A Clockwork Orange

This Sunday morning the charlie read out from the book about chellovecks who slooshied the slovo and didn’t take a blind bit being like a domy built upon sand, and then the rain came splash and the old boomaboom cracked the sky and that was the end of that domy. But I thought that only a very dim veck would have built his domy upon sand, and a right lot of real sneering droogs and nasty neighbours a veck like that would have, them not telling him how dim he was doing that sort of building. Then the charles creeched: “Right, you lot. We’ll end with Hymn Number 435 in the Prisoners’ Hymnal.” Then there was a crash and plop and a whish whish while the ple

They sort of howled and wept these stupid slovos with the charlie like whipping them on with “Louder, damn you, sing up,” and the warders creeching: “Just you wait, 7749222”, and “One on the turnip coming up for you, filth.” Then it was all over and the charlie said: “May the Holy Trinity keep you always and make you good, amen,” and the shamble out began to a nice choice bit of Symphony No. 2 by Adrian Schweigselber, chosen by your Humble Narrator, O my brothers. What a lot they were, I thought, as I stood there by the starry chapel stereo, viddying them all shuffle out going marrrrre and baaaaaa like animals and up-your-piping with their grahzny fingers at me, because it looked like I was very special favoured. When the last one had slouched out, his rookers hanging like an ape and the one warder left giving him a fair loud tolchock on the back of the gulliver, and when I had turned off the stereo, the charlie came up to me, puffing away at a cancer, still in his starry bogman’s platties, all lacy and white like a devotchka’s. He said:

“Thank you as always, little 6655321. And what news have you got for me today?” The idea was, I knew, that this charlie was after becoming a very great holy chelloveck in the world of Prison Religion, and he wanted a real horrorshow testimonial from the Governor, so he would go and govoreet quietly to the Governor now and then about what dark plots were brewing among the ple

“Well, sir, it has come through on the pipes that a consignment of cocaine has arrived by irregular means and that a cell somewhere along Tier 5 is to be the centre of distribution.” I made all that up as I went along, like I made up so many of these stories, but the prison charlie was very grateful, saying: “Good, good, good. I shall pass that on to Himself,” this being what he called the Governor. Then I said:

“Sir, I have done my best, have I not?” I always used my very polite gentleman’s goloss govoreeting with those at the top. “I’ve tried, sir, haven’t I?”

“I think,” said the charlie, “that on the whole you have, 6655321. You’ve been very helpful and, I consider, shown a genuine desire to reform. You will, if you continue in this ma

“But sir,” I said, “how about this new thing they’re talking about? How about this new like treatment that gets you out of prison in no time at all and makes sure that you never get back in again?”

“Oh,” he said, very like wary. “Where did you hear this? Who’s been telling you these things?”

“These things get around, sir,” I said. “Two warders talk, as it might be, and somebody can’t help hearing what they say. And then somebody picks up a scrap of newspaper in the workshops and the newspaper says all about it. How about you putting me in for this thing, sir, if I may make so bold as to make the suggestion?”

You could viddy him thinking about that while he puffed away at his cancer, wondering how much to say to me about what he knew about this veshch I’d mentioned. Then he said:

“I take it you’re referring to Ludovico’s Technique.” He was still very wary.

“I don’t know what it’s called, sir,” I said. “All I know is that it gets you out quickly and makes sure that you don’t get in again.”

“That is so,” he said, his eyebrows like all beetling while he looked down at me. “That is quite so, 6655321. Of course, it’s only in the experimental stage at the moment. It’s very simple but very drastic.”

“But it’s being used here, isn’t it, sir?” I said. “Those new like white buildings by the South wall, sir. We’ve watched those being built, sir, when we’ve been doing our exercise.”

“It’s not been used yet,” he said, “not in this prison, 6655321. Himself has grave doubts about it. I must confess I share those doubts. The question is whether such a technique can really make a man good. Goodness comes from within, 6655321. Goodness is something chosen. When a man ca

We had four of these lomticks of like Prison Religion that morning, but the charles said no more to me about this Ludovico’s Technique, whatever it was, O my brothers. When I’d finished my rabbit with the stereo he just govoreeted a few slovos of thanks and then I was privodeeted back to the cell on Tier 6 which was my very vo