“I’d like to give you a cigarette, brother, but I don’t seem to have any.” This veck went:

“Wah wah. Boohoohoo. Cry, baby.” Then he flickflickflicked with his bolshy horny nail at my nose again, and I could slooshy very loud smecks of like mirth coming from the dark audience. I said, real desperate, trying to be nice to this insulting and hurtful veck to stop the pains and sickness coming up:

“Please let me do something for you, please.” And I felt in my carmans but could find only my cut-throat britva, so I took this out and handed it to him and said: “Please take this, please. A little present. Please have it.” But he said: “Keep your stinking bribes to yourself. You can’t get round me that way.” And he banged at my rooker and my cut-throat britva fell on the floor. So I said:

“Please, I must do something. Shall I clean your boots? Look, I’ll get down and lick them.” And, my brothers, believe it or kiss my sharries, I got down on my knees and pushed my red yahzick out a mile and half to lick his grahzny vonny boots. But all this veck did was to kick me not too hard on the rot. So then it seemed to me that it would not bring on the sickness and pain if I just gripped his ankles with my rookers tight round them and brought this grashzny bratchny down to the floor. So I did this and he got a real bolshy surprise, coming down crack amid loud laughter from the vonny audience. But viddying him on the floor I could feel the whole horrible feeling coming over me, so I gave him my rooker to lift him up skorry and up he came. Then just as he was going to give me a real nasty and earnest tolchock on the litso Dr. Brodsky said:

“All right, that will do very well.” Then this horrible veck sort of bowed and danced off like an actor while the lights came up on me blinking and with my rot square for howling. Dr. Brodsky said to the audience: “Our subject is, you see, impelled towards the good by, paradoxically, being impelled towards evil. The intention to act violently is accompanied by strong feelings of physical distress. To counter these the subject has to switch to a diametrically opposed attitude. Any questions?”

“Choice,” rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it belonged to the prison charlie. “He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice.”

“These are subtleties,” like smiled Dr. Brodsky. “We are not concerned with motive, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down crime—”

“And,” chipped in this bolshy well-dressed Minister, “with relieving the ghastly congestion in our prisons.”

“Hear hear,” said somebody.

There was a lot of govoreeting and arguing then and I just stood there, brothers, like completely ignored by all these ignorant bratchnies, so I creeched out:

“Me, me, me. How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I just some animal or dog?” And that started them off govoreeting real loud and throwing slovos at me. So I creeched louder, still creeching: “Am I just to be like a clockwork orange?” I didn’t know what made me use those slovos, brothers, which just came like without asking into my gulliver. And that shut all those vecks up for some reason for a minoota or two. Then one very thin starry professor type chelloveck stood up, his neck like all cables carrying like power from his gulliver to his plott, and he said:

“You have no cause to grumble, boy. You made your choice and all this is a consequence of your choice. Whatever now ensues is what you yourself have chosen.” And the prison charlie creeched out:

“Oh, if only I could believe that.” And you could viddy the Governor give him a look like meaning that he would not climb so high in like Prison Religion as he thought he would. Then loud arguing started again, and then I could slooshy the slovo Love being thrown around, the prison charles himself creeching as loud as any about Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear and all that cal. And now Dr. Brodsky said, smiling all over his litso:

“I am glad, gentlemen, this question of Love has been raised. Now we shall see in action a manner of Love that was thought to be dead with the Middle Ages.” And then the lights went down and the spotlights came on again, one on your poor and suffering Friend and Narrator, and into the other there like rolled or sidled the most lovely young devotchka you could ever hope in all your jeezny, O my brothers, to viddy. That is to say, she had real horrorshow groodies all of which you could like viddy, she having on platties which came down down down off her pletchoes. And her nogas were like Bog in His Heaven, and she walked like to make you groan in your keeshkas, and yet her litso was a sweet smiling young like innocent litso. She came up towards me with the light like it was the like light of heavenly grace and all that cal coming with her, and the first thing that flashed into my gulliver was that I would like to have her right down there on the floor with the old in-out real savage, but skorry as a shot came the sickness, like a like detective that had been watching round a corner and now followed to make his grahzny arrest. And now the von of lovely perfume that came off her made me want to think of starting to heave in my keeshkas, so I knew I had to think of some new like way of thinking about her before all the pain and thirstiness and horrible sickness come over me real horrorshow and proper. So I creeched out:

“O most beautiful and beauteous of devotchkas, I throw like my heart at your feet for you to like trample all over. If I had a rose I would give it to you. If it was all rainy and cally now on the ground you could have my platties to walk on so as not to cover your dainty nogas with filth and cal.” And as I was saying all this, O my brothers, I could feel the sickness like slinking back. “Let me,” I creeched out, “worship you and be like your helper and protector from the wicked like world.” Then I thought of the right slovo and felt better for it, saying: “Let me be like your true knight,” and down I went again on the old knees, bowing and like scraping.

And then I felt real shooty and dim, it having been like an act again, for this devotchka smiled and bowed to the audience and like danced off, the lights coming up to a bit of applause. And the glazzies of some of these starry vecks in the audience were like popping out at this young devotchka with dirty and like unholy desire, O my brothers.

“He will be your true Christian,” Dr. Brodsky was creeching out, “ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than crucify, sick to the very heart at the thought even of killing a fly.” And that was right, brothers, because when he said that I thought of killing a fly and felt just that tiny bit sick, but I pushed the sickness and pain back by thinking of the fly being fed with bits of sugar and looked after like a bleeding pet and all that cal. “Reclamation,” he creeched. “Joy before the Angels of God.”

“The point is,” this Minister of the Inferior was saying real gromky, “that it works.”

“Oh,” the prison charlie said, like sighing, “it works all right, God help the lot of us.”