A Clockwork Orange - 12

‘Look, droogies. Listen. Tonight I am somehow just not in the
mood. I know not why or how it is, but there it is. You three
go your own ways this nightwise, leaving me out. Tomorrow we
shall meet same place same time, me hoping to be like a lot
better.’
‘Oh,’ said Bully, ‘right sorry I am.’ But you could viddy a like
gleam in his glazzies, because now he would be taking over for
this nochy. Power power, everybody like wants power. ‘We can
postpone till tomorrow,’ said Bully. ‘what we in mind had.
Namely, that bit of shopcrasting in Gagarin Street. Flip
horrorshow takings there, droog, for the having.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You postpone nothing. You just carry on in your
own like style. Now,’ I said, ‘I itty off.’ And I got up from
my chair.
‘Where to, then?’ asked Rick.
‘That know I not,’ I said. ‘Just to be on like my own and sort
things out.’ You could viddy the old baboochkas were real
puzzled at me going out like that and like all morose and not the
bright and smecking malchickiwick you will remember. But I said:
‘Ah, to hell, to hell,’ and scatted out all on my oddy knocky
into the street.
It was dark and there was a wind sharp as a nozh getting up, and
there were very very few lewdies about. There were these patrol
cars with brutal rozzes inside them like cruising about, and now
and then on the corner you would viddy a couple of very young
millicents stamping against the bitchy cold and letting out steam
breath on the winter air, O my brothers. I suppose really a lot
of the old ultra-violence and crasting was dying out now, the
rozzes being so brutal with who they caught, though it had become
like a fight between naughty nadsats and the rozzes who could be
more skorry with the nozh and the britva and the stick and even
the gun. But what was the matter with me these days was that I
didn’t like care much. It was like something soft getting into
me and I could not pony why. What I wanted these days I did not
know. Even the music I liked to slooshy in my own malenky den
what what I would have smecked at before, brothers. I was
slooshying more like malenky romantic songs, what they call
Lieder, just a goloss and a piano, very quiet and like yearny,
different from when it had been all bolshy orchestras and me
lying on the bed between the violins and the trombones and
kettledrums. There was something happening inside me, and I
wondered if it was like some disease or if it was what they had
done to me that time upsetting my gulliver and perhaps going to
make me real bezoomny.
So thinking like this with my gulliver bent and my rookers stuck
in my trouser carmans I walked the town, brothers, and at last I
began to feel very tired and also in great need of a nice bolshy
chasha of milky chai. Thinking about this chai, I got a sudden
like picture of me sitting before a bolshy fire in an armchair
peeting away at this chai, and what was funny and very very
strange was that I seemed to have turned into a very starry
chelloveck, about seventy years old, because I could viddy my own
voloss, which was very grey, and I also had whiskers, and these
were very grey too. I could viddy myself as an old man, sitting
by a fire, and then the like picture vanished. But it was very
like strange.
I came to one of these tea-and-coffee mestos, brothers, and I
could viddy through the long long window that it was full of very
dull lewdies, like ordinary, who had these very patient and
expressionless litsos and would do no harm to no one, all sitting
there and govoreeting like quietly and peeting away at their nice
harmless chai and coffee. I ittied inside and went up to the
counter and bought me a nice hot chai with plenty of moloko, then
I ittied to one of these tables and sat down to peet it. There
was a like young couple at this table, peeting and smoking
filter-tip cancers, and govoreeting and smecking very quietly
between themselves, but I took no notice of them and just went on
peeting away and like dreaming and wondering what it was in me
that was like changing and what was going to happen to me. But I
viddied that the devotchka at this table who was with this
chelloveck was real horrorshow, not the sort you would want to
like throw down and give the old in-out in-out to, but with a
horrorshow plott and litso and a smiling rot and very very fair
voloss and all that cal. And then the veck with her, who had a
hat on his gulliver and had his litso like turned away from me,
swivelled round to viddy the bolshy big clock they had on the
wall in this mesto, and then I viddied who he was and then he
viddied who I was. It was Pete, one of my three droogs from
those days when it was Georgie and Dim and him and me. It was
Pete like looking a lot older though he could not now be more
than nineteen and a bit, and he had a bit of a moustache and an
ordinary day-suit and this hat on. I said:
‘Well well well, droogie, what gives? Very very long time no
viddy.’ He said:
‘It’s little Alex, isn’t it?’
‘None other,’ I said. ‘A long long long time since those dead
and gone good days. And now poor Georgie, they told me, is
underground and old Dim is a brutal millicent, and here is thou
and here is I, and what news hast thou, old droogie?’
‘He talks funny, doesn’t he?’ said this devotchka, like giggling.
‘This, said Pete to the devotchka, ‘is an old friend. His name
is Alex. May I,’ he said to me, ‘introduce my wife?’
My rot fell wide open then. ‘Wife?’ I like gaped. ‘Wife wife
wife? Ah no, that cannot be. Too young art thou to be married,
old droog. Impossible impossible.’
This devotchka who was like Pete’s wife (impossible impossible)
giggled again and said to Pete: ‘Did you used to talk like that
too?’
‘Well,’ said Pete, and he like smiled. ‘I’m nearly twenty. Old
enough to be hitched, and it’s been two months already. You were
very young and very forward, remember.’
‘Well,’ I liked gaped still. ‘Over this get can I not, old
droogie. Pete married. Well well well.’
‘We have a small flat,’ said Pete. ‘I am earning very small
money at State Marine Insurance, but things will get better, that
I know. And Georgina here-‘
‘What again is that name?’ I said, rot still open like bezoomny.
Pete’s wife. (wife, brothers) like giggled again.
‘Georgina,’ said Pete. ‘Georgina works too. Typing, you know.
We manage, we manage.’ I could not, brothers, take my glazzies
off him, really. He was like grown up now, with a grown-up
goloss and all. ‘You must,’ said Pete, ‘come and see us
sometime. You still,’ he said, ‘look very young, despite all
your terrible experiences. Yes, yes, yes, we’ve read all about
them. But, of course, you are very young still.’
‘Eighteen,’ I said, ‘Just gone.’
‘Eighteen, eh?’ said Pete. ‘As old as that. Well well well.
Now,’ he said, ‘we have to be going.’ And he like gave this
Georgina of his a like loving look and pressed one of her rookers
between his and she gave him one of these looks back, O my
brothers. ‘Yes,’ said Pete, turning back to me, ‘we’re off to a
little party at Greg’s.’
‘Greg?’ I said.
‘Oh, of course,’ said Pete, ‘you wouldn’t know Greg, would you?
Greg is after your time. While you were away Greg came into the
picture. He runs little parties, you know. Mostly wine-cup and
word-games. But very nice, very pleasant, you know. Harmless,
if you see what I mean.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Harmless. Yes, yes, I viddy that real
horrorshow.’ And this Georgina devotchka giggled again at my
slovos. And then these two ittied off to their vonny word-games
at this Greg’s, whoever he was. I was left all on my oddy knocky
with my milky chai, which was getting cold now, like thinking and
wondering.
Perhaps that was it, I kept thinking. Perhaps I was getting too
old for the sort of jeezny I had been leading, brothers. I was
eighteen now, just gone. Eighteen was not a young age. At
eighteen old Wolfgang Amadeus had written concertos and
symphonies and operas and oratorios and all that cal, no, not
cal, heavenly music. And then there was old Felix M. with his
Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture. And there were others. And
there was this like French poet set by old Benjy Britt, who had
done all his best poetry by the age of fifteen, O my brothers.
Arthur, his first name. Eighteen was not all that young an age,
then. But what was I going to do?
Walking the dark chill bastards of winter streets after ittying
off from this chai-and-coffee mesto, I kept viddying like
visions, like these cartoons in the gazettas. There was Your
Humble Narrator Alex coming home from work to a good hot plate of
dinner, and there was this ptitsa all welcoming and greeting like
loving. But I could not viddy her all that horrorshow, brothers,
I could not think who it might be. But I had this sudden very
strong idea that if I walked into the room next to this room
where the fire was burning away and my hot dinner laid on the
table, there I should find what I really wanted, and now it all
tied up, that picture scissored out of the gazetta and meeting
old Pete like that. For in that other room in a cot was laying
gurgling goo goo goo my son. Yes yes yes, brothers, my son. And
now I felt this bolshy big hollow inside my plott, feeling very
surprised too at myself. I knew what was happening, O my
brothers. I was like growing up.
Yes yes yes, there it was. Youth must go, ah yes. But youth is
only being in a way like it might be an animal. No, it is not
just like being an animal so much as being one of these malenky
toys you viddy being sold in the streets, like little chellovecks
made out of tin and with a spring inside and then a winding
handle on the outside and you wind it up grrr grrr grrr and off
it itties, like walking, O my brothers. But it itties in a
straight line and bangs straight into things bang bang and it
cannot help what it is doing. Being young is like being like one
of these malenky machines.
My son, my son. When I had my son I would explain all that to
him when he was starry enough to like understand. But then I
knew he would not understand or would not want to understand at
all and would do all the veshches I had done, yes perhaps even
killing some poor starry forella surrounded with mewing kots and
koshkas, and I would not be able to really stop him. And nor
would he be able to stop his own son, brothers. And so it would
itty on until like the end of the world, round and round and
round, like some bolshy gigantic like chelloveck, like old Bog
Himself (by courtesy of Korova Milkbar) turning and turning and
turning a vonny grahzny orange in his gigantic rookers.
But first of all, brothers, there was this veshch of finding some
devotchka or other who would be a mother to this son. I would
have to start on that tomorrow, I kept thinking. That was
something like new to do. That was something I would have to get
started on, a new like chapter beginning.
That’s what it’s going to be then, brothers, as I come to the
like end of this tale. You have been everywhere with your little
droog Alex, suffering with him, and you have viddied some of the
most grahzny bratchnies old Bog ever made, all on to your old
droog Alex. And all it was was that I was young. But now as I
end this story, brothers, I am not young, not no longer, oh no.
Alex like groweth up, oh yes.
But where I itty now, O my brothers, is all on my oddy knocky,
where you cannot go. Tomorrow is all like sweet flowers and the
turning vonny earth and the stars and the old Luna up there and
your old droog Alex all on his oddy knocky seeking like a mate.
And all that cal. A terrible grahzny vonny world, really, O my
brothers. And so farewell from your little droog. And to all
others in this story profound shooms of lipmusic brrrrrr. And
they can kiss my sharries. But you, O my brothers, remember
sometimes thy little Alex that was. Amen. And all that cal.
Glossary of Nadsat Language
Words that do not appear to be of Russian origin are
distinguished
by asterisks. (For help with the Russian, I am indebted to the
kindness of my colleague Nora Montesinos and a number of correspondents.)
*appy polly loggy - apology choodesny - wonderful
baboochka - old woman *chumble - to mumble
*baddiwad - bad clop - to knock
banda - band cluve - beak
bezoomny - mad collocoll - bell
biblio - library *crack - to break up or
'bust'
bitva - battle *crark - to yowl?
Bog - God crast - to steal or rob;
bolnoy - sick robbery
bolshy - big, great creech - to shout or
scream
brat, bratty - brother *cutter - money
bratchny - bastard dama - lady
britva - razor ded - old man
brooko - belly deng - money
brosay - to throw devotchka - girl
bugatty - rich dobby - good
cal - feces *dook - trace, ghost
*cancer - cigarette domy - house
cantora - office dorogoy - dear, valuable
carman - pocket dratsing - fighting
chai - tea *drencrom - drug
*charles, charlie - chaplain droog - friend
chasha - cup *dung - to defecate
chasso - guard dva - two
cheena - woman eegra - game
cheest - to wash eemya - name
chelloveck - person, man, *eggiweg - egg
fellow *filly - to play or fool
with
chepooka - nonsense *firegold - drink
*fist - to punch loveted - caught
*flip - wild? lubbilubbing - making
love
forella - 'trout' *luscious glory - hair
gazetta - newspaper malchick - boy
glazz - eye malenky - little, tiny
gloopy - stupid maslo - butter
*golly - unit of money merzky - filthy
goloss - voice messel - thought, fancy
goober - lip mesto - place
gooly - to walk millicent - policeman
gorlo - throat minoota - minute
govoreet - to speak or talk molodoy - young
grahzny - dirty moloko - milk
grazzy - soiled moodge - man
gromky - loud morder - snout
groody - breast *mounch - snack
gruppa - group mozg - brain
*guff - guffaw nachinat - to begin
gulliver - head nadmenny - arrogant
*guttiwuts - guts nadsat - teenage
*hen-korm - chickenfeed nagoy - naked
*horn - to cry out *nazz - fool
horrorshow - good, well neezhnies - underpants
*in-out in-out - copulation nochy - night
interessovat - to interest hoga - foot, leg
itty - to go nozh - knife
*jammiwam - jam nuking - smelling
jeezny - life oddy knocky - lonesome
kartoffel - potato odin - one
keeshkas - guts okno - window
kleb - bread oobivat - to kill
klootch - key ookadeet - to leave
knopka - button ooko - ear
kopat - to 'dig' oomny - brainy
koshka - cat oozhassny - terrible
kot - tomcat oozy - chain
krovvy - blood osoosh - to wipe
kupet - to buy otchkies - eyeglasses
lapa - paw *pan-handle - erection
lewdies - people *pee and em - parents
*lighter - crone? peet - to drink
litso - face pishcha - food
lomtick, piece, bit platch - to cry
platties - clothes *shlaga - club
pletcho - shoulder shlapa - hat
plenny - prisoner shoom - noise
plesk - splash shoot - fool
*plosh - to splash *sinny - cinema
plott - body skazat - to say
podooshka - pillow *skolliwoll - school
pol - sex skorry - quick, quickly
polezny - useful *skriking - scratching
*polyclef - skeleton key skvat - to grab
pony - to understand sladky - sweet
poogly - frightened sloochat - to happen
pooshka - 'cannon' sloosh, slooshy - to
hear, to
prestoopnick - criminal listen
privodeet - to lead slovo - word
somewhere smeck - laugh
*pretty polly - money smot - to look
prod - to produce sneety - dream
ptitsa - 'chick' *snoutie - tobacco?
pyahnitsa - drunk *snuff it - to die
rabbit - work, job sobirat - to pick up
radosty - joy *sod - to fornicate,
fornicator
raskazz - story soomka - 'bag'
rassoodock - mind soviet - advice, order
raz - time spat - to sleep
razdraz - upset *splodge, splosh - splash
razrez - to rip, ripping *spoogy - terrified
rook, rooker - hand, arm *Staja - State Jail
rot - mouth starry - ancient
rozz - policeman strack - horror
sabog - shoe *synthemesc - drug
sakar - sugar tally - waist
sammy - generous *tashtook - handkerchief
*sarky - sarcastic *tass - cup
scoteena - 'cow' tolchock - to hit or
push; blow,
shaika - gang beating
*sharp - female toofles - slippers
sharries - buttocks tree - three
shest - barrier vareet - to 'cook up'
*shilarny - concern *vaysay - washroom
*shive - slice veck - (see chelloveck)
shiyah - neck *vellocet - drug
shlem - helmet veshch - thing
viddy - to see or look yeckate - to drive
voloss - hair *warble - song
von - smell zammechat - remarkable
vred - to harm or damage zasnoot - sleep
yahma - hole zheena - wife
*yahoodies - Jews zoobies - teeth
yahzick - tongue zvonock - bellpull
*yarbles - testicles zvook - sound