Stanley Kubrick's A clockwork orange: based on the novel by Anthony Burgess (19 page)

streets that were all dust and bomb-holes and broken build-

ings.  Then you were allowed to viddy lewdies being shot

against walls, officers giving the orders, and also horrible

nagoy plotts left lying in gutters, all like cages of bare ribs and

white thin nogas.  Then there were lewdies being dragged off

creeching though not on the sound-track, my brothers, the

only sound being music, and being tolchocked while they

were dragged off.  Then I noticed, in all my pain and sickness,

what music it was that like crackled and boomed on the

sound-track, and it was Ludwig van, the last movement of the

Fifth Symphony, and I creeched like bezoomny at that.  "Stop!"

I creeched.  "Stop, you grahzny disgusting sods.  It's a sin, that's

what it is, a filthy unforgivable sin, you bratchnies!"  They

didn't stop right away, because there was only a minute or

two more to go - lewdies being beaten up and all krovvy, then

more firing squads, then the old Nazi flag and THE END.  But

when the lights came on this Dr. Brodsky and also Dr. Branom

were standing in front of me, and Dr. Brodsky said:

"What's all this about sin, eh?"

"That," I said, very sick.  "Using Ludwig van like that.  He did

no harm to anyone.  Beethoven just wrote music."  And then I

was really sick and they had to bring a bowl that was in the

shape of like a kidney.

"Music," said Dr. Brodsky, like musing.  "So you're keen on

music.  I know nothing about it myself.  It's a useful emotional

heightener, that's all I know.  Well, well.  What do you think

about that, eh, Branom?"

"It can't be helped," said Dr. Branom.  "Each man kills the

thing he loves, as the poet-prisoner said.  Here's the pun-

ishment element, perhaps.  The Governor ought to be

pleased."

"Give me a drink," I said, "for Bog's sake."

"Loosen him," ordered Dr. Brodsky.  "Fetch him a carafe of

ice-cold water."  So then these under-vecks got to work and

soon I was peeting gallons and gallons of water and it was

like heaven, O my brothers.  Dr. Brodsky said:

"You seem a sufficiently intelligent young man.  You seem,

too, to be not without taste.  You've just got this violence

thing, haven't you?  Violence and theft, theft being an aspect

of violence."  I didn't govoreet a single slovo, brothers, I was

still feeling sick, though getting a malenky bit better now.  But

it had been a terrible day.  "Now then," said Dr. Brodsky, "how

do you think this is done?  Tell me, what do you think we're

doing to you?"

"You're making me feel ill.  I'm ill when I look at those filthy

pervert films of yours.  But it's not really the films that's doing

it.  But I feel that if you'll stop these films I'll stop feeling ill."

"Right," said Dr. Brodsky.  "It's association, the oldest edu-

cational method in the world.  And what really causes you to

feel ill?"

"These grahzny sodding veshches that come out of my gulli-

ver and my plott," I said, "that's what it is."

"Quaint," said Dr. Brodsky, like smiling, "the dialect of the

tribe.  Do you know anything of its provenance, Branom?"

"Odd bits of old rhyming slang," said Dr. Branom, who did

not look quite so much like a friend any more.  "A bit of gipsy

talk, too.  But most of the roots are Slav.  Propaganda.  Sub-

liminal penetration."

"All right, all right, all right," said Dr. Brodsky, like impatient

and not interested any more.  "Well," he said to me, "it isn't the

wires.  It's nothing to do with what's fastened to you.  Those

are just for measuring your reactions.  What is it, then?"

I viddied then, of course, what a bezoomny shoot I was not

to notice that it was the hypodermic shots in the rooker.

"Oh," I creeched, "oh, I viddy all now.  A filthy cally vonny

trick.  An act of treachery, sod you, and you won't do it

again."

"I'm glad you've raised your objections now," said Dr.

Brodsky.  "Now we can be perfectly clear about it.  We can get

this stuff of Ludovico's into your system in many different

ways.  Orally, for instance.  But the subcutaneous method is the

best.  Don't fight against it, please.  There's no point in your

fighting.  You can't get the better of us."

"Grahzny bratchnies," I said, like snivelling.  Then I said: "I

don't mind about the ultra-violence and all that cal.  I put up

with that.  But it's not fair on the music.  It's not fair I should

feel ill when I'm slooshying lovely Ludwig van and G. F. Handel

and others.  All that shows you're an evil lot of bastards and I

shall never forgive you, sods."

They both looked a bit like thoughtful.  Then Dr. Brodsky

said: "Delimitation is always difficult.  The world is one, life is

one.  The sweetest and most heavenly of activities partake in

some measure of violence - the act of love, for instance;

music, for instance.  You must take your chance, boy.  The

choice has been all yours."  I didn't understand all these slovos,

but now I said:

"You needn't take it any further, sir."  I'd changed my tune a

malenky bit in my cunning way.  "You've proved to me that all

this dratsing and ultra-violence and killing is wrong wrong

and terribly wrong.  I've learned my lesson, sirs.  I see now

what I've never seen before.  I'm cured, praise God."  And I

raised my glazzies in a like holy way to the ceiling.  But both

these doctors shook their gullivers like sadly and Dr. Brodsky

said:

"You're not cured yet.  There's still a lot to be done.  Only

when your body reacts promptly and violently to violence, as

to a snake, without further help from us, without medication,

only then - "  I said:

"But, sir, sirs, I see that it's wrong.  It's wrong because it's

against like society, it's wrong because every veck on earth

has the right to live and be happy without being beaten and

tolchocked and knifed.  I've learned a lot, oh really I have."

But Dr. Brodsky had a loud long smeck at that, showing all his

white zoobies, and said:

"The heresy of an age of reason," or some such slovos.  "I

see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong.  No, no,

my boy, you must leave it all to us.  But be cheerful about it.  It

will soon be all over.  In less than a fortnight now you'll be a

free man."  Then he patted me on the pletcho.

Less than a fortnight, O my brothers and friends, it was like

an age.  It was like from the beginning of the world to the end

of it.  To finish the fourteen years without remission in the

Staja would have been nothing to it.  Every day it was the

same.  When the devotchka with the hypodermic came round,

though, four days after this govoreeting with Dr. Brodsky and

Dr. Branom, I said: "Oh, no you won't," and tolchocked her on

the rooker, and the syringe went tinkle clatter on to the

floor.  That was like to viddy what they would do.  What they

did was to get four or five real bolshy white-coated bastards

of under-vecks to hold me down on the bed, tolchocking me

with grinny litsos close to mine, and then this nurse ptitsa

said: "You wicked naughty little devil, you," while she jabbed

my rooker with another syringe and squirted this stuff in real

brutal and nasty.  And then I was wheeled off exhausted to this

like hell sinny as before.

Every day, my brothers, these films were like the same, all

kicking and tolchocking and red red krovvy dripping off of

litsos and plotts and spattering all over the camera lenses.  It

was usually grinning and smecking malchicks in the heighth of

nadsat fashion, or else teeheeheeing Jap torturers or brutal

Nazi kickers and shooters.  And each day the feeling of want-

ing to die with the sickness and gulliver pains and aches in the

zoobies and horrible horrible thirst grew really worse.  Until

one morning I tried to defeat the bastards by crash crash

crashing my gulliver against the wall so that I should tolchock

myself unconscious, but all that happened was I felt sick with

viddying that this kind of violence was like the violence in the

films, so I was just exhausted and was given the injection and

was wheeled off like before.

And then there came a morning when I woke up and had my

breakfast of eggs and toast and jam and very hot milky chai,

and then I thought: "It can't be much longer now.  Now must

be very near the end of the time.  I have suffered to the

heighths and cannot suffer any more."  And I waited and

waited, brothers, for this nurse ptitsa to bring in the syringe,

but she did not come.  And then the white-coated under-veck

came and said:

"Today, old friend, we are letting you walk."

"Walk?" I said.  "Where?"

"To the usual place," he said.  "Yes, yes, look not so aston-

ished.  You are to walk to the films, me with you of course.

You are no longer to be carried in a wheelchair."

"But," I said, "how about my horrible morning injection?"

For I was really surprised at this, brothers, they being so keen

on pushing this Ludovico veshch into me, as they said.  "Don't

I get that horrible sicky stuff rammed into my poor suffering

rooker any more?"

"All over," like smecked this veck.  "For ever and ever amen.

You're on your own now, boy.  Walking and all to the

chamber of horrors.  But you're still to be strapped down and

made to see.  Come on then, my little tiger."  And I had to put

my over-gown and toofles on and walk down the corridor to

the like sinny mesto.

Now this time, O my brothers, I was not only very sick but

very puzzled.  There it was again, all the old ultra-violence and

vecks with their gullivers smashed and torn krovvy-dripping

ptitsas creeching for mercy, the like private and individual

fillying and nastiness.  Then there were the prison-camps and

the Jews and the grey like foreign streets full of tanks and

uniforms and vecks going down in withering rifle-fire, this

being the public side of it.  And this time I could blame nothing

for me feeling sick and thirsty and full of aches except what I

was forced to viddy, my glazzies still being clipped open and

my nogas and plott fixed to the chair but this set of wires and

other veshches no longer coming out of my plott and gulli-

ver.  So what could it be but the films I was viddying that were

doing this to me?  Except, of course, brothers, that this Lu-

dovico stuff was like a vaccination and there it was cruising

about in my krovvy, so that I would be sick always for ever

and ever amen whenever I viddied any of this ultra-violence.

So now I squared my rot and went boo hoo hoo, and the

tears like blotted out what I was forced to viddy in like all

blessed runny silvery dewdrops.  But these white-coat

bratchnies were skorry with their tashtooks to wipe the tears

away, saying: "There there, wazzums all weepy-weepy den."

And there it was again all clear before my glazzies, these