Kitabı oku: «A Clockwork Orange / Заводной апельсин», sayfa 2

“What is this? Who are you? How dare you enter my house without permission?” And all the time his goloss was trembling and his rookers too.

Then Georgie and Pete went out to find the kitchen, while old Dim waited for orders, standing next to me with his rot wide open. “What is this, then?” I said, picking up the pile like of typing from off of the table, and the horn-rimmed moodge said, trembling:

“That's just what I want to know. What is this? What do you want? Get out at once before I throw you out.” So poor old Dim, masked like Peebee Shelley, had a good loud smeck¹⁴² at that. “It's a book,” I said. “It's a book what you are writing.” I made the old goloss very coarse. “I have always had the strongest admiration for them as can write books.” Then I looked at its top sheet, and there was the name – A C L O C K W O R K O R A N G E – and I said: “That's a fair gloopy title. Who ever heard of a clockwork orange?” Then I started to tear up the sheets and scatter the bits over the floor, and this writer moodge went sort of bezoomny and made for me with his zoobies clenched and his nails ready for me like claws. So that was old Dim's turn and he went grinning and going for this veck's trembling rot, crack crack¹⁴³, first left fistie then right, so that our dear old droog the red started to pour and spot the nice clean carpet and the bits of this book that I was still ripping away at. All this time this devotchka, his loving and faithful wife,just stood like froze by the fireplace, and then she started letting out little malenky creeches, like in time to the like music of old Dim's fisty work. Then Georgie and Pete came in from the kitchen, both munching away, though with their maskies on. Georgie with like a cold leg of something in one rooker and half a loaf of kleb¹⁴⁴with a big dollop of maslo on it in the other, and Pete with a bottle of beer and a horrorshow rookerful of like plum cake. They went haw haw haw¹⁴⁵, viddying old Dim dancing round and fisting the writer veck so that the writer veck started to platch¹⁴⁶ like his life's work was ruined, going boo hoo hoo¹⁴⁷ with a very bloody rot. I didn't like that, so I said: “Drop that mounch. I gave no permission. Grab hold of this veck here so he can viddy all and not get away.” So they put down their fatty pishcha¹⁴⁸ on the table among all the flying paper and they held the writer veck whose horn-rimmed otchkies were cracked but still hanging on, with old Dim still dancing round while he Allied with the author of 'A Clockwork Orange', making his litso all purple and dripping away like some very special sort of a juicy fruit. “All right, Dim,” I said. “Now for the other veshch, Bog help us all.” So he did the strong-man on the devotchka, who was still creech creech creeching away, locking her rookers from the back, while I ripped away at this and that and the other, the others going haw haw haw still, and real good horrorshow groodies¹⁴⁹ they were, O my brothers, while I got ready for the plunge. Plunging, I could slooshy cries of agony and this writer bleeding veck howling bezoomny with the filthiest of slovos that I already knew and others he was making up. Then after me it was right old Dim should have his turn, which he did in a beasty sort of a way with his Peebee Shelley maskie on, while I held on to her. Then there was a changeover, Dim and me grabbing the slobbering writer veck who was past struggling really, and Pete and Georgie had theirs. Then there was like quiet and we were full of like hate, so smashed what was left to be smashed – typewriter, lamp, chairs – and Dim, it was typical of old Dim, watered the fire out¹⁵⁰ and was going to dung on the carpet, there being plenty of paper, but I said no. “Out out out out,” I howled. The writer veck and his zheena¹⁵¹ were not really there, bloody and torn and making noises. But they'd live.

So we got into the waiting auto and I left it to Georgie to take the wheel, me feeling that malenky bit shagged, and we went back to town, running over odd squealing things on the way.

3

We yeckated¹⁵² back townwards, but just outside, not far from the Industrial Canal, we viddied the fuel needle¹⁵³had like collapsed, and the auto was coughing kashl¹⁵⁴kashl kashl. The point was whether to leave the auto to be sobiratted¹⁵⁵ by the rozzes or to give it a fair tolchock into the starry waters for a nice heavy loud plesk¹⁵⁶. This latter we decided on, so we got out and, the brakes off¹⁵⁷, all four tolchocked it to the edge of the filthy water, then one good horrorshow tolchock and in she went. We had to dash back for fear of the filth splashing on our platties, but splussshhhh she went, down and lovely. “Farewell, old droog,” called Georgie, and Dim gave a clowny great guff¹⁵⁸ – “Huh huh huh huh.” Then we made for the station to ride the one stop to Center, as the middle of the town was called. We paid our fares nice and polite and waited gentlemanly and quiet on the platform, old Dim fillying with the slot machines, his carmans being full of small malenky coin, and ready if need be¹⁵⁹ to distribute chocbars¹⁶⁰ to the poor and hungry, though there was none such about, and then the old espresso rapido came noisy in and we climbed aboard, the train looking to be near empty. To pass the three-minute ride we fillied about with what they called the upholstery, doing some nice horrorshow tearing-out of the seats' guts and old Dim chaining the okno¹⁶¹ till the glass cracked, but we were all feeling that bit shagged and fagged, it having been an evening of some small energy expenditure, my brothers, only Dim, like the clowny animal he was, full of the joys, but looking all dirtied over and too much von of sweat on him, which was one thing I had against old Dim. We got out at Center and walked slow back to the Korova Milkbar, when we got into it we found it fuller than when we'd left earlier on.

But the chelloveck that had been burbling away on some senseless things was still on at it. It was probably his third or fourth lot that evening, for he had that pale inhuman look, like he'd become a 'thing'. Really, if he wanted to spend so long in the land, he should have gone into one of the private cubies¹⁶² at the back and not stayed in the big mesto, because here some of the malchickies¹⁶³ would filly about with him a malenky bit, though not too much because there were powerful bruiseboys¹⁶⁴ hidden away in the old Korova who could stop any riot. Anyway, Dim squeezed in next to this veck and he stabbed this veck's foot with his own large filthy sabog¹⁶⁵. But the veck, my brothers, heard nought, being now all above the body. It was nadsats¹⁶⁶ milking and coking and fillying around, but there were a few of the more starry ones, vecks and cheenas alike (but not of the bourgeois, never them) laughing and govoreeting¹⁶⁷ at the bar. You could tell them from their clothes that they'd been on rehearsals at the TV studios around the corner. The devotchkas among them had these very lively litsos and wide big rots, very red, showing a lot of teeth, and smecking away and not caring about the wicked world. And then the disc on the stereo ended, and in the like interval, the short silence before the next one came on, one of these devotchkas – very fair and with a big smiling red rot and in her late thirties I'd say – suddenly came with singing, only a bar and a half and as though she was like giving an example of something they'd all been govoreeting about, and it was like for a moment, O my brothers, some great bird had flown into the milkbar, and I felt all the little malenky hairs on my plott standing endwise¹⁶⁸. Because I knew what she sang. It was from an opera by Friedrich Gitterfenster called 'Das Bettzeug'¹⁶⁹, and it was the bit where she's singing it with her throat cut, and the slovos are 'Better like this maybe'. Anyway, I shivered.

But old Dim, as soon as he'd slooshied this dollop of song, let off one of his vulgarities followed by a clowny guffaw. I felt myself all of a fever and slooshying and viddying Dim's vulgarity I said: “Bastard. Filthy drooling mannerless bastard¹⁷⁰.” Then I leaned across Georgie, who was between me and horrible Dim, and fisted Dim skorry on the rot. Dim looked very surprised, his rot open, wiping the krovvy off of his goober with his rook. “What for did you do that for?” he said in his ignorant way. Not many viddied what I'd done, and those that viddied cared not. The stereo was on again and was playing a very sick electronic guitar veshch. I said:

“For b eing a bastard with no manners, O my brother. ”

Dim put on a look of evil, saying: “I don't like you should do what you done then. And I'm not your brother no more and wouldn't want to be.” He'd taken a big snotty tashtook from his pocket and was mopping the red flow puzzled, keeping on looking at it frowning as if he thought that blood was for other vecks and not for him. I said:

“If you don't like this and you wouldn't want that, then you know what to do, little brother.” Georgie said, in a sharp way that made me look: “All right. Let's not be starting.”

“Dim can't go on all his jeezny¹⁷¹ being as a little child,” I said and looked sharp at Georgie. Dim said, and the red krovvy was easing its flow now: “What natural right does he have to think he can give the orders and tolchock me whenever he likes? Yarbles is what I say to him, and I'd chain his glazzies out as soon as look.”

“Watch that,” I said, as quiet as I could. “Do watch that, O Dim, if to continue to be on live thou dost wish¹⁷².”

“Yarbles,” said Dim, sneering, “What you done then you had no right. I'll meet you with chain or nozh or britva any time.”

Pete said: “Oh now, don't, both of you malchicks. Droogs, aren't we? It isn't right droogs should behave thiswise.”

“Dim,” I said, “has got to learn his place. Right?”

“Wait,” said Georgie. “What is all this about place? This is the first I ever hear about lewdies learning their place.” Pete said: “If the truth is known, Alex, you shouldn't have given old Dim that tolchock. I'llsayit onceandnomore. I say it with all respect, but if it had been me you'd given it to you'd have to answer. I say no more.” And he lowered his litso in his milk-glass.

I could feel myself getting all razdraz inside, but I tried to cover it, saying calm: “There has to be a leader. Discipline there has to be. Right?” N one of them skazatted a word or nodded even. I got more razdraz inside, calmer out. “I,” I said, “have been in charge long now. We are all droogs, but somebody has to be in charge. Right? Right?” They all like nodded. Dim was osooshing¹⁷³ the last of the krovvy off. It was Dim who said now:

“Right, right. A bit tired, maybe, everybody is. Best not to say more.” I was surprised and just that malenky bit poogly to sloosh Dim govoreeting that wise. Dim said: “Bedways is rightways now, so best we go homeways¹⁷⁴. Right?” I was very surprised. The other two nodded, going right right right. I said:

“You understand about that tolchock on the rot, Dim. It was the music, see. I get all bezoomny when any veck interferes with a ptitsa singing. Like that then¹⁷⁵.”

“Best we go off homeways and get a bit of spatchka¹⁷⁶,” said Dim. “A long night for growing malchicks. Right?” Right right nodded the other two. I said:

“I think it best we go home now. Dim has made a real horrorshow suggestion. Well then, O my brothers, same time same place tomorrow?”

“Oh yes,” said Georgie. “I think that can be arranged.” “I might,” said Dim, “be just that malenky bit late. But same place and near same time tomorrow surely.” He was still wiping at his goober, though no krovvy flowed any longer now. “And,” he said, “it is to be hoped there won't be no more of them singing ptitsas in here.” Then he gave his old Dim guff, a clowny big hohohohoho. It seemed like he was too dim to take much offence¹⁷⁷.

So off we went our several ways, me belching on the cold coke I'd peeted. I had my cut-throat britva handy in case any of Billyboy's droogs should be around near the flat-block waiting, or for that matter any of the other bandas or gruppas or shaikas¹⁷⁸ that from time to time were at war with one. Where I lived was with my dadda and mum in the flats of Municipal Flatblock 18A, between Kingsley Avenue and Wilsonsway. I got to the big main door with no trouble, though I did pass one young malchick creeching and moaning in the gutter, all cut about lovely, and saw in the lamplight also streaks of blood here and there like signatures, my brothers, of the night's Allying¹⁷⁹. In the hallway was the good old municipal painting on the walls – vecks and ptitsas very well developed¹⁸⁰, at workbench and machine with no platties on their well-developed plotts. But of course some of the malchicks living in 18A had, as was to be expected, decorated the said big painting with handy pencil and ballpoint, adding hair and stiff rods and dirty ballooning slovos out of the rots of these nagoy¹⁸¹ (bare, that is) cheenas and vecks. I went to the lift, but there was no need to press the electric knopka¹⁸² to see if it was working or not, because it had been tolchocked real horrorshow this night, the metal doors all broken, so I had to walk the ten floors up. I cursed and panted climbing, being tired in plott if not so much in brain. I wanted music very bad this evening, that singing devotchka in the Korova having perhaps started me off. I opened the door of 10-8 with my own little klootch¹⁸³, and inside our malenky quarters all was quiet, the pee and em¹⁸⁴ both being in sleepland, and mum had laid out on the table on malenky bit of supper – a couple of lomticks of tinned meat¹⁸⁵ with kleb¹⁸⁶and butter, a glass of the old cold moloko. Hohoho, the old moloko, with no knives or synthemesc or drencrom in it. How wicked, my brothers, innocent milk must always seem to me now. Still I drank and ate growling, being more hungry than I thought at first, and I got fruit-pie from the larder and tore chunks off it to stuff into my greedy rot. Then I went into my own little room or den, taking off my platties as I did so. Here was my bed and my stereo, pride of myjeezny, and my discs in their cupboard, and banners and flags on the wall, these being like remembrances of my corrective school life¹⁸⁷ since I was eleven. The little speakers of my stereo were all arranged round the room, on ceiling, walls, floor, so, lying on my bed slooshying the music, I was like plunged in the orchestra. Now what I fancied first tonight was this new violin concerto by the American Geoffrey Plautus, so I switched it on and waited. Then, brothers, it came. Oh, bliss, bliss and heaven. I lay all nagoy to the ceiling, my gulliver on my rookers on the pillow, glazzies closed, rot open in bliss, slooshying the lovely sounds. Oh, it was gorgeousness, it was wonder of wonders. And then came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk around my bed. Then flute and oboe bored their way. I was in such bliss, my brothers. Pee and em in their bedroom next door had learnt now not to knock on the wall with complaints of what they called noise. I had taught them. Now they would take sleep-pills. Perhaps, knowing the joy I had in my night music, they had already taken them. As I slooshied, my glazzies tight shut to shut in the bliss that was better than any synthemesc Bog or God, I knew such lovely pictures. There were vecks and ptitsas, both young and starry, lying on the ground screaming for mercy, and I was smecking all over my rot and grinding my boot in their litsos. And there were devotchkas ripped and creeching against walls and I plunging like a shlaga¹⁸⁸ into them, and indeed when the music rose to the top of its big highest tower, then, lying there on my bed with glazzies tight shut and rookers behind my gulliver, I broke and spattered and cried aaaaaaah with the bliss of it. And so the lovely music came to its glowing close. After that I had lovely Mozart, the Jupiter, and there were new pictures of different litsos to be ground and splashed, and it was after this that I thought I would have just one last disc, and I wanted something starry and strong and very firm, so it was J. S. Bach I had, the Brandenburg Concerto¹⁸⁹ just for strings. And, slooshying with different bliss than before, I viddied again this name on the paper I'd razrezzed that night, a long time ago it seemed, in that cottage called HOME. The name was about a clockwork orange. Listening to the J. S. Bach, I began to pony¹⁹⁰ better what that meant now, and I thought, slooshying away to the gorgeousness of the starry German master, that I would like to have tolchocked them both harder and ripped them to ribbons¹⁹¹ on their own floor.

4

The next morning I woke up at eight hours, my brothers, and as I still felt shagged and fagged and my glazzies were stuck together real horrorshow with sleepglue, I thought I would not go to school. I thought how I would have a malenky bit longer in the bed, an hour or two say, and then get dressed nice and easy, perhaps even having a splosh¹⁹² about in the bath, make toast for myself and slooshy the radio or read the gazetta, all on my oddyknocky.¹⁹³ And then in the afterlunch I might perhaps, if I still felt like it, itty¹⁹⁴ off to the old skolliwoll¹⁹⁵ and see what was vareeting¹⁹⁶ in the gloopy useless learning, O my brothers. I heard my papapa grumbling and trampling and then ittying off to the dyeworks where he rabbited¹⁹⁷, and then my mum called in in a very respectful goloss as she did now I was growing up big and strong:

“It's gone eight, son. You don't want to be late again.” So I called back: “A bit of pain in my gulliver. Leave us be and I'll try to sleep it off and then I'll be right for this after.” I slooshied her give a sort of a sigh and she said: “I'll put your breakfast in the oven then, son. I've got to be off myself now.” Which was true, there being this law for everybody not a child nor with child¹⁹⁸ nor ill to go out rabbiting. My mum worked at one of the Statemarts, as they called them, filling up the shelves with tinned soup and beans and all that cal. So I slooshied her clank a plate in the gas-oven like and then she was putting her shoes on and then getting her coat from behind the door and then sighing again, then she said: “I'm off now, son.” But I was back in sleepland and then I did doze off real horrorshow, and I had a queer and very real like sneety¹⁹⁹, dreaming for some reason of my droog Georgie. In this sneety he'd got like very much older and was govoreeting about discipline and obedience and how all the malchicks under his control had to jump hard at it and throw up the old salute²⁰⁰ like being in the army, and there was me in line like the rest saying yes sir and no sir, and the I viddied clear that Georgie had these stars on his pletchoes and he was like a general. And then he brought in old Dim with a whip, and Dim was a lot more starry and grey and had a few zoobies missing as you could see when he let out a smeck, viddying me, and then my droog Georgie said, pointing like at me: “That man has filth and cal all over his platties,” and it was true. Then I creeched: “Don't hit, please don't, brothers,” and started to run. And I was running in like circles and Dim was after me, smecking his gulliver off, cracking with the old whip, and each time I got a real horrorshow tolchock with this whip there was like a very loud electric bell ringringring, and this bell was like a sort of a pain too.

Then I woke up real skorry, my heart going bap bap bap, and of course there was really a bell going brrrrr, and it was our front-door bell. I let on that nobody was at home, but this brrrrr still ittied on²⁰¹, and then I heard a goloss shouting through the door: “Come on then, get out of it, I know you're in bed.” I recognized the goloss right away. It was the goloss of P. R. Deltoid, what they called my Post-Corrective Adviser. I shouted right right right, in a goloss of like pain, and I got out of bed and dressed myself. When I opened up he came shambling in looking shagged, a battered old shlapa²⁰² on his gulliver, his raincoat filthy. “Ah, Alex boy,” he said to me. “I met your mother, yes. She said something about a pain somewhere. Hence not at school, yes.”

“A rather intolerable pain in the head, sir,” I said in my gentleman's goloss. “I think it should clear by this afternoon.”

“Or certainly by this evening, yes,” said P. R. Deltoid. “The evening is the great time, isn't it, Alex boy? Sit,” he said, “sit, sit,” as though this was his domy²⁰³ and me his guest. And he sat in this starry rocking-chair of my dad's and began rocking, as if that was all he had come for. I said: “A cup of the old chai²⁰⁴, sir? Tea, I mean.”

“No time,” he said, gloopy. So I put the kettle on. Then I said: “To what do I owe the extreme pleasure?²⁰⁵ Is anything wrong, sir?”

“Wrong?” he said, very skorry and sly, but still rocking away. Then he caught sight of an advert in the gazetta, which was on the table – a lovely smecking young ptitsa with her groodies hanging out to advertise.

Then he said: “Why should you think in terms of there being anything wrong?²⁰⁶ Have you been doing something you shouldn't, yes?”

“Just a manner of speech²⁰⁷,” I said, “sir.”

“Well,” said P. R. Deltoid, “it'sjust a manner of speech from me to you that you watch out, little Alex, because next time, as you very well know, it's not going to be the corrective school any more. Next time it's going to be the barry place²⁰⁸ and all my work ruined.”

“I've been doing nothing I shouldn't, sir,” I said. “ The millicents have nothing on me, brother, sir I mean.”

“Cut out this clever talk about millicents,” said P. R. Deltoid very weary, but still rocking. “Just because the police have not picked you up lately doesn't, as you very well know, mean you've not been up to some nastiness. There was a bit of a fight last night, wasn't there? There was a bit of shuffling with nozhes and bike-chains and the like. One of a certain fat boy's friends was ambulanced off late from near the Power Plant and hospitalized, cut about very unpleasantly, yes. Your name was mentioned. The word has got through to me by the usual channels. Certain friends of yours were named also. There seems to have been a fair amount of other nastiness last night. Oh, nobody can prove anything about anybody, as usual. But I'm warning you, little Alex, being a good friend to you as always, the one man who wants to save you from yourself.”

“I appreciate all that, sir,” I said, “very sincerely.”

“Yes, you do, don't you?” he sort of sneered. “Just watch it, that's all, yes. We know more than you think, little Alex.” Then he said, still rocking away: “What gets into you all? We study the problem and we've been studying it for damn well near a century, yes, but we get no further with our studies. You've got a good home here, good loving parents, you've got not too bad of a brain. Is it some devil that crawls inside you?”

“Nobody's got anything on me, sir,” I said. “I've been out of the rookers of the millicents for a long time now.”

“That's just what worries me,” sighed P. R. Deltoid. “A bit too long of a time to be healthy. That's why I'm warning you, little Alex, to keep your handsome young nose out of the dirt, yes. Do I make myself clear?”

“Absolutely, sir,” I said. “Clear as a sky of deepest summer. You can rely on me, sir.” And I gave him a nice zooby smile.

But when he'd ookadeeted²⁰⁹ and I was making this very strong pot of chai, I grinned to myself over this veshch that P. R. Deltoid and his droogs worried about. All right, I do bad, what with crasting and tolchocks and carves with the britva and the old in-out-in-out, and if I get loveted²¹⁰, well, too bad for me. So if I get loveted and in spite of the great tenderness of my summers²¹¹, brothers, it's the jail itself, well, I say: “Fair, but a pity, my lords, because I just cannot bear to be shut in. I'll just try to not get loveted again.” But, brothers, this worrying over what is the cause of my badness really makes me laugh. They don't go into the cause of goodness, so why the other way? If lewdies are good that's because they like it, and I wouldn't ever interfere with their pleasures, and so of the other way. More, badness is of the self, the one, the you or me on our oddy knockies²¹², and that self is made by old Bog or God. But the not-self, the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self. And is not our modern history, my brothers, the story of brave malenky selves fighting these big machines? I am serious with you, brothers, over this. But what I do I do because I like to do. So now, this smiling winter morning, I drink this very strong chai with moloko and spoon after spoon after spoon of sugar, me having a sladky tooth²¹³, and I dragged out of the oven the breakfast my poor old mum had cooked for me. It was an egg fried, that and no more, but I made toast and ate egg and toast and jam, munching it away while I read the gazetta. The gazetta was the usual about ultra-violence and bank robberies and strikes and footballers making everybody paralytic with fright by threatening to not play next Saturday if they did not get higher wages, naughty malchickiwicks as they were. And there was a bolshy big article on Modern Youth by some very clever bald chelloveck. I read this with care, my brothers, drinking the old chai, cup after chasha²¹⁴, crunching my lomticks of black toast dipped in jammiwam and eggiweg²¹⁵. This learned veck said the usual veshches, about no parental discipline, as he called it, and the shortage of real horrorshow teachers. All this was gloopy and made me smeck. Every day there was something about Modern Youth, but the best veshch they ever had in the old gazetta was by some starry pop²¹⁶ in a doggy collar²¹⁷ who said that in his opinion and he was govoreeting as a man of Bog IT WAS THE DEVIL THAT WAS ABROAD and was like making his way into like young innocent flesh, and it was the adult world that could take the responsibility for this with their wars and bombs and nonsense. So that was all right. So he knew what he talked of, being a Godman. So we young innocent malchicks could take no blame. Right right right. Then I started to get out day platties from my wardrobe, turning the radio on. There was music playing, a very nice malenky string quartet, my brothers, by Claudius Birdman, one that I knew well. I had to have a smeck, though, thinking of what I'd viddied once in one of these like articles on Modern Youth, about how Modern Youth would be better off if A Lively Appreciation Of The Arts could be like encouraged. Great Music, it said, and Great Poetry would like quieten Modern Youth down and make Modern Youth more Civilized. It's nonsense as music always sort of sharpened me up, and made me feel like old Bog himself, ready to make vecks and ptitsas creech away in my ha ha power. And when I'd done dressing I thought here was time to itty off to the disc-bootick²¹⁸to see about this long-promised and long-ordered stereo Beethoven Number Nine²¹⁹. So out I went, brothers.

The day was very different from the night. The night belonged to me and my droogs and all the rest of the nadsats, and the starry bourgeois stayed indoors drinking in the gloopy worldcasts, but the day was for the starry ones, and there always seemed to be more rozzes or millicents about during the day, too. I got the autobus from the corner and rode to Center, and then I walked back to Taylor Place, and there was the disc-bootick I favoured. It had the gloopy name of MELODIA, but it was a real horrorshow mesto and skorry, most times, at getting the new recordings. I walked in and the only other customers were two young ptitsas sucking away at ice-sticks. These two ptitsas couldn't have been more than ten, and they too, like me, it seemed, evidently, had decided to take the morning off from the old skolliwoll. They saw themselves, you could see, as real grown-up devotchkas already, what with the old hip-swing when they saw your Faithful Narrator²²⁰, and padded groodies and red all put on their goobers. I went up to the counter, smiling at old Andy behind it. Hesaid:

“Aha. I know what you want, I think. Good news, good news. It has arrived.” And he went to get it. The two young ptitsas started giggling, as they will at that age, and I gave them a like cold glazzy. Andy was back real skorry, waving the great shiny Ninth, which had on it, brothers, the frowning litso of Ludwig van himself. “Here,” said Andy. “Shall we give it the trial spin?²²¹” But I wanted it back home on my stereo to slooshy on my oddy knocky. I fumbled out the deng to pay and one of the little ptitsas said:

“Who you getten, bratty²²²? What biggy, what only?” These young devotchkas had their own like way of govoreeting. And both giggled. Then an idea hit me and made me near fall over with the ecstasy of it, so I could not breathe for near ten seconds. I recovered and made with my new-clean zoobies and said: “What you got back home, little sisters, to play your new discs on? Come with uncle,” I said, “and hear all proper. You are invited.” And I like bowed. They giggled again and one said: “Oh, but we're so hungry. Oh, but we could so eat.” The other said: “Yah, she can say that.” So I said: “Eat with uncle. Name your place.”

Then they viddied themselves as real sophistoes²²³, which was like pathetic, and started talking in big-lady golosses about the Ritz and the Bristol and the Hilton. But I stopped that with “Follow uncle,” and I led them to the Pasta Parlour just round the corner and let them fill their innocent young litsos on spaghetti and sausages and cream-puffs and banana-splits and hot choc-sauce, till I near sicked with the sight of it, I, brothers, lunching a cold ham-slice and a dollop of chilli. These two young ptitsas were much alike, though not sisters. They had the same ideas, and the same colour hair. Well, they would grow up real today. Today I would make a day of it. No school this afterlunch, but education certain, Alex as teacher. Their names, they said, were Marty and Sonietta, bezoomny enough and in the height of their childish fashion, so I said: