Well well well. What makes, bratty. What gives, this fine bright
middle of the nochy?" He said:
"I'll give you just ten seconds to wipe that stupid grin off of your
face. Then I want you to listen."
"Well, what?" I said, smecking. "Are you not satisfied with beating me
near to death and having me spat upon and making me confess to crimes for
hours on end and then shoving me among bezoomnies and vonny perverts in that
grahzny cell? Have you some new torture for me, you bratchny?"
"It'll be your own torture," he said, serious. "I hope to God it'll
torture you to madness."
And then, before he told me, I knew what it was. The old ptitsa who had
all the kots and koshkas had passed on to a better world in one of the city
hospitals. I'd cracked her a bit too hard, like. Well, well, that was
everything. I thought of all those kots and koshkas mewling for moloko and
getting none, not any more from their starry forella of a mistress. That was
everything. I'd done the lot, now and me still only fifteen.

Autore: Anthony Burgess