“Where do I come into all this, sir?”
“You,” he said, still with this bezoomny look, “are a living witness to these diabolical proposals. The people, the common people must know, must see.” He got up from his breakfast and started to walk up and down the kitchen, from the sink to the like larder, saying very gromky: “Would they like their sons to become what you, poor victim, have become? Will not the Government itself now decide what is and what is not crime and pump out the life and guts and will of whoever sees fit to displeasure the Government? He became quieter but did not go back to his egg. “I’ve written an article,” he said, “this morning, while you were sleeping. That will be out in a day or so, together with your unhappy picture. You shall sign it, poor boy, a record of what they have done to you.” I said:
“And what do you get out of all this, sir? I mean, besides the pretty polly you’ll get for the article, as you call it? I mean, why are you so hot and strong against this Government, if I may make like so bold as to ask?”
He gripped the edge of the table and said, gritting his zoobies, which were very cally and all stained with cancer-smoke: “Some of us have to fight. There are great traditions of liberty to defend. I am no partisan man. Where I see the infamy I seek to erase it. Party names mean nothing. The tradition of liberty means all. The common people will let it go, oh yes. They will sell liberty for a quieter life. That is why they must be prodded, prodded—” And here, brothers, he picked up a fork and stuck it two or three razzes into the wall, so that it got all bent. Then he threw it on the floor. Very kindly he said: “Eat well, poor boy, poor victim of the modern world,” and I could viddy quite clear he was going off his gulliver. “Eat, eat. Eat my egg as well.” But I said:
“And what do I get out of this? Do I get cured of the way I am? Do I find myself able to slooshy the old Choral Symphony without being sick once more? Can I live like a normal jeezny again? What, sir, happens to me?”
He looked at me, brothers, as if he hadn’t thought of that before and, anyway, it didn’t matter compared with Liberty and all that cal, and he had a look of surprise at me saying what I said, as though I was being like selfish in wanting something for myself. Then he said: “Oh, as I say, you’re a living witness, poor boy. Eat up all your breakfast and then come and see what I’ve written, for it’s going into ‘The Weekly Trumpet’ under your name, you unfortunate victim.”
Well, brothers, what he had written was a very long and very weepy piece of writing, and as I read it I felt very sorry for the poor malchick who was govoreeting about his sufferings and how the Government had sapped his will and how it was up to all lewdies to not let such a rotten and evil Government rule them again, and then of course I realized that the poor suffering malchick was none other than Y. H. N.
“Very good,” I said. “Real horrorshow. Written well thou hast, O sir.” And then he looked at me very narrow and said:
“What?” It was like he had not slooshied me before.
“Oh, that,” I said, “is what we call nadsat talk. All the teens use that, sir.” So then he ittied off to the kitchen to wash up the dishes, and I was left in these borrowed night platties and toofles, waiting to have done to me what was going to be done to me, because I had no plans for myself, O my brothers.
While the great F. Alexander was in the kitchen a dingalingaling came at the door. “Ah,” he creeched, coming out wiping his rookers, “it will be these people. I’ll go.” So he went and let them in, a kind of rumbling hahaha of talk and hallo and filthy weather and how are things in the hallway, then they ittied into the room with the fire and the book and the article about how I had suffered, viddying me and going Aaaaah as they did it. There were three lewdies, and F. Alex gave me their eemyas. Z.Dolin was a very wheezy smoky kind of a veck, coughing kashl kashl kashl with the end of a cancer in his rot, spilling ash all down his platties and then brushing it away with like very impatient rookers. He was a malenky round veck, fat, with big thick-framed otchkies on. Then there was Something Something Rubinstein, a very tall and polite chelloveck with a real gentleman’s goloss, very starry with a like eggy beard. And lastly there was D. B. da Silva who was like skorry in his movements and had this strong von of scent coming from him. They all had a real horrorshow look at me and seemed like overjoyed with what they viddied. Z. Dolin said:
“All right, all right, eh? What a superb device he can be, this boy. If anything, of course, he could for preference look even iller and more zombyish than he does. Anything for the cause. No doubt we can think of something.”
I did not like that crack about zombyish, brothers, and so I said: “What goes on, bratties? What dost thou in mind for thy little droog have?” And the F. Alexander swooshed in with:
“Strange, strange, that manner of voice pricks me. We’ve come into contact before, I’m sure we have.” And he brooded, like frowning. I would have to watch this, O my brothers. D. B. da Silva said:
“Public meetings, mainly. To exhibit you at public meetings will be a tremendous help. And, of course, the newspaper angle is all tied up. A ruined life is the approach. We must inflame all hearts.” He showed his thirty-odd zoobies, very white against his dark-coloured litso, he looking a malenky bit like some foreigner. I said:
“Nobody will tell me what I get out of all this. Tortured in jail, thrown out of my home by my own parents and their filthy overbearing lodger, beaten by old men and near-killed by the millicents—what is to become of me?” The Rubinstein veck came in with:
“You will see, boy, that the Party will not be ungrateful. Oh, no. At the end of it all there will be some very acceptable little surprise for you. Just you wait and see.”
“There’s only one veshch I require,” I creeched out, “and that’s to be normal and healthy as I was in the starry days, having my malenky bit of fun with real droogs and not those who just call themselves that and are really more like traitors. Can you do that, eh? Can any veck restore me to what I was? That’s what I want and that’s what I want to know.”
Kashl kashl kashl, coughed this Z. Dolin. “A martyr to the cause of Liberty.” he said. “You have your part to play and don’t forget it. Meanwhile, we shall look after you.” And he began to stroke my left rooker as if I was like an idiot, grinning in a bezoomny way. I creeched:
“Stop treating me like a thing that’s like got to be just used. I’m not an idiot you can impose on, you stupid bratchnies. Ordinary prestoopnicks are stupid, but I’m not ordinary and nor am I dim. Do you slooshy?”
“Dim,” said F. Alexander, like musing. “Dim. That was a name somewhere. Dim.”
“Eh?” I said. “What’s Dim got to do with it? What do you know about Dim?” And then I said: “Oh, Bog help us.” I didn’t like the look in F. Alexander’s glazzies. I made for the door, wanting to go upstairs and get my platties and then itty off.
“I could almost believe,” said F. Alexander, showing his stained zoobies, his glazzies mad. “But such things are impossible. For, by Christ, if he were I’d tear him. I’d split him, by God, yes yes, so I would.”
“There,” said D. B. da Silva, stroking his chest like he was a doggie to calm him down. “It’s all in the past. It was other people altogether. We must help this poor victim. That’s what we must do now, remembering the Future and our Cause.”
“I’ll just get my platties,” I said, at the stair-foot, “that is to say clothes, and then I’ll be ittying off all on my oddy knocky. I mean, my gratitude for all, but I have my own jeezny to live.” Because, brothers, I wanted to get out of here real skorry. But Z. Dolin said:
“Ah, no. We have you, friend, and we keep you. You come with us. Everything will be all right, you’ll see.” And he came up to me like to grab hold of my rooker again. Then, brothers, I thought of fight, but thinking of fight made me like want to collapse and sick, so I just stood. And then I saw this like madness in F. Alexander’s glazzies and said: