to the world: "Good-bye, good-bye,
may Bog forgive you for a ruined life." Then I got on to the sill, the music
blasting away to my left,  and I shut my  glazzies and felt the cold wind on
my litso, then I jumped.


        6

     I jumped, O my brothers, and I fell on the sidewalk hard, but I did not
snuff  it, oh no.  If I had snuffed  it I would not be here to  write what I
written have. It  seems that the jump was  not from  a big enough heighth to
kill.  But I cracked  my back and my  wrists and  nogas and felt very bolshy
pain before I passed  out, brothers, with astonished and surprised litsos of
chellovecks  in the  streets  looking at me from above.  And just  before  I
passed out I viddied clear that not one chelloveck in the whole horrid world
was for  me and  that that music through the wall had all been like arranged
by those who were supposed to  be my like  new  droogs and that it was  some
veshch like this that they wanted for  their horrible selfish  and  boastful
politics. All that  was  in like a  million millionth  part of  one  minoota
before  I threw over  the  world and the sky and the litsos of  the  staring
chellovecks that were above me.
     Where I was when I came  back to jeezny after a long black black gap of
it  might have been a million years was a hospital,  all white and with this
von of hospitals you get, all like sour and smug and clean. These antiseptic
veshches  you get  in hospitals  should have a  real horrorshow von  of like
frying onions or of flowers. I came very slow back to knowing who  I was and
I was all bound up in white and I could not feel anything in  my plott, pain
nor sensation nor any veshch at all. All round my gulliver was a bandage and
there were bits of stuff  like stuck to my litso, and my rookers were all in
bandages and  like bits  of stick were like fixed  to  my fingers like on it
might be flowers  to make them grow straight, and my poor old nogas were all
straightened  out too, and  it was all bandages and wire  cages and into  my
right rooker,  near  the pletcho, was  red red krovvy dripping  from  a  jar
upside down. But I could not feel anything, O my brothers. There was a nurse
sitting by my bed and she was reading some book that was  all very dim print
and you could viddy it was a story because of a lot  of inverted commas, and
she was like breathing  hard uh uh uh over it, so it must have been  a story
about  the old in-out in-out. She  was  a real  horrorshow  devotchka,  this
nurse, with a very red rot and like long lashes over her glazzies, and under
her  like  very  stiff uniform  you could  viddy  she  had  very  horrorshow
groodies. So I said to her: "What gives,  O my little  sister? Come thou and
have  a nice lay-down with your  malenky droog in  this bed." But the slovos
didn't  come out  horrorshow  at  all,  it being  as though  my rot was  all
stiffened up, and I could feel  with my yahzick that some of my zoobies were
no  longer there. But  this  nurse  like  jumped and dropped her book on the
floor and said:
     "Oh, you've recovered consciousness."
     That was like a big rotful for a malenky ptitsa like her,  and I  tried
to say so,  but the slovos came  out only  like er er er. She ittied off and
left me on my oddy knocky, and  I could  viddy now that I was  in a  malenky
room of my own, not in one of  these long wards like I had been in as a very
little malchick, full of coughing dying starry vecks  all around to make you
want to get well and fit again. It had  been like diphtheria I had had then,
O my brothers.
     It was like now as though I could not hold to being  conscious all that
long, because I was like asleep again almost right away, very skorry, but in
a  minoota or two I was  sure that  this nurse ptitsa had  come back and had
brought chellovecks in white coats  with her and they were viddying me  very
frowning and  going hm  hm hm at Your Humble Narrator. And  with them I  was
sure there  was the old charles from  the  Staja govoreeting: "Oh my son, my
son," breathing a like very stale  von of whisky  on to  me and then saying:
"But I would not stay, oh no. I could not in no wise subscribe to what those
bratchnies  are going to do to other poor prestoopnicks. O I got  out and am
preaching sermons now about it all, my little beloved son in J. C."
     I woke up again later on and who should I viddy there round the bed but
the  three from  whose  flat I  had  jumped out, namely  D. B. da  Silva and
Something Something Rubinstein and  Z. Dolin. "Friend,"  one of  these vecks
was saying, but I could not viddy, or slooshy horrorshow which one, "friend,
little  friend," this  goloss  was  saying,  "the people  are on  fire  with
indignation. You have killed  those  horrible boastful  villains' chances of
re-election. They will go  and will  go  for ever and ever.  You have served
Liberty well." I tried to say:
     "If I  had  died it  would  have been  even better  for  you  political
bratchnies, would it not, pretending and treacherous droogs as you are." But
all that came out was er er er. Then one of these three seemed to hold out a
lot of bits cut from gazettas and what I  could viddy was a horrible picture
of  me all  krovvy  on a stretcher  being carried off  and  I seemed to like
remember a kind of a  popping  of  lights which  must have been photographer
vecks.  Out of  one glazz I  could read  like headlines which  were  sort of
trembling in the rooker of the chelloveck that held them, like BOY VICTIM OF
CRIMINAL  REFORM SCHEME and  GOVERNMENT  AS  MURDERER  and there  was like a
picture  of a veck that looked familiar to me and  it said  OUT OUT OUT, and
that  would  be the Minister  of the Inferior or  Interior.  Then  the nurse
ptitsa said:
     "You  shouldn't be  exciting  him  like  that.  You  shouldn't be doing
anything that will make him upset. Now come on, let's have you out." I tried
to say:
     "Out out out," but it was er er er again. Anyway, these three political
vecks went. And I went, too, only back to  the land,  back  to all blackness
lit up by like  odd  dreams which I didn't know  whether they were dreams or
not,  O my brothers. Like for instance I had this idea of my  whole plott or
body being like emptied of  as it might  be dirty water and  then filled  up
again with clean. And then there were really lovely and horrorshow dreams of
being  in some veck's  auto that had been  crasted by  me and driving up and
down the world all on my oddy knocky running lewdies  down  and hearing them
creech they were  dying, and in me no pain  and no sickness. And  also there
were  dreams of doing the old  in-out in-out with  devotchkas,  forcing like
them  down  on  the  ground and making them have  it and everybody  standing
around claping their rookers  and cheering like bezoomny. And then I woke up
again  and it was my pee and em come to viddy their ill son, my em boohooing
real horrorshow. I could govoreet a lot better now and could say: "Well well
well well  well, what gives? What makes you think you  are like welcome?" My
papapa said, in a like ashamed way:
     "You were in the papers, son. It said they had done great wrong to you.
It said how the Government drove you to try and  do yourself in. And it  was
our fault too, in  a way,  son. Your  home's your home, when all's  said and
done,  son."  And  my  mum  kept  on going boohoohoo  and  looking  ugly  as
kiss-my-sharries. So I said:
     "And  how  beeth the new  son Joe? Well and healthy and  prosperous,  I
trust and pray?" My mum said:
     "Oh, Alex Alex. Owwwwwwww." My papapa said:
     "A  very awkward thing,  son. He  got into  a bit of  trouble  with the
police and was done by the police."
     "Really?" I said.  "Really? Such  a good  sort of  chelloveck and  all.
Amazed proper I am, honest."
     "Minding his own business he  was," said my pee.  "And  the police told
him to move  on. Waiting at a corner he was, son, to see a girl he was going
to meet.  And they  told  him  to  move on and  he  said he had rights  like
everybody else,  and then they  sort of fell on top of him and hit him about
cruel."
     "Terrible," I said. "Really terrible. And where is the poor boy now?"
     "Owwwww," boohooed my mum. "Gone back owwwwwwme."
     "Yes," said dad. "He's gone back  to his own  home  town to get better.
They've had to give his job here to somebody else."
     "So  now," I  said,  "You're willing for me to move back in  again  and
things be like they were before."
     "Yes, son," said my papapa. "Please, son."
     "I'll consider it," I said. "I'll think about it real careful."
     "Owwwww," went my mum.
     "Ah, shut it," I said, "or I'll give you something  proper to yowl  and
creech about. Kick your zoobies in I  will." And, O my brothers, saying that
made  me feel a  malenky bit better, as if all like fresh red red krovvy was
flowing all through my plott.  That was  something I had  to think about. It
was like as though to get better I had had to get worse.
     "That's no way to speak to your  mother,  son,"  said my papapa. "After
all, she brought you into the world."
     "Yes,"  I said. "And  a  right  grahzny  vonny  world too."  I shut  my
glazzies tight in like pain and said: "Go away now.  I'll think about coming
back. But things will have to be very different."
     "Yes, son," said my pee. "Anything you say."
     "You'll have to make up your mind," I said, "who's to be boss."
     "Owwwwww," my mum went on.
     "Very good, son," said my papapa. "Things will be as you like. Only get
well."
     When they had gone  I laid and thought a  bit about different veshches,
like all different pictures passing through my gulliver, and when the  nurse
ptitsa came back  in and  like straightened the sheets on the  bed I said to
her:
     "How long is it I've been in here?"
     "A week or so," she said.
     "And what have they been doing to me?"
     "Well," she said, "you were all broken up and bruised and had sustained
severe  concussion and had lost a lot of blood. They've had  to put all that
right, haven't they?"
     "But," I said, "has anyone been doing anything with my gulliver? What I
mean is, have they been playing around with inside like my brain?"
     "Whatever they've done," she said, "it'll all be for the best."
     But a couple of days later a  couple of like doctor vecks came in, both
youngish  vecks with these very sladky  smiles, and they had  like a picture
book with them. One of them said:
     "We want you  to have a look at these and to  tell  us  what you  think
about them. All right?"
     "What giveth, O little droogies?"  I said. "What new bezoomny idea dost
thou  in mind have?" So they  both had a like embarrassed smeck  at that and
then they sat down either side  of the bed and opened  up this book.  On the
first page there was like a photograph of a bird-nest full of eggs.
     "Yes?" one of these doctor vecks said.
     "A bird-nest," I said, "full of like eggs. Very very nice."
     "And what would you like to do about it?" the other one said.
     "Oh," I said, "smash them. Pick up the  lot and like throw them against
a  wall or a cliff or  something  and then viddy  them  all  smash  up  real
horrorshow."
     "Good good," they both said, and then the page  was turned. It was like
a  picture of  one of these bolshy great birds called peacocks with  all its
tail spread out in all colours  in a very boastful  way.  "Yes?" said one of
these vecks.
     "I would  like,"  I said, "to  pull out like all those feathers  in its
tail and slooshy it creech blue murder. For being so like boastful."
     "Good," they both said, "good good good." And  they went on turning the
pages. There were like pictures of real horrorshow devotchkas, and I  said I
would like  to give them the old in-out in-out  with lots of ultra-violence.
There were like pictures of chellovecks being given the boot straight in the
litso and all red red krovvy everywhere and I  said I would like to be in on
that. And there was a picture of the old nagoy droog of the prison charlie's
carrying his cross up a hill, and I said I would like to have the old hammer
and nails. Good good good, I said:
     "What is all this?"
     "Deep hypnopaedia," or  some  such  slovo, said one of these two vecks.
"You seem to be cured."
     "Cured?" I said. "Me tied down to this bed like this and you say cured?
Kiss my sharries is what I say."
     So I waited and, O  my  brothers, I  got a lot better, munching away at
eggiwegs  and lomticks of toast and peeting bolshy great mugs of milky chai,
and then one day they  said I was  going to  have  a  very very very special
visitor.
     "Who?" I said,  while they straightened  the bed and combed my luscious
glory for me, me having the bandage off  now from  my  gulliver and the hair
growing again.
     "You'll see, you'll  see,"  they  said. And I  viddied  all  right.  At
two-thirty of the afternoon there were like all photographers  and  men from
gazettas  with noteboks  and  pencils and all that cal.  And, brothers, they
near trumpeted a bolshy  fanfare for this great and important  veck who  was
coming to viddy Your Humble Narrator. And in  he came, and  of course it was
none other than the  Minister of the  Interior  or Inferior, dressed in  the
heighth  of  fashion and with  this  very upper-class  haw haw goloss. Flash
flash bang went the  cameras when he put out his rooker to me to shake it. I
said:
     "Well well well well well. What giveth then, old droogie?"
     Nobody seemed to quite pony  that, but  somebody  said in  a like harsh
goloss:
     "Be more respectful, boy, in addressing the Minister."
     "Yarbles,"  I  said,  like   snarling  like  a  doggie.  "Bolshy  great
yarblockos to thee and thine."
     "All right, all right," said the Interior Inferior one very skorry. "He
speaks to me as a friend, don't you, son?"
     "I am everyone's friend," I said. "Except to my enemies."
     "Well,"  said the  Int  Inf Min, sitting  down by my  bed.  "I and  the
Government  of which  I am a member  want you to regard  us as friends. Yes,
friends.  We have put you right, yes? You are getting the best of treatment.
We never wished you harm, but there are some who did and do. And I think you
know who those are."
     "Yes yes yes," he said. "There  are certain men who  wanted to use you,
yes, use you for political ends. They  would  have been glad,  yes, glad for
you  to be dead, for  they thought  they could  then  blame  it all  on  the
Government. I think you know who those men are."
     "There is a man," said the Intinfmin, "called F. Alexander, a writer of
subversive literature, who has been howling for your blood.  He has been mad
with desire to stick a knife in you.  But  you're safe from him now.  We put
him away."
     "He was  supposed to be like a droogie," I said.  "Like a mother to  me
was what he was."
     "He found out that you had done  wrong to him. At least," said  the Min
very very skorry, "he believed  you had done wrong. He  formed  this idea in
his  mind that you  had  been responsible for the death of someone near  and
dear to him."
     "What you mean," I said, "is that he was told."
     "He had this idea," said the Min. "He was a menace. We put him away for
his own protection. And also," he said, "for yours."
     "Kind," I said. "Most kind of thou."
     "When you leave here," said the  Min, "you  will  have  no  worries. We
shall see  to  everything.  A  good job on a  good salary. Because  you  are
helping us."
     "Am I?" I said.
     "We always help our friends,  don't we?" And then he took my rooker and
some veck creeched: "Smile!" and I smiled  like  bezoomny  without thinking,
and then flash flash crack flash bang there  were pictures being taken of me
and  the  Intinfmin  all  droogy  together.  "Good  boy,"  said  this  great
chelloveck.
     "Good good boy. And now, see, a present."
     What was brought in  now, brothers, was a big  shiny box, and I viddied
clear what sort of a veshch it was. It was a stereo. It was put down next to
the bed and opened up and some veck  plugged its lead into the  wall-socket.
"What  shall it be?"  asked a veck with otchkies on his nose, and he  had in
his  rookers  lovely  shiny  sleeves  full  of  music.  "Mozart?  Beethoven?
Schoenberg? Carl Orff?"
     "The Ninth," I said. "The glorious Ninth."
     And the Ninth it  was, O my brothers. Everybody began to leave nice and
quiet  while I laid  there with my  glazzies  closed,  slooshying the lovely
music.  The Min said: "Good  good boy," patting  me on the pletcho,  then he
ittied off. Only one veck was left, saying: "Sign here, please." I opened my
glazzies up to sign, not knowing what I was signing and  not, O my brothers,
caring either. Then I was left alone with the glorious Ninth of Ludwig van.
     Oh it was gorgeosity and yumyumyum. When it came to the Scherzo I could
viddy  myself  very  clear  running  and  running  on  like  very  light and
mysterious nogas, carving  the whole litso of  the  creeching  world with my
cut-throat  britva.  And there  was  the slow movement  and the  lovely last
singing movement still to come. I was cured all right.


        Glossary of Nadsat Language

     Words that do not appear  to be of Russian  origin are distinguished by
asterisks. (For help with  the Russian, I am indebted to the  kindness of my
colleague Nora Montesinos and a number of correspondents.)



     *appy polly loggy--apology
     baboochka--old woman
     *baddiwad--bad
     banda--band
     bezoomny--mad
     biblio--library
     bitva--battle
     Bog--God
     bolnoy--sick
     bolshy--big, great
     brat, bratty--brother
     bratchny--bastard
     britva--razor
     brooko--belly
     brosay--to throw
     bugatty--rich
     cal--feces
     *cancer--cigarette
     cantora--office
     carman--pocket
     chai--tea
     *charles, charlie--chaplain
     chasha--cup
     chasso--guard
     cheena--woman
     cheest--to wash
     chelloveck--person, man, fellow
     chepooka--nonsense
     choodesny--wonderful
     *chumble--to mumble
     clop--to knock
     cluve--beak
     collocoll--bell
     *crack--to break up or `bust'
     *crark--to yowl?
     crast--to steal or rob; robbery
     creech--to shout or scream
     *cutter--money
     dama--lady
     ded--old man
     deng--money
     devotchka--girl
     dobby--good
     *dook--trace, ghost
     domy--house
     dorogoy--dear, valuable
     dratsing--fighting
     *drencrom--drug
     droog--friend
     *dung--to defecate
     dva--two
     eegra--game
     eemya--name
     *eggiweg--egg
     *filly--to play or fool with
     *firegold--drink
     *fist--to punch
     *flip--wild?
     forella - `trout'
     gazetta--newspaper
     glazz--eye
     gloopy--stupid
     *golly--unit of money
     goloss--voice
     goober--lip
     gooly--to walk
     gorlo--throat
     govoreet--to speak or talk
     grahzny--dirty
     grazzy--soiled
     gromky--loud
     groody--breast
     gruppa--group
     *guff--guffaw
     gulliver--head
     *guttiwuts--guts
     *hen-korm--chickenfeed
     *horn--to cry out
     horrorshow--good, well
     *in-out in-out--copulation
     interessovat--to interest
     itty--to go
     *jammiwam--jam
     jeezny--life
     kartoffel--potato
     keeshkas--guts
     kleb--bread
     klootch--key
     knopka--button
     kopat--to `dig'
     koshka--cat
     kot--tomcat
     krovvy--blood
     kupet--to buy
     lapa--paw
     lewdies--people
     *lighter--crone?
     litso--face
     lomtick, piece, bit
     loveted--caught
     lubbilubbing--making love
     *luscious glory--hair
     malchick--boy
     malenky--little, tiny
     maslo--butter
     merzky--filthy
     messel--thought, fancy
     mesto--place
     millicent--policeman
     minoota--minute
     molodoy--young
     moloko--milk
     moodge--man
     morder--snout
     *mounch--snack
     mozg--brain
     nachinat--to begin
     nadmenny--arrogant
     nadsat--teenage
     nagoy--naked
     *nazz--fool
     neezhnies--underpants
     nochy--night
     noga--foot, leg
     nozh--knife
     nuking--smelling
     oddy knocky--lonesome
     odin--one
     okno--window
     oobivat--to kill
     ookadeet--to leave
     ooko--ear
     oomny--brainy
     oozhassny--terrible
     oozy--chain
     osoosh--to wipe
     otchkies--eyeglasses
     *pan-handle--erection
     *pee and em--parents
     peet--to drink
     pishcha--food
     platch--to cry
     platties--clothes
     pletcho--shoulder
     plenny--prisoner
     plesk--splash
     *plosh--to splash
     plott--body
     podooshka--pillow
     pol--sex
     polezny--useful
     *polyclef--skeleton key
     pony--to understand
     poogly--frightened
     pooshka - `cannon'
     prestoopnick--criminal
     privodeet--to lead somewhere
     smeck--laugh
     *pretty polly--money
     prod--to produce
     ptitsa - `chick'
     pyahnitsa--drunk
     rabbit--work, job
     radosty--joy
     raskazz--story
     rassoodock--mind
     raz--time
     razdraz--upset
     razrez--to rip, ripping
     rook, rooker--hand, arm
     rot--mouth
     rozz--policeman
     sabog--shoe
     sakar--sugar
     sammy--generous
     *sarky--sarcastic
     scoteena - `cow'
     shaika--gang
     *sharp--female
     sharries--buttocks
     shest--barrier
     *shilarny--concern
     *shive--slice
     shiyah--neck
     shlem--helmet
     *shlaga--club
     shlapa--hat
     shoom - noise
     shoot--fool
     *sinny--cinema
     skazat--to say
     *skolliwoll--school
     skorry--quick, quickly
     *skriking--scratching
     skvat--to grab
     sladky--sweet
     sloochat--to happen
     sloosh, slooshy--to hear, to listen
     slovo--word
     smot--to look
     sneety--dream
     *snoutie--tobacco?
     *snuff it--to die
     sobirat--to pick up
     *sod--to fornicate, fornicator
     soomka - `bag'
     soviet--advice, order
     spat--to sleep
     *splodge, splosh--splash
     *spoogy--terrified
     *Staja--State Jail
     starry--ancient
     strack--horror
     *synthemesc--drug
     tally--waist
     *tashtook--handkerchief
     *tass--cup
     tolchock--to hit or push; blow, beating
     toofles--slippers
     tree--three
     vareet--to `cook up'
     *vaysay--washroom
     veck--(see chelloveck)
     *vellocet--drug
     veshch--thing
     viddy--to see or look
     voloss--hair
     von--smell
     vred--to harm or damage
     yahma--hole
     *yahoodies--Jews
     yahzick--tongue
     *yarbles--testicles
     yeckate--to drive
     *warble--song
     zammechat--remarkable
     zasnoot--sleep
     zheena--wife
     zoobies--teeth
     zvonock--bellpull
     zvook--sound




     Biblioteka "Artefakt"--http://artefact.cns.ru/library/