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Animal Farm

Feb 13th, 2020
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  1. Animal Farm
  2. A Fairy Story
  3. By George Orwell
  4. 1946
  5. AAARGH Internet Edition
  6. 2004
  7. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  8.  
  9.  
  10. MR. JONES, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night,
  11. but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes. With the ring of light
  12. from his lantern dancing from side to side, he lurched across the yard, kicked
  13. off his boots at the back door, drew himself a last glass of beer from the barrel
  14. in the scullery, and made his way up to bed, where Mrs. Jones was already
  15. snoring.
  16. As soon as the light in the bedroom went out there was a stirring and a
  17. fluttering all through the farm buildings. Word had gone round during the day
  18. that old Major, the prize Middle White boar, had had a strange dream on the
  19. previous night and wished to communicate it to the other animals. It had been
  20. agreed that they should all meet in the big barn as soon as Mr. Jones was
  21. safely out of the way. Old Major (so he was always called, though the name
  22. under which he had been exhibited was Willingdon Beauty ) was so highly
  23. regarded on the farm that everyone was quite ready to lose an hour's sleep in
  24. order to hear what he had to say.
  25. At one end of the big barn, on a sort of raised platform, Major was already
  26. ensconced on his bed of straw, under a lantern which hung from a beam. He
  27. was twelve years old and had lately grown rather stout, but he was still a
  28. majestic-looking pig, with a wise and benevolent appearance in spite of the fact
  29. that his tushes had never been cut. Before long the other animals began to
  30. arrive and make themselves comfortable after their different fashions. First
  31. came the three dogs, Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher , and then the pigs, who
  32. settled down in the straw immediately in front of the platform. The hens
  33. perched themselves on the window-sills, the pigeons fluttered up to the rafters,
  34. the sheep and cows lay down behind the pigs and began to chew the cud. The
  35. two cart-horses, Boxer and Clover, came in together, walking very slowly and
  36. setting down their vast hairy hoofs with great care lest there should be some
  37. small animal concealed in the straw. Clover was a stout motherly mare
  38. approaching middle life, who had never quite got her figure back after her
  39. fourth foal. Boxer was an enormous beast, nearly eighteen hands high, and as
  40. strong as any two ordinary horses put together. A white stripe down his nose
  41. gave him a somewhat stupid appearance, and in fact he was not of first-rate
  42. intelligence, but he was universally respected for his steadiness of character
  43. and tremendous powers of work. After the horses came Muriel, the white goat,
  44. and Benjamin, the donkey. Benjamin was the oldest animal on the farm, and
  45. the worst tempered. He seldom talked, and when he did, it was usually to
  46. make some cynical remark—for instance, he would say that God had given him
  47. a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no
  48. flies. Alone among the animals on the farm he never laughed. If asked why, he
  49. would say that he saw nothing to laugh at. Nevertheless, without openly
  50. admitting it, he was devoted to Boxer; the two of them usually spent their
  51. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  52. Sundays together in the small paddock beyond the orchard, grazing side by
  53. side and never speaking.
  54. The two horses had just lain down when a brood of ducklings, which had lost
  55. their mother, filed into the barn, cheeping feebly and wandering from side to
  56. side to find some place where they would not be trodden on. Clover made a
  57. sort of wall round them with her great foreleg, and the ducklings nestled down
  58. inside it and promptly fell asleep. At the last moment Mollie, the foolish, pretty
  59. white mare who drew Mr. Jones's trap, came mincing daintily in, chewing at a
  60. lump of sugar. She took a place near the front and began flirting her white
  61. mane, hoping to draw attention to the red ribbons it was plaited with. Last of
  62. all came the cat, who looked round, as usual, for the warmest place, and finally
  63. squeezed herself in between Boxer and Clover; there she purred contentedly
  64. throughout Major's speech without listening to a word of what he was saying.
  65. All the animals were now present except Moses, the tame raven, who slept
  66. on a perch behind the back door. When Major saw that they had all made
  67. themselves comfortable and were waiting attentively, he cleared his throat and
  68. began:
  69. "Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that I had last
  70. night. But I will come to the dream later. I have something else to say first. I do
  71. not think, comrades, that I shall be with you for many months longer, and
  72. before I die, I feel it my duty to pass on to you such wisdom as I have acquired.
  73. I have had a long life, I have had much time for thought as I lay alone in my
  74. stall, and I think I may say that I understand the nature of life on this earth as
  75. well as any animal now living. It is about this that I wish to speak to you.
  76. "Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our
  77. lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are born, we are given just so
  78. much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are
  79. capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and the very
  80. instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with
  81. hideous cruelty. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or
  82. leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is fr ee. The life of an
  83. animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.
  84. "But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is it because this land of ours
  85. is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No,
  86. comrades, a thousand times no! The soil of England is fertile, its climate is
  87. good, it is capable of affording food in abundance to an enormously greater
  88. number of animals than now inhabit it. This single farm of ours would support
  89. a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep—and all of them living in a
  90. comfort and a dignity that are now almost beyond our imagining. Why then do
  91. we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the
  92. produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings. There, comrades, is
  93. the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word—Man. Man is
  94. the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause
  95. of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever.
  96. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  97. "Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not
  98. give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run
  99. fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to
  100. work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from
  101. starving, and the rest he keeps for himself. Our labour tills the soil, our dung
  102. fertilises it, and yet there is not one of us that owns more than his bare skin.
  103. You cows that I see before me, how many thousands of gallons of milk have
  104. you given during this last year? And what has happened to that milk which
  105. should have been breeding up sturdy calves? Every drop of it has gone down
  106. the throats of our enemies. And you hens, how many eggs have you laid in this
  107. last year, and how many of those eggs ever hatched into chickens? The rest
  108. have all gone to market to bring in money for Jones and his men. And you,
  109. Clover, where are those four foals you bore, who should have been the support
  110. and pleasure of your ol d age? Each was sold at a year old—you will never see
  111. one of them again. In return for your four confinements and all your labour in
  112. the fields, what have you ever had except your bare rations and a stall?
  113. "And even the miserable lives we lead are not allowed to reach their natural
  114. span. For myself I do not grumble, for I am one of the lucky ones. I am twelve
  115. years old and have had over four hundred children. Such is the natural life of a
  116. pig. But no animal escapes the cruel knife in the end. You young porkers who
  117. are sitting in front of me, every one of you will scream your lives out at the
  118. block within a year. To that horror we all must come—cows, pigs, hens, sheep,
  119. everyone. Even the horses and the dog s have no better fate. You, Boxer, the
  120. very day that those great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will sell you
  121. to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you down for the foxhounds.
  122. As for the dogs, when they grow old and toothless, Jones ties a brick round
  123. their necks and drowns them in the nearest pond.
  124. "Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades, that all the evils of this life of ours
  125. spring from the tyranny of human beings? Only get rid of Man, and the
  126. produce of our labour would be our own. A1most overnight we could become
  127. rich and free. What then must we do? Why, work night and day, body and soul,
  128. for the overthrow of the human race! That is my message to you, comrades:
  129. Rebellion! I do not know when that Rebellion will come, it might be in a week
  130. or in a hundred years, but I know, as surely as I see this straw beneath my feet,
  131. that sooner or later justice will be done. Fix your eyes on that, comrades,
  132. throughout the short remainder of your lives! And above all, pass on this
  133. message of mine to those who come after you, so that future generations shall
  134. carry on the struggle until it is victorious.
  135. "And remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter. No argument
  136. must lead you astray. Never listen when they tell you that Man and the animals
  137. have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the
  138. others. It is all lies. Man serves the interests of no creature except himself. And
  139. among us animals let there be perfect unity, perfect comradeship in the
  140. struggle. All men are enemies. All animals are comrades."
  141. At this moment there was a tremendous uproar. While Major was speaking
  142. four large rats had crept out of their holes and were sitting on their
  143. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  144. hindquarters, listening to him. The dogs had suddenly caught sight of them,
  145. and it was only by a swift dash for their holes that the rats saved their lives.
  146. Major raised his trotter for silence.
  147. "Comrades," he said, "here is a point that must be settled. The wild
  148. creatures, such as rats and rabbits—are they our friends or our enemies? Let us
  149. put it to the vote. I propose this question to the meeting: Are rats comrades?"
  150. The vote was taken at once, and it was agreed by an overwhelming majority
  151. that rats were comrades. There were only four dissentients, the three dogs and
  152. the cat, who was afterwards discovered to have voted on both sides. Major
  153. continued:
  154. "I have little more to say. I merely repeat, remember always your duty of
  155. enmity towards Man and all his ways. Whatever goes upon two legs is an
  156. enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. And remember
  157. also that in fighting against Man, we must not come to resemble him. Even
  158. when you have conquered him, do not adopt his vices. No animal must ever
  159. live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke
  160. tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade. All the habits of Man are evil.
  161. And, above all, no animal must ever tyrannise over his own kind. Weak or
  162. strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other
  163. animal. All animals are equal.
  164. "And now, comrades, I will tell you about my dream of last night. I cannot
  165. describe that dream to you. It was a dream of the earth as it will be when Man
  166. has vanished. But it reminded me of something that I had long forgotten.
  167. Many years ago, when I was a little pig, my mother and the other sows used to
  168. sing an old song of which they knew only the tune and the first three words. I
  169. had known that tune in my infancy, but it had long since passed out of my
  170. mind. Last night, however, it came back to me in m y dream. And what is
  171. more, the words of the song also came back—words, I am certain, which were
  172. sung by the animals of long ago and have been lost to memory for generations.
  173. I will sing you that song now, comrades. I am old and my voice is hoarse, but
  174. when I have taught you the tune, you can sing it better for yourselves. It is
  175. called Beasts of England."
  176. Old Major cleared his throat and began to sing. As he had said, his voice was
  177. hoarse, but he sang well enough, and it was a stirring tune, something between
  178. Clementine and La Cucaracha. The words ran:
  179. Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
  180. Beasts of every land and clime,
  181. Hearken to my joyful tidings
  182. Of the golden future time.
  183. Soon or late the day is coming,
  184. Tyrant Man shall be o'erthrown,
  185. And the fruitful fields of England
  186. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  187. Shall be trod by beasts alone.
  188. Rings shall vanish from our noses,
  189. And the harness from our back,
  190. Bit and spur shall rust forever,
  191. Cruel whips no more shall crack.
  192. Riches more than mind can picture,
  193. Wheat and barley, oats and hay,
  194. Clover, beans, and mangel-wurzels
  195. Shall be ours upon that day.
  196. Bright will shine the fields of England,
  197. Purer shall its waters be,
  198. Sweeter yet shall blow its breezes
  199. On the day that sets us free.
  200. For that day we all must labour,
  201. Though we die before it break;
  202. Cows and horses, geese and turkeys,
  203. All must toil for freedom's sake.
  204. Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
  205. Beasts of every land and clime,
  206. Hearken well and spread my tidings
  207. Of the golden future time.
  208. The singing of this song threw the animals into the wildest excitement.
  209. Almost before Major had reached the end, they had begun singing it for
  210. themselves. Even the stupidest of them had already picked up the tune and a
  211. few of the words, and as for the clever ones, such as the pigs and dogs, they
  212. had the entire song by heart within a few minutes. And then, after a few
  213. preliminary tries, the whole farm burst out into Beasts of England in
  214. tremendous unison. The cows lowed it, the dogs whined it, the sheep bleated
  215. it, the horses whinnied it, the ducks quacked it. They were so delighted with
  216. the song that they sang it right through five times in succession, and might
  217. have continued singing it all night if they had not been interrupted.
  218. Unfortunately, the uproar awoke Mr. Jones, who sprang out of bed, making
  219. sure that there was a fox in the yard. He seized the gun which always stood in a
  220. corner of his bedroom, and let fly a charge of number 6 shot into the darkness.
  221. The pellets buried themselves in the wall of the barn and the meeting broke up
  222. hurriedly. Everyone fled to his own sleeping-place. The birds jumped on to
  223. their perches, the animals settled down in the straw, and the whole farm was
  224. asleep in a moment.
  225. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  226. II
  227. THREE nights later old Major died peacefully in his sleep. His body was
  228. buried at the foot of the orchard.
  229. This was early in March. During the next three months there was much
  230. secret activity. Major's speech had given to the more intelligent animals on the
  231. farm a completely new outlook on life. They did not know when the Rebellion
  232. predicted by Major would take place, they had no reason for thinking that it
  233. would be within their own lifetime, but they saw clearly that it was their duty
  234. to prepare for it. The work of teaching and organising the others fell naturally
  235. upon the pigs, who were generally recognised as being the cleverest of the
  236. animals. Pre-eminent among the pigs were two young boars named Snowball
  237. and Napoleon, whom Mr. Jones was breeding up for sale. Napoleon was a
  238. large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the farm, not
  239. much of a talker, but with a reputation for getting his own way. Snowball was a
  240. more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive, but
  241. was not considered to have the same depth of character. All the other male
  242. pigs on the farm were porke rs. The best known among them was a small fat
  243. pig named Squealer, with very round cheeks, twinkling eyes, nimble
  244. movements, and a shrill voice. He was a brilliant talker, and when he was
  245. arguing some difficult point he had a way of skipping from side to side and
  246. whisking his tail which was somehow very persuasive. The others said of
  247. Squealer that he could turn black into white.
  248. These three had elaborated old Major's teachings into a complete system of
  249. thought, to which they gave the name of Animalism. Several nights a week,
  250. after Mr. Jones was asleep, they held secret meetings in the barn and
  251. expounded the principles of Animalism to the others. At the beginning they
  252. met with much stupidity and apathy. Some of the animals talked of the duty of
  253. loyalty to Mr. Jones, whom they referred to as "Master," or made elementary
  254. remarks such as "Mr. Jones feeds us. If he were gone, we sho uld starve to
  255. death." Others asked such questions as "Why should we care what happens
  256. after we are dead?" or "If this Rebellion is to happen anyway, what difference
  257. does it make whether we work for it or not?", and the pigs had great difficulty
  258. in making them see that this was contrary to the spirit of Animalism. The
  259. stupidest questions of all were asked by Mollie, the white mare. The very first
  260. question she asked Snowball was: "Will there still be sugar after the Rebellion?
  261. "
  262. "No," said Snowball firmly. "We have no means of making sugar on this
  263. farm. Besides, you do not need sugar. You will have all the oats and hay you
  264. want."
  265. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  266. "And shall I still be allowed to wear ribbons in my mane?" asked Mollie.
  267. "Comrade," said Snowball, "those ribbons that you are so devoted to are the
  268. badge of slavery. Can you not understand that liberty is worth more than
  269. ribbons? "
  270. Mollie agreed, but she did not sound very convinced.
  271. The pigs had an even harder struggle to counteract the lies put about by
  272. Moses, the tame raven. Moses, who was Mr. Jones's especial pet, was a spy and
  273. a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker. He claimed to know of the
  274. existence of a mysterious country called Sugarcandy Mountain, to which all
  275. animals went when they died. It was situated somewhere up in the sky, a little
  276. distance beyond the clouds, Moses said. In Sugarcandy Mountain it was
  277. Sunday seven days a week, clover was in season all the year round, and lump
  278. sugar and linseed cake grew on the hedges. The animals hated Moses because
  279. he told tales and did no work, but some of them believed in Sugarcandy
  280. Mountain, and the pigs had to argue very hard to persuade them that there
  281. was no such place.
  282. Their most faithful disciples were the two cart-horses, Boxer and Clover.
  283. These two had great difficulty in thinking anything out for themselves, but
  284. having once accepted the pigs as their teachers, they absorbed everything that
  285. they were told, and passed it on to the other animals by simple arguments.
  286. They were unfailing in their attendance at the secret meetings in the barn, and
  287. led the singing of Beasts of England, with which the meetings always ended.
  288. Now, as it turned out, the Rebellion was achieved much earlier and more
  289. easily than anyone had expected. In past years Mr. Jones, although a hard
  290. master, had been a capable farmer, but of late he had fallen on evil days. He
  291. had become much disheartened after losing money in a lawsuit, and had taken
  292. to drinking more than was good for him. For whole days at a time he would
  293. lounge in his Windsor chair in the kitchen, reading the newspapers, drinking,
  294. and occasionally feeding Moses on crusts of bread soaked in beer. His men
  295. were idle and dishonest, the fields were full of weeds, the buildings wanted
  296. roofing, the hedges were neglected, and the animals were underfed.
  297. June came and the hay was almost ready for cutting. On Midsummer's Eve,
  298. which was a Saturday, Mr. Jones went into Willingdon and got so drunk at the
  299. Red Lion that he did not come back till midday on Sunday. The men had
  300. milked the cows in the early morning and then had gone out rabbiting, without
  301. bothering to feed the animals. When Mr. Jones got back he immediately went
  302. to sleep on the drawing-room sofa with the News of the World over his face, so
  303. that when evening came, the animals were still unf ed. At last they could stand
  304. it no longer. One of the cows broke in the door of the store-shed with her horn
  305. and all the animals began to help themselves from the bins. It was just then
  306. that Mr. Jones woke up. The next moment he and his four men were in the
  307. store-shed with whips in their hands, lashing out in all directions. This was
  308. more than the hungry animals could bear. With one accord, though nothing of
  309. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  310. the kind had been planned beforehand, they flung themselves upon their
  311. tormentors. Jones and his men suddenly found themselves being butted and
  312. kicked from all sides. The situation was quite out of their control. They had
  313. never seen animals behave like this before, and this sudden uprising of
  314. creatures whom they were used to thrashing and maltreating just as they
  315. chose, frightened them almost out of their wits. After only a moment or two
  316. they gave up trying to defend themselves and took to their heels. A minute
  317. later all five of them were in full flight down the cart-track that led to the main
  318. road, with the animals pursuing them in triumph.
  319. Mrs. Jones looked out of the bedroom window, saw what was happening,
  320. hurriedly flung a few possessions into a carpet bag, and slipped out of the farm
  321. by another way. Moses sprang off his perch and flapped after her, croaking
  322. loudly. Meanwhile the animals had chased Jones and his men out on to the
  323. road and slammed the five-barred gate behind them. And so, almost before
  324. they knew what was happening, the Rebellion had been successfully carried
  325. through: Jones was expelled, and the Manor Farm was theirs.
  326. For the first few minutes the animals could hardly believe in their good
  327. fortune. Their first act was to gallop in a body right round the boundaries of
  328. the farm, as though to make quite sure that no human being was hiding
  329. anywhere upon it; then they raced back to the farm buildings to wipe out the
  330. last traces of Jones's hated reign. The harness-room at the end of the stables
  331. was broken open; the bits, the nose-rings, the dog-chains, the cruel knives with
  332. which Mr. Jones had been used to castrate the pig s and lambs, were all flung
  333. down the well. The reins, the halters, the blinkers, the degrading nosebags,
  334. were thrown on to the rubbish fire which was burning in the yard. So were the
  335. whips. All the animals capered with joy when they saw the whips going up in
  336. flames. Snowball also threw on to the fire the ribbons with which the horses'
  337. manes and tails had usually been decorated on market days.
  338. "Ribbons," he said, "should be considered as clothes, which are the mark of a
  339. human being. All animals should go naked."
  340. When Boxer heard this he fetched the small straw hat which he wore in
  341. summer to keep the flies out of his ears, and flung it on to the fire with the rest.
  342. In a very little while the animals had destroyed everything that reminded
  343. them of Mr. Jones. Napoleon then led them back to the store-shed and served
  344. out a double ration of corn to everybody, with two biscuits for each dog. Then
  345. they sang Beasts of England from end to end seven times running, and after
  346. that they settled down for the night and slept as they had never slept before.
  347. But they woke at dawn as usual, and suddenly remembering the glorious
  348. thing that had happened, they all raced out into the pasture together. A little
  349. way down the pasture there was a knoll that commanded a view of most of the
  350. farm. The animals rushed to the top of it and gazed round them in the clear
  351. morning light. Yes, it was theirs—everything that they could see was theirs! In
  352. the ecstasy of that thought they gambolled round and round, they hurled
  353. themselves into the air in great leaps of excitement. They rolled in the dew,
  354. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  355. they cropped mouthfuls of the sweet summer grass, they kicked up clods of the
  356. black earth and snuffed its rich scent. Then they made a tour of inspection of
  357. the whole farm and surveyed with speechless admiration the ploughland, the
  358. hayfield, the orchard, the pool, the spinney. It was as though they had never
  359. seen these things before, and even now they could hardly believe that it was all
  360. their own.
  361. Then they filed back to the farm buildings and halted in silence outside the
  362. door of the farmhouse. That was theirs too, but they were frightened to go
  363. inside. After a moment, however, Snowball and Napoleon butted the door
  364. open with their shoulders and the animals entered in single file, walking with
  365. the utmost care for fear of disturbing anything. They tiptoed from room to
  366. room, afraid to speak above a whisper and gazing with a kind of awe at the
  367. unbelievable luxury, at the beds with their feather matt resses, the lookingglasses,
  368. the horsehair sofa, the Brussels carpet, the lithograph of Queen
  369. Victoria over the drawing-room mantelpiece. They were lust coming down the
  370. stairs when Mollie was discovered to be missing. Going back, the others found
  371. that she had remained behind in the best bedroom. She had taken a piece of
  372. blue ribbon from Mrs. Jones's dressing-table, and was holding it against her
  373. shoulder and admiring herself in the glass in a very foolish manner. The others
  374. reproached her sharply, and they went outside. Some hams hanging in the
  375. kitchen were taken out for burial, and the barrel of beer in the scullery was
  376. stove in with a kick from Boxer's hoof,—otherwise nothing in the house was
  377. touched. A unanimous resolution was passed on the spot that the farmhouse
  378. should be preserved as a museum. All were agreed that no animal must ever
  379. live there.
  380. The animals had their breakfast, and then Snowball and Napoleon called
  381. them together again.
  382. "Comrades," said Snowball, "it is half-past six and we have a long day before
  383. us. Today we begin the hay harvest. But there is another matter that must be
  384. attended to first."
  385. The pigs now revealed that during the past three months they had taught
  386. themselves to read and write from an old spelling book which had belonged to
  387. Mr. Jones's children and which had been thrown on the rubbish heap.
  388. Napoleon sent for pots of black and white paint and led the way down to the
  389. five-barred gate that gave on to the main road. Then Snowball (for it was
  390. Snowball who was best at writing) took a brush between the two knuckles of
  391. his trotter, painted out MANOR FARM from the top bar of the gate and in its
  392. place painted ANIMAL FARM. This was to be the name of the farm from now
  393. onwards. After this they went back to the farm buildings, where Snowball and
  394. Napoleon sent for a ladder which they caused to be set against the end wall of
  395. the big barn. They explained that by their studies of the past three months the
  396. pigs had succeeded in reducing the principles of Animalism to Seven
  397. Commandments. These Seven Commandments would now be inscribed on the
  398. wall; they woul d form an unalterable law by which all the animals on Animal
  399. Farm must live for ever after. With some difficulty (for it is not easy for a pig to
  400. balance himself on a ladder) Snowball climbed up and set to work, with
  401. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  402. Squealer a few rungs below him holding the paint-pot. The Commandments
  403. were written on the tarred wall in great white letters that could be read thirty
  404. yards away. They ran thus:
  405. THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS
  406. 1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
  407. 2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
  408. 3. No animal shall wear clothes.
  409. 4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
  410. 5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
  411. 6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
  412. 7. All animals are equal.
  413. It was very neatly written, and except that "friend" was written "freind" and
  414. one of the "S's" was the wrong way round, the spelling was correct all the way
  415. through. Snowball read it aloud for the benefit of the others. All the animals
  416. nodded in complete agreement, and the cleverer ones at once began to learn
  417. the Commandments by heart.
  418. "Now, comrades," cried Snowball, throwing down the paint-brush, "to the
  419. hayfield! Let us make it a point of honour to get in the harvest more quickly
  420. than Jones and his men could do."
  421. But at this moment the three cows, who had seemed uneasy for some time
  422. past, set up a loud lowing. They had not been milked for twenty-four hours,
  423. and their udders were almost bursting. After a little thought, the pigs sent for
  424. buckets and milked the cows fairly successfully, their trotters being well
  425. adapted to this task. Soon there were five buckets of frothing creamy milk at
  426. which many of the animals looked with considerable interest.
  427. "What is going to happen to all that milk?" said someone.
  428. "Jones used sometimes to mix some of it in our mash," said one of the hens.
  429. "Never mind the milk, comrades!" cried Napoleon, placing himself in front
  430. of the buckets. "That will be attended to. The harvest is more important.
  431. Comrade Snowball will lead the way. I shall follow in a few minutes. Forward,
  432. comrades! The hay is waiting."
  433. So the animals trooped down to the hayfield to begin the harvest, and when
  434. they came back in the evening it was noticed that the milk had disappeared.
  435. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  436. III
  437. HOW they toiled and sweated to get the hay in! But their efforts were
  438. rewarded, for the harvest was an even bigger success than they had hoped.
  439. Sometimes the work was hard; the implements had been designed for
  440. human beings and not for animals, and it was a great drawback that no animal
  441. was able to use any tool that involved standing on his hind legs. But the pigs
  442. were so clever that they could think of a way round every difficulty. As for the
  443. horses, they knew every inch of the field, and in fact understood the business
  444. of mowing and raking far better than Jones and his men had ever done. The
  445. pigs did not actually work, but directed and supervi sed the others. With their
  446. superior knowledge it was natural that they should assume the leadership.
  447. Boxer and Clover would harness themselves to the cutter or the horse-rake (no
  448. bits or reins were needed in these days, of course) and tramp steadily round
  449. and round the field with a pig walking behind and calling out "Gee up,
  450. comrade!" or "Whoa back, comrade!" as the case might be. And every animal
  451. down to the humblest worked at turning the hay and gathering it. Even the
  452. ducks and hens toiled to and fro all day in the sun, carrying tiny wisps of hay in
  453. their beaks. In the end they finished the harvest in two days' less time than it
  454. had usually taken Jones and his men. Moreover, it was the biggest harvest that
  455. the farm had ever seen. There was no wastage whatever; the hens and ducks
  456. with their sharp eyes had gathered up the very last stalk. And not an animal on
  457. the farm had stolen so much as a mouthful.
  458. All through that summer the work of the farm went like clockwork. The
  459. animals were happy as they had never conceived it possible to be. Every
  460. mouthful of food was an acute positive pleasure, now that it was truly their
  461. own food, produced by themselves and for themselves, not doled out to them
  462. by a grudging master. With the worthless parasitical human beings gone, there
  463. was more for everyone to eat. There was more leisure too, inexperienced
  464. though the animals were. They met with many difficulties—for ins tance, later
  465. in the year, when they harvested the corn, they had to tread it out in the
  466. ancient style and blow away the chaff with their breath, since the farm
  467. possessed no threshing machine—but the pigs with their cleverness and Boxer
  468. with his tremendous muscles always pulled them through. Boxer was the
  469. admiration of everybody. He had been a hard worker even in Jones's time, but
  470. now he seemed more like three horses than one; there were days when the
  471. entire work of the farm seemed to rest on his mighty shou lders. From
  472. morning to night he was pushing and pulling, always at the spot where the
  473. work was hardest. He had made an arrangement with one of the cockerels to
  474. call him in the mornings half an hour earlier than anyone else, and would put
  475. in some volunteer labour at whatever seemed to be most needed, before the
  476. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  477. regular day's work began. His answer to every problem, every setback, was "I
  478. will work harder!"—which he had adopted as his personal motto.
  479. But everyone worked according to his capacity The hens and ducks, for
  480. instance, saved five bushels of corn at the harvest by gathering up the stray
  481. grains. Nobody stole, nobody grumbled over his rations, the quarrelling and
  482. biting and jealousy which had been normal features of life in the old days had
  483. almost disappeared. Nobody shirked—or almost nobody. Mollie, it was true,
  484. was not good at getting up in the mornings, and had a way of leaving work
  485. early on the ground that there was a stone in her hoof. A nd the behaviour of
  486. the cat was somewhat peculiar. It was soon noticed that when there was work
  487. to be done the cat could never be found. She would vanish for hours on end,
  488. and then reappear at meal-times, or in the evening after work was over, as
  489. though nothing had happened. But she always made such excellent excuses,
  490. and purred so affectionately, that it was impossible not to believe in her good
  491. intentions. Old Benjamin, the donkey, seemed quite unchanged since the
  492. Rebellion. He did his work in the same sl ow obstinate way as he had done it in
  493. Jones's time, never shirking and never volunteering for extra work either.
  494. About the Rebellion and its results he would express no opinion. When asked
  495. whether he was not happier now that Jones was gone, he would say only
  496. "Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey," and the
  497. others had to be content with this cryptic answer.
  498. On Sundays there was no work. Breakfast was an hour later than usual, and
  499. after breakfast there was a ceremony which was observed every week without
  500. fail. First came the hoisting of the flag. Snowball had found in the harnessroom
  501. an old green tablecloth of Mrs. Jones's and had painted on it a hoof and
  502. a horn in white. This was run up the flagstaff in the farmhouse garden every
  503. Sunday 8, morning. The flag was green, Snowball explained, to represent the
  504. green fields of England, while the hoof and horn si gnified the future Republic
  505. of the Animals which would arise when the human race had been finally
  506. overthrown. After the hoisting of the flag all the animals trooped into the big
  507. barn for a general assembly which was known as the Meeting. Here the work of
  508. the coming week was planned out and resolutions were put forward and
  509. debated. It was always the pigs who put forward the resolutions. The other
  510. animals understood how to vote, but could never think of any resolutions of
  511. their own. Snowball and Napoleon were by far the most active in the debates.
  512. But it was noticed that these two were never in agreement: whatever
  513. suggestion either of them made, the other could be counted on to oppose it.
  514. Even when it was resolved—a thing no one could object to in itself—to set aside
  515. the small paddock behind the orchard as a home of rest for animals who were
  516. past work, there was a stormy debate over the correct retiring age for each
  517. class of animal. The Meeting always ended with the singing of Beasts of
  518. England, and the afternoon was given up to recreation.
  519. The pigs had set aside the harness-room as a headquarters for themselves.
  520. Here, in the evenings, they studied blacksmithing, carpentering, and other
  521. necessary arts from books which they had brought out of the farmhouse.
  522. Snowball also busied himself with organising the other animals into what he
  523. called Animal Committees. He was indefatigable at this. He formed the Egg
  524. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  525. Production Committee for the hens, the Clean Tails League for the cows, the
  526. Wild Comrades' Re-education Committee (the object of this was to tame the
  527. rats and rabbits), the Whiter Wool Movement for the sheep, and various
  528. others, besides instituting classes in reading and writing. On the whole, these
  529. projects were a failure. The attempt to tame the wild creatures, for instance,
  530. broke down almost immediately. They continued to behave very much as
  531. before, and when treated with generosity, simply took advantage of it. The cat
  532. joined the Re-education Committee and was very active in it for some days.
  533. She was seen one day sitting on a roof and talk ing to some sparrows who were
  534. just out of her reach. She was telling them that all animals were now comrades
  535. and that any sparrow who chose could come and perch on her paw; but the
  536. sparrows kept their distance.
  537. The reading and writing classes, however, were a great success. By the
  538. autumn almost every animal on the farm was literate in some degree.
  539. As for the pigs, they could already read and write perfectly. The dogs learned
  540. to read fairly well, but were not interested in reading anything except the
  541. Seven Commandments. Muriel, the goat, could read somewhat better than the
  542. dogs, and sometimes used to read to the others in the evenings from scraps of
  543. newspaper which she found on the rubbish heap. Benjamin could read as well
  544. as any pig, but never exercised his faculty. So far as he knew, he said, there was
  545. nothing worth reading. Clover learnt the wh ole alphabet, but could not put
  546. words together. Boxer could not get beyond the letter D. He would trace out A,
  547. B, C, D, in the dust with his great hoof, and then would stand staring at the
  548. letters with his ears back, sometimes shaking his forelock, trying with all his
  549. might to remember what came next and never succeeding. On several
  550. occasions, indeed, he did learn E, F, G, H, but by the time he knew them, it was
  551. always discovered that he had forgotten A, B, C, and D. Finally he decided to
  552. be content with th e first four letters, and used to write them out once or twice
  553. every day to refresh his memory. Mollie refused to learn any but the six letters
  554. which spelt her own name. She would form these very neatly out of pieces of
  555. twig, and would then decorate them with a flower or two and walk round them
  556. admiring them.
  557. None of the other animals on the farm could get further than the letter A. It
  558. was also found that the stupider animals, such as the sheep, hens, and ducks,
  559. were unable to learn the Seven Commandments by heart. After much thought
  560. Snowball declared that the Seven Commandments could in effect be reduced
  561. to a single maxim, namely: "Four legs good, two legs bad." This, he said,
  562. contained the essential principle of Animalism. Whoever had thoroughly
  563. grasped it would be safe from human influences. The birds at first objected,
  564. since it seemed to them that they also had two legs, but Snowball proved to
  565. them that this was not so.
  566. "A bird's wing, comrades," he said, "is an organ of propulsion and not of
  567. manipulation. It should therefore be regarded as a leg. The distinguishing
  568. mark of man is the hand, the instrument with which he does all his mischief."
  569. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  570. The birds did not understand Snowball's long words, but they accepted his
  571. explanation, and all the humbler animals set to work to learn the new maxim
  572. by heart. FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD, was inscribed on the end wall
  573. of the barn, above the Seven Commandments and in bigger letters When they
  574. had once got it by heart, the sheep developed a great liking for this maxim, and
  575. often as they lay in the field they would all start bleating "Four legs good, two
  576. legs bad! Four legs good, two legs bad!" and keep it up for hours on end, never
  577. growing tired of it.
  578. Napoleon took no interest in Snowball's committees. He said that the
  579. education of the young was more important than anything that could be done
  580. for those who were already grown up. It happened that Jessie and Bluebell had
  581. both whelped soon after the hay harvest, giving birth between them to nine
  582. sturdy puppies. As soon as they were weaned, Napoleon took them away from
  583. their mothers, saying that he would make himself responsible for their
  584. education. He took them up into a loft which could only be reached by a ladder
  585. from the harness-room, and there kept them in such seclusion that the rest of
  586. the farm soon forgot their existence.
  587. The mystery of where the milk went to was soon cleared up. It was mixed
  588. every day into the pigs' mash. The early apples were now ripening, and the
  589. grass of the orchard was littered with windfalls. The animals had assumed as a
  590. matter of course that these would be shared out equally; one day, however, the
  591. order went forth that all the windfalls were to be collected and brought to the
  592. harness-room for the use of the pigs. At this some of the other animals
  593. murmured, but it was no use. All the pigs were in f ull agreement on this point,
  594. even Snowball and Napoleon. Squealer was sent to make the necessary
  595. explanations to the others.
  596. "Comrades!" he cried. "You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing
  597. this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and
  598. apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to
  599. preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science,
  600. comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig.
  601. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this
  602. farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for
  603. your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what
  604. would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones
  605. would come back! Surely, comrades," cried Squealer almost pleadingly,
  606. skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, "surely there is no one among
  607. you who wants to see Jones come back?"
  608. Now if there was one thing that the animals were completely certain of, it
  609. was that they did not want Jones back. When it was put to them in this light,
  610. they had no more to say. The importance of keeping the pigs in good health
  611. was all too obvious. So it was agreed without further argument that the milk
  612. and the windfall apples (and also the main crop of apples when they ripened)
  613. should be reserved for the pigs alone.
  614. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  615. IV
  616. BY THE late summer the news of what had happened on Animal Farm had
  617. spread across half the county. Every day Snowball and Napoleon sent out
  618. flights of pigeons whose instructions were to mingle with the animals on
  619. neighbouring farms, tell them the story of the Rebellion, and teach them the
  620. tune of Beasts of England.
  621. Most of this time Mr. Jones had spent sitting in the taproom of the Red Lion
  622. at Willingdon, complaining to anyone who would listen of the monstrous
  623. injustice he had suffered in being turned out of his property by a pack of goodfor-
  624. nothing animals. The other farmers sympathised in principle, but they did
  625. not at first give him much help. At heart, each of them was secretly wondering
  626. whether he could not somehow turn Jones's misfortune to his own advantage.
  627. It was lucky that the owners of the two farms wh ich adjoined Animal Farm
  628. were on permanently bad terms. One of them, which was named Foxwood, was
  629. a large, neglected, old-fashioned farm, much overgrown by woodland, with all
  630. its pastures worn out and its hedges in a disgraceful condition. Its owner, Mr.
  631. Pilkington, was an easy-going gentleman farmer who spent most of his time in
  632. fishing or hunting according to the season. The other farm, which was called
  633. Pinchfield, was smaller and better kept. Its owner was a Mr. Frederick, a
  634. tough, shrewd man, perpetuall y involved in lawsuits and with a name for
  635. driving hard bargains. These two disliked each other so much that it was
  636. difficult for them to come to any agreement, even in defence of their own
  637. interests.
  638. Nevertheless, they were both thoroughly frightened by the rebellion on
  639. Animal Farm, and very anxious to prevent their own animals from learning too
  640. much about it. At first they pretended to laugh to scorn the idea of animals
  641. managing a farm for themselves. The whole thing would be over in a fortnight,
  642. they said. They put it about that the animals on the Manor Farm (they insisted
  643. on calling it the Manor Farm; they would not tolerate the name "Animal
  644. Farm") were perpetually fighting among themselves and w ere also rapidly
  645. starving to death. When time passed and the animals had evidently not starved
  646. to death, Frederick and Pilkington changed their tune and began to talk of the
  647. terrible wickedness that now flourished on Animal Farm. It was given out that
  648. the animals there practised cannibalism, tortured one another with red-hot
  649. horseshoes, and had their females in common. This was what came of rebelling
  650. against the laws of Nature, Frederick and Pilkington said.
  651. However, these stories were never fully believed. Rumours of a wonderful
  652. farm, where the human beings had been turned out and the animals managed
  653. their own affairs, continued to circulate in vague and distorted forms, and
  654. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  655. throughout that year a wave of rebelliousness ran through the countryside.
  656. Bulls which had always been tractable suddenly turned savage, sheep broke
  657. down hedges and devoured the clover, cows kicked the pail over, hunters
  658. refused their fences and shot their riders on to the other side. Above all, the
  659. tune and even the words of Beasts of England were known everywhere. It had
  660. spread with astonishing speed. The human beings could not contain their rage
  661. when they heard this song, though they pretended to think it merely
  662. ridiculous. They could not understand, they said, how even animals could
  663. bring themselves to sing such contemptible rubbish. Any animal caught
  664. singing it was given a flogging on the spot. And yet the song was irrepressible.
  665. The blackbirds whistled it in the hedges, the pigeons cooed it in the elms, it got
  666. into the din of the smithies and the tune of the church bells. And when the
  667. human beings listened to it, they secretly trembled, hearing in it a prophecy of
  668. their future doom.
  669. Early in October, when the corn was cut and stacked and some of it was
  670. already threshed, a flight of pigeons came whirling through the air and
  671. alighted in the yard of Animal Farm in the wildest excitement. Jones and all
  672. his men, with half a dozen others from Foxwood and Pinchfield, had entered
  673. the five-barred gate and were coming up the cart-track that led to the farm.
  674. They were all carrying sticks, except Jones, who was marching ahead with a
  675. gun in his hands. Obviously they were going to attempt the re capture of the
  676. farm.
  677. This had long been expected, and all preparations had been made. Snowball,
  678. who had studied an old book of Julius Caesar's campaigns which he had found
  679. in the farmhouse, was in charge of the defensive operations. He gave his orders
  680. quickly, and in a couple of minutes every animal was at his post.
  681. As the human beings approached the farm buildings, Snowball launched his
  682. first attack. All the pigeons, to the number of thirty-five, flew to and fro over
  683. the men's heads and muted upon them from mid-air; and while the men were
  684. dealing with this, the geese, who had been hiding behind the hedge, rushed out
  685. and pecked viciously at the calves of their legs. However, this was only a light
  686. skirmishing manoeuvre, intended to create a little disorder, and the men easily
  687. drove the geese off with their sticks. S nowball now launched his second line of
  688. attack. Muriel, Benjamin, and all the sheep, with Snowball at the head of them,
  689. rushed forward and prodded and butted the men from every side, while
  690. Benjamin turned around and lashed at them with his small hoofs. But once
  691. again the men, with their sticks and their hobnailed boots, were too strong for
  692. them; and suddenly, at a squeal from Snowball, which was the signal for
  693. retreat, all the animals turned and fled through the gateway into the yard.
  694. The men gave a shout of triumph. They saw, as they imagined, their enemies
  695. in flight, and they rushed after them in disorder. This was just what Snowball
  696. had intended. As soon as they were well inside the yard, the three horses, the
  697. three cows, and the rest of the pigs, who had been lying in ambush in the
  698. cowshed, suddenly emerged in their rear, cutting them off. Snowball now gave
  699. the signal for the charge. He himself dashed straight for Jones. Jones saw him
  700. coming, raised his gun and fired. The pellets scored bloody streaks along
  701. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  702. Snowball's back, and a sheep dropped dead. Without halting for an instant,
  703. Snowball flung his fifteen stone against Jones's legs. Jones was hurled into a
  704. pile of dung and his gun flew out of his hands. But the most terrifying spectacle
  705. of all was Boxer, rearing up on his hind legs and striking out with his great
  706. iron-shod hoofs like a stallion. His very first blow took a stable-lad from
  707. Foxwood on the skull and stretched him lifeless in the mud. At the sight,
  708. several men dropped their sticks and tried to run. Panic overtook them, and
  709. the next moment all the animals together were chasing them round and round
  710. the yard. They were gored, kicked, bitten, trampled on. There was not an
  711. animal on the farm that did not take vengeance on them after his own fashion.
  712. Even the cat suddenly leapt off a roof onto a cowman's shoulders and sank her
  713. claws in his neck, at which he yelled horribly. At a moment when the opening
  714. was clear, the men were glad enough to rush out of the yard and make a bol t
  715. for the main road. And so within five minutes of their invasion they were in
  716. ignominious retreat by the same way as they had come, with a flock of geese
  717. hissing after them and pecking at their calves all the way.
  718. All the men were gone except one. Back in the yard Boxer was pawing with
  719. his hoof at the stable-lad who lay face down in the mud, trying to turn him
  720. over. The boy did not stir.
  721. "He is dead," said Boxer sorrowfully. "I had no intention of doing that. I
  722. forgot that I was wearing iron shoes. Who will believe that I did not do this on
  723. purpose?"
  724. "No sentimentality, comrade!" cried Snowball from whose wounds the blood
  725. was still dripping. "War is war. The only good human being is a dead one."
  726. "I have no wish to take life, not even human life," repeated Boxer, and his
  727. eyes were full of tears.
  728. "Where is Mollie?" exclaimed somebody.
  729. Mollie in fact was missing. For a moment there was great alarm; it was
  730. feared that the men might have harmed her in some way, or even carried her
  731. off with them. In the end, however, she was found hiding in her stall with her
  732. head buried among the hay in the manger. She had taken to flight as soon as
  733. the gun went off. And when the others came back from looking for her, it was
  734. to find that the stable-lad, who in fact was only stunned, had already recovered
  735. and made off.
  736. The animals had now reassembled in the wildest excitement, each
  737. recounting his own exploits in the battle at the top of his voice. An impromptu
  738. celebration of the victory was held immediately. The flag was run up and
  739. Beasts of England was sung a number of times, then the sheep who had been
  740. killed was given a solemn funeral, a hawthorn bush being planted on her grave.
  741. At the graveside Snowball made a little speech, emphasising the need for all
  742. animals to be ready to die for Animal Farm if need be.
  743. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  744. The animals decided unanimously to create a military decoration, "Animal
  745. Hero, First Class," which was conferred there and then on Snowball and Boxer.
  746. It consisted of a brass medal (they were really some old horse-brasses which
  747. had been found in the harness-room), to be worn on Sundays and holidays.
  748. There was also "Animal Hero, Second Class," which was conferred
  749. posthumously on the dead sheep.
  750. There was much discussion as to what the battle should be called. In the
  751. end, it was named the Battle of the Cowshed, since that was where the ambush
  752. had been sprung. Mr. Jones's gun had been found lying in the mud, and it was
  753. known that there was a supply of cartridges in the farmhouse. It was decided
  754. to set the gun up at the foot of the Flagstaff, like a piece of artillery, and to fire
  755. it twice a year—once on October the twelfth, the anniversary of the Battle of
  756. the Cowshed, and once on Midsummer Day, the anniversary of the Rebellion.
  757. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  758. V
  759. AS WINTER drew on, Mollie became more and more troublesome. She was
  760. late for work every morning and excused herself by saying that she had
  761. overslept, and she complained of mysterious pains, although her appetite was
  762. excellent. On every kind of pretext she would run away from work and go to
  763. the drinking pool, where she would stand foolishly gazing at her own reflection
  764. in the water. But there were also rumours of something more serious. One day,
  765. as Mollie strolled blithely into the yard, flirting her long tail and chewing at a
  766. stalk of hay, Clover took her aside.
  767. "Mollie," she said, "I have something very serious to say to you. This
  768. morning I saw you looking over the hedge that divides Animal Farm from
  769. Foxwood. One of Mr. Pilkington's men was standing on the other side of the
  770. hedge. And—I was a long way away, but I am almost certain I saw this—he was
  771. talking to you and you were allowing him to stroke your nose. What does that
  772. mean, Mollie?"
  773. "He didn't! I wasn't! It isn't true!" cried Mollie, beginning to prance about
  774. and paw the ground.
  775. "Mollie! Look me in the face. Do you give me your word of honour that that
  776. man was not stroking your nose?"
  777. "It isn't true!" repeated Mollie, but she could not look Clover in the face, and
  778. the next moment she took to her heels and galloped away into the field.
  779. A thought struck Clover. Without saying anything to the others, she went to
  780. Mollie's stall and turned over the straw with her hoof. Hidden under the straw
  781. was a little pile of lump sugar and several bunches of ribbon of different
  782. colours.
  783. Three days later Mollie disappeared. For some weeks nothing was known of
  784. her whereabouts, then the pigeons reported that they had seen her on the
  785. other side of Willingdon. She was between the shafts of a smart dogcart
  786. painted red and black, which was standing outside a public-house. A fat redfaced
  787. man in check breeches and gaiters, who looked like a publican, was
  788. stroking her nose and feeding her with sugar. Her coat was newly clipped and
  789. she wore a scarlet ribbon round her forelock. She appeared to be enjoying
  790. herself, so the pigeons said. None of the animals ever mentioned Mollie again.
  791. In January there came bitterly hard weather. The earth was like iron, and
  792. nothing could be done in the fields. Many meetings were held in the big barn,
  793. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  794. and the pigs occupied themselves with planning out the work of the coming
  795. season. It had come to be accepted that the pigs, who were manifestly cleverer
  796. than the other animals, should decide all questions of farm policy, though their
  797. decisions had to be ratified by a majority vote. This arrangement would have
  798. worked well enough if it had not been for the disputes between Snowball and
  799. Napoleon. These two disagreed at every point where disagreement was
  800. possible. If one of them suggested sowing a bigger acreage with barley, the
  801. other was certain to demand a bigger acreage of oats, and if one of them said
  802. that such and such a field was just right for cabbages, the other would declare
  803. that it was useless for anything except roots. Each had his own following, and
  804. there were some violent debates. At the Meetings Snowball often won over the
  805. majority by his brillia nt speeches, but Napoleon was better at canvassing
  806. support for himself in between times. He was especially successful with the
  807. sheep. Of late the sheep had taken to bleating "Four legs good, two legs bad"
  808. both in and out of season, and they often interrupted the Meeting with this. It
  809. was noticed that they were especially liable to break into "Four legs good, two
  810. legs bad" at crucial moments in Snowball's speeches. Snowball had made a
  811. close study of some back numbers of the Farmer and Stockbreeder whi ch he
  812. had found in the farmhouse, and was full of plans for innovations and
  813. improvements. He talked learnedly about field drains, silage, and basic slag,
  814. and had worked out a complicated scheme for all the animals to drop their
  815. dung directly in the fields, at a different spot every day, to save the labour of
  816. cartage. Napoleon produced no schemes of his own, but said quietly that
  817. Snowball's would come to nothing, and seemed to be biding his time. But of all
  818. their controversies, none was so bitter as the one that took place over the
  819. windmill.
  820. In the long pasture, not far from the farm buildings, there was a small knoll
  821. which was the highest point on the farm. After surveying the ground, Snowball
  822. declared that this was just the place for a windmill, which could be made to
  823. operate a dynamo and supply the farm with electrical power. This would light
  824. the stalls and warm them in winter, and would also run a circular saw, a chaffcutter,
  825. a mangel-slicer, and an electric milking machine. The animals had
  826. never heard of anything of this kind before ( for the farm was an old-fashioned
  827. one and had only the most primitive machinery), and they listened in
  828. astonishment while Snowball conjured up pictures of fantastic machines which
  829. would do their work for them while they grazed at their ease in the fields or
  830. improved their minds with reading and conversation.
  831. Within a few weeks Snowball's plans for the windmill were fully worked out.
  832. The mechanical details came mostly from three books which had belonged to
  833. Mr. Jones—One Thousand Useful Things to Do About the House, Every Man
  834. His Own Bricklayer, and Electricity for Beginners. Snowball used as his study a
  835. shed which had once been used for incubators and had a smooth wooden floor,
  836. suitable for drawing on. He was closeted there for hours at a time. With his
  837. books held open by a stone, and wi th a piece of chalk gripped between the
  838. knuckles of his trotter, he would move rapidly to and fro, drawing in line after
  839. line and uttering little whimpers of excitement. Gradually the plans grew into a
  840. complicated mass of cranks and cog-wheels, covering more than half the floor,
  841. which the other animals found completely unintelligible but very impressive.
  842. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  843. All of them came to look at Snowball's drawings at least once a day. Even the
  844. hens and ducks came, and were at pains not to tread on the chalk marks. Only
  845. Napoleon held aloof. He had declared himself against the windmill from the
  846. start. One day, however, he arrived unexpectedly to examine the plans. He
  847. walked heavily round the shed, looked closely at every detail of the plans and
  848. snuffed at them once or twice, then stood for a little while contemplating them
  849. out of the corner of his eye; then suddenly he lifted his leg, urinated over the
  850. plans, and walked out without uttering a word.
  851. The whole farm was deeply divided on the subject of the windmill. Snowball
  852. did not deny that to build it would be a difficult business. Stone would have to
  853. be carried and built up into walls, then the sails would have to be made and
  854. after that there would be need for dynamos and cables. (How these were to be
  855. procured, Snowball did not say.) But he maintained that it could all be done in
  856. a year. And thereafter, he declared, so much labour would be saved that the
  857. animals would only need to work three days a week. Napoleon, on the other
  858. hand, argued that the great need of the moment was to increase food
  859. production, and that if they wasted time on the windmill they would all starve
  860. to death. The animals formed themselves into two factions under the slogan,
  861. "Vote for Snowball and the three-day week" and "Vote for Napoleon and the
  862. full manger." Benjamin was the only animal who did not side with either
  863. faction. He refused to believe either that food would become more plentiful or
  864. that the windmill would save wor k. Windmill or no windmill, he said, life
  865. would go on as it had always gone on—that is, badly.
  866. Apart from the disputes over the windmill, there was the question of the
  867. defence of the farm. It was fully realised that though the human beings had
  868. been defeated in the Battle of the Cowshed they might make another and more
  869. determined attempt to recapture the farm and reinstate Mr. Jones. They had
  870. all the more reason for doing so because the news of their defeat had spread
  871. across the countryside and made the animals on the neighbouring farms more
  872. restive than ever. As usual, Snowball and Napoleon were in disagreement.
  873. According to Napoleon, what the animals must do was to procure firearms and
  874. train themselves in the use of them. According to Snowball, they must send out
  875. more and more pigeons and stir up rebellion among the animals on the other
  876. farms. The one argued that if they could not defend themselves they were
  877. bound to be conquered, the other argued that if rebellions happened
  878. everywhere they would have no need to defend themselves. The animals
  879. listened first to Napoleon, then to Snowball, and could not make up their
  880. minds which was right; indeed, they always found themselves in agreement
  881. with the one who was speaking at the moment.
  882. At last the day came when Snowball's plans were completed. At the Meeting
  883. on the following Sunday the question of whether or not to begin work on the
  884. windmill was to be put to the vote. When the animals had assembled in the big
  885. barn, Snowball stood up and, though occasionally interrupted by bleating from
  886. the sheep, set forth his reasons for advocating the building of the windmill.
  887. Then Napoleon stood up to reply. He said very quietly that the windmill was
  888. nonsense and that he advised nobody to vote for it, and promptly sat down
  889. again; he had spoken for barely thirty seconds, and seemed almost indifferent
  890. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  891. as to the effect he produced. At this Snowball sprang to his feet, and shouting
  892. down the sheep, who had begun bleating again, broke into a passionate appeal
  893. in favour of the windmill. Until now the animals had been about equally
  894. divided in their sympathies, but in a moment Snowball's eloquence had carried
  895. them away. In glowing sentences he painted a picture of Animal Farm as it
  896. might be when sordid labour was lifted from the animals' backs. His
  897. imagination had now run far beyond chaff-cutters and turnip-slicers.
  898. Electricity, he said, could operate threshing machines, ploughs, harrows,
  899. rollers, and reapers and binders, besides supplying every stall with its own
  900. electric light, hot and cold water, and an electric heater. By the time he had
  901. finished speaking, there was no doubt as to which way the vote would go. But
  902. just at this moment Napoleon stood up and, casting a peculiar sidelong look at
  903. Snowball, uttere d a high-pitched whimper of a kind no one had ever heard
  904. him utter before.
  905. At this there was a terrible baying sound outside, and nine enormous dogs
  906. wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn. They dashed
  907. straight for Snowball, who only sprang from his place just in time to escape
  908. their snapping jaws. In a moment he was out of the door and they were after
  909. him. Too amazed and frightened to speak, all the animals crowded through the
  910. door to watch the chase. Snowball was racing across the long pasture that led
  911. to the road. He was running as only a pig can run, but the dogs were close on
  912. his heels. Suddenly he slipped and it seemed certain that they had him. Then
  913. he was up again, running faster than ever, then the dogs were gaining on him
  914. again. One of them all but closed his jaws on Snowball's tail, but Snowball
  915. whisked it free just in time. Then he put on an extra spurt and, with a few
  916. inches to spare, slipped through a hole in the hedge and was seen no more.
  917. Silent and terrified, the animals crept back into the barn. In a moment the
  918. dogs came bounding back. At first no one had been able to imagine where
  919. these creatures came from, but the problem was soon solved: they were the
  920. puppies whom Napoleon had taken away from their mothers and reared
  921. privately. Though not yet full-grown, they were huge dogs, and as fiercelooking
  922. as wolves. They kept close to Napoleon. It was noticed that they
  923. wagged their tails to him in the same way as the other dogs had been used to
  924. do to Mr. Jones.
  925. Napoleon, with the dogs following him, now mounted on to the raised
  926. portion of the floor where Major had previously stood to deliver his speech. He
  927. announced that from now on the Sunday-morning Meetings would come to an
  928. end. They were unnecessary, he said, and wasted time. In future all questions
  929. relating to the working of the farm would be settled by a special committee of
  930. pigs, presided over by himself. These would meet in private and afterwards
  931. communicate their decisions to the others. The animals w ould still assemble
  932. on Sunday mornings to salute the flag, sing Beasts of England, and receive
  933. their orders for the week; but there would be no more debates.
  934. In spite of the shock that Snowball's expulsion had given them, the animals
  935. were dismayed by this announcement. Several of them would have protested if
  936. they could have found the right arguments. Even Boxer was vaguely troubled.
  937. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  938. He set his ears back, shook his forelock several times, and tried hard to
  939. marshal his thoughts; but in the end he could not think of anything to say.
  940. Some of the pigs themselves, however, were more articulate. Four young
  941. porkers in the front row uttered shrill squeals of disappro val, and all four of
  942. them sprang to their feet and began speaking at once. But suddenly the dogs
  943. sitting round Napoleon let out deep, menacing growls, and the pigs fell silent
  944. and sat down again. Then the sheep broke out into a tremendous bleating of
  945. "Four legs good, two legs bad!" which went on for nearly a quarter of an hour
  946. and put an end to any chance of discussion.
  947. Afterwards Squealer was sent round the farm to explain the new
  948. arrangement to the others.
  949. "Comrades," he said, "I trust that every animal here appreciates the sacrifice
  950. that Comrade Napoleon has made in taking this extra labour upon himself. Do
  951. not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure! On the contrary, it is a
  952. deep and heavy responsibility. No one believes more firmly than Comrade
  953. Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you
  954. make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong
  955. decisions, comrades, and then where should we be? Su ppose you had decided
  956. to follow Snowball, with his moonshine of windmills—Snowball, who, as we
  957. now know, was no better than a criminal?"
  958. "He fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed," said somebody.
  959. "Bravery is not enough," said Squealer. "Loyalty and obedience are more
  960. important. And as to the Battle of the Cowshed, I believe the time will come
  961. when we shall find that Snowball's part in it was much exaggerated. Discipline,
  962. comrades, iron discipline! That is the watchword for today. One false step, and
  963. our enemies would be upon us. Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones
  964. back?"
  965. Once again this argument was unanswerable. Certainly the animals did not
  966. want Jones back; if the holding of debates on Sunday mornings was liable to
  967. bring him back, then the debates must stop. Boxer, who had now had time to
  968. think things over, voiced the general feeling by saying: "If Comrade Napoleon
  969. says it, it must be right." And from then on he adopted the maxim, "Napoleon
  970. is always right," in addition to his private motto of "I will work harder."
  971. By this time the weather had broken and the spring ploughing had begun.
  972. The shed where Snowball had drawn his plans of the windmill had been shut
  973. up and it was assumed that the plans had been rubbed off the floor. Every
  974. Sunday morning at ten o'clock the animals assembled in the big barn to receive
  975. their orders for the week. The skull of old Major, now clean of flesh, had been
  976. disinterred from the orchard and set up on a stump at the foot of the flagstaff,
  977. beside the gun. After the hoisting of the flag, the animals were required to file
  978. past the skull in a reverent manner before entering the barn. Nowadays they
  979. did not sit all together as they had done in the past. Napoleon, with Squealer
  980. and another pig named Minimus, who had a remarkable gift for composing
  981. songs and poems, sat on the front of the raised platform, with the nine young
  982. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  983. dogs forming a semicircle round them, and the other pigs sitting behind. The
  984. rest of the animals sat facing them in the main body of the barn. Napoleon
  985. read out the orders fo r the week in a gruff soldierly style, and after a single
  986. singing of Beasts of England, all the animals dispersed.
  987. On the third Sunday after Snowball's expulsion, the animals were somewhat
  988. surprised to hear Napoleon announce that the windmill was to be built after
  989. all. He did not give any reason for having changed his mind, but merely
  990. warned the animals that this extra task would mean very hard work, it might
  991. even be necessary to reduce their rations. The plans, however, had all been
  992. prepared, down to the last detail. A special committee of pigs had been at work
  993. upon them for the past three weeks. The building of th e windmill, with various
  994. other improvements, was expected to take two years.
  995. That evening Squealer explained privately to the other animals that
  996. Napoleon had never in reality been opposed to the windmill. On the contrary,
  997. it was he who had advocated it in the beginning, and the plan which Snowball
  998. had drawn on the floor of the incubator shed had actually been stolen from
  999. among Napoleon's papers. The windmill was, in fact, Napoleon's own creation.
  1000. Why, then, asked somebody, had he spoken so strongly against it? Here
  1001. Squealer looked very sly. That, he said, was Comrade Napoleon's cunning. He
  1002. had seemed to oppose the windmill, simply as a manoeuvre to get rid of
  1003. Snowball, who was a dangerous character and a bad influence. Now that
  1004. Snowball was out of the way, the plan could go forward without his
  1005. interference. This, said Squealer, was something called tactics. He repeated a
  1006. number of times, "Tactics, comrades, tactics!" skipping round and whisking his
  1007. tail with a merry laugh. The animals were not certain what the word meant,
  1008. but Squealer spoke so persuasively, and the three dogs who happened to be
  1009. with him growled so threateningly, that they accepted his explanation without
  1010. further questions.
  1011. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1012. VI
  1013. ALL that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their
  1014. work; they grudged no effort or sacrifice, well aware that everything that they
  1015. did was for the benefit of themselves and those of their kind who would come
  1016. after them, and not for a pack of idle, thieving human beings.
  1017. Throughout the spring and summer they worked a sixty-hour week, and in
  1018. August Napoleon announced that there would be work on Sunday afternoons
  1019. as well. This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself
  1020. from it would have his rations reduced by half. Even so, it was found necessary
  1021. to leave certain tasks undone. The harvest was a little less successful than in
  1022. the previous year, and two fields which should have been sown with roots in
  1023. the early summer were not sown because the ploughi ng had not been
  1024. completed early enough. It was possible to foresee that the coming winter
  1025. would be a hard one.
  1026. The windmill presented unexpected difficulties. There was a good quarry of
  1027. limestone on the farm, and plenty of sand and cement had been found in one
  1028. of the outhouses, so that all the materials for building were at hand. But the
  1029. problem the animals could not at first solve was how to break up the stone into
  1030. pieces of suitable size. There seemed no way of doing this except with picks
  1031. and crowbars, which no animal could use, because no animal could stand on
  1032. his hind legs. Only after weeks of vain effort d id the right idea occur to
  1033. somebody—namely, to utilise the force of gravity. Huge boulders, far too big to
  1034. be used as they were, were lying all over the bed of the quarry. The animals
  1035. lashed ropes round these, and then all together, cows, horses, sheep, any
  1036. animal that could lay hold of the rope—even the pigs sometimes joined in at
  1037. critical moments—they dragged them with desperate slowness up the slope to
  1038. the top of the quarry, where they were toppled over the edge, to shatter to
  1039. pieces below. Transporting the stone when it was once broken was
  1040. comparatively simple. The horses carried it off in cart-loads, the sheep dragged
  1041. single blocks, even Muriel and Benjamin yoked themselves into an old
  1042. governess-cart and did their share. By late summer a sufficient store of stone
  1043. had accumulated, and then the building began, under the superintendence of
  1044. the pigs.
  1045. But it was a slow, laborious process. Frequently it took a whole day of
  1046. exhausting effort to drag a single boulder to the top of the quarry, and
  1047. sometimes when it was pushed over the edge it failed to break. Nothing could
  1048. have been achieved without Boxer, whose strength seemed equal to that of all
  1049. the rest of the animals put together. When the boulder began to slip and the
  1050. animals cried out in despair at finding themselves dragged down the hill, it
  1051. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1052. was always Boxer who strained himself against the rope and brought the
  1053. boulder to a stop. To see him toiling up the slope inch by inch, his breath
  1054. coming fast, the tips of his hoofs clawing at the ground, and his great sides
  1055. matted with sweat, filled everyone with admiration. Clover warned him
  1056. sometimes to be careful not to overstrain himself, but Boxer would never listen
  1057. to her. His two slogans, "I will work harder" and "Napoleon is always right,"
  1058. seemed to him a sufficient answer to all problems. He had made arrangements
  1059. with the cockerel to call him three-qu arters of an hour earlier in the mornings
  1060. instead of half an hour. And in his spare moments, of which there were not
  1061. many nowadays, he would go alone to the quarry, collect a load of broken
  1062. stone, and drag it down to the site of the windmill unassisted.
  1063. The animals were not badly off throughout that summer, in spite of the
  1064. hardness of their work. If they had no more food than they had had in Jones's
  1065. day, at least they did not have less. The advantage of only having to feed
  1066. themselves, and not having to support five extravagant human beings as well,
  1067. was so great that it would have taken a lot of failures to outweigh it. And in
  1068. many ways the animal method of doing things was more efficient and saved
  1069. labour. Such jobs as weeding, for instance, could be do ne with a thoroughness
  1070. impossible to human beings. And again, since no animal now stole, it was
  1071. unnecessary to fence off pasture from arable land, which saved a lot of labour
  1072. on the upkeep of hedges and gates. Nevertheless, as the summer wore on,
  1073. various unforeseen shortages began to make them selves felt. There was need
  1074. of paraffin oil, nails, string, dog biscuits, and iron for the horses' shoes, none of
  1075. which could be produced on the farm. Later there would also be need for seeds
  1076. and artificial manures, b esides various tools and, finally, the machinery for
  1077. the windmill. How these were to be procured, no one was able to imagine.
  1078. One Sunday morning, when the animals assembled to receive their orders,
  1079. Napoleon announced that he had decided upon a new policy. From now
  1080. onwards Animal Farm would engage in trade with the neighbouring farms:
  1081. not, of course, for any commercial purpose, but simply in order to obtain
  1082. certain materials which were urgently necessary. The needs of the windmill
  1083. must override everything else, he said. He was therefore making arrangements
  1084. to sell a stack of hay and part of the current year's wheat crop, and la ter on, if
  1085. more money were needed, it would have to be made up by the sale of eggs, for
  1086. which there was always a market in Willingdon. The hens, said Napoleon,
  1087. should welcome this sacrifice as their own special contribution towards the
  1088. building of the windmill.
  1089. Once again the animals were conscious of a vague uneasiness. Never to have
  1090. any dealings with human beings, never to engage in trade, never to make use
  1091. of money—had not these been among the earliest resolutions passed at that
  1092. first triumphant Meeting after Jones was expelled? All the animals
  1093. remembered passing such resolutions: or at least they thought that they
  1094. remembered it. The four young pigs who had protested when Napoleon
  1095. abolished the Meetings raised their voices timidly, but they were promptly si
  1096. lenced by a tremendous growling from the dogs. Then, as usual, the sheep
  1097. broke into "Four legs good, two legs bad!" and the momentary awkwardness
  1098. was smoothed over. Finally Napoleon raised his trotter for silence and
  1099. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1100. announced that he had already made all the arrangements. There would be no
  1101. need for any of the animals to come in contact with human beings, which
  1102. would clearly be most undesirable. He intended to take the whole burden upon
  1103. his own shoulders. A Mr. Whymper, a solicitor living in Willingdon, had
  1104. agreed to act as intermediary between Animal Farm and the outside world,
  1105. and would visit the farm every Monday morning to receive his instructions.
  1106. Napoleon ended his speech with his usual cry of "Long live Animal Farm!" and
  1107. after the singing of Beasts of England the animals were dismissed.
  1108. Afterwards Squealer made a round of the farm and set the animals' minds at
  1109. rest. He assured them that the resolution against engaging in trade and using
  1110. money had never been passed, or even suggested. It was pure imagination,
  1111. probably traceable in the beginning to lies circulated by Snowball. A few
  1112. animals still felt faintly doubtful, but Squealer asked them shrewdly, "Are you
  1113. certain that this is not something that you have dreamed, comrades? Have you
  1114. any record of such a resolution? Is it written down anywhere?" And since it
  1115. was certainly true that nothing of the kind existed in writing, the animals were
  1116. satisfied that they had been mistaken.
  1117. Every Monday Mr. Whymper visited the farm as had been arranged. He was
  1118. a sly-looking little man with side whiskers, a solicitor in a very small way of
  1119. business, but sharp enough to have realised earlier than anyone else that
  1120. Animal Farm would need a broker and that the commissions would be worth
  1121. having. The animals watched his coming and going with a kind of dread, and
  1122. avoided him as much as possible. Nevertheless, the sight of Napoleon, on all
  1123. fours, delivering orders to Whymper, who stood on two legs, roused their pride
  1124. and partly reconciled them to the new arrangement. Their relations with the
  1125. human race were now not quite the same as they had been before. The human
  1126. beings did not hate Animal Farm any less now that it was prospering; indeed,
  1127. they hated it more than ever. Every human being held it as an article of faith
  1128. that the farm would go bankrupt sooner or later, and, above all, that the
  1129. windmill would be a failure. They would meet in the public-houses and prove
  1130. to one another by means of diagrams that the windmill was bound to fall
  1131. down, or that if it did stand up, then that it would never work. And yet, against
  1132. their will, they had developed a certain respect for the efficiency with which
  1133. the animals were managing their own affairs. One symptom of this was that
  1134. they had begun to call Animal Farm by its proper name and ceased to pretend
  1135. that it was called the Manor Farm. They had also dropped their championship
  1136. of Jones, who had given up hope of getting his farm back and gone to live in
  1137. another part of the county. Except through Whymper, there was as yet no
  1138. contact between Animal Farm and the outside world, but there were constant
  1139. rumours that Napoleon was about to enter into a definite business agreement
  1140. either with Mr. Pilkington of Foxwood or with Mr. Frederick of Pinchfield—but
  1141. never, it was noticed, with both simultaneously.
  1142. It was about this time that the pigs suddenly moved into the farmhouse and
  1143. took up their residence there. Again the animals seemed to remember that a
  1144. resolution against this had been passed in the early days, and again Squealer
  1145. was able to convince them that this was not the case. It was absolutely
  1146. necessary, he said, that the pigs, who were the brains of the farm, should have
  1147. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1148. a quiet place to work in. It was also more suited to the dignity of the Leader
  1149. (for of late he had taken to speaking of Napoleon under the title of "Leader") to
  1150. live in a house than in a mere sty. Nevertheless, some of the animals were
  1151. disturbed when they heard that the pigs not only took their meals in the
  1152. kitchen and used the drawing-room as a recreation room, but also slept in the
  1153. beds. Boxer passed it off as usual with "Napoleon is always right!", but Clover,
  1154. who thought she remembered a definite ruling against beds, went to the end of
  1155. the barn and tried to puzzle out the Seven Commandments which were
  1156. inscribed there. Finding he rself unable to read more than individual letters,
  1157. she fetched Muriel.
  1158. "Muriel," she said, "read me the Fourth Commandment. Does it not say
  1159. something about never sleeping in a bed?"
  1160. With some difficulty Muriel spelt it out.
  1161. "It says, 'No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets,"' she announced finally.
  1162. Curiously enough, Clover had not remembered that the Fourth
  1163. Commandment mentioned sheets; but as it was there on the wall, it must have
  1164. done so. And Squealer, who happened to be passing at this moment, attended
  1165. by two or three dogs, was able to put the whole matter in its proper
  1166. perspective.
  1167. "You have heard then, comrades," he said, "that we pigs now sleep in the
  1168. beds of the farmhouse? And why not? You did not suppose, surely, that there
  1169. was ever a ruling against beds? A bed merely means a place to sleep in. A pile
  1170. of straw in a stall is a bed, properly regarded. The rule was against sheets,
  1171. which are a human invention. We have removed the sheets from the
  1172. farmhouse beds, and sleep between blankets. And very comfortable beds they
  1173. are too! But not more comfortable than we need, I can t ell you, comrades,
  1174. with all the brainwork we have to do nowadays. You would not rob us of our
  1175. repose, would you, comrades? You would not have us too tired to carry out our
  1176. duties? Surely none of you wishes to see Jones back?"
  1177. The animals reassured him on this point immediately, and no more was said
  1178. about the pigs sleeping in the farmhouse beds. And when, some days
  1179. afterwards, it was announced that from now on the pigs would get up an hour
  1180. later in the mornings than the other animals, no complaint was made about
  1181. that either.
  1182. By the autumn the animals were tired but happy. They had had a hard year,
  1183. and after the sale of part of the hay and corn, the stores of food for the winter
  1184. were none too plentiful, but the windmill compensated for everything. It was
  1185. almost half built now. After the harvest there was a stretch of clear dry
  1186. weather, and the animals toiled harder than ever, thinking it well worth while
  1187. to plod to and fro all day with blocks of stone if by doing so they could raise the
  1188. walls another foot. Boxer would even c ome out at nights and work for an hour
  1189. or two on his own by the light of the harvest moon. In their spare moments the
  1190. animals would walk round and round the half-finished mill, admiring the
  1191. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1192. strength and perpendicularity of its walls and marvelling that they should ever
  1193. have been able to build anything so imposing. Only old Benjamin refused to
  1194. grow enthusiastic about the windmill, though, as usual, he would utter nothing
  1195. beyond the cryptic remark that donkeys live a long time.
  1196. November came, with raging south-west winds. Building had to stop because
  1197. it was now too wet to mix the cement. Finally there came a night when the gale
  1198. was so violent that the farm buildings rocked on their foundations and several
  1199. tiles were blown off the roof of the barn. The hens woke up squawking with
  1200. terror because they had all dreamed simultaneously of hearing a gun go off in
  1201. the distance. In the morning the animals came out of their stalls to find that
  1202. the flagstaff had been blown down and an elm tree at the foot of the orchard
  1203. had been plucked up like a radish. They had just noticed this when a cry of
  1204. despair broke from every animal's throat. A terrible sight had met their eyes.
  1205. The windmill was in ruins.
  1206. With one accord they dashed down to the spot. Napoleon, who seldom
  1207. moved out of a walk, raced ahead of them all. Yes, there it lay, the fruit of all
  1208. their struggles, levelled to its foundations, the stones they had broken and
  1209. carried so laboriously scattered all around. Unable at first to speak, they stood
  1210. gazing mournfully at the litter of fallen stone Napoleon paced to and fro in
  1211. silence, occasionally snuffing at the ground. His tail had grown rigid and
  1212. twitched sharply from side to side, a sign in hi m of intense mental activity.
  1213. Suddenly he halted as though his mind were made up.
  1214. "Comrades," he said quietly, "do you know who is responsible for this? Do
  1215. you know the enemy who has come in the night and overthrown our windmill?
  1216. SNOWBALL!" he suddenly roared in a voice of thunder. "Snowball has done
  1217. this thing! In sheer malignity, thinking to set back our plans and avenge
  1218. himself for his ignominious expulsion, this traitor has crept here under cover
  1219. of night and destroyed our work of nearly a year. Comrades, here and now I
  1220. pronounce the death sentence upon Snowb all. 'Animal Hero, Second Class,'
  1221. and half a bushel of apples to any animal who brings him to justice. A full
  1222. bushel to anyone who captures him alive!"
  1223. The animals were shocked beyond measure to learn that even Snowball
  1224. could be guilty of such an action. There was a cry of indignation, and everyone
  1225. began thinking out ways of catching Snowball if he should ever come back.
  1226. Almost immediately the footprints of a pig were discovered in the grass at a
  1227. little distance from the knoll. They could only be traced for a few yards, but
  1228. appeared to lead to a hole in the hedge. Napoleon snuffed deeply at them and
  1229. pronounced them to be Snowball's. He gave it as his o pinion that Snowball
  1230. had probably come from the direction of Foxwood Farm.
  1231. "No more delays, comrades!" cried Napoleon when the footprints had been
  1232. examined. "There is work to be done. This very morning we begin rebuilding
  1233. the windmill, and we will build all through the winter, rain or shine. We will
  1234. teach this miserable traitor that he cannot undo our work so easily.
  1235. Remember, comrades, there must be no alteration in our plans: they shall be
  1236. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1237. carried out to the day. Forward, comrades! Long live the windmill! Long live
  1238. Animal Farm!"
  1239. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1240. VII
  1241. IT WAS a bitter winter. The stormy weather was followed by sleet and snow,
  1242. and then by a hard frost which did not break till well into February. The
  1243. animals carried on as best they could with the rebuilding of the windmill, well
  1244. knowing that the outside world was watching them and that the envious
  1245. human beings would rejoice and triumph if the mill were not finished on time.
  1246. Out of spite, the human beings pretended not to believe that it was Snowball
  1247. who had destroyer the windmill: they said that it had fallen down because the
  1248. walls were too thin. The animals knew that this was not the case. Still, it had
  1249. been decided to build the walls three feet thick this time instead of eighteen
  1250. inches as before, which meant collecting much larger quantities of stone. For a
  1251. long i.ne the quarry was full of snowdrifts and nothing could be done. Some
  1252. progress was made in the dry frosty we ather that followed, but it was cruel
  1253. work, and the animals could not feel so hopeful about it as they had felt before.
  1254. They were always cold, and usually hungry as well. Only Boxer and Clover
  1255. never lost heart. Squealer made excellent speeches on the joy of service and the
  1256. dignity of labour, but the other animals found more inspiration in Boxer's
  1257. strength and his never-failing cry of "I will work harder! "
  1258. In January food fell short. The corn ration was drastically reduced, and it
  1259. was announced that an extra potato ration would be issued to make up for it.
  1260. Then it was discovered that the greater part of the potato crop had been
  1261. frosted in the clamps, which had not been covered thickly enough. The
  1262. potatoes had become soft and discoloured, and only a few were edible. For
  1263. days at a time the animals had nothing to eat but chaff and mangels.
  1264. Starvation seemed to stare them in the face.
  1265. It was vitally necessary to conceal this fact from the outside world.
  1266. Emboldened by the collapse of the windmill, the human beings were inventing
  1267. fresh lies about Animal Farm. Once again it was being put about that all the
  1268. animals were dying of famine and disease, and that they were continually
  1269. fighting among themselves and had resorted to cannibalism and infanticide.
  1270. Napoleon was well aware of the bad results that might follow if the real facts of
  1271. the food situation were known, and he decided to make u se of Mr. Whymper
  1272. to spread a contrary impression. Hitherto the animals had had little or no
  1273. contact with Whymper on his weekly visits: now, however, a few selected
  1274. animals, mostly sheep, were instructed to remark casually in his hearing that
  1275. rations had been increased. In addition, Napoleon ordered the almost empty
  1276. bins in the store-shed to be filled nearly to the brim with sand, which was then
  1277. covered up with what remained of the grain and meal. On some suitable
  1278. pretext Whymper was led through the store-s hed and allowed to catch a
  1279. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1280. glimpse of the bins. He was deceived, and continued to report to the outside
  1281. world that there was no food shortage on Animal Farm.
  1282. Nevertheless, towards the end of January it became obvious that it would be
  1283. necessary to procure some more grain from somewhere. In these days
  1284. Napoleon rarely appeared in public, but spent all his time in the farmhouse,
  1285. which was guarded at each door by fierce-looking dogs. When he did emerge, it
  1286. was in a ceremonial manner, with an escort of six dogs who closely surrounded
  1287. him and growled if anyone came too near. Frequently he did not even appear
  1288. on Sunday mornings, but issued his orders through one of the other pigs,
  1289. usually Squealer.
  1290. One Sunday morning Squealer announced that the hens, who had just come
  1291. in to lay again, must surrender their eggs. Napoleon had accepted, through
  1292. Whymper, a contract for four hundred eggs a week. The price of these would
  1293. pay for enough grain and meal to keep the farm going till summer came on and
  1294. conditions were easier.
  1295. When the hens heard this, they raised a terrible outcry. They had been
  1296. warned earlier that this sacrifice might be necessary, but had not believed that
  1297. it would really happen. They were just getting their clutches ready for the
  1298. spring sitting, and they protested that to take the eggs away now was murder.
  1299. For the first time since the expulsion of Jones, there was something
  1300. resembling a rebellion. Led by three young Black Minorca pullets, the hens
  1301. made a determined effort to thwart Napoleon's wishes. Thei r method was to
  1302. fly up to the rafters and there lay their eggs, which smashed to pieces on the
  1303. floor. Napoleon acted swiftly and ruthlessly. He ordered the hens' rations to be
  1304. stopped, and decreed that any animal giving so much as a grain of corn to a
  1305. hen should be punished by death. The dogs saw to it that these orders were
  1306. carried out. For five days the hens held out, then they capitulated and went
  1307. back to their nesting boxes. Nine hens had died in the meantime. Their bodies
  1308. were buried in the orchard, an d it was given out that they had died of
  1309. coccidiosis. Whymper heard nothing of this affair, and the eggs were duly
  1310. delivered, a grocer's van driving up to the farm once a week to take them away.
  1311. All this while no more had been seen of Snowball. He was rumoured to be
  1312. hiding on one of the neighbouring farms, either Foxwood or Pinchfield.
  1313. Napoleon was by this time on slightly better terms with the other farmers than
  1314. before. It happened that there was in the yard a pile of timber which had been
  1315. stacked there ten years earlier when a beech spinney was cleared. It was well
  1316. seasoned, and Whymper had advised Napoleon to sell it; both Mr. Pilkington
  1317. and Mr. Frederick were anxious to buy it. Napoleon was hesitating between the
  1318. two, unable to make up his mind. It was noticed that whenever he seemed on
  1319. the point of coming to an agreement with Frederick, Snowball was declared to
  1320. be in hiding at Foxwood, while, when he inclined toward Pilkington, Snowball
  1321. was said to be at Pinchfield.
  1322. Suddenly, early in the spring, an alarming thing was discovered. Snowball
  1323. was secretly frequenting the farm by night! The animals were so disturbed that
  1324. they could hardly sleep in their stalls. Every night, it was said, he came
  1325. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1326. creeping in under cover of darkness and performed all kinds of mischief. He
  1327. stole the corn, he upset the milk-pails, he broke the eggs, he trampled the
  1328. seedbeds, he gnawed the bark off the fruit trees. Whenever anything went
  1329. wrong it became usual to attribute it to Snowball. If a window was broken or a
  1330. drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say that Snowball had come in
  1331. the night and done it, and when the key of the store-shed was lost, the whole
  1332. farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown it down the well. Curiously
  1333. enough, they went on believing this even after the mislaid key was found under
  1334. a sack of meal. The cows declared unanimously that Snowball crept into their
  1335. stalls and milked them in their sleep. The rats, which had been troublesome
  1336. that winter, were also said to be in league with Snowball.
  1337. Napoleon decreed that there should be a full investigation into Snowball's
  1338. activities. With his dogs in attendance he set out and made a careful tour of
  1339. inspection of the farm buildings, the other animals following at a respectful
  1340. distance. At every few steps Napoleon stopped and snuffed the ground for
  1341. traces of Snowball's footsteps, which, he said, he could detect by the smell. He
  1342. snuffed in every corner, in the barn, in the cow-shed, in the henhouses, in the
  1343. vegetable garden, and found traces of Snowb all almost everywhere. He would
  1344. put his snout to the ground, give several deep sniffs, ad exclaim in a terrible
  1345. voice, "Snowball! He has been here! I can smell him distinctly!" and at the
  1346. word "Snowball" all the dogs let out blood-curdling growls and showed their
  1347. side teeth.
  1348. The animals were thoroughly frightened. It seemed to them as though
  1349. Snowball were some kind of invisible influence, pervading the air about them
  1350. and menacing them with all kinds of dangers. In the evening Squealer called
  1351. them together, and with an alarmed expression on his face told them that he
  1352. had some serious news to report.
  1353. "Comrades!" cried Squealer, making little nervous skips, "a most terrible
  1354. thing has been discovered. Snowball has sold himself to Frederick of Pinchfield
  1355. Farm, who is even now plotting to attack us and take our farm away from us!
  1356. Snowball is to act as his guide when the attack begins. But there is worse than
  1357. that. We had thought that Snowball's rebellion was caused simply by his vanity
  1358. and ambition. But we were wrong, comrades. Do you know what the real
  1359. reason was? Snowball was in league with Jones from the very start! He was
  1360. Jones's secret agent all the time. It has all been proved by documents which he
  1361. left behind him and which we have only just discovered. To my mind this
  1362. explains a great deal, comrades. Did we not see for ourselves how he
  1363. attempted—fortunately without success—to get us defeated and destroyed at
  1364. the Battle of the Cowshed?"
  1365. The animals were stupefied. This was a wickedness far outdoing Snowball's
  1366. destruction of the windmill. But it was some minutes before they could fully
  1367. take it in. They all remembered, or thought they remembered, how they had
  1368. seen Snowball charging ahead of them at the Battle of the Cowshed, how he
  1369. had rallied and encouraged them at every turn, and how he had not paused for
  1370. an instant even when the pellets from Jones's gun had wounded his back. At
  1371. first it was a little difficult to see how this fitted in with his being on Jones's
  1372. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1373. side. Even Boxer, who seldom asked questions, was puzzled. He lay down,
  1374. tucked his fore hoofs beneath him, shut his eyes, and with a hard effort
  1375. managed to formulate his thoughts.
  1376. "I do not believe that," he said. "Snowball fought bravely at the Battle of the
  1377. Cowshed. I saw him myself. Did we not give him 'Animal Hero, first Class,'
  1378. immediately afterwards?"
  1379. "That was our mistake, comrade. For we know now—it is all written down in
  1380. the secret documents that we have found—that in reality he was trying to lure
  1381. us to our doom."
  1382. "But he was wounded," said Boxer. "We all saw him running with blood."
  1383. "That was part of the arrangement!" cried Squealer. "Jones's shot only
  1384. grazed him. I could show you this in his own writing, if you were able to read
  1385. it. The plot was for Snowball, at the critical moment, to give the signal for
  1386. flight and leave the field to the enemy. And he very nearly succeeded—I will
  1387. even say, comrades, he would have succeeded if it had not been for our heroic
  1388. Leader, Comrade Napoleon. Do you not remember how, just at the moment
  1389. when Jones and his men had got inside the yard, Snowball suddenly turned
  1390. and fled, and many animals followed him? And do you not remember, too, that
  1391. it was just at that moment, when panic was spreading and all seemed lost, that
  1392. Comrade Napoleon sprang forward with a cry of 'Death to Humanity!' and
  1393. sank his teeth in Jones's leg? Surely you remember that, comrades?" exclaimed
  1394. Squealer, frisking from side to side.
  1395. Now when Squealer described the scene so graphically, it seemed to the
  1396. animals that they did remember it. At any rate, they remembered that at the
  1397. critical moment of the battle Snowball had turned to flee. But Boxer was still a
  1398. little uneasy.
  1399. "I do not believe that Snowball was a traitor at the beginning," he said
  1400. finally. "What he has done since is different. But I believe that at the Battle of
  1401. the Cowshed he was a good comrade."
  1402. "Our Leader, Comrade Napoleon," announced Squealer, speaking very
  1403. slowly and firmly, "has stated categorically—categorically, comrade—that
  1404. Snowball was Jones's agent from the very beginning—yes, and from long
  1405. before the Rebellion was ever thought of."
  1406. "Ah, that is different!" said Boxer. "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be
  1407. right."
  1408. "That is the true spirit, comrade!" cried Squealer, but it was noticed he cast a
  1409. very ugly look at Boxer with his little twinkling eyes. He turned to go, then
  1410. paused and added impressively: "I warn every animal on this farm to keep his
  1411. eyes very wide open. For we have reason to think that some of Snowball's
  1412. secret agents are lurking among us at this moment! "
  1413. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1414. Four days later, in the late afternoon, Napoleon ordered all the animals to
  1415. assemble in the yard. When they were all gathered together, Napoleon
  1416. emerged from the farmhouse, wearing both his medals (for he had recently
  1417. awarded himself "Animal Hero, First Class," and "Animal Hero, Second
  1418. Class"), with his nine huge dogs frisking round him and uttering growls that
  1419. sent shivers down all the animals' spines. They all cowered silently in their
  1420. places, seeming to know in advance that some terrible thing was ab out to
  1421. happen.
  1422. Napoleon stood sternly surveying his audience; then he uttered a highpitched
  1423. whimper. Immediately the dogs bounded forward, seized four of the
  1424. pigs by the ear and dragged them, squealing with pain and terror, to
  1425. Napoleon's feet. The pigs' ears were bleeding, the dogs had tasted blood, and
  1426. for a few moments they appeared to go quite mad. To the amazement of
  1427. everybody, three of them flung themselves upon Boxer. Boxer saw them
  1428. coming and put out his great hoof, caught a dog in mid-air, and pinned him to
  1429. t he ground. The dog shrieked for mercy and the other two fled with their tails
  1430. between their legs. Boxer looked at Napoleon to know whether he should crush
  1431. the dog to death or let it go. Napoleon appeared to change countenance, and
  1432. sharply ordered Boxer to let the dog go, whereat Boxer lifted his hoof, and the
  1433. dog slunk away, bruised and howling.
  1434. Presently the tumult died down. The four pigs waited, trembling, with guilt
  1435. written on every line of their countenances. Napoleon now called upon them to
  1436. confess their crimes. They were the same four pigs as had protested when
  1437. Napoleon abolished the Sunday Meetings. Without any further prompting they
  1438. confessed that they had been secretly in touch with Snowball ever since his
  1439. expulsion, that they had collaborated with him in destroying the windmill, and
  1440. that they had entered into an agreement with him to hand over Animal Farm
  1441. to Mr. Frederick. They added that Snowball had privately admitted to them
  1442. that he had been Jones's secret agent for years past. When they had finished
  1443. their confession, the dogs promptly tore their throats out, and in a terrible
  1444. voice Napoleon demanded whether any other animal had anything to confess.
  1445. The three hens who had been the ringleaders in the attempted rebellion over
  1446. the eggs now came forward and stated that Snowball had appeared to them in
  1447. a dream and incited them to disobey Napoleon's orders. They, too, were
  1448. slaughtered. Then a goose came forward and confessed to having secreted six
  1449. ears of corn during the last year's harvest and eaten them in the night. Then a
  1450. sheep confessed to having urinated in the drinking pool—urged to do this, so
  1451. she said, by Snowball—and two other sheep confessed t o having murdered an
  1452. old ram, an especially devoted follower of Napoleon, by chasing him round and
  1453. round a bonfire when he was suffering from a cough. They were all slain on the
  1454. spot. And so the tale of confessions and executions went on, until there was a
  1455. pile of corpses lying before Napoleon's feet and the air was heavy with the
  1456. smell of blood, which had been unknown there since the expulsion of Jones.
  1457. When it was all over, the remaining animals, except for the pigs and dogs,
  1458. crept away in a body. They were shaken and miserable. They did not know
  1459. which was more shocking—the treachery of the animals who had leagued
  1460. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1461. themselves with Snowball, or the cruel retribution they had just witnessed. In
  1462. the old days there had often been scenes of bloodshed equally terrible, but it
  1463. seemed to all of them that it was far worse now that it was happening among
  1464. themselves. Since Jones had left the farm, until today, no animal had killed
  1465. another animal. Not even a rat had been killed. They had made their way on to
  1466. the little knoll where the half-finished windmill stood, and with one accord
  1467. they all lay down as though huddling together for warmth—Clover, Muriel,
  1468. Benjamin, the cows, the sheep, and a whole flock of geese and hens—everyone,
  1469. indeed, except the cat, who had suddenly disappeared just before Napoleon
  1470. ordered the animals to assemble. For some time nobody spoke. Only Boxer
  1471. remained on his feet. He fidgeted to and f ro, swishing his long black tail
  1472. against his sides and occasionally uttering a little whinny of surprise. Finally
  1473. he said:
  1474. "I do not understand it. I would not have believed that such things could
  1475. happen on our farm. It must be due to some fault in ourselves. The solution, as
  1476. I see it, is to work harder. From now onwards I shall get up a full hour earlier
  1477. in the mornings."
  1478. And he moved off at his lumbering trot and made for the quarry. Having got
  1479. there, he collected two successive loads of stone and dragged them down to the
  1480. windmill before retiring for the night.
  1481. The animals huddled about Clover, not speaking. The knoll where they were
  1482. lying gave them a wide prospect across the countryside. Most of Animal Farm
  1483. was within their view—the long pasture stretching down to the main road, the
  1484. hayfield, the spinney, the drinking pool, the ploughed fields where the young
  1485. wheat was thick and green, and the red roofs of the farm buildings with the
  1486. smoke curling from the chimneys. It was a clear spring evening. The grass and
  1487. the bursting hedges were gilded by the level rays of the sun. Never had the
  1488. farm—and with a kind of surprise they remembered that it was their own farm,
  1489. every inch of it their own property—appeared to the animals so desirable a
  1490. place. As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could
  1491. have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what
  1492. they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the
  1493. overthrow of the human race. These scenes of terror and slaughter were not
  1494. what they had looked forwar d to on that night when old Major first stirred
  1495. them to rebellion. If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been
  1496. of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each
  1497. working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she had
  1498. protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Major's
  1499. speech. Instead—she did not know why—they had come to a time when no one
  1500. dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and
  1501. when y ou had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to
  1502. shocking crimes. There was no thought of rebellion or disobedience in her
  1503. mind. She knew that, even as things were, they were far better off than they
  1504. had been in the days of Jones, and that before all else it was needful to prevent
  1505. the return of the human beings. Whatever happened she would remain
  1506. faithful, work hard, carry out the orders that were given to her, and accept the
  1507. leadership of Napoleon. But still, it was not for this that she an d all the other
  1508. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1509. animals had hoped and toiled. It was not for this that they had built the
  1510. windmill and faced the bullets of Jones's gun. Such were her thoughts, though
  1511. she lacked the words to express them.
  1512. At last, feeling this to be in some way a substitute for the words she was
  1513. unable to find, she began to sing Beasts of England. The other animals sitting
  1514. round her took it up, and they sang it three times over—very tunefully, but
  1515. slowly and mournfully, in a way they had never sung it before.
  1516. They had just finished singing it for the third time when Squealer, attended
  1517. by two dogs, approached them with the air of having something important to
  1518. say. He announced that, by a special decree of Comrade Napoleon, Beasts of
  1519. England had been abolished. From now onwards it was forbidden to sing it.
  1520. The animals were taken aback.
  1521. "Why?" cried Muriel.
  1522. "It's no longer needed, comrade," said Squealer stiffly. "Beasts of England
  1523. was the song of the Rebellion. But the Rebellion is now completed. The
  1524. execution of the traitors this afternoon was the final act. The enemy both
  1525. external and internal has been defeated. In Beasts of England we expressed
  1526. our longing for a better society in days to come. But that society has now been
  1527. established. Clearly this song has no longer any purpose."
  1528. Frightened though they were, some of the animals might possibly have
  1529. protested, but at this moment the sheep set up their usual bleating of "Four
  1530. legs good, two legs bad," which went on for several minutes and put an end to
  1531. the discussion.
  1532. So Beasts of England was heard no more. In its place Minimus, the poet, had
  1533. composed another song which began:
  1534. Animal Farm, Animal Farm, Never through me shalt thou come to harm!
  1535. and this was sung every Sunday morning after the hoisting of the flag. But
  1536. somehow neither the words nor the tune ever seemed to the animals to come
  1537. up to Beasts of England.
  1538. A FEW days later, when the terror caused by the executions had died down,
  1539. some of the animals remembered—or thought they remembered—that the
  1540. Sixth Commandment decreed "No animal shall kill any other animal." And
  1541. though no one cared to mention it in the hearing of the pigs or the dogs, it was
  1542. felt that the killings which had taken place did not square with this. Clover
  1543. asked Benjamin to read her the Sixth Commandment, and when Benjamin, as
  1544. usual, said that he refus ed to meddle in such matters, she fetched Muriel.
  1545. Muriel read the Commandment for her. It ran: "No animal shall kill any other
  1546. animal without cause." Somehow or other, the last two words had slipped out
  1547. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1548. of the animals' memory. But they saw now that the Commandment had not
  1549. been violated; for clearly there was good reason for killing the traitors who had
  1550. leagued themselves with Snowball.
  1551. Throughout the year the animals worked even harder than they had worked
  1552. in the previous year To rebuild the windmill, with walls twice as thick as
  1553. before, and to finish it by the appointed date, together with the regular work of
  1554. the farm, was a tremendous labour. There were times when it seemed to the
  1555. animals that they worked longer hours and fed no better than they had done in
  1556. Jones's day. On Sunday mornings Squealer, holding down a long strip of paper
  1557. with his trotter, would read out to them lists of figures proving that the
  1558. production of every class of foodstuff had increased by two hundred per cent,
  1559. three hundred per cent, or five hundred per cent, as the case might be. The
  1560. animals saw no reason to disbelieve him, especially as they could no longer
  1561. remember very clearly what conditions had been like before the Rebellion. All
  1562. the same, there were days when they felt that they would sooner have had less
  1563. figures and more food.
  1564. All orders were now issued through Squealer or one of the other pigs.
  1565. Napoleon himself was not seen in public as often as once in a fortnight. When
  1566. he did appear, he was attended not only by his retinue of dogs but by a black
  1567. cockerel who marched in front of him and acted as a kind of trumpeter, letting
  1568. out a loud "cock-a-doodle-doo" before Napoleon spoke. Even in the
  1569. farmhouse, it was said, Napoleon inhabited separate apartments from the
  1570. others. He took his meals alone, with two dogs to wait upon him, and always
  1571. ate from the Crown Derby dinner service which had been in the glass cupboard
  1572. in the drawing-room. It was also announced that the gun would be fired every
  1573. year on Napoleon's birthday, as well as on the other two anniversaries.
  1574. Napoleon was now never spoken of simply as "Napoleon." He was always
  1575. referred to in formal style as "our Leader, Comrade Napoleon," and this pigs
  1576. liked to invent for him such titles as Father of All Animals, Terror of Mankind,
  1577. Protector of the Sheep-fold, Ducklings' Friend, and the like. In his speeches,
  1578. Squealer would talk with the tears rolling down his cheeks of Napoleon's
  1579. wisdom the goodness of his heart, and the deep love he bore to all animals
  1580. everywhere, even and especially the unhappy animals wh o still lived in
  1581. ignorance and slavery on other farms. It had become usual to give Napoleon
  1582. the credit for every successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune.
  1583. You would often hear one hen remark to another, "Under the guidance of our
  1584. Leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days"; or two cows,
  1585. enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim, "Thanks to the leadership of
  1586. Comrade Napoleon, how excellent this water tastes!" The general feeling on
  1587. the farm was well expressed in a poem entit led Comrade Napoleon, which was
  1588. composed by Minimus and which ran as follows:
  1589. Friend of fatherless! Fountain of happiness! Lord of the swill-bucket!
  1590. Oh, how my soul is on Fire when I gaze at thy Calm and commanding eye, Like
  1591. the sun in the sky, Comrade Napoleon!
  1592. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1593. Thou are the giver of All that thy creatures love, Full belly twice a day,
  1594. clean straw to roll upon; Every beast great or small Sleeps at peace in his stall,
  1595. Thou watchest over all, Comrade Napoleon!
  1596. Had I a sucking-pig, Ere he had grown as big Even as a pint bottle or as a
  1597. rolling-pin, He should have learned to be Faithful and true to thee, Yes, his
  1598. first squeak should be "Comrade Napoleon!"
  1599. Napoleon approved of this poem and caused it to be inscribed on the wall of
  1600. the big barn, at the opposite end from the Seven Commandments. It was
  1601. surmounted by a portrait of Napoleon, in profile, executed by Squealer in
  1602. white paint.
  1603. Meanwhile, through the agency of Whymper, Napoleon was engaged in
  1604. complicated negotiations with Frederick and Pilkington. The pile of timber
  1605. was still unsold. Of the two, Frederick was the more anxious to get hold of it,
  1606. but he would not offer a reasonable price. At the same time there were
  1607. renewed rumours that Frederick and his men were plotting to attack Animal
  1608. Farm and to destroy the windmill, the building of which had aroused furious
  1609. jealousy in him. Snowball was known to be still skulking on Pinchf ield Farm.
  1610. In the middle of the summer the animals were alarmed to hear that three hens
  1611. had come forward and confessed that, inspired by Snowball, they had entered
  1612. into a plot to murder Napoleon. They were executed immediately, and fresh
  1613. precautions for Napoleon's safety were taken. Four dogs guarded his bed at
  1614. night, one at each corner, and a young pig named Pinkeye was given the task of
  1615. tasting all his food before he ate it, lest it should be poisoned.
  1616. At about the same time it was given out that Napoleon had arranged to sell
  1617. the pile of timber to Mr. Pilkington; he was also going to enter into a regular
  1618. agreement for the exchange of certain products between Animal Farm and
  1619. Foxwood. The relations between Napoleon and Pilkington, though they were
  1620. only conducted through Whymper, were now almost friendly. The animals
  1621. distrusted Pilkington, as a human being, but greatly preferred him to
  1622. Frederick, whom they both feared and hated. As the summer wore on, an d the
  1623. windmill neared completion, the rumours of an impending treacherous attack
  1624. grew stronger and stronger. Frederick, it was said, intended to bring against
  1625. them twenty men all armed with guns, and he had already bribed the
  1626. magistrates and police, so that if he could once get hold of the title-deeds of
  1627. Animal Farm they would ask no questions. Moreover, terrible stories were
  1628. leaking out from Pinchfield about the cruelties that Frederick practised upon
  1629. his animals. He had flogged an old horse to death, he s tarved his cows, he had
  1630. killed a dog by throwing it into the furnace, he amused himself in the evenings
  1631. by making cocks fight with splinters of razor-blade tied to their spurs. The
  1632. animals' blood boiled with rage when they heard of these things being done to
  1633. their comrades, and sometimes they clamoured to be allowed to go out in a
  1634. body and attack Pinchfield Farm, drive out the humans, and set the animals
  1635. free. But Squealer counselled them to avoid rash actions and trust in Comrade
  1636. Napoleon's strategy.
  1637. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1638. Nevertheless, feeling against Frederick continued to run high. One Sunday
  1639. morning Napoleon appeared in the barn and explained that he had never at
  1640. any time contemplated selling the pile of timber to Frederick; he considered it
  1641. beneath his dignity, he said, to have dealings with scoundrels of that
  1642. description. The pigeons who were still sent out to spread tidings of the
  1643. Rebellion were forbidden to set foot anywhere on Foxwood, and were also
  1644. ordered to drop their former slogan of "Death to Humanity" in fa vour of
  1645. "Death to Frederick." In the late summer yet another of Snowball's
  1646. machinations was laid bare. The wheat crop was full of weeds, and it was
  1647. discovered that on one of his nocturnal visits Snowball had mixed weed seeds
  1648. with the seed corn. A gander who had been privy to the plot had confessed his
  1649. guilt to Squealer and immediately committed suicide by swallowing deadly
  1650. nightshade berries. The animals now also learned that Snowball had never—as
  1651. many of them had believed hitherto—received the order of "An imal Hero,
  1652. First Class." This was merely a legend which had been spread some time after
  1653. the Battle of the Cowshed by Snowball himself. So far from being decorated, he
  1654. had been censured for showing cowardice in the battle. Once again some of the
  1655. animals heard this with a certain bewilderment, but Squealer was soon able to
  1656. convince them that their memories had been at fault.
  1657. In the autumn, by a tremendous, exhausting effort—for the harvest had to be
  1658. gathered at almost the same time—the windmill was finished. The machinery
  1659. had still to be installed, and Whymper was negotiating the purchase of it, but
  1660. the structure was completed. In the teeth of every difficulty, in spite of
  1661. inexperience, of primitive implements, of bad luck and of Snowball's treachery,
  1662. the work had been finished punctually to the very day! Tired out but proud, the
  1663. animals walked round and round their masterp iece, which appeared even
  1664. more beautiful in their eyes than when it had been built the first time.
  1665. Moreover, the walls were twice as thick as before. Nothing short of explosives
  1666. would lay them low this time! And when they thought of how they had
  1667. laboured, what discouragements they had overcome, and the enormous
  1668. difference that would be made in their lives when the sails were turning and
  1669. the dynamos running—when they thought of all this, their tiredness forsook
  1670. them and they gambolled round and round the win dmill, uttering cries of
  1671. triumph. Napoleon himself, attended by his dogs and his cockerel, came down
  1672. to inspect the completed work; he personally congratulated the animals on
  1673. their achievement, and announced that the mill would be named Napoleon
  1674. Mill.
  1675. Two days later the animals were called together for a special meeting in the
  1676. barn. They were struck dumb with surprise when Napoleon announced that he
  1677. had sold the pile of timber to Frederick. Tomorrow Frederick's wagons would
  1678. arrive and begin carting it away. Throughout the whole period of his seeming
  1679. friendship with Pilkington, Napoleon had really been in secret agreement with
  1680. Frederick.
  1681. All relations with Foxwood had been broken off; insulting messages had
  1682. been sent to Pilkington. The pigeons had been told to avoid Pinchfield Farm
  1683. and to alter their slogan from "Death to Frederick" to "Death to Pilkington." At
  1684. the same time Napoleon assured the animals that the stories of an impending
  1685. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1686. attack on Animal Farm were completely untrue, and that the tales about
  1687. Frederick's cruelty to his own animals had been greatly exaggerated. All these
  1688. rumours had probably originated with Snowball and his agents. It now
  1689. appeared that Snowball was not, after all, hiding on Pinchfield Farm, and in
  1690. fact had never been there in his life: he was living—in considerable luxury, so it
  1691. was said—at Foxwood, and had in reality been a pensioner of Pilkington for
  1692. years past.
  1693. The pigs were in ecstasies over Napoleon's cunning. By seeming to be
  1694. friendly with Pilkington he had forced Frederick to raise his price by twelve
  1695. pounds. But the superior quality of Napoleon's mind, said Squealer, was
  1696. shown in the fact that he trusted nobody, not even Frederick. Frederick had
  1697. wanted to pay for the timber with something called a cheque, which, it seemed,
  1698. was a piece of paper with a promise to pay written upon it. But Napoleon was
  1699. too clever for him. He had demanded payment in real five- pound notes, which
  1700. were to be handed over before the timber was removed. Already Frederick had
  1701. paid up; and the sum he had paid was just enough to buy the machinery for the
  1702. windmill.
  1703. Meanwhile the timber was being carted away at high speed. When it was all
  1704. gone, another special meeting was held in the barn for the animals to inspect
  1705. Frederick's bank-notes. Smiling beatifically, and wearing both his decorations,
  1706. Napoleon reposed on a bed of straw on the platform, with the money at his
  1707. side, neatly piled on a china dish from the farmhouse kitchen. The animals
  1708. filed slowly past, and each gazed his fill. And Boxer put out his nose to sniff at
  1709. the bank-notes, and the flimsy white things stirred and rustled in his breath.
  1710. Three days later there was a terrible hullabaloo. Whymper, his face deadly
  1711. pale, came racing up the path on his bicycle, flung it down in the yard and
  1712. rushed straight into the farmhouse. The next moment a choking roar of rage
  1713. sounded from Napoleon's apartments. The news of what had happened sped
  1714. round the farm like wildfire. The banknotes were forgeries! Frederick had got
  1715. the timber for nothing!
  1716. Napoleon called the animals together immediately and in a terrible voice
  1717. pronounced the death sentence upon Frederick. When captured, he said,
  1718. Frederick should be boiled alive. At the same time he warned them that after
  1719. this treacherous deed the worst was to be expected. Frederick and his men
  1720. might make their long-expected attack at any moment. Sentinels were placed
  1721. at all the approaches to the farm. In addition, four pigeons were sent to
  1722. Foxwood with a conciliatory message, which it was hoped might re- establish
  1723. good relations with Pilkington.
  1724. The very next morning the attack came. The animals were at breakfast when
  1725. the look-outs came racing in with the news that Frederick and his followers
  1726. had already come through the five-barred gate. Boldly enough the animals
  1727. sallied forth to meet them, but this time they did not have the easy victory that
  1728. they had had in the Battle of the Cowshed. There were fifteen men, with half a
  1729. dozen guns between them, and they opened fire as soon as they got within fifty
  1730. yards. The animals could not face the terribl e explosions and the stinging
  1731. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1732. pellets, and in spite of the efforts of Napoleon and Boxer to rally them, they
  1733. were soon driven back. A number of them were already wounded. They took
  1734. refuge in the farm buildings and peeped cautiously out from chinks and knotholes.
  1735. The whole of the big pasture, including the windmill, was in the hands of
  1736. the enemy. For the moment even Napoleon seemed at a loss. He paced up and
  1737. down without a word, his tail rigid and twitching. Wistful glances were sent in
  1738. the direction of Fox wood. If Pilkington and his men would help them, the day
  1739. might yet be won. But at this moment the four pigeons, who had been sent out
  1740. on the day before, returned, one of them bearing a scrap of paper from
  1741. Pilkington. On it was pencilled the words: "Serves you right."
  1742. Meanwhile Frederick and his men had halted about the windmill. The
  1743. animals watched them, and a murmur of dismay went round. Two of the men
  1744. had produced a crowbar and a sledge hammer. They were going to knock the
  1745. windmill down.
  1746. "Impossible!" cried Napoleon. "We have built the walls far too thick for that.
  1747. They could not knock it down in a week. Courage, comrades!"
  1748. But Benjamin was watching the movements of the men intently. The two
  1749. with the hammer and the crowbar were drilling a hole near the base of the
  1750. windmill. Slowly, and with an air almost of amusement, Benjamin nodded his
  1751. long muzzle.
  1752. "I thought so," he said. "Do you not see what they are doing? In another
  1753. moment they are going to pack blasting powder into that hole."
  1754. Terrified, the animals waited. It was impossible now to venture out of the
  1755. shelter of the buildings. After a few minutes the men were seen to be running
  1756. in all directions. Then there was a deafening roar. The pigeons swirled into the
  1757. air, and all the animals, except Napoleon, flung themselves flat on their bellies
  1758. and hid their faces. When they got up again, a huge cloud of black smoke was
  1759. hanging where the windmill had been. Slowly the breeze drifted it away. The
  1760. windmill had ceased to exist!
  1761. At this sight the animals' courage returned to them. The fear and despair
  1762. they had felt a moment earlier were drowned in their rage against this vile,
  1763. contemptible act. A mighty cry for vengeance went up, and without waiting for
  1764. further orders they charged forth in a body and made straight for the enemy.
  1765. This time they did not heed the cruel pellets that swept over them like hail. It
  1766. was a savage, bitter battle. The men fired again and again, and, when the
  1767. animals got to close quarters, lashed out with their sticks and their heavy
  1768. boots. A cow, three sheep, and two geese were killed, and nearly everyone was
  1769. wounded. Even Napoleon, who was directing operations from the rear, had the
  1770. tip of his tail chipped by a pellet. But the men did not go unscathed either.
  1771. Three of them had their heads broken by blows from Boxer's hoofs; another
  1772. was gored in the belly by a cow's horn; another had his trousers nearly torn off
  1773. by Jessie and Bluebell. And when the nine dogs of Napoleon's own bodyguard,
  1774. whom he had instruct ed to make a detour under cover of the hedge, suddenly
  1775. appeared on the men's flank, baying ferociously, panic overtook them. They
  1776. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1777. saw that they were in danger of being surrounded. Frederick shouted to his
  1778. men to get out while the going was good, and the next moment the cowardly
  1779. enemy was running for dear life. The animals chased them right down to the
  1780. bottom of the field, and got in some last kicks at them as they forced their way
  1781. through the thorn hedge.
  1782. They had won, but they were weary and bleeding. Slowly they began to limp
  1783. back towards the farm. The sight of their dead comrades stretched upon the
  1784. grass moved some of them to tears. And for a little while they halted in
  1785. sorrowful silence at the place where the windmill had once stood. Yes, it was
  1786. gone; almost the last trace of their labour was gone! Even the foundations were
  1787. partially destroyed. And in rebuilding it they could not this time, as before,
  1788. make use of the fallen stones. This time the ston es had vanished too. The force
  1789. of the explosion had flung them to distances of hundreds of yards. It was as
  1790. though the windmill had never been.
  1791. As they approached the farm Squealer, who had unaccountably been absent
  1792. during the fighting, came skipping towards them, whisking his tail and
  1793. beaming with satisfaction. And the animals heard, from the direction of the
  1794. farm buildings, the solemn booming of a gun.
  1795. "What is that gun firing for?" said Boxer.
  1796. "To celebrate our victory!" cried Squealer.
  1797. "What victory?" said Boxer. His knees were bleeding, he had lost a shoe and
  1798. split his hoof, and a dozen pellets had lodged themselves in his hind leg.
  1799. "What victory, comrade? Have we not driven the enemy off our soil—the
  1800. sacred soil of Animal Farm? "
  1801. "But they have destroyed the windmill. And we had worked on it for two
  1802. years!"
  1803. "What matter? We will build another windmill. We will build six windmills if
  1804. we feel like it. You do not appreciate, comrade, the mighty thing that we have
  1805. done. The enemy was in occupation of this very ground that we stand upon.
  1806. And now—thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon—we have won every
  1807. inch of it back again!"
  1808. "Then we have won back what we had before," said Boxer.
  1809. "That is our victory," said Squealer.
  1810. They limped into the yard. The pellets under the skin of Boxer's leg smarted
  1811. painfully. He saw ahead of him the heavy labour of rebuilding the windmill
  1812. from the foundations, and already in imagination he braced himself for the
  1813. task. But for the first time it occurred to him that he was eleven years old and
  1814. that perhaps his great muscles were not quite what they had once been.
  1815. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1816. But when the animals saw the green flag flying, and heard the gun firing
  1817. again—seven times it was fired in all—and heard the speech that Napoleon
  1818. made, congratulating them on their conduct, it did seem to them after all that
  1819. they had won a great victory. The animals slain in the battle were given a
  1820. solemn funeral. Boxer and Clover pulled the wagon which served as a hearse,
  1821. and Napoleon himself walked at the head of the procession. Two whole days
  1822. were given over to celebrations. There were songs, speeche s, and more firing
  1823. of the gun, and a special gift of an apple was bestowed on every animal, with
  1824. two ounces of corn for each bird and three biscuits for each dog. It was
  1825. announced that the battle would be called the Battle of the Windmill, and that
  1826. Napoleon had created a new decoration, the Order of the Green Banner, which
  1827. he had conferred upon himself. In the general rejoicings the unfortunate affair
  1828. of the banknotes was forgotten.
  1829. It was a few days later than this that the pigs came upon a case of whisky in
  1830. the cellars of the farmhouse. It had been overlooked at the time when the
  1831. house was first occupied. That night there came from the farmhouse the sound
  1832. of loud singing, in which, to everyone's surprise, the strains of Beasts of
  1833. England were mixed up. At about half past nine Napoleon, wearing an old
  1834. bowler hat of Mr. Jones's, was distinctly seen to emerge from the back door,
  1835. gallop rapidly round the yard, and disappear in doors again. But in the
  1836. morning a deep silence hung over the farmhouse. Not a pig appeared to be
  1837. stirring. It was nearly nine o'clock when Squealer made his appearance,
  1838. walking slowly and dejectedly, his eyes dull, his tail hanging limply behind
  1839. him, and with every appearance of being seriously ill. He called the animals
  1840. together and told them that he had a terrible piece of news to impart. Comrade
  1841. Napoleon was dying!
  1842. A cry of lamentation went up. Straw was laid down outside the doors of the
  1843. farmhouse, and the animals walked on tiptoe. With tears in their eyes they
  1844. asked one another what they should do if their Leader were taken away from
  1845. them. A rumour went round that Snowball had after all contrived to introduce
  1846. poison into Napoleon's food. At eleven o'clock Squealer came out to make
  1847. another announcement. As his last act upon earth, Comrade Napoleon had
  1848. pronounced a solemn decree: the drinking of alcohol was to be punished by
  1849. death.
  1850. By the evening, however, Napoleon appeared to be somewhat better, and the
  1851. following morning Squealer was able to tell them that he was well on the way
  1852. to recovery. By the evening of that day Napoleon was back at work, and on the
  1853. next day it was learned that he had instructed Whymper to purchase in
  1854. Willingdon some booklets on brewing and distilling. A week later Napoleon
  1855. gave orders that the small paddock beyond the orchard, which it had
  1856. previously been intended to set aside as a grazing-ground for anima ls who
  1857. were past work, was to be ploughed up. It was given out that the pasture was
  1858. exhausted and needed re-seeding; but it soon became known that Napoleon
  1859. intended to sow it with barley.
  1860. About this time there occurred a strange incident which hardly anyone was
  1861. able to understand. One night at about twelve o'clock there was a loud crash in
  1862. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1863. the yard, and the animals rushed out of their stalls. It was a moonlit night. At
  1864. the foot of the end wall of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were
  1865. written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces. Squealer, temporarily
  1866. stunned, was sprawling beside it, and near at hand there lay a lantern, a paintbrush,
  1867. and an overturned pot of white paint. The dogs immediately made a
  1868. ring round Squealer, and escorted him back to the farmhouse as soon as he
  1869. was able to walk. None of the animals could form any idea as to what this
  1870. meant, except old Benjamin, who nodded his muzzle with a knowing air, and
  1871. seemed to understand, but would say nothing.
  1872. But a few days later Muriel, reading over the Seven Commandments to
  1873. herself, noticed that there was yet another of them which the animals had
  1874. remembered wrong. They had thought the Fifth Commandment was "No
  1875. animal shall drink alcohol," but there were two words that they had forgotten.
  1876. Actually the Commandment read: "No animal shall drink alcohol to excess."
  1877. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1878. IX
  1879. BOXER'S split hoof was a long time in healing. They had started the
  1880. rebuilding of the windmill the day after the victory celebrations were ended
  1881. Boxer refused to take even a day off work, and made it a point of honour not to
  1882. let it be seen that he was in pain. In the evenings he would admit privately to
  1883. Clover that the hoof troubled him a great deal. Clover treated the hoof with
  1884. poultices of herbs which she prepared by chewing them, and both she and
  1885. Benjamin urged Boxer to work less hard. "A horse's lungs do not last for ever,"
  1886. she said to him. But Boxer would not listen. He had, he said, only one real
  1887. ambition left—to see the windmill well under way before he reached the age for
  1888. retirement.
  1889. At the beginning, when the laws of Animal Farm were first formulated, the
  1890. retiring age had been fixed for horses and pigs at twelve, for cows at fourteen,
  1891. for dogs at nine, for sheep at seven, and for hens and geese at five. Liberal oldage
  1892. pensions had been agreed upon. As yet no animal had actually retired on
  1893. pension, but of late the subject had been discussed more and more. Now that
  1894. the small field beyond the orchard had been set aside for barley, it was
  1895. rumoured that a corner of the large pasture wa s to be fenced off and turned
  1896. into a grazing-ground for superannuated animals. For a horse, it was said, the
  1897. pension would be five pounds of corn a day and, in winter, fifteen pounds of
  1898. hay, with a carrot or possibly an apple on public holidays. Boxer's twelfth
  1899. birthday was due in the late summer of the following year.
  1900. Meanwhile life was hard. The winter was as cold as the last one had been,
  1901. and food was even shorter. Once again all rations were reduced, except those
  1902. of the pigs and the dogs. A too rigid equality in rations, Squealer explained,
  1903. would have been contrary to the principles of Animalism. In any case he had
  1904. no difficulty in proving to the other animals that they were not in reality short
  1905. of food, whatever the appearances might be. For the time being, certainly, it
  1906. had been found necessary to make a readjustment of rations (Squealer always
  1907. spoke of it as a "readjustment," never as a "reduction"), but in comparison
  1908. with the days of Jones, the improvement was enormous. Reading out the
  1909. figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail that they had more
  1910. oats, more hay, more turnips than they had had in Jones's day, that they
  1911. worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better quality, that they
  1912. lived longer, that a larger proportion of their young ones survived infancy, and
  1913. that they had more straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas. The
  1914. animals believed every word of it. Truth to tell, Jones and all he stood for had
  1915. almost faded out of their memories. They knew that life nowadays was harsh
  1916. and bare, that they were often hungry and often cold, and that they were
  1917. usually working when they were not asleep. But doubtless it had been worse in
  1918. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1919. the old days. They were glad to believe so. Besides, in those days they had been
  1920. slaves and now they were free, and that made all the diffe rence, as Squealer
  1921. did not fail to point out.
  1922. There were many more mouths to feed now. In the autumn the four sows
  1923. had all littered about simultaneously, producing thirty-one young pigs between
  1924. them. The young pigs were piebald, and as Napoleon was the only boar on the
  1925. farm, it was possible to guess at their parentage. It was announced that later,
  1926. when bricks and timber had been purchased, a schoolroom would be built in
  1927. the farmhouse garden. For the time being, the young pigs were given their
  1928. instruction by Napoleon himself in the farmhouse kitchen . They took their
  1929. exercise in the garden, and were discouraged from playing with the other
  1930. young animals. About this time, too, it was laid down as a rule that when a pig
  1931. and any other animal met on the path, the other animal must stand aside: and
  1932. also that all pigs, of whatever degree, were to have the privilege of wearing
  1933. green ribbons on their tails on Sundays.
  1934. The farm had had a fairly successful year, but was still short of money. There
  1935. were the bricks, sand, and lime for the schoolroom to be purchased, and it
  1936. would also be necessary to begin saving up again for the machinery for the
  1937. windmill. Then there were lamp oil and candles for the house, sugar for
  1938. Napoleon's own table (he forbade this to the other pigs, on the ground that it
  1939. made them fat), and all the usual replacements such as tools, nails, string, coal,
  1940. wire, scrap-iron, and dog biscuits. A stump o f hay and part of the potato crop
  1941. were sold off, and the contract for eggs was increased to six hundred a week, so
  1942. that that year the hens barely hatched enough chicks to keep their numbers at
  1943. the same level. Rations, reduced in December, were reduced again in February,
  1944. and lanterns in the stalls were forbidden to save Oil. But the pigs seemed
  1945. comfortable enough, and in fact were putting on weight if anything. One
  1946. afternoon in late February a warm, rich, appetising scent, such as the animals
  1947. had never smelt before, wafted itself across the yard from the little brewhouse,
  1948. which had been disused in Jones's time, and which stood beyond the
  1949. kitchen. Someone said it was the smell of cooking barley. The animals sniffed
  1950. the air hungrily and wondered whether a warm mash was being prepared for
  1951. their supper. But no warm mash appeared, and on the following Sunday it was
  1952. announced that from now onwards all barley would be reserved for the pigs.
  1953. The field beyond the orchard had already been sown with barley. And the news
  1954. soon leaked out that every pig was now receiving a ration of a pint of beer
  1955. daily, with half a gallon for Napoleon himself, which was always served to him
  1956. in the Crown Derby soup tureen.
  1957. But if there were hardships to be borne, they were partly offset by the fact
  1958. that life nowadays had a greater dignity than it had had before. There were
  1959. more songs, more speeches, more processions. Napoleon had commanded that
  1960. once a week there should be held something called a Spontaneous
  1961. Demonstration, the object of which was to celebrate the struggles and
  1962. triumphs of Animal Farm. At the appointed time the animals would leave their
  1963. work and march round the precincts of the farm in military formation, w ith
  1964. the pigs leading, then the horses, then the cows, then the sheep, and then the
  1965. poultry. The dogs flanked the procession and at the head of all marched
  1966. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  1967. Napoleon's black cockerel. Boxer and Clover always carried between them a
  1968. green banner marked with the hoof and the horn and the caption, "Long live
  1969. Comrade Napoleon! " Afterwards there were recitations of poems composed in
  1970. Napoleon's honour, and a speech by Squealer giving particulars of the latest
  1971. increases in the production of foodstuffs, and on occasi on a shot was fired
  1972. from the gun. The sheep were the greatest devotees of the Spontaneous
  1973. Demonstration, and if anyone complained (as a few animals sometimes did,
  1974. when no pigs or dogs were near) that they wasted time and meant a lot of
  1975. standing about in the cold, the sheep were sure to silence him with a
  1976. tremendous bleating of "Four legs good, two legs bad!" But by and large the
  1977. animals enjoyed these celebrations. They found it comforting to be reminded
  1978. that, after all, they were truly their own masters and that the work they did was
  1979. for their own benefit. So that, what with the songs, the processions, Squealer's
  1980. lists of figures, the thunder of the gun, the crowing of the cockerel, and the
  1981. fluttering of the flag, they were able to forget that their bellies were empty, at
  1982. least part of the time.
  1983. In April, Animal Farm was proclaimed a Republic, and it became necessary
  1984. to elect a President. There was only one candidate, Napoleon, who was elected
  1985. unanimously. On the same day it was given out that fresh documents had been
  1986. discovered which revealed further details about Snowball's complicity with
  1987. Jones. It now appeared that Snowball had not, as the animals had previously
  1988. imagined, merely attempted to lose the Battle of the Cowshed by means of a
  1989. stratagem, but had been openly fighting on Jones's side . In fact, it was he who
  1990. had actually been the leader of the human forces, and had charged into battle
  1991. with the words "Long live Humanity!" on his lips. The wounds on Snowball's
  1992. back, which a few of the animals still remembered to have seen, had been
  1993. inflicted by Napoleon's teeth.
  1994. In the middle of the summer Moses the raven suddenly reappeared on the
  1995. farm, after an absence of several years. He was quite unchanged, still did no
  1996. work, and talked in the same strain as ever about Sugarcandy Mountain. He
  1997. would perch on a stump, flap his black wings, and talk by the hour to anyone
  1998. who would listen. "Up there, comrades," he would say solemnly, pointing to
  1999. the sky with his large beak—"up there, just on the other side of that dark cloud
  2000. that you can see—there it lies, Sugarcandy Mountain, that happy country
  2001. where we poor animals shall rest for ever from our labours!" He even claimed
  2002. to have been there on one of his higher flights, and to have seen the everlasting
  2003. fields of clover and the linseed cake and lump sugar growing on the hedges.
  2004. Many of the animals believed him. Their lives now, they reasoned, were
  2005. hungry and laborious; was it not right and just that a better world should exist
  2006. somewhere else? A thing that was difficult to determine was the attitude of the
  2007. pigs towards Moses. They all declared contemptuously that his stories about
  2008. Sugarcandy Mountain were lies, and yet they allowed him to remain on the
  2009. farm, not working, with an allowance of a gill of beer a day.
  2010. After his hoof had healed up, Boxer worked harder than ever. Indeed, all the
  2011. animals worked like slaves that year. Apart from the regular work of the farm,
  2012. and the rebuilding of the windmill, there was the schoolhouse for the young
  2013. pigs, which was started in March. Sometimes the long hours on insufficient
  2014. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  2015. food were hard to bear, but Boxer never faltered. In nothing that he said or did
  2016. was there any sign that his strength was not what it had been. It was only his
  2017. appearance that was a little altered; his hide was less shiny than it had used to
  2018. be, and his great haunches seemed to have shrunken. The others said, "Boxer
  2019. will pick up when the spring grass comes on"; but the spring came and Boxer
  2020. grew no fatter. Sometimes on the slope leading to the top of the quarry, when
  2021. he braced his muscles against the weight of some vast boulder, it seemed that
  2022. nothing kept him on his feet except the will to continue. At such times his lips
  2023. were seen to form the words, "I will work harder"; he had no voice left. Once
  2024. agai n Clover and Benjamin warned him to take care of his health, but Boxer
  2025. paid no attention. His twelfth birthday was approaching. He did not care what
  2026. happened so long as a good store of stone was accumulated before he went on
  2027. pension.
  2028. Late one evening in the summer, a sudden rumour ran round the farm that
  2029. something had happened to Boxer. He had gone out alone to drag a load of
  2030. stone down to the windmill. And sure enough, the rumour was true. A few
  2031. minutes later two pigeons came racing in with the news: "Boxer has fallen! He
  2032. is lying on his side and can't get up!"
  2033. About half the animals on the farm rushed out to the knoll where the
  2034. windmill stood. There lay Boxer, between the shafts of the cart, his neck
  2035. stretched out, unable even to raise his head. His eyes were glazed, his sides
  2036. matted with sweat. A thin stream of blood had trickled out of his mouth.
  2037. Clover dropped to her knees at his side.
  2038. "Boxer!" she cried, "how are you?"
  2039. "It is my lung," said Boxer in a weak voice. "It does not matter. I think you
  2040. will be able to finish the windmill without me. There is a pretty good store of
  2041. stone accumulated. I had only another month to go in any case. To tell you the
  2042. truth, I had been looking forward to my retirement. And perhaps, as Benjamin
  2043. is growing old too, they will let him retire at the same time and be a companion
  2044. to me."
  2045. "We must get help at once," said Clover. "Run, somebody, and tell Squealer
  2046. what has happened."
  2047. All the other animals immediately raced back to the farmhouse to give
  2048. Squealer the news. Only Clover remained, and Benjamin7 who lay down at
  2049. Boxer's side, and, without speaking, kept the flies off him with his long tail.
  2050. After about a quarter of an hour Squealer appeared, full of sympathy and
  2051. concern. He said that Comrade Napoleon had learned with the very deepest
  2052. distress of this misfortune to one of the most loyal workers on the farm, and
  2053. was already making arrangements to send Boxer to be treated in the hospital
  2054. at Willingdon. The animals felt a little uneasy at this. Except for Mollie and
  2055. Snowball, no other animal had ever left the farm, and they did not like to think
  2056. of their sick comrade in the hands of human beings. However, Squealer easily
  2057. convinced them that the veterinary surgeon in Willingdon could treat Boxer's
  2058. case more satisfactorily than could be done on the farm. And about half an
  2059. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  2060. hour later, when Boxer had somewhat recovered, he was with difficulty got on
  2061. to his feet, and managed to limp back to his stall, where Clover and Benjamin
  2062. had prepared a good bed of straw for him.
  2063. For the next two days Boxer remained in his stall. The pigs had sent out a
  2064. large bottle of pink medicine which they had found in the medicine chest in the
  2065. bathroom, and Clover administered it to Boxer twice a day after meals. In the
  2066. evenings she lay in his stall and talked to him, while Benjamin kept the flies off
  2067. him. Boxer professed not to be sorry for what had happened. If he made a good
  2068. recovery, he might expect to live another three years, and he looked forward to
  2069. the peaceful days that he would sp end in the corner of the big pasture. It
  2070. would be the first time that he had had leisure to study and improve his mind.
  2071. He intended, he said, to devote the rest of his life to learning the remaining
  2072. twenty-two letters of the alphabet.
  2073. However, Benjamin and Clover could only be with Boxer after working
  2074. hours, and it was in the middle of the day when the van came to take him
  2075. away. The animals were all at work weeding turnips under the supervision of a
  2076. pig, when they were astonished to see Benjamin come galloping from the
  2077. direction of the farm buildings, braying at the top of his voice. It was the first
  2078. time that they had ever seen Benjamin excited—indeed, it was the first time
  2079. that anyone had ever seen him gallop. "Quick, quick!" he sh outed. "Come at
  2080. once! They're taking Boxer away!" Without waiting for orders from the pig, the
  2081. animals broke off work and raced back to the farm buildings. Sure enough,
  2082. there in the yard was a large closed van, drawn by two horses, with lettering on
  2083. its side and a sly-looking man in a low-crowned bowler hat sitting on the
  2084. driver's seat. And Boxer's stall was empty.
  2085. The animals crowded round the van. "Good-bye, Boxer!" they chorused,
  2086. "good-bye!"
  2087. "Fools! Fools!" shouted Benjamin, prancing round them and stamping the
  2088. earth with his small hoofs. "Fools! Do you not see what is written on the side of
  2089. that van?"
  2090. That gave the animals pause, and there was a hush. Muriel began to spell out
  2091. the words. But Benjamin pushed her aside and in the midst of a deadly silence
  2092. he read:
  2093. " 'Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler, Willingdon. Dealer
  2094. in Hides and Bone-Meal. Kennels Supplied.' Do you not understand what that
  2095. means? They are taking Boxer to the knacker's!"
  2096. A cry of horror burst from all the animals. At this moment the man on the
  2097. box whipped up his horses and the van moved out of the yard at a smart trot.
  2098. All the animals followed, crying out at the tops of their voices. Clover forced
  2099. her way to the front. The van began to gather speed. Clover tried to stir her
  2100. stout limbs to a gallop, and achieved a canter. "Boxer!" she cried. "Boxer!
  2101. Boxer! Boxer!" And just at this moment, as though he had heard the uproar
  2102. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  2103. outside, Boxer's face, with the white stripe down his nose, appeared at the
  2104. small window at the back of the van.
  2105. "Boxer!" cried Clover in a terrible voice. "Boxer! Get out! Get out quickly!
  2106. They're taking you to your death!"
  2107. All the animals took up the cry of "Get out, Boxer, get out!" But the van was
  2108. already gathering speed and drawing away from them. It was uncertain
  2109. whether Boxer had understood what Clover had said. But a moment later his
  2110. face disappeared from the window and there was the sound of a tremendous
  2111. drumming of hoofs inside the van. He was trying to kick his way out. The time
  2112. had been when a few kicks from Boxer's hoofs would have smashed the van to
  2113. matchwood. But alas! his strength had left him; and in a few moments the
  2114. sound of drumming hoofs grew fainter and died away. In desperation the
  2115. animals began appealing to the two horses which drew the van to stop.
  2116. "Comrades, comrades!" they shouted. "Don't take your own brother to his
  2117. death! " But the stupid brutes, too ignorant to realise what was happening,
  2118. merely set back their ears and quickened their pace. Boxer's face did not
  2119. reappear at the window. Too late, someone thought of racing ahead and
  2120. shutting the five-barred gate; but in another moment the van was th rough it
  2121. and rapidly disappearing down the road. Boxer was never seen again.
  2122. Three days later it was announced that he had died in the hospital at
  2123. Willingdon, in spite of receiving every attention a horse could have. Squealer
  2124. came to announce the news to the others. He had, he said, been present during
  2125. Boxer's last hours.
  2126. "It was the most affecting sight I have ever seen!" said Squealer, lifting his
  2127. trotter and wiping away a tear. "I was at his bedside at the very last. And at the
  2128. end, almost too weak to speak, he whispered in my ear that his sole sorrow was
  2129. to have passed on before the windmill was finished. 'Forward, comrades!' he
  2130. whispered. 'Forward in the name of the Rebellion. Long live Animal Farm!
  2131. Long live Comrade Napoleon! Napoleon is always right.' Those were his very
  2132. last words, comrades."
  2133. Here Squealer's demeanour suddenly changed. He fell silent for a moment,
  2134. and his little eyes darted suspicious glances from side to side before he
  2135. proceeded.
  2136. It had come to his knowledge, he said, that a foolish and wicked rumour had
  2137. been circulated at the time of Boxer's removal. Some of the animals had
  2138. noticed that the van which took Boxer away was marked "Horse Slaughterer,"
  2139. and had actually jumped to the conclusion that Boxer was being sent to the
  2140. knacker's. It was almost unbelievable, said Squealer, that any animal could be
  2141. so stupid. Surely, he cried indignantly, whisking his tail and skipping from side
  2142. to side, surely they knew their beloved Leader, C omrade Napoleon, better
  2143. than that? But the explanation was really very simple. The van had previously
  2144. been the property of the knacker, and had been bought by the veterinary
  2145. surgeon, who had not yet painted the old name out. That was how the mistake
  2146. had arisen.
  2147. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  2148. The animals were enormously relieved to hear this. And when Squealer went
  2149. on to give further graphic details of Boxer's death-bed, the admirable care he
  2150. had received, and the expensive medicines for which Napoleon had paid
  2151. without a thought as to the cost, their last doubts disappeared and the sorrow
  2152. that they felt for their comrade's death was tempered by the thought that at
  2153. least he had died happy.
  2154. Napoleon himself appeared at the meeting on the following Sunday morning
  2155. and pronounced a short oration in Boxer's honour. It had not been possible, he
  2156. said, to bring back their lamented comrade's remains for interment on the
  2157. farm, but he had ordered a large wreath to be made from the laurels in the
  2158. farmhouse garden and sent down to be placed on Boxer's grave. And in a few
  2159. days' time the pigs intended to hold a memorial banquet in Boxer's honour.
  2160. Napoleon ended his speech with a reminder of Boxer's two favourite maxims,
  2161. "I will work harder" and "Comrade Napoleon is always right"—maxims, he
  2162. said, which every animal would do well to adopt as his own.
  2163. On the day appointed for the banquet, a grocer's van drove up from
  2164. Willingdon and delivered a large wooden crate at the farmhouse. That night
  2165. there was the sound of uproarious singing, which was followed by what
  2166. sounded like a violent quarrel and ended at about eleven o'clock with a
  2167. tremendous crash of glass. No one stirred in the farmhouse before noon on the
  2168. following day, and the word went round that from somewhere or other the pigs
  2169. had acquired the money to buy themselves another case of whisky.
  2170. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  2171. YEARS passed. The seasons came and went, the short animal lives fled by. A
  2172. time came when there was no one who remembered the old days before the
  2173. Rebellion, except Clover, Benjamin, Moses the raven, and a number of the
  2174. pigs.
  2175. Muriel was dead; Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher were dead. Jones too was
  2176. dead—he had died in an inebriates' home in another part of the country.
  2177. Snowball was forgotten. Boxer was forgotten, except by the few who had
  2178. known him. Clover was an old stout mare now, stiff in the joints and with a
  2179. tendency to rheumy eyes. She was two years past the retiring age, but in fact
  2180. no animal had ever actually retired. The talk of setting aside a corner of the
  2181. pasture for superannuated animals had long since been droppe d. Napoleon
  2182. was now a mature boar of twenty-four stone. Squealer was so fat that he could
  2183. with difficulty see out of his eyes. Only old Benjamin was much the same as
  2184. ever, except for being a little greyer about the muzzle, and, since Boxer's death,
  2185. more morose and taciturn than ever.
  2186. There were many more creatures on the farm now, though the increase was
  2187. not so great as had been expected in earlier years. Many animals had been
  2188. born to whom the Rebellion was only a dim tradition, passed on by word of
  2189. mouth, and others had been bought who had never heard mention of such a
  2190. thing before their arrival. The farm possessed three horses now besides Clover.
  2191. They were fine upstanding beasts, willing workers and good comrades, but
  2192. very stupid. None of them proved able to learn the alphabet bey ond the letter
  2193. B. They accepted everything that they were told about the Rebellion and the
  2194. principles of Animalism, especially from Clover, for whom they had an almost
  2195. filial respect; but it was doubtful whether they understood very much of it.
  2196. The farm was more prosperous now, and better organised: it had even been
  2197. enlarged by two fields which had been bought from Mr. Pilkington. The
  2198. windmill had been successfully completed at last, and the farm possessed a
  2199. threshing machine and a hay elevator of its own, and various new buildings
  2200. had been added to it. Whymper had bought himself a dogcart. The windmill,
  2201. however, had not after all been used for generating electrical power. It was
  2202. used for milling corn, and brought in a handsome money profit. T he animals
  2203. were hard at work building yet another windmill; when that one was finished,
  2204. so it was said, the dynamos would be installed. But the luxuries of which
  2205. Snowball had once taught the animals to dream, the stalls with electric light
  2206. and hot and cold water, and the three-day week, were no longer talked about.
  2207. Napoleon had denounced such ideas as contrary to the spirit of Animalism.
  2208. The truest happiness, he said, lay in working hard and living frugally.
  2209. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  2210. Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making
  2211. the animals themselves any richer—except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs.
  2212. Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs. It
  2213. was not that these creatures did not work, after their fashion. There was, as
  2214. Squealer was never tired of explaining, endless work in the supervision and
  2215. organisation of the farm. Much of this work was of a kind that the other
  2216. animals were too ignorant to understand. For example, S quealer told them
  2217. that the pigs had to expend enormous labours every day upon mysterious
  2218. things called "files," "reports," "minutes," and "memoranda." These were large
  2219. sheets of paper which had to be closely covered with writing, and as soon as
  2220. they were so covered, they were burnt in the furnace. This was of the highest
  2221. importance for the welfare of the farm, Squealer said. But still, neither pigs nor
  2222. dogs produced any food by their own labour; and there were very many of
  2223. them, and their appetites were alw ays good.
  2224. As for the others, their life, so far as they knew, was as it had always been.
  2225. They were generally hungry, they slept on straw, they drank from the pool,
  2226. they laboured in the fields; in winter they were troubled by the cold, and in
  2227. summer by the flies. Sometimes the older ones among them racked their dim
  2228. memories and tried to determine whether in the early days of the Rebellion,
  2229. when Jones's expulsion was still recent, things had been better or worse than
  2230. now. They could not remember. There was nothing with which they could
  2231. compare their present lives: they had nothing to go upon except Squealer's
  2232. lists of figures, which invariably demonstrated that everything was getting
  2233. better and better. The animals found the problem insoluble; in any case, they
  2234. had little time for speculating on such things now. Only old Benjamin
  2235. professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things
  2236. never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse—hunger,
  2237. hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.
  2238. And yet the animals never gave up hope. More, they never lost, even for an
  2239. instant, their sense of honour and privilege in being members of Animal Farm.
  2240. They were still the only farm in the whole county—in all England!—owned and
  2241. operated by animals. Not one of them, not even the youngest, not even the
  2242. newcomers who had been brought from farms ten or twenty miles away, ever
  2243. ceased to marvel at that. And when they heard the gun booming and saw the
  2244. green flag fluttering at the masthead, their hearts swelle d with imperishable
  2245. pride, and the talk turned always towards the old heroic days, the expulsion of
  2246. Jones, the writing of the Seven Commandments, the great battles in which the
  2247. human invaders had been defeated. None of the old dreams had been
  2248. abandoned. The Republic of the Animals which Major had foretold, when the
  2249. green fields of England should be untrodden by human feet, was still believed
  2250. in. Some day it was coming: it might not be soon, it might not be with in the
  2251. lifetime of any animal now living, but still it was coming. Even the tune of
  2252. Beasts of England was perhaps hummed secretly here and there: at any rate, it
  2253. was a fact that every animal on the farm knew it, though no one would have
  2254. dared to sing it aloud. It might be that their lives were hard and that not all of
  2255. their hopes had been fulfilled; but they were conscious that they were not as
  2256. other animals. If they went hungry, it was not from feeding tyrannical human
  2257. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  2258. beings; if they worked hard, at least they worked for themselves. No creatur e
  2259. among them went upon two legs. No creature called any other creature
  2260. "Master." All animals were equal.
  2261. One day in early summer Squealer ordered the sheep to follow him, and led
  2262. them out to a piece of waste ground at the other end of the farm, which had
  2263. become overgrown with birch saplings. The sheep spent the whole day there
  2264. browsing at the leaves under Squealer's supervision. In the evening he
  2265. returned to the farmhouse himself, but, as it was warm weather, told the sheep
  2266. to stay where they were. It ended by their remaining there for a whole week,
  2267. during which time the other animals saw nothing of them. Squealer was with
  2268. them for the greater part of every day. He was, he said, teaching them to sing a
  2269. new song, for which privacy was needed.
  2270. It was just after the sheep had returned, on a pleasant evening when the
  2271. animals had finished work and were making their way back to the farm
  2272. buildings, that the terrified neighing of a horse sounded from the yard.
  2273. Startled, the animals stopped in their tracks. It was Clover's voice. She neighed
  2274. again, and all the animals broke into a gallop and rushed into the yard. Then
  2275. they saw what Clover had seen.
  2276. It was a pig walking on his hind legs.
  2277. Yes, it was Squealer. A little awkwardly, as though not quite used to
  2278. supporting his considerable bulk in that position, but with perfect balance, he
  2279. was strolling across the yard. And a moment later, out from the door of the
  2280. farmhouse came a long file of pigs, all walking on their hind legs. Some did it
  2281. better than others, one or two were even a trifle unsteady and looked as though
  2282. they would have liked the support of a stick, but every one of them made his
  2283. way right round the yard successfully. And fi nally there was a tremendous
  2284. baying of dogs and a shrill crowing from the black cockerel, and out came
  2285. Napoleon himself, majestically upright, casting haughty glances from side to
  2286. side, and with his dogs gambolling round him.
  2287. He carried a whip in his trotter.
  2288. There was a deadly silence. Amazed, terrified, huddling together, the
  2289. animals watched the long line of pigs march slowly round the yard. It was as
  2290. though the world had turned upside-down. Then there came a moment when
  2291. the first shock had worn off and when, in spite of everything—in spite of their
  2292. terror of the dogs, and of the habit, developed through long years, of never
  2293. complaining, never criticising, no matter what happened—they might have
  2294. uttered some word of protest. But just at that moment, as tho ugh at a signal,
  2295. all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating of—
  2296. "Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs
  2297. good, two legs better!"
  2298. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  2299. It went on for five minutes without stopping. And by the time the sheep had
  2300. quieted down, the chance to utter any protest had passed, for the pigs had
  2301. marched back into the farmhouse.
  2302. Benjamin felt a nose nuzzling at his shoulder. He looked round. It was
  2303. Clover. Her old eyes looked dimmer than ever. Without saying anything, she
  2304. tugged gently at his mane and led him round to the end of the big barn, where
  2305. the Seven Commandments were written. For a minute or two they stood
  2306. gazing at the tatted wall with its white lettering.
  2307. "My sight is failing," she said finally. "Even when I was young I could not
  2308. have read what was written there. But it appears to me that that wall looks
  2309. different. Are the Seven Commandments the same as they used to be,
  2310. Benjamin?"
  2311. For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read out to her what
  2312. was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a single
  2313. Commandment. It ran:
  2314. ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
  2315. BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS
  2316. After that it did not seem strange when next day the pigs who were
  2317. supervising the work of the farm all carried whips in their trotters. It did not
  2318. seem strange to learn that the pigs had bought themselves a wireless set, were
  2319. arranging to install a telephone, and had taken out subscriptions to John Bull,
  2320. TitBits, and the Daily Mirror. It did not seem strange when Napoleon was seen
  2321. strolling in the farmhouse garden with a pipe in his mouth—no, not even when
  2322. the pigs took Mr. Jones's clothes out of the wardrobes and put them on,
  2323. Napoleon himself appearing in a black coat, ratcatcher breeches, and leather
  2324. leggings, while his favourite sow appeared in the watered silk dress which Mrs.
  2325. Jones had been used to wear on Sundays.
  2326. A week later, in the afternoon, a number of dogcarts drove up to the farm. A
  2327. deputation of neighbouring farmers had been invited to make a tour of
  2328. inspection. They were shown all over the farm, and expressed great admiration
  2329. for everything they saw, especially the windmill. The animals were weeding the
  2330. turnip field. They worked diligently hardly raising their faces from the ground,
  2331. and not knowing whether to be more frightened of the pigs or of the human
  2332. visitors.
  2333. That evening loud laughter and bursts of singing came from the farmhouse.
  2334. And suddenly, at the sound of the mingled voices, the animals were stricken
  2335. with curiosity. What could be happening in there, now that for the first time
  2336. animals and human beings were meeting on terms of equality? With one
  2337. accord they began to creep as quietly as possible into the farmhouse garden.
  2338. At the gate they paused, half frightened to go on but Clover led the way in.
  2339. They tiptoed up to the house, and such animals as were tall enough peered in
  2340. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  2341. at the dining-room window. There, round the long table, sat half a dozen
  2342. farmers and half a dozen of the more eminent pigs, Napoleon himself
  2343. occupying the seat of honour at the head of the table. The pigs appeared
  2344. completely at ease in their chairs The company had been enjoying a game of
  2345. cards but had broken off for the moment, evidently in order to dr ink a toast. A
  2346. large jug was circulating, and the mugs were being refilled with beer. No one
  2347. noticed the wondering faces of the animals that gazed in at the window.
  2348. Mr. Pilkington, of Foxwood, had stood up, his mug in his hand. In a
  2349. moment, he said, he would ask the present company to drink a toast. But
  2350. before doing so, there were a few words that he felt it incumbent upon him to
  2351. say.
  2352. It was a source of great satisfaction to him, he said—and, he was sure, to all
  2353. others present—to feel that a long period of mistrust and misunderstanding
  2354. had now come to an end. There had been a time—not that he, or any of the
  2355. present company, had shared such sentiments—but there had been a time
  2356. when the respected proprietors of Animal Farm had been regarded, he would
  2357. not say with hostility, but perhaps with a certain measure of misgiving, by their
  2358. human neighbours. Unfortunate incidents had occurred, m istaken ideas had
  2359. been current. It had been felt that the existence of a farm owned and operated
  2360. by pigs was somehow abnormal and was liable to have an unsettling effect in
  2361. the neighbourhood. Too many farmers had assumed, without due enquiry, that
  2362. on such a farm a spirit of licence and indiscipline would prevail. They had been
  2363. nervous about the effects upon their own animals, or even upon their human
  2364. employees. But all such doubts were now dispelled. Today he and his friends
  2365. had visited Animal Farm and insp ected every inch of it with their own eyes,
  2366. and what did they find? Not only the most up-to-date methods, but a discipline
  2367. and an orderliness which should be an example to all farmers everywhere. He
  2368. believed that he was right in saying that the lower animals on Animal Farm did
  2369. more work and received less food than any animals in the county. Indeed, he
  2370. and his fellow-visitors today had observed many features which they intended
  2371. to introduce on their own farms immediately.
  2372. He would end his remarks, he said, by emphasising once again the friendly
  2373. feelings that subsisted, and ought to subsist, between Animal Farm and its
  2374. neighbours. Between pigs and human beings there was not, and there need not
  2375. be, any clash of interests whatever. Their struggles and their difficulties were
  2376. one. Was not the labour problem the same everywhere? Here it became
  2377. apparent that Mr. Pilkington was about to spring some carefully prepared
  2378. witticism on the company, but for a moment he was too overcom e by
  2379. amusement to be able to utter it. After much choking, during which his various
  2380. chins turned purple, he managed to get it out: "If you have your lower animals
  2381. to contend with," he said, "we have our lower classes!" This bon mot set the
  2382. table in a roar; and Mr. Pilkington once again congratulated the pigs on the
  2383. low rations, the long working hours, and the general absence of pampering
  2384. which he had observed on Animal Farm.
  2385. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  2386. And now, he said finally, he would ask the company to rise to their feet and
  2387. make certain that their glasses were full. "Gentlemen," concluded Mr.
  2388. Pilkington, "gentlemen, I give you a toast: To the prosperity of Animal Farm!"
  2389. There was enthusiastic cheering and stamping of feet. Napoleon was so
  2390. gratified that he left his place and came round the table to clink his mug
  2391. against Mr. Pilkington's before emptying it. When the cheering had died down,
  2392. Napoleon, who had remained on his feet, intimated that he too had a few
  2393. words to say.
  2394. Like all of Napoleon's speeches, it was short and to the point. He too, he
  2395. said, was happy that the period of misunderstanding was at an end. For a long
  2396. time there had been rumours—circulated, he had reason to think, by some
  2397. malignant enemy—that there was something subversive and even
  2398. revolutionary in the outlook of himself and his colleagues. They had been
  2399. credited with attempting to stir up rebellion among the animals on
  2400. neighbouring farms. Nothing could be further from the truth! Their sole wish,
  2401. now and in the past, was to live at peace and in normal business relations with
  2402. their neighbours. This farm which he had the honour to control, he added, was
  2403. a co-operative enterprise. The title-deeds, which were in his own possession,
  2404. were owned by the pigs jointly.
  2405. He did not believe, he said, that any of the old suspicions still lingered, but
  2406. certain changes had been made recently in the routine of the farm which
  2407. should have the effect of promoting confidence stiff further. Hitherto the
  2408. animals on the farm had had a rather foolish custom of addressing one another
  2409. as "Comrade." This was to be suppressed. There had also been a very strange
  2410. custom, whose origin was unknown, of marching every Sunday morning past a
  2411. boar's skull which was nailed to a post in the garden . This, too, would be
  2412. suppressed, and the skull had already been buried. His visitors might have
  2413. observed, too, the green flag which flew from the masthead. If so, they would
  2414. perhaps have noted that the white hoof and horn with which it had previously
  2415. been marked had now been removed. It would be a plain green flag from now
  2416. onwards.
  2417. He had only one criticism, he said, to make of Mr. Pilkington's excellent and
  2418. neighbourly speech. Mr. Pilkington had referred throughout to "Animal Farm."
  2419. He could not of course know—for he, Napoleon, was only now for the first time
  2420. announcing it—that the name "Animal Farm" had been abolished.
  2421. Henceforward the farm was to be known as "The Manor Farm"—which, he
  2422. believed, was its correct and original name.
  2423. "Gentlemen," concluded Napoleon, "I will give you the same toast as before,
  2424. but in a different form. Fill your glasses to the brim. Gentlemen, here is my
  2425. toast: To the prosperity of The Manor Farm! "
  2426. There was the same hearty cheering as before, and the mugs were emptied to
  2427. the dregs. But as the animals outside gazed at the scene, it seemed to them that
  2428. some strange thing was happening. What was it that had altered in the faces of
  2429. the pigs? Clover's old dim eyes flitted from one face to another. Some of them
  2430. George ORWELL Animal Farm
  2431. had five chins, some had four, some had three. But what was it that seemed to
  2432. be melting and changing? Then, the applause having come to an end, the
  2433. company took up their cards and continued the game that had been
  2434. interrupted, and the animals crept silently away.
  2435. But they had not gone twenty yards when they stopped short. An uproar of
  2436. voices was coming from the farmhouse. They rushed back and looked through
  2437. the window again. Yes, a violent quarrel was in progress. There were
  2438. shoutings, bangings on the table, sharp suspicious glances, furious denials.
  2439. The source of the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington had
  2440. each played an ace of spades simultaneously.
  2441. Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question,
  2442. now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked
  2443. from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already
  2444. it was impossible to say which was which.
  2445. 1946
  2446. George Orwell (1903-1950)
  2447. Yggdrasil's WN Library. Version 0.9 – April 1998.
  2448. An HTML Presentation by Siegfried.
  2449. PDF by AAARGH - 2004.
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