near dark. I fisted him all over, dancing about with my boots on though unlaced, and then I tripped him and he went crash crash on to the floor. I gave him one real horrorshow kick on the gulliver and he went ohhhhh, then he sort of snorted off to like sleep, and The Doctor said:
'Very well, I think that will be enough of a lesson,' squinting to viddy this downed and beaten-up veck on the floor. 'Let him dream perhaps about being a better boy in the future.' So we all climbed back into our bunks, being very tired now. What I dreamt of, O my brothers, was of being in some very big orchestra, hundreds and hundreds strong, and the conductor was a like mixture of Ludwig van and G. F. Handel, looking very deaf and blind and weary of the world. I was with the wind instruments, but what I was playing was like a white pinky bassoon made of flesh and growing out of my plott, right in the middle of my belly, and when I blew into it I had to smeck ha ha ha very loud because it like tickled, and then Ludwig van G. F. got very razdraz and bezoomny. Then he came right up to my litso and creeched loud in my ooko, and then I woke up like sweating. Of course, what the loud shoom really was was the prison buzzer going brrrrr brrrrr brrrrr. It was winter morning and my glazzies were all cally with sleepglue, and when I opened up they were very sore in the electric light that had been switched on all over the zoo. Then I looked down and viddied this new prestoopnick lying on the floor, very bloody and bruisy and still out out out. Then I remembered about last night and that made me smeck a bit.
But when I got off the bunk and moved him with my bare noga, there was a feel of like stiff coldness, so I went over to The Doctor's bunk and shook him, him always being very slow at waking up in the morning. But he was off his bunk skorry enough this time, and so were the others, except for Wall who slept like dead meat. 'Very unfortunate,' The Doctor said. 'A heart attack, that's what it must have been.' Then he said, looking round at us all: 'You really shouldn't have gone for him like that. It was most ill-advised really.' Jojohn said:
'Come come, doc, you weren't all that backward yourself in giving him a sly bit of fist.' Then Big Jew turned on me, saying:
'Alekth, you were too impetuouth. That latht kick wath a very very nathty one.' I began to get razdraz about this and said:
'Who started it, eh? I only got in at the end, didn't I?' I pointed at Jojohn and said: 'It was your idea.' Wall snored a bit loud, so I said: 'Wake that vonny bratchny up. It was him that kept on at his rot while Big Jew here had him up against the bars.' The Doctor said:
'Nobody will deny having a gentle little hit at the man, to teach him a lesson so to speak, but it's apparent that you, my dear boy, with the forcefulness and, shall I say, heedlessness of youth, dealt him the coo de grass. It's a great pity.'
'Traitors,' I said. 'Traitors and liars,' because I could viddy it was all like before, two years before, when my so-called droogs had left me to the brutal rookers of the millicents. There was no trust anywhere in the world, O my brothers, the way I could see it. And Jojohn went and woke up Wall, and Wall was only too ready to swear that it was Your Humble Narrator that had done the real dirty tolchocking and brutality. When the chassos came along, and then the Chief Chasso, and then the Governor himself, all these cell-droogs of mine were very shoomny with tales of what I'd done to oobivat this worthless pervert whose krovvy-covered plott lay sacklike on the floor.
That was a very queer day, O my brothers. The dead plott was carried off, and then everybody in the whole prison had to stay locked up till further orders, and there was no pishcha given out, not even a mug of hot chai. We just all sat there, and the warders or chassos sort of strode up and down the tier, now and then creeching 'Shut it' or 'Close that hole' whenever they slooshied even a whisper from any of the cells. Then about eleven o'clock in the morning there was a sort of like stiffening and excitement and like the von of fear spreading from outside the cell, and then we could viddy the Governor and the Chief Chasso and some very bolshy important-looking chellovecks walking by real skorry, govoreeting like bezoomny. They seemed to walk right to the end of the tier, then they could be slooshied walking back again, more slow this time, and you could slooshy the Governor, a very sweaty fatty fair-haired veck, saying slovos like 'But, sir--' and 'Well, what can be done, sir?' and so on. Then the whole lot stopped at our cell and the Chief Chasso opened up. You could viddy who was the real important veck right away, very tall and with blue glazzies and with real horrorshow platties on him, the most lovely suit, brothers, I had ever viddied, absolutely in the heighth of fashion. He just sort of looked right through us poor plennies, saying, in a very beautiful real educated goloss: 'The Government cannot be concerned any longer with outmoded penological theories. Cram criminals together and see what happens. You get concentrated criminality, crime in the midst of punishment. Soon we may be needing all our prison space for political offenders.' I didn't pony this at all, brothers, but after all he was not govoreeting to me. Then he said: 'Common criminals like this unsavoury crowd'--(that meant me, brothers, as well as the others, who were real prestoopnicks and treacherous with it)--'can best be dealt with on a purely curative basis. Kill the criminal reflex, that's all. Full implementation in a year's time. Punishment means nothing to them, you can see that. They enjoy their so-called punishment. They start murdering each other.' And he turned his stern blue glazzies on me. So I said, bold:
'With respect, sir, I object very strongly to what you said then. I am not a common criminal, sir, and I am not unsavoury. The others may be unsavoury but I am not.' The Chief Chasso went all purple and creeched:
'You shut your bleeding hole, you. Don't you know who this is?'
'All right, all right,' said this big veck. Then he turned to the Governor and said: 'You can use him as a trailblazer. He's young, bold, vicious. Brodsky will deal with him tomorrow and you can sit in and watch Brodsky. It works all right, don't worry about that. This vicious young hoodlum will be transformed out of all recognition.'
And those hard slovos, brothers, were like the beginning of my freedom.
3
That very same evening I was dragged down nice and gentle by brutal tolchocking chassos to viddy the Governor in his holy of holies holy office. The Governor looked very weary at me and said: 'I don't suppose you know who that was this morning, do you, 6655321?' And without waiting for me to say no he said: 'That was no less a personage than the Minister of the Interior, the new Minister of the Interior and what they call a very new broom. Well, these new ridiculous ideas have come at last and orders are orders, though I may say to you in confidence that I do not approve. I most emphatically do not approve. An eye for an eye, I say. If someone hits you you hit back, do you not? Why then should not the State, very severely hit by you brutal hooligans, not hit back also? But the new view is to say no. The new view is that we turn the bad into the good. All of which seems to me grossly unjust. Hm?' So I said, trying to be like respectful and accommodating:
'Sir.' And then the Chief Chasso, who was standing all red and burly behind the Governor's chair, creeched:
'Shut your filthy hole, you scum.'
'All right, all right,' said the like tired and fagged-out Governor. 'You, 6655321, are to be reformed. Tomorrow you go to this man Brodsky. It is believed that you will be able to leave State Custody in a little over a fortnight. In a little over a fortnight you will be out again in the big free world, no longer a number. I suppose,' and he snorted a bit here, 'that prospect pleases you?' I said nothing so the Chief Chasso creeched:
'Answer, you filthy young swine, when the Governor asks you a question.' So I said:
'Oh, yes, sir. Thank you very much, sir. I've done my best here, really I have. I'm very grateful to all concerned.'
'Don't be,' like sighed the Governor. 'This is not a reward. This is far from being a reward. Now, there is a form here to be signed. It says that you are willing to have the residue of your sentence commuted to submission to what is called here, ridiculous expression, Reclamation Treatment. Will you sign?'
'Most certainly I will sign,' I said, 'sir. And very many thanks.' So I was given an ink-pencil and I signed my name nice and flowy. The Governor said:
'Right. That's the lot, I think.' The Chief Chasso said:
'The Prison Chaplain would like a word with him, sir.' So I was marched out and off down the corridor towards the Wing Chapel, tolchocked on the back and the gulliver all the way by one of the chassos, but in a very like yawny and bored manner. And I was marched across the Wing Chapel to the little cantora of the charles and then made to go in. The charles was sitting at his desk, smelling loud and clear of a fine manny von of expensive cancers and Scotch. He said:
'Ah, little 6655321, be seated.' And to the chassos: 'Wait outside, eh?' Which they did. Then he spoke in a very like earnest way to me, saying: 'One thing I want you to understand, boy, is that this is nothing to do with me. Were it expedient, I would protest about it, but it is not expedient. There is the question of my own career, there is the question of the weakness of my own voice when set against the shout of certain more powerful elements in the polity. Do I make myself clear?' He didn't, brothers, but I nodded that he did. 'Very hard ethical questions are involved,' he went on. 'You are to be made into a good boy, 6655321. Never again will you have the desire to commit acts of violence or to offend in any way whatsoever against the State's Peace. I hope you take all that in. I hope you are absolutely clear in your own mind about that.' I said:
'Oh, it will be nice to be good, sir.' But I had a real horrorshow smeck at that inside, brothers. He said:
'It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It may be horrible to be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him? Deep and hard questions, little 6655321. But all I want to say to you now is this: if at any time in the future you look back to these times and remember me, the lowest and humblest of all God's servitors, do not, I pray, think evil of me in your heart, thinking me in any way involved in what is now about to happen to you. And now, talking of praying, I realize sadly that there will be little point in praying for you. You are passing now to a region where you will be beyond the reach of the power of prayer. A terrible terrible thing to consider. And yet, in a sense, in choosing to be deprived of the ability to make an ethical choice, you have in a sense really chosen the good. So I shall like to think. So, God help us all, 6655321, I shall like to think.' And then he began to cry. But I didn't really take much notice of that, brothers, only having a bit of a quiet smeck inside, because you could viddy that he had been peeting away at the old whisky, and now he took a bottle from a cupboard in his desk and started to pour himself a real horrorshow bolshy slog into a very greasy and grahzny glass. He downed it and then said: 'All may be well, who knows? God works in a mysterious way.' Then he began to sing away at a hymn in a real loud rich goloss. Then the door opened and the chassos came in to tolchock me back to my vonny cell, but the old charles still went on singing this hymn.
Well, the next morning I had to say goodbye to the old Staja, and I felt a malenky bit sad as you always will when you have to leave a place you've like got used to. But I didn't go very far, O my brothers. I was punched and kicked along to the new white building just beyond the yard where we used to do our bit of exercise. This was a very new building and it had a new cold like sizy smell which gave you a bit of the shivers. I stood there in the horrible bolshy bare hall and I got new vons, sniffing away there with my like very sensitive morder or sniffer. These were like hospital vons, and the chelloveck the chassos handed me over to had a white coat on, as he might be a hospital man. He signed for me, and one of the brutal chassos who had brought me said: 'You watch this one, sir. A right brutal bastard he has been and will be again, in spite of all his sucking up to the Prison Chaplain and reading the Bible.' But this new chelloveck had real horrorshow blue glazzies which like smiled when he govoreeted. He said:
'Oh, we don't anticipate any trouble. We're going to be friends, aren't we?' And he smiled with his glazzies and his fine big rot which was full of shining white zoobies and I sort of took to this veck right away. Anyway, he passed me on to a like lesser veck in a white coat, and this one was very nice too, and I was led off to a very nice white clean bedroom with curtains and a bedside lamp, and just the one bed in it, all for Your Humble Narrator. So I had a real horrorshow inner smeck at that, thinking I was really a very lucky young malchickiwick. I was told to take off my horrible prison platties and I was given a really beautiful set of pyjamas, O my brothers, in plain green, the heighth of bedwear fashion. And I was given a nice warm dressing-gown too and lovely toofles to put my bare nogas in, and I thought: 'Well, Alex boy, little 6655321 as was, you have copped it lucky and no mistake. You are really going to enjoy it here.'
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 this 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.
4
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 s