and then they started to filly with him.  You could slooshy the

screams and moans, very realistic, and you could even get the

like heavy breathing and panting of the two tolchocking mal-

chicks.  They made a real pudding out of this starry veck, going

crack crack crack at him with the fisty rookers, tearing his

platties off and then finishing up by booting his nagoy plott

(this lay all krovvy-red in the grahzny mud of the gutter) and

then running off very skorry.  Then there was the close-up

gulliver of this beaten-up starry veck, and the krovvy flowed

beautiful red.  It's funny how the colours of the like real

world only seem really real when you viddy them on the

screen.

Now all the time I was watching this I was beginning to get

very aware of a like not feeling all that well, and this I put

down to the under-nourishment and my stomach not quite

ready for tthe rich pishcha and vitamins I was getting here.  But

I tried to forget this, concentrating on the next film which

came on at once, brothers, without any break at all.  This

time the film jumped right away on a young devotchka who

was being given the old in-out by first one malchick then

another then another then another, she creeching away very

gromky through the speakers and like very pathetic and tragic

music going on at the same time.  This was real, very real,

though if you thought about it properly you couldn't imagine

lewdies actually agreeing to having all this done to them in a

film, and if these films were made by the Good or the State

you couldn't imagine them being allowed to take these films

without like interfering with what was going on.  So it must

have been very clever what they call cutting or editing or

some such veshch.  For it was very real.  And when it came to

the sixth or seventh malchick leering and smecking and then

going into it and the devotchka creeching on the sound-track

like bezoomny, then I began to feel sick.  I had like pains all

over and felt I could sick up and at the same time not sick up,

and I began to feel like in distress, O my brothers, being fixed

rigid too on this chair.  When this bit of film was over I could

slooshy the goloss of this Dr. Brodsky from over by the

switchboard saying: "Reaction about twelve point five?  Prom-

ising, promising."

Then we shot straight into another lomtick of film, and this

time it was of just a human litso, a very like pale human face

held still and having different nasty veshches done to it.  I was

sweating a malenky bit with the pain in my guts and a horrible

thirst and my gulliver going throb throb throb, and it seemed

to me that if I could not viddy this bit of film I would perhaps

be not so sick.  But I could not shut my glazzies, and even if I

tried to move my glaz-balls about I still could not get like out

of the line of fire of this picture.  So I had to go on viddying

what was being done and hearing the most ghastly creechings

coming from this litso.  I knew it could not really be real, but

that made no difference.  I was heaving away but could not

sick, viddying first a britva cut out an eye, then slice down the

cheek, then go rip rip rip all over, while red krovvy shot on to

the camera lens.  Then all the teeth were like wrenched out

with a pair of pliers, and the creeching and the blood were

terrific.  Then I slooshied this very pleased goloss of Dr.

Brodsky going: "Excellent, excellent, excellent."

The next lomtick of film was of an old woman who kept a

shop being kicked about amid very gromky laughter by a lot

of malchicks, and these malchicks broke up the shop and then

set fire to it.  You could viddy this poor starry ptitsa trying to

crawl out of the flames, screaming and creeching, but having

had her leg broke by these malchicks kicking her she could

not move.  So then all the flames went roaring round her, and

you could viddy her agonized litso like appealing through the

flames and the disappearing in the flames, and then you

could slooshy the most gromky and agonized and agonizing

screams that ever came from a human goloss.  So this time I

knew I had to sick up, so I creeched:

"I want to be sick.  Please let me be sick.  Please bring some-

thing for me to be sick into."  But this Dr. Brodsky called back:

"Imagination only.  You've nothing to worry about.  Next

film coming up."  That was perhaps meant to be a joke, for I

heard a like smeck coming from the dark.  And then I was

forced to viddy a most nasty film about Japanese torture.  It

was the 1939-45 War, and there were soldiers being fixed to

trees with nails and having fires lit under them and having their

yarbles cut off, and you even viddied a gulliver being sliced off

a soldier with a sword, and then with his head rolling about

and the rot and glazzies looking alive still, the plott of this

soldier actually ran about, krovvying like a fountain out of

the neck, and then it dropped, and all the time there was very

very loud laughter from the Japanese.  The pains I felt now in

my belly and the headache and the thirst were terrible, and

they all seemed to be coming out of the screen.  So I

creeched:

"Stop the film!  Please, please stop it!  I can't stand any

more."  And then the goloss of this Dr. Brodsky said:

"Stop it?  Stop it, did you say?  Why, we've hardly started."

And he and the others smecked quite loud.

5

I do not wish to describe, brothers, what other horrible vesh-

ches I was like forced to viddy that afternoon.  The like

minds of this Dr. Brodsky and Dr. Branom and the others in

white coats, and remember there was this devotchka twid-

dling with the knobs and watching the meters, they must have

been more cally and filthy than any prestoopnick in the Staja

itself.  Because I did not think it was possible for any veck to

even think of making films of what I was forced to viddy, all

tied to this chair and my glazzies made to be wide open.  All I

could do was to creech very gromky for them to turn it off,

turn it off, and that like part drowned the noise of dratsing

and fillying and also the music that went with it all.  You can

imagine it was like a terrible relief when I'd viddied the last bit

of film, and this Dr. Brodsky said, in a very yawny and bored

like goloss: "I think that should be enough for Day One, don't

you, Branom?"  And there I was with the lights switched on,

my gulliver throbbing like a bolshy big engine that makes

pain, and my rot all dry and cally inside, and feeling I could

like sick up every bit of pishcha I had ever eaten, O my

brothers, since the day I was like weaned.  "All right," said this

Dr. Brodsky, "he can be taken back to his bed."  Then he like

patted me on the pletcho and said: "Good, good.  A very