Animal Farm

A Fairy Story By George Orwell

MR. JONES, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for

the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.

With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to

side, he lurched across the yard, kicked off his boots at the

back door, drew himself a last glass of beer from the barrel in

the scullery, and made his way up to bed, where Mrs. Jones was

already snoring.

As soon as the light in the bedroom went out there was a

stirring and a fluttering all through the farm buildings. Word

had gone round during the day that old Major, the prize Middle

White boar, had had a strange dream on the previous night and

wished to communicate it to the other animals. It had been agreed

that they should all meet in the big barn as soon as Mr. Jones

was safely out of the way. Old Major (so he was always called,

though the name under which he had been exhibited was Willingdon

Beauty ) was so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was

quite ready to lose an hour's sleep in order to hear what he had

to say.

At one end of the big barn, on a sort of raised platform,

Major was already ensconced on his bed of straw, under a lantern

which hung from a beam. He was twelve years old and had lately

grown rather stout, but he was still a majestic-looking pig, with

a wise and benevolent appearance in spite of the fact that his

tushes had never been cut. Before long the other animals began to

arrive and make themselves comfortable after their different

fashions. First came the three dogs, Bluebell, Jessie, and

Pincher , and then the pigs, who settled down in the straw

immediately in front of the platform. The hens perched themselves

on the window-sills, the pigeons fluttered up to the rafters, the

sheep and cows lay down behind the pigs and began to chew the

cud. The two cart-horses, Boxer and Clover, came in together,

walking very slowly and setting down their vast hairy hoofs with

great care lest there should be some small animal concealed in

the straw. Clover was a stout motherly mare approaching middle

life, who had never quite got her figure back after her fourth

foal. Boxer was an enormous beast, nearly eighteen hands high,

and as strong as any two ordinary horses put together. A white

stripe down his nose gave him a somewhat stupid appearance, and

in fact he was not of first-rate intelligence, but he was

universally respected for his steadiness of character and

tremendous powers of work. After the horses came Muriel, the

white goat, and Benjamin, the donkey. Benjamin was the oldest

animal on the farm, and the worst tempered. He seldom talked, and

when he did, it was usually to make some cynical remark—for

instance, he would say that God had given him a tail to keep the

flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no

flies. Alone among the animals on the farm he never laughed. If

asked why, he would say that he saw nothing to laugh at.

Nevertheless, without openly admitting it, he was devoted to

Boxer; the two of them usually spent their Sundays together in

the small paddock beyond the orchard, grazing side by side and

never speaking.

The two horses had just lain down when a brood of ducklings,

which had lost their mother, filed into the barn, cheeping feebly

and wandering from side to side to find some place where they

would not be trodden on. Clover made a sort of wall round them

with her great foreleg, and the ducklings nestled down inside it

and promptly fell asleep. At the last moment Mollie, the foolish,

pretty white mare who drew Mr. Jones's trap, came mincing

daintily in, chewing at a lump of sugar. She took a place near

the front and began flirting her white mane, hoping to draw

attention to the red ribbons it was plaited with. Last of all

came the cat, who looked round, as usual, for the warmest place,

and finally squeezed herself in between Boxer and Clover; there

she purred contentedly throughout Major's speech without

listening to a word of what he was saying.

All the animals were now present except Moses, the tame

raven, who slept on a perch behind the back door. When Major saw

that they had all made themselves comfortable and were waiting

attentively, he cleared his throat and began:

"Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream

that I had last night. But I will come to the dream later. I have

something else to say first. I do not think, comrades, that I

shall be with you for many months longer, and before I die, I

feel it my duty to pass on to you such wisdom as I have acquired.

I have had a long life, I have had much time for thought as I lay

alone in my stall, and I think I may say that I understand the

nature of life on this earth as well as any animal now living. It

is about this that I wish to speak to you.

"Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let

us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are

born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in

our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to

work to the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that

our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous

cruelty. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or

leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is fr ee.

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

ol d 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

dog s 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. A1most 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 m y 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:

Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,

Beasts of every land and clime,

Hearken to my joyful tidings

Of the golden future time.

Soon or late the day is coming,

Tyrant Man shall be o'erthrown,

And the fruitful fields of England

Shall be trod by beasts alone.

Rings shall vanish from our noses,

And the harness from our back,

Bit and spur shall rust forever,

Cruel whips no more shall crack.

Riches more than mind can picture,

Wheat and barley, oats and hay,

Clover, beans, and mangel-wurzels

Shall be ours upon that day.

Bright will shine the fields of England,

Purer shall its waters be,

Sweeter yet shall blow its breezes

On the day that sets us free.

For that day we all must labour,

Though we die before it break;

Cows and horses, geese and turkeys,

All must toil for freedom's sake.

Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,

Beasts of every land and clime,

Hearken well and spread my tidings

Of the golden future time.

The singing of this song threw the animals into the wildest

excitement. Almost before Major had reached the end, they had

begun singing it for themselves. Even the stupidest of them had

already picked up the tune and a few of the words, and as for the

clever ones, such as the pigs and dogs, they had the entire song

by heart within a few minutes. And then, after a few preliminary

tries, the whole farm burst out into Beasts of England in

tremendous unison. The cows lowed it, the dogs whined it, the

sheep bleated it, the horses whinnied it, the ducks quacked it.

They were so delighted with the song that they sang it right

through five times in succession, and might have continued

singing it all night if they had not been interrupted.

Unfortunately, the uproar awoke Mr. Jones, who sprang out of

bed, making sure that there was a fox in the yard. He seized the

gun which always stood in a corner of his bedroom, and let fly a

charge of number 6 shot into the darkness. The pellets buried

themselves in the wall of the barn and the meeting broke up

hurriedly. Everyone fled to his own sleeping-place. The birds

jumped on to their perches, the animals settled down in the

straw, and the whole farm was asleep in a moment.

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

porke rs. 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 sho uld 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 unf

ed. 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

pig s 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

matt resses, the looking-glasses, the horsehair sofa, the

Brussels carpet, the lithograph of Queen Victoria over the

drawing-room mantelpiece. They were lust 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 woul d form an unalterable law by which all the

animals on Animal Farm must live for ever after. With some

difficulty (for it is not easy for a pig to balance himself on a

ladder) Snowball climbed up and set to work, with Squealer a few

rungs below him holding the paint-pot. The Commandments were

written on the tarred wall in great white letters that could be

read thirty yards away. They ran thus:

THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

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

3. No animal shall wear clothes.

4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.

5. No animal shall drink alcohol.

6. No animal shall kill any other animal.

7. All animals are equal.

It was very neatly written, and except that "friend" was

written "freind" and one of the "S's" was the wrong way round,

the spelling was correct all the way through. Snowball read it

aloud for the benefit of the others. All the animals nodded in

complete agreement, and the cleverer ones at once began to learn

the Commandments by heart.

"Now, comrades," cried Snowball, throwing down the

paint-brush, "to the hayfield! Let us make it a point of honour

to get in the harvest more quickly than Jones and his men could

do."

But at this moment the three cows, who had seemed uneasy for

some time past, set up a loud lowing. They had not been milked

for twenty-four hours, and their udders were almost bursting.

After a little thought, the pigs sent for buckets and milked the

cows fairly successfully, their trotters being well adapted to

this task. Soon there were five buckets of frothing creamy milk

at which many of the animals looked with considerable interest.

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

"Jones used sometimes to mix some of it in our mash," said

one of the hens.

"Never mind the milk, comrades!" cried Napoleon, placing

himself in front of the buckets. "That will be attended to. The

harvest is more important. Comrade Snowball will lead the way. I

shall follow in a few minutes. Forward, comrades! The hay is

waiting."

So the animals trooped down to the hayfield to begin the

harvest, and when they came back in the evening it was noticed

that the milk had disappeared.

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

supervi sed 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 ins tance, 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 shou lders. 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. A nd 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 sl ow 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 8, morning. The flag was green, Snowball

explained, to represent the green fields of England, while the

hoof and horn si gnified 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 talk ing 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 wh ole 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 th e 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 f ull 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.

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 wh ich

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, perpetuall y

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 w ere 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

re capture 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. S nowball 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 bol t 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.

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 brillia nt 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 whi ch 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 wi th 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 wor k. 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, uttere d 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 w ould 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 disappro

val, 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? Su ppose 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 fo r 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 th e 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.

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

ploughi ng 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 d id 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-qu arters 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 do ne 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, b esides 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 la ter 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 si

lenced 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 he

rself 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 t ell 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 c

ome 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 hi m 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 Snowb all. '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 o pinion 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!"

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 destroyer 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 i.ne the quarry was full of snowdrifts and

nothing could be done. Some progress was made in the dry frosty

we ather 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 u se 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-s hed 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.

Thei r 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, an d 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

Snowb all 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 ab out 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 t he 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 t o

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 f ro, 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 forwar d 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 y ou 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 an d 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.

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 refus ed 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 wh o 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 entit led Comrade Napoleon, which was composed by

Minimus and which ran as follows:

Friend of fatherless!

Fountain of happiness!

Lord of the swill-bucket! Oh, how my soul is on

Fire when I gaze at thy

Calm and commanding eye,

Like the sun in the sky,

Comrade Napoleon!

Thou are the giver of

All that thy creatures love,

Full belly twice a day, clean straw to roll upon;

Every beast great or small

Sleeps at peace in his stall,

Thou watchest over all,

Comrade Napoleon!

Had I a sucking-pig,

Ere he had grown as big

Even as a pint bottle or as a rolling-pin,

He should have learned to be

Faithful and true to thee,

Yes, his first squeak should be

"Comrade Napoleon!"

Napoleon approved of this poem and caused it to be inscribed

on the wall of the big barn, at the opposite end from the Seven

Commandments. It was surmounted by a portrait of Napoleon, in

profile, executed by Squealer in white paint.

Meanwhile, through the agency of Whymper, Napoleon was

engaged in complicated negotiations with Frederick and

Pilkington. The pile of timber was still unsold. Of the two,

Frederick was the more anxious to get hold of it, but he would

not offer a reasonable price. At the same time there were renewed

rumours that Frederick and his men were plotting to attack Animal

Farm and to destroy the windmill, the building of which had

aroused furious jealousy in him. Snowball was known to be still

skulking on Pinchf ield 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, an d 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 s tarved his cows, he had killed a dog by throwing

it into the furnace, he amused himself in the evenings by making

cocks fight with splinters of razor-blade tied to their spurs.

The animals' blood boiled with rage when they heard of these

things being done to their comrades, and sometimes they clamoured

to be allowed to go out in a body and attack Pinchfield Farm,

drive out the humans, and set the animals free. But Squealer

counselled them to avoid rash actions and trust in Comrade

Napoleon's strategy.

Nevertheless, feeling against Frederick continued to run

high. One Sunday morning Napoleon appeared in the barn and

explained that he had never at any time contemplated selling the

pile of timber to Frederick; he considered it beneath his

dignity, he said, to have dealings with scoundrels of that

description. The pigeons who were still sent out to spread

tidings of the Rebellion were forbidden to set foot anywhere on

Foxwood, and were also ordered to drop their former slogan of

"Death to Humanity" in fa vour 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 "An imal 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 masterp iece, 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 win dmill, 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

terribl e 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 Fox wood. 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

instruct ed 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 ston es 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, speeche s, 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 in doors

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

anima ls 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."

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 wa s 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 diffe rence, 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 o f 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,

w ith 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 occasi on 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 agai n

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

Benjamin7 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 sp end 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 sh

outed. "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 th rough 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, C omrade 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.

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 droppe d.

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 bey

ond 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. T he 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, S quealer 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 alw ays 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

swelle d 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 creatur e 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

fi nally 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 tho ugh 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, TitBits,

and the Daily Mirror. It did not seem strange when Napoleon was

seen strolling in the farmhouse garden with a pipe in his

mouth—no, not even when the pigs took Mr. Jones's clothes out of

the wardrobes and put them on, Napoleon himself appearing in a

black coat, ratcatcher breeches, and leather leggings, while his

favourite sow appeared in the watered silk dress which Mrs. Jones

had been used to wear on Sundays.

A week later, in the afternoon, a number of dogcarts 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 dr

ink 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, m istaken 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 insp ected 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 overcom e 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 stiff 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.

1946