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Title: Animal Farm
Author: George Orwell
Date: 1945
Language: en
Topics: fiction, Soviet Union, satire, Russian Revolution, not-anarchist
Source: Project Gutenberg of Australia. [[http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100011h.html]]
Notes: Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition.

George Orwell

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 pop-holes. 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 Cucaracha’. The words ran:

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 duty 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

tiptoed 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

Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

No animal shall wear clothes.

No animal shall sleep in a bed.

No animal shall drink alcohol.

No animal shall kill any other animal.

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 on 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 around 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 cowshed, 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 Stockbreeder’ 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 carried 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 slogan, “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 them selves 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 toward 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 seedbeds, 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 cow-shed, in the henhouses, in the vegetable garden, and

found traces of Snowball almost everywhere. He would put his snout to

the ground, give several deep sniffs, ad 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’s 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 this

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:

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 beingdone 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 banknotes 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 banknotes 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 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’re 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

country. 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 with in 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 tatted 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 wearing 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, bangings 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.

THE END

November 1943–February 1944