Stanley Kubrick's A clockwork orange: based on the novel by Anthony Burgess (26 page)

it away with like very impatient rookers.  He was a malenky

round veck, fat, with big thick-framed otchkies on.  Then there

was Something Something Rubinstein, a very tall and polite

chelloveck with a real gentleman's goloss, very starry with a

like eggy beard.  And lastly there was D. B. da Silva who was

like skorry in his movements and had this strong von of scent

coming from him.  They all had a real horrorshow look at me

and seemed like overjoyed with what they viddied.  Z. Dolin

said:

"All right, all right, eh?  What a superb device he can be, this

boy.  If anything, of course, he could for preference look even

iller and more zombyish than he does.  Anything for the cause.

No doubt we can think of something."

I did not like that crack about zombyish, brothers, and so I

said: "What goes on, bratties?  What dost thou in mind for thy

little droog have?"  And the F. Alexander swooshed in

with:

"Strange, strange, that manner of voice pricks me.  We've

come into contact before, I'm sure we have."  And he brooded,

like frowning.  I would have to watch this, O my brothers.

D. B. da Silva said:

"Public meetings, mainly.  To exhibit you at public meetings

will be a tremendous help.  And, of course, the newspaper

angle is all tied up.  A ruined life is the approach.  We must

inflame all hearts."  He showed his thirty-odd zoobies, very

white against his dark-coloured litso, he looking a malenky

bit like some foreigner.  I said:

"Nobody will tell me what I get out of all this.  Tortured in

jail, thrown out of my home by my own parents and their

filthy overbearing lodger, beaten by old men and near-killed

by the millicents - what is to become of me?"  The Rubinstein

veck came in with:

"You will see, boy, that the Party will not be ungrateful.  Oh,

no.  At the end of it all there will be some very acceptable little

surprise for you.  Just you wait and see."

"There's only one veshch I require," I creeched out, "and

that's to be normal and healthy as I was in the starry days,

having my malenky bit of fun with real droogs and not those

who just call themselves that and are really more like traitors.

Can you do that, eh?  Can any veck restore me to what I was?

That's what I want and that's what I want to know."

Kashl kashl kashl, coughed this Z. Dolin.  "A martyr to the

cause of Liberty." he said.  "You have your part to play and

don't forget it.  Meanwhile, we shall look after you."  And he

began to stroke my left rooker as if I was like an idiot, grin-

ning in a bezoomny way.  I creeched:

"Stop treating me like a thing that's like got to be just used.

I'm not an idiot you can impose on, you stupid bratchnies.

Ordinary prestoopnicks are stupid, but I'm not ordinary and

nor am I dim.  Do you slooshy?"

"Dim," said F. Alexander, like musing.  "Dim.  That was a name

somewhere.  Dim."

"Eh?" I said.  "What's Dim got to do with it?  What do you

know about Dim?"  And then I said: "Oh, Bog help us."  I didn't

like the look in F. Alexander's glazzies.  I made for the

door, wanting to go upstairs and get my platties and then itty

off.

"I could almost believe," said F. Alexander, showing his

stained zoobies, his glazzies mad.  "But such things are impos-

sible.  For, by Christ, if he were I'd tear him.  I'd split him, by

God, yes yes, so I would."

"There," said D. B. da Silva, stroking his chest like he was a

doggie to calm him down.  "It's all in the past.  It was other

people altogether.  We must help this poor victim.  That's what

we must do now, remembering the Future and our Cause."

"I'll just get my platties," I said, at the stair-foot, "that is to

say clothes, and then I'll be ittying off all on my oddy knocky.

I mean, my gratitude for all, but I have my own jeezny to live."

Because, brothers, I wanted to get out of here real skorry.  But

Z. Dolin said:

"Ah, no.  We have you, friend, and we keep you.  You come

with us.  Everything will be all right, you'll see."  And he came

up to me like to grab hold of my rooker again.  Then,

brothers, I thought of fight, but thinking of fight made me like

want to collapse and sick, so I just stood.  And then I saw this

like madness in F. Alexander's glazzies and said:

"Whatever you say.  I am in your rookers.  But let's get it

started and all over, brothers."  Because what I wanted now

was to get out of this mesto called HOME.  I was beginning

not to like the look of the glazzies of F. Alexander one

malenky bit.

"Good," said this Rubinstein.  "Get dressed and let's get

started."

"Dim dim dim," F. Alexander kept saying in a like low

mutter.  "What or who was this Dim?"  I ittied upstairs real

skorry and dressed in near two seconds flat.  Then I was out

with these three and into an auto, Rubinstein one side of me

and Z. Dolin coughing kashl kashl kashl the other side.  D. B.

da Silva doing the driving, into the town and to a flatblock

not really all that distant from what had used to be my own

flatblock or home.  "Come, boy, out," said Z. Dolin, coughing

to make the cancer-end in his rot glow red like some malenky

furnace.  "This is where you shall be installed."  So we ittied in,

and there was like another of these Dignity of Labour vesh-

ches on the wall of the vestibule, and we upped in the lift,

brothers, and then went into a flat like all the flats of all the

flatblocks of the town.  Very very malenky, with two bed-

rooms and one live-eat-work-room, the table of this all

covered with books and papers and ink and bottles and all

that cal.  "Here is your new home," said D. B. da Silva.  "Settle

here, boy.  Food is in the food-cupboard.  Pyjamas are in a

drawer.  Rest, rest, perturbed spirit."

"Eh?" I said, not quite ponying that.

"All right," said Rubinstein, with his starry goloss.  "We are

now leaving you.  Work has to be done.  We'll be with you

later.  Occupy yourself as best you can."

"One thing," coughed Z. Dolin kashl kashl kashl.  "You saw

what stirred in the tortured memory of our friend F. Alexan-

der.  Was it, by chance - ?  That is to say, did you - ?  I think

you know what I mean.  We won't let it go any further."

"I've paid," I said.  "Bog knows I've paid for what I did.  I've

paid not only for like myself but for those bratchnies too

that called themselves my droogs."  I felt violent so then I felt a

bit sick.  "I'll lay down a bit," I said.  "I've been through terrible

terrible times."

"You have," said D. B. da Silva, showing all his thirty

zoobies.  "You do that."

So they left me, brothers.  They ittied off about their

business, which I took to be about politics and all that cal,

and I was on the bed, all on my oddy knocky with everything

very very quiet.  I just laid there with my sabogs kicked off my

nogas and my tie loose, like all bewildered and not knowing

what sort of a jeezny I was going to live now.  And all sorts of

like pictures kept like passing through my gulliver, of the

different chellovecks I'd met at school and in the Staja, and

the different veshches that had happened to me, and how

there was not one veck you could trust in the whole bolshy

world.  And then I like dozed off, brothers.

When I woke up I could hear slooshy music coming out of

the wall, real gromky, and it was that that had dragged me out

of my bit of like sleep.  It was a symphony that I knew real

horrorshow but had not slooshied for many a year, namely

the Symphony Number Three of the Danish veck Otto Skade-

lig, a very gromky and violent piece, especially in the first

movement, which was what was playing now.  I slooshied for

two seconds in like interest and joy, but then it all came over

me, the start of the pain and the sickness, and I began to

groan deep down in my keeshkas.  And then there I was, me

who had loved music so much, crawling off the bed and going

oh oh oh to myself and then bang bang banging on the wall

creching: "Stop, stop it, turn it off!"  But it went on and it

seemed to be like louder.  So I crashed at the wall till my

knuckles were all red red krovvy and torn skin, creeching and

creeching, but the music did not stop.  Then I thought I had to

get away from it, so I lurched out of the malenky bedroom

and ittied skorry to the front door of the flat, but this had

been locked from the outside and I could not get out.  And all

the time the music got more and more gromky, like it was all

a deliberate torture, O my brothers.  So I stuck my little fingers

real deep in my ookos, but the trombones and kettledrums

blasted through gromky enough.  So I creeched again for them

to stop and went hammer hammer hammer on the wall, but it

made not one malenky bit of difference.  "Oh, what am I to

do?" I boohooed to myself.  "Oh, Bog in Heaven help me."  I

was like wandering all over the flat in pain and sickness, trying

to shut out the music and like groaning deep out of my guts,

and then on top of the pile of books and papers and all that

cal that was on the tablein the living room I viddied what I

had to do and what I had wanted to do until those old men in

the Public Biblio and then Dim and Billyboy disguised as

rozzes stopped me, and that was to do myself in, to snuff it,

to blast off for ever out of this wicked and cruel world.  What

I viddied was the slovo DEATH on the cover of a like pam-

phlet, even though it was only DEATH to THE GOVERN-

MENT.  And like it was Fate there was another malenky

booklet which had an open window on the cover, and it said:

"Open the window to fresh air, fresh ideas, a new way of

living."  And so I knew that was like telling me to finish it all off

by jumping out.  One moment of pain, perhaps, and then sleep

for ever and ever and ever.

The music was still pouring in all brass and drums and the

violins miles up through the wall.  The window in the room

where I had laid down was open.  I ittied to it and viddied a

fair drop to the autos and buses and waiting chellovecks

below.  I creeched out to the world: "Good-bye, good-bye,

may Bog forgive you for a ruined life."  Then I got on to the

sill, the music blasting away to my left, and I shut my glazzies

and felt the cold wind on my litso, then I jumped.

6

I jumped, O my brothers, and I fell on the sidewalk hard, but I

did not snuff it, oh no.  If I had snuffed it I would not be here

to write what I written have.  It seems that the jump was not

from a big enough heighth to kill.  But I cracked my back and

my wrists and nogas and felt very bolshy pain before I passed

out, brothers, with astonished and surprised litsos of chello-

vecks in the streets looking at me from above.  And just before