Oldtown

Oldtown is the historic quarter of the unnamed city, a district of ancient houses that stands in stark contrast to the municipal flatblocks where most of the population lives. It is a neighborhood of "real horrorshow ancient domies" inhabited by "starry lewdies" — thin old colonels with sticks, widows, and deaf old ladies with cats who "had felt not the touch of any chelloveck in the whole of their pure like jeeznies." The district is rich in valuable pre-plastic artifacts — pictures, jewels, and other antiques that would fetch high prices on the tourist market — making it a target for the young gangs who roam the city at night.

The Manse and the Cat Lady's House

The specific house targeted in Oldtown is called the Manse, a dwelling with globe lights on iron stalks flanking the front door and iron bars on the windows, giving it the appearance of a prison. Inside lives an elderly woman surrounded by cats — "great fat scoteenas" of all colors and ages, from kittens to "real dribbling starry ones very bad-tempered." The room visible from the street contains old pictures on the walls, elaborate antique clocks, vases, and ornaments that Georgie identifies as valuable items that Will the English is "real anxious" to fence. The house also contains a silver statue of a young girl standing on one leg with her arms out, which Alex steals, and a bust of Beethoven that he covets.

The Invasion and Its Consequences

Alex enters the Manse by climbing onto Dim's shoulders, breaking a sash-window above the front door, and letting himself in while his droogs wait outside. Inside, he finds the old woman has already called the police — she had been on the phone to the millicents when he rang the bell pretending to need help for a sick friend. A violent struggle ensues: Alex slips on a milk saucer, the old woman strikes him with her walking stick, cats attack him, and in the chaos he strikes her on the head with the silver statue. As police sirens approach, Alex rushes to open the front door, only to find Dim waiting outside. Dim chains him across the eyes — "gentle and artistic like on the glazlids" — and then flees with Pete and Georgie, leaving Alex blinded and in agony to be arrested by the arriving millicents. The old woman later dies in the hospital from her injuries, and Alex is convicted of murder, receiving a sentence of fourteen years in prison.

Narrative Significance

Oldtown functions as the spatial embodiment of the old, pre-modern world that Alex and his generation systematically destroy. Its ancient houses, valuable heirlooms, and isolated elderly inhabitants represent a fragile cultural heritage that the young nadsats regard only as loot to be plundered. The invasion of the Manse is the turning point of the novel's first part: it is the crime that finally gets Alex caught, and it triggers the chain of events — imprisonment, the Ludovico Technique, and his eventual transformation — that structures the entire narrative. The district's name itself, "Oldtown," underscores the generational conflict at the heart of the book, where youth and age are locked in a cycle of mutual predation.