Alex [voiceover]
One thing I could never stand was to see a filthy, dirty old drunkie, howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and going blerp, blerp in between, as it might be a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. I could never stand to see anyone like that, whatever his age might be, but more especially when he was real old like this one was.
Tramp [The boys stop and applaud the Tramp's singing]
Can you spare some cutter, me brothers?
Tramp [Alex rams his club into the tramp's stomach]
Go on, do me in, you bastard cowards. I don't want to live anyway...not in a stinking world like this.
Alex Oh...and what's so stinking about it?
Tramp It's a stinking world because there's no law and order any more. It's a stinking world because it lets the young get onto the old, like you done. Oh...it's no world for an old man any longer. What sort of a world is it at all? Men on the moon, and men spinning around the earth, and there's not no attention paid to earthly law and order no more.
Alex [narrating]
There were some sophistos from the TV studios around the corner, laughing and gavreeting. The devotchka was smecking away, not caring about the wicked world one bit. Then the disc on the stereo twanged off and out. And in the short silence before the next one came on, she suddenly came with a burst of singing. [the woman starts singing. Alex watches, with a smile creeping across his face] And it was like, for a moment, O my brothers, some great bird had flown into the milkbar. And I felt all the malenky little hairs on my plott standing endwise, and the shivers crawling up like slow, malenky lizards, and then down again. Because I knew what she sang. It was a bit from the Glorious Ninth by Ludwig Van.
[Dim derisively rasps at the woman, but Alex angrily smashes him across the legs with his cane]
What did you do that for?
Alex For being a bastard with no manners, you haven't a dook of an idea how to comport yourself public-wise, O my brother! [smiles at the woman and raises his glass to her]
I don't like you should do what you've done and I'm not your brother no more and wouldn't want to be.
Alex Watch that, do watch that O Dim, if to continue to be on live thou, dost wist?
[The sophistos, and a couple of bouncers, watch the exchange nervously from their tables, while Pete and Georgie stare at their boots]
Yarbles! Great bolshy yarblockos to you! I'll meet you with chain or nozh or britva anytime. I'm not having you aiming tolchocks at me reasonless. It stands to reason, I won't have it.
Alex A nozh scrap anytime you say.
['uncomfortable pause]
Doobiedoob, a bit tired maybe, best not to say more. Bedways is rightways now, so best we go homeways and get a bit of spatchka. Right-right?
Alex Right-right.
There was a bit of a nastiness last night, yes? Some very extreme nastiness, yes? A few of a certain Billyboy's friends were ambulanced off late, yes? Your name was mentioned, the word has got thru to me by the usual channels. Certain friends of yours were named also. 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 in this sore and sick community who wants to save you from yourself!
[he strikes Alex sharply in the groin] [Alex gets up and adjusts his underwear] [Deltoid blindly drinks water from a glass with dentures soaking inside.]
What gets into you all? We study the problem. 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 of you?
Alex Nobody's got anything on me, brother, sir. I've been out of the rookers of the millicents for a long time now.
That's just what worries me. A bit too long to be safe. You're about due now by my reckoning. That's why I'm warning you, little Alex, to keep your handsome young proboscis out of the dirt. Do I make myself clear?
Alex As an unmuddied lake, sir. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. You can rely on me, sir.
[Deltoid drinks from the glass again, and sees the dentures inside. He gags.]
Alex Let's get things nice and sparkling clear. This sarcasm, if I may call it such, does not become you, O my little brothers. As I am your droog and leader, I am entitled to know what goes on, eh? Now then, Dim, what does that great big horsy gape of a grin portend?
All right, no more picking on Dim, brother. That's part of the new way.
Alex New way? What's this about a new way? There's been some very large talk behind my sleeping back, and no error.
Well, if you must have it, have it then. We go around, shop crasting and the like, coming out with a pitiful rookerful of money each.
And there's Will the English, in the Muscleman coffee mesto, saying he can fence anything that any malchick tries to crast. The shiny stuff, the ice, the big, big, big money is available, is what Will the English says.
Alex And what will you do with the big, big, big money? Have you not everything you need? If you need a motor car, you pluck it from the trees. If you need pretty polly, you take it.
Brother, you think and talk sometimes like a little child.
The Governor has grave doubts about it [aversion therapy] and I have heard that there are very serious dangers involved.
Alex I don't care about the dangers, Father. I just want to be good. I want for the rest of my life to be one act of goodness.
The question is whether or not this technique really makes a man good. Goodness comes from within. Goodness is chosen. When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.
Alex I don't understand about the whys and wherefores, Father. I only know I want to be good.
Be patient, my son. Put your trust in the Lord.
Cram criminals together and what do you get - concentrated criminality, crime in the midst of punishment.
I agree, sir, what we need are larger prisons - more money.
Not a chance, my dear fellow. The Government can't be concerned any longer with outmoded penological theories. Soon we may be needing all our prison space for political offenders. Common criminals like these are best dealt with on a purely curative basis. Kill the criminal reflex, that's all. Full implementation in a year's time. Punishment means nothing to them, you can see that. They enjoy their so-called punishment.
Alex You're absolutely right, sir.
Chief Guard Shut your bleedin' hole!
Alex I did, sir.
Alex The accidental killing of a person, sir.
Chief Guard He brutally murdered a woman, in furtherance of theft! Fourteen years, sir!
Alex [narrating while being forced to watch a World War II movie with Nazis.]
It was the next day, brothers. And I had truly done my best, morning and afternoon, to play it their way and sit like a horrorshow cooperative malchik in the chair of torture, while they flashed nasty bits of ultraviolence on the screen. Though not on the soundtrack, my brothers -- the only sound being music. Then I noticed, in all my pain and sickness, what music it was that, like, cracked and boomed. It was Ludwig Van -- 9th symphony, 4th movement.
Alex [screaming]
STOP IT! STOP IT, PLEASE! I BEG YOU! IT'S A SIN! IT'S A SIN! IT'S A SIN! IT'S A SIN! IT'S A SIN! IT'S A SIN!
Sin? What's all this about sin?
Alex THAT! Using Ludwig van like that! He did no harm to anyone! Beethoven just wrote music!
Are you referring to the background score?
Alex YES!
You've heard Beethoven before?
Alex YES!
Alex [Emphatically]
YES!
Can't be helped. Here's the punishment element perhaps. The Governor ought to be pleased...I'm sorry, Alex, this is for your own good. You'll have to bear with us for a while.
Choice! The boy has no real choice, has he?! Self-interest, the fear of physical pain drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrong-doer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice.
Padre, these are subtleties! We are not concerned with motives, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down crime! And with relieving the ghastly congestion in our prisons. He will be your true Christian, ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than crucify. Sick to the very heart at the thought even of killing a fly. Reclamation, joy before the angels of God. The point is that it works!
Alex [voice-over]
And the very next day, your Friend and Humble Narrator was a free man.
[Alex encounters his old friends Dim and Georgie, who are now policemen, much to his horror]
Well! Well, well, well! Well, well, well, well! If it isn't little Alex! Long time, no viddy, droog! How goes?
Alex It's impossible! I can't believe it!
Evidence of the ol' glazzies! Nothing up our sleeves. No magic little Alex. A job for two who are now of job age. The police!
Alex The old days are dead and gone. For what I did in the past, I've been punished. I've been cured.
Cured, yeah! That was read out to us. The Inspector read it all out to us. He said it was a very good way.
Alex But what is all this? was them that went for me, brothers. You're not on their side, and can't be. Well, you can't be, Dim. It was someone we fillied with back in the old days, trying to get his own little bit of revenge after all this time. Remember, Dim?
Long time is right. I don't remember them days, too horrorshow. And don't call me Dim no more either! Officer, call me!
Enough is remembered, though, Little Alex.
This is to make sure you stay cured!
[he and Georgie beat Alex bloody and half-drown him]
Alex Your wife, sir, is she away?
Alex I'm sorry to hear about that, sir.
[raving]
She was very badly raped, you see. We were assaulted by a gang of vicious young hoodlums in this house, in this very room you are sitting in now. I was left a helpless cripple, but for her, the agony was too great. The doctors said it was pneumonia because it happened some months later during a flu epidemic. The doctors told me it was pneumonia but I knew what it was. A victim of the modern age - poor, poor girl. [calmer] And now, you, another victim of the modern age, but you can be helped.
[as he feeds Alex morsels of food]
We tried to help you. We followed recommendations which were made to us that turned out to be wrong. An inquiry will place the responsibility where it belongs. We want you to regard us as friends. We put you right. 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. There are certain people who wanted to use you for political ends. They would have been glad to have you dead, for they thought they could then blame it all on the Government. There is also a certain man, a writer of subversive literature, who has been howling for your blood. He has been mad with desire to stick a knife into you but you are safe from him now. We put him away. He found out that you had done wrong to him. At least he believed you had done wrong. He formed this idea in his head that you had been responsible for the death of someone near and dear to him. He was a menace. We put him away for his own protection, and also for yours...We are interested in you and when you leave here you will have no worries. We shall see to everything - a good job on a good salary.
Alex What job and how much?
You must have an interesting job with a salary which you would regard as adequate, not only for the job that you're going to do, and in compensation for what you believe you have suffered, but also because you are helping us.
Alex Helping you, sir?
We always help our friends, don't we? It is no secret that this Government has lost a lot of popularity because of you, my boy. There are some who think that at the next election, we shall be out. The press has chosen to take a very unfavourable view of what we tried to do. But public opinion has a way of changing, and you, Alex -- if I may call you Alex?
Alex Certainly, sir. what do they call you at home?
My name is Frederick. As I was saying, Alex, you can be instrumental in changing the public's verdict. Do you understand, Alex? Do I make myself clear?
Alex As an unmuddied lake, Fred. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. You can rely on me, Fred.
Cat Lady Oh shit. Who's there?
Alex Excuse me, missus, can you please help? There's been a terrible accident. Can I please use your telephone for an ambulance?
Cat Lady I'm frightfully sorry. There is a telephone in the Public House about a mile down the road. I suggest you use that.
Alex But, missus, this is an emergency. It's a matter of life and death. Me friend's lying in the middle of the road bleeding to death.
Cat Lady I'm very sorry but I never open the door to strangers after dark.
Alex Very well, madam. I suppose you can't be blamed for being suspicious with so many scoundrels and rouges of the night about. Dim, bend down. I'm gonna get in that window and open the front door.
Cat Lady Hello, Radlett Police Station. Good evening. It's Miss Weathers at Woodmere Health Farm. hello Look, I'm frightfully sorry to bother you but something rather odd has just happened... Well, it's probably nothing at all, but you never know... Well, a young man ring the bell asking to use the telephone... He said there had been some kind of accident. The thing that caught my attention was what he said รณ the words he used, sounded exactly like what was quoted in the papers this morning in connection with the writer and his wife who were assaulted last night... Well, just a few minutes ago... Well, if you think that's necessary, but, well, I'm quite sure he's gone away now. Oh... alright. Fine. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Alex Hi, hi, hi there! At last we meet. Our brief govoreet through the letter-hole was not, shall we say, satisfactory, yes?
Cat Lady Who are you? How the hell did you get in here? What the bloody hell d'you think you're doing?
Alex Naughty, naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomaka.
Cat Lady Now listen here, you little bastard, just you turn around and walk out of here the same way as you came in. leave it alone Don't touch it. That's a very important work of art. What the bloody hell do you want?
Alex Will to be perfectly honest, madam, I taking part of an international student's contest to see who can get the most points for selling magazines.
Cat Lady Cut the shit, sonny, and get out of here before you get yourself in some very serious trouble. I told you to leave it alone. Now get out of here before I throw you out, wretched slummy bedbug. I'll teach you breaking into real people's houses. **** little bastard! Get out!
Alex [Alex, skipping school, finds P. R. Deltoid sitting on his parents' bed]
Hi-hi-hi, Mr. Deltoid! Funny surprise, seeing you here.
Ah, Alex, boy! Awake at last, yes? I met your mother on the way to work, yes? [holds up key] She gave me the key. [tosses it onto bedside table] She said something about a pain somewhere, hence not at school, yes?
Alex A rather intolerable pain in the head, brother, sir. I think it should be cleared by this after-lunch.
Or certainly by this evening, yes. The evening's the great time, isn't it, Alex, boy? Hmmm?
Alex Cup of the old chai, sir?
No time, no time, yes. [pats bed] Sit, sit, sit!
Alex To what do I owe this extreme pleasure, sir? [sits by Deltoid] Anything wrong, sir?
Wrong? [tousles and then pulls Alex's hair] Why should you think of anything being wrong? Have you been doing something you shouldn't, yes?
Alex Just a manner of speech, sir.
Yes, well, it's just a manner of speech from your post-corrective advisor to you that you watch out, little Alex, because next time it's not going to be the corrective school any more. Next time, it's going to be the barry place, and all my work ruined! If you've no respect for your horrible self, you at least might have some for me, who've sweated over you! [slaps Alex's thigh] A big black mark, I tell you, for every one we don't reclaim! A confession of failure for every one of you who ends up in the stripey hole!
Alex I've been doing nothing I shouldn't, sir. The millicents have nothing on me, brother...sir, I mean.
[pulls Alex backwards onto the bed]
Cut out this clever talk about millicents. Just because the police haven't picked you up lately doesn't, as you very well know, mean that you've not been up to some nastiness. There was a bit of a nastiness last night, yes? Some very extreme nastiness, yes? A few of a certain Billyboy's friends were ambulanced off late, yes. Your name was mentioned. The word's got through to me by the usual channels. Certain friends of yours were named also. 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 in this sore and sick community who wants to save you from yourself!
[roughly grabs Alex's privates; he stands up groaning in pain; Deltoid drinks from a glass of water, not noticing the set of dentures it holds]
What gets into you all? We study the problem. 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 of you?
Alex Nobody's got anything on me, brother, sir. I've been out of the rookers of the millicents for a long time now.
That's just what worries me: a bit too long to be safe. You're about due now by my reckoning. That's why I'm warning you, little Alex, to keep your handsome young proboscis out of the dirt. Do I make myself clear?
Alex As an unmuddied lake, sir. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. You can rely on me, sir.
[Deltoid drinks again, sees the dentures, and sets the glass aside with a gag]
[Deltoid arrives at the police station and finds a bloodied Alex lying on the interrogation room floor]
Dear, dear, this boy does look a mess, doesn't he? Just look at the state of him.
P1 Policeman 1
Love's young nightmare, like.
Violence makes violence. He resisted his lawful arrestors.
Hmm, this is the end of the line for me. The end of the line, yes!
Alex It wasn't me, brother, sir. Speak up for me, sir, for I'm not so bad. I was led on by the treachery of others, sir.
P1 Policeman 1
Sings the roof off lovely, he does that. [laughs]
Alex And what of my stinking traitorous droogs? Get them before they get away! It was all their idea, brothers! They forced me to do it! I'm innocent!
[laughs mockingly]
You are now a murderer, little Alex. A murderer!
Alex Not true, sir. It was only a slight tolchock. She were breathing, I swear it!
I've just come from the hospital. Your victim has died!
Alex You try to frighten me. Admit so, sir. This is some new form of torture. Say it, brother, sir!
It'll be your own torture. I hope to God it'll torture you to madness.
P2 Policeman 2
[to Deltoid]
If you'd care to give him a bash in the chops, sir, don't mind us. We'll hold him down. He must be a great disappointment to you, sir.
[Deltoid spits in Alex's face]
[The prison governor leads the Minister of the Interior on a tour of the facility]
Cram criminals together, and what do you get? Concentrated criminality. Crime in the midst of punishment.
I agree, sir. What we need are larger prisons, more money.
[chuckles]
Not a chance, my dear fellow. The Government can't be concerned any longer with outmoded penological theories. Soon we may be needing all our prison space for political offenders. Common criminals like these are best dealt with on a purely curative basis. Kill the criminal reflex, that's all. Full implementation in a year's time. Punishment means nothing to them, you can see that. They enjoy their so-called punishment.
Alex You're absolutely right, sir!
CG Chief Guard Barnes
Shut your bleedin' hole!
Alex I did, sir.
What crime did you commit?
Alex The accidental killing of a person, sir.
CG Chief Guard Barnes
He brutally murdered a woman, in furtherance of theft! Fourteen years, sir!
Excellent. He's enterprising, aggressive, outgoing, young, bold...vicious. He'll do.
Well, fine. Uh, we could still look at C Block.
No, no, no, that's enough. He's perfect. I want his record sent to me. This vicious hoodlum will be transformed out of all recognition.
Alex Thank you very much for this chance, sir.
Let's hope you make the most of it, my boy.
Shall we go to my office?
Thank you.
[they and Barnes leave; Alex smirks to himself]
I don't suppose you know who that was this morning, do you? That was no less a personage than the Minister of the Interior. The new Minister of the Interior, and what they call a very new broom. Well, these new ridiculous ideas have come at last, and orders are orders. Though I may say to you in confidence that I do not approve. An eye for an eye, I say. If someone hits you, you hit back, do you not? Why then, should the State--very severely hit by you brutal hooligans--not hit back also? The new view is to say "no". The new view is that we turn the bad into good. All of which seems to me to be grossly unjust, eh?
Alex Sir--
CG Chief Guard Barnes
[interrupting]
SHUT YOUR FILTHY HOLE, YOU SCUM!
You are to be reformed. Tomorrow, you will go to this man Brodsky. You will be leaving here. You will be transferred to the Ludovico Medical Facility. It is believed that you will be able to leave state custody in a little over a fortnight. I suppose that prospect pleases you?
CG Chief Guard Barnes
[Alex remains silent for a moment]
ANSWER WHEN THE GOVERNOR ASKS YOU A QUESTION!
Alex Yes, sir. Thank you very much, sir. I've done my best here, I really have, sir. I'm very grateful to all concerned, sir.
[the Governor places a document on the desk in front of Alex] [producing an ink pen]
Sign this, where it's marked. [indicates where Alex should sign]
CG Chief Guard Barnes
[Alex leans down and turns the document over, reading it]
DON'T READ IT, SIGN IT!
[Alex places the document back down and signs it]
It says that you are willing to have the residue of your sentence commuted, to submission to the Ludovico Treatment. [produces another copy of the document for Alex to sign] And this. [Alex signs the second copy; the Governor produces yet another copy] And another copy.
[Alex signs the third copy, placing the pen down afterwards, and smiles]
FP First Policeman
[Two policemen disperse a crowd of vagrants who are assaulting Alex]
All right, all right, stop it now! Go on! Stop breaking the State's peace, you naughty boys!
SP Second Policeman
Back away! Away with you! [to Alex] What's your trouble, sir?
Alex [looking up]
Oh, no!
SP Second Policeman (Dim)
Well! Well, well, well! Well, well, well, well! If it isn't little Alex! Long time, no viddy, droog! How goes?
Alex It's impossible! I don't believe it!
FP First Policeman (Georgie)
Evidence of the old glazzies! Nothing up our sleeves. No magic, little Alex. A job for two who are now of job age. The police!
