Stanley Kubrick's A clockwork orange: based on the novel by Anthony Burgess (23 page)

a lot of books, but there was none with a title, brothers, that

would really do.  There was a medical book that I took down,

but when I opened it it was full of drawings and photographs

of horrible wounds and diseases, and that made me want to

sick just a bit.  So I put that back and took down the big

book or Bible, as it was called, thinking that might give me

like comfort as it had done in the old Staja days (not so old

really, but it seemed a very very long time ago), and I staggered

over to a chair to read in it.  But all I found was about smiting

seventy times seven and a lot of Jews cursing and tolchocking

each other, and that made me want to sick, too.  So then I

near cried, so that a very starry ragged moodge opposite me

said:

"What is it, son?  What's the trouble?"

"I want to snuff it," I said.  "I've had it, that's what it is.  Life's

become too much for me."

A starry reading veck next to me said: "Shhhh," without

looking up from some bezoomny mag he had full of drawings

of like bolshy geometrical veshches.  That rang a bell some-

how.  This other moodge said:

"You're too young for that, son.  Why, you've got every-

thing in front of you."

"Yes," I said, bitter.  "Like a pair of false groodies."  This mag-

reading veck said: "Shhhh" again, looking up this time, and

something clocked for both of us.  I viddied who it was.  He

said, real gromky:

"I never forget a shape, by God.  I never forget the shape of

anything.  By God, you young swine, I've got you now."  Crys-

tallography, that was it.  That was what he'd been taking away

from the Biblio that time.  False teeth crunched up real hor-

rorshow.  Platties torn off.  His books razrezzed, all about

Crystallography.  I thought I had best get out of here real

skorry, brothers.  But this starry old moodge was on his feet,

creeching like bezoomny to all the starry old coughers at the

gazettas round the walls and to them dozing over mags at the

tables.  "We have him," he creeched.  "The poisonous young

swine who ruined the books on Crystallography, rare books,

books not to be obtained ever again, anywhere."  This had a

terrible mad shoom about it, as though this old veck was

really off his gulliver.  "A prize specimen of the cowardly brutal

young," he creeched.  "Here in our midst and at our mercy.  He

and his friends beat me and kicked me and thumped me.  They

stripped me and tore out my teeth.  They laughed at my blood

and my moans.  They kicked me off home, dazed and naked."

All this wasn't quite true, as you know, brothers.  He had

some platties on, he hadn't been completely nagoy.

I creeched back: "That was over two years ago.  I've been

punished since then.  I've learned my lesson.  See over there -

my picture's in the papers."

"Punishment, eh?" said one starry like ex-soldier type.  "You

lot should be exterminated.  Like so many noisome pests.  Pun-

ishment indeed."

"All right, all right," I said.  "Everybody's entitled to his

opinion.  Forgive me, all.  I must go now."  And I started to itty

out of this mesto of bezoomny old men.  Aspirin, that was it.

You could snuff it on a hundred aspirin.  Aspirin from the old

drugstore.  But the crystallography veck creeched:

"Don't let him go.  We'll teach him all about punishment,

the murderous young pig.  Get him."  And, believe it, brothers,

or do the other veshch, two or three starry dodderers, about

ninety years old apiece, grabbed me with their trembly old

rookers, and I was like made sick by the von of old age and

disease which came from these near-dead moodges.  The crys-

tal veck was on to me now, starting to deal me malenky weak

tolchocks on my litso, and I tried to get away and itty out,

but these starry rookers that held me were stronger than I had

thought.  Then other starry vecks came hobbling from the

gazettas to have a go at Your Humble Narrator.  They were

creeching veshches like: "Kill him, stamp on him, murder him,

kick his teeth in," and all that cal, and I could viddy what it was

clear enough.  It was old age having a go at youth, that's what

it was.  But some of them were saying: "Poor old Jack, near

killed poor old Jack he did, this is the young swine" and so on,

as though it had all happened yesterday.  Which to them I

suppose it had.  There was now like a sea of vonny runny dirty

old men trying to get at me with their like feeble rookers and

horny old claws, creeching and panting on to me, but our

crystal droog was there in front, dealing out tolchock after

tolchock.  And I daren't do a solitary single veshch, O my

brothers, it being better to be hit at like that than to want to

sick and feel that horrible pain, but of course the fact that

there was violence going on made me feel that the sickness

was peeping round the corner to viddy whether to come out

into the open and roar away.

Then an attendant veck came along, a youngish veck,and he

creeched: "What goes on here?  Stop it at once.  This is a read-

ing room."  But nobody took any notice.  So the attendant

veck said: "Right, I shall phone the police."  So I creeched, and I

never thought I would ever do that in all my jeezny:

"Yes yes yes, do that, protect me from these old madmen."  I

noticed that the attendant veck was not too anxious to join

in the dratsing and rescue me from the rage and madness of

these starry vecks' claws; he just scatted off to his like office

or wherever the telephone was.  Now these old men were pan-

ting a lot now, and I felt I could just flick at them and they

would all fall over, but I just let myself be held, very patient,

by these starry rookers, my glazzies closed, and feel the feeble

tolchocks on my litso, also slooshy the panting breathy old

golosses creeching: "Young swine, young murderer, hooligan,

thug, kill him."  Then I got such a real painful tolchock on the

nose that I said to myself to hell to hell, and I opened my

glazzies up and started to struggle to get free, which was not

hard, brothers, and I tore off creeching to the sort of hallway

outside the reading-room.  But these starry avengers still came

after me, panting like dying, with their animal claws all trem-

bling to get at your friend and Humble Narrator.  Then I was

tripped up and was on the floor and was being kicked at, then

I slooshied golosses of young vecks creeching: "All right, all

right, stop it now," and I knew the police had arrived.

3

I was like dazed, O my brothers, and could not viddy very

clear, but I was sure I had met these millicents some mesto

before.  The one who had hold of me, going: "There there

there," just by the front door of the Public Biblio, him I did

not know at all, but it seemed to me he was like very young to

be a rozz.  But the other two had backs that I was sure I had

viddied before.  They were lashing into these starry old vecks

with great bolshy glee and joy, swishing away with malenky

whips, creeching: "There, you naughty boys.  That should

teach you to stop rioting and breaking the State's Peace, you

wicked villains, you."  So they drove these panting and wheez-

ing and near dying starry avengers back into the reading-

room, then they turned round, smecking with the fun they'd

had, to viddy me.  The older one of the two said:

"Well well well well well well well.  If it isn't little Alex.  Very

long time no viddy, droog.  How goes?"  I was like dazed, the

uniform and the shlem or helmet making it hard to viddy who

this was, though litso and goloss were very familiar.  Then I

looked at the other one, and about him, with his grinning

bezoomny litso, there was no doubt.  Then, all numb and

growing number, I looked back at the well well welling one.

This one was then fatty old Billyboy, my old enemy.  The

other was, of course, Dim, who had used to be my droog and

also the enemy of stinking fatty goaty Billyboy, but was now

a millicent with uniform and shlem and whip to keep order. I

said:

"Oh no."

"Surprise, eh?"  And old Dim came out with the old guff I

remembered so horrorshow: "Huh huh huh."

"It's impossible," I said.  "It can't be so.  I don't believe

it."

"Evidence of the old glazzies," grinned Billyboy.  "Nothing up

our sleeves.  No magic, droog.  A job for two who are now of

job-age.  The police."

"You're too young," I said.  "Much too young.  They don't

make rozzes of malchicks of your age."

"Was young," went old millicent Dim.  I could not get over

it, brothers, I really could not.  "That's what we was, young

droogie.  And you it was that was always the youngest.  And

here now we are."

"I still can't believe it," I said.  Then Billyboy, rozz Billyboy

that I couldn't get over, said to this young millicent that was

like holding on to me and that I did not know:

"More good would be done, I think, Rex, if we doled out a

bit of the old summary.  Boys will be boys, as always was.  No

need to go through the old station routine.  This one here has

been up to his old tricks, as we can well remember though

you, of course, can't.  He has been attacking the aged and

defenceless, and they have properly been retaliating.  But we

must have our say in the State's name."

"What is all this?" I said, not able hardly to believe my

ookos.  "It was them that went for me, brothers.  You're not on

their side and can't be.  You can't be, Dim.  It was a veck we

fillied with once in the old days trying to get his own malenky

bit of revenge after all this long time."

"Long time is right," said Dim.  "I don't remember them days

too horrorshow.  Don't call me Dim no more, either.  Officer

call me."

"Enough is remembered, though," Billyboy kept nodding.

He was not so fatty as he had been.  "Naughty little malchicks

handy with cut-throat britvas - these must be kept under."

And they took me in a real strong grip and like walked me out

of the Biblio.  There was a millicent patrol-car waiting outside,

and this veck they called Rex was the driver.  They like tol-

chocked me into the back of this auto, and I couldn't help

feeling it was all really like a joke, and that Dim anyway would

pull his shlem off his gulliver and go haw haw haw.  But he

didn't.  I said, trying to fight the strack inside me:

"And old Pete, what happened to old Pete?  It was sad about

Georgie," I said.  "I slooshied all about that."

"Pete, oh yes, Pete," said Dim.  "I seem to remember like the

name."  I could viddy we were driving out of town.  I said:

"Where are we supposed to be going?"

Billyboy turned round from the front to say: "It's light still.

A little drive into the country, all winter-bare but lonely and

lovely.  It is not right, not always, for lewdies in the town to