A Clockwork Orange / Заводной апельсин

1

“What's it going to be then, eh?[1]”

There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs[2], that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim. Dim was really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks[3]what to do with the evening. The Korova Milkbar was a mesto[4], where they sold milk plus something else. They had no license for selling liquor, but there was no law yet against putting some of the new veshches[5] into the old moloko[6], so you could peet[7] it and it would give you a nice horrorshow[8] fifteen minutes admiring Bog[9] And All His Holy Angels in your left shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg[10]. Or you could peet milk with knives[11] in it, as we used to say, and this would make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one[12], and that was what we were peeting this evening as I'm starting the story with.

Our pockets were full of deng[13], so there was no real need to crast[14] any more pretty polly[15] to tolchock[16] some old veck[17] in an alley and viddy[18] him swim in his blood while we counted the takings[19] and divided by four, nor to do the ultra-violent on some starry[20] grey-haired ptitsa[21] in a shop and go smecking[22] off with the till's guts[23]. But, as they say, money isn't everything. The four of us were dressed in the height of fashion, which in those days was a pair of black very tight tights. Then we wore waisty jackets without lapels but with these very big built-up shoulders ('pletchoes[24]' we called them). Then, we had these white cravats which looked like whipped-up kartoffel[25] or spud with a sort of a design made on it with a fork.

We wore our hair not too long and we had horrorshow boots for kicking. “What's it going to be then, eh?” There were three devotchkas[26] sitting at the counter all together, but there were four of us malchicks[27] and it was usually like one for all and all for one. These sharps[28] were dressed in the height of fashion too, with purple and green and orange wigs on their gullivers[29], each one not costing less than three or four weeks of those sharps' wages, I should think, and make-up to match (rainbows round the glazzies[30], that is, and the rot[31] painted very wide). Then they had long black very straight dresses, and on the groody[32] part of them they had little badges of like silver with different malchicks' names on them – Joe and Mike and suchlike. These were supposed to be the names of the different malchicks they'd spatted[33] with before they were fourteen. They kept looking our way and I nearly felt like saying the three of us should go off for a bit of pol[34] and leave poor old Dim behind, because it would be just a matter of kupetting[35]Dim a demi-litre of white[36] but this time with a dollop of drug in it, but that wouldn't really have been playing like the game fair[37]. Dim was very ugly and like his name, but he was a horrorshow fighter.

“What's it going to be then, eh?”

The chelloveck[38] sitting next to me was well away with his glazzies glazed and sort of burbling some senseless slovos[39]. He was in the land all right, well away, in orbit, and I knew what it was like, having tried it like everybody else had done, but at this time I'd got to thinking it was a cowardly sort of a veshch. You'd lay there after you'd drunk the old moloko and then you got the messel[40] that everything all round you was sort of in the past. You could viddy it all right, all of it, very clear – tables, the stereo, the lights, the sharps and the malchicks – but it was like some veshch that used to be there but was not there not no more. And you were sort of hypnotized by your boot or shoe or a finger-nail as it might be, and at the same time you were sort of picked up by the scruff[41]and shook like you might be a cat. You got shook and shook till there was nothing left. You lost your name and your body and your self and you just didn't care, and you waited until your boot or finger-nail got yellow, then yellower and yellower all the time. Then the lights started cracking like atomics[42] and the boot or finger-nailor, as it might be, a bit of dirt on your trouser-bottom turned into a big mesto, bigger than the whole world, and you were just going to get introduced to old Bog or God when it was all over.

You came back to here and now started sort of whimpering. Now that's very nice but very cowardly. You were not put on this earth just to get in touch[43] with God. That sort of thing could sap all the strength and the goodness out of a chelloveck. “What's it going to be then, eh?”

The stereo was on and you got the idea that the singer's goloss[44] was moving from one part of the bar to another, flying up to the ceiling and then falling down again and again. One of the three ptitsas at the counter, the one with the green wig, kept pushing her belly out and pulling it in in time to what they called the music. I could feel the knives in the old moloko starting to work, and now I was ready for a bit of twenty-to-one. So I said: “Out out out out!”, and then I gave this veck who was sitting next to me a horrorshow crack on the ooko[45] or earhole, but he didn't feel it and went on with his senseless slovos. He'd feel it all right when he came to. “Where out?” said Georgie.

“Oh, just to keep walking,” I said, “and viddy what turns up.”

So we ran out into the big winter nochy[46] and walked down Marghanita Boulevard and then turned into Boothby Avenue, and there we found what we were pretty well looking for, a malenky[47] jest to start off the evening with. There was a starry schoolmaster type veck, glasses on and his rot open to the cold nochy air. He had books under his arm and a crappy umbrella and was coming round the corner from the Public Biblio[48], which not many lewdies[49] used these days. You never really saw many of the older bourgeois type out after nightfall those days, what with[50] the shortage of police and we fine young malchickiwicks[51] about, and this prof type chelloveck was the only one walking in the whole of the street. So we goolied[52] up to him, very polite, and I said: “Pardon me, brother.”

He looked a malenky bit poogly[53] when he viddied the four of us like that, coming up so quiet and polite and smiling, but he said: “Yes? What is it?” in a very loud teacher-type goloss, as if he was trying to show us he wasn't poogly. I said: “I see you have books under your arm, brother. It is indeed a rare pleasure these days to come across somebody that still reads, brother.”

“Oh,” he said, all shaky. “Is it? Oh, I see.” And he kept looking from one to the other of we four, finding himself now like in the middle of a very smiling and polite square.

“Yes,” Isaid. “It would interest me greatly, brother, if you would kindly allow me to see what books those are that you have under your arm. I like nothing better in this world than a good clean book, brother.”

“Clean,” he said. “Clean, eh?” And then Pete skvatted[54]these three books from him and handed them round real skorry[55].

Being three, we all had one each to viddy at except for Dim. The one I had was called 'Elementary Crystallography', so I opened it up and said: “Excellent, really first-class,” keeping turning the pages. Then I said in a very shocked type goloss: “But what is this here? What is this filthy slovo? I blush to look at this word. You disappoint me, brother, you do really.”

“But,” he tried, “but, but.”

“Now,” said Georgie, “here is what I should call real dirt. There's one slovo beginning with an 'f and another with a 'c'.” He had a book called 'The Miracle of the Snowflake.' “Oh,” said poor old Dim, smotting[56] over Pete's shoulder and going too far, like he always did[57], “it says here what he done to her, and there's a picture and all. Why,” he said, “you're nothing but a filthy-minded old skitebird[58].”

“An old man of your age, brother,” I said, and I started to rip up the book I'd got, and the others did the same with the ones they had. Dim and Pete doing a tug-of-war with 'The Rhombohedral System'. The starry prof type began to creech[59]: “But those are not mine, those are the property of the municipality, this is vandal work,” or some such slovos. And he tried to wrest the books back off of us, which was like pathetic. “You deserve to be taught a lesson[60], brother,” I said, “that you do.” This crystal book I had was very tough-bound and hard to razrez[61]to bits, being real starry and made in days when things were made to last like, but I managed to rip the pages up and toss them in handfuls of like snowflakes all over this creeching old veck, and then the others did the same with theirs, old Dim just dancing about like the clown he was. “There you are,” said Pete, “you dirty reader of filth.”

 “You naughty old veck, you,” I said, and then we began to filly about[62] with him. Pete held his rookers[63]and Georgie sort of opened his rot and Dim yanked out his false zoobies[64], upper and lower. He threw these down on the pavement and then I crushed them, though they were hard bastards like, being made of some new horrorshow plastic stuff. The old veck began to make sort of chumbling[65] shooms[66] – “wuf waf wof” – so Georgie let go of his goobers[67] and just let him have one[68] in the toothless rot with his ringy fist, and that made the old veck start moaning a lot then, then out comes the blood, my brothers, real beautiful. So all we did then was to pull his outer platties[69] off, stripping him down to his vest and long underpants, and then Pete kicks him lovely in his pot, and we let him go. He went sort of staggering off, it not having been too hard of a tolchock really, going “Oh oh oh”, not knowing where or what was what really, and we had a snigger at him[70] and then riffled through his pockets[71], Dim dancing round with his crappy umbrella meanwhile, but there wasn't much in them. There were a few starry letters, some of them dating right back to 1960 with “My dearest dearest” in them and all that chepooka[72], and a keyring and a starry pen. Old Dim gave up his umbrella dance and of course had to start reading one of the letters out loud, like to show the empty street he could read. “My darling one,” he recited, in this very high type goloss, “I shall be thinking of you while you are away and hope you will remember to dress warm when you go out at night.” Then he let out a very shoomny[73]smeck[74] – “Ho ho ho” – pretending to start wiping his yahma[75] with it. “All right,” I said. “Let it go[76].” In the trousers of this starry veck there was only a malenky bit of cutter[77] (money, that is[78]). Then we broke the umbrella and razrezzed his platties and gave them to the blowing winds, my brothers, and then we'd finished with the starry teacher type veck. We hadn't done much, I know, but that was only like the start of the evening and I make no appy polly loggies[79] to you for that. The knives in the milk plus were working nice and horrorshow now. The next thing was to do the sammy[80] act, which was one way to unload some of our cutter so we'd have more reason like for some shop-crasting, as well as to buy an alibi in advance, so we went into the Duke of New York on Amis Avenue and sure enough there were three or four old baboochkas[81] peeting their suds. Now we were the very good malchicks, smiling to one and all, though these wrinkled old cheenas[82] started to get all shook, their veiny old rookers all trembling round their glasses, and making the suds spill on the table. “Leave us be, lads[83],” said one of them, “we're only poor old women.” But we just smiled, sat down, rang the bell, and waited for the boy to come. When he came, all nervous and rubbing his rookers on his grazzy[84] apron, we ordered us four veterans – a veteran being rum and cherry brandy mixed, which was popular just then. Then I said to the boy:

“Give these poor old baboochkas over there a nourishing something. Large Scotchmen all round and something to take away.” And I poured my pocket of deng all over the table, and the other three did likewise. So double firegolds[85] were brought in for the scared starry cheenas, and they knew not what to do or say. One of them got out “Thanks, lads,” but you could see they thought there was something dirty like coming. Anyway, they were each given a bottle of Yank General, cognac that is, to take away. Then with the cutter that was left over we did purchase all the meat pies, pretzels, cheese-snacks, crisps and chocbars in that mesto, and those too were for the old sharps[86]. Then we said: “Back in a minoota[87],” and the old ptitsas were still saying: “Thanks, lads,” and “God bless you, boys,” and we were going out without one cent of cutter in our carmans[88]. “Makes you feel real dobby[89], that does,” said Pete. Well, we went off now round the corner to Attlee Avenue, and there was this sweets and cancers[90] shop still open. We'd left them alone near three months now and the whole district had been very quiet on the whole, so the armed millicents[91] or rozz[92] patrols weren't round there much, being more north of the river these days. We put our maskies[93] on – new jobs these were, real horrorshow, wonderfully done really; they were like faces of historical personalitities and I had Disraeli[94], Pete had Elvis Presley, Georgie had Henry VIII and poor old Dim had a poet veck called Peebee Shelley[95]; they were a real like disguise, hair and all, and they were some very special plastic veshch so you could roll it up when you'd done with it and hide it in your boot – then three of us went in. Pete keeping chasso without[96], though there was nothing to worry about out there. As soon as we entered the shop we went for Slouse who ran it, who viddied at once what was coming and made straight for the inside where the telephone was and perhaps his well-oiled pooshka[97], complete with six dirty rounds. Dim was round that counter skorry as a bird, and what you could viddy then was a sort of a big ball rolling into the inside of the shop behind the curtain, this being old Dim and Slouse sort of locked in a death struggle.

Then you could slooshy[98] panting and snoring and kicking behind the curtain and veshches falling over and swearing and then glass going smash smash smash. Mother Slouse, the wife, was sort of froze behind the counter. We could tell she would creech murder[99] given one chance, so I was round that counter very skorry and had a hold of her. I'd got my rooker round her rot to stop her belting out death, but this lady doggie gave me a large foul big bite on it and it was me that did the creeching, and then she opened up beautiful with a flip[100] yell for the millicents. Well, then she had to be tolchocked proper with one of the weights for the scales[101], and then a fair tap with a crowbar they had for opening cases, and that brought the red out like an old friend. So we had her down on the floor and a rip of her platties for fun and a gentle bit of the boot to stop her moaning. And, viddying her lying there with her groodies on show, I wondered should I or not, but that was for later on in the evening. Then we cleaned the till[102], and there was horrorshow takings that nochy, and we had a few packs of the very best top cancers apiece, then off we went, my brothers.

 “A real big heavy great bastard he was,” Dim kept saying. I didn't like the look of Dim: he looked dirty and untidy, like a veck who'd been in a fight, which he had been, of course, but you should never look as though you have been. His cravat was like someone had trampled on it, his maskie had been pulled off and he had floor-dirt on his litso, so we got him in an alleyway and tidied him up a malenky bit, soaking our tashtooks[103] in spit to cheest[104]the dirt off. We were back in the Duke of New York very skorry and I reckoned by my watch we hadn't been more than ten minutes away. The starry old baboochkas were still there on the suds and Scotchmen we'd bought them, and we said: “Hallo there, girlies, what's it going to be?” They started on the old “Very kind, lads, God bless you, boys,” and so we rang the collocol[105] and brought a different waiter in this time and we ordered beers with rum in, being sore athirst, my brothers, and whatever the old ptitsas wanted. Then I said to the old baboochkas: “We haven't been out of here, have we? Been here all the time, haven't we?” They all caught on real skorry and said:

“That's right, lads. Not been out of our sight, you haven't. God bless you, boys,” drinking.

Not that it mattered much, really. About half an hour went by before there was any sign of life among the millicents, and then it was only two very young rozzes that came in their big copper's shlemmies[106]. One said: “You lot know anything about the happenings at Slouse's shop this night?”

“Us?” I said, innocent. “Why, what happened?”

“Stealing and roughing. Two hospitalizations.

Where've you lot been this evening?”

“I don't go for that nasty tone,” I said. “I don't care much for these nasty insinuations, my little brothers.”

“They've been in here all night, lads,” the old sharps started to creech out. “God bless them, there's no better lot of boys living for kindness and generosity. Been here all the time they have. Not seen them move we haven't.”

“We're only asking,” said the other young millicent. “We've got ourjob to do like anyone else.” But they gave us the nasty warning look before they went out. As they were going out we handed them a bit of lip-music: brrrrzzzzrrrr. But, myself, I couldn't help a bit of disappointment at things as they were those days. Nothing to fight against really. Everything as easy as kiss-my-sharries[107]. Still, the night was still very young.

2

When we got outside of the Duke of New York we viddied an old pyahnitsa[108] or drunkie, singing the filthy songs of his fathers. One veshch I could never stand was that. I could never stand to see a moodge[109] all filthy and burping and drunk, whatever his age might be, but more especially when he was real starry like this one was. He was sort of flattened to the wall and his platties were a disgrace, all creased and untidy and covered in cal[110] and mud and filth and stuff. So we got hold of him and cracked him with a few good horrorshow tolchocks, but he still went on singing. The song went:

But when Dim fisted him a few times on his filthy drunkard's rot he shut up singing and started to creech: “Go on, do me in, you bastard cowards, I don't want to live anyway, not in a stinking world like this one.” I told Dim to lay off a bit then, because it used to interest me sometimes to slooshy what some of these starry decreps[111]had to say about life and the world. I said: “Oh. And what's stinking about it?” He cried out: “It's a stinking world because it lets the young get on to the old like you done, and there's no law nor order no more.” He was creeching out loud and waving his rookers and making real horrorshow with the slovos: “It's no world for any old man any longer, and that means that I'm not one bit scared of you, my boyos, because I'm too drunk to feel the pain if you hit me, and if you kill me I'll be glad to be dead.” We smecked and then grinned but said nothing, and then he said: “What sort of a world is it at all? Men on the moon and men spinning round, and there's not more attention paid to earthly law nor order no more. So you may do your worst, you filthy cowardly hooligans.” Then he gave us some lip-music – “Prrrrzzzzrrrr” – like we'd done to those young millicents, and then he started singing again:

So we cracked into him lovely, grinning all over our litsos, but he still went on singing. Then we tripped him so he laid down flat and heavy and a bucketload of beervomit came out. That was disgusting so we gave him the boot[113], one go each, and then it was blood, not song nor vomit, that came out of his filthy old rot. Then we went on our way. It was round by the Municipal Power Plant that we came across Billyboy and his five droogs. Now in those days, my brothers, the teaming up was mostly by fours or fives. Sometimes gangs would gang up so as to make like malenky armies for big night-war, but mostly it was best to roam in these like small numbers. Billyboy was something that made me want to sick just to viddy his fat grinning litso[114], and he always had this von[115] of very stale oil that's been used for frying over and over, even when he was dressed in his best platties, like now. They viddied us just as we viddied them: this would be real, this would be proper, this would be the nozh[116], the oozy[117], the britva[118], not just fisties and boots. Billyboy and his droogs stopped what they were doing, which was just getting ready to perform something on a weepy young devotchka they had there, not more than ten, she creeching away but with her platties still on. Billyboy holding her by one rooker and his number-one, Leo, holding the other. They'd probably just been doing the dirty slovo part of the act before getting down to a malenky bit of ultra-violence. When they viddied us a-coming they let go of this little ptitsa, and she ran with her thin white legs flashing through the dark, still going “Oh oh oh”. I said, smiling very wide and droogie: “ Well, if it isn't fat stinking billygoat[119] Billyboy. How art thou[120], thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip-oil[121]? Come and get one in the yarbles[122], if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly, thou.” And then we started.

There were four of us to six of them, like I have already indicated, but poor old Dim, for all his dimness[123], was worth three of the others in sheer madness and dirty fighting. Dim had a real horrorshow length of oozy or chain round his waist, twice wound round, and he unwound this and began to swing it beautiful in the eyes or glazzies. Pete and Georgie had good sharp nozhes, but I for my own part had a fine starry horrorshow cutthroat britva which, at that time, I could flash artistic. So there we were dratsing[124] away in the dark, the old Luna just coming up. With my britva I managed to slit right down the front of one of Billyboy's droog's platties, very very neat and not even touching the plott[125] under the cloth. Then in the dratsing this droog of Billyboy's suddenly found himself all opened up like a peapod, with his belly bare and his poor old yarbles showing, and then he got very razdraz[126], waving and screaming and losing his control, so that old Dim chained him right in the glazzies, and this droog of Billyboy's went tottering off and howling his heart out. We were doing very horrorshow, and soon we had Billyboy's number-one down underfoot, blinded with old Dim's chain and crawling and howling about like an animal, but with one fair boot on the gulliver he was out.

Of the four of us Dim, as usual, got the worst, that is to say his litso was all bloodied and his platties a dirty mess, but the others of us were still cool and whole. It was stinking fatty Billyboy I wanted now, and there I was dancing about with my britva like I might be a barber on board a ship on a very rough sea, trying to get in at him with a few fair slashes on his unclean oily litso. Billyboy had a long nozh but he was a malenky bit too slow and heavy in his movements to vred[127] anyone really bad. And, my brothers, it was real satisfaction to me to waltz – left two three, right two three – and carve left cheeky and right cheeky, so that like twocurtains of blood seemed to pour out at the same time, one on either side of his fat filthy oily snout in the winter starlight. Down this blood poured in like red curtains, but you could viddy Billyboy felt not a thing, and he went on like a filthy fatty bear, poking at me with his nozh.

Then we slooshied the sirens and knew the millicents were coming with their pooshkas. That weepy little devotchka had told them, no doubt, there being a box for calling the rozzes not too far behind the Muni Power Plant. “Get you soon, fear not,” I called, “stinking billygoat[128]. I'll have your yarbles off lovely.” Then off they ran, except for Number One Leo on the ground, away north towards the river, and we went the other way. Just round the next turning was an alley, dark and empty and open at both ends, and we rested there, panting fast then slower, then breathing like normal. It was like resting between the feet of two terrific and very enormous mountains, these being the flatblocks[129], and in the windows of all the flats you could viddy like blue dancing light. This would be the telly. Tonight was what they called a worldcast, meaning that the same programme was being viddied by everybody in the world that wanted to, that being mostly the middle-aged middle-class lewdies. We waited panting, and we could slooshy the sirening millicents going east, so we knew we were all right now. But poor old Dim kept looking up at the stars and planets and the Luna with his rot wide open like a kid who'd never viddied any such things before, and he said: