So thinking like this with my gulliver bent and my rookers stuck in my trouser carmans I walked the town, brothers, and at last I began to feel very tired and also in great need of a nice bolshy chasha of milky chai. Thinking about this chai, I got a sudden like picture of me sitting before a bolshy fire in an armchair peeting away at this chai, and what was funny and very very strange was that I seemed to have turned into a very starry chel-loveck, about seventy years old, because I could viddy my own voloss, which was very grey, and I also had whiskers, and these were very grey too. I could viddy myself as an old man, sitting by a fire, and then the like picture vanished. But it was very like strange.
I came to one of these tea-and-coffee mestos, brothers, and I could viddy through the long long window that it was full of very dull lewdies, like ordinary, who had these very patient and expressionless litsos and would do no harm to no one, all sitting there and govoreeting like quietly and peeting away at their nice harmless chai and coffee. I ittied inside and went up to the counter and bought me a nice hot chai with plenty of moloko, then I ittied to one of these tables and sat down to peet it. There was a like young couple at this table, peeting and smoking filter-tip cancers, and govoreeting and smecking very quietly between themselves, but I took no notice of them and just went on peeting away and like dreaming and wondering what it was in me that was like changing and what was going to happen to me. But I viddied that the devotchka at this table who was with this chelloveck was real horrorshow, not the sort you would want to like throw down and give the old in-out in-out to, but with a horrorshow plott and litso and a smiling rot and very very fair voloss and all that cal. And then the veck with her, who had a hat on his gulliver and had his litso like turned away from me, swivelled round to viddy the bolshy big clock they had on the wall in this mesto, and then I viddied who he was and then he viddied who I was. It was Pete, one of my three droogs from those days when it was Georgie and Dim and him and me. It was Pete like looking a lot older though he could not now be more than nineteen and a bit, and he had a bit of a moustache and an ordinary day-suit and this baton. I said:
“Well well well, droogie, what gives? Very very long time no viddy.” He said:
“It’s little Alex, isn’t it?”
“None other,” I said. “A long long long time since those dead and gone good days. And now poor Georgie, they told me, is underground and old Dim is a brutal millicent, and here is thou and here is I, and what news hast thou, old droogie?”
“He talks funny, doesn’t he?” said this devotchka, like giggling.
“This,” said Pete to the devotchka, “is an old friend. His name is Alex. May I,” he said to me, “introduce my wife?”
My rot fell wide open then. “Wife?” I like gaped. “Wife wife wife? Ah no, that cannot be. Too young art thou to be married, old droog. Impossible impossible.”
This devotchka who was like Pete’s wife (impossible impossible) giggled again and said to Pete: “Did you used to talk like that too?”
“Well,” said Pete, and he liked smiled. “I’m nearly twenty. Old enough to be hitched, and it’s been two months already. You were very young and very forward, remember.”
“Well,” I liked gaped still. “Over this get can I not, old droogie. Pete married. Well well well.”
“We have a small flat,” said Pete. “I am earning very small money at State Marine Insurance, but things will get better, that I know. And Georgina here-”
“What again is that name?” I said, rot still open like bezoomny. Pete’s wife. (wife, brothers) like giggled again.
“Georgina,” said Pete. “Georgina works too. Typing, you know. We manage, we manage.” I could not, brothers, take my glazzies off him, really. He was like grown up now, with a grown-up goloss and all. “You must,” said Pete, “come and see us sometime. You still,” he said, “look very young, despite all your terrible experiences. Yes yes, yes, we’ve read all about them. But, of course, you are very young still.”
“Eighteen,” I said, “Just gone.”
“Eighteen, eh?” said Pete. “As old as that. Well well well. Now,” he said, “we have to be going.” And he like gave this Georgina of his a like loving look and pressed one of her rookers between his and she gave him one of these looks back, O my brothers. “Yes,” said Pete, turning back to me, “we’re off to a little party at Greg’s.”
“Greg?” I said.
“Oh, of course,” said Pete, “you wouldn’t know Greg, would you? Greg is after your time. While you were away Greg came into the picture. He runs little parties, you know. Mostly wine-cup and word-games. But very nice, very pleasant, you know. Harmless, if you see what I mean.”
“Yes,” I said. “Harmless. Yes, yes, I viddy that real hor-rorshow.” And this Georgina devotchka giggled again at my slovos. And then these two ittied off to their vonny word-games at this Greg’s, whoever he was. I was left all on my oddy knocky with my milky chai, which was getting cold now, like thinking and wondering.
Perhaps that was it, I kept thinking. Perhaps I was getting too old for the sort of jeezny I had been leading, brothers. I was eighteen now, just gone. Eighteen was not a young age. At eighteen old Wolfgang Amadeus had written concertos and symphonies and operas and oratorios and all that cal, no, not cal, heavenly music. And then there was old Felix M. with his Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture. And there were others. And there was this like French poet set by old Benjy Britt, who had done all his best poetry by the age of fifteen, O my brothers. Arthur, his first name. Eighteen was not all that young an age, then. But what was I going to do?
Walking the dark chill bastards of winter streets after ittying off from this chai-and-coffee mesto, I kept viddying like visions, like these cartoons in the gazettas. There was Your Humble Narrator Alex coming home from work to a good hot plate of dinner, and there was this ptitsa all welcoming and greeting like loving. But I could not viddy her all that horrorshow, brothers, I could not think who it might be. But I had this sudden very strong idea that if I walked into the room next to this room where the fire was burning away and my hot dinner laid on the table, there I should find what I really wanted, and now it all tied up, that picture scissored out of the gazetta and meeting old Pete like that. For in that other room in a cot was laying gurgling goo goo goo my son. Yes yes yes, brothers, my son. And now I felt this bolshy big hollow inside my plott, feeling very surprised too at myself. I knew what was happening, O my brothers. I was like growing up.
Yes yes yes, there it was. Youth must go, ah yes. But youth is only being in a way like it might be an animal. No, it is not just like being an animal so much as being like one of these malenky toys you viddy being sold in the streets, like little chellovecks made out of tin and with a spring inside and then a winding handle on the outside and you wind it up grrr grrr grrr and off it itties, like walking, O my brothers. But it itties in a straight line and bangs straight into things bang bang and it cannot help what it is doing. Being young is like being like one of these malenky machines.