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 plennies picked up and dropped and lickturned the pages of their grazzy malenky hymnbooks, and the bully fierce warders creeched: “Stop talking there, bastards. I’m watching you, 920537.” Of course I had the disc ready on the stereo, and then I let the simple music for organ only come belting out with a growwwwowwwwowwww. Then the plennies started to sing real horrible:

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 plennies, and he would get a lot of this cal from me. A lot of it would be all like made up, but some of it would be true, like for instance the time it had come through to our cell on the waterpipes knock knock knockiknockiknock knockiknock that big Harriman was going to break. He was going to tolchock the warder at slop-time and get out in the warder’s platties. Then there was going to be a big throwing about of the horrible pishcha we got in the dining-hall, and I knew about that and told. Then the charlie passed it on and was complimented like by the Governor for his Public Spirit and Keen Ear. So this time I said, and this was not true:

“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 manner, earn your remission with no trouble at all.”

“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 cannot choose he ceases to be a man.” He would have gone on with a lot more of this cal, but we could slooshy the next lot of plennies marching clank clank down the iron stairs to come for their bit of Religion. He said: “We’ll have a little chat about this some other time. Now you’d better start the voluntary.” So I went over to the starry stereo and put on J. S. Bach’s ‘Wachet Auf’ Choral Prelude and in these grahzny vonny bastard criminals and perverts came shambling like a lot of broke-down apes, the warders or chassos like barking at them and lashing them. And soon the prison charlie was asking them: “What’s it going to be then, eh?” And that’s where you came in.

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 vonny and crammed home. The chasso was not really too bad of a veck and he did not tolchock or kick me in when he’d opened up, he just said: “Here we are, sonny, back to the old waterhole.” And there I was with my new type droogs, all very criminal but, Bog be praised, not given to perversions of the body. There was Zophar on his bunk, a very thin and brown veck who went on and on and on in his like cancery goloss, so that nobody bothered to slooshy. What he was saying now like to nobody was “And at that time you couldn’t get hold of a poggy” (whatever that was, brothers), “not if you was to hand over ten million archibalds, so what do I do, eh, I goes down to Turkey’s and says I’ve got this sproog on that morrow, see, and what can he do?” It was all this very old-time real criminal’s slang he spoke. Also there was Wall, who had only one glazzy, and he was tearing bits of his toe-nails off in honour of Sunday. Also there was Big Jew, a very fat sweaty veck lying flat on his bunk like dead. In addition there was Jojohn and The Doctor. Jojohn was very mean and keen and wiry and had specialized in like Sexual Assault, and The Doctor had pretended to be able to cure syph and gon and gleet but he had only injected water, also he had killed off two devotchkas instead, like he had promised, of getting rid of their unwanted loads for them. They were a terrible grahzny lot really, and I didn’t enjoy being with them, O my brothers, any more than you do now, but it won’t be for much longer.