"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 be-zoomny 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 hor-rorshow 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.
7
‘What’s it going to be then, eh?’
There was me, Your Humble Narrator, and my three droogs, that is Len, Rick, and Bully being called Bully because of his bolshly big neck and very gromky goloss which was just like some bolshy great bull bellowing auuuuuuuuh. We were sitting in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. All round were chellovecks well away on milk plus vellocet and synthemesc and drencrom and other veshches which take you far far far away from this wicked and real world into the land to viddy Bog And All His Angels And Saints in your left sabog with lights bursting and spurting all over your mozg. What we were peeting was the old moloko with knives in it, as we used to say, to sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, but I’ve told you all that before.
We were dressed in the heighth of fashion, which in those days was these very wide trousers and a very loose black shiny leather like jerkin over an open-necked shirt with a like scarf tucked in. At this time too it was the heighth of fashion to use the old britva on the gulliver, so that most of the gulliver was like bald and there was hair only on the sides. But it was always the same on the old nogas-real horrorshow bolshy big boots for kicking litsos in. ‘What’s it going to be then, eh?’