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Title: Animal Farm
Author: Orwell, George [Blair, Eric Arthur] (1903-1950)
Date of first publication: 1945
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Harcourt, Brace
   [copyright date 1946]
Date first posted: 12 May 2011
Date last updated: 12 May 2011
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #785

This ebook was produced by Al Haines






ANIMAL FARM


_George Orwell_




NEW YORK

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY




COPYRIGHT, 1946, BY

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.


  _All rights reserved, including
  the right to reproduce this book
  or portions thereof in any form._





PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BY THE HADDON CRAFTSMEN

SCRANTON, PA.




ANIMAL FARM




CHAPTER I

Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night,
but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.  With the ring of
light from his lantern dancing from side to side, he lurched across the
yard, kicked off his boots at the back door, drew himself a last glass
of beer from the barrel in the scullery, and made his way up to bed,
where Mrs. Jones was already snoring.

As soon as the light in the bedroom went out there was a stirring and a
fluttering all through the farm buildings.  Word had gone round during
the day that old Major, the prize Middle White boar, had had a strange
dream on the previous night and wished to communicate it to the other
animals.  It had been agreed that they should all meet in the big barn
as soon as Mr. Jones was safely out of the way.  Old Major (so he was
always called, though the name under which he had been exhibited was
Willingdon Beauty) was so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was
quite ready to lose an hour's sleep in order to hear what he had to say.

At one end of the big barn, on a sort of raised platform, Major was
already ensconced on his bed of straw, under a lantern which hung from
a beam.  He was twelve years old and had lately grown rather stout, but
he was still a majestic-looking pig, with a wise and benevolent
appearance in spite of the fact that his tushes had never been cut.
Before long the other animals began to arrive and make themselves
comfortable after their different fashions.  First came the three dogs,
Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher, and then the pigs, who settled down in
the straw immediately in front of the platform.  The hens perched
themselves on the window-sills, the pigeons fluttered up to the
rafters, the sheep and cows lay down behind the pigs and began to chew
the cud.  The two cart-horses, Boxer and Clover, came in together,
walking very slowly and setting down their vast hairy hoofs with great
care lest there should be some small animal concealed in the straw.
Clover was a stout motherly mare approaching middle life, who had never
quite got her figure back after her fourth foal.  Boxer was an enormous
beast, nearly eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ordinary
horses put together.  A white stripe down his nose gave him a somewhat
stupid appearance, and in fact he was not of first-rate intelligence,
but he was universally respected for his steadiness of character and
tremendous powers of work.  After the horses came Muriel, the white
goat, and Benjamin, the donkey.  Benjamin was the oldest animal on the
farm, and the worst tempered.  He seldom talked, and when he did, it
was usually to make some cynical remark--for instance, he would say
that God had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would
sooner have had no tail and no flies.  Alone among the animals on the
farm he never laughed.  If asked why, he would say that he saw nothing
to laugh at.  Nevertheless, without openly admitting it, he was devoted
to Boxer; the two of them usually spent their Sundays together in the
small paddock beyond the orchard, grazing side by side and never
speaking.

The two horses had just lain down when a brood of ducklings, which had
lost their mother, filed into the barn, cheeping feebly and wandering
from side to side to find some place where they would not be trodden
on.  Clover made a sort of wall round them with her great foreleg, and
the ducklings nestled down inside it and promptly fell asleep.  At the
last moment Mollie, the foolish, pretty white mare who drew Mr. Jones's
trap, came mincing daintily in, chewing at a lump of sugar.  She took a
place near the front and began flirting her white mane, hoping to draw
attention to the red ribbons it was plaited with.  Last of all came the
cat, who looked round, as usual, for the warmest place, and finally
squeezed herself in between Boxer and Clover; there she purred
contentedly throughout Major's speech without listening to a word of
what he was saying.

All the animals were now present except Moses, the tame raven, who
slept on a perch behind the back door.  When Major saw that they had
all made themselves comfortable and were waiting attentively, he
cleared his throat and began:

"Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that I had
last night.  But I will come to the dream later.  I have something else
to say first.  I do not think, comrades, that I shall be with you for
many months longer, and before I die, I feel it my duty to pass on to
you such wisdom as I have acquired.  I have had a long life, I have had
much time for thought as I lay alone in my stall, and I think I may say
that I understand the nature of life on this earth as well as any
animal now living.  It is about this that I wish to speak to you.

"Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours?  Let us face
it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.  We are born, we are
given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and
those of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom
of our strength; and the very instant that our usefulness has come to
an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty.  No animal in England
knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old.  No
animal in England is free.  The life of an animal is misery and
slavery: that is the plain truth.

"But is this simply part of the order of nature?  Is it because this
land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those
who dwell upon it?  No, comrades, a thousand times no!  The soil of
England is fertile, its climate is good, it is capable of affording
food in abundance to an enormously greater number of animals than now
inhabit it.  This single farm of ours would support a dozen horses,
twenty cows, hundreds of sheep--and all of them living in a comfort and
a dignity that are now almost beyond our imagining.  Why then do we
continue in this miserable condition?  Because nearly the whole of the
produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings.  There,
comrades, is the answer to all our problems.  It is summed up in a
single word--Man.  Man is the only real enemy we have.  Remove Man from
the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for
ever.

"Man is the only creature that consumes without producing.  He does not
give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he
cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits.  Yet he is lord of all the
animals.  He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum
that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for
himself.  Our labour tills the soil, our dung fertilises it, and yet
there is not one of us that owns more than his bare skin.  You cows
that I see before me, how many thousands of gallons of milk have you
given during this last year?  And what has happened to that milk which
should have been breeding up sturdy calves?  Every drop of it has gone
down the throats of our enemies.  And you hens, how many eggs have you
laid in this last year, and how many of those eggs ever hatched into
chickens?  The rest have all gone to market to bring in money for Jones
and his men.  And you, Clover, where are those four foals you bore, who
should have been the support and pleasure of your old age?  Each was
sold at a year old--you will never see one of them again.  In return
for your four confinements and all your labour in the fields, what have
you ever had except your bare rations and a stall?

"And even the miserable lives we lead are not allowed to reach their
natural span.  For myself I do not grumble, for I am one of the lucky
ones.  I am twelve years old and have had over four hundred children.
Such is the natural life of a pig.  But no animal escapes the cruel
knife in the end.  You young porkers who are sitting in front of me,
every one of you will scream your lives out at the block within a year.
To that horror we all must come--cows, pigs, hens, sheep, everyone.
Even the horses and the dogs have no better fate.  You, Boxer, the very
day that those great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will sell
you to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you down for the
foxhounds.  As for the dogs, when they grow old and toothless, Jones
ties a brick round their necks and drowns them in the nearest pond.

"Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades, that all the evils of this
life of ours spring from the tyranny of human beings?  Only get rid of
Man, and the produce of our labour would be our own.  Almost overnight
we could become rich and free.  What then must we do?  Why, work night
and day, body and soul, for the overthrow of the human race!  That is
my message to you, comrades: Rebellion!  I do not know when that
Rebellion will come, it might be in a week or in a hundred years, but I
know, as surely as I see this straw beneath my feet, that sooner or
later justice will be done.  Fix your eyes on that, comrades,
throughout the short remainder of your lives!  And above all, pass on
this message of mine to those who come after you, so that future
generations shall carry on the struggle until it is victorious.

"And remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter.  No
argument must lead you astray.  Never listen when they tell you that
Man and the animals have a common interest, that the prosperity of the
one is the prosperity of the others.  It is all lies.  Man serves the
interests of no creature except himself.  And among us animals let
there be perfect unity, perfect comradeship in the struggle.  All men
are enemies.  All animals are comrades."

At this moment there was a tremendous uproar.  While Major was speaking
four large rats had crept out of their holes and were sitting on their
hindquarters, listening to him.  The dogs had suddenly caught sight of
them, and it was only by a swift dash for their holes that the rats
saved their lives.  Major raised his trotter for silence.

"Comrades," he said, "here is a point that must be settled.  The wild
creatures, such as rats and rabbits--are they our friends or our
enemies?  Let us put it to the vote.  I propose this question to the
meeting: Are rats comrades?"

The vote was taken at once, and it was agreed by an overwhelming
majority that rats were comrades.  There were only four dissentients,
the three dogs and the cat, who was afterwards discovered to have voted
on both sides.  Major continued:

"I have little more to say.  I merely repeat, remember always your duty
of enmity towards Man and all his ways.  Whatever goes upon two legs is
an enemy.  Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
And remember also that in fighting against Man, we must not come to
resemble him.  Even when you have conquered him, do not adopt his
vices.  No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear
clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage
in trade.  All the habits of Man are evil.  And, above all, no animal
must ever tyrannise over his own kind.  Weak or strong, clever or
simple, we are all brothers.  No animal must ever kill any other
animal.  All animals are equal.

"And now, comrades, I will tell you about my dream of last night.  I
cannot describe that dream to you.  It was a dream of the earth as it
will be when Man has vanished.  But it reminded me of something that I
had long forgotten.  Many years ago, when I was a little pig, my mother
and the other sows used to sing an old song of which they knew only the
tune and the first three words.  I had known that tune in my infancy,
but it had long since passed out of my mind.  Last night, however, it
came back to me in my dream.  And what is more, the words of the song
also came back--words, I am certain, which were sung by the animals of
long ago and have been lost to memory for generations.  I will sing you
that song now, comrades.  I am old and my voice is hoarse, but when I
have taught you the tune, you can sing it better for yourselves.  It is
called _Beasts of England_."

Old Major cleared his throat and began to sing.  As he had said, his
voice was hoarse, but he sang well enough, and it was a stirring tune,
something between _Clementine_ and _La Cucuracha_.  The words ran:


  _Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
  Beasts of every land and clime,
  Hearken to my joyful tidings
  Of the golden future time._

  _Soon or late the day is coming,
  Tyrant Man shall be o'erthrown,
  And the fruitful fields of England
  Shall be trod by beasts alone._

  _Rings shall vanish from our noses,
  And the harness from our back,
  Bit and spur shall rust forever,
  Cruel whips no more shall crack._

  _Riches more than mind can picture,
  Wheat and barley, oats and hay,
  Clover, beans, and mangel-wurzels
  Shall be ours upon that day._

  _Bright will shine the fields of England,
  Purer shall its waters be,
  Sweeter yet shall blow its breezes
  On the day that sets us free._

  _For that day we all must labour,
  Though we die before it break;
  Cows and horses, geese and turkeys,
  All must toil for freedom's sake._

  _Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
  Beasts of every land and clime,
  Hearken well and spread my tidings
  Of the golden future time._


The singing of this song threw the animals into the wildest excitement.
Almost before Major had reached the end, they had begun singing it for
themselves.  Even the stupidest of them had already picked up the tune
and a few of the words, and as for the clever ones, such as the pigs
and dogs, they had the entire song by heart within a few minutes.  And
then, after a few preliminary tries, the whole farm burst out into
_Beasts of England_ in tremendous unison.  The cows lowed it, the dogs
whined it, the sheep bleated it, the horses whinnied it, the ducks
quacked it.  They were so delighted with the song that they sang it
right through five times in succession, and might have continued
singing it all night if they had not been interrupted.

Unfortunately, the uproar awoke Mr. Jones, who sprang out of bed,
making sure that there was a fox in the yard.  He seized the gun which
always stood in a corner of his bedroom, and let fly a charge of number
6 shot into the darkness.  The pellets buried themselves in the wall of
the barn and the meeting broke up hurriedly.  Everyone fled to his own
sleeping-place.  The birds jumped on to their perches, the animals
settled down in the straw, and the whole farm was asleep in a moment.




CHAPTER II

Three nights later old Major died peacefully in his sleep.  His body
was buried at the foot of the orchard.

This was early in March.  During the next three months there was much
secret activity.  Major's speech had given to the more intelligent
animals on the farm a completely new outlook on life.  They did not
know when the Rebellion predicted by Major would take place, they had
no reason for thinking that it would be within their own lifetime, but
they saw clearly that it was their duty to prepare for it.  The work of
teaching and organising the others fell naturally upon the pigs, who
were generally recognised as being the cleverest of the animals.
Pre-eminent among the pigs were two young boars named Snowball and
Napoleon, whom Mr. Jones was breeding up for sale.  Napoleon was a
large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the
farm, not much of a talker, but with a reputation for getting his own
way.  Snowball was a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in
speech and more inventive, but was not considered to have the same
depth of character.  All the other male pigs on the farm were porkers.
The best known among them was a small fat pig named Squealer, with very
round cheeks, twinkling eyes, nimble movements, and a shrill voice.  He
was a brilliant talker, and when he was arguing some difficult point he
had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking his tail which was
somehow very persuasive.  The others said of Squealer that he could
turn black into white.

These three had elaborated old Major's teachings into a complete system
of thought, to which they gave the name of Animalism.  Several nights a
week, after Mr. Jones was asleep, they held secret meetings in the barn
and expounded the principles of Animalism to the others.  At the
beginning they met with much stupidity and apathy.  Some of the animals
talked of the of loyalty to Mr. Jones, whom they referred to as
"Master," or made elementary remarks such as "Mr. Jones feeds us.  If
he were gone, we should starve to death."  Others asked such questions
as "Why should we care what happens after we are dead?" or "If this
Rebellion is to happen anyway, what difference does it make whether we
work for it or not?", and the pigs had great difficulty in making them
see that this was contrary to the spirit of Animalism.  The stupidest
questions of all were asked by Mollie, the white mare.  The very first
question she asked Snowball was: "Will there still be sugar after the
Rebellion?"

"No," said Snowball firmly.  "We have no means of making sugar on this
farm.  Besides, you do not need sugar.  You will have all the oats and
hay you want."

"And shall I still be allowed to wear ribbons in my mane?" asked Mollie.

"Comrade," said Snowball, "those ribbons that you are so devoted to are
the badge of slavery.  Can you not understand that liberty is worth
more than ribbons?"

Mollie agreed, but she did not sound very convinced.

The pigs had an even harder struggle to counteract the lies put about
by Moses, the tame raven.  Moses, who was Mr. Jones's especial pet, was
a spy and a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker.  He claimed
to know of the existence of a mysterious country called Sugarcandy
Mountain, to which all animals went when they died.  It was situated
somewhere up in the sky, a little distance beyond the clouds, Moses
said.  In Sugarcandy Mountain it was Sunday seven days a week, clover
was in season all the year round, and lump sugar and linseed cake grew
on the hedges.  The animals hated Moses because he told tales and did
no work, but some of them believed in Sugarcandy Mountain, and the pigs
had to argue very hard to persuade them that there was no such place.

Their most faithful disciples were the two cart-horses, Boxer and
Clover.  These two had great difficulty in thinking anything out for
themselves, but having once accepted the pigs as their teachers, they
absorbed everything that they were told, and passed it on to the other
animals by simple arguments.  They were unfailing in their attendance
at the secret meetings in the barn, and led the singing of _Beasts of
England_, with which the meetings always ended.

Now, as it turned out, the Rebellion was achieved much earlier and more
easily than anyone had expected.  In past years Mr. Jones, although a
hard master, had been a capable farmer, but of late he had fallen on
evil days.  He had become much disheartened after losing money in a
lawsuit, and had taken to drinking more than was good for him.  For
whole days at a time he would lounge in his Windsor chair in the
kitchen, reading the newspapers, drinking, and occasionally feeding
Moses on crusts of bread soaked in beer.  His men were idle and
dishonest, the fields were full of weeds, the buildings wanted roofing,
the hedges were neglected, and the animals were underfed.

June came and the hay was almost ready for cutting.  On Midsummer's
Eve, which was a Saturday, Mr. Jones went into Willingdon and got so
drunk at the Red Lion that he did not come back till midday on Sunday.
The men had milked the cows in the early morning and then had gone out
rabbiting, without bothering to feed the animals.  When Mr. Jones got
back he immediately went to sleep on the drawing-room sofa with the
_News of the World_ over his face, so that when evening came, the
animals were still unfed.  At last they could stand it no longer.  One
of the cows broke in the door of the store-shed with her horn and all
the animals began to help themselves from the bins.  It was just then
that Mr. Jones woke up.  The next moment he and his four men were in
the store-shed with whips in their hands, lashing out in all
directions.  This was more than the hungry animals could bear.  With
one accord, though nothing of the kind had been planned beforehand,
they flung themselves upon their tormentors.  Jones and his men
suddenly found themselves being butted and kicked from all sides.  The
situation was quite out of their control.  They had never seen animals
behave like this before, and this sudden uprising of creatures whom
they were used to thrashing and maltreating just as they chose,
frightened them almost out of their wits.  After only a moment or two
they gave up trying to defend themselves and took to their heels.  A
minute later all five of them were in full flight down the cart-track
that led to the main road, with the animals pursuing them in triumph.

Mrs. Jones looked out of the bedroom window, saw what was happening,
hurriedly flung a few possessions into a carpet bag, and slipped out of
the farm by another way.  Moses sprang off his perch and flapped after
her, croaking loudly.  Meanwhile the animals had chased Jones and his
men out on to the road and slammed the five-barred gate behind them.
And so, almost before they knew what was happening, the Rebellion had
been successfully carried through: Jones was expelled, and the Manor
Farm was theirs.

For the first few minutes the animals could hardly believe in their
good fortune.  Their first act was to gallop in a body right round the
boundaries of the farm, as though to make quite sure that no human
being was hiding anywhere upon it; then they raced back to the farm
buildings to wipe out the last traces of Jones's hated reign.  The
harness-room at the end of the stables was broken open; the bits, the
nose-rings, the dog-chains, the cruel knives with which Mr. Jones had
been used to castrate the pigs and lambs, were all flung down the well.
The reins, the halters, the blinkers, the degrading nosebags, were
thrown on to the rubbish fire which was burning in the yard.  So were
the whips.  All the animals capered with joy when they saw the whips
going up in flames.  Snowball also threw on to the fire the ribbons
with which the horses' manes and tails had usually been decorated on
market days.  "Ribbons," he said, "should be considered as clothes,
which are the mark of a human being.  All animals should go naked."

When Boxer heard this he fetched the small straw hat which he wore in
summer to keep the flies out of his ears, and flung it on to the fire
with the rest.

In a very little while the animals had destroyed everything that
reminded them of Mr. Jones.  Napoleon then led them back to the
store-shed and served out a double ration of corn to everybody, with
two biscuits for each dog.  Then they sang _Beasts of England_ from end
to end seven times running, and after that they settled down for the
night and slept as they had never slept before.

But they woke at dawn as usual, and suddenly remembering the glorious
thing that had happened, they all raced out into the pasture together.
A little way down the pasture there was a knoll that commanded a view
of most of the farm.  The animals rushed to the top of it and gazed
round them in the clear morning light.  Yes, it was theirs--everything
that they could see was theirs!  In the ecstasy of that thought they
gambolled round and round, they hurled themselves into the air in great
leaps of excitement.  They rolled in the dew, they cropped mouthfuls of
the sweet summer grass, they kicked up clods of the black earth and
snuffed its rich scent.  Then they made a tour of inspection of the
whole farm and surveyed with speechless admiration the ploughland, the
hayfield, the orchard, the pool, the spinney.  It was as though they
had never seen these things before, and even now they could hardly
believe that it was all their own.

Then they filed back to the farm buildings and halted in silence
outside the door of the farmhouse.  That was theirs too, but they were
frightened to go inside.  After a moment, however, Snowball and
Napoleon butted the door open with their shoulders and the animals
entered in single file, walking with the utmost care for fear of
disturbing anything.  They tip-toed from room to room, afraid to speak
above a whisper and gazing with a kind of awe at the unbelievable
luxury, at the beds with their feather mattresses, the looking-glasses,
the horsehair sofa, the Brussels carpet, the lithograph of Queen
Victoria over the drawing-room mantelpiece.  They were just coming down
the stairs when Mollie was discovered to be missing.  Going back, the
others found that she had remained behind in the best bedroom.  She had
taken a piece of blue ribbon from Mrs. Jones's dressing-table, and was
holding it against her shoulder and admiring herself in the glass in a
very foolish manner.  The others reproached her sharply, and they went
outside.  Some hams hanging in the kitchen were taken out for burial,
and the barrel of beer in the scullery was stove in with a kick from
Boxer's hoof, otherwise nothing in the house was touched.  A unanimous
resolution was passed on the spot that the farmhouse should be
preserved as a museum.  All were agreed that no animal must ever live
there.

The animals had their breakfast, and then Snowball and Napoleon called
them together again.

"Comrades," said Snowball, "it is half-past six and we have a long day
before us.  Today we begin the hay harvest.  But there is another
matter that must be attended to first."

The pigs now revealed that during the past three months they had taught
themselves to read and write from an old spelling book which had
belonged to Mr. Jones's children and which had been thrown on the
rubbish heap.  Napoleon sent for pots of black and white paint and led
the way down to the five-barred gate that gave on to the main road.
Then Snowball (for it was Snowball who was best at writing) took a
brush between the two knuckles of his trotter, painted out MANOR FARM
from the top bar of the gate and in its place painted ANIMAL FARM.
This was to be the name of the farm from now onwards.  After this they
went back to the farm buildings, where Snowball and Napoleon sent for a
ladder which they caused to be set against the end wall of the big
barn.  They explained that by their studies of the past three months
the pigs had succeeded in reducing the principles of Animalism to Seven
Commandments.  These Seven Commandments would now be inscribed on the
wall; they would form an unalterable law by which all the animals on
Animal Farm must live for ever after.  With some difficulty (for it is
not easy for a pig to balance himself on a ladder) Snowball climbed up
and set to work, with Squealer a few rungs below him holding the
paint-pot.  The Commandments were written on the tarred wall in great
white letters that could be read thirty yards away.  They ran thus:


THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS

  1.  _Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy._
  2.  _Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend._
  3.  _No animal shall wear clothes._
  4.  _No animal shall sleep in a bed._
  5.  _No animal shall drink alcohol._
  6.  _No animal shall kill any other animal._
  7.  _All animals are equal._


It was very neatly written, and except that "friend" was written
"freind" and one of the "S's" was the wrong way round, the spelling was
correct all the way through.  Snowball read it aloud for the benefit of
the others.  All the animals nodded in complete agreement, and the
cleverer ones at once began to learn the Commandments by heart.

"Now, comrades," cried Snowball, throwing down the paint-brush, "to the
hayfield!  Let us make it a point of honour to get in the harvest more
quickly than Jones and his men could do."

But at this moment the three cows, who had seemed uneasy for some time
past, set up a loud lowing.  They had not been milked for twenty-four
hours, and their udders were almost bursting.  After a little thought,
the pigs sent for buckets and milked the cows fairly successfully,
their trotters being well adapted to this task.  Soon there were five
buckets of frothing creamy milk at which many of the animals looked
with considerable interest.

"What is going to happen to all that milk?" said someone.

"Jones used sometimes to mix some of it in our mash," said one of the
hens.

"Never mind the milk, comrades!" cried Napoleon, placing himself in
front of the buckets.  "That will be attended to.  The harvest is more
important.  Comrade Snowball will lead the way.  I shall follow in a
few minutes.  Forward, comrades!  The hay is waiting."

So the animals trooped down to the hayfield to begin the harvest, and
when they came back in the evening it was noticed that the milk had
disappeared.




CHAPTER III

How they toiled and sweated to get the hay in!

But their efforts were rewarded, for the harvest was an even bigger
success than they had hoped.  Sometimes the work was hard; the
implements had been designed for human beings and not for animals, and
it was a great drawback that no animal was able to use any tool that
involved standing on his hind legs.  But the pigs were so clever that
they could think of a way round every difficulty.  As for the horses,
they knew every inch of the field, and in fact understood the business
of mowing and raking far better than Jones and his men had ever done.
The pigs did not actually work, but directed and supervised the others.
With their superior knowledge it was natural that they should assume
the leadership.  Boxer and Clover would harness themselves to the
cutter or the horse-rake (no bits or reins were needed in these days,
of course) and tramp steadily round and round the field with a pig
walking behind and calling out "Gee up, comrade!" or "Whoa back,
comrade!" as the case might be.  And every animal down to the humblest
worked at turning the hay and gathering it.  Even the ducks and hens
toiled to and fro all day in the sun, carrying tiny wisps of hay in
their beaks.  In the end they finished the harvest in two days' less
time than it had usually taken Jones and his men.  Moreover, it was the
biggest harvest that the farm had ever seen.  There was no wastage
whatever; the hens and ducks with their sharp eyes had gathered up the
very last stalk.  And not an animal on the farm had stolen so much as a
mouthful.  All through that summer the work of the farm went like
clockwork.  The animals were happy as they had never conceived it
possible to be.  Every mouthful of food was an acute positive pleasure,
now that it was truly their own food, produced by themselves and for
themselves, not doled out to them by a grudging master.  With the
worthless parasitical human beings gone, there was more for everyone to
eat.  There was more leisure too, inexperienced though the animals
were.  They met with many difficulties--for instance, later in the
year, when they harvested the corn, they had to tread it out in the
ancient style and blow away the chaff with their breath, since the farm
possessed no threshing machine--but the pigs with their cleverness and
Boxer with his tremendous muscles always pulled them through.  Boxer
was the admiration of everybody.  He had been a hard worker even in
Jones's time, but now he seemed more like three horses than one; there
were days when the entire work of the farm seemed to rest upon his
mighty shoulders.  From morning to night he was pushing and pulling,
always at the spot where the work was hardest.  He had made an
arrangement with one of the cockerels to call him in the mornings half
an hour earlier than anyone else, and would put in some volunteer
labour at whatever seemed to be most needed, before the regular day's
work began.  His answer to every problem, every setback, was "I will
work harder!"--which he had adopted as his personal motto.

But everyone worked according to his capacity.  The hens and ducks, for
instance, saved five bushels of corn at the harvest by gathering up the
stray grains.  Nobody stole, nobody grumbled over his rations, the
quarrelling and biting and jealousy which had been normal features of
life in the old days had almost disappeared.  Nobody shirked--or almost
nobody.  Mollie, it was true, was not good at getting up in the
mornings, and had a way of leaving work early on the ground that there
was a stone in her hoof.  And the behaviour of the cat was somewhat
peculiar.  It was soon noticed that when there was work to be done the
cat could never be found.  She would vanish for hours on end, and then
reappear at meal-times, or in the evening after work was over, as
though nothing had happened.  But she always made such excellent
excuses, and purred so affectionately, that it was impossible not to
believe in her good intentions.  Old Benjamin, the donkey, seemed quite
unchanged since the Rebellion.  He did his work in the same slow
obstinate way as he had done it in Jones's time, never shirking and
never volunteering for extra work either.  About the Rebellion and its
results he would express no opinion.  When asked whether he was not
happier now that Jones was gone, he would say only "Donkeys live a long
time.  None of you has ever seen a dead donkey," and the others had to
be content with this cryptic answer.

On Sundays there was no work.  Breakfast was an hour later than usual,
and after breakfast there was a ceremony which was observed every week
without fail.  First came the hoisting of the flag.  Snowball had found
in the harness-room an old green tablecloth of Mrs. Jones's and had
painted on it a hoof and a horn in white.  This was run up the
flagstaff in the farmhouse garden every Sunday morning.  The flag was
green, Snowball explained, to represent the green fields of England,
while the hoof and horn signified the future Republic of the Animals
which would arise when the human race had been finally overthrown.
After the hoisting of the flag all the animals trooped into the big
barn for a general assembly which was known as the Meeting.  Here the
work of the coming week was planned out and resolutions were put
forward and debated.  It was always the pigs who put forward the
resolutions.  The other animals understood how to vote, but could never
think of any resolutions of their own.  Snowball and Napoleon were by
far the most active in the debates.  But it was noticed that these two
were never in agreement: whatever suggestion either of them made, the
other could be counted on to oppose it.  Even when it was resolved--a
thing no one could object to in itself--to set aside the small paddock
behind the orchard as a home of rest for animals who were past work,
there was a stormy debate over the correct retiring age for each class
of animal.  The Meeting always ended with the singing of _Beasts of
England_, and the afternoon was given up to recreation.

The pigs had set aside the harness-room as a headquarters for
themselves.  Here, in the evenings, they studied blacksmithing,
carpentering, and other necessary arts from books which they had
brought out of the farmhouse.  Snowball also busied himself with
organising the other animals into what he called Animal Committees.  He
was indefatigable at this.  He formed the Egg Production Committee for
the hens, the Clean Tails League for the cows, the Wild Comrades'
Re-education Committee (the object of this was to tame the rats and
rabbits), the Whiter Wool Movement for the sheep, and various others,
besides instituting classes in reading and writing.  On the whole,
these projects were a failure.  The attempt to tame the wild creatures,
for instance, broke down almost immediately.  They continued to behave
very much as before, and when treated with generosity, simply took
advantage of it.  The cat joined the Re-education Committee and was
very active in it for some days.  She was seen one day sitting on a
roof and talking to some sparrows who were just out of her reach.  She
was telling them that all animals were now comrades and that any
sparrow who chose could come and perch on her paw; but the sparrows
kept their distance.

The reading and writing classes, however, were a great success.  By the
autumn almost every animal on the farm was literate in some degree.

As for the pigs, they could already read and write perfectly.  The dogs
learned to read fairly well, but were not interested in reading
anything except the Seven Commandments.  Muriel, the goat, could read
somewhat better than the dogs, and sometimes used to read to the others
in the evenings from scraps of newspaper which she found on the rubbish
heap.  Benjamin could read as well as any pig, but never exercised his
faculty.  So far as he knew, he said, there was nothing worth reading.
Clover learnt the whole alphabet, but could not put words together.
Boxer could not get beyond the letter D.  He would trace out A, B, C,
D, in the dust with his great hoof, and then would stand staring at the
letters with his ears back, sometimes shaking his forelock, trying with
all his might to remember what came next and never succeeding.  On
several occasions, indeed, he did learn E, F, G, H, but by the time he
knew them, it was always discovered that he had forgotten A, B, C, and
D.  Finally he decided to be content with the first four letters, and
used to write them out once or twice every day to refresh his memory.
Mollie refused to learn any but the six letters which spelt her own
name.  She would form these very neatly out of pieces of twig, and
would then decorate them with a flower or two and walk round them
admiring them.

None of the other animals on the farm could get further than the letter
A.  It was also found that the stupider animals, such as the sheep,
hens, and ducks, were unable to learn the Seven Commandments by heart.
After much thought Snowball declared that the Seven Commandments could
in effect be reduced to a single maxim, namely: "Four legs good, two
legs bad."  This, he said, contained the essential principle of
Animalism.  Whoever had thoroughly grasped it would be safe from human
influences.  The birds at first objected, since it seemed to them that
they also had two legs, but Snowball proved to them that this was not
so.

"A bird's wing, comrades," he said, "is an organ of propulsion and not
of manipulation.  It should therefore be regarded as a leg.  The
distinguishing mark of Man is the _hand_, the instrument with which he
does all his mischief."

The birds did not understand Snowball's long words, but they accepted
his explanation, and all the humbler animals set to work to learn the
new maxim by heart.  FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD, was inscribed on the
end wall of the barn, above the Seven Commandments and in bigger
letters.  When they had once got it by heart, the sheep developed a

great liking for this maxim, and often as they lay in the field they
would all start bleating "Four legs good, two legs bad!  Four legs
good, two legs bad!" and keep it up for hours on end, never growing
tired of it.

Napoleon took no interest in Snowball's committees.  He said that the
education of the young was more important than anything that could be
done for those who were already grown up.  It happened that Jessie and
Bluebell had both whelped soon after the hay harvest, giving birth
between them to nine sturdy puppies.  As soon as they were weaned,
Napoleon took them away from their mothers, saying that he would make
himself responsible for their education.  He took them up into a loft
which could only be reached by a ladder from the harness-room, and
there kept them in such seclusion that the rest of the farm soon forgot
their existence.

The mystery of where the milk went to was soon cleared up.  It was
mixed every day into the pigs' mash.  The early apples were now
ripening, and the grass of the orchard was littered with windfalls.
The animals had assumed as a matter of course that these would be
shared out equally; one day, however, the order went forth that all the
windfalls were to be collected and brought to the harness-room for the
use of the pigs.  At this some of the other animals murmured, but it
was no use.  All the pigs were in full agreement on this point, even
Snowball and Napoleon.  Squealer was sent to make the necessary
explanations to the others.  "Comrades!" he cried.  "You do not
imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness
and privilege?  Many of us actually dislike milk and apples.  I dislike
them myself.  Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our
health.  Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades)
contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig.  We
pigs are brainworkers.  The whole management and organisation of this
farm depend on us.  Day and night we are watching over your welfare.
It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples.  Do
you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty?  Jones would
come back!  Yes, Jones would come back!  Surely, comrades," cried
Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his
tail, "surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come
back?"

Now if there was one thing that the animals were completely certain of,
it was that they did not want Jones back.  When it was put to them in
this light, they had no more to say.  The importance of keeping the
pigs in good health was all too obvious.  So it was agreed without
further argument that the milk and the windfall apples (and also the
main crop of apples when they ripened) should be reserved for the pigs
alone.




CHAPTER IV

By the late summer the news of what had happened on Animal Farm had
spread across half the county.  Every day Snowball and Napoleon sent
out flights of pigeons whose instructions were to mingle with the
animals on neighbouring farms, tell them the story of the Rebellion,
and teach them the tune of _Beasts of England_.

Most of this time Mr. Jones had spent sitting in the taproom of the Red
Lion at Willingdon, complaining to anyone who would listen of the
monstrous injustice he had suffered in being turned out of his property
by a pack of good-for-nothing animals.  The other farmers sympathised
in principle, but they did not at first give him much help.  At heart,
each of them was secretly wondering whether he could not somehow turn
Jones's misfortune to his own advantage.  It was lucky that the owners
of the two farms which adjoined Animal Farm were on permanently bad
terms.  One of them, which was named Foxwood, was a large, neglected,
old-fashioned farm, much overgrown by woodland, with all its pastures
worn out and its hedges in a disgraceful condition.  Its owner, Mr.
Pilkington, was an easy-going gentleman farmer who spent most of his
time in fishing or hunting according to the season.  The other farm,
which was called Pinchfield, was smaller and better kept.  Its owner
was a Mr. Frederick, a tough, shrewd man, perpetually involved in
lawsuits and with a name for driving hard bargains.  These two disliked
each other so much that it was difficult for them to come to any
agreement, even in defence of their own interests.

Nevertheless, they were both thoroughly frightened by the rebellion on
Animal Farm, and very anxious to prevent their own animals from
learning too much about it.  At first they pretended to laugh to scorn
the idea of animals managing a farm for themselves.  The whole thing
would be over in a fortnight, they said.  They put it about that the
animals on the Manor Farm (they insisted on calling it the Manor Farm;
they would not tolerate the name "Animal Farm") were perpetually
fighting among themselves and were also rapidly starving to death.
When time passed and the animals had evidently not starved to death,
Frederick and Pilkington changed their tune and began to talk of the
terrible wickedness that now flourished on Animal Farm.  It was given
out that the animals there practised cannibalism, tortured one another
with red-hot horseshoes, and had their females in common.  This was
what came of rebelling against the laws of Nature, Frederick and
Pilkington said.

However, these stories were never fully believed.  Rumours of a
wonderful farm, where the human beings had been turned out and the
animals managed their own affairs, continued to circulate in vague and
distorted forms, and throughout that year a wave of rebelliousness ran
through the countryside.  Bulls which had always been tractable
suddenly turned savage, sheep broke down hedges and devoured the
clover, cows kicked the pail over, hunters refused their fences and
shot their riders on to the other side.  Above all, the tune and even
the words of _Beasts of England_ were known everywhere.  It had spread
with astonishing speed.  The human beings could not contain their rage
when they heard this song, though they pretended to think it merely
ridiculous.  They could not understand, they said, how even animals
could bring themselves to sing such contemptible rubbish.  Any animal
caught singing it was given a flogging on the spot.  And yet the song
was irrepressible.  The blackbirds whistled it in the hedges, the
pigeons cooed it in the elms, it got into the din of the smithies and
the tune of the church bells.  And when the human beings listened to
it, they secretly trembled, hearing in it a prophecy of their future
doom.

Early in October, when the corn was cut and stacked and some of it was
already threshed, a flight of pigeons came whirling through the air and
alighted in the yard of Animal Farm in the wildest excitement.  Jones
and all his men, with half a dozen others from Foxwood and Pinchfield,
had entered the five-barred gate and were coming up the cart-track that
led to the farm.  They were all carrying sticks, except Jones, who was
marching ahead with a gun in his hands.  Obviously they were going to
attempt the recapture of the farm.

This had long been expected, and all preparations had been made.
Snowball, who had studied an old book of Julius Caesar's campaigns
which he had found in the farmhouse, was in charge of the defensive
operations.  He gave his orders quickly, and in a couple of minutes
every animal was at his post.

As the human beings approached the farm buildings, Snowball launched
his first attack.  All the pigeons, to the number of thirty-five, flew
to and fro over the men's heads and muted upon them from mid-air; and
while the men were dealing with this, the geese, who had been hiding
behind the hedge, rushed out and pecked viciously at the calves of
their legs.  However, this was only a light skirmishing manoeuvre,
intended to create a little disorder, and the men easily drove the
geese off with their sticks.  Snowball now launched his second line of
attack.  Muriel, Benjamin, and all the sheep, with Snowball at the head
of them, rushed forward and prodded and butted the men from every side,
while Benjamin turned round and lashed at them with his small hoofs.
But once again the men, with their sticks and their hobnailed boots,
were too strong for them; and suddenly, at a squeal from Snowball,
which was the signal for retreat, all the animals turned and fled
through the gateway into the yard.

The men gave a shout of triumph.  They saw, as they imagined, their
enemies in flight, and they rushed after them in disorder.  This was
just what Snowball had intended.  As soon as they were well inside the
yard, the three horses, the three cows, and the rest of the pigs, who
had been lying in ambush in the cow-shed, suddenly emerged in their
rear, cutting them off.  Snowball now gave the signal for the charge.
He himself dashed straight for Jones.  Jones saw him coming, raised his
gun and fired.  The pellets scored bloody streaks along Snowball's
back, and a sheep dropped dead.  Without halting for an instant,
Snowball flung his fifteen stone against Jones's legs.  Jones was
hurled into a pile of dung and his gun flew out of his hands.  But the
most terrifying spectacle of all was Boxer, rearing up on his hind legs
and striking out with his great iron-shod hoofs like a stallion.  His
very first blow took a stable-lad from Foxwood on the skull and
stretched him lifeless in the mud.  At the sight, several men dropped
their sticks and tried to run.  Panic overtook them, and the next
moment all the animals together were chasing them round and round the
yard.  They were gored, kicked, bitten, trampled on.  There was not an
animal on the farm that did not take vengeance on them after his own
fashion.  Even the cat suddenly leapt off a roof onto a cowman's
shoulders and sank her claws in his neck, at which he yelled horribly.
At a moment when the opening was clear, the men were glad enough to
rush out of the yard and make a bolt for the main road.  And so within
five minutes of their invasion they were in ignominious retreat by the
same way as they had come, with a flock of geese hissing after them and
pecking at their calves all the way.

All the men were gone except one.  Back in the yard Boxer was pawing
with his hoof at the stable-lad who lay face down in the mud, trying to
turn him over.  The boy did not stir.

"He is dead," said Boxer sorrowfully.  "I had no intention of doing
that.  I forgot that I was wearing iron shoes.  Who will believe that I
did not do this on purpose?"

"No sentimentality, comrade!" cried Snowball, from whose wounds the
blood was still dripping.  "War is war.  The only good human being is a
dead one."

"I have no wish to take life, not even human life," repeated Boxer, and
his eyes were full of tears.

"Where is Mollie?" exclaimed somebody.

Mollie in fact was missing.  For a moment there was great alarm; it was
feared that the men might have harmed her in some way, or even carried
her off with them.  In the end, however, she was found hiding in her
stall with her head buried among the hay in the manger.  She had taken
to flight as soon as the gun went off.  And when the others came back
from looking for her, it was to find that the stable-lad, who in fact
was only stunned, had already recovered and made off.

The animals had now reassembled in the wildest excitement, each
recounting his own exploits in the battle at the top of his voice.  An
impromptu celebration of the victory was held immediately.  The flag
was run up and _Beasts of England_ was sung a number of times, then the
sheep who had been killed was given a solemn funeral, a hawthorn bush
being planted on her grave.  At the graveside Snowball made a little
speech, emphasising the need for all animals to be ready to die for
Animal Farm if need be.

The animals decided unanimously to create a military decoration,
"Animal Hero, First Class," which was conferred there and then on
Snowball and Boxer.  It consisted of a brass medal (they were really
some old horse-brasses which had been found in the harness-room), to be
worn on Sundays and holidays.  There was also "Animal Hero, Second
Class," which was conferred posthumously on the dead sheep.

There was much discussion as to what the battle should be called.  In
the end, it was named the Battle of the Cowshed, since that was where
the ambush had been sprung.  Mr. Jones's gun had been found lying in
the mud, and it was known that there was a supply of cartridges in the
farmhouse.  It was decided to set the gun up at the foot of the
flagstaff, like a piece of artillery, and to fire it twice a year--once
on October the twelfth, the anniversary of the Battle of the Cowshed,
and once on Midsummer Day, the anniversary of the Rebellion.




CHAPTER V

As winter drew on, Mollie became more and more troublesome.  She was
late for work every morning and excused herself by saying that she had
overslept, and she complained of mysterious pains, although her
appetite was excellent.  On every kind of pretext she would run away
from work and go to the drinking pool, where she would stand foolishly
gazing at her own reflection in the water.  But there were also rumours
of something more serious.  One day as Mollie strolled blithely into
the yard, flirting her long tail and chewing at a stalk of hay, Clover
took her aside.

"Mollie," she said, "I have something very serious to say to you.  This
morning I saw you looking over the hedge that divides Animal Farm from
Foxwood.  One of Mr. Pilkington's men was standing on the other side of
the hedge.  And--I was a long way away, but I am almost certain I saw
this--he was talking to you and you were allowing him to stroke your
nose.  What does that mean, Mollie?"

"He didn't!  I wasn't!  It isn't true!" cried Mollie, beginning to
prance about and paw the ground.

"Mollie!  Look me in the face.  Do you give me your word of honour that
that man was not stroking your nose?"

"It isn't true!" repeated Mollie, but she could not look Clover in the
face, and the next moment she took to her heels and galloped away into
the field.

A thought struck Clover.  Without saying anything to the others, she
went to Mollie's stall and turned over the straw with her hoof.  Hidden
under the straw was a little pile of lump sugar and several bunches of
ribbon of different colours.

Three days later Mollie disappeared.  For some weeks nothing was known
of her whereabouts, then the pigeons reported that they had seen her on
the other side of Willingdon.  She was between the shafts of a smart
dogcart painted red and black, which was standing outside a
public-house.  A fat red-faced man in check breeches and gaiters, who
looked like a publican, was stroking her nose and feeding her with
sugar.  Her coat was newly clipped and she wore a scarlet ribbon round
her forelock.  She appeared to be enjoying herself, so the pigeons
said.  None of the animals ever mentioned Mollie again.

In January there came bitterly hard weather.  The earth was like iron,
and nothing could be done in the fields.  Many meetings were held in
the big barn, and the pigs occupied themselves with planning out the
work of the coming season.  It had come to be accepted that the pigs,
who were manifestly cleverer than the other animals, should decide all
questions of farm policy, though their decisions had to be ratified by
a majority vote.  This arrangement would have worked well enough if it
had not been for the disputes between Snowball and Napoleon.  These two
disagreed at every point where disagreement was possible.  If one of
them suggested sowing a bigger acreage with barley, the other was
certain to demand a bigger acreage of oats, and if one of them said
that such and such a field was just right for cabbages, the other would
declare that it was useless for anything except roots.  Each had his
own following, and there were some violent debates.  At the Meetings
Snowball often won over the majority by his brilliant speeches, but
Napoleon was better at canvassing support for himself in between times.
He was especially successful with the sheep.  Of late the sheep had
taken to bleating "Four legs good, two legs bad" both in and out of
season, and they often interrupted the Meeting with this.  It was
noticed that they were especially liable to break into "Four legs good,
two legs bad" at crucial moments in Snowball's speeches.  Snowball had
made a close study of some back numbers of the _Farmer and
Stock-breeder_ which he had found in the farmhouse, and was full of
plans for innovations and improvements.  He talked learnedly about
field-drains, silage, and basic slag, and had worked out a complicated
scheme for all the animals to drop their dung directly in the fields,
at a different spot every day, to save the labour of cartage.  Napoleon
produced no schemes of his own, but said quietly that Snowball's would
come to nothing, and seemed to be biding his time.  But of all their
controversies, none was so bitter as the one that took place over the
windmill.

In the long pasture, not far from the farm buildings, there was a small
knoll which was the highest point on the farm.  After surveying the
ground, Snowball declared that this was just the place for a windmill,
which could be made to operate a dynamo and supply the farm with
electrical power.  This would light the stalls and warm them in winter,
and would also run a circular saw, a chaff-cutter, a mangel-slicer, and
an electric milking machine.  The animals had never heard of anything
of this kind before (for the farm was an old-fashioned one and had only
the most primitive machinery), and they listened in astonishment while
Snowball conjured up pictures of fantastic machines which would do
their work for them while they grazed at their ease in the fields or
improved their minds with reading and conversation.

Within a few weeks Snowball's plans for the windmill were fully worked
out.  The mechanical details came mostly from three books which had
belonged to Mr. Jones--_One Thousand Useful Things to Do About the
House_, _Every Man His Own Bricklayer_, and _Electricity for
Beginners_.  Snowball used as his study a shed which had once been used
for incubators and had a smooth wooden floor, suitable for drawing on.
He was closeted there for hours at a time.  With his books held open by
a stone, and with a piece of chalk gripped between the knuckles of his
trotter, he would move rapidly to and fro, drawing in line after line
and uttering little whimpers of excitement.  Gradually the plans grew
into a complicated mass of cranks and cog-wheels, covering more than
half the floor, which the other animals found completely unintelligible
but very impressive.  All of them came to look at Snowball's drawings
at least once a day.  Even the hens and ducks came, and were at pains
not to tread on the chalk marks.  Only Napoleon held aloof.  He had
declared himself against the windmill from the start.  One day,
however, he arrived unexpectedly to examine the plans.  He walked
heavily round the shed, looked closely at every detail of the plans and
snuffed at them once or twice, then stood for a little while
contemplating them out of the corner of his eye; then suddenly he
lifted his leg, urinated over the plans, and walked out without
uttering a word.

The whole farm was deeply divided on the subject of the windmill.
Snowball did not deny that to build it would be a difficult business.
Stone would have to be quarried and built up into walls, then the sails
would have to be made and after that there would be need for dynamos
and cables.  (How these were to be procured, Snowball did not say.)
But he maintained that it could all be done in a year.  And thereafter,
he declared, so much labour would be saved that the animals would only
need to work three days a week.  Napoleon, on the other hand, argued
that the great need of the moment was to increase food production, and
that if they wasted time on the windmill they would all starve to
death.  The animals formed themselves into two factions under the
slogans, "Vote for Snowball and the three-day week" and "Vote for
Napoleon and the full manger."  Benjamin was the only animal who did
not side with either faction.  He refused to believe either that food
would become more plentiful or that the windmill would save work.
Windmill or no windmill, he said, life would go on as it had always
gone on--that is, badly.

Apart from the disputes over the windmill, there was the question of
the defence of the farm.  It was fully realised that though the human
beings had been defeated in the Battle of the Cowshed they might make
another and more determined attempt to recapture the farm and reinstate
Mr. Jones.  They had all the more reason for doing so because the news
of their defeat had spread across the countryside and made the animals
on the neighbouring farms more restive than ever.  As usual, Snowball
and Napoleon were in disagreement.  According to Napoleon, what the
animals must do was to procure firearms and train themselves in the use
of them.  According to Snowball, they must send out more and more
pigeons and stir up rebellion among the animals on the other farms.
The one argued that if they could not defend themselves they were bound
to be conquered, the other argued that if rebellions happened
everywhere they would have no need to defend themselves.  The animals
listened first to Napoleon, then to Snowball, and could not make up
their minds which was right; indeed, they always found themselves in
agreement with the one who was speaking at the moment.

At last the day came when Snowball's plans were completed.  At the
Meeting on the following Sunday the question of whether or not to begin
work on the windmill was to be put to the vote.  When the animals had
assembled in the big barn, Snowball stood up and, though occasionally
interrupted by bleating from the sheep, set forth his reasons for
advocating the building of the windmill.  Then Napoleon stood up to
reply.  He said very quietly that the windmill was nonsense and that he
advised nobody to vote for it, and promptly sat down again; he had
spoken for barely thirty seconds, and seemed almost indifferent as to
the effect he produced.  At this Snowball sprang to his feet, and
shouting down the sheep, who had begun bleating again, broke into a
passionate appeal in favour of the windmill.  Until now the animals had
been about equally divided in their sympathies, but in a moment
Snowball's eloquence had carried them away.  In glowing sentences he
painted a picture of Animal Farm as it might be when sordid labour was
lifted from the animals' backs.  His imagination had now run far beyond
chaff-cutters and turnip-slicers.  Electricity, he said, could operate
threshing machines, ploughs, harrows, rollers, and reapers and binders,
besides supplying every stall with its own electric light, hot and cold
water, and an electric heater.  By the time he had finished speaking,
there was no doubt as to which way the vote would go.  But just at this
moment Napoleon stood up and, casting a peculiar sidelong look at
Snowball, uttered a high-pitched whimper of a kind no one had ever
heard him utter before.

At this there was a terrible baying sound outside, and nine enormous
dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn.  They
dashed straight for Snowball, who only sprang from his place just in
time to escape their snapping jaws.  In a moment he was out of the door
and they were after him.  Too amazed and frightened to speak, all the
animals crowded through the door to watch the chase.  Snowball was
racing across the long pasture that led to the road.  He was running as
only a pig can run, but the dogs were close on his heels.  Suddenly he
slipped and it seemed certain that they had him.  Then he was up again,
running faster than ever, then the dogs were gaining on him again.  One
of them all but closed his jaws on Snowball's tail, but Snowball
whisked it free just in time.  Then he put on an extra spurt and, with
a few inches to spare, slipped through a hole in the hedge and was seen
no more.

Silent and terrified, the animals crept back into the barn.  In a
moment the dogs came bounding back.  At first no one had been able to
imagine where these creatures came from, but the problem was soon
solved: they were the puppies whom Napoleon had taken away from their
mothers and reared privately.  Though not yet full-grown, they were
huge dogs, and as fierce-looking as wolves.  They kept close to
Napoleon.  It was noticed that they wagged their tails to him in the
same way as the other dogs had been used to do to Mr. Jones.

Napoleon, with the dogs following him, now mounted on to the raised
portion of the floor where Major had previously stood to deliver his
speech.  He announced that from now on the Sunday-morning Meetings
would come to an end.  They were unnecessary, he said, and wasted time.
In future all questions relating to the working of the farm would be
settled by a special committee of pigs, presided over by himself.
These would meet in private and afterwards communicate their decisions
to the others.  The animals would still assemble on Sunday mornings to
salute the flag, sing _Beasts of England_, and receive their orders for
the week; but there would be no more debates.

In spite of the shock that Snowball's expulsion had given them, the
animals were dismayed by this announcement.  Several of them would have
protested if they could have found the right arguments.  Even Boxer was
vaguely troubled.  He set his ears back, shook his forelock several
times, and tried hard to marshal his thoughts; but in the end he could
not think of anything to say.  Some of the pigs themselves, however,
were more articulate.  Four young porkers in the front row uttered
shrill squeals of disapproval, and all four of them sprang to their
feet and began speaking at once.  But suddenly the dogs sitting round
Napoleon let out deep, menacing growls, and the pigs fell silent and
sat down again.  Then the sheep broke out into a tremendous bleating of
"Four legs good, two legs bad!" which went on for nearly a quarter of
an hour and put an end to any chance of discussion.

Afterwards Squealer was sent round the farm to explain the new
arrangement to the others.

"Comrades," he said, "I trust that every animal here appreciates the
sacrifice that Comrade Napoleon has made in taking this extra labour
upon himself.  Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure!
On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility.  No one
believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal.
He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for
yourselves.  But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions,
comrades, and then where should we be?  Suppose you had decided to
follow Snowball, with his moonshine of windmills--Snowball, who, as we
now know, was no better than a criminal?"

"He fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed," said somebody.

"Bravery is not enough," said Squealer.  "Loyalty and obedience are
more important.  And as to the Battle of the Cowshed, I believe the
time will come when we shall find that Snowball's part in it was much
exaggerated.  Discipline, comrades, iron discipline!  That is the
watchword for today.  One false step, and our enemies would be upon us.
Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones back?"

Once again this argument was unanswerable.  Certainly the animals did
not want Jones back; if the holding of debates on Sunday mornings was
liable to bring him back, then the debates must stop.  Boxer, who had
now had time to think things over, voiced the general feeling by
saying: "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right."  And from then
on he adopted the maxim, "Napoleon is always right," in addition to his
private motto of "I will work harder."

By this time the weather had broken and the spring ploughing had begun.
The shed where Snowball had drawn his plans of the windmill had been
shut up and it was assumed that the plans had been rubbed off the
floor.  Every Sunday morning at ten o'clock the animals assembled in
the big barn to receive their orders for the week.  The skull of old
Major, now clean of flesh, had been disinterred from the orchard and
set up on a stump at the foot of the flagstaff, beside the gun.  After
the hoisting of the flag, the animals were required to file past the
skull in a reverent manner before entering the barn.  Nowadays they did
not sit all together as they had done in the past.  Napoleon, with
Squealer and another pig named Minimus, who had a remarkable gift for
composing songs and poems, sat on the front of the raised platform,
with the nine young dogs forming a semicircle round them, and the other
pigs sitting behind.  The rest of the animals sat facing them in the
main body of the barn.  Napoleon read out the orders for the week in a
gruff soldierly style, and after a single singing of _Beasts of
England_, all the animals dispersed.

On the third Sunday after Snowball's expulsion, the animals were
somewhat surprised to hear Napoleon announce that the windmill was to
be built after all.  He did not give any reason for having changed his
mind, but merely warned the animals that this extra task would mean
very hard work; it might even be necessary to reduce their rations.
The plans, however, had all been prepared, down to the last detail.  A
special committee of pigs had been at work upon them for the past three
weeks.  The building of the windmill, with various other improvements,
was expected to take two years.

That evening Squealer explained privately to the other animals that
Napoleon had never in reality been opposed to the windmill.  On the
contrary, it was he who had advocated it in the beginning, and the plan
which Snowball had drawn on the floor of the incubator shed had
actually been stolen from among Napoleon's papers.  The windmill was,
in fact, Napoleon's own creation.  Why, then, asked somebody, had he
spoken so strongly against it?  Here Squealer looked very sly.  That,
he said, was Comrade Napoleon's cunning.  He had seemed to oppose the
windmill, simply as a manoeuvre to get rid of Snowball, who was a
dangerous character and a bad influence.  Now that Snowball was out of
the way, the plan could go forward without his interference.  This,
said Squealer, was something called tactics.  He repeated a number of
times, "Tactics, comrades, tactics!" skipping round and whisking his
tail with a merry laugh.  The animals were not certain what the word
meant, but Squealer spoke so persuasively, and the three dogs who
happened to be with him growled so threateningly, that they accepted
his explanation without further questions.




CHAPTER VI

All that year the animals worked like slaves.  But they were happy in
their work; they grudged no effort or sacrifice, well aware that
everything that they did was for the benefit of themselves and those of
their kind who would come after them, and not for a pack of idle,
thieving human beings.

Throughout the spring and summer they worked a sixty-hour week, and in
August Napoleon announced that there would be work on Sunday afternoons
as well.  This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented
himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.  Even so, it
was found necessary to leave certain tasks undone.  The harvest was a
little less successful than in the previous year, and two fields which
should have been sown with roots in the early summer were not sown
because the ploughing had not been completed early enough.  It was
possible to foresee that the coming winter would be a hard one.

The windmill presented unexpected difficulties.  There was a good
quarry of limestone on the farm, and plenty of sand and cement had been
found in one of the outhouses, so that all the materials for building
were at hand.  But the problem the animals could not at first solve was
how to break up the stone into pieces of suitable size.  There seemed
no way of doing this except with picks and crowbars, which no animal
could use, because no animal could stand on his hind legs.  Only after
weeks of vain effort did the right idea occur to somebody--namely, to
utilise the force of gravity.  Huge boulders, far too big to be used as
they were, were lying all over the bed of the quarry.  The animals
lashed ropes round these, and then all together, cows, horses, sheep,
any animal that could lay hold of the rope--even the pigs sometimes
joined in at critical moments--they dragged them with desperate
slowness up the slope to the top of the quarry, where they were toppled
over the edge, to shatter to pieces below.  Transporting the stone when
it was once broken was comparatively simple.  The horses carried it off
in cart-loads, the sheep dragged single blocks, even Muriel and
Benjamin yoked themselves into an old governess-cart and did their
share.  By late summer a sufficient store of stone had accumulated, and
then the building began, under the superintendence of the pigs.

But it was a slow, laborious process.  Frequently it took a whole day
of exhausting effort to drag a single boulder to the top of the quarry,
and sometimes when it was pushed over the edge it failed to break.
Nothing could have been achieved without Boxer, whose strength seemed
equal to that of all the rest of the animals put together.  When the
boulder began to slip and the animals cried out in despair at finding
themselves dragged down the hill, it was always Boxer who strained
himself against the rope and brought the boulder to a stop.  To see him
toiling up the slope inch by inch, his breath coming fast, the tips of
his hoofs clawing at the ground, and his great sides matted with sweat,
filled everyone with admiration.  Clover warned him sometimes to be
careful not to overstrain himself, but Boxer would never listen to her.
His two slogans, "I will work harder" and "Napoleon is always right,"
seemed to him a sufficient answer to all problems.  He had made
arrangements with the cockerel to call him three-quarters of an hour
earlier in the mornings instead of half an hour.  And in his spare
moments, of which there were not many nowadays, he would go alone to
the quarry, collect a load of broken stone, and drag it down to the
site of the windmill unassisted.

The animals were not badly off throughout that summer, in spite of the
hardness of their work.  If they had no more food than they had had in
Jones's day, at least they did not have less.  The advantage of only
having to feed themselves, and not having to support five extravagant
human beings as well, was so great that it would have taken a lot of
failures to outweigh it.  And in many ways the animal method of doing
things was more efficient and saved labour.  Such jobs as weeding, for
instance, could be done with a thoroughness impossible to human beings.
And again, since no animal now stole, it was unnecessary to fence off
pasture from arable land, which saved a lot of labour on the upkeep of
hedges and gates.  Nevertheless, as the summer wore on, various
unforeseen shortages began to make themselves felt.  There was need of
paraffin oil, nails, string, dog biscuits, and iron for the horses'
shoes, none of which could be produced on the farm.  Later there would
also be need for seeds and artificial manures, besides various tools
and, finally, the machinery for the windmill.  How these were to be
procured, no one was able to imagine.

One Sunday morning, when the animals assembled to receive their orders,
Napoleon announced that he had decided upon a new policy.  From now
onwards Animal Farm would engage in trade with the neighbouring farms:
not, of course, for any commercial purpose, but simply in order to
obtain certain materials which were urgently necessary.  The needs of
the windmill must override everything else, he said.  He was therefore
making arrangements to sell a stack of hay and part of the current
year's wheat crop, and later on, if more money were needed, it would
have to be made up by the sale of eggs, for which there was always a
market in Willingdon.  The hens, said Napoleon, should welcome this
sacrifice as their own special contribution towards the building of the
windmill.

Once again the animals were conscious of a vague uneasiness.  Never to
have any dealings with human beings, never to engage in trade, never to
make use of money--had not these been among the earliest resolutions
passed at that first triumphant Meeting after Jones was expelled?  All
the animals remembered passing such resolutions: or at least they
thought that they remembered it.  The four young pigs who had protested
when Napoleon abolished the Meetings raised their voices timidly, but
they were promptly silenced by a tremendous growling from the dogs.
Then, as usual, the sheep broke into "Four legs good, two legs bad!"
and the momentary awkwardness was smoothed over.  Finally Napoleon
raised his trotter for silence and announced that he had already made
all the arrangements.  There would be no need for any of the animals to
come in contact with human beings, which would clearly be most
undesirable.  He intended to take the whole burden upon his own
shoulders.  A Mr. Whymper, a solicitor living in Willingdon, had agreed
to act as intermediary between Animal Farm and the outside world, and
would visit the farm every Monday morning to receive his instructions.
Napoleon ended his speech with his usual cry of "Long live Animal
Farm!", and after the singing of _Beasts of England_ the animals were
dismissed.

Afterwards Squealer made a round of the farm and set the animals' minds
at rest.  He assured them that the resolution against engaging in trade
and using money had never been passed, or even suggested.  It was pure
imagination, probably traceable in the beginning to lies circulated by
Snowball.  A few animals still felt faintly doubtful, but Squealer
asked them shrewdly, "Are you certain that this is not something that
you have dreamed, comrades?  Have you any record of such a resolution?
Is it written down anywhere?"  And since it was certainly true that
nothing of the kind existed in writing, the animals were satisfied that
they had been mistaken.

Every Monday Mr. Whymper visited the farm as had been arranged.  He was
a sly-looking little man with side whiskers, a solicitor in a very
small way of business, but sharp enough to have realised earlier than
anyone else that Animal Farm would need a broker and that the
commissions would be worth having.  The animals watched his coming and
going with a kind of dread, and avoided him as much as possible.
Nevertheless, the sight of Napoleon, on all fours, delivering orders to
Whymper, who stood on two legs, roused their pride and partly
reconciled them to the new arrangement.  Their relations with the human
race were now not quite the same as they had been before.  The human
beings did not hate Animal Farm any less now that it was prospering;
indeed, they hated it more than ever.  Every human being held it as an
article of faith that the farm would go bankrupt sooner or later, and,
above all, that the windmill would be a failure.  They would meet in
the public-houses and prove to one another by means of diagrams that
the windmill was bound to fall down, or that if it did stand up, then
that it would never work.  And yet, against their will, they had
developed a certain respect for the efficiency with which the animals
were managing their own affairs.  One symptom of this was that they had
begun to call Animal Farm by its proper name and ceased to pretend that
it was called the Manor Farm.  They had also dropped their championship
of Jones, who had given up hope of getting his farm back and gone to
live in another part of the county.  Except through Whymper, there was
as yet no contact between Animal Farm and the outside world, but there
were constant rumours that Napoleon was about to enter into a definite
business agreement either with Mr. Pilkington of Foxwood or with Mr.
Frederick of Pinchfield--but never, it was noticed, with both
simultaneously.

It was about this time that the pigs suddenly moved into the farmhouse
and took up their residence there.  Again the animals seemed to
remember that a resolution against this had been passed in the early
days, and again Squealer was able to convince them that this was not
the case.  It was absolutely necessary, he said, that the pigs, who
were the brains of the farm, should have a quiet place to work in.  It
was also more suited to the dignity of the Leader (for of late he had
taken to speaking of Napoleon under the title of "Leader") to live in a
house than in a mere sty.  Nevertheless, some of the animals were
disturbed when they heard that the pigs not only took their meals in
the kitchen and used the drawing-room as a recreation room, but also
slept in the beds.  Boxer passed it off as usual with "Napoleon is
always right!", but Clover, who thought she remembered a definite
ruling against beds, went to the end of the barn and tried to puzzle
out the Seven Commandments which were inscribed there.  Finding herself
unable to read more than individual letters, she fetched Muriel.

"Muriel," she said, "read me the Fourth Commandment.  Does it not say
something about never sleeping in a bed?"

With some difficulty Muriel spelt it out.

"It says, 'No animal shall sleep in a bed _with sheets_,'" she
announced finally.

Curiously enough, Clover had not remembered that the Fourth Commandment
mentioned sheets; but as it was there on the wall, it must have done
so.  And Squealer, who happened to be passing at this moment, attended
by two or three dogs, was able to put the whole matter in its proper
perspective.

"You have heard, then, comrades," he said, "that we pigs now sleep in
the beds of the farmhouse?  And why not?  You did not suppose, surely,
that there was ever a ruling against _beds_?  A bed merely means a
place to sleep in.  A pile of straw in a stall is a bed, properly
regarded.  The rule was against _sheets_, which are a human invention.
We have removed the sheets from the farmhouse beds, and sleep between
blankets.  And very comfortable beds they are too!  But not more
comfortable than we need, I can tell you, comrades, with all the
brainwork we have to do nowadays.  You would not rob us of our repose,
would you, comrades?  You would not have us too tired to carry out our
duties?  Surely none of you wishes to see Jones back?"

The animals reassured him on this point immediately, and no more was
said about the pigs sleeping in the farmhouse beds.  And when, some
days afterwards, it was announced that from now on the pigs would get
up an hour later in the mornings than the other animals, no complaint
was made about that either.

By the autumn the animals were tired but happy.  They had had a hard
year, and after the sale of part of the hay and corn, the stores of
food for the winter were none too plentiful, but the windmill
compensated for everything.  It was almost half built now.  After the
harvest there was a stretch of clear dry weather, and the animals
toiled harder than ever, thinking it well worth while to plod to and
fro all day with blocks of stone if by doing so they could raise the
walls another foot.  Boxer would even come out at nights and work for
an hour or two on his own by the light of the harvest moon.  In their
spare moments the animals would walk round and round the half-finished
mill, admiring the strength and perpendicularity of its walls and
marvelling that they should ever have been able to build anything so
imposing.  Only old Benjamin refused to grow enthusiastic about the
windmill, though, as usual, he would utter nothing beyond the cryptic
remark that donkeys live a long time.

November came, with raging south-west winds.  Building had to stop
because it was now too wet to mix the cement.  Finally there came a
night when the gale was so violent that the farm buildings rocked on
their foundations and several tiles were blown off the roof of the
barn.  The hens woke up squawking with terror because they had all
dreamed simultaneously of hearing a gun go off in the distance.  In the
morning the animals came out of their stalls to find that the flagstaff
had been blown down and an elm tree at the foot of the orchard had been
plucked up like a radish.  They had just noticed this when a cry of
despair broke from every animal's throat.  A terrible sight had met
their eyes.  The windmill was in ruins.

With one accord they dashed down to the spot.  Napoleon, who seldom
moved out of a walk, raced ahead of them all.  Yes, there it lay, the
fruit of all their struggles, levelled to its foundations, the stones
they had broken and carried so laboriously scattered all around.
Unable at first to speak, they stood gazing mournfully at the litter of
fallen stone.  Napoleon paced to and fro in silence, occasionally
snuffing at the ground.  His tail had grown rigid and twitched sharply
from side to side, a sign in him of intense mental activity.  Suddenly
he halted as though his mind were made up.

"Comrades," he said quietly, "do you know who is responsible for this?
Do you know the enemy who has come in the night and overthrown our
windmill?  SNOWBALL!" he suddenly roared in a voice of thunder.
"Snowball has done this thing!  In sheer malignity, thinking to set
back our plans and avenge himself for his ignominious expulsion, this
traitor has crept here under cover of night and destroyed our work of
nearly a year.  Comrades, here and now I pronounce the death sentence
upon Snowball.  'Animal Hero, Second Class,' and half a bushel of
apples to any animal who brings him to justice.  A full bushel to
anyone who captures him alive!"

The animals were shocked beyond measure to learn that even Snowball
could be guilty of such an action.  There was a cry of indignation, and
everyone began thinking out ways of catching Snowball if he should ever
come back.  Almost immediately the footprints of a pig were discovered
in the grass at a little distance from the knoll.  They could only be
traced for a few yards, but appeared to lead to a hole in the hedge.
Napoleon snuffed deeply at them and pronounced them to be Snowball's.
He gave it as his opinion that Snowball had probably come from the
direction of Foxwood Farm.

"No more delays, comrades!" cried Napoleon when the footprints had been
examined.  "There is work to be done.  This very morning we begin
rebuilding the windmill, and we will build all through the winter, rain
or shine.  We will teach this miserable traitor that he cannot undo our
work so easily.  Remember, comrades, there must be no alteration in our
plans: they shall be carried out to the day.  Forward, comrades!  Long
live the windmill!  Long live Animal Farm!"




CHAPTER VII

It was a bitter winter.  The stormy weather was followed by sleet and
snow, and then by a hard frost which did not break till well into
February.  The animals carried on as best they could with the
rebuilding of the windmill, well knowing that the outside world was
watching them and that the envious human beings would rejoice and
triumph if the mill were not finished on time.

Out of spite, the human beings pretended not to believe that it was
Snowball who had destroyed the windmill: they said that it had fallen
down because the walls were too thin.  The animals knew that this was
not the case.  Still, it had been decided to build the walls three feet
thick this time instead of eighteen inches as before, which meant
collecting much larger quantities of stone.  For a long time the quarry
was full of snowdrifts and nothing could be done.  Some progress was
made in the dry frosty weather that followed, but it was cruel work,
and the animals could not feel so hopeful about it as they had felt
before.  They were always cold, and usually hungry as well.  Only Boxer
and Clover never lost heart.  Squealer made excellent speeches on the
joy of service and the dignity of labour, but the other animals found
more inspiration in Boxer's strength and his never-failing cry of "I
will work harder!"

In January food fell short.  The corn ration was drastically reduced,
and it was announced that an extra potato ration would be issued to
make up for it.  Then it was discovered that the greater part of the
potato crop had been frosted in the clamps, which had not been covered
thickly enough.  The potatoes had become soft and discoloured, and only
a few were edible.  For days at a time the animals had nothing to eat
but chaff and mangels.  Starvation seemed to stare them in the face.

It was vitally necessary to conceal this fact from the outside world.
Emboldened by the collapse of the windmill, the human beings were
inventing fresh lies about Animal Farm.  Once again it was being put
about that all the animals were dying of famine and disease, and that
they were continually fighting among themselves and had resorted to
cannibalism and infanticide.  Napoleon was well aware of the bad
results that might follow if the real facts of the food situation were
known, and he decided to make use of Mr. Whymper to spread a contrary
impression.  Hitherto the animals had had little or no contact with
Whymper on his weekly visits: now, however, a few selected animals,
mostly sheep, were instructed to remark casually in his hearing that
rations had been increased.  In addition, Napoleon ordered the almost
empty bins in the store-shed to be filled nearly to the brim with sand,
which was then covered up with what remained of the grain and meal.  On
some suitable pretext Whymper was led through the store-shed and
allowed to catch a glimpse of the bins.  He was deceived, and continued
to report to the outside world that there was no food shortage on
Animal Farm.

Nevertheless, towards the end of January it became obvious that it
would be necessary to procure some more grain from somewhere.  In these
days Napoleon rarely appeared in public, but spent all his time in the
farmhouse, which was guarded at each door by fierce-looking dogs.  When
he did emerge, it was in a ceremonial manner, with an escort of six
dogs who closely surrounded him and growled if anyone came too near.
Frequently he did not even appear on Sunday mornings, but issued his
orders through one of the other pigs, usually Squealer.

One Sunday morning Squealer announced that the hens, who had just come
in to lay again, must surrender their eggs.  Napoleon had accepted,
through Whymper, a contract for four hundred eggs a week.  The price of
these would pay for enough grain and meal to keep the farm going till
summer came on and conditions were easier.

When the hens heard this, they raised a terrible outcry.  They had been
warned earlier that this sacrifice might be necessary, but had not
believed that it would really happen.  They were just getting their
clutches ready for the spring sitting, and they protested that to take
the eggs away now was murder.  For the first time since the expulsion
of Jones, there was something resembling a rebellion.  Led by three
young Black Minorca pullets, the hens made a determined effort to
thwart Napoleon's wishes.  Their method was to fly up to the rafters
and there lay their eggs, which smashed to pieces on the floor.
Napoleon acted swiftly and ruthlessly.  He ordered the hens' rations to
be stopped, and decreed that any animal giving so much as a grain of
corn to a hen should be punished by death.  The dogs saw to it that
these orders were carried out.  For five days the hens held out, then
they capitulated and went back to their nesting boxes.  Nine hens had
died in the meantime.  Their bodies were buried in the orchard, and it
was given out that they had died of coccidiosis.  Whymper heard nothing
of this affair, and the eggs were duly delivered, a grocer's van
driving up to the farm once a week to take them away.

All this while no more had been seen of Snowball.  He was rumoured to
be hiding on one of the neighbouring farms, either Foxwood or
Pinchfield.  Napoleon was by this time on slightly better terms with
the other farmers than before.  It happened that there was in the yard
a pile of timber which had been stacked there ten years earlier when a
beech spinney was cleared.  It was well seasoned, and Whymper had
advised Napoleon to sell it; both Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick were
anxious to buy it.  Napoleon was hesitating between the two, unable to
make up his mind.  It was noticed that whenever he seemed on the point
of coming to an agreement with Frederick, Snowball was declared to be
in hiding at Foxwood, while, when he inclined towards Pilkington,
Snowball was said to be at Pinchfield.

Suddenly, early in the spring, an alarming thing was discovered.
Snowball was secretly frequenting the farm by night!  The animals were
so disturbed that they could hardly sleep in their stalls.  Every
night, it was said, he came creeping in under cover of darkness and
performed all kinds of mischief.  He stole the corn, he upset the
milk-pails, he broke the eggs, he trampled the seed-beds, he gnawed the
bark off the fruit trees.  Whenever anything went wrong it became usual
to attribute it to Snowball.  If a window was broken or a drain was
blocked up, someone was certain to say that Snowball had come in the
night and done it, and when the key of the store-shed was lost, the
whole farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown it down the well.
Curiously enough, they went on believing this even after the mislaid
key was found under a sack of meal.  The cows declared unanimously that
Snowball crept into their stalls and milked them in their sleep.  The
rats, which had been troublesome that winter, were also said to be in
league with Snowball.

Napoleon decreed that there should be a full investigation into
Snowball's activities.  With his dogs in attendance he set out and made
a careful tour of inspection of the farm buildings, the other animals
following at a respectful distance.  At every few steps Napoleon
stopped and snuffed the ground for traces of Snowball's footsteps,
which, he said, he could detect by the smell.  He snuffed in every
corner, in the barn, in the cowshed, in the hen-houses, in the
vegetable garden, and found traces of Snowball almost everywhere.  He
would put his snout to the ground, give several deep sniffs, and
exclaim in a terrible voice, "Snowball!  He has been here!  I can smell
him distinctly!" and at the word "Snowball" all the dogs let out
blood-curdling growls and showed their side teeth.

The animals were thoroughly frightened.  It seemed to them as though
Snowball were some kind of invisible influence, pervading the air about
them and menacing them with all kinds of dangers.  In the evening
Squealer called them together, and with an alarmed expression on his
face told them that he had some serious news to report.

"Comrades!" cried Squealer, making little nervous skips, "a most
terrible thing has been discovered.  Snowball has sold himself to
Frederick of Pinchfield Farm, who is even now plotting to attack us and
take our farm away from us!  Snowball is to act as his guide when the
attack begins.  But there is worse than that.  We had thought that
Snowball's rebellion was caused simply by his vanity and ambition.  But
we were wrong, comrades.  Do you know what the real reason was?
Snowball was in league with Jones from the very start!  He was Jones's
secret agent all the time.  It has all been proved by documents which
he left behind him and which we have only just discovered.  To my mind
this explains a great deal, comrades.  Did we not see for ourselves how
he attempted--fortunately without success--to get us defeated and
destroyed at the Battle of the Cowshed?"

The animals were stupefied.  This was a wickedness far outdoing
Snowball's destruction of the windmill.  But it was some minutes before
they could fully take it in.  They all remembered, or thought they
remembered, how they had seen Snowball charging ahead of them at the
Battle of the Cowshed, how he had rallied and encouraged them at every
turn, and how he had not paused for an instant even when the pellets
from Jones's gun had wounded his back.  At first it was a little
difficult to see how this fitted in with his being on Jones's side.
Even Boxer, who seldom asked questions, was puzzled.  He lay down,
tucked his fore hoofs beneath him, shut his eyes, and with a hard
effort managed to formulate his thoughts.

"I do not believe that," he said.  "Snowball fought bravely at the
Battle of the Cowshed.  I saw him myself.  Did we not give him 'Animal
Hero, First Class,' immediately afterwards?"

"That was our mistake, comrade.  For we know now--it is all written
down in the secret documents that we have found--that in reality he was
trying to lure us to our doom."

"But he was wounded," said Boxer.  "We all saw him running with blood."

"That was part of the arrangement!" cried Squealer.  "Jones's shot only
grazed him.  I could show you this in his own writing, if you were able
to read it.  The plot was for Snowball, at the critical moment, to give
the signal for flight and leave the field to the enemy.  And he very
nearly succeeded--I will even say, comrades, he would have succeeded if
it had not been for our heroic Leader, Comrade Napoleon.  Do you not
remember how, just at the moment when Jones and his men had got inside
the yard, Snowball suddenly turned and fled, and many animals followed
him?  And do you not remember, too, that it was just at that moment,
when panic was spreading and all seemed lost, that Comrade Napoleon
sprang forward with a cry of 'Death to Humanity!' and sank his teeth in
Jones's leg?  Surely you remember _that_, comrades?" exclaimed
Squealer, frisking from side to side.

Now when Squealer described the scene so graphically, it seemed to the
animals that they did remember it.  At any rate, they remembered that
at the critical moment of the battle Snowball had turned to flee.  But
Boxer was still a little uneasy.

"I do not believe that Snowball was a traitor at the beginning," he
said finally.  "What he has done since is different.  But I believe
that at the Battle of the Cowshed he was a good comrade."

"Our Leader, Comrade Napoleon," announced Squealer, speaking very
slowly and firmly, "has stated categorically--categorically,
comrade--that Snowball was Jones's agent from the very beginning--yes,
and from long before the Rebellion was ever thought of."

"Ah, that is different!" said Boxer.  "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it
must be right."

"That is the true spirit, comrade!" cried Squealer, but it was noticed
he cast a very ugly look at Boxer with his little twinkling eyes.  He
turned to go, then paused and added impressively: "I warn every animal
on this farm to keep his eyes very wide open.  For we have reason to
think that some of Snowball's secret agents are lurking among us at
this moment!"

Four days later, in the late afternoon, Napoleon ordered all the
animals to assemble in the yard.  When they were all gathered together,
Napoleon emerged, from the farmhouse, wearing both his medals (for he
had recently awarded himself "Animal Hero, First Class," and "Animal
Hero, Second Class"), with his nine huge dogs frisking round him and
uttering growls that sent shivers down all the animals' spines.  They
all cowered silently in their places, seeming to know in advance that
some terrible thing was about to happen.

Napoleon stood sternly surveying his audience; then he uttered a
high-pitched whimper.  Immediately the dogs bounded forward, seized
four of the pigs by the ear and dragged them, squealing with pain and
terror, to Napoleon's feet.  The pigs' ears were bleeding, the dogs had
tasted blood, and for a few moments they appeared to go quite mad.  To
the amazement of everybody, three of them flung themselves upon Boxer.
Boxer saw them coming and put out his great hoof, caught a dog in
mid-air, and pinned him to the ground.  The dog shrieked for mercy and
the other two fled with their tails between their legs.  Boxer looked
at Napoleon to know whether he should crush the dog to death or let it
go.  Napoleon appeared to change countenance, and sharply ordered Boxer
to let the dog go, whereat Boxer lifted his hoof, and the dog slunk
away, bruised and howling.

Presently the tumult died down.  The four pigs waited, trembling, with
guilt written on every line of their countenances.  Napoleon now called
upon them to confess their crimes.  They were the same four pigs as had
protested when Napoleon abolished the Sunday Meetings.  Without any
further prompting they confessed that they had been secretly in touch
with Snowball ever since his expulsion, that they had collaborated with
him in destroying the windmill, and that they had entered into an
agreement with him to hand over Animal Farm to Mr. Frederick.  They
added that Snowball had privately admitted to them that he had been
Jones's secret agent for years past.  When they had finished their
confession, the dogs promptly tore their throats out, and in a terrible
voice Napoleon demanded whether any other animal had anything to
confess.

The three hens who had been the ringleaders in the attempted rebellion
over the eggs now came forward and stated that Snowball had appeared to
them in a dream and incited them to disobey Napoleon's orders.  They,
too, were slaughtered.  Then a goose came forward and confessed to
having secreted six ears of corn during the last year's harvest and
eaten them in the night.  Then a sheep confessed to having urinated in
the drinking pool--urged to do this, so she said, by Snowball--and two
other sheep confessed to having murdered an old ram, an especially
devoted follower of Napoleon, by chasing him round and round a bonfire
when he was suffering from a cough.  They were all slain on the spot.
And so the tale of confessions and executions went on, until there was
a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon's feet and the air was heavy
with the smell of blood, which had been unknown there since the
expulsion of Jones.

When it was all over, the remaining animals, except for the pigs and
dogs, crept away in a body.  They were shaken and miserable.  They did
not know which was more shocking--the treachery of the animals who had
leagued themselves with Snowball, or the cruel retribution they had
just witnessed.  In the old days there had often been scenes of
bloodshed equally terrible, but it seemed to all of them that it was
far worse now that it was happening among themselves.  Since Jones had
left the farm, until today, no animal had killed another animal.  Not
even a rat had been killed.  They had made their way on to the little
knoll where the half-finished windmill stood, and with one accord they
all lay down as though huddling together for warmth--Clover, Muriel,
Benjamin, the cows, the sheep, and a whole flock of geese and
hens--everyone, indeed, except the cat, who had suddenly disappeared
just before Napoleon ordered the animals to assemble.  For some time
nobody spoke.  Only Boxer remained on his feet.  He fidgeted to and
fro, swishing his long black tail against his sides and occasionally
uttering a little whinny of surprise.  Finally he said:

"I do not understand it.  I would not have believed that such things
could happen on our farm.  It must be due to some fault in ourselves.
The solution, as I see it, is to work harder.  From now onwards I shall
get up a full hour earlier in the mornings."

And he moved off at his lumbering trot and made for the quarry.  Having
got there, he collected two successive loads of stone and dragged them
down to the windmill before retiring for the night.

The animals huddled about Clover, not speaking.  The knoll where they
were lying gave them a wide prospect across the countryside.  Most of
Animal Farm was within their view--the long pasture stretching down to
the main road, the hayfield, the spinney, the drinking pool, the
ploughed fields where the young wheat was thick and green, and the red
roofs of the farm buildings with the smoke curling from the chimneys.
It was a clear spring evening.  The grass and the bursting hedges were
gilded by the level rays of the sun.  Never had the farm--and with a
kind of surprise they remembered that it was their own farm, every inch
of it their own property--appeared to the animals so desirable a place.
As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears.  If she
could have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was
not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to
work for the overthrow of the human race.  These scenes of terror and
slaughter were not what they had looked forward to on that night when
old Major first stirred them to rebellion.  If she herself had had any
picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free
from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his
capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she had protected the lost
brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Major's speech.
Instead--she did not know why--they had come to a time when no one
dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and
when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to
shocking crimes.  There was no thought of rebellion or disobedience in
her mind.  She knew that, even as things were, they were far better off
than they had been in the days of Jones, and that before all else it
was needful to prevent the return of the human beings.  Whatever
happened she would remain faithful, work hard, carry out the orders
that were given to her, and accept the leadership of Napoleon.  But
still, it was not for this that she and all the other animals had hoped
and toiled.  It was not for this that they had built the windmill and
faced the bullets of Jones's gun.  Such were her thoughts, though she
lacked the words to express them.

At last, feeling this to be in some way a substitute for the words she
was unable to find, she began to sing _Beasts of England_.  The other
animals sitting round her took it up, and they sang it three times
over--very tunefully, but slowly and mournfully, in a way they had
never sung it before.

They had just finished singing it for the third time when Squealer,
attended by two dogs, approached them with the air of having something
important to say.  He announced that, by a special decree of Comrade
Napoleon, _Beasts of England_ had been abolished.  From now onwards it
was forbidden to sing it.

The animals were taken aback.

"Why?" cried Muriel.

"It is no longer needed, comrade," said Squealer stiffly.  "_Beasts of
England_ was the song of the Rebellion.  But the Rebellion is now
completed.  The execution of the traitors this afternoon was the final
act.  The enemy both external and internal has been defeated.  In
_Beasts of England_ we expressed our longing for a better society in
days to come.  But that society has now been established.  Clearly this
song has no longer any purpose."

Frightened though they were, some of the animals might possibly have
protested, but at this moment the sheep set up their usual bleating of
"Four legs good, two legs bad," which went on for several minutes and
put an end to the discussion.

So _Beasts of England_ was heard no more.  In its place Minimus, the
poet, had composed another song which began:

  _Animal Farm, Animal Farm,
  Never through me shalt thou come to harm!_

and this was sung every Sunday morning after the hoisting of the flag.
But somehow neither the words nor the tune ever seemed to the animals
to come up to _Beasts of England_.




CHAPTER VIII

A few days later, when the terror caused by the executions had died
down, some of the animals remembered--or thought they remembered--that
the Sixth Commandment decreed "No animal shall kill any other animal."
And though no one cared to mention it in the hearing of the pigs or the
dogs, it was felt that the killings which had taken place did not
square with this.  Clover asked Benjamin to read her the Sixth
Commandment, and when Benjamin, as usual, said that he refused to
meddle in such matters, she fetched Muriel.  Muriel read the
Commandment for her.  It ran: "No animal shall kill any other animal
_without cause_."  Somehow or other, the last two words had slipped out
of the animals' memory.  But they saw now that the Commandment had not
been violated; for clearly there was good reason for killing the
traitors who had leagued themselves with Snowball.  Throughout the year
the animals worked even harder than they had worked in the previous
year.  To rebuild the windmill, with walls twice as thick as before,
and to finish it by the appointed date, together with the regular work
of the farm, was a tremendous labour.  There were times when it seemed
to the animals that they worked longer hours and fed no better than
they had done in Jones's day.  On Sunday mornings Squealer, holding
down a long strip of paper with his trotter, would read out to them
lists of figures proving that the production of every class of
foodstuff had increased by two hundred per cent, three hundred per
cent, or five hundred per cent, as the case might be.  The animals saw
no reason to disbelieve him, especially as they could no longer
remember very clearly what conditions had been like before the
Rebellion.  All the same, there were days when they felt that they
would sooner have had less figures and more food.

All orders were now issued through Squealer or one of the other pigs.
Napoleon himself was not seen in public as often as once in a
fortnight.  When he did appear, he was attended not only by his retinue
of dogs but by a black cockerel who marched in front of him and acted
as a kind of trumpeter, letting out a loud "cock-a-doodle-doo" before
Napoleon spoke.  Even in the farmhouse, it was said, Napoleon inhabited
separate apartments from the others.  He took his meals alone, with two
dogs to wait upon him, and always ate from the Crown Derby dinner
service which had been in the glass cupboard in the drawing-room.  It
was also announced that the gun would be fired every year on Napoleon's
birthday, as well as on the other two anniversaries.

Napoleon was now never spoken of simply as "Napoleon."  He was always
referred to in formal style as "our Leader, Comrade Napoleon," and the
pigs liked to invent for him such titles as Father of All Animals,
Terror of Mankind, Protector of the Sheep-fold, Ducklings' Friend, and
the like.  In his speeches, Squealer would talk with the tears rolling
down his cheeks of Napoleon's wisdom, the goodness of his heart, and
the deep love he bore to all animals everywhere, even and especially
the unhappy animals who still lived in ignorance and slavery on other
farms.  It had become usual to give Napoleon the credit for every
successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune.  You would
often hear one hen remark to another, "Under the guidance of our
Leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days"; or two
cows, enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim, "Thanks to the
leadership of Comrade Napoleon, how excellent this water tastes!"  The
general feeling on the farm was well expressed in a poem entitled
_Comrade Napoleon_, which was composed by Minimus and which ran as
follows:

  _Friend of the fatherless!
  Fountain of happiness!
  Lord of the swill-bucket!  Oh, how my soul is on
  Fire when I gaze at thy
  Calm and commanding eye,
  Like the sun in the sky,
  Comrade Napoleon!_

  _Thou art the giver of
  All that thy creatures love,
  Full belly twice a day, clean straw to roll upon;
  Every beast great or small
  Sleeps at peace in his stall,
  Thou watchest over all,
  Comrade Napoleon!_

  _Had I a sucking-pig,
  Ere he had grown as big
  Even as a pint bottle or as a rolling-pin,
  He should have learned to be
  Faithful and true to thee,
  Yes, his first squeak should be
  "Comrade Napoleon!_"


Napoleon approved of this poem and caused it to be inscribed on the
wall of the big barn, at the opposite end from the Seven Commandments.
It was surmounted by a portrait of Napoleon, in profile, executed by
Squealer in white paint.

Meanwhile, through the agency of Whymper, Napoleon was engaged in
complicated negotiations with Frederick and Pilkington.  The pile of
timber was still unsold.  Of the two, Frederick was the more anxious to
get hold of it, but he would not offer a reasonable price.  At the same
time there were renewed rumours that Frederick and his men were
plotting to attack Animal Farm and to destroy the windmill, the
building of which had aroused furious jealousy in him.  Snowball was
known to be still skulking on Pinchfield Farm.  In the middle of the
summer the animals were alarmed to hear that three hens had come
forward and confessed that, inspired by Snowball, they had entered into
a plot to murder Napoleon.  They were executed immediately, and fresh
precautions for Napoleon's safety were taken.  Four dogs guarded his
bed at night, one at each corner, and a young pig named Pinkeye was
given the task of tasting all his food before he ate it, lest it should
be poisoned.

At about the same time it was given out that Napoleon had arranged to
sell the pile of timber to Mr. Pilkington; he was also going to enter
into a regular agreement for the exchange of certain products between
Animal Farm and Foxwood.  The relations between Napoleon and
Pilkington, though they were only conducted through Whymper, were now
almost friendly.  The animals distrusted Pilkington, as a human being,
but greatly preferred him to Frederick, whom they both feared and
hated.  As the summer wore on, and the windmill neared completion, the
rumours of an impending treacherous attack grew stronger and stronger.
Frederick, it was said, intended to bring against them twenty men all
armed with guns, and he had already bribed the magistrates and police,
so that if he could once get hold of the title-deeds of Animal Farm
they would ask no questions.  Moreover, terrible stories were leaking
out from Pinchfield about the cruelties that Frederick practised upon
his animals.  He had flogged an old horse to death, he starved his
cows, he had killed a dog by throwing it into the furnace, he amused
himself in the evenings by making cocks fight with splinters of
razor-blade tied to their spurs.  The animals' blood boiled with rage
when they heard of these things being, done to their comrades, and
sometimes they clamoured to be allowed to go out in a body and attack
Pinchfield Farm, drive out the humans, and set the animals free.  But
Squealer counselled them to avoid rash actions and trust in Comrade
Napoleon's strategy.

Nevertheless, feeling against Frederick continued to run high.  One
Sunday morning Napoleon appeared in the barn and explained that he had
never at any time contemplated selling the pile of timber to Frederick;
he considered it beneath his dignity, he said, to have dealings with
scoundrels of that description.  The pigeons who were still sent out to
spread tidings of the Rebellion were forbidden to set foot anywhere on
Foxwood, and were also ordered to drop their former slogan of "Death to
Humanity" in favour of "Death to Frederick."  In the late summer yet
another of Snowball's machinations was laid bare.  The wheat crop was
full of weeds, and it was discovered that on one of his nocturnal
visits Snowball had mixed weed seeds with the seed corn.  A gander who
had been privy to the plot had confessed his guilt to Squealer and
immediately committed suicide by swallowing deadly nightshade berries.
The animals now also learned that Snowball had never--as many of them
had believed hitherto--received the order of "Animal Hero, First
Class."  This was merely a legend which had been spread some time after
the Battle of the Cowshed by Snowball himself.  So far from being
decorated, he had been censured for showing cowardice in the battle.
Once again some of the animals heard this with a certain bewilderment,
but Squealer was soon able to convince them that their memories had
been at fault.

In the autumn, by a tremendous, exhausting effort--for the harvest had
to be gathered at almost the same time--the windmill was finished.  The
machinery had still to be installed, and Whymper was negotiating the
purchase of it, but the structure was completed.  In the teeth of every
difficulty, in spite of inexperience, of primitive implements, of bad
luck and of Snowball's treachery, the work had been finished punctually
to the very day!  Tired out but proud, the animals walked round and
round their masterpiece, which appeared even more beautiful in their
eyes than when it had been built the first time.  Moreover, the walls
were twice as thick as before.  Nothing short of explosives would lay
them low this time!  And when they thought of how they had laboured,
what discouragements they had overcome, and the enormous difference
that would be made in their lives when the sails were turning and the
dynamos running--when they thought of all this, their tiredness forsook
them and they gambolled round and round the windmill, uttering cries of
triumph.  Napoleon himself, attended by his dogs and his cockerel, came
down to inspect the completed work; he personally congratulated the
animals on their achievement, and announced that the mill would be
named Napoleon Mill.

Two days later the animals were called together for a special meeting
in the barn.  They were struck dumb with surprise when Napoleon
announced that he had sold the pile of timber to Frederick.  Tomorrow
Frederick's wagons would arrive and begin carting it away.  Throughout
the whole period of his seeming friendship with Pilkington, Napoleon
had really been in secret agreement with Frederick.

All relations with Foxwood had been broken off; insulting messages had
been sent to Pilkington.  The pigeons had been told to avoid Pinchfield
Farm and to alter their slogan from "Death to Frederick" to "Death to
Pilkington."  At the same time Napoleon assured the animals that the
stories of an impending attack on Animal Farm were completely untrue,
and that the tales about Frederick's cruelty to his own animals had
been greatly exaggerated.  All these rumours had probably originated
with Snowball and his agents.  It now appeared that Snowball was not,
after all, hiding on Pinchfield Farm, and in fact had never been there
in his life: he was living--in considerable luxury, so it was said--at
Foxwood, and had in reality been a pensioner of Pilkington for years
past.

The pigs were in ecstasies over Napoleon's cunning.  By seeming to be
friendly with Pilkington he had forced Frederick to raise his price by
twelve pounds.  But the superior quality of Napoleon's mind, said
Squealer, was shown in the fact that he trusted nobody, not even
Frederick.  Frederick had wanted to pay for the timber with something
called a cheque, which, it seemed, was a piece of paper with a promise
to pay written upon it.  But Napoleon was too clever for him.  He had
demanded payment in real five-pound notes, which were to be handed over
before the timber was removed.  Already Frederick had paid up; and the
sum he had paid was just enough to buy the machinery for the windmill.

Meanwhile the timber was being carted away at high speed.  When it was
all gone, another special meeting was held in the barn for the animals
to inspect Frederick's bank-notes.  Smiling beatifically, and wearing
both his decorations, Napoleon reposed on a bed of straw on the
platform, with the money at his side, neatly piled on a china dish from
the farmhouse kitchen.  The animals filed slowly past, and each gazed
his fill.  And Boxer put out his nose to sniff at the bank-notes, and
the flimsy white things stirred and rustled in his breath.

Three days later there was a terrible hullabaloo.  Whymper, his face
deadly pale, came racing up the path on his bicycle, flung it down in
the yard and rushed straight into the farmhouse.  The next moment a
choking roar of rage sounded from Napoleon's apartments.  The news of
what had happened sped round the farm like wildfire.  The bank-notes
were forgeries!  Frederick had got the timber for nothing!

Napoleon called the animals together immediately and in a terrible
voice pronounced the death sentence upon Frederick.  When captured, he
said, Frederick should be boiled alive.  At the same time he warned
them that after this treacherous deed the worst was to be expected.
Frederick and his men might make their long-expected attack at any
moment.  Sentinels were placed at all the approaches to the farm.  In
addition, four pigeons were sent to Foxwood with a conciliatory
message, which it was hoped might re-establish good relations with
Pilkington.

The very next morning the attack came.  The animals were at breakfast
when the look-outs came racing in with the news that Frederick and his
followers had already come through the five-barred gate.  Boldly enough
the animals sallied forth to meet them, but this time they did not have
the easy victory that they had had in the Battle of the Cowshed.  There
were fifteen men, with half a dozen guns between them, and they opened
fire as soon as they got within fifty yards.  The animals could not
face the terrible explosions and the stinging pellets, and in spite of
the efforts of Napoleon and Boxer to rally them, they were soon driven
back.  A number of them were already wounded.  They took refuge in the
farm buildings and peeped cautiously out from chinks and knot-holes.
The whole of the big pasture, including the windmill, was in the hands
of the enemy.  For the moment even Napoleon seemed at a loss.  He paced
up and down without a word, his tail rigid and twitching.  Wistful
glances were sent in the direction of Foxwood.  If Pilkington and his
men would help them, the day might yet be won.  But at this moment the
four pigeons, who had been sent out on the day before, returned, one of
them bearing a scrap of paper from Pilkington.  On it was pencilled the
words: "Serves you right."

Meanwhile Frederick and his men had halted about the windmill.  The
animals watched them, and a murmur of dismay went round.  Two of the
men had produced a crowbar and a sledge hammer.  They were going to
knock the windmill down.

"Impossible!" cried Napoleon.  "We have built the walls far too thick
for that.  They could not knock it down in a week.  Courage, comrades!"

But Benjamin was watching the movements of the men intently.  The two
with the hammer and the crowbar were drilling a hole near the base of
the windmill.  Slowly, and with an air almost of amusement, Benjamin
nodded his long muzzle.

"I thought so," he said.  "Do you not see what they are doing?  In
another moment they are going to pack blasting powder into that hole."

Terrified, the animals waited.  It was impossible now to venture out of
the shelter of the buildings.  After a few minutes the men were seen to
be running in all directions.  Then there was a deafening roar.  The
pigeons swirled into the air, and all the animals, except Napoleon,
flung themselves flat on their bellies and hid their faces.  When they
got up again, a huge cloud of black smoke was hanging where the
windmill had been.  Slowly the breeze drifted it away.  The windmill
had ceased to exist!

At this sight the animals' courage returned to them.  The fear and
despair they had felt a moment earlier were drowned in their rage
against this vile, contemptible act.  A mighty cry for vengeance went
up, and without waiting for further orders they charged forth in a body
and made straight for the enemy.  This time they did not heed the cruel
pellets that swept over them like hail.  It was a savage, bitter
battle.  The men fired again and again, and, when the animals got to
close quarters, lashed out with their sticks and their heavy boots.  A
cow, three sheep, and two geese were killed, and nearly everyone was
wounded.  Even Napoleon, who was directing operations from the rear,
had the tip of his tail chipped by a pellet.  But the men did not go
unscathed either.  Three of them had their heads broken by blows from
Boxer's hoofs; another was gored in the belly by a cow's horn; another
had his trousers nearly torn off by Jessie and Bluebell.  And when the
nine dogs of Napoleon's own bodyguard, whom he had instructed to make a
detour under cover of the hedge, suddenly appeared on the men's flank,
baying ferociously, panic overtook them.  They saw that they were in
danger of being surrounded.  Frederick shouted to his men to get out
while the going was good, and the next moment the cowardly enemy was
running for dear life.  The animals chased them right down to the
bottom of the field, and got in some last kicks at them as they forced
their way through the thorn hedge.

They had won, but they were weary and bleeding.  Slowly they began to
limp back towards the farm.  The sight of their dead comrades stretched
upon the grass moved some of them to tears.  And for a little while
they halted in sorrowful silence at the place where the windmill had
once stood.  Yes, it was gone; almost the last trace of their labour
was gone!  Even the foundations were partially destroyed.  And in
rebuilding it they could not this time, as before, make use of the
fallen stones.  This time the stones had vanished too.  The force of
the explosion had flung them to distances of hundreds of yards.  It was
as though the windmill had never been.

As they approached the farm Squealer, who had unaccountably been absent
during the fighting, came skipping towards them, whisking his tail and
beaming with satisfaction.  And the animals heard, from the direction
of the farm buildings, the solemn booming of a gun.

"What is that gun firing for?" said Boxer.

"To celebrate our victory!" cried Squealer.

"What victory?" said Boxer.  His knees were bleeding, he had lost a
shoe and split his hoof, and a dozen pellets had lodged themselves in
his hind leg.

"What victory, comrade?  Have we not driven the enemy off our soil--the
sacred soil of Animal Farm?"

"But they have destroyed the windmill.  And we had worked on it for two
years!"

"What matter?  We will build another windmill.  We will build six
windmills if we feel like it.  You do not appreciate, comrade, the
mighty thing that we have done.  The enemy was in occupation of this
very ground that we stand upon.  And now--thanks to the leadership of
Comrade Napoleon--we have won every inch of it back again!"

"Then we have won back what we had before," said Boxer.

"That is our victory," said Squealer.

They limped into the yard.  The pellets under the skin of Boxer's leg
smarted painfully.  He saw ahead of him the heavy labour of rebuilding
the windmill from the foundations, and already in imagination he braced
himself for the task.  But for the first time it occurred to him that
he was eleven years old and that perhaps his great muscles were not
quite what they had once been.

But when the animals saw the green flag flying, and heard the gun
firing again--seven times it was fired in all--and heard the speech
that Napoleon made, congratulating them on their conduct, it did seem
to them after all that they had won a great victory.  The animals slain
in the battle were given a solemn funeral.  Boxer and Clover pulled the
wagon which served as a hearse, and Napoleon himself walked at the head
of the procession.  Two whole days were given over to celebrations.
There were songs, speeches, and more firing of the gun, and a special
gift of an apple was bestowed on every animal, with two ounces of corn
for each bird and three biscuits for each dog.  It was announced that
the battle would be called the Battle of the Windmill, and that
Napoleon had created a new decoration, the Order of the Green Banner,
which he had conferred upon himself.  In the general rejoicings the
unfortunate affair of the bank-notes was forgotten.

It was a few days later than this that the pigs came upon a case of
whisky in the cellars of the farmhouse.  It had been overlooked at the
time when the house was first occupied.  That night there came from the
farmhouse the sound of loud singing, in which, to everyone's surprise,
the strains of _Beasts of England_ were mixed up.  At about half-past
nine Napoleon, wearing an old bowler hat of Mr. Jones's, was distinctly
seen to emerge from the back door, gallop rapidly round the yard, and
disappear indoors again.  But in the morning a deep silence hung over
the farmhouse.  Not a pig appeared to be stirring.  It was nearly nine
o'clock when Squealer made his appearance, walking slowly and
dejectedly, his eyes dull, his tail hanging limply behind him, and with
every appearance of being seriously ill.  He called the animals
together and told them that he had a terrible piece of news to impart.
Comrade Napoleon was dying!

A cry of lamentation went up.  Straw was laid down outside the doors of
the farmhouse, and the animals walked on tiptoe.  With tears in their
eyes they asked one another what they should do if their Leader were
taken away from them.  A rumour went round that Snowball had after all
contrived to introduce poison into Napoleon's food.  At eleven o'clock
Squealer came out to make another announcement.  As his last act upon
earth, Comrade Napoleon had pronounced a solemn decree: the drinking of
alcohol was to be punished by death.

By the evening, however, Napoleon appeared to be somewhat better, and
the following morning Squealer was able to tell them that he was well
on the way to recovery.  By the evening of that day Napoleon was back
at work, and on the next day it was learned that he had instructed
Whymper to purchase in Willingdon some booklets on brewing and
distilling.  A week later Napoleon gave orders that the small paddock
beyond the orchard, which it had previously been intended to set aside
as a grazing-ground for animals who were past work, was to be ploughed
up.  It was given out that the pasture was exhausted and needed
re-seeding; but it soon became known that Napoleon intended to sow it
with barley.

About this time there occurred a strange incident which hardly anyone
was able to understand.  One night at about twelve o'clock there was a
loud crash in the yard, and the animals rushed out of their stalls.  It
was a moonlit night.  At the foot of the end wall of the big barn,
where the Seven Commandments were written, there lay a ladder broken in
two pieces.  Squealer, temporarily stunned, was sprawling beside it,
and near at hand there lay a lantern, a paint-brush, and an overturned
pot of white paint.  The dogs immediately made a ring round Squealer,
and escorted him back to the farmhouse as soon as he was able to walk.
None of the animals could form any idea as to what this meant, except
old Benjamin, who nodded his muzzle with a knowing air, and seemed to
understand, but would say nothing.

But a few days later Muriel, reading over the Seven Commandments to
herself, noticed that there was yet another of them which the animals
had remembered wrong.  They had thought that the Fifth Commandment was
"No animal shall drink alcohol," but there were two words that they had
forgotten.  Actually the Commandment read: "No animal shall drink
alcohol _to excess_."




CHAPTER IX

Boxer's split hoof was a long time in healing.  They had started the
rebuilding of the windmill the day after the victory celebrations were
ended.  Boxer refused to take even a day off work, and made it a point
of honour not to let it be seen that he was in pain.  In the evenings
he would admit privately to Clover that the hoof troubled him a great
deal.  Clover treated the hoof with poultices of herbs which she
prepared by chewing them, and both she and Benjamin urged Boxer to work
less hard.  "A horse's lungs do not last for ever," she said to him.
But Boxer would not listen.  He had, he said, only one real ambition
left--to see the windmill well under way before he reached the age for
retirement.

At the beginning, when the laws of Animal Farm were first formulated,
the retiring age had been fixed for horses and pigs at twelve, for cows
at fourteen, for dogs at nine, for sheep at seven, and for hens and
geese at five.  Liberal old-age pensions had been agreed upon.  As yet
no animal had actually retired on pension, but of late the subject had
been discussed more and more.  Now that the small field beyond the
orchard had been set aside for barley, it was rumoured that a corner of
the large pasture was to be fenced off and turned into a grazing-ground
for superannuated animals.  For a horse, it was said, the pension would
be five pounds of corn a day and, in winter, fifteen pounds of hay,
with a carrot or possibly an apple on public holidays.  Boxer's twelfth
birthday was due in the late summer of the following year.

Meanwhile life was hard.  The winter was as cold as the last one had
been, and food was even shorter.  Once again all rations were reduced,
except those of the pigs and the dogs.  A too rigid equality in
rations, Squealer explained, would have been contrary to the principles
of Animalism.  In any case he had no difficulty in proving to the other
animals that they were not in reality short of food, whatever the
appearances might be.  For the time being, certainly, it had been found
necessary to make a readjustment of rations (Squealer always spoke of
it as a "readjustment," never as a "reduction"), but in comparison with
the days of Jones, the improvement was enormous.  Reading out the
figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail that they
had more oats, more hay, more turnips than they had had in Jones's day,
that they worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better
quality, that they lived longer, that a larger proportion of their
young ones survived infancy, and that they had more straw in their
stalls and suffered less from fleas.  The animals believed every word
of it.  Truth to tell, Jones and all he stood for had almost faded out
of their memories.  They knew that life nowadays was harsh and bare,
that they were often hungry and often cold, and that they were usually
working when they were not asleep.  But doubtless it had been worse in
the old days.  They were glad to believe so.  Besides, in those days
they had been slaves and now they were free, and that made all the
difference, as Squealer did not fail to point out.

There were many more mouths to feed now.  In the autumn the four sows
had all littered about simultaneously, producing thirty-one young pigs
between them.  The young pigs were piebald, and as Napoleon was the
only boar on the farm, it was possible to guess at their parentage.  It
was announced that later, when bricks and timber had been purchased, a
schoolroom would be built in the farmhouse garden.  For the time being,
the young pigs were given their instruction by Napoleon himself in the
farmhouse kitchen.  They took their exercise in the garden, and were
discouraged from playing with the other young animals.  About this
time, too, it was laid down as a rule that when a pig and any other
animal met on the path, the other animal must stand aside: and also
that all pigs, of whatever degree, were to have the privilege of
wearing green ribbons on their tails on Sundays.

The farm had had a fairly successful year, but was still short of
money.  There were the bricks, sand, and lime for the schoolroom to be
purchased, and it would also be necessary to begin saving up again for
the machinery for the windmill.  Then there were lamp oil and candles
for the house, sugar for Napoleon's own table (he forbade this to the
other pigs, on the ground that it made them fat), and all the usual
replacements such as tools, nails, string, coal, wire, scrap-iron, and
dog biscuits.  A stump of hay and part of the potato crop were sold
off, and the contract for eggs was increased to six hundred a week, so
that that year the hens barely hatched enough chicks to keep their
numbers at the same level.  Rations, reduced in December, were reduced
again in February, and lanterns in the stalls were forbidden to save
oil.  But the pigs seemed comfortable enough, and in fact were putting
on weight if anything.  One afternoon in late February a warm, rich,
appetising scent, such as the animals had never smelt before, wafted
itself across the yard from the little brew-house, which had been
disused in Jones's time, and which stood beyond the kitchen.  Someone
said it was the smell of cooking barley.  The animals sniffed the air
hungrily and wondered whether a warm mash was being prepared for their
supper.  But no warm mash appeared, and on the following Sunday it was
announced that from now onwards all barley would be reserved for the
pigs.  The field beyond the orchard had already been sown with barley.
And the news soon leaked out that every pig was now receiving a ration
of a pint of beer daily, with half a gallon for Napoleon himself, which
was always served to him in the Crown Derby soup tureen.

But if there were hardships to be borne, they were partly offset by the
fact that life nowadays had a greater dignity than it had had before.
There were more songs, more speeches, more processions.  Napoleon had
commanded that once a week there should be held something called a
Spontaneous Demonstration, the object of which was to celebrate the
struggles and triumphs of Animal Farm.  At the appointed time the
animals would leave their work and march round the precincts of the
farm in military formation, with the pigs leading, then the horses,
then the cows, then the sheep, and then the poultry.  The dogs flanked
the procession and at the head of all marched Napoleon's black
cockerel.  Boxer and Clover always carried between them a green banner
marked with the hoof and the horn and the caption, "Long live Comrade
Napoleon!"  Afterwards there were recitations of poems composed in
Napoleon's honour, and a speech by Squealer giving particulars of the
latest increases in the production of foodstuffs, and on occasion a
shot was fired from the gun.  The sheep were the greatest devotees of
the Spontaneous Demonstration, and if anyone complained (as a few
animals sometimes did, when no pigs or dogs were near) that they wasted
time and meant a lot of standing about in the cold, the sheep were sure
to silence him with a tremendous bleating of "Four legs good, two legs
bad!"  But by and large the animals enjoyed these celebrations.  They
found it comforting to be reminded that, after all, they were truly
their own masters and that the work they did was for their own benefit.
So that, what with the songs, the processions, Squealer's lists of
figures, the thunder of the gun, the crowing of the cockerel, and the
fluttering of the flag, they were able to forget that their bellies
were empty, at least part of the time.

In April, Animal Farm was proclaimed a Republic, and it became
necessary to elect a President.  There was only one candidate,
Napoleon, who was elected unanimously.  On the same day it was given
out that fresh documents had been discovered which revealed further
details about Snowball's complicity with Jones.  It now appeared that
Snowball had not, as the animals had previously imagined, merely
attempted to lose the Battle of the Cowshed by means of a stratagem,
but had been openly fighting on Jones's side.  In fact, it was he who
had actually been the leader of the human forces, and had charged into
battle with the words "Long live Humanity!" on his lips.  The wounds on
Snowball's back, which a few of the animals still remembered to have
seen, had been inflicted by Napoleon's teeth.

In the middle of the summer Moses the raven suddenly reappeared on the
farm, after an absence of several years.  He was quite unchanged, still
did no work, and talked in the same strain as ever about Sugarcandy
Mountain.  He would perch on a stump, flap his black wings, and talk by
the hour to anyone who would listen.  "Up there, comrades," he would
say solemnly, pointing to the sky with his large beak--"up there, just
on the other side of that dark cloud that you can see--there it lies,
Sugarcandy Mountain, that happy country where we poor animals shall
rest for ever from our labours!"  He even claimed to have been there on
one of his higher flights, and to have seen the everlasting fields of
clover and the linseed cake and lump sugar growing on the hedges.  Many
of the animals believed him.  Their lives now, they reasoned, were
hungry and laborious; was it not right and just that a better world
should exist somewhere else?  A thing that was difficult to determine
was the attitude of the pigs towards Moses.  They all declared
contemptuously that his stories about Sugarcandy Mountain were lies,
and yet they allowed him to remain on the farm, not working, with an
allowance of a gill of beer a day.

After his hoof had healed up, Boxer worked harder than ever.  Indeed,
all the animals worked like slaves that year.  Apart from the regular
work of the farm, and the rebuilding of the windmill, there was the
schoolhouse for the young pigs, which was started in March.  Sometimes
the long hours on insufficient food were hard to bear, but Boxer never
faltered.  In nothing that he said or did was there any sign that his
strength was not what it had been.  It was only his appearance that was
a little altered; his hide was less shiny than it had used to be, and
his great haunches seemed to have shrunken.  The others said, "Boxer
will pick up when the spring grass comes on"; but the spring came and
Boxer grew no fatter.  Sometimes on the slope leading to the top of the
quarry, when he braced his muscles against the weight of some vast
boulder, it seemed that nothing kept him on his feet except the will to
continue.  At such times his lips were seen to form the words, "I will
work harder"; he had no voice left.  Once again Clover and Benjamin
warned him to take care of his health, but Boxer paid no attention.
His twelfth birthday was approaching.  He did not care what happened so
long as a good store of stone was accumulated before he went on pension.

Late one evening in the summer, a sudden rumour ran round the farm that
something had happened to Boxer.  He had gone out alone to drag a load
of stone down to the windmill.  And sure enough, the rumour was true.
A few minutes later two pigeons came racing in with the news: "Boxer
has fallen!  He is lying on his side and can't get up!"

About half the animals on the farm rushed out to the knoll where the
windmill stood.  There lay Boxer, between the shafts of the cart, his
neck stretched out, unable even to raise his head.  His eyes were
glazed, his sides matted with sweat.  A thin stream of blood had
trickled out of his mouth.  Clover dropped to her knees at his side.

"Boxer!" she cried, "how are you?"

"It is my lung," said Boxer in a weak voice.  "It does not matter.  I
think you will be able to finish the windmill without me.  There is a
pretty good store of stone accumulated.  I had only another month to go
in any case.  To tell you the truth, I had been looking forward to my
retirement.  And perhaps, as Benjamin is growing old too, they will let
him retire at the same time and be a companion to me."

"We must get help at once," said Clover.  "Run, somebody, and tell
Squealer what has happened."

All the other animals immediately raced back to the farmhouse to give
Squealer the news.  Only Clover remained, and Benjamin, who lay down at
Boxer's side, and, without speaking, kept the flies off him with his
long tail.  After about a quarter of an hour Squealer appeared, full of
sympathy and concern.  He said that Comrade Napoleon had learned with
the very deepest distress of this misfortune to one of the most loyal
workers on the farm, and was already making arrangements to send Boxer
to be treated in the hospital at Willingdon.  The animals felt a little
uneasy at this.  Except for Mollie and Snowball, no other animal had
ever left the farm, and they did not like to think of their sick
comrade in the hands of human beings.  However, Squealer easily
convinced them that the veterinary surgeon in Willingdon could treat
Boxer's case more satisfactorily than could be done on the farm.  And
about half an hour later, when Boxer had somewhat recovered, he was
with difficulty got on to his feet, and managed to limp back to his
stall, where Clover and Benjamin had prepared a good bed of straw for
him.

For the next two days Boxer remained in his stall.  The pigs had sent
out a large bottle of pink medicine which they had found in the
medicine chest in the bathroom, and Clover administered it to Boxer
twice a day after meals.  In the evenings she lay in his stall and
talked to him, while Benjamin kept the flies off him.  Boxer professed
not to be sorry for what had happened.  If he made a good recovery, he
might expect to live another three years, and he looked forward to the
peaceful days that he would spend in the corner of the big pasture.  It
would be the first time that he had had leisure to study and improve
his mind.  He intended, he said, to devote the rest of his life to
learning the remaining twenty-two letters of the alphabet.

However, Benjamin and Clover could only be with Boxer after working
hours, and it was in the middle of the day when the van came to take
him away.  The animals were all at work weeding turnips under the
supervision of a pig, when they were astonished to see Benjamin come
galloping from the direction of the farm buildings, braying at the top
of his voice.  It was the first time that they had ever seen Benjamin
excited--indeed, it was the first time that anyone had ever seen him
gallop.  "Quick, quick!" he shouted.  "Come at once!  They're taking
Boxer away!"  Without waiting for orders from the pig, the animals
broke off work and raced back to the farm buildings.  Sure enough,
there in the yard was a large closed van, drawn by two horses, with
lettering on its side and a sly-looking man in a low-crowned bowler hat
sitting on the driver's seat.  And Boxer's stall was empty.

The animals crowded round the van.  "Good-bye, Boxer!" they chorused,
"good-bye!"

"Fools!  Fools!" shouted Benjamin, prancing round them and stamping the
earth with his small hoofs.  "Fools!  Do you not see what is written on
the side of that van?"

That gave the animals pause, and there was a hush.  Muriel began to
spell out the words.  But Benjamin pushed her aside and in the midst of
a deadly silence he read:

"'Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler, Willingdon.
Dealer in Hides and Bone-Meal.  Kennels Supplied.'  Do you not
understand what that means?  They are taking Boxer to the knacker's!"

A cry of horror burst from all the animals.  At this moment the man on
the box whipped up his horses and the van moved out of the yard at a
smart trot.  All the animals followed, crying out at the tops of their
voices.  Clover forced her way to the front.  The van began to gather
speed.  Clover tried to stir her stout limbs to a gallop, and achieved
a canter.  "Boxer!" she cried.  "Boxer!  Boxer!  Boxer!"  And just at
this moment, as though he had heard the uproar outside, Boxer's face,
with the white stripe down his nose, appeared at the small window at
the back of the van.

"Boxer!" cried Clover in a terrible voice.  "Boxer!  Get out!  Get out
quickly!  They are taking you to your death!"

All the animals took up the cry of "Get out, Boxer, get out!"  But the
van was already gathering speed and drawing away from them.  It was
uncertain whether Boxer had understood what Clover had said.  But a
moment later his face disappeared from the window and there was the
sound of a tremendous drumming of hoofs inside the van.  He was trying
to kick his way out.  The time had been when a few kicks from Boxer's
hoofs would have smashed the van to matchwood.  But alas! his strength
had left him; and in a few moments the sound of drumming hoofs grew
fainter and died away.  In desperation the animals began appealing to
the two horses which drew the van to stop.  "Comrades, comrades!" they
shouted.  "Don't take your own brother to his death!"  But the stupid
brutes, too ignorant to realise what was happening, merely set back
their ears and quickened their pace.  Boxer's face did not reappear at
the window.  Too late, someone thought of racing ahead and shutting the
five-barred gate; but in another moment the van was through it and
rapidly disappearing down the road.  Boxer was never seen again.

Three days later it was announced that he had died in the hospital at
Willingdon, in spite of receiving every attention a horse could have.
Squealer came to announce the news to the others.  He had, he said,
been present during Boxer's last hours.

"It was the most affecting sight I have ever seen!" said Squealer,
lifting his trotter and wiping away a tear.  "I was at his bedside at
the very last.  And at the end, almost too weak to speak, he whispered
in my ear that his sole sorrow was to have passed on before the
windmill was finished.  'Forward, comrades!' he whispered.  'Forward in
the name of the Rebellion.  Long live Animal Farm!  Long live Comrade
Napoleon!  Napoleon is always right.'  Those were his very last words,
comrades."

Here Squealer's demeanour suddenly changed.  He fell silent for a
moment, and his little eyes darted suspicious glances from side to side
before he proceeded.

It had come to his knowledge, he said, that a foolish and wicked rumour
had been circulated at the time of Boxer's removal.  Some of the
animals had noticed that the van which took Boxer away was marked
"Horse Slaughterer," and had actually jumped to the conclusion that
Boxer was being sent to the knacker's.  It was almost unbelievable,
said Squealer, that any animal could be so stupid.  Surely, he cried
indignantly, whisking his tail and skipping from side to side, surely
they knew their beloved Leader, Comrade Napoleon, better than that?
But the explanation was really very simple.  The van had previously
been the property of the knacker, and had been bought by the veterinary
surgeon, who had not yet painted the old name out.  That was how the
mistake had arisen.

The animals were enormously relieved to hear this.  And when Squealer
went on to give further graphic details of Boxer's death-bed, the
admirable care he had received, and the expensive medicines for which
Napoleon had paid without a thought as to the cost, their last doubts
disappeared and the sorrow that they felt for their comrade's death was
tempered by the thought that at least he had died happy.

Napoleon himself appeared at the meeting on the following Sunday
morning and pronounced a short oration in Boxer's honour.  It had not
been possible, he said, to bring back their lamented comrade's remains
for interment on the farm, but he had ordered a large wreath to be made
from the laurels in the farmhouse garden and sent down to be placed on
Boxer's grave.  And in a few days' time the pigs intended to hold a
memorial banquet in Boxer's honour.  Napoleon ended his speech with a
reminder of Boxer's two favourite maxims, "I will work harder" and
"Comrade Napoleon is always right"--maxims, he said, which every animal
would do well to adopt as his own.

On the day appointed for the banquet, a grocer's van drove up from
Willingdon and delivered a large wooden crate at the farmhouse.  That
night there was the sound of uproarious singing, which was followed by
what sounded like a violent quarrel and ended at about eleven o'clock
with a tremendous crash of glass.  No one stirred in the farmhouse
before noon on the following day, and the word went round that from
somewhere or other the pigs had acquired the money to buy themselves
another case of whisky.




CHAPTER X

Years passed.  The seasons came and went, the short animal lives fled
by.  A time came when there was no one who remembered the old days
before the Rebellion, except Clover, Benjamin, Moses the raven, and a
number of the pigs.

Muriel was dead; Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher were dead.  Jones too
was dead--he had died in an inebriates' home in another part of the
county.  Snowball was forgotten.  Boxer was forgotten, except by the
few who had known him.  Clover was an old stout mare now, stiff in the
joints and with a tendency to rheumy eyes.  She was two years past the
retiring age, but in fact no animal had ever actually retired.  The
talk of setting aside a corner of the pasture for superannuated animals
had long since been dropped.  Napoleon was now a mature boar of
twenty-four stone.  Squealer was so fat that he could with difficulty
see out of his eyes.  Only old Benjamin was much the same as ever,
except for being a little greyer about the muzzle, and, since Boxer's
death, more morose and taciturn than ever.

There were many more creatures on the farm now, though the increase was
not so great as had been expected in earlier years.  Many animals had
been born to whom the Rebellion was only a dim tradition, passed on by
word of mouth, and others had been bought who had never heard mention
of such a thing before their arrival.  The farm possessed three horses
now besides Clover.  They were fine upstanding beasts, willing workers
and good comrades, but very stupid.  None of them proved able to learn
the alphabet beyond the letter B.  They accepted everything that they
were told about the Rebellion and the principles of Animalism,
especially from Clover, for whom they had an almost filial respect; but
it was doubtful whether they understood very much of it.

The farm was more prosperous now, and better organised: it had even
been enlarged by two fields which had been bought from Mr. Pilkington.
The windmill had been successfully completed at last, and the farm
possessed a threshing machine and a hay elevator of its own, and
various new buildings had been added to it.  Whymper had bought himself
a dogcart.  The windmill, however, had not after all been used for
generating electrical power.  It was used for milling corn, and brought
in a handsome money profit.  The animals were hard at work building yet
another windmill; when that one was finished, so it was said, the
dynamos would be installed.  But the luxuries of which Snowball had
once taught the animals to dream, the stalls with electric light and
hot and cold water, and the three-day week, were no longer talked
about.  Napoleon had denounced such ideas as contrary to the spirit of
Animalism.  The truest happiness, he said, lay in working hard and
living frugally.

Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making
the animals themselves any richer--except, of course, for the pigs and
the dogs.  Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and
so many dogs.  It was not that these creatures did not work, after
their fashion.  There was, as Squealer was never tired of explaining,
endless work in the supervision and organisation of the farm.  Much of
this work was of a kind that the other animals were too ignorant to
understand.  For example, Squealer told them that the pigs had to
expend enormous labours every day upon mysterious things called
"files," "reports," "minutes," and "memoranda."  These were large
sheets of paper which had to be closely covered with writing, and as
soon as they were so covered, they were burnt in the furnace.  This was
of the highest importance for the welfare of the farm, Squealer said.
But still, neither pigs nor dogs produced any food by their own labour;
and there were very many of them, and their appetites were always good.

As for the others, their life, so far as they knew, was as it had
always been.  They were generally hungry, they slept on straw, they
drank from the pool, they laboured in the fields; in winter they were
troubled by the cold, and in summer by the flies.  Sometimes the older
ones among them racked their dim memories and tried to determine
whether in the early days of the Rebellion, when Jones's expulsion was
still recent, things had been better or worse than now.  They could not
remember.  There was nothing with which they could compare their
present lives: they had nothing to go upon except Squealer's lists of
figures, which invariably demonstrated that everything was getting
better and better.  The animals found the problem insoluble; in any
case, they had little time for speculating on such things now.  Only
old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to
know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much
worse--hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the
unalterable law of life.

And yet the animals never gave up hope.  More, they never lost, even
for an instant, their sense of honour and privilege in being members of
Animal Farm.  They were still the only farm in the whole county--in all
England!--owned and operated by animals.  Not one of them, not even the
youngest, not even the newcomers who had been brought from farms ten or
twenty miles away, ever ceased to marvel at that.  And when they heard
the gun booming and saw the green flag fluttering at the masthead,
their hearts swelled with imperishable pride, and the talk turned
always towards the old heroic days, the expulsion of Jones, the writing
of the Seven Commandments, the great battles in which the human
invaders had been defeated.  None of the old dreams had been abandoned.
The Republic of the Animals which Major had foretold, when the green
fields of England should be untrodden by human feet, was still believed
in.  Some day it was coming: it might not be soon, it might not be
within the lifetime of any animal now living, but still it was coming.
Even the tune of _Beasts of England_ was perhaps hummed secretly here
and there: at any rate, it was a fact that every animal on the farm
knew it, though no one would have dared to sing it aloud.  It might be
that their lives were hard and that not all of their hopes had been
fulfilled; but they were conscious that they were not as other animals.
If they went hungry, it was not from feeding tyrannical human beings;
if they worked hard, at least they worked for themselves.  No creature
among them went upon two legs.  No creature called any other creature
"Master."  All animals were equal.

One day in early summer Squealer ordered the sheep to follow him, and
led them out to a piece of waste ground at the other end of the farm,
which had become overgrown with birch saplings.  The sheep spent the
whole day there browsing at the leaves under Squealer's supervision.
In the evening he returned to the farmhouse himself, but, as it was
warm weather, told the sheep to stay where they were.  It ended by
their remaining there for a whole week, during which time the other
animals saw nothing of them.  Squealer was with them for the greater
part of every day.  He was, he said, teaching them to sing a new song,
for which privacy was needed.

It was just after the sheep had returned, on a pleasant evening when
the animals had finished work and were making their way back to the
farm buildings, that the terrified neighing of a horse sounded from the
yard.  Startled, the animals stopped in their tracks.  It was Clover's
voice.  She neighed again, and all the animals broke into a gallop and
rushed into the yard.  Then they saw what Clover had seen.

It was a pig walking on his hind legs.

Yes, it was Squealer.  A little awkwardly, as though not quite used to
supporting his considerable bulk in that position, but with perfect
balance, he was strolling across the yard.  And a moment later, out
from the door of the farmhouse came a long file of pigs, all walking on
their hind legs.  Some did it better than others, one or two were even
a trifle unsteady and looked as though they would have liked the
support of a stick, but every one of them made his way right round the
yard successfully.  And finally there was a tremendous baying of dogs
and a shrill crowing from the black cockerel, and out came Napoleon
himself, majestically upright, casting haughty glances from side to
side, and with his dogs gambolling round him.

He carried a whip in his trotter.

There was a deadly silence.  Amazed, terrified, huddling together, the
animals watched the long line of pigs march slowly round the yard.  It
was as though the world had turned upside-down.  Then there came a
moment when the first shock had worn off and when, in spite of
everything--in spite of their terror of the dogs, and of the habit,
developed through long years, of never complaining, never criticising,
no matter what happened--they might have uttered some word of protest.
But just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst out
into a tremendous bleating of--

"Four legs good, two legs _better_!  Four legs good, two legs _better_!
Four legs good, two legs _better_!"

It went on for five minutes without stopping.  And by the time the
sheep had quieted down, the chance to utter any protest had passed, for
the pigs had marched back into the farmhouse.

Benjamin felt a nose nuzzling at his shoulder.  He looked round.  It
was Clover.  Her old eyes looked dimmer than ever.  Without saying
anything, she tugged gently at his mane and led him round to the end of
the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written.  For a minute
or two they stood gazing at the tarred wall with its white lettering.

"My sight is failing," she said finally.  "Even when I was young I
could not have read what was written there.  But it appears to me that
that wall looks different.  Are the Seven Commandments the same as they
used to be, Benjamin?"

For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read out to her
what was written on the wall.  There was nothing there now except a
single Commandment.  It ran:

            ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
  BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS


After that it did not seem strange when next day the pigs who were
supervising the work of the farm all carried whips in their trotters.
It did not seem strange to learn that the pigs had bought themselves a
wireless set, were arranging to install a telephone, and had taken out
subscriptions to _John Bull_, _Tit-Bits_, and the _Daily Mirror_.  It
did not seem strange when Napoleon was seen strolling in the farmhouse
garden with a pipe in his mouth--no, not even when the pigs took Mr.
Jones's clothes out of the wardrobes and put them on, Napoleon himself
appearing in a black coat, ratcatcher breeches, and leather leggings,
while his favourite sow appeared in the watered silk dress which Mrs.
Jones had been used to wear on Sundays.

A week later, in the afternoon, a number of dog-carts drove up to the
farm.  A deputation of neighbouring farmers had been invited to make a
tour of inspection.  They were shown all over the farm, and expressed
great admiration for everything they saw, especially the windmill.  The
animals were weeding the turnip field.  They worked diligently, hardly
raising their faces from the ground, and not knowing whether to be more
frightened of the pigs or of the human visitors.

That evening loud laughter and bursts of singing came from the
farmhouse.  And suddenly, at the sound of the mingled voices, the
animals were stricken with curiosity.  What could be happening in
there, now that for the first time animals and human beings were
meeting on terms of equality?  With one accord they began to creep as
quietly as possible into the farmhouse garden.

At the gate they paused, half frightened to go on, but Clover led the
way in.  They tiptoed up to the house, and such animals as were tall
enough peered in at the dining-room window.  There, round the long
table, sat half a dozen farmers and half a dozen of the more eminent
pigs, Napoleon himself occupying the seat of honour at the head of the
table.  The pigs appeared completely at ease in their chairs.  The
company had been enjoying a game of cards, but had broken off for the
moment, evidently in order to drink a toast.  A large jug was
circulating, and the mugs were being refilled with beer.  No one
noticed the wondering faces of the animals that gazed in at the window.

Mr. Pilkington, of Foxwood, had stood up, his mug in his hand.  In a
moment, he said, he would ask the present company to drink a toast.
But before doing so, there were a few words that he felt it incumbent
upon him to say.

It was a source of great satisfaction to him, he said--and, he was
sure, to all others present--to feel that a long period of mistrust and
misunderstanding had now come to an end.  There had been a time--not
that he, or any of the present company, had shared such sentiments--but
there had been a time when the respected proprietors of Animal Farm had
been regarded, he would not say with hostility, but perhaps with a
certain measure of misgiving, by their human neighbours.  Unfortunate
incidents had occurred, mistaken ideas had been current.  It had been
felt that the existence of a farm owned and operated by pigs was
somehow abnormal and was liable to have an unsettling effect in the
neighbourhood.  Too many farmers had assumed, without due enquiry, that
on such a farm a spirit of licence and indiscipline would prevail.
They had been nervous about the effects upon their own animals, or even
upon their human employees.  But all such doubts were now dispelled.
Today he and his friends had visited Animal Farm and inspected every
inch of it with their own eyes, and what did they find?  Not only the
most up-to-date methods, but a discipline and an orderliness which
should be an example to all farmers everywhere.  He believed that he
was right in saying that the lower animals on Animal Farm did more work
and received less food than any animals in the county.  Indeed, he and
his fellow-visitors today had observed many features which they
intended to introduce on their own farms immediately.

He would end his remarks, he said, by emphasising once again the
friendly feelings that subsisted, and ought to subsist, between Animal
Farm and its neighbours.  Between pigs and human beings there was not,
and there need not be, any clash of interests whatever.  Their
struggles and their difficulties were one.  Was not the labour problem
the same everywhere?  Here it became apparent that Mr. Pilkington was
about to spring some carefully prepared witticism on the company, but
for a moment he was too overcome by amusement to be able to utter it.
After much choking, during which his various chins turned purple, he
managed to get it out: "If you have your lower animals to contend
with," he said, "we have our lower classes!"!  This _bon mot_ set the
table in a roar; and Mr. Pilkington once again congratulated the pigs
on the low rations, the long working hours, and the general absence of
pampering which he had observed on Animal Farm.

And now, he said finally, he would ask the company to rise to their
feet and make certain that their glasses were full.  "Gentlemen,"
concluded Mr. Pilkington, "gentlemen, I give you a toast: To the
prosperity of Animal Farm!"

There was enthusiastic cheering and stamping of feet.  Napoleon was so
gratified that he left his place and came round the table to clink his
mug against Mr. Pilkington's before emptying it.  When the cheering had
died down, Napoleon, who had remained on his feet, intimated that he
too had a few words to say.

Like all of Napoleon's speeches, it was short and to the point.  He
too, he said, was happy that the period of misunderstanding was at an
end.  For a long time there had been rumours--circulated, he had reason
to think, by some malignant enemy--that there was something subversive
and even revolutionary in the outlook of himself and his colleagues.
They had been credited with attempting to stir up rebellion among the
animals on neighbouring farms.  Nothing could be further from the
truth!  Their sole wish, now and in the past, was to live at peace and
in normal business relations with their neighbours.  This farm which he
had the honour to control, he added, was a co-operative enterprise.
The title-deeds, which were in his own possession, were owned by the
pigs jointly.

He did not believe, he said, that any of the old suspicions still
lingered, but certain changes had been made recently in the routine of
the farm which should have the effect of promoting confidence still
further.  Hitherto the animals on the farm had had a rather foolish
custom of addressing one another as "Comrade."  This was to be
suppressed.  There had also been a very strange custom, whose origin
was unknown, of marching every Sunday morning past a boar's skull which
was nailed to a post in the garden.  This, too, would be suppressed,
and the skull had already been buried.  His visitors might have
observed, too, the green flag which flew from the masthead.  If so,
they would perhaps have noted that the white hoof and horn with which
it had previously been marked had now been removed.  It would be a
plain green flag from now onwards.

He had only one criticism, he said, to make of Mr. Pilkington's
excellent and neighbourly speech.  Mr. Pilkington had referred
throughout to "Animal Farm."  He could not of course know--for he,
Napoleon, was only now for the first time announcing it--that the name
"Animal Farm" had been abolished.  Henceforward the farm was to be
known as "The Manor Farm"--which, he believed, was its correct and
original name.

"Gentlemen," concluded Napoleon, "I will give you the same toast as
before, but in a different form.  Fill your glasses to the brim.
Gentlemen, here is my toast: To the prosperity of The Manor Farm!"

There was the same hearty cheering as before, and the mugs were emptied
to the dregs.  But as the animals outside gazed at the scene, it seemed
to them that some strange thing was happening.  What was it that had
altered in the faces of the pigs?  Clover's old dim eyes flitted from
one face to another.  Some of them had five chins, some had four, some
had three.  But what was it that seemed to be melting and changing?
Then, the applause having come to an end, the company took up their
cards and continued the game that had been interrupted, and the animals
crept silently away.

But they had not gone twenty yards when they stopped short.  An uproar
of voices was coming from the farmhouse.  They rushed back and looked
through the window again.  Yes, a violent quarrel was in progress.
There were shoutings, hangings on the table, sharp suspicious glances,
furious denials.  The source of the trouble appeared to be that
Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington had each played an ace of spades
simultaneously.

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike.  No
question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs.  The
creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from
pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.




[End of Animal Farm, by George Orwell]
