"Энтони Берджес. Механический апельсин (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

still went on singing. Then we tripped him so he laid down flat and heavy
and a bucketload of beer-vomit came whooshing out. That was disgusting so we
gave him the boot, one go each, and then it was blood, not song nor vomit,
that came out of his filthy old rot. Then we went on our way.
It was round by the Municipal Power Plant that we came across Billyboy
and his five droogs. Now in those days, my brothers, the teaming up was
mostly by fours or fives, these being like auto-teams, four being a comfy
number for an auto, and six being the outside limit for gang-size. Sometimes
gangs would gang up so as to make like malenky armies for big night-war, but
mostly it was best to roam in these like small numbers. Billyboy was
something that made me want to sick just to viddy his fat grinning litso,
and he always had this von of very stale oil that's been used for frying
over and over, even when he was dressed in his best platties, like now. They
viddied us just as we viddied them, and there was like a very quit kind of
watching each other now. This would be real, this would be proper, this
would be the nozh, the oozy, the britva, not just fisties and boots.
Billyboy and his droogs stopped what they were doing, which was just getting
ready to perform something on a weepy young devotchka they had there, not
more than ten, she creeching away but with her platties still on. Billyboy
holding her by one rooker and his number-one, Leo, holding the other. They'd
probably just been doing the dirty slovo part of the act before getting down
to a malenky bit of ultra-violence. When they viddied us a-coming they let
go of this boo-hooing little ptitsa, there being plenty more where she came
from, and she ran with her thin white legs flashing through the dark, still
going "Oh oh oh." I said, smiling very wide and droogie: "Well, if it isn't
fat stinking billygoat Billyboy in poison. How art thou, thou globby bottle
of cheap stinking chip-oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any
yarbles, you eunuch jelly, thou." And then we started.
There were four of us to six of them, like I have already indicated,
but poor old Dim, for all his dimness, was worth three of the others in
sheer madness and dirty fighting. Dim had a real horrorshow length of oozy
or chain round his waist, twice wound round, and he unwound this and began
to swing it beautiful in the eyes or glazzies. Pete and Georgie had good
sharp nozhes, but I for my own part had a fine starry horrorshow cut-throat
britva which, at that time, I could flash and shine artistic. So there we
were dratsing away in the dark, the old Luna with men on it just coming up,
the stars stabbing away as it might be knives anxious to join in the
dratsing. With my britva I managed to slit right down the front of one of
Billyboy's droog's platties, very very neat and not even touching the plott
under the cloth. Then in the dratsing this droog of Billyboy's suddenly
found himself all opened up like a peapod, with his belly bare and his poor
old yarbles showing, and then he got very razdraz, waving and screaming and
losing his guard and letting in old Dim with his chain snaking
whisssssshhhhhhhhh, so that old Dim chained him right in the glazzies, and
this droog of Billyboy's went tottering off and howling his heart out. We
were doing very horrorshow, and soon we had Billyboy's number-one down
underfoot, blinded with old Dim's chain and crawling and howling about like
an animal, but with one fair boot on the gulliver he was out and out and
out.
Of the four of us Dim, as usual, came out the worst in point of looks,