Stanley Kubrick's A clockwork orange: based on the novel by Anthony Burgess (27 page)

I passed out I viddied clear that not one chelloveck in the

whole horrid world was for me and that that music through

the wall had all been like arranged by those who were sup-

posed to be my like new droogs and that it was some veshch

like this that they wanted for their horrible selfish and boast-

ful politics.  All that was in like a million millionth part of one

minoota before I threw over the world and the sky and the

litsos of the staring chellovecks that were above me.

Where I was when I came back to jeezny after a long black

black gap of it might have been a million years was a hospital,

all white and with this von of hospitals you get, all like sour

and smug and clean.  These antiseptic veshches you get in hos-

pitals should have a real horrorshow von of like frying

onions or of flowers.  I came very slow back to knowing who

I was and I was all bound up in white and I could not feel

anything in my plott, pain nor sensation nor any veshch at all.

All round my gulliver was a bandage and there were bits of

stuff like stuck to my litso, and my rookers were all in

bandages and like bits of stick were like fixed to my fingers like

on it might be flowers to make them grow straight, and my

poor old nogas were all straightened out too, and it was all

bandages and wire cages and into my right rooker, near the

pletcho, was red red krovvy dripping from a jar upside down.

But I could not feel anything, O my brothers.  There was a

nurse sitting by my bed and she was reading some book that

was all very dim print and you could viddy it was a story

because of a lot of inverted commas, and she was like breath-

ing hard uh uh uh over it, so it must have been a story about

the old in-out in-out.  She was a real horrorshow devotchka,

this nurse, with a very red rot and like long lashes over her

glazzies, and under her like very stiff uniform you could viddy

she had very horrorshow groodies.  So I said to her: "What

gives, O my little sister?  Come thou and have a nice lay-down

with your malenky droog in this bed."  But the slovos didn't

come out horrorshow at all, it being as though my rot was all

stiffened up, and I could feel with my yahzick that some of my

zoobies were no longer there.  But this nurse like jumped and

dropped her book on the floor and said:

"Oh, you've recovered consciousness."

That was like a big rotful for a malenky ptitsa like her, and

I tried to say so, but the slovos came out only like er er er.

She ittied off and left me on my oddy knocky, and I could

viddy now that I was in a malenky room of my own, not in

one of these long wards like I had been in as a very little

malchick, full of coughing dying starry vecks all around to

make you want to get well and fit again.  It had been like

diphtheria I had had then, O my brothers.

It was like now as though I could not hold to being con-

scious all that long, because I was like asleep again almost

right away, very skorry, but in a minoota or two I was sure

that this nurse ptitsa had come back and had brought chello-

vecks in white coats with her and they were viddying me very

frowning and going hm hm hm at Your Humble Narrator.  And

with them I was sure there was the old charles from the Staja

govoreeting: "Oh my son, my son," breathing a like very stale

von of whisky on to me and then saying: "But I would not

stay, oh no.  I could not in no wise subscribe to what those

bratchnies are going to do to other poor prestoopnicks.  O I

got out and am preaching sermons now about it all, my little

beloved son in J. C."

I woke up again later on and who should I viddy there

round the bed but the three from whose flat I had jumped out,

namely D. B. da Silva and Something Something Rubinstein

and Z. Dolin.  "Friend," one of these vecks was saying, but I

could not viddy, or slooshy horrorshow which one, "friend,

little friend," this goloss was saying, "the people are on fire

with indignation.  You have killed those horrible boastful

villains' chances of re-election.  They will go and will go

for ever and ever.  You have served Liberty well."  I tried to

say:

"If I had died it would have been even better for you politi-

cal bratchnies, would it not, pretending and treacherous

droogs as you are."  But all that came out was er er er.  Then

one of these three seemed to hold out a lot of bits cut from

gazettas and what I could viddy was a horrible picture of me

all krovvy on a stretcher being carried off and I seemed to like

remember a kind of a popping of lights which must have been

photographer vecks.  Out of one glazz I could read like head-

lines which were sort of trembling in the rooker of the

chelloveck that held them, like BOY VICTIM OF CRIMINAL

REFORM SCHEME and GOVERNMENT AS MUR-

DERER and there was like a picture of a veck that

looked familiar to me and it said OUT OUT OUT, and that

would be the Minister of the Inferior or Interior.  Then the

nurse ptitsa said:

"You shouldn't be exciting him like that.  You shouldn't be

doing anything that will make him upset.  Now come on, let's

have you out."  I tried to say:

"Out out out," but it was er er er again.  Anyway, these three

political vecks went.  And I went, too, only back to the land,

back to all blackness lit up by like odd dreams which I didn't

know whether they were dreams or not, O my brothers.  Like

for instance I had this idea of my whole plott or body being

like emptied of as it might be dirty water and then filled up

again with clean.  And then there were really lovely and horror-

show dreams of being in some veck's auto that had been crasted

by me and driving up and down the world all on my oddy

knocky running lewdies down and hearing them creech they

were dying, and in me no pain and no sickness.  And also there

were dreams of doing the old in-out in-out with devotchkas,

forcing like them down on the ground and making them have

it and everybody standing around claping their rookers and

cheering like bezoomny.  And then I woke up again and it was

my pee and em come to viddy their ill son, my em boohooing

real horrorshow.  I could govoreet a lot better now and could say:

"Well well well well well, what gives?  What makes you think

you are like welcome?"  My papapa said, in a like ashamed

way:

"You were in the papers, son.  It said they had done great

wrong to you.  It said how the Government drove you to try

and do yourself in.  And it was our fault too, in a way, son.

Your home's your home, when all's said and done, son."  And

my mum kept on going boohoohoo and looking ugly as kiss-

my-sharries.  So I said:

"And how beeth the new son Joe?  Well and healthy and

prosperous, I trust and pray?"  My mum said:

"Oh, Alex Alex.  Owwwwwwww."  My papapa said:

"A very awkward thing, son.  He got into a bit of trouble

with the police and was done by the police."

"Really?" I said.  "Really?  Such a good sort of chelloveck and

all.  Amazed proper I am, honest."

"Minding his own business he was," said my pee.  "And the

police told him to move on.  Waiting at a corner he was, son,

to see a girl he was going to meet.  And they told him to move

on and he said he had rights like everybody else, and then they

sort of fell on top of him and hit him about cruel."

"Terrible," I said.  "Really terrible.  And where is the poor boy

now?"

"Owwwww," boohooed my mum. "Gone back owww-

wwwme."

"Yes," said dad.  "He's gone back to his own home town to

get better.  They've had to give his job here to somebody

else."

"So now," I said, "You're willing for me to move back in

again and things be like they were before."

"Yes, son," said my papapa.  "Please, son."

"I'll consider it," I said.  "I'll think about it real careful."

"Owwwww," went my mum.

"Ah, shut it," I said, "or I'll give you something proper to

yowl and creech about.  Kick your zoobies in I will."  And, O

my brothers, saying that made me feel a malenky bit better, as

if all like fresh red red krovvy was flowing all through my

plott.  That was something I had to think about.  It was like as

though to get better I had had to get worse.

"That's no way to speak to your mother, son," said my

papapa.  "After all, she brought you into the world."

"Yes," I said.  "And a right grahzny vonny world too."  I shut

my glazzies tight in like pain and said: "Go away now.  I'll think

about coming back.  But things will have to be very

different."

"Yes, son," said my pee.  "Anything you say."

"You'll have to make up your mind," I said, "who's to be

boss."

"Owwwwww," my mum went on.

"Very good, son," said my papapa.  "Things will be as you

like.  Only get well."

When they had gone I laid and thought a bit about different

veshches, like all different pictures passing through my gulliver,

and when the nurse ptitsa came back in and like straightened

the sheets on the bed I said to her:

"How long is it I've been in here?"

"A week or so," she said.

"And what have they been doing to me?"

"Well," she said, "you were all broken up and bruised and

had sustained severe concussion and had lost a lot of blood.

They've had to put all that right, haven't they?"

"But," I said, "has anyone been doing anything with my gulli-

ver?  What I mean is, have they been playing around with

inside like my brain?"

"Whatever they've done," she said, "it'll all be for the

best."

But a couple of days later a couple of like doctor vecks

came in, both youngish vecks with these very sladky smiles,

and they had like a picture book with them.  One of them said:

"We want you to have a look at these and to tell us what you

think about them.  All right?"

"What giveth, O little droogies?" I said.  "What new be-

zoomny idea dost thou in mind have?"  So they both had a

like embarrassed smeck at that and then they sat down either

side of the bed and opened up this book.  On the first page

there was like a photograph of a bird-nest full of eggs.

"Yes?" one of these doctor vecks said.

"A bird-nest," I said, "full of like eggs.  Very very nice."

"And what would you like to do about it?" the other one

said.

"Oh," I said, "smash them.  Pick up the lot and like throw

them against a wall or a cliff or something and then viddy

them all smash up real horrorshow."

"Good good," they both said, and then the page was turned.

It was like a picture of one of these bolshy great birds called

peacocks with all its tail spread out in all colours in a very

boastful way.  "Yes?" said one of these vecks.

"I would like," I said, "to pull out like all those feathers in its