Murder On The Orient Express 01-10

PART I
THE FACTS

1. AN IMPORTANT PASSENGER ON THE
TAURUS EXPRESS
It was five o'clock on a winter's morning in Syria. Alongside the
platform at Aleppo stood the train grandly designated in railway guides
as the Taurus Express. It consisted of a kitchen and dining-car, a
sleeping-car and two local coaches.
By the step leading up into the sleeping-car stood a young French
lieutenant, resplendent in uniform conversing, with a small man
muffled up to the ears of whom nothing was visible but a pink-tipped
nose and the two points of an upward-curled moustache.
It was freezingly cold, and this job of seeing off a distinguished
stranger was not one to be envied, but Lieutenant Dubose performed
his part manfully. Graceful phrases fell from his lips in polished
French. Not that he knew what it was all about. There had been
rumours, of course, as there always were in such cases. The
General's—his General's—temper had grown worse and worse. And
then there had come this Belgian stranger—all the way from England,
it seemed. There had been a week—a week of curious tensity. And then
certain things had happened. A very distinguished officer had
committed suicide, another had suddenly resigned, anxious faces had
suddenly lost their anxiety, certain military precautions were relaxed.
And the General, Lieutenant Dubose's own particular General, had
suddenly looked ten years younger.

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Dubose had overheard part of a conversation between him and the
stranger. "You have saved us, mon cher," said the General emotionally,
his great white moustache trembling as he spoke. "You have saved the
honour of the French Army—you have averted much bloodshed! How
can I thank you for acceding to my request? To have come so far—"
To which the stranger (by name M. Hercule Poirot) had made a
fitting reply including the phrase—"But indeed, do 1 not remember that
once you saved my life?" And then the General had made another
fitting reply to that, disclaiming any merit for that past service; and
with more mention of France, of Belgium, of glory, of honour and of
such kindred things they had embraced each other heartily and the
conversation had ended.
As to what it had all been about. Lieutenant Dubose was still in the
dark, but to him had been delegated the duty of seeing off M. Poirot by
the Taurus Express, and he was carrying it out with all the zeal and
ardour befitting a young officer with a promising career ahead of him.
"To-day is Sunday," said Lieutenant Dubose. "Tomorrow, Monday
evening, you will be in Stamboul."
It was not the first time he had made this observation. Conversations
on the platform, before the departure of a train, are apt to be somewhat
repetitive in character.
"That is so," agreed M. Poirot.
"And you intend to remain there a few days, I think?"
"Mais oui. Stamboul, it is a city I have never visited. It would be a
pity to pass through—comme 9 a." He snapped his fingers descriptively.
"Nothing presses—I shall remain there as a tourist for a few days."
"La Sainte Sophie, it is very fine," said Lieutenant Dubose, who had
never seen it.
A cold wind came whistling down the platform. Both men shivered.
Lieutenant Dubose managed to cast a surreptitious glance at his watch.
Five minutes to five—only five minutes more!
Fancying that the other man had noticed his glance, he hastened once
more into speech.
"There are few people travelling this time of year," he said, glancing
up at the windows of the sleeping-car above them.

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"That is so," agreed M. Poirot.
"Let us hope you will not be snowed up in the Taurus!"
"That happens?"
"It has occurred, yes. Not this year, as yet."
"Let us hope, then," said M. Poirot. "The weather reports from
Europe, they are bad.
"Very bad. In the Balkans there is much snow."
"In Germany, too, I have heard."
"Eh bien," said Lieutenant Dubose hastily as another pause seemed
to be about to occur. "Tomorrow evening at seven-forty you will be in
Constantinople."
"Yes," said M. Poirot, and went on desperately, "La Sainte Sophie, I
have heard it is very fine."
"Magnificent, I believe."
Above their heads the blinds of one of the sleeping-car
compartments was pushed aside and a young woman looked out.
Mary Debenham had had little sleep since she left Baghdad on the
preceding Thursday. Neither in the train to Kirkuk, nor in the Rest
House at Mosul, nor last night on the train had she slept properly. Now,
weary of lying wakeful in the hot stuffiness of her overheated
compartment, she got up and peered out.
This must be Aleppo. Nothing to see, of course. Just a long, poorly
lighted platform with loud, furious altercations in Arabic going on
somewhere. Two men below her window were talking French. One was
a French officer, the other was a little man with enormous moustaches.
She smiled faintly. She had never seen anyone quite so heavily muffled
up. It must be very cold outside. That was why they heated the train so
terribly. She tried to force the window down lower, but it would not go.
The Wagon Lit conductor had come up to the two men. The train
was about to depart, he said. Monsieur had better mount. The little man
removed his hat. What an egg-shaped head he had! In spite of her
preoccupations Mary Debenham smiled. A ridiculous-looking little
man. The sort of little man one could never take seriously.

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Lieutenant Dubose was saying his parting speech. He had thought it
out beforehand and had kept it till the last minute. It was a very
beautiful, polished speech.
Not to be outdone, M. Poirot replied in kind. ...
"En voiture, Monsieur," said the Wagon Lit conductor. With an air
of infinite reluctance M. Poirot climbed aboard the train. The conductor
climbed after him. M. Poirot waved his hand. Lieutenant Dubose came
to the salute. The train, with a terrific jerk, moved slowly forward.
"Enfin!" murmured M. Hercule Poirot.
"Brrrrrrrr," said Lieutenant Dubose, realising to the full how cold he
was.
"Voila, Monsieur!" The conductor displayed to Poirot with a
dramatic gesture the beauty of his sleeping compartment and the neat
arrangement of his luggage. "The little valise of Monsieur, I have put it
here."
His outstretched hand was suggestive. Hercule Poirot placed in it a
folded note.
"Merci, Monsieur." The conductor became brisk and business-like.
"I have the tickets of Monsieur. I will also take the passport, please.
Monsieur breaks his journey in Stamboul, I understand?"
M. Poirot assented. "There are not many people travelling, I
imagine?" he said.
"No, Monsieur. I have only two other passengers—both English. A
Colonel from India and a young English lady from Baghdad. Monsieur
requires anything?"
Monsieur demanded a small bottle of Perrier.
Five o'clock in the morning is an awkward time to board a train.
There were still two hours before dawn. Conscious of an inadequate
night's sleep, and of a delicate mission successfully accomplished, M.
Poirot curled up in a corner and fell asleep.
When he awoke it was half-past nine he sallied forth to the restaurant
car in search of hot coffee.
There was only one occupant at the moment, obviously the young
English lady referred to by the conductor. She was tall, slim and dark—

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perhaps twenty-eight years of age. There was a kind of cool efficiency
in the way she was eating her breakfast and in the way she called to the
attendant to bring her more coffee which bespoke a knowledge of the
world and of travelling. She wore a dark-coloured travelling dress of
some thin material eminently suitable for the heated atmosphere of the
train.
M. Hercule Poirot, having nothing better to do, amused himself by
studying her without appearing to do so.
She was, he judged, the kind of young woman who could take care
of herself with perfect ease wherever she went. She had poise and
efficiency. He rather liked the severe regularity of her features and the
delicate pallor of her skin. He liked the burnished black head with its
neat waves of hair, and her eyes—cool, impersonal and grey. But she
was, he decided, just a little too efficient to be what he called "jolie
femme."
Presently another person entered the restaurant car. This was a tall
man of between forty and fifty, lean of figure, brown of skin, with hair
slightly grizzled round the temples.
"The Colonel from India," said Poirot to himself.
The newcomer gave a little bow to the girl. "Morning, Miss
Debenham."
"Good morning. Colonel Arbuthnot."
The Colonel was standing with a hand on the chair opposite her.
"Any objections?" he asked.
"Of course not. Sit down."
"Well, you know, breakfast isn't always a chatty meal."
"I should hope not. But I don't bite."
The Colonel sat down. "Boy," he called in peremptory fashion.
He gave an order for eggs and coffee.
His eyes rested for a moment on Hercule Poirot, but they passed on
indifferently. Poirot, reading the English mind correctly, knew that he
had said to himself. "Only some damned foreigner."
True to their nationality, the two English people were not chatty.
They exchanged a few brief remarks and presently the girl rose and
went back to her compartment.

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At lunch time the other two again shared a table and again they both
completely ignored the third passenger. Their conversation was more
animated than at breakfast. Colonel Arbuthnot talked of the Punjab and
occasionally asked the girl a few questions about Baghdad where, it
became clear, she had been in a post as governess. In the course of
conversation they discovered some mutual friends, which had the
immediate effect of making them more friendly and less stiff. They
discussed old Tommy Somebody and old Reggie Someone Else. The
Colonel inquired whether she was going straight through to England or
whether she was stopping in Stamboul.
"No, I'm going straight on."
"Isn't that rather a pity?"
"I came out this way two years ago and spent three days in Stamboul
then."
"Oh! I see. Well, I may say I'm very glad you are going right
through, because I am."
He made a kind of clumsy little bow, flushing a little as he did so.
"He is susceptible, our Colonel," thought Hercule Poirot to himself
with some amusement. "The train, it is as dangerous as a sea voyage!"
Miss Debenham said evenly that that would be very nice. Her
manner was slightly repressive.
The Colonel, Hercule Poirot noticed, accompanied her back to her
compartment. Later they passed through the magnificent scenery of the
Taurus. As they looked down towards the Cilician Gates, standing in
the corridor side by side, a sigh came suddenly from the girl. Poirot was
standing near them and heard her murmur:
"It's so beautiful! I wish—I wish—"
"Yes?"
"I wish I could enjoy it!"
Arbuthnot did not answer. The square line of his jaw seemed a little
sterner and grimmer.
"I wish to Heaven you were out of all this," he said.
"Hush, please. Hush."
"Oh! it's all right." He shot a slightly annoyed glance in Poirot's
direction. Then he went on: "But I don't like the idea of your being a

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governess—at the beck and call of tyrannical mothers and their
tiresome brats."
She laughed with just a hint of uncontrol in the sound.
"Oh! you mustn't think that. The downtrodden governess is quite an
exploded myth. I can assure you that it's the parents who are afraid of
being bullied by me."
They said no more. Arbuthnot was, perhaps, ashamed of his
outburst.
"Rather an odd little comedy that I watch here," said Poirot to
himself thoughtfully.
He was to remember that thought of his later.
They arrived at Konya that night about half-past eleven. The two
English travellers got out to stretch their legs, pacing up and down the
snowy platform.
M. Poirot was content to watch the teeming activity of the station
through a window pane. After about ten minutes, however, he decided
that a breath of air would not perhaps be a bad thing after all. He made
careful preparations, wrapping himself in several coats and mufflers
and encasing his neat boots in goloshes. Thus attired, he descended
gingerly to the platform and began to pace its length. He walked out
beyond the engine.
It was the voices which gave him the clue to the two indistinct
figures standing in the shadow of a traffic van. Arbuthnot was
speaking.
"Mary—"
The girl interrupted him.
"Not now. Not now. When it's all over. When it's behind us—then—
M
Discreetly M. Poirot turned away. He wondered. ...
He would hardly have recognised the cool, efficient voice of Miss
Debenham. ...
"Curious," he said to himself.
The next day he wondered whether, perhaps, they had quarrelled.
They spoke little to each other. The girl, he thought, looked anxious.
There were dark circles under her eyes.

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It was about half-past two in the afternoon when the train came to a
halt. Heads were poked out of windows. A little knot of men were
clustered by the side of the line looking and pointing at something
under the dining-car.
Poirot leaned out and spoke to the Wagon Lit conductor who was
hurrying past. The man answered, and Poirot drew back his head and,
turning, almost collided with Mary Debenham who was standing just
behind him.
"What is the matter?" she asked rather breathlessly in French. "Why
are we stopping?"
"It is nothing, Mademoiselle. It is something that has caught fire
under the dining-car. Nothing serious. It is put out. They are now
repairing the damage. There is no danger, I assure you."
She made a little abrupt gesture, as though she were waving the idea
of danger aside as something completely unimportant.
"Yes, yes, I understand that. But the time!"
"The time?"
"Yes, this will delay us."
"It is possible—yes," agreed Poirot.
"But we can't afford delay! This train is due in at 6.55, and one has
to cross the Bosphorus and catch the Simplon Orient Express on the
other side at nine o'clock. If there is an hour or two of delay we shall
miss the connection."
"It is possible, yes," he admitted.
He looked at her curiously. The hand that held the window bar was
not quite steady; her lips, too, were trembling.
"Does it matter to you very much, Mademoiselle?" he asked.
"Yes. Yes, it does. I—I must catch that train."
She turned away from him and went down the corridor to join
Colonel Arbuthnot.
Her anxiety, however, was needless. Ten minutes later the train
started again. It arrived at Hayda-passar only five minutes late, having
made up time on the journey.

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The Bosphorus was rough and M. Poirot did not enjoy the crossing.
He was separated from his travelling companions on the boat and did
not see them again.
On arrival at the Galata Bridge he drove straight to the Tokatlian
Hotel.

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2. THE TOKATLIAN HOTEL
At the Tokatlian, Hercule Poirot asked for a room with bath. Then he
stepped over to the concierge's desk and inquired for letters.
There were three waiting for him and a telegram. His eyebrows rose
a little at the sight of the telegram. It was unexpected.
He opened it in his usual neat, unhurried fashion. The printed words
stood out clearly.
Development you predicted in Kassner case has come
unexpectedly. Please return immediately.
"Voila ce qui est embetant," muttered Poirot vexedly. He glanced up
at the clock. "I shall have to go on to-night," he said to the concierge.
"At what time does the Simplon Orient leave?"
"At nine o'clock, Monsieur."
"Can you get me a sleeper?"
"Assuredly, Monsieur. There is no difficulty this time of year. The
trains are almost empty. First-class or second?"
"First."
"Tres bien, Monsieur. How far are you going?"
"To London."
"Bien, Monsieur. I will get you a ticket to London and reserve your
sleeping-car accommodation in the Stamboul-Calais coach."
Poirot glanced at the clock again. It was ten minutes to eight. "I have
time to dine?"
"But assuredly, Monsieur."
The little Belgian nodded. He went over and cancelled his room
order and crossed the hall to the restaurant.

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As he was giving his order to the waiter, a hand was placed on his
shoulder.
"Ah, mon vieux, but this is an unexpected pleasure!" said a voice
behind him.
The speaker was a short stout elderly man, his hair cut en brosse. He
was smiling delightedly.
Poiret sprang up.
"M. Bouc!"
"M. Poirot!"
M. Bouc was a Belgian, a director of the Compagnie Internationale
des Wagons Lits, and his acquaintance with the former star of the
Belgian police force dated back many years.
"You find yourself far from home, mon cher," said M. Bouc.
"A little affair in Syria."
"Ah! and you return home—when?"
"To-night."
"Splendid! I, too. That is to say, I go as far as Lausanne, where I
have affairs. You travel on the Simplon Orient, I presume?"
"Yes. I have just asked them to get me a sleeper. It was my intention
to remain here some days, but I have, received a telegram recalling me
to England on important business."
"Ah!" sighed M. Bouc. "Les affaires—les affaires! But you, you are
at the top of the tree nowadays, mon vieux!"
"Some little success I have had, perhaps." Hercule Poirot tried to
look modest but failed signally.
M. Bouc laughed.
"We will meet later," he said.
Hercule Poirot addressed himself to the task of keeping his
moustaches out of the soup.
That difficult task accomplished, he glanced round him whilst
waiting for the next course. There were only about half a dozen people
in the restaurant, and of those half dozen there were only two that
interested Hercule Poirot.

ANIMAL FARM - 09

Chapter IX


Boxer's split hoof was a long time in healing. They had started the
rebuilding of the windmill the day after the victory celebrations were
ended. Boxer refused to take even a day off work, and made it a point of
honour not to let it be seen that he was in pain. In the evenings he would
admit privately to Clover that the hoof troubled him a great deal. Clover
treated the hoof with poultices of herbs which she prepared by chewing
them, and both she and Benjamin urged Boxer to work less hard. "A horse's
lungs do not last for ever," she said to him. But Boxer would not listen.
He had, he said, only one real ambition left--to see the windmill well
under way before he reached the age for retirement.
At the beginning, when the laws of Animal Farm were first formulated,
the retiring age had been fixed for horses and pigs at twelve, for cows at
fourteen, for dogs at nine, for sheep at seven, and for hens and geese at
five. Liberal old-age pensions had been agreed upon. As yet no animal had
actually retired on pension, but of late the subject had been discussed
more and more. Now that the small field beyond the orchard had been set
aside for barley, it was rumoured that a corner of the large pasture was
to be fenced off and turned into a grazing-ground for superannuated
animals. For a horse, it was said, the pension would be five pounds of
corn a day and, in winter, fifteen pounds of hay, with a carrot or
possibly an apple on public holidays. Boxer's twelfth birthday was due in
the late summer of the following year.
Meanwhile life was hard. The winter was as cold as the last one had been,
and food was even shorter. Once again all rations were reduced, except
those of the pigs and the dogs. A too rigid equality in rations, Squealer
explained, would have been contrary to the principles of Animalism. In any
case he had no difficulty in proving to the other animals that they were
NOT in reality short of food, whatever the appearances might be. For the
time being, certainly, it had been found necessary to make a readjustment
of rations (Squealer always spoke of it as a "readjustment," never as a
"reduction"), but in comparison with the days of Jones, the improvement
was enormous. Reading out the figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved
to them in detail that they had more oats, more hay, more turnips than
they had had in Jones's day, that they worked shorter hours, that their
drinking water was of better quality, that they lived longer, that a
larger proportion of their young ones survived infancy, and that they had
more straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas. The animals
believed every word of it. Truth to tell, Jones and all he stood for had
almost faded out of their memories. They knew that life nowadays was harsh
and bare, that they were often hungry and often cold, and that they were
usually working when they were not asleep. But doubtless it had been worse
in the old days. They were glad to believe so. Besides, in those days they
had been slaves and now they were free, and that made all the difference,
as Squealer did not fail to point out.
There were many more mouths to feed now. In the autumn the four sows had
all littered about simultaneously, producing thirty-one young pigs between
them. The young pigs were piebald, and as Napoleon was the only boar on
the farm, it was possible to guess at their parentage. It was announced
that later, when bricks and timber had been purchased, a schoolroom would
be built in the farmhouse garden. For the time being, the young pigs were
given their instruction by Napoleon himself in the farmhouse kitchen. They
took their exercise in the garden, and were discouraged from playing with
the other young animals. About this time, too, it was laid down as a rule
that when a pig and any other animal met on the path, the other animal
must stand aside: and also that all pigs, of whatever degree, were to have
the privilege of wearing green ribbons on their tails on Sundays.
The farm had had a fairly successful year, but was still short of money.
There were the bricks, sand, and lime for the schoolroom to be purchased,
and it would also be necessary to begin saving up again for the machinery
for the windmill. Then there were lamp oil and candles for the house,
sugar for Napoleon's own table (he forbade this to the other pigs, on the
ground that it made them fat), and all the usual replacements such as
tools, nails, string, coal, wire, scrap-iron, and dog biscuits. A stump of
hay and part of the potato crop were sold off, and the contract for eggs
was increased to six hundred a week, so that that year the hens barely
hatched enough chicks to keep their numbers at the same level. Rations,
reduced in December, were reduced again in February, and lanterns in the
stalls were forbidden to save oil. But the pigs seemed comfortable enough,
and in fact were putting on weight if anything. One afternoon in late
February a warm, rich, appetising scent, such as the animals had never
smelt before, wafted itself across the yard from the little brew-house,
which had been disused in Jones's time, and which stood beyond the
kitchen. Someone said it was the smell of cooking barley. The animals
sniffed the air hungrily and wondered whether a warm mash was being
prepared for their supper. But no warm mash appeared, and on the following
Sunday it was announced that from now onwards all barley would be reserved
for the pigs. The field beyond the orchard had already been sown with
barley. And the news soon leaked out that every pig was now receiving a
ration of a pint of beer daily, with half a gallon for Napoleon himself,
which was always served to him in the Crown Derby soup tureen.
But if there were hardships to be borne, they were partly offset by the
fact that life nowadays had a greater dignity than it had had before.
There were more songs, more speeches, more processions. Napoleon had
commanded that once a week there should be held something called a
Spontaneous Demonstration, the object of which was to celebrate the
struggles and triumphs of Animal Farm. At the appointed time the animals
would leave their work and march round the precincts of the farm in
military formation, with the pigs leading, then the horses, then the cows,
then the sheep, and then the poultry. The dogs flanked the procession and
at the head of all marched Napoleon's black cockerel. Boxer and Clover
always carried between them a green banner marked with the hoof and the
horn and the caption, "Long live Comrade Napoleon!" Afterwards there were
recitations of poems composed in Napoleon's honour, and a speech by
Squealer giving particulars of the latest increases in the production of
foodstuffs, and on occasion a shot was fired from the gun. The sheep were
the greatest devotees of the Spontaneous Demonstration, and if anyone
complained (as a few animals sometimes did, when no pigs or dogs were near)
that they wasted time and meant a lot of standing about in the cold, the
sheep were sure to silence him with a tremendous bleating of "Four legs
good, two legs bad!" But by and large the animals enjoyed these
celebrations. They found it comforting to be reminded that, after all,
they were truly their own masters and that the work they did was for their
own benefit. So that, what with the songs, the processions, Squealer's
lists of figures, the thunder of the gun, the crowing of the cockerel,
and the fluttering of the flag, they were able to forget that their
bellies were empty, at least part of the time.
In April, Animal Farm was proclaimed a Republic, and it became necessary
to elect a President. There was only one candidate, Napoleon, who was
elected unanimously. On the same day it was given out that fresh documents
had been discovered which revealed further details about Snowball's
complicity with Jones. It now appeared that Snowball had not, as the
animals had previously imagined, merely attempted to lose the Battle of
the Cowshed by means of a stratagem, but had been openly fighting on
Jones's side. In fact, it was he who had actually been the leader of the
human forces, and had charged into battle with the words "Long live
Humanity!" on his lips. The wounds on Snowball's back, which a few of the
animals still remembered to have seen, had been inflicted by Napoleon's
teeth.
In the middle of the summer Moses the raven suddenly reappeared on the
farm, after an absence of several years. He was quite unchanged, still did
no work, and talked in the same strain as ever about Sugarcandy Mountain.
He would perch on a stump, flap his black wings, and talk by the hour to
anyone who would listen. "Up there, comrades," he would say solemnly,
pointing to the sky with his large beak--"up there, just on the other side
of that dark cloud that you can see--there it lies, Sugarcandy Mountain,
that happy country where we poor animals shall rest for ever from our
labours!" He even claimed to have been there on one of his higher flights,
and to have seen the everlasting fields of clover and the linseed cake and
lump sugar growing on the hedges. Many of the animals believed him. Their
lives now, they reasoned, were hungry and laborious; was it not right and
just that a better world should exist somewhere else? A thing that was
difficult to determine was the attitude of the pigs towards Moses. They
all declared contemptuously that his stories about Sugarcandy Mountain
were lies, and yet they allowed him to remain on the farm, not working,
with an allowance of a gill of beer a day.
After his hoof had healed up, Boxer worked harder than ever. Indeed, all
the animals worked like slaves that year. Apart from the regular work of
the farm, and the rebuilding of the windmill, there was the schoolhouse
for the young pigs, which was started in March. Sometimes the long hours
on insufficient food were hard to bear, but Boxer never faltered. In
nothing that he said or did was there any sign that his strength was not
what it had been. It was only his appearance that was a little altered;
his hide was less shiny than it had used to be, and his great haunches
seemed to have shrunken. The others said, "Boxer will pick up when the
spring grass comes on"; but the spring came and Boxer grew no fatter.
Sometimes on the slope leading to the top of the quarry, when he braced
his muscles against the weight of some vast boulder, it seemed that
nothing kept him on his feet except the will to continue. At such times
his lips were seen to form the words, "I will work harder"; he had no
voice left. Once again Clover and Benjamin warned him to take care of his
health, but Boxer paid no attention. His twelfth birthday was approaching.
He did not care what happened so long as a good store of stone was
accumulated before he went on pension.
Late one evening in the summer, a sudden rumour ran round the farm that
something had happened to Boxer. He had gone out alone to drag a load of
stone down to the windmill. And sure enough, the rumour was true. A few
minutes later two pigeons came racing in with the news; "Boxer has fallen!
He is lying on his side and can't get up!"
About half the animals on the farm rushed out to the knoll where the
windmill stood. There lay Boxer, between the shafts of the cart, his neck
stretched out, unable even to raise his head. His eyes were glazed, his
sides matted with sweat. A thin stream of blood had trickled out of his
mouth. Clover dropped to her knees at his side.
"Boxer!" she cried, "how are you?"
"It is my lung," said Boxer in a weak voice. "It does not matter. I think
you will be able to finish the windmill without me. There is a pretty good
store of stone accumulated. I had only another month to go in any case.
To tell you the truth, I had been looking forward to my retirement. And
perhaps, as Benjamin is growing old too, they will let him retire at the
same time and be a companion to me."
"We must get help at once," said Clover. "Run, somebody, and tell Squealer
what has happened."
All the other animals immediately raced back to the farmhouse to give
Squealer the news. Only Clover remained, and Benjamin who lay down at
Boxer's side, and, without speaking, kept the flies off him with his long
tail. After about a quarter of an hour Squealer appeared, full of sympathy
and concern. He said that Comrade Napoleon had learned with the very
deepest distress of this misfortune to one of the most loyal workers on
the farm, and was already making arrangements to send Boxer to be treated
in the hospital at Willingdon. The animals felt a little uneasy at this.
Except for Mollie and Snowball, no other animal had ever left the farm,
and they did not like to think of their sick comrade in the hands of human
beings. However, Squealer easily convinced them that the veterinary
surgeon in Willingdon could treat Boxer's case more satisfactorily than
could be done on the farm. And about half an hour later, when Boxer had
somewhat recovered, he was with difficulty got on to his feet, and managed
to limp back to his stall, where Clover and Benjamin had prepared a good
bed of straw for him.
For the next two days Boxer remained in his stall. The pigs had sent out a
large bottle of pink medicine which they had found in the medicine chest
in the bathroom, and Clover administered it to Boxer twice a day after
meals. In the evenings she lay in his stall and talked to him, while
Benjamin kept the flies off him. Boxer professed not to be sorry for what
had happened. If he made a good recovery, he might expect to live another
three years, and he looked forward to the peaceful days that he would
spend in the corner of the big pasture. It would be the first time that he
had had leisure to study and improve his mind. He intended, he said, to
devote the rest of his life to learning the remaining twenty-two letters
of the alphabet.
However, Benjamin and Clover could only be with Boxer after working hours,
and it was in the middle of the day when the van came to take him away.
The animals were all at work weeding turnips under the supervision of a
pig, when they were astonished to see Benjamin come galloping from the
direction of the farm buildings, braying at the top of his voice. It was
the first time that they had ever seen Benjamin excited--indeed, it was
the first time that anyone had ever seen him gallop. "Quick, quick!" he
shouted. "Come at once! They're taking Boxer away!" Without waiting for
orders from the pig, the animals broke off work and raced back to the farm
buildings. Sure enough, there in the yard was a large closed van, drawn by
two horses, with lettering on its side and a sly-looking man in a
low-crowned bowler hat sitting on the driver's seat. And Boxer's stall was
empty.
The animals crowded round the van. "Good-bye, Boxer!" they chorused,
"good-bye!"
"Fools! Fools!" shouted Benjamin, prancing round them and stamping the
earth with his small hoofs. "Fools! Do you not see what is written on the
side of that van?"
That gave the animals pause, and there was a hush. Muriel began to spell
out the words. But Benjamin pushed her aside and in the midst of a deadly
silence he read:
"'Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler, Willingdon. Dealer
in Hides and Bone-Meal. Kennels Supplied.' Do you not understand what that
means? They are taking Boxer to the knacker's!"
A cry of horror burst from all the animals. At this moment the man on the
box whipped up his horses and the van moved out of the yard at a smart
trot. All the animals followed, crying out at the tops of their voices.
Clover forced her way to the front. The van began to gather speed. Clover
tried to stir her stout limbs to a gallop, and achieved a canter. "Boxer!"
she cried. "Boxer! Boxer! Boxer!" And just at this moment, as though he
had heard the uproar outside, Boxer's face, with the white stripe down his
nose, appeared at the small window at the back of the van.
"Boxer!" cried Clover in a terrible voice. "Boxer! Get out! Get out
quickly! They're taking you to your death!"
All the animals took up the cry of "Get out, Boxer, get out!" But the van
was already gathering speed and drawing away from them. It was uncertain
whether Boxer had understood what Clover had said. But a moment later his
face disappeared from the window and there was the sound of a tremendous
drumming of hoofs inside the van. He was trying to kick his way out. The
time had been when a few kicks from Boxer's hoofs would have smashed the
van to matchwood. But alas! his strength had left him; and in a few
moments the sound of drumming hoofs grew fainter and died away. In
desperation the animals began appealing to the two horses which drew the
van to stop. "Comrades, comrades!" they shouted. "Don't take your own
brother to his death! "But the stupid brutes, too ignorant to realise
what was happening, merely set back their ears and quickened their pace.
Boxer's face did not reappear at the window. Too late, someone thought of
racing ahead and shutting the five-barred gate; but in another moment the
van was through it and rapidly disappearing down the road. Boxer was never
seen again.
Three days later it was announced that he had died in the hospital at
Willingdon, in spite of receiving every attention a horse could have.
Squealer came to announce the news to the others. He had, he said, been
present during Boxer's last hours.
"It was the most affecting sight I have ever seen!" said Squealer, lifting
his trotter and wiping away a tear. "I was at his bedside at the very
last. And at the end, almost too weak to speak, he whispered in my ear
that his sole sorrow was to have passed on before the windmill was
finished. 'Forward, comrades!' he whispered. 'Forward in the name of the
Rebellion. Long live Animal Farm! Long live Comrade Napoleon! Napoleon is
always right.' Those were his very last words, comrades."
Here Squealer's demeanour suddenly changed. He fell silent for a moment,
and his little eyes darted suspicious glances from side to side before he
proceeded.
It had come to his knowledge, he said, that a foolish and wicked rumour
had been circulated at the time of Boxer's removal. Some of the animals
had noticed that the van which took Boxer away was marked "Horse
Slaughterer," and had actually jumped to the conclusion that Boxer was
being sent to the knacker's. It was almost unbelievable, said Squealer,
that any animal could be so stupid. Surely, he cried indignantly, whisking
his tail and skipping from side to side, surely they knew their beloved
Leader, Comrade Napoleon, better than that? But the explanation was really
very simple. The van had previously been the property of the knacker, and
had been bought by the veterinary surgeon, who had not yet painted the old
name out. That was how the mistake had arisen.
The animals were enormously relieved to hear this. And when Squealer went
on to give further graphic details of Boxer's death-bed, the admirable
care he had received, and the expensive medicines for which Napoleon had
paid without a thought as to the cost, their last doubts disappeared and
the sorrow that they felt for their comrade's death was tempered by the
thought that at least he had died happy.
Napoleon himself appeared at the meeting on the following Sunday morning
and pronounced a short oration in Boxer's honour. It had not been
possible, he said, to bring back their lamented comrade's remains for
interment on the farm, but he had ordered a large wreath to be made from
the laurels in the farmhouse garden and sent down to be placed on Boxer's
grave. And in a few days' time the pigs intended to hold a memorial
banquet in Boxer's honour. Napoleon ended his speech with a reminder of
Boxer's two favourite maxims, "I will work harder" and "Comrade Napoleon
is always right"--maxims, he said, which every animal would do well to
adopt as his own.
On the day appointed for the banquet, a grocer's van drove up from
Willingdon and delivered a large wooden crate at the farmhouse. That night
there was the sound of uproarious singing, which was followed by what
sounded like a violent quarrel and ended at about eleven o'clock with a
tremendous crash of glass. No one stirred in the farmhouse before noon on
the following day, and the word went round that from somewhere or other
the pigs had acquired the money to buy themselves another case of whisky.

ANIMAL FARM - 08

Chapter VIII


A few days later, when the terror caused by the executions had died down,
some of the animals remembered--or thought they remembered--that the Sixth
Commandment decreed "No animal shall kill any other animal." And though no
one cared to mention it in the hearing of the pigs or the dogs, it was
felt that the killings which had taken place did not square with this.
Clover asked Benjamin to read her the Sixth Commandment, and when
Benjamin, as usual, said that he refused to meddle in such matters, she
fetched Muriel. Muriel read the Commandment for her. It ran: "No animal
shall kill any other animal WITHOUT CAUSE." Somehow or other, the last two
words had slipped out of the animals' memory. But they saw now that the
Commandment had not been violated; for clearly there was good reason for
killing the traitors who had leagued themselves with Snowball.
Throughout the year the animals worked even harder than they had worked in
the previous year. To rebuild the windmill, with walls twice as thick as
before, and to finish it by the appointed date, together with the regular
work of the farm, was a tremendous labour. There were times when it seemed
to the animals that they worked longer hours and fed no better than they
had done in Jones's day. On Sunday mornings Squealer, holding down a long
strip of paper with his trotter, would read out to them lists of figures
proving that the production of every class of foodstuff had increased by
two hundred per cent, three hundred per cent, or five hundred per cent,
as the case might be. The animals saw no reason to disbelieve him,
especially as they could no longer remember very clearly what conditions
had been like before the Rebellion. All the same, there were days when
they felt that they would sooner have had less figures and more food.
All orders were now issued through Squealer or one of the other pigs.
Napoleon himself was not seen in public as often as once in a fortnight.
When he did appear, he was attended not only by his retinue of dogs but by
a black cockerel who marched in front of him and acted as a kind of
trumpeter, letting out a loud "cock-a-doodle-doo" before Napoleon spoke.
Even in the farmhouse, it was said, Napoleon inhabited separate apartments
from the others. He took his meals alone, with two dogs to wait upon him,
and always ate from the Crown Derby dinner service which had been in the
glass cupboard in the drawing-room. It was also announced that the gun
would be fired every year on Napoleon's birthday, as well as on the other
two anniversaries.
Napoleon was now never spoken of simply as "Napoleon." He was always
referred to in formal style as "our Leader, Comrade Napoleon," and this
pigs liked to invent for him such titles as Father of All Animals, Terror
of Mankind, Protector of the Sheep-fold, Ducklings' Friend, and the like.
In his speeches, Squealer would talk with the tears rolling down his
cheeks of Napoleon's wisdom the goodness of his heart, and the deep love
he bore to all animals everywhere, even and especially the unhappy animals
who still lived in ignorance and slavery on other farms. It had become
usual to give Napoleon the credit for every successful achievement and
every stroke of good fortune. You would often hear one hen remark to
another, "Under the guidance of our Leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid
five eggs in six days"; or two cows, enjoying a drink at the pool, would
exclaim, "Thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon, how excellent this
water tastes!" The general feeling on the farm was well expressed in a
poem entitled Comrade Napoleon, which was composed by Minimus and which
ran as follows:

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
Pinchfield Farm. In the middle of the summer the animals were alarmed to
hear that three hens had come forward and confessed that, inspired by
Snowball, they had entered into a plot to murder Napoleon. They were
executed immediately, and fresh precautions for Napoleon's safety were
taken. Four dogs guarded his bed at night, one at each corner, and a young
pig named Pinkeye was given the task of tasting all his food before he ate
it, lest it should be poisoned.
At about the same time it was given out that Napoleon had arranged to sell
the pile of timber to Mr. Pilkington; he was also going to enter into a
regular agreement for the exchange of certain products between Animal Farm
and Foxwood. The relations between Napoleon and Pilkington, though they
were only conducted through Whymper, were now almost friendly. The animals
distrusted Pilkington, as a human being, but greatly preferred him to
Frederick, whom they both feared and hated. As the summer wore on, and the
windmill neared completion, the rumours of an impending treacherous attack
grew stronger and stronger. Frederick, it was said, intended to bring
against them twenty men all armed with guns, and he had already bribed the
magistrates and police, so that if he could once get hold of the
title-deeds of Animal Farm they would ask no questions. Moreover, terrible
stories were leaking out from Pinchfield about the cruelties that
Frederick practised upon his animals. He had flogged an old horse to
death, he starved his cows, he had killed a dog by throwing it into the
furnace, he amused himself in the evenings by making cocks fight with
splinters of razor-blade tied to their spurs. The animals' blood boiled
with rage when they heard of these things beingdone to their comrades,
and sometimes they clamoured to be allowed to go out in a body and attack
Pinchfield Farm, drive out the humans, and set the animals free. But
Squealer counselled them to avoid rash actions and trust in Comrade
Napoleon's strategy.
Nevertheless, feeling against Frederick continued to run high. One Sunday
morning Napoleon appeared in the barn and explained that he had never at
any time contemplated selling the pile of timber to Frederick; he
considered it beneath his dignity, he said, to have dealings with
scoundrels of that description. The pigeons who were still sent out to
spread tidings of the Rebellion were forbidden to set foot anywhere on
Foxwood, and were also ordered to drop their former slogan of "Death to
Humanity" in favour of "Death to Frederick." In the late summer yet
another of Snowball's machinations was laid bare. The wheat crop was full
of weeds, and it was discovered that on one of his nocturnal visits
Snowball had mixed weed seeds with the seed corn. A gander who had been
privy to the plot had confessed his guilt to Squealer and immediately
committed suicide by swallowing deadly nightshade berries. The animals
now also learned that Snowball had never--as many of them had believed
hitherto--received the order of "Animal Hero, First Class." This was
merely a legend which had been spread some time after the Battle of the
Cowshed by Snowball himself. So far from being decorated, he had been
censured for showing cowardice in the battle. Once again some of the
animals heard this with a certain bewilderment, but Squealer was soon able
to convince them that their memories had been at fault.
In the autumn, by a tremendous, exhausting effort--for the harvest had to
be gathered at almost the same time--the windmill was finished. The
machinery had still to be installed, and Whymper was negotiating the
purchase of it, but the structure was completed. In the teeth of every
difficulty, in spite of inexperience, of primitive implements, of bad luck
and of Snowball's treachery, the work had been finished punctually to the
very day! Tired out but proud, the animals walked round and round their
masterpiece, which appeared even more beautiful in their eyes than when it
had been built the first time. Moreover, the walls were twice as thick as
before. Nothing short of explosives would lay them low this time! And when
they thought of how they had laboured, what discouragements they had
overcome, and the enormous difference that would be made in their lives
when the sails were turning and the dynamos running--when they thought of
all this, their tiredness forsook them and they gambolled round and round
the windmill, uttering cries of triumph. Napoleon himself, attended by his
dogs and his cockerel, came down to inspect the completed work; he
personally congratulated the animals on their achievement, and announced
that the mill would be named Napoleon Mill.
Two days later the animals were called together for a special meeting in
the barn. They were struck dumb with surprise when Napoleon announced that
he had sold the pile of timber to Frederick. Tomorrow Frederick's wagons
would arrive and begin carting it away. Throughout the whole period of his
seeming friendship with Pilkington, Napoleon had really been in secret
agreement with Frederick.
All relations with Foxwood had been broken off; insulting messages had
been sent to Pilkington. The pigeons had been told to avoid Pinchfield
Farm and to alter their slogan from "Death to Frederick" to "Death to
Pilkington." At the same time Napoleon assured the animals that the
stories of an impending attack on Animal Farm were completely untrue, and
that the tales about Frederick's cruelty to his own animals had been
greatly exaggerated. All these rumours had probably originated with
Snowball and his agents. It now appeared that Snowball was not, after all,
hiding on Pinchfield Farm, and in fact had never been there in his life:
he was living--in considerable luxury, so it was said--at Foxwood, and had
in reality been a pensioner of Pilkington for years past.
The pigs were in ecstasies over Napoleon's cunning. By seeming to be
friendly with Pilkington he had forced Frederick to raise his price by
twelve pounds. But the superior quality of Napoleon's mind, said Squealer,
was shown in the fact that he trusted nobody, not even Frederick.
Frederick had wanted to pay for the timber with something called a cheque,
which, it seemed, was a piece of paper with a promise to pay written upon
it. But Napoleon was too clever for him. He had demanded payment in real
five-pound notes, which were to be handed over before the timber was
removed. Already Frederick had paid up; and the sum he had paid was just
enough to buy the machinery for the windmill.
Meanwhile the timber was being carted away at high speed. When it was all
gone, another special meeting was held in the barn for the animals to
inspect Frederick's bank-notes. Smiling beatifically, and wearing both his
decorations, Napoleon reposed on a bed of straw on the platform, with the
money at his side, neatly piled on a china dish from the farmhouse
kitchen. The animals filed slowly past, and each gazed his fill. And Boxer
put out his nose to sniff at the bank-notes, and the flimsy white things
stirred and rustled in his breath.
Three days later there was a terrible hullabaloo. Whymper, his face deadly
pale, came racing up the path on his bicycle, flung it down in the yard
and rushed straight into the farmhouse. The next moment a choking roar of
rage sounded from Napoleon's apartments. The news of what had happened
sped round the farm like wildfire. The banknotes were forgeries! Frederick
had got the timber for nothing!
Napoleon called the animals together immediately and in a terrible voice
pronounced the death sentence upon Frederick. When captured, he said,
Frederick should be boiled alive. At the same time he warned them that
after this treacherous deed the worst was to be expected. Frederick and
his men might make their long-expected attack at any moment. Sentinels
were placed at all the approaches to the farm. In addition, four pigeons
were sent to Foxwood with a conciliatory message, which it was hoped might
re-establish good relations with Pilkington.
The very next morning the attack came. The animals were at breakfast when
the look-outs came racing in with the news that Frederick and his
followers had already come through the five-barred gate. Boldly enough the
animals sallied forth to meet them, but this time they did not have the
easy victory that they had had in the Battle of the Cowshed. There were
fifteen men, with half a dozen guns between them, and they opened fire as
soon as they got within fifty yards. The animals could not face the
terrible explosions and the stinging pellets, and in spite of the efforts
of Napoleon and Boxer to rally them, they were soon driven back. A number
of them were already wounded. They took refuge in the farm buildings and
peeped cautiously out from chinks and knot-holes. The whole of the big
pasture, including the windmill, was in the hands of the enemy. For the
moment even Napoleon seemed at a loss. He paced up and down without a
word, his tail rigid and twitching. Wistful glances were sent in the
direction of Foxwood. If Pilkington and his men would help them, the day
might yet be won. But at this moment the four pigeons, who had been sent
out on the day before, returned, one of them bearing a scrap of paper from
Pilkington. On it was pencilled the words: "Serves you right."
Meanwhile Frederick and his men had halted about the windmill. The animals
watched them, and a murmur of dismay went round. Two of the men had
produced a crowbar and a sledge hammer. They were going to knock the
windmill down.
"Impossible!" cried Napoleon. "We have built the walls far too thick for
that. They could not knock it down in a week. Courage, comrades!"
But Benjamin was watching the movements of the men intently. The two with
the hammer and the crowbar were drilling a hole near the base of the
windmill. Slowly, and with an air almost of amusement, Benjamin nodded his
long muzzle.
"I thought so," he said. "Do you not see what they are doing? In another
moment they are going to pack blasting powder into that hole."
Terrified, the animals waited. It was impossible now to venture out of the
shelter of the buildings. After a few minutes the men were seen to be
running in all directions. Then there was a deafening roar. The pigeons
swirled into the air, and all the animals, except Napoleon, flung
themselves flat on their bellies and hid their faces. When they got up
again, a huge cloud of black smoke was hanging where the windmill had
been. Slowly the breeze drifted it away. The windmill had ceased to exist!
At this sight the animals' courage returned to them. The fear and despair
they had felt a moment earlier were drowned in their rage against this
vile, contemptible act. A mighty cry for vengeance went up, and without
waiting for further orders they charged forth in a body and made straight
for the enemy. This time they did not heed the cruel pellets that swept
over them like hail. It was a savage, bitter battle. The men fired again
and again, and, when the animals got to close quarters, lashed out with
their sticks and their heavy boots. A cow, three sheep, and two geese were
killed, and nearly everyone was wounded. Even Napoleon, who was directing
operations from the rear, had the tip of his tail chipped by a pellet. But
the men did not go unscathed either. Three of them had their heads broken
by blows from Boxer's hoofs; another was gored in the belly by a cow's
horn; another had his trousers nearly torn off by Jessie and Bluebell. And
when the nine dogs of Napoleon's own bodyguard, whom he had instructed to
make a detour under cover of the hedge, suddenly appeared on the men's
flank, baying ferociously, panic overtook them. They saw that they were in
danger of being surrounded. Frederick shouted to his men to get out while
the going was good, and the next moment the cowardly enemy was running for
dear life. The animals chased them right down to the bottom of the field,
and got in some last kicks at them as they forced their way through the
thorn hedge.
They had won, but they were weary and bleeding. Slowly they began to limp
back towards the farm. The sight of their dead comrades stretched upon the
grass moved some of them to tears. And for a little while they halted in
sorrowful silence at the place where the windmill had once stood. Yes, it
was gone; almost the last trace of their labour was gone! Even the
foundations were partially destroyed. And in rebuilding it they could not
this time, as before, make use of the fallen stones. This time the stones
had vanished too. The force of the explosion had flung them to distances
of hundreds of yards. It was as though the windmill had never been.
As they approached the farm Squealer, who had unaccountably been absent
during the fighting, came skipping towards them, whisking his tail and
beaming with satisfaction. And the animals heard, from the direction of
the farm buildings, the solemn booming of a gun.
"What is that gun firing for?" said Boxer.
"To celebrate our victory!" cried Squealer.
"What victory?" said Boxer. His knees were bleeding, he had lost a shoe
and split his hoof, and a dozen pellets had lodged themselves in his hind
leg.
"What victory, comrade? Have we not driven the enemy off our soil--the
sacred soil of Animal Farm?"
"But they have destroyed the windmill. And we had worked on it for two
years!"
"What matter? We will build another windmill. We will build six windmills
if we feel like it. You do not appreciate, comrade, the mighty thing that
we have done. The enemy was in occupation of this very ground that we
stand upon. And now--thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon--we have
won every inch of it back again!"
"Then we have won back what we had before," said Boxer.
"That is our victory," said Squealer.
They limped into the yard. The pellets under the skin of Boxer's leg
smarted painfully. He saw ahead of him the heavy labour of rebuilding the
windmill from the foundations, and already in imagination he braced
himself for the task. But for the first time it occurred to him that he
was eleven years old and that perhaps his great muscles were not quite
what they had once been.
But when the animals saw the green flag flying, and heard the gun firing
again--seven times it was fired in all--and heard the speech that Napoleon
made, congratulating them on their conduct, it did seem to them after all
that they had won a great victory. The animals slain in the battle were
given a solemn funeral. Boxer and Clover pulled the wagon which served as
a hearse, and Napoleon himself walked at the head of the procession. Two
whole days were given over to celebrations. There were songs, speeches,
and more firing of the gun, and a special gift of an apple was bestowed on
every animal, with two ounces of corn for each bird and three biscuits for
each dog. It was announced that the battle would be called the Battle of
the Windmill, and that Napoleon had created a new decoration, the Order
of the Green Banner, which he had conferred upon himself. In the general
rejoicings the unfortunate affair of the banknotes was forgotten.
It was a few days later than this that the pigs came upon a case of whisky
in the cellars of the farmhouse. It had been overlooked at the time when
the house was first occupied. That night there came from the farmhouse the
sound of loud singing, in which, to everyone's surprise, the strains of
'Beasts of England' were mixed up. At about half past nine Napoleon,
wearing an old bowler hat of Mr. Jones's, was distinctly seen to emerge
from the back door, gallop rapidly round the yard, and disappear indoors
again. But in the morning a deep silence hung over the farmhouse. Not a
pig appeared to be stirring. It was nearly nine o'clock when Squealer made
his appearance, walking slowly and dejectedly, his eyes dull, his tail
hanging limply behind him, and with every appearance of being seriously
ill. He called the animals together and told them that he had a terrible
piece of news to impart. Comrade Napoleon was dying!
A cry of lamentation went up. Straw was laid down outside the doors of the
farmhouse, and the animals walked on tiptoe. With tears in their eyes they
asked one another what they should do if their Leader were taken away from
them. A rumour went round that Snowball had after all contrived to
introduce poison into Napoleon's food. At eleven o'clock Squealer came
out to make another announcement. As his last act upon earth, Comrade
Napoleon had pronounced a solemn decree: the drinking of alcohol was to be
punished by death.
By the evening, however, Napoleon appeared to be somewhat better, and the
following morning Squealer was able to tell them that he was well on the
way to recovery. By the evening of that day Napoleon was back at work, and
on the next day it was learned that he had instructed Whymper to purchase
in Willingdon some booklets on brewing and distilling. A week later
Napoleon gave orders that the small paddock beyond the orchard, which it
had previously been intended to set aside as a grazing-ground for animals
who were past work, was to be ploughed up. It was given out that the
pasture was exhausted and needed re-seeding; but it soon became known that
Napoleon intended to sow it with barley.
About this time there occurred a strange incident which hardly anyone was
able to understand. One night at about twelve o'clock there was a loud
crash in the yard, and the animals rushed out of their stalls. It was a
moonlit night. At the foot of the end wall of the big barn, where the
Seven Commandments were written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces.
Squealer, temporarily stunned, was sprawling beside it, and near at hand
there lay a lantern, a paint-brush, and an overturned pot of white paint.
The dogs immediately made a ring round Squealer, and escorted him back to
the farmhouse as soon as he was able to walk. None of the animals could
form any idea as to what this meant, except old Benjamin, who nodded his
muzzle with a knowing air, and seemed to understand, but would say nothing.
But a few days later Muriel, reading over the Seven Commandments to
herself, noticed that there was yet another of them which the animals had
remembered wrong. They had thought the Fifth Commandment was "No animal
shall drink alcohol," but there were two words that they had forgotten.
Actually the Commandment read: "No animal shall drink alcohol TO EXCESS."

ANINAL FARM - 07

Chapter VII


It was a bitter winter. The stormy weather was followed by sleet and snow,
and then by a hard frost which did not break till well into February. The
animals carried on as best they could with the rebuilding of the windmill,
well knowing that the outside world was watching them and that the envious
human beings would rejoice and triumph if the mill were not finished
on time.
Out of spite, the human beings pretended not to believe that it was
Snowball who had 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 time the quarry was full of
snowdrifts and nothing could be done. Some progress was made in the dry
frosty weather that followed, but it was cruel work, and the animals could
not feel so hopeful about it as they had felt before. They were always
cold, and usually hungry as well. Only Boxer and Clover never lost heart.
Squealer made excellent speeches on the joy of service and the dignity of
labour, but the other animals found more inspiration in Boxer's strength
and his never-failing cry of "I will work harder!"
In January food fell short. The corn ration was drastically reduced, and
it was announced that an extra potato ration would be issued to make up
for it. Then it was discovered that the greater part of the potato crop
had been frosted in the clamps, which had not been covered thickly enough.
The potatoes had become soft and discoloured, and only a few were edible.
For days at a time the animals had nothing to eat but chaff and mangels.
Starvation seemed to stare them in the face.
It was vitally necessary to conceal this fact from the outside world.
Emboldened by the collapse of the windmill, the human beings were
inventing fresh lies about Animal Farm. Once again it was being put about
that all the animals were dying of famine and disease, and that they were
continually fighting among themselves and had resorted to cannibalism and
infanticide. Napoleon was well aware of the bad results that might follow
if the real facts of the food situation were known, and he decided to make
use of Mr. Whymper to spread a contrary impression. Hitherto the animals
had had little or no contact with Whymper on his weekly visits: now,
however, a few selected animals, mostly sheep, were instructed to remark
casually in his hearing that rations had been increased. In addition,
Napoleon ordered the almost empty bins in the store-shed to be filled
nearly to the brim with sand, which was then covered up with what remained
of the grain and meal. On some suitable pretext Whymper was led through
the store-shed and allowed to catch a glimpse of the bins. He was
deceived, and continued to report to the outside world that there was no
food shortage on Animal Farm.
Nevertheless, towards the end of January it became obvious that it would
be necessary to procure some more grain from somewhere. In these days
Napoleon rarely appeared in public, but spent all his time in the
farmhouse, which was guarded at each door by fierce-looking dogs. When he
did emerge, it was in a ceremonial manner, with an escort of six dogs who
closely surrounded him and growled if anyone came too near. Frequently he
did not even appear on Sunday mornings, but issued his orders through one
of the other pigs, usually Squealer.
One Sunday morning Squealer announced that the hens, who had just come in
to lay again, must surrender their eggs. Napoleon had accepted, through
Whymper, a contract for four hundred eggs a week. The price of these would
pay for enough grain and meal to keep the farm going till summer came on
and conditions were easier.
When the hens heard this, they raised a terrible outcry. They had been
warned earlier that this sacrifice might be necessary, but had not
believed that it would really happen. They were just getting their
clutches ready for the spring sitting, and they protested that to take the
eggs away now was murder. For the first time since the expulsion of Jones,
there was something resembling a rebellion. Led by three young Black
Minorca pullets, the hens made a determined effort to thwart Napoleon's
wishes. Their method was to fly up to the rafters and there lay their
eggs, which smashed to pieces on the floor. Napoleon acted swiftly and
ruthlessly. He ordered the hens' rations to be stopped, and decreed that
any animal giving so much as a grain of corn to a hen should be punished
by death. The dogs saw to it that these orders were carried out. For five
days the hens held out, then they capitulated and went back to their
nesting boxes. Nine hens had died in the meantime. Their bodies were
buried in the orchard, and it was given out that they had died of
coccidiosis. Whymper heard nothing of this affair, and the eggs were duly
delivered, a grocer's van driving up to the farm once a week to take them
away.
All this while no more had been seen of Snowball. He was rumoured to be
hiding on one of the neighbouring farms, either Foxwood or Pinchfield.
Napoleon was by this time on slightly better terms with the other farmers
than before. It happened that there was in the yard a pile of timber which
had been stacked there ten years earlier when a beech spinney was cleared.
It was well seasoned, and Whymper had advised Napoleon to sell it; both
Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick were anxious to buy it. Napoleon was
hesitating between the two, unable to make up his mind. It was noticed
that whenever he seemed on the point of coming to an agreement with
Frederick, Snowball was declared to be in hiding at Foxwood, while, when
he inclined toward Pilkington, Snowball was said to be at Pinchfield.
Suddenly, early in the spring, an alarming thing was discovered. Snowball
was secretly frequenting the farm by night! The animals were so disturbed
that they could hardly sleep in their stalls. Every night, it was said, he
came creeping in under cover of darkness and performed all kinds of
mischief. He stole the corn, he upset the milk-pails, he broke the eggs,
he trampled the seedbeds, he gnawed the bark off the fruit trees. Whenever
anything went wrong it became usual to attribute it to Snowball. If a
window was broken or a drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say
that Snowball had come in the night and done it, and when the key of the
store-shed was lost, the whole farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown
it down the well. Curiously enough, they went on believing this even after
the mislaid key was found under a sack of meal. The cows declared
unanimously that Snowball crept into their stalls and milked them in their
sleep. The rats, which had been troublesome that winter, were also said to
be in league with Snowball.
Napoleon decreed that there should be a full investigation into Snowball's
activities. With his dogs in attendance he set out and made a careful tour
of inspection of the farm buildings, the other animals following at a
respectful distance. At every few steps Napoleon stopped and snuffed the
ground for traces of Snowball's footsteps, which, he said, he could detect
by the smell. He snuffed in every corner, in the barn, in the cow-shed,
in the henhouses, in the vegetable garden, and found traces of Snowball
almost everywhere. He would put his snout to the ground, give several deep
sniffs, ad exclaim in a terrible voice, "Snowball! He has been here! I can
smell him distinctly!" and at the word "Snowball" all the dogs let out
blood-curdling growls and showed their side teeth.
The animals were thoroughly frightened. It seemed to them as though
Snowball were some kind of invisible influence, pervading the air about
them and menacing them with all kinds of dangers. In the evening Squealer
called them together, and with an alarmed expression on his face told
them that he had some serious news to report.
"Comrades!" cried Squealer, making little nervous skips, "a most terrible
thing has been discovered. Snowball has sold himself to Frederick of
Pinchfield Farm, who is even now plotting to attack us and take our farm
away from us! Snowball is to act as his guide when the attack begins. But
there is worse than that. We had thought that Snowball's rebellion was
caused simply by his vanity and ambition. But we were wrong, comrades. Do
you know what the real reason was? Snowball was in league with Jones from
the very start! He was Jones's secret agent all the time. It has all been
proved by documents which he left behind him and which we have only just
discovered. To my mind this explains a great deal, comrades. Did we not
see for ourselves how he attempted--fortunately without success--to get us
defeated and destroyed at the Battle of the Cowshed?"
The animals were stupefied. This was a wickedness far outdoing Snowball's
destruction of the windmill. But it was some minutes before they could
fully take it in. They all remembered, or thought they remembered, how
they had seen Snowball charging ahead of them at the Battle of the
Cowshed, how he had rallied and encouraged them at every turn, and how he
had not paused for an instant even when the pellets from Jones's gun had
wounded his back. At first it was a little difficult to see how this
fitted in with his being on Jones's side. Even Boxer, who seldom asked
questions, was puzzled. He lay down, tucked his fore hoofs beneath him,
shut his eyes, and with a hard effort managed to formulate his thoughts.
"I do not believe that," he said. "Snowball fought bravely at the Battle
of the Cowshed. I saw him myself. Did we not give him 'Animal Hero, first
Class,' immediately afterwards?"
"That was our mistake, comrade. For we know now--it is all written down in
the secret documents that we have found--that in reality he was trying to
lure us to our doom."
"But he was wounded," said Boxer. "We all saw him running with blood."
"That was part of the arrangement!" cried Squealer. "Jones's shot only
grazed him. I could show you this in his own writing, if you were able to
read it. The plot was for Snowball, at the critical moment, to give the
signal for flight and leave the field to the enemy. And he very nearly
succeeded--I will even say, comrades, he WOULD have succeeded if it had
not been for our heroic Leader, Comrade Napoleon. Do you not remember how,
just at the moment when Jones and his men had got inside the yard,
Snowball suddenly turned and fled, and many animals followed him? And do
you not remember, too, that it was just at that moment, when panic was
spreading and all seemed lost, that Comrade Napoleon sprang forward with a
cry of 'Death to Humanity!' and sank his teeth in Jones's leg? Surely you
remember THAT, comrades?" exclaimed Squealer, frisking from side to side.
Now when Squealer described the scene so graphically, it seemed to the
animals that they did remember it. At any rate, they remembered that at
the critical moment of the battle Snowball had turned to flee. But Boxer
was still a little uneasy.
"I do not believe that Snowball was a traitor at the beginning," he said
finally. "What he has done since is different. But I believe that at the
Battle of the Cowshed he was a good comrade."
"Our Leader, Comrade Napoleon," announced Squealer, speaking very slowly
and firmly, "has stated categorically--categorically, comrade--that
Snowball was Jones's agent from the very beginning--yes, and from long
before the Rebellion was ever thought of."
"Ah, that is different!" said Boxer. "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must
be right."
"That is the true spirit, comrade!" cried Squealer, but it was noticed he
cast a very ugly look at Boxer with his little twinkling eyes. He turned
to go, then paused and added impressively: "I warn every animal on this
farm to keep his eyes very wide open. For we have reason to think that
some of Snowball's secret agents are lurking among us at this moment!"
Four days later, in the late afternoon, Napoleon ordered all the animals
to assemble in the yard. When they were all gathered together, Napoleon
emerged from the farmhouse, wearing both his medals (for he had recently
awarded himself "Animal Hero, First Class", and "Animal Hero, Second
Class"), with his nine huge dogs frisking round him and uttering growls
that sent shivers down all the animals' spines. They all cowered silently
in their places, seeming to know in advance that some terrible thing was
about to happen.
Napoleon stood sternly surveying his audience; then he uttered a
high-pitched whimper. Immediately the dogs bounded forward, seized four of
the pigs by the ear and dragged them, squealing with pain and terror, to
Napoleon's feet. The pigs' ears were bleeding, the dogs had tasted blood,
and for a few moments they appeared to go quite mad. To the amazement of
everybody, three of them flung themselves upon Boxer. Boxer saw them
coming and put out his great hoof, caught a dog in mid-air, and pinned
him to the ground. The dog shrieked for mercy and the other two fled with
their tails between their legs. Boxer looked at Napoleon to know whether
he should crush the dog to death or let it go. Napoleon appeared to change
countenance, and sharply ordered Boxer to let the dog go, whereat Boxer
lifted his hoof, and the dog slunk away, bruised and howling.
Presently the tumult died down. The four pigs waited, trembling, with
guilt written on every line of their countenances. Napoleon now called
upon them to confess their crimes. They were the same four pigs as had
protested when Napoleon abolished the Sunday Meetings. Without any further
prompting they confessed that they had been secretly in touch with
Snowball ever since his expulsion, that they had collaborated with him in
destroying the windmill, and that they had entered into an agreement with
him to hand over Animal Farm to Mr. Frederick. They added that Snowball
had privately admitted to them that he had been Jones's secret agent for
years past. When they had finished their confession, the dogs promptly
tore their throats out, and in a terrible voice Napoleon demanded whether
any other animal had anything to confess.
The three hens who had been the ringleaders in the attempted rebellion
over the eggs now came forward and stated that Snowball had appeared to
them in a dream and incited them to disobey Napoleon's orders. They, too,
were slaughtered. Then a goose came forward and confessed to having
secreted six ears of corn during the last year's harvest and eaten them in
the night. Then a sheep confessed to having urinated in the drinking
pool--urged to do this, so she said, by Snowball--and two other sheep
confessed to having murdered an old ram, an especially devoted follower of
Napoleon, by chasing him round and round a bonfire when he was suffering
from a cough. They were all slain on the spot. And so the tale of
confessions and executions went on, until there was a pile of corpses
lying before Napoleon's feet and the air was heavy with the smell of
blood, which had been unknown there since the expulsion of Jones.
When it was all over, the remaining animals, except for the pigs and dogs,
crept away in a body. They were shaken and miserable. They did not know
which was more shocking--the treachery of the animals who had leagued
themselves with Snowball, or the cruel retribution they had just
witnessed. In the old days there had often been scenes of bloodshed
equally terrible, but it seemed to all of them that it was far worse now
that it was happening among themselves. Since Jones had left the farm,
until today, no animal had killed another animal. Not even a rat had been
killed. They had made their way on to the little knoll where the
half-finished windmill stood, and with one accord they all lay down as
though huddling together for warmth--Clover, Muriel, Benjamin, the cows,
the sheep, and a whole flock of geese and hens--everyone, indeed, except
the cat, who had suddenly disappeared just before Napoleon ordered the
animals to assemble. For some time nobody spoke. Only Boxer remained on
his feet. He fidgeted to and fro, swishing his long black tail against his
sides and occasionally uttering a little whinny of surprise. Finally he
said:
"I do not understand it. I would not have believed that such things could
happen on our farm. It must be due to some fault in ourselves. The
solution, as I see it, is to work harder. From now onwards I shall get up
a full hour earlier in the mornings."
And he moved off at his lumbering trot and made for the quarry. Having got
there, he collected two successive loads of stone and dragged them down to
the windmill before retiring for the night.
The animals huddled about Clover, not speaking. The knoll where they were
lying gave them a wide prospect across the countryside. Most of Animal
Farm was within their view--the long pasture stretching down to the main
road, the hayfield, the spinney, the drinking pool, the ploughed fields
where the young wheat was thick and green, and the red roofs of the farm
buildings with the smoke curling from the chimneys. It was a clear spring
evening. The grass and the bursting hedges were gilded by the level rays
of the sun. Never had the farm--and with a kind of surprise they
remembered that it was their own farm, every inch of it their own
property--appeared to the animals so desirable a place. As Clover looked
down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken her
thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed
at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the
human race. These scenes of terror and slaughter were not what they had
looked forward to on that night when old Major first stirred them to
rebellion. If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been
of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each
working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she
had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of
Major's speech. Instead--she did not know why--they had come to a time
when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed
everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after
confessing to shocking crimes. There was no thought of rebellion or
disobedience in her mind. She knew that, even as things were, they were
far better off than they had been in the days of Jones, and that before
all else it was needful to prevent the return of the human beings.
Whatever happened she would remain faithful, work hard, carry out the
orders that were given to her, and accept the leadership of Napoleon. But
still, it was not for this that she and all the other animals had hoped
and toiled. It was not for this that they had built the windmill and faced
the bullets of Jones's gun. Such were her thoughts, though she lacked the
words to express them.
At last, feeling this to be in some way a substitute for the words she was
unable to find, she began to sing 'Beasts of England'. The other animals
sitting round her took it up, and they sang it three times over--very
tunefully, but slowly and mournfully, in a way they had never sung it
before.
They had just finished singing it for the third time when Squealer,
attended by two dogs, approached them with the air of having something
important to say. He announced that, by a special decree of Comrade
Napoleon, 'Beasts of England' had been abolished. From now onwards it was
forbidden to sing it.
The animals were taken aback.
"Why?" cried Muriel.
"It's no longer needed, comrade," said Squealer stiffly. "'Beasts of
England' was the song of the Rebellion. But the Rebellion is now
completed. The execution of the traitors this afternoon was the final act.
The enemy both external and internal has been defeated. In 'Beasts of
England' we expressed our longing for a better society in days to come.
But that society has now been established. Clearly this song has no longer
any purpose."
Frightened though they were, some of the animals might possibly have
protested, but at this moment the sheep set up their usual bleating of
"Four legs good, two legs bad," which went on for several minutes and put
an end to the discussion.
So 'Beasts of England' was heard no more. In its place Minimus, the poet,
had composed another song which began:

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

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

ANIMAL FARM - 06

Chapter VI


All that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their
work; they grudged no effort or sacrifice, well aware that everything that
they did was for the benefit of themselves and those of their kind who
would come after them, and not for a pack of idle, thieving human beings.
Throughout the spring and summer they worked a sixty-hour week, and in
August Napoleon announced that there would be work on Sunday afternoons
as well. This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented
himself from it would have his rations reduced by half. Even so, it was
found necessary to leave certain tasks undone. The harvest was a little
less successful than in the previous year, and two fields which should
have been sown with roots in the early summer were not sown because the
ploughing had not been completed early enough. It was possible to foresee
that the coming winter would be a hard one.
The windmill presented unexpected difficulties. There was a good quarry of
limestone on the farm, and plenty of sand and cement had been found in one
of the outhouses, so that all the materials for building were at hand. But
the problem the animals could not at first solve was how to break up the
stone into pieces of suitable size. There seemed no way of doing this
except with picks and crowbars, which no animal could use, because no
animal could stand on his hind legs. Only after weeks of vain effort did
the right idea occur to somebody-namely, to utilise the force of gravity.
Huge boulders, far too big to be used as they were, were lying all over
the bed of the quarry. The animals lashed ropes round these, and then all
together, cows, horses, sheep, any animal that could lay hold of the
rope--even the pigs sometimes joined in at critical moments--they dragged
them with desperate slowness up the slope to the top of the quarry, where
they were toppled over the edge, to shatter to pieces below. Transporting
the stone when it was once broken was comparatively simple. The horses
carried it off in cart-loads, the sheep dragged single blocks, even Muriel
and Benjamin yoked themselves into an old governess-cart and did their
share. By late summer a sufficient store of stone had accumulated, and
then the building began, under the superintendence of the pigs.
But it was a slow, laborious process. Frequently it took a whole day of
exhausting effort to drag a single boulder to the top of the quarry, and
sometimes when it was pushed over the edge it failed to break. Nothing
could have been achieved without Boxer, whose strength seemed equal to
that of all the rest of the animals put together. When the boulder began
to slip and the animals cried out in despair at finding themselves dragged
down the hill, it was always Boxer who strained himself against the rope
and brought the boulder to a stop. To see him toiling up the slope inch by
inch, his breath coming fast, the tips of his hoofs clawing at the ground,
and his great sides matted with sweat, filled everyone with admiration.
Clover warned him sometimes to be careful not to overstrain himself, but
Boxer would never listen to her. His two slogans, "I will work harder"
and "Napoleon is always right," seemed to him a sufficient answer to all
problems. He had made arrangements with the cockerel to call him
three-quarters of an hour earlier in the mornings instead of half an hour.
And in his spare moments, of which there were not many nowadays, he would
go alone to the quarry, collect a load of broken stone, and drag it down
to the site of the windmill unassisted.
The animals were not badly off throughout that summer, in spite of the
hardness of their work. If they had no more food than they had had in
Jones's day, at least they did not have less. The advantage of only having
to feed themselves, and not having to support five extravagant human
beings as well, was so great that it would have taken a lot of failures to
outweigh it. And in many ways the animal method of doing things was more
efficient and saved labour. Such jobs as weeding, for instance, could be
done with a thoroughness impossible to human beings. And again, since no
animal now stole, it was unnecessary to fence off pasture from arable
land, which saved a lot of labour on the upkeep of hedges and gates.
Nevertheless, as the summer wore on, various unforeseen shortages began to
make them selves felt. There was need of paraffin oil, nails, string, dog
biscuits, and iron for the horses' shoes, none of which could be produced
on the farm. Later there would also be need for seeds and artificial
manures, besides various tools and, finally, the machinery for the
windmill. How these were to be procured, no one was able to imagine.
One Sunday morning, when the animals assembled to receive their orders,
Napoleon announced that he had decided upon a new policy. From now onwards
Animal Farm would engage in trade with the neighbouring farms: not, of
course, for any commercial purpose, but simply in order to obtain certain
materials which were urgently necessary. The needs of the windmill must
override everything else, he said. He was therefore making arrangements to
sell a stack of hay and part of the current year's wheat crop, and later
on, if more money were needed, it would have to be made up by the sale of
eggs, for which there was always a market in Willingdon. The hens, said
Napoleon, should welcome this sacrifice as their own special contribution
towards the building of the windmill.
Once again the animals were conscious of a vague uneasiness. Never to have
any dealings with human beings, never to engage in trade, never to make
use of money--had not these been among the earliest resolutions passed at
that first triumphant Meeting after Jones was expelled? All the animals
remembered passing such resolutions: or at least they thought that they
remembered it. The four young pigs who had protested when Napoleon
abolished the Meetings raised their voices timidly, but they were promptly
silenced by a tremendous growling from the dogs. Then, as usual, the sheep
broke into "Four legs good, two legs bad!" and the momentary awkwardness
was smoothed over. Finally Napoleon raised his trotter for silence and
announced that he had already made all the arrangements. There would be no
need for any of the animals to come in contact with human beings, which
would clearly be most undesirable. He intended to take the whole burden
upon his own shoulders. A Mr. Whymper, a solicitor living in Willingdon,
had agreed to act as intermediary between Animal Farm and the outside
world, and would visit the farm every Monday morning to receive his
instructions. Napoleon ended his speech with his usual cry of "Long live
Animal Farm!" and after the singing of 'Beasts of England' the animals
were dismissed.
Afterwards Squealer made a round of the farm and set the animals' minds at
rest. He assured them that the resolution against engaging in trade and
using money had never been passed, or even suggested. It was pure
imagination, probably traceable in the beginning to lies circulated by
Snowball. A few animals still felt faintly doubtful, but Squealer asked
them shrewdly, "Are you certain that this is not something that you have
dreamed, comrades? Have you any record of such a resolution? Is it written
down anywhere?" And since it was certainly true that nothing of the kind
existed in writing, the animals were satisfied that they had been mistaken.
Every Monday Mr. Whymper visited the farm as had been arranged. He was a
sly-looking little man with side whiskers, a solicitor in a very small way
of business, but sharp enough to have realised earlier than anyone else
that Animal Farm would need a broker and that the commissions would be
worth having. The animals watched his coming and going with a kind of
dread, and avoided him as much as possible. Nevertheless, the sight of
Napoleon, on all fours, delivering orders to Whymper, who stood on two
legs, roused their pride and partly reconciled them to the new
arrangement. Their relations with the human race were now not quite the
same as they had been before. The human beings did not hate Animal Farm
any less now that it was prospering; indeed, they hated it more than ever.
Every human being held it as an article of faith that the farm would go
bankrupt sooner or later, and, above all, that the windmill would be a
failure. They would meet in the public-houses and prove to one another by
means of diagrams that the windmill was bound to fall down, or that if it
did stand up, then that it would never work. And yet, against their will,
they had developed a certain respect for the efficiency with which the
animals were managing their own affairs. One symptom of this was that they
had begun to call Animal Farm by its proper name and ceased to pretend
that it was called the Manor Farm. They had also dropped their championship
of Jones, who had given up hope of getting his farm back and gone to live
in another part of the county. Except through Whymper, there was as yet no
contact between Animal Farm and the outside world, but there were constant
rumours that Napoleon was about to enter into a definite business agreement
either with Mr. Pilkington of Foxwood or with Mr. Frederick of
Pinchfield--but never, it was noticed, with both simultaneously.
It was about this time that the pigs suddenly moved into the farmhouse and
took up their residence there. Again the animals seemed to remember that a
resolution against this had been passed in the early days, and again
Squealer was able to convince them that this was not the case. It was
absolutely necessary, he said, that the pigs, who were the brains of the
farm, should have a quiet place to work in. It was also more suited to the
dignity of the Leader (for of late he had taken to speaking of Napoleon
under the title of "Leader") to live in a house than in a mere sty.
Nevertheless, some of the animals were disturbed when they heard that the
pigs not only took their meals in the kitchen and used the drawing-room
as a recreation room, but also slept in the beds. Boxer passed it off as
usual with "Napoleon is always right!", but Clover, who thought she
remembered a definite ruling against beds, went to the end of the barn and
tried to puzzle out the Seven Commandments which were inscribed there.
Finding herself unable to read more than individual letters, she fetched
Muriel.
"Muriel," she said, "read me the Fourth Commandment. Does it not say
something about never sleeping in a bed?"
With some difficulty Muriel spelt it out.
"It says, 'No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets,"' she announced
finally.
Curiously enough, Clover had not remembered that the Fourth Commandment
mentioned sheets; but as it was there on the wall, it must have done so.
And Squealer, who happened to be passing at this moment, attended by two
or three dogs, was able to put the whole matter in its proper perspective.
"You have heard then, comrades," he said, "that we pigs now sleep in the
beds of the farmhouse? And why not? You did not suppose, surely, that
there was ever a ruling against beds? A bed merely means a place to sleep
in. A pile of straw in a stall is a bed, properly regarded. The rule was
against sheets, which are a human invention. We have removed the sheets
from the farmhouse beds, and sleep between blankets. And very comfortable
beds they are too! But not more comfortable than we need, I can tell you,
comrades, with all the brainwork we have to do nowadays. You would not rob
us of our repose, would you, comrades? You would not have us too tired to
carry out our duties? Surely none of you wishes to see Jones back?"
The animals reassured him on this point immediately, and no more was said
about the pigs sleeping in the farmhouse beds. And when, some days
afterwards, it was announced that from now on the pigs would get up an
hour later in the mornings than the other animals, no complaint was made
about that either.
By the autumn the animals were tired but happy. They had had a hard year,
and after the sale of part of the hay and corn, the stores of food for the
winter were none too plentiful, but the windmill compensated for
everything. It was almost half built now. After the harvest there was a
stretch of clear dry weather, and the animals toiled harder than ever,
thinking it well worth while to plod to and fro all day with blocks of
stone if by doing so they could raise the walls another foot. Boxer would
even come out at nights and work for an hour or two on his own by the
light of the harvest moon. In their spare moments the animals would walk
round and round the half-finished mill, admiring the strength and
perpendicularity of its walls and marvelling that they should ever have
been able to build anything so imposing. Only old Benjamin refused to grow
enthusiastic about the windmill, though, as usual, he would utter nothing
beyond the cryptic remark that donkeys live a long time.
November came, with raging south-west winds. Building had to stop because
it was now too wet to mix the cement. Finally there came a night when the
gale was so violent that the farm buildings rocked on their foundations
and several tiles were blown off the roof of the barn. The hens woke up
squawking with terror because they had all dreamed simultaneously of
hearing a gun go off in the distance. In the morning the animals came out
of their stalls to find that the flagstaff had been blown down and an elm
tree at the foot of the orchard had been plucked up like a radish. They
had just noticed this when a cry of despair broke from every animal's
throat. A terrible sight had met their eyes. The windmill was in ruins.
With one accord they dashed down to the spot. Napoleon, who seldom moved
out of a walk, raced ahead of them all. Yes, there it lay, the fruit of
all their struggles, levelled to its foundations, the stones they had
broken and carried so laboriously scattered all around. Unable at first to
speak, they stood gazing mournfully at the litter of fallen stone. Napoleon
paced to and fro in silence, occasionally snuffing at the ground. His tail
had grown rigid and twitched sharply from side to side, a sign in him of
intense mental activity. Suddenly he halted as though his mind were
made up.
"Comrades," he said quietly, "do you know who is responsible for this? Do
you know the enemy who has come in the night and overthrown our windmill?
SNOWBALL!" he suddenly roared in a voice of thunder. "Snowball has done
this thing! In sheer malignity, thinking to set back our plans and avenge
himself for his ignominious expulsion, this traitor has crept here under
cover of night and destroyed our work of nearly a year. Comrades, here
and now I pronounce the death sentence upon Snowball. 'Animal Hero, Second
Class,' and half a bushel of apples to any animal who brings him to
justice. A full bushel to anyone who captures him alive!"
The animals were shocked beyond measure to learn that even Snowball could
be guilty of such an action. There was a cry of indignation, and everyone
began thinking out ways of catching Snowball if he should ever come back.
Almost immediately the footprints of a pig were discovered in the grass at
a little distance from the knoll. They could only be traced for a few
yards, but appeared to lead to a hole in the hedge. Napoleon snuffed
deeply at them and pronounced them to be Snowball's. He gave it as his
opinion that Snowball had probably come from the direction of Foxwood Farm.
"No more delays, comrades!" cried Napoleon when the footprints had been
examined. "There is work to be done. This very morning we begin rebuilding
the windmill, and we will build all through the winter, rain or shine. We
will teach this miserable traitor that he cannot undo our work so easily.
Remember, comrades, there must be no alteration in our plans: they shall
be carried out to the day. Forward, comrades! Long live the windmill! Long
live Animal Farm!"