do not wish to describe, brothers, what other horrible veshches I was like forced to viddy that afternoon. The like minds of this Dr. Brodsky and Dr. Branom and the others in white coats, and remember there was this devotchka twiddling with the knobs and watching the meters, they must have been more cally and filthy than any prestoopnick in the Staja itself. Because I did not think it was possible for any veck to even think of making films of what I was forced to viddy, all tied to this chair and my glazzies made to be wide open. All I could do was to creech very gromky for them to turn it off, turn it off, and that like part drowned the noise of dratsing and fillying and also the music that went with it all. You can imagine it was like a terrible relief when I’d viddied the last bit of film, and this Dr. Brodsky said, in a very yawny and bored like goloss: “I think that should be enough for Day One, don’t you, Branom?” And there I was with the lights switched on, my gulliver throbbing like a bolshy big engine that makes pain, and my rot all dry and cally inside, and feeling I could like sick up every bit of pishcha I had ever eaten, O my brothers, since the day I was like weaned. “All right,” said this Dr. Brodsky, “he can be taken back to his bed.” Then he like patted me on the pletcho and said: “Good, good. A very promising start,” grinning all over his litso, then he like waddled out, Dr. Branom after him, but Dr. Branom gave me a like very droogy and sympathetic type smile as though he had nothing to do with all this veshch but was like forced into it as I was.

Anyhow, they freed my plott from the chair and they let go the skin above my glazzies so that I could open and shut them again, and I shut them, O my brothers, with the pain and throb in my gulliver, and then I was like carried to the old wheel-chair and taken back to my malenky bedroom, the under-veck who wheeled me singing away at some hound-and-horny popsong so that I like snarled: “Shut it, thou,” but he only smecked and said: “Never mind, friend,” and then sang louder. So I was put into the bed and still felt bolnoy but could not sleep, but soon I started to feel that soon I might start to feel that I might soon start feeling just a malenky bit better, and then I was brought some nice hot chai with plenty of moloko and sakar and, peeting that, I knew that that like horrible nightmare was in the past and all over. And then Dr. Branom came in, all nice and smiling. He said:

“Well, by my calculations you should be starting to feel all right again. Yes?”

“Sir,” I said, like wary. I did not quite kopat what he was getting at govoreeting about calculations, seeing that getting better from feeling bolnoy is like your own affair and nothing to do with calculations. He sat down, all nice and droogy, on the bed’s edge and said:

“Dr. Brodsky is pleased with you. You had a very positive response. Tomorrow, of course, there’ll be two sessions, morning and afternoon, and I should imagine that you’ll be feeling a bit limp at the end of the day. But we have to be hard on you, you have to be cured.” I said:

“You mean I have to sit through—? You mean I have to look at—? Oh, no,” I said. “It was horrible.”

“Of course it was horrible,” smiled Dr. Branom. “Violence is a very horrible thing. That’s what you’re learning now. Your body is learning it.”

“But,” I said, “I don’t understand. I don’t understand about feeling sick like I did. I never used to feel sick before. I used to feel like very the opposite. I mean, doing it or watching it I used to feel real horrorshow. I just don’t understand why or how or what—”

“Life is a very wonderful thing,” said Dr. Branom in a like very holy goloss. “The processes of life, the make-up of the human organism, who can fully understand these miracles? Dr. Brodsky is, of course, a remarkable man. What is happening to you now is what should happen to any normal healthy human organism contemplating the actions of the forces of evil, the workings of the principle of destruction. You are being made sane, you are being made healthy.”

“That I will not have,” I said, “nor can understand at all. What you’ve been doing is to make me feel very ill.”

“Do you feel ill now?” he said, still with the old droogy smile on his litso. “Drinking tea, resting, having a quiet chat with a friend—surely you’re not feeling anything but well?”

I like listened and felt for pain and sickness in my gulliver and plott, in a like cautious way, but it was true, brothers, that I felt real horrorshow and even wanting my dinner. “I don’t get it,” I said. “You must be doing something to me to make me feel ill.” And I sort of frowned about that, thinking.

“You felt ill this afternoon,” he said, “because you’re getting better. When we’re healthy we respond to the presence of the hateful with fear and nausea. You’re becoming healthy, that’s all. You’ll be healthier still this time tomorrow.” Then he patted me on the noga and went out, and I tried to puzzle the whole veshch out as best I could. What it seemed to me was that the wire and other veshches that were fixed to my plott perhaps were making me feel ill, and that it was all a trick really. I was still puzzling out all this and wondering whether I should refuse to be strapped down to this chair tomorrow and start a real bit of dratsing with them all, because I had my rights, when another chelloveck came in to see me. He was a like smiling starry veck who said he was what he called the Discharge Officer, and he carried a lot of bits of paper with him. He said:

“Where will you go when you leave here?” I hadn’t really thought about that sort of veshch at all, and it only now really began to dawn on me that I’d be a fine free malchick very soon, and then I viddied that would only be if I played it everybody’s way and did not start any dratsing and creeching and refusing and so on. I said:

“Oh, I shall go home. Back to my pee and em.”

“Your—?” He didn’t get nadsat-talk at all, so I said:

“To my parents in the dear old flatblock.”

“I see,” he said. “And when did you last have a visit from your parents?”

“A month,” I said, “very near. They like suspended visiting-day for a bit because of one prestoopnick getting some blasting-powder smuggled in across the wires from his ptitsa. A real cally trick to play on the innocent, like punishing them as well. So it’s near a month since I had a visit.”

“I see,” said this veck. “And have your parents been informed of your transfer and impending release?” That had a real lovely zvook that did, that slovo ‘release.’ I said:

“No.” Then I said: “It will be a nice surprise for them, that, won’t it? Me just walking in through the door and saying: ‘Here I am, back, a free veck again.’ Yes, real horrorshow.”

“Right,” said the Discharge Officer veck, “we’ll leave it at that. So long as you have somewhere to live. Now, there’s the question of your having a job, isn’t there?” And he showed me this long list of jobs I could have, but I thought, well, there would be time enough for that. A nice malenky holiday first. I could do a crasting job soon as I got out and fill the old carmans with pretty polly, but I would have to be very careful and I would have to do the job all on my oddy knocky. I did not trust so-called droogs any more. So I told this veck to leave it a bit and we would govoreet about it again. He said right right right, then got ready to leave. He showed himself to be a very queer sort of a veck, because what he did now was to like giggle and then say: “Would you like to punch me in the face before I go?” I did not think I could possibly have slooshied that right, so I said:

“Eh?”

“Would you,” he giggled, “like to punch me in the face before I go?” I frowned like at that, very puzzled, and said:

“Why?”

“Oh,” he said, “just to see how you’re getting on.” And he brought his litso real near, a fat grin all over his rot. So I fisted up and went smack at this litso, but he pulled himself away real skorry, grinning still, and my rooker just punched air. Very puzzling, this was, and I frowned as he left, smecking his gulliver off. And then, my brothers, I felt real sick again, just like in the afternoon, just for a couple of minootas. It then passed off skorry, and when they brought my dinner in I found I had a fair appetite and was ready to crunk away at the roast chicken. But it was funny that starry chelloveck asking for a tolchock in the litso. And it was funny feeling sick like that.

What was even funnier was when I went to sleep that night, O my brothers, I had a nightmare, and, as you might expect, it was one of those bits of film I’d viddied in the afternoon. A dream or nightmare is really only like a film inside your gulliver, except that it is as though you could walk into it and be part of it. And this is what happened to me. It was a nightmare of one of the bits of film they showed me near the end of the afternoon like session, all of smecking malchicks doing the ultra-violent on a young ptitsa who was creeching away in her red red krovvy, her platties all razrezzed real horrorshow. I was in this fillying about, smecking away and being like the ring-leader, dressed in the heighth of nadsat fashion. And then at the heighth of all this dratsing and tolchocking I felt like paralysed and wanting to be very sick, and all the other malchicks had a real gromky smeck at me. Then I was dratsing my way back to being awake all through my own krovvy, pints and quarts and gallons of it, and then I found myself in my bed in this room. I wanted to be sick, so I got out of the bed all trembly so as to go off down the corridor to the old vaysay. But, behold, brothers, the door was locked. And turning round I viddied for like the first raz that there were bars on the window. And so, as I reached for the like pot in the malenky cupboard beside the bed, I viddied that there would be no escaping from any of all this. Worse, I did not dare to go back into my own sleeping gulliver. I soon found I did not want to be sick after all, but then I was poogly of getting back into bed to sleep. But soon I fell smack into sleep and did not dream any more.