Antony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange

After I had been given a nice chasha of real horrorshow coffee and some old gazettas and mags to look at while peeting it, this first veck in white came in, the one who had like signed for me, and he said: “Aha, there you are,” a silly sort of a veshch to say but it didn’t sound silly, this veck being so like nice. “My name,” he said, “is Dr. Branom. I’m Dr. Brodsky’s assistant. With your permission, I’ll just give you the usual brief overall examination.” And he took the old stetho out of his right carman. “We must make sure you’re quite fit, mustn’t we? Yes indeed, we must.” So while I lay there with my pyjama top off and he did this, that and the other, I said:

“What exactly is it, sir, that you’re going to do?”

“Oh,” said Dr. Branom, his cold stetho going all down my back, “it’s quite simple, really. We just show you some films.”

“Films?” I said. I could hardly believe my ookos, brothers, as you may well understand. “You mean,” I said, “it will be just like going to the pictures?”

“They’ll be special films,” said Dr. Branom. “Very special films. You’ll be having the first session this afternoon. Yes,” he said, getting up from bending over me, “you seem to be quite a fit young boy. A bit under-nourished perhaps. That will be the fault of the prison food. Put your pyjama top back on. After every meal,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, “we shall be giving you a shot in the arm. That should help.” I felt really grateful to this very nice Dr. Branom. I said:

“Vitamins, sir, will it be?”

“Something like that,” he said, smiling real horrorshow and friendly, “just a jab in the arm after every meal.” Then he went out. I lay on the bed thinking this was like real heaven, and I read some of the mags they’d given me—’Worldsport,’ ‘Sinny’ (this being a film mag) and ‘Goal.’ Then I lay back on the bed and shut my glazzies and thought how nice it was going to be out there again, Alex with perhaps a nice easy job during the day, me being now too old for the old skolliwoll, and then perhaps getting a new like gang together for the nochy, and the first rabbit would be to get old Dim and Pete, if they had not been got already by the millicents. This time I would be very careful not to get loveted. They were giving another like chance, me having done murder and all, and it would not be like fair to get loveted again, after going to all this trouble to show me films that were going to make me a real good malchick. I had a real horrorshow smeck at everybody’s like innocence, and I was smecking my gulliver off when they brought in my lunch on a tray. The veck who brought it was the one who’d led me to this malenky bedroom when I came into the mesto, and he said:

“It’s nice to know somebody’s happy.” It was really a very nice appetizing bit of pishcha they’d laid out on the tray—two or three lomticks of like hot roastbeef with mashed kartoffel and vedge, then there was also ice-cream and a nice hot chasha of chai. And there was even a cancer to smoke and a matchbox with one match in. So this looked like it was the life, O my brothers. Then, about half an hour after while I was lying a bit sleepy on the bed, a woman nurse came in, a real nice young devotchka with real horrorshow groodies (I had not seen such for two years) and she had a tray and a hypodermic. I said:

“Ah, the old vitamins, eh?” And I clickclicked at her but she took no notice. All she did was to slam the needle into my left arm, and then swishhhh in went the vitamin stuff. Then she went out again, clack clack on her high-heeled nogas. Then the white-coated veck who was like a male nurse came in with a wheelchair. I was a malenky bit surprised to viddy that. I said:

“What giveth then, brother? I can walk, surely, to wherever we have to itty to.” But he said:

“Best I push you there.” And indeed, O my brothers, when I got off the bed I found myself a malenky bit weak. It was the under-nourishment like Dr. Branom had said, all that horrible prison pishcha. But the vitamins in the after-meal injection would put me right. No doubt at all about that, I thought.

Where I was wheeled to, brothers, was like no sinny I had ever viddied before. True enough, one wall was all covered with silver screen, and direct opposite was a wall with square holes in for the projector to project through, and there were stereo speakers stuck all over the mesto. But against the right-hand one of the other walls was a bank of all like little meters, and in the middle of the floor facing the screen was like a dentist’s chair with all lengths of wire running from it, and I had to like crawl from the wheelchair to this, being given some help by another like male nurse veck in a white coat. Then I noticed that underneath the projection holes was like all frosted glass and I thought I viddied shadows of like people moving behind it and I thought I slooshied somebody cough kashl kashl kashl. But then all I could like notice was how weak I seemed to be, and I put that down to changing over from prison pishcha to this new rich pishcha and the vitamins injected into 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 discord. 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 professional 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 malchicks. 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.