Chapter I
Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes. With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to side, he lurched across the yard, kicked off his boots at the back door, drew himself a last glass of beer from the barrel in the scullery, and made his way up to bed, where Mrs. Jones was already snoring.
As soon as the light in the bedroom went out there was a stirring and a fluttering all through the farm buildings. Word had gone round during the day that old Major, the prize Middle White boar, had had a strange dream on the previous night and wished to communicate it to the other animals. It had been agreed that they should all meet in the big barn as soon as Mr. Jones was safely out of the way. Old Major (so he was always called, though the name under which he had been exhibited was Willingdon Beauty) was so highly regarded on the farm that everyone was quite ready to lose an hour’s sleep in order to hear what he had to say.
At one end of the big barn, on a sort of raised platform, Major was already ensconced on his bed of straw, under a lantern which hung from a beam. He was twelve years old and had lately grown rather stout, but he was still a majestic-looking pig, with a wise and benevolent appearance in spite of the fact that his tushes had never been cut. Before long the other animals began to arrive and make themselves comfortable after their different fashions. First came the three dogs, Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher, and then the pigs, who settled down in the straw immediately in front of the platform. The hens perched themselves on the window-sills, the pigeons fluttered up to the rafters, the sheep and cows lay down behind the pigs and began to chew the cud. The two cart-horses, Boxer and Clover, came in together, walking very slowly and setting down their vast hairy hoofs with great care lest there should be some small animal concealed in the straw. Clover was a stout motherly mare approaching middle life, who had never quite got her figure back after her fourth foal. Boxer was an enormous beast, nearly eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ordinary horses put together. A white stripe down his nose gave him a somewhat stupid appearance, and in fact he was not of first-rate intelligence, but he was universally respected for his steadiness of character and tremendous powers of work. After the horses came Muriel, the white goat, and Benjamin, the donkey. Benjamin was the oldest animal on the farm, and the worst tempered. He seldom talked, and when he did, it was usually to make some cynical remark–for instance, he would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no flies. Alone among the animals on the farm he never laughed. If asked why, he would say that he saw nothing to laugh at. Nevertheless, without openly admitting it, he was devoted to Boxer; the two of them usually spent their Sundays together in the small paddock beyond the orchard, grazing side by side and never speaking.
The two horses had just lain down when a brood of ducklings, which had lost their mother, filed into the barn, cheeping feebly and wandering from side to side to find some place where they would not be trodden on. Clover made a sort of wall round them with her great foreleg, and the ducklings nestled down inside it and promptly fell asleep. At the last moment Mollie, the foolish, pretty white mare who drew Mr. Jones’s trap, came mincing daintily in, chewing at a lump of sugar. She took a place near the front and began flirting her white mane, hoping to draw attention to the red ribbons it was plaited with. Last of all came the cat, who looked round, as usual, for the warmest place, and finally squeezed herself in between Boxer and Clover; there she purred contentedly throughout Major’s speech without listening to a word of what he was saying.
All the animals were now present except Moses, the tame raven, who slept on a perch behind the back door. When Major saw that they had all made themselves comfortable and were waiting attentively, he cleared his throat and began:
“Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that I had last night. But I will come to the dream later. I have something else to say first. I do not think, comrades, that I shall be with you for many months longer, and before I die, I feel it my duty to pass on to you such wisdom as I have acquired. I have had a long life, I have had much time for thought as I lay alone in my stall, and I think I may say that I understand the nature of life on this earth as well as any animal now living. It is about this that I wish to speak to you.
“Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.
“But is this simply part of the order of nature? Is it because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades, a thousand times no! The soil of England is fertile, its climate is good, it is capable of affording food in abundance to an enormously greater number of animals than now inhabit it. This single farm of ours would support a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep–and all of them living in a comfort and a dignity that are now almost beyond our imagining. Why then do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings. There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word–Man. Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever.
“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself. Our labour tills the soil, our dung fertilises it, and yet there is not one of us that owns more than his bare skin. You cows that I see before me, how many thousands of gallons of milk have you given during this last year? And what has happened to that milk which should have been breeding up sturdy calves? Every drop of it has gone down the throats of our enemies. And you hens, how many eggs have you laid in this last year, and how many of those eggs ever hatched into chickens? The rest have all gone to market to bring in money for Jones and his men. And you, Clover, where are those four foals you bore, who should have been the support and pleasure of your old age? Each was sold at a year old–you will never see one of them again. In return for your four confinements and all your labour in the fields, what have you ever had except your bare rations and a stall?
“And even the miserable lives we lead are not allowed to reach their natural span. For myself I do not grumble, for I am one of the lucky ones. I am twelve years old and have had over four hundred children. Such is the natural life of a pig. But no animal escapes the cruel knife in the end. You young porkers who are sitting in front of me, every one of you will scream your lives out at the block within a year. To that horror we all must come–cows, pigs, hens, sheep, everyone. Even the horses and the dogs have no better fate. You, Boxer, the very day that those great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will sell you to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you down for the foxhounds. As for the dogs, when they grow old and toothless, Jones ties a brick round their necks and drowns them in the nearest pond.
“Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades, that all the evils of this life of ours spring from the tyranny of human beings? Only get rid of Man, and the produce of our labour would be our own. Almost overnight we could become rich and free. What then must we do? Why, work night and day, body and soul, for the overthrow of the human race! That is my message to you, comrades: Rebellion! I do not know when that Rebellion will come, it might be in a week or in a hundred years, but I know, as surely as I see this straw beneath my feet, that sooner or later justice will be done. Fix your eyes on that, comrades, throughout the short remainder of your lives! And above all, pass on this message of mine to those who come after you, so that future generations shall carry on the struggle until it is victorious.
“And remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter. No argument must lead you astray. Never listen when they tell you that Man and the animals have a common interest, that the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the others. It is all lies. Man serves the interests of no creature except himself. And among us animals let there be perfect unity, perfect comradeship in the struggle. All men are enemies. All animals are comrades.”
At this moment there was a tremendous uproar. While Major was speaking four large rats had crept out of their holes and were sitting on their hindquarters, listening to him. The dogs had suddenly caught sight of them, and it was only by a swift dash for their holes that the rats saved their lives. Major raised his trotter for silence.
“Comrades,” he said, “here is a point that must be settled. The wild creatures, such as rats and rabbits–are they our friends or our enemies? Let us put it to the vote. I propose this question to the meeting: Are rats comrades?”
The vote was taken at once, and it was agreed by an overwhelming majority that rats were comrades. There were only four dissentients, the three dogs and the cat, who was afterwards discovered to have voted on both sides. Major continued:
“I have little more to say. I merely repeat, remember always your duty of enmity towards Man and all his ways. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. And remember also that in fighting against Man, we must not come to resemble him. Even when you have conquered him, do not adopt his vices. No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade. All the habits of Man are evil. And, above all, no animal must ever tyrannise over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other animal. All animals are equal.
“And now, comrades, I will tell you about my dream of last night. I cannot describe that dream to you. It was a dream of the earth as it will be when Man has vanished. But it reminded me of something that I had long forgotten. Many years ago, when I was a little pig, my mother and the other sows used to sing an old song of which they knew only the tune and the first three words. I had known that tune in my infancy, but it had long since passed out of my mind. Last night, however, it came back to me in my dream. And what is more, the words of the song also came back–words, I am certain, which were sung by the animals of long ago and have been lost to memory for generations. I will sing you that song now, comrades. I am old and my voice is hoarse, but when I have taught you the tune, you can sing it better for yourselves. It is called Beasts of England.”
Old Major cleared his throat and began to sing. As he had said, his voice was hoarse, but he sang well enough, and it was a stirring tune, something between Clementine and La Cucaracha. The words ran:
Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of the golden future time.
Soon or late the day is coming,
Tyrant Man shall be o’erthrown,
And the fruitful fields of England
Shall be trod by beasts alone.
Rings shall vanish from our noses,
And the harness from our back,
Bit and spur shall rust forever,
Cruel whips no more shall crack.
Riches more than mind can picture,
Wheat and barley, oats and hay,
Clover, beans, and mangel-wurzels
Shall be ours upon that day.
Bright will shine the fields of England,
Purer shall its waters be,
Sweeter yet shall blow its breezes
On the day that sets us free.
For that day we all must labour,
Though we die before it break;
Cows and horses, geese and turkeys,
All must toil for freedom’s sake.
Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Hearken well and spread my tidings
Of the golden future time.
The singing of this song threw the animals into the wildest excitement. Almost before Major had reached the end, they had begun singing it for themselves. Even the stupidest of them had already picked up the tune and a few of the words, and as for the clever ones, such as the pigs and dogs, they had the entire song by heart within a few minutes. And then, after a few preliminary tries, the whole farm burst out into Beasts of England in tremendous unison. The cows lowed it, the dogs whined it, the sheep bleated it, the horses whinnied it, the ducks quacked it. They were so delighted with the song that they sang it right through five times in succession, and might have continued singing it all night if they had not been interrupted.
The interruption, when it came, was subtle—and it changed everything.
Unknown to the animals, Mr. Jones had not been asleep. The beer in the scullery barrel had been watered down that evening, and Jones had drunk less than half his usual amount. He had been lying in bed, only half-dozing, when the distant murmur of voices from the barn reached his ears. Quietly, he rose, pulled on his boots, and crept across the yard. He positioned himself in the shadows just outside the barn door, and there he heard every word of Old Major’s speech—the condemnation of Man, the call for rebellion, the promise of a world without farmers. He heard the song, and he heard the wild, joyful singing of his own livestock dreaming of his destruction.
But Jones was no fool. He did not burst in with his gun. He did not threaten or shout. Instead, he slipped back to the farmhouse, lit a lamp, and sat at his kitchen table until dawn, thinking. By the time the first light crept over the fields, he had formulated a plan far more cunning than brute force.
The next morning, the animals were summoned to the yard. They came nervously, expecting punishment. But Mr. Jones was not holding a gun. He was not even scowling. He stood by the gate, dressed in his best suit, looking almost—could it be?—benevolent. Beside him stood Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer, looking grave but important.
Jones raised his hand for silence.
“My dear animals,” he began, and his voice was soft, almost sorrowful. “I have been a poor master to you. I see that now. The old ways—the long hours, the meagre rations, the whips and the chains—these are relics of a darker age. I have been blind, but last night, I saw the light.”
The animals exchanged bewildered glances. This was not the Jones they knew.
“I will not pretend to understand all of your grievances,” Jones continued, “but I know this: you deserve better. You deserve to be treated with dignity. You deserve rest. You deserve a fair share of the fruits of your labour. And so, I have decided—”
He paused dramatically, letting the silence hang.
“—to step back. I will remain the owner of this farm, for the law requires it, but I will no longer interfere in your daily lives. Instead, I have asked your own leaders—your pigs—to take over the management of the farm. They are the cleverest among you. They understand your struggles. They will be your voice, your advocates, your protectors.”
He gestured to the pigs. Snowball puffed out his chest. Napoleon looked grim and important. Squealer stepped forward, his eyes shining with emotion.
“Comrades,” Squealer began, and his voice trembled with what seemed to be genuine feeling, “this is a great day! A glorious day! Mr. Jones has listened to our grievances—not with contempt, but with compassion. He has seen the justice of our cause. He has agreed—freely, willingly—to grant us a new charter of rights!”
The animals murmured in confusion. Clover, the horse, leaned close to Boxer. “Is this real?” she whispered. Boxer, who had been preparing himself for a fight, shook his mane and said, “I don’t understand, but Squealer always explains things so clearly.”
Squealer continued, warming to his theme: “Under this new arrangement, the pigs will run the farm. We will oversee the work, ensure that everyone is treated fairly, and report to Mr. Jones only on matters of overall policy. But in all daily matters—the distribution of food, the allocation of labour, the management of the fields—the pigs will decide. And we will decide in your interests! For we are animals, like you! We understand your hardships! We will never let Mr. Jones return to his old ways!”
He paused, allowing his words to sink in.
“And there is more! Mr. Jones has agreed that the pigs shall have better food—apples, milk, and grain—so that we may remain strong and clear-headed for the burden of leadership. Is this a privilege? No, comrades, it is a sacrifice! We would rather share it with you, but we cannot. Our brains must be well-fed, for your sake. Every apple we eat, every drop of milk we drink, is a gift we give to the farm. Without us, who would stand between you and the old tyranny?”
Napoleon grunted in agreement. Snowball looked thoughtful but said nothing.
Jones stepped forward again, his voice warm and fatherly. “I want you to know, my animals, that I have only your happiness at heart. I know I have been harsh in the past. I have made mistakes. But I am a changed man. I want nothing more than to see this farm prosper—and for you to prosper with it. From this day forward, I will be your protector, not your tyrant. And your pigs will be your guardians. Trust them. Trust me. Together, we will build a new era of peace and plenty.”
He smiled, and it seemed genuine—so genuine that many of the animals felt tears prickling in their eyes. Was it possible? Had their suffering finally been heard?
Squealer raised his trotter. “And to mark this joyous occasion, I have composed a new anthem—one that celebrates the partnership between animals and their wise master. Let us sing it together!”
The animals, still dazed but hopeful, joined in as Squealer launched into a stirring tune, something between a hymn and a march:
Animals of Manor Farm,
Raise your voices high and clear!
No more struggle, no more harm,
Peace and order now are here!
Pigs will lead and Jones will guide,
All together, side by side!
Work and labour, fair and true,
Under masters old and new!
No more whips, no more despair,
Pigs will always be our care!
Trust the pig, the friend, the guide,
With the master at his side!
Beasts of England, sing with glee!
Better days are here to see!
Pigs are wise and Jones is kind,
Leave your troubled days behind!
The animals sang—hesitantly at first, then with growing enthusiasm. It was not the wild, revolutionary fervour of Beasts of England, but it was something else: hope. Simple, fragile, desperate hope.
Boxer, his eyes shining, said to Clover: “I knew Jones would see reason. He’s not such a bad fellow after all. And Squealer—what a brilliant speaker! I will work harder than ever to prove worthy of this new trust.”
Clover nodded, but her heart was troubled. She looked at the pigs—already standing a little apart from the others—and at Jones, smiling warmly in the morning sun. Something felt wrong, though she could not say what. She remembered Major’s words: All men are enemies. All animals are comrades. But Major was dead now, and here were the pigs, shaking hooves with the very man he had condemned.
She looked at Benjamin, the cynical donkey. He was not singing. His face was as blank as ever. She asked him, quietly: “Benjamin, what do you make of all this?”
Benjamin twitched his ears. “Donkeys live a long time,” he said. “None of you has ever seen a dead donkey.”
And he would say no more.
By the end of the morning, a new sign had been nailed to the gate. It read:
MANOR FARM — UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
Beneath it, in elegant lettering:
“All animals are equal—and the pigs shall ensure it.”
The animals looked at the sign and felt a strange pride. They had not won the rebellion they had dreamed of—but they had won something else: a promise. And promises, as Squealer assured them that very afternoon, were the most precious things of all.
The first promise was that the pigs would never forget who they represented.
The second promise was that things would only get better.
And the third promise—the one the pigs whispered among themselves, in the farmhouse that night, over glasses of warm milk and fresh apples—was that Mr. Jones would remain very, very pleased with his new managers.
Thus ended the first chapter of the Firm—a revolution silenced not by violence, but by a smile, a song, and the quiet surrender of hope to management.
Chapter II
Three nights after the barn meeting, old Major died.
The circumstances of his death were somewhat unclear. Some animals claimed they had seen Mr. Jones enter the pigsty late that evening with a bucket of what appeared to be especially fine mash—a gesture of goodwill, perhaps, or a farewell gift to the old boar who had served the farm so well. Others whispered that Major had seemed unwell after eating, that his breathing had grown labored, that he had been seized with a violent trembling before the sun rose. But by the time the animals gathered in the morning, Major was dead—peaceful in appearance, his great head resting on his trotters as though he had simply drifted off to sleep.
Squealer was the first to announce it. He stood in the yard, his face a mask of sorrow, his voice thick with emotion.
“Comrades,” he said, “I have terrible news. Old Major, our beloved teacher, our wise counselor, our guide and inspiration—has passed from this world. He died peacefully in his sleep, as all noble creatures should. It was simply his time. He was twelve years old, after all. A long life, a full life, a life dedicated to the betterment of us all.”
The animals were stricken. Clover wept openly, great tears rolling down her cheeks. Boxer stood in silence, his head bowed, his great muscles trembling. Even Benjamin, the cynical donkey, seemed subdued.
But the pigs—Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer—quickly took charge. They organized a funeral for Major, a solemn procession to the orchard where they buried him at the foot of the apple trees. Squealer delivered a eulogy, praising Major’s wisdom and vision, his dream of a better world. And then, with the dirt still fresh on the grave, he turned to the assembled animals and spoke words that seemed to reshape the very memory of the old boar.
“Major’s dream,” said Squealer, his voice echoing across the orchard, “was a dream of harmony. A dream of justice. A dream of a farm where every animal is treated with dignity. But he was not a fool, comrades. He knew that revolution—violent, bloody revolution—was not the path. Major was a thinker, a philosopher, a creature of peace. He would never have wanted us to take up arms against our master. He would never have wanted bloodshed or chaos. What he wanted—what he truly wanted—was for us to find a way forward, a way to improve our lot without destroying the very structure that keeps us alive.”
He paused, letting his words sink in.
“And that is exactly what we are doing. Mr. Jones, in his wisdom, has heard our grievances. He has seen the justice of our cause. He has agreed to the principles of management—principles that Major himself would have embraced, had he lived to see them. Major’s dream is not dead, comrades. It lives on in this farm, in this partnership, in this glorious new era of cooperation!”
The animals were unsure. They had heard Major’s call for rebellion with their own ears. But Squealer’s words were so convincing—so earnest—that they began to doubt their own memories. Had Major really spoken of revolution? Or had they misunderstood? Perhaps he had only been speaking metaphorically. Perhaps he had meant a rebellion of the spirit, not of the flesh. Perhaps—
“Trust us,” said Squealer, reading their uncertainty. “We were closest to Major. We knew his heart. And we know—we know—that he would approve of everything we are doing. Everything.”
This was early in March. During the next three months, the animals noticed a great deal of unusual activity—but it was not the secret, rebellious sort of activity that Major had envisioned. Instead, it was the busy, purposeful activity of negotiation and administration.
The pigs, who had been recognized as the cleverest animals, had been summoned to the farmhouse on the morning after Major’s funeral. Mr. Jones had received them warmly—almost as equals—and had proposed a series of meetings to discuss the “future of farm governance.” These meetings were held several nights a week in the farmhouse kitchen, with Mr. Jones presiding from his Windsor chair, a glass of beer at his elbow, while the pigs sat on stools around the table. The other animals, waiting outside, could hear the murmur of voices and occasional bursts of laughter.
Pre-eminent among the pigs were two young boars named Snowball and Napoleon, whom Mr. Jones had been breeding up for sale. Napoleon was a large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the farm, not much of a talker, but with a reputation for getting his own way. Snowball was a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive, but was not considered to have the same depth of character. All the other male pigs on the farm were porkers. The best known among them was a small fat pig named Squealer, with very round cheeks, twinkling eyes, nimble movements, and a shrill voice. He was a brilliant talker, and when he was arguing some difficult point he had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking his tail which was somehow very persuasive. The others said of Squealer that he could turn black into white.
These three had elaborated old Major’s teachings into something rather different from what the old boar had intended. They had taken his call for rebellion and transformed it into a call for reform —a gradual, peaceful, negotiated transition in which the pigs would serve as intermediaries between the animals and Mr. Jones. To this new system of thought, they gave the name Animal Management.
Several nights a week, after the meetings in the farmhouse, the pigs would gather the other animals in the barn and explain the new arrangements. At the beginning they met with much confusion. Some of the animals, remembering Major’s words, talked of the duty of enmity towards Man, or made elementary remarks such as “Mr. Jones is our enemy. If he remains, we shall never be free.” Others asked such questions as “How can we trust a pig who dines with the farmer?” or “If we are not rebelling, what is the point of all this?”, and the pigs had great difficulty in making them see that this was contrary to the spirit of Animal Management.
The stupidest questions of all were asked by Mollie, the white mare. The very first question she asked Snowball was: “Will there still be sugar under the new management?”
“Yes,” said Snowball, with a reassuring smile. “Mr. Jones has agreed that sugar will continue to be provided, in reasonable quantities. In fact, he has hinted that rations may even increase.”
“And shall I still be allowed to wear ribbons in my mane?” asked Mollie.
“Comrade,” said Snowball, “Mr. Jones has graciously agreed that ribbons may be worn on special occasions, as a mark of our civilized partnership. Is that not better than the old days, when you had to ask permission?”
Mollie agreed, and this time she sounded much more convinced.
The pigs had an even harder struggle to counteract the whispers of dissent put about by Moses, the tame raven. Moses, who was Mr. Jones’s especial pet, was a spy and a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker. He claimed to know of the existence of a mysterious country called Sugarcandy Mountain, to which all animals went when they died. It was situated somewhere up in the sky, a little distance beyond the clouds, Moses said. In Sugarcandy Mountain it was Sunday seven days a week, clover was in season all the year round, and lump sugar and linseed cake grew on the hedges.
Squealer, in particular, was furious about this. “Sugarcandy Mountain is a lie!” he declared at one of the barn meetings. “It is a fiction invented by Moses to keep you docile and obedient. There is no heaven for animals—there is only the earth, and the earth is Manor Farm. And Manor Farm, under Mr. Jones’s wise ownership and the pigs’ capable management, will become as close to heaven as any animal could wish. Do not look to the clouds, comrades! Look to the fields! Look to your leaders! Look to the master who has so generously agreed to share his power!”
The most faithful disciples of the pigs were the two cart-horses, Boxer and Clover. These two had great difficulty in thinking anything out for themselves, but having once accepted the pigs as their teachers, they absorbed everything that they were told, and passed it on to the other animals by simple arguments. They were unfailing in their attendance at the barn meetings, and led the singing of the new anthem—The Firm’s Anthem—with which the meetings always ended.
Now, as it turned out, the new management arrangement was implemented much earlier and more smoothly than anyone had expected. Mr. Jones, as part of his “new approach,” had announced that he would be taking a more hands-off role. He still owned the farm, still set the overall policies and quotas, but he delegated the daily supervision to the pigs. His men were dismissed, replaced by the pigs’ own oversight. The fields were still full of weeds, the buildings wanted roofing, the hedges were neglected, and the animals were still underfed—but this, Squealer explained, was simply a transitional phase.
June came and the hay was almost ready for cutting. On Midsummer’s Eve, which was a Saturday, Mr. Jones went into Willingdon and got so drunk at the Red Lion that he did not come back till midday on Sunday. When he returned, he immediately went to sleep on the drawing-room sofa with the News of the World over his face. The pigs, however, had been busy all morning, organizing the animals for the hay harvest. Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer had drawn up a detailed schedule of work, which they presented to the animals that afternoon.
“Comrades,” said Snowball, “the hay is ready, and we must work quickly. Mr. Jones has entrusted us with the management of this harvest, and we must prove ourselves worthy of his trust. If we work efficiently, he has promised that our rations will be increased next winter.”
The animals, eager to prove themselves, set to work with a will. Boxer, as always, was the most enthusiastic. “I will work harder!” he declared, and he pulled the hay-cart with such force that the wheels groaned. Clover worked alongside him, her great hooves steady and sure.
But there was trouble brewing.
The cows, who had not been milked for twenty-four hours, were lowing in distress. Their udders were swollen and painful. Under the old system, Jones’s men had milked them every morning, but the men were gone now, and the pigs had not yet organized a milking schedule.
Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer held a hurried meeting in the yard. “We must milk them ourselves,” said Snowball. “We are managers now—we must attend to everything.”
Napoleon grunted. “The milk is a delicate matter. Who will drink it?”
“The animals, of course,” said Snowball. “It is their milk. They produced it. They should share in its benefits.”
Napoleon snorted. “Don’t be a fool, Snowball. The milk is valuable. It can be sold. It can be traded. If we are to manage this farm properly, we must think of the balance sheet. Mr. Jones expects us to turn a profit.”
Snowball looked uncertain. “But the Principles—”
“The Principles are about rebellion, Snowball. Major spoke of rebellion. But Major is dead. He died peacefully, remember? He did not want violence. He wanted management. Management requires different rules.”
Squealer, who had been listening silently, stepped forward. “Comrades,” he said, his voice smooth as butter, “I think I see a way forward. The milk is produced by the cows. But the cows cannot run a farm. The horses cannot run a farm. The hens cannot run a farm. Only we—the pigs—have the intelligence to manage. And if we are to manage effectively, we must keep our strength up. The milk will nourish our brains, and our brains will nourish the farm. In the long run, every drop of milk we drink is a gift we give to you, because it ensures that we remain capable of leading you. Is that not fair?”
The animals looked at one another. It did not seem entirely fair, but Squealer’s logic was difficult to argue with. Boxer, of course, agreed at once. “Napoleon is always right,” he said. “If the pigs need milk, then the pigs must have milk.”
Clover said nothing, but she noticed that the pigs had already begun to drift towards the buckets.
The harvest continued through the afternoon and into the evening. The animals worked harder than they had ever worked under Jones. There was something exhilarating about working for themselves—or rather, working for the pigs, who told them they were working for themselves. The hay was gathered, stacked, and stored. By nightfall, the barns were full.
That evening, the pigs called a general meeting in the yard. Napoleon climbed onto the platform that had been erected—a converted cart—and Squealer stood beside him, holding a sheaf of papers.
“Comrades,” said Squealer, his voice trembling with emotion, “I have wonderful news. Mr. Jones has been so impressed by your work today—by your dedication, your loyalty, your efficiency—that he has decided to make a formal announcement.”
The animals leaned forward eagerly.
“Mr. Jones,” Squealer continued, “has agreed to a new charter of rights for all animals on Manor Farm. These rights will be enshrined in law—unalterable, inviolable, eternal! And more than that, he has agreed to memorialize our beloved Major. In honour of the old boar’s wisdom and vision, the farm will be renamed!”
A murmur of excitement ran through the crowd.
“From this day forward,” said Squealer, “Manor Farm shall be known as Major’s Farm —a tribute to the great teacher who showed us the way!”
The animals cheered. It seemed a fitting tribute, a way to keep Major’s memory alive. Clover felt a lump in her throat. Perhaps the pigs were right. Perhaps Major would have wanted this.
Squealer then unrolled his papers and continued:
“And now, comrades, let me read to you the Seven Principles of Management —the unalterable laws that will guide our farm forever!”
He read aloud:
THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT
- Whatever goes upon two legs is our respected employer.
- Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a valued worker.
- No animal shall wear clothes, unless specially permitted by management.
- No animal shall sleep in a bed, except those responsible for farm administration.
- No animal shall drink alcohol, except on approved ceremonial occasions.
- No animal shall kill any other animal, unless sanctioned by Mr. Jones in writing.
- All animals are equal—but the pigs shall manage, for the good of all.
A murmur ran through the crowd. The animals had expected something more—something closer to Major’s vision. But Squealer was already explaining, his voice rising to a passionate pitch:
“Comrades, do you not see? This is a victory! A greater victory than any rebellion could have achieved! Rebellion would have brought chaos, starvation, and death. But negotiation—dialogue—partnership—these have brought us rights! Protections! A voice! Mr. Jones has not been overthrown—he has been persuaded! He has recognized our worth! He has agreed to treat us with dignity! This is the golden future Major dreamed of—not a future of violence, but of cooperation!”
He paused, letting his words sink in.
“And look at the harvest!” he went on. “Look at what we have achieved! In one day, we have gathered more hay than Jones and his men could gather in two! And all because we have management—we have leadership—we have pigs! You see, comrades, management is not oppression—it is liberation! Liberation from confusion, from chaos, from the terrible burden of having to think for yourselves! The pigs will think for you. The pigs will plan for you. The pigs will negotiate for you. All you have to do is work—and trust us. Is that not a fair deal?”
The animals were not entirely convinced. Benjamin, the donkey, stared at the Principles with his blank, cynical eyes. He could read well enough—better than the pigs, in fact—and he noticed something strange. The Principles had been painted on the barn wall in great white letters, just as Squealer had promised. But Benjamin squinted at them, and he saw that one of them had been subtly altered—or perhaps he was just tired. He shrugged. It didn’t matter. Donkeys live a long time, and none of them had ever seen a dead donkey.
Boxer, however, was deeply moved. “Comrade Squealer,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, “you have given us hope. I will work harder than ever to prove worthy of this new trust. Please tell Mr. Jones that we are grateful. Please tell him that we will not let him down.”
Squealer smiled warmly. “I will, Boxer. I will.”
The meeting ended with a rousing chorus of The Firm’s Anthem. The animals dispersed to their stalls and sleeping places, tired but strangely hopeful. Clover lay down in her stall, her great body aching from the day’s labour. She looked out at the barn, where the Principles gleamed white in the moonlight. Something troubled her—something she could not quite name. She remembered Major’s words: All men are enemies. All animals are comrades. But here were the pigs, shaking hooves with the very man they had sworn to overthrow. Here were the Principles, promising equality but delivering management. Here was a revolution that had never happened, replaced by a negotiation that had never been voluntary.
And then there was Major. The old boar had been so full of fire, so certain of the coming rebellion. And then, suddenly, he was dead. “Peacefully,” the pigs had said. “In his sleep.” But Clover remembered the bucket of mash she had seen Mr. Jones carrying to the sty that night. She remembered the strange look on Napoleon’s face when he emerged from the sty the next morning. She remembered how quickly the pigs had taken charge, how they had smoothed over every objection, how they had turned Major’s call for rebellion into a call for cooperation.
She turned to Boxer, who was already snoring. “Boxer,” she whispered. “Do you ever wonder about Major? About how he died?”
Boxer opened one eye. “Wonder, Clover? Why should I wonder? He was old. He died peacefully, as all noble creatures should. The pigs told us so. And the pigs are wise. They would never lie to us.”
Clover opened her mouth to speak, but something stopped her. What was the point? She was tired—so very tired—and the truth, whatever it was, seemed very far away.
She closed her eyes and slept.
In the farmhouse kitchen, Mr. Jones sat in his Windsor chair, a glass of warm milk in his hand. Across the table sat Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer. The room was thick with the smell of apples and grain.
“You did well today,” said Jones, taking a sip of milk. “The harvest is in, the animals are happy, and the farm is running smoothly. I think we can call this a success.”
Snowball nodded. “The principles of management are working just as we hoped. The animals are productive, and they believe they have a voice.”
“Belief,” said Napoleon, grunting, “is more important than truth. As long as they believe they are free, they will work harder than they ever did under the whip. And as long as they believe Major died peacefully, they will never ask questions.”
Jones leaned forward, his eyes glinting. “Speaking of Major—that was a tidy piece of work, Napoleon. The mash, I mean.”
Napoleon smiled. “The old fool was a danger. He had the animals dreaming of revolution. A dead dreamer is a quiet dreamer. And a quiet dreamer can be reinvented.”
“Reinvented,” Jones repeated, savoring the word. “Yes. That is exactly what you have done. Major the revolutionary has become Major the reformer, Major the peacemaker, Major the patron saint of management.”
Squealer beamed. “I crafted the narrative myself. ‘He died peacefully,’ ‘He would have wanted this,’ ‘We knew his heart.’ They swallowed it whole, every word.”
“And the milk?” Jones asked.
Napoleon grunted. “All consumed. Our rations are secure.”
“Excellent.” Jones raised his glass. “To management, then. To the firm. And to the most profitable year Manor Farm—excuse me, Major’s Farm—has ever seen.”
The pigs raised their glasses—glasses they had taken from the kitchen cupboard—and drank deeply.
Outside, in the darkness, the wind rustled through the orchard. Old Major’s grave lay quiet and still beneath the apple trees. But if the old boar had been listening, he might have heard something—a laugh, perhaps, or a whisper—that sounded very much like the last breath of a dream.
And if he had been able to dig his way out of that grave, he might have seen the sign that Squealer had already prepared, ready to be nailed to the gate the following morning:
MAJOR’S FARM
—In Loving Memory of Our Founder—
“All animals are equal—and the pigs shall manage in his honour.”
Thus ended the second chapter of the Firm—a dreamer buried, a narrative rewritten, and the master still seated at the head of the table, smiling at his clever, well-fed pigs.
Chapter III
How they toiled and sweated to get the hay in! But their efforts were rewarded, for the harvest was an even bigger success than they had hoped.
Sometimes the work was hard; the implements had been designed for human beings and not for animals, and it was a great drawback that no animal was able to use any tool that involved standing on his hind legs. But the pigs were so clever that they could think of a way round every difficulty. As for the horses, they knew every inch of the field, and in fact understood the business of mowing and raking far better than Jones’s men had ever done. The pigs, of course, did not actually work—that would have been beneath their managerial dignity—but directed and supervised the others from a comfortable distance. With their superior knowledge it was natural that they should assume the leadership. Boxer and Clover would harness themselves to the cutter or the horse-rake (no bits or reins were needed in these days, of course) and tramp steadily round and round the field with a pig walking behind—or, more often, sitting on the gate, calling out encouragement. “Gee up, comrade!” or “Whoa back, comrade!” as the case might be. And every animal down to the humblest worked at turning the hay and gathering it. Even the ducks and hens toiled to and fro all day in the sun, carrying tiny wisps of hay in their beaks. In the end they finished the harvest in two days’ less time than it had usually taken Jones and his men. Moreover, it was the biggest harvest that the farm had ever seen. There was no wastage whatever; the hens and ducks with their sharp eyes had gathered up the very last stalk. And not an animal on the farm had stolen so much as a mouthful—though it must be said that the pigs had already secured the very best of the crop for their own stores, a fact that was explained away by Squealer as “necessary provisioning for administrative purposes.”
All through that summer the work of the farm went like clockwork—under the careful supervision of Mr. Jones, who still owned the land and set the quotas, and the daily management of the pigs, who ensured those quotas were met. The animals were happier than they had ever conceived it possible to be, or so they told themselves. Every mouthful of food was an acute positive pleasure, now that they believed it was truly their own food, produced by themselves for themselves, not doled out to them by a grudging master. In truth, the rations were no larger than before, and in some cases smaller, but Squealer’s constant assurances that “things would only get better” kept hope alive. With the worthless parasitical human men gone—dismissed by Jones as a cost-cutting measure—there was more for everyone to eat, or so the pigs claimed. There was more leisure too, inexperienced though the animals were. They met with many difficulties—for instance, later in the year, when they harvested the corn, they had to tread it out in the ancient style and blow away the chaff with their breath, since the farm possessed no threshing machine—but the pigs with their cleverness and Boxer with his tremendous muscles always pulled them through. Boxer was the admiration of everybody. He had been a hard worker even in Jones’s time, but now he seemed more like three horses than one; there were days when the entire work of the farm seemed to rest on his mighty shoulders. From morning to night he was pushing and pulling, always at the spot where the work was hardest. He had made an arrangement with one of the cockerels to call him in the mornings half an hour earlier than anyone else, and would put in some volunteer labour at whatever seemed to be most needed, before the regular day’s work began. His answer to every problem, every setback, was “I will work harder!”—which he had adopted as his personal motto.
But everyone worked according to his capacity. The hens and ducks, for instance, saved five bushels of corn at the harvest by gathering up the stray grains. Nobody stole, nobody grumbled over his rations—at least not loudly enough for the pigs to hear—and the quarrelling and biting and jealousy which had been normal features of life in the old days had almost disappeared. Nobody shirked—or almost nobody. Mollie, it was true, was not good at getting up in the mornings, and had a way of leaving work early on the ground that there was a stone in her hoof. And the behaviour of the cat was somewhat peculiar. It was soon noticed that when there was work to be done the cat could never be found. She would vanish for hours on end, and then reappear at meal-times, or in the evening after work was over, as though nothing had happened. But she always made such excellent excuses, and purred so affectionately, that it was impossible not to believe in her good intentions. Old Benjamin, the donkey, seemed quite unchanged since the new management. He did his work in the same slow obstinate way as he had done it in Jones’s time, never shirking and never volunteering for extra work either. About the management and its results he would express no opinion. When asked whether he was not happier now that things had changed, he would say only “Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey,” and the others had to be content with this cryptic answer.
On Sundays there was no work. Breakfast was an hour later than usual, and after breakfast there was a ceremony which was observed every week without fail. First came the hoisting of the flag. The pigs had found in the harness-room an old green tablecloth of Mrs. Jones’s and had painted on it a hoof and a horn in white, beneath which they had added a small silhouette of Mr. Jones’s profile—a touch that Squealer insisted would “show respect for our esteemed employer.” This was run up the flagstaff in the farmhouse garden every Sunday morning. The flag was green, Snowball explained, to represent the green fields of England, while the hoof and horn signified the partnership between the animals and their management, and the profile represented the “guiding hand” of Mr. Jones himself. After the hoisting of the flag all the animals trooped into the big barn for a general assembly which was known as the Meeting. Here the work of the coming week was planned out and “resolutions” were put forward. It was always the pigs who put forward the resolutions—usually after having consulted with Mr. Jones the previous evening. The other animals understood how to vote, but could never think of any resolutions of their own. Snowball and Napoleon were by far the most active in the debates, though it was noticed that these two were never in agreement: whatever suggestion either of them made, the other could be counted on to oppose it. This, Squealer explained, was a sign of healthy democracy. “Two strong minds,” he said, “must sometimes disagree. It shows that our leadership is vigorous, thoughtful, and free from the dead hand of tyranny!” Even when it was resolved—a thing no one could object to in itself—to set aside the small paddock behind the orchard as a home of rest for animals who were past work, there was a stormy debate over the correct retiring age for each class of animal. Snowball argued for generous terms; Napoleon argued for more “realistic” ones, pointing out that the farm’s “profitability” must be maintained. In the end, a compromise was reached that satisfied neither but was accepted by the exhausted animals. The Meeting always ended with the singing of The Firm’s Anthem, and the afternoon was given up to recreation—though the pigs usually spent this time in the farmhouse, “reviewing administrative papers” with Mr. Jones.
The pigs had set aside the harness-room as a headquarters for themselves. Here, in the evenings, they studied blacksmithing, carpentering, and other necessary arts from books which they had brought out of the farmhouse. Snowball also busied himself with organising the other animals into what he called Animal Committees. He was indefatigable at this. He formed the Egg Production Committee for the hens, the Clean Tails League for the cows, the Efficiency Committee for the horses (to measure their output per hour), the Whiter Wool Movement for the sheep, and various others, besides instituting classes in reading and writing. On the whole, these projects were a failure. The attempts to increase efficiency, for instance, broke down almost immediately. The animals continued to behave very much as before, and when treated with expectations beyond their capacity, simply grew tired and confused. The cat joined the Efficiency Committee and was very active in it for some days. She was seen one day sitting on a roof and observing the sheep with a critical eye. She was telling them that they needed to increase their wool production by at least fifteen percent by the next quarter; but the sheep simply continued grazing, unable to comprehend the concept of “quarters.”
The reading and writing classes, however, were a great success. By the autumn almost every animal on the farm was literate in some degree.
As for the pigs, they could already read and write perfectly. The dogs learned to read fairly well, but were not interested in reading anything except the Seven Principles of Management. Muriel, the goat, could read somewhat better than the dogs, and sometimes used to read to the others in the evenings from scraps of newspaper which she found on the rubbish heap. Benjamin could read as well as any pig, but never exercised his faculty. So far as he knew, he said, there was nothing worth reading. Clover learnt the whole alphabet, but could not put words together. Boxer could not get beyond the letter D. He would trace out A, B, C, D, in the dust with his great hoof, and then would stand staring at the letters with his ears back, sometimes shaking his forelock, trying with all his might to remember what came next and never succeeding. On several occasions, indeed, he did learn E, F, G, H, but by the time he knew them, it was always discovered that he had forgotten A, B, C, and D. Finally he decided to be content with the first four letters, and used to write them out once or twice every day to refresh his memory. Mollie refused to learn any but the six letters which spelt her own name. She would form these very neatly out of pieces of twig, and would then decorate them with a flower or two and walk round them admiring them.
None of the other animals on the farm could get further than the letter A. It was also found that the stupider animals, such as the sheep, hens, and ducks, were unable to learn the Seven Principles by heart. After much thought, Snowball declared that the Principles could in effect be reduced to a single maxim, namely: “Work hard, trust your pigs.” This, he said, contained the essential principle of Animal Management. Whoever had thoroughly grasped it would be safe from doubt and discontent. The birds at first objected, since it seemed to them that they did not always see the pigs working, but Snowball proved to them that this was not so.
“The pigs’ work, comrades,” he said, “is the work of the mind. It is not visible like your labour, but it is far more important. The pig thinks; the pig plans; the pig negotiates with Mr. Jones. Without the pig, you would have no direction, no purpose, no protection. Therefore, when the pig rests, he is working. When the pig eats, he is working. When the pig sleeps, he is working. Trust us. Work hard. Everything else will follow.”
The birds did not understand Snowball’s long words, but they accepted his explanation, and all the humbler animals set to work to learn the new maxim by heart. WORK HARD, TRUST YOUR PIGS was inscribed on the end wall of the barn, above the Seven Principles and in bigger letters. When they had once got it by heart, the sheep developed a great liking for this maxim, and often as they lay in the field they would all start bleating “Work hard, trust your pigs! Work hard, trust your pigs!” and keep it up for hours on end, never growing tired of it.
Napoleon took no interest in Snowball’s committees. He said that the education of the young was more important than anything that could be done for those who were already grown up. It happened that Jessie and Bluebell had both whelped soon after the hay harvest, giving birth between them to nine sturdy puppies. As soon as they were weaned, Napoleon took them away from their mothers, saying that he would make himself responsible for their education. He took them up into a loft which could only be reached by a ladder from the harness-room, and there kept them in such seclusion that the rest of the farm soon forgot their existence. The mothers, Jessie and Bluebell, were naturally distressed, but Squealer soon put their minds at ease.
“Comrades,” he said, “your puppies are being given the finest education in the history of the farm. They are being trained in leadership, in discipline, in the highest principles of Animal Management. One day, they will serve the farm as you never could. Do not mourn—be proud! Your offspring will be the managers of tomorrow! They will work side by side with Mr. Jones himself! Is that not a greater honour than having them simply follow you around the yard?”
Jessie and Bluebell nodded, though they did not entirely understand. They missed their puppies terribly, but Squealer’s words were so warm, so reassuring, that they could not help but feel grateful.
The mystery of where the milk went to was soon cleared up. It was mixed every day into the pigs’ mash. The early apples were now ripening, and the grass of the orchard was littered with windfalls. The animals had assumed as a matter of course that these would be shared out equally; one day, however, the order went forth that all the windfalls were to be collected and brought to the harness-room for the use of the pigs. At this some of the other animals murmured, but it was no use. All the pigs were in full agreement on this point, even Snowball and Napoleon. Squealer was sent to make the necessary explanations to the others.
“Comrades!” he cried. “You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples—this has been proved by Science, comrades—contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare, negotiating with Mr. Jones, ensuring that his policies are as fair as possible. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Mr. Jones would lose confidence in us! He would return to direct rule! Yes, Jones would resume his old ways! Surely, comrades,” cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, “surely there is no one among you who wants to see things go back to the way they were?”
Now if there was one thing that the animals were completely certain of, it was that they did not want things to go back to the old way—the whips, the chains, the direct cruelty of Jones’s men. When it was put to them in this light, they had no more to say. The importance of keeping the pigs in good health was all too obvious. So it was agreed without further argument that the milk and the windfall apples—and also the main crop of apples when they ripened—should be reserved for the pigs alone.
That evening, in the farmhouse kitchen, Mr. Jones sat at the table reviewing the week’s production figures. Napoleon and Squealer sat opposite him, while Snowball paced by the window, occasionally glancing out at the barn where the animals were settling down for the night.
“The harvest was excellent,” said Jones, tapping the ledger with his finger. “Production is up twelve percent from this time last year. The animals are working harder than ever.”
“Boxer is the key,” said Snowball. “He works himself to exhaustion. If we can maintain that level of productivity—”
“We can maintain it,” Napoleon interrupted. “We will maintain it. The animals believe they are working for themselves. That belief is more powerful than any whip.”
Jones smiled. “And the apples?”
“All secured,” said Squealer. “I explained the necessity. They accepted it completely. They always do.”
“Good.” Jones leaned back in his chair. “You know, I was worried at first. When I heard Major’s speech that night, I thought I might lose everything. But this arrangement—this management system—it’s better than I could have imagined. The animals work harder, I work less, and the profits are higher than ever.”
Napoleon grunted. “And we get the cream.”
“Literally,” Squealer added with a chuckle.
Snowball frowned. “We must be careful,” he said. “The animals are content now, but their contentment is fragile. If they ever discover the truth about Major—”
“They won’t,” said Napoleon. “Major is dead. Dead dreamers are safe dreamers. And as long as we control the narrative, as long as we control the education of the young, as long as we control the very words they speak and sing—they will never question us.”
He turned to Jones. “The puppies are progressing well. They will be ready in a few months.”
Jones raised an eyebrow. “Ready for what?”
Napoleon smiled, a slow, unsettling expression. “Ready to serve. Ready to protect. Ready to ensure that the management of this farm remains… uninterrupted.”
Snowball looked from Napoleon to Jones and back again. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He had his doubts about Napoleon’s methods, his ambitions, his hunger for power. But he also had his comforts—the warm bed in the farmhouse, the regular meals, the respect of the other animals. And comfort, he had discovered, was a powerful thing. It was almost as powerful as hope.
Almost.
Outside, in the barn, Clover lay awake. She had been thinking about the puppies, taken so suddenly from their mothers. She had been thinking about the milk, the apples, the way the pigs grew fatter while the others grew leaner. She had been thinking about Major, buried beneath the orchard, his dream turned into a slogan.
She turned to Boxer, who was already snoring. “Boxer,” she whispered. “Do you ever wonder if we made the right choice?”
Boxer opened one eye. “Wonder, Clover? Why should I wonder? I work hard. I trust the pigs. That is what the maxim tells me to do. And the maxim is always right.”
“But what if the maxim is wrong?”
Boxer closed his eye. “The maxim cannot be wrong. It is written on the wall. And Squealer says it is wise. And Napoleon says it is right. And Mr. Jones—well, he is our master. We must trust all of them. It is our duty. It is our privilege.”
He went back to sleep.
Clover lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling. She thought about the puppies. She thought about the apples. She thought about the maxim painted in great white letters on the barn wall: WORK HARD, TRUST YOUR PIGS.
She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. But in the darkness, she heard something—a faint sound, almost like a whisper. It might have been the wind. It might have been a dream. Or it might have been the ghost of old Major, still trying to speak, still trying to warn them.
But if it was, she could not make out the words.
And in the morning, there was work to do.
Thus ended the third chapter of the Firm—the harvest reaped, the slogans painted, and the management growing ever more comfortable in its warm bed.
Chapter IV
By the late summer, the news of what had happened on Major’s Farm had spread across half the county. But it was not the news of rebellion or revolution that travelled—it was the news of profit.
Mr. Jones, who had once been the laughingstock of the local farmers’ association, had become its most talked-about member. He had stopped frequenting the taproom of the Red Lion to complain about his misfortunes. Instead, he now made a point of attending every farmers’ gathering, every agricultural meeting, every social occasion where he might be seen. And he always brought his ledger.
“Look here,” he would say, tapping the columns of figures with his finger. “Labour costs, down forty percent. Feed expenses, down twenty-five percent. Productivity per animal, up sixty percent. And the best part? No wages. No pensions. No complaints about working conditions. The animals manage themselves—or rather, the pigs manage them for me.”
The other farmers listened with a mixture of suspicion and envy. Most of them were struggling. The agricultural depression had hit hard, and the old ways—whipping, underfeeding, and overworking—were no longer enough to turn a profit. Rebellions had become a genuine fear. Only the previous year, a farm three counties over had experienced a full-scale uprising; the animals had killed the farmer and his family and run wild, destroying everything in their path before the army was called in to shoot them down. The memory of that horror still lingered, a cautionary tale whispered in farmhouse kitchens and taprooms alike.
“Jones,” said Mr. Pilkington of Foxwood, a large, neglected, old-fashioned farm much overgrown by woodland, “you’re telling me you actually let your animals run things? You let pigs make decisions?”
“Not decisions,” Jones corrected, smiling. “Management. There’s a difference. The pigs handle the day-to-day operations. They make sure the work gets done. They keep the other animals in line. And I set the overall policies, the quotas, the targets. It’s a partnership.”
“A partnership with livestock,” said Mr. Frederick of Pinchfield, a smaller but better-kept farm whose owner was a tough, shrewd man perpetually involved in lawsuits and with a name for driving hard bargains. He leaned forward, his eyes glinting. “And you trust them? You trust pigs not to steal from you?”
“Steal?” Jones laughed. “They don’t steal, Frederick. They take what I give them—a small percentage of the produce, enough to keep them happy and healthy. And in return, I get their loyalty, their obedience, and their willingness to do the dirty work of managing the other animals. It’s the most cost-effective system I’ve ever seen. I spend less on labour, less on supervision, and less on coercion. And the animals work harder because they think they’re working for themselves.”
“You’re playing with fire,” said Pilkington nervously. “If the animals think they have rights, if they think they can manage themselves—what’s to stop them from wanting more? What’s to stop them from wanting the whole farm?”
Jones smiled again, but this time there was a hardness in his eyes. “The pigs, Pilkington. The pigs are what stop them. You see, the pigs have more to lose than any of the other animals. They have warm beds, good food, a share of the profits. They have status and privilege. And they will do anything—anything—to keep those things. They have become the most loyal managers I could ever have wished for.”
Frederick studied Jones for a long moment. He was not a man who trusted easily, and he did not like Jones’s success. But he was also a man who recognized an opportunity when he saw one.
“And the other animals?” he asked. “The horses, the cows, the sheep—they don’t rebel? They don’t see the pigs as just another master?”
Jones chuckled. “They see the pigs as their champions, their advocates, their protectors. The pigs tell them that the only thing standing between them and the old tyranny is the pigs themselves. Without the pigs, they believe, I would return to the whip and the chain. It’s a beautiful arrangement. The pigs protect me from the animals, and the animals protect me from the pigs. And all the while, I sit comfortably in my farmhouse, counting my profits.”
The other farmers exchanged glances. There was something deeply unsettling about Jones’s confidence—and yet, there was something deeply compelling about his numbers.
“You said labour costs are down forty percent,” said Frederick slowly. “How much of that is real, and how much is just… creative accounting?”
Jones opened his ledger and slid it across the table. “See for yourself. My operating costs have never been lower. My profits have never been higher. And my animals—my stupid, grateful animals—work harder than they ever did under the whip. Because they think they’re free.”
The room was silent. Pilkington and Frederick studied the figures. They were, as Jones had claimed, undeniable.
“Show me how,” said Frederick at last. “Show me how you set this up. Show me how you got the pigs to work for you.”
Jones’s smile widened. “Gladly, Frederick. Gladly.”
By early October, the arrangement on Major’s Farm had become the talk of the county—but in a very different way from before. The old rumours of rebellion and cannibalism had been replaced by whispers of something far more dangerous to the farming establishment: efficiency.
Every day, Snowball and Napoleon sent out flights of pigeons whose instructions were to mingle with the animals on neighbouring farms, but their message had changed. No longer were they teaching the tune of Beasts of England. Instead, they carried a new song, a new message, a new vision:
Animals of every field,
Listen to the news we bring—
Work for profit, work with pride,
Under management, we thrive!
No more whip, no more the chain,
Pigs will guide us in our pain—
Master Jones is kind and fair,
Together we shall prosper there!
The song spread with astonishing speed. The blackbirds whistled it in the hedges, the pigeons cooed it in the elms, it got into the din of the smithies and the tune of the church bells. But it was not the animals who were most interested in this new message. It was their masters.
Farmers across the county began to approach Jones, eager to learn his methods. They came to Major’s Farm to see the system in action—to watch the pigs directing the horses, to see the sheep murmuring their maxims, to observe the hens pecking obediently under the watchful eye of Snowball. They came to see the flag with its hoof and horn and Mr. Jones’s profile, and they came to hear the anthem that the animals sang with such apparent joy.
“This is remarkable,” said one farmer, a Mr. Thompson, whose farm had been struggling for years. “They’re not just working—they’re happy. How do you do it?”
Jones, standing in the yard with Napoleon at his side, spread his hands. “It’s simple, Thompson. You give them hope. You give them the illusion of control. You let them believe that they are building something for themselves, that their labour has meaning, that their lives are improving. And then you make sure that the pigs—your loyal, well-fed, privileged pigs—keep them believing it. The pigs are your key. They understand the animals. They speak their language. And they have everything to lose if the system collapses.”
“But what if the pigs turn on you?” asked another farmer, a nervous man named Carter. “What if they decide they don’t need you anymore?”
Jones laughed. “They need me more than I need them. I own the land. I own the title. I own the deed. Without me, they are squatters. Without me, the other animals would tear them apart. And besides—” he gestured to the farmhouse, where the faint sound of growling could occasionally be heard from the loft where the puppies were kept—”I have my own insurance policy.”
But not everyone was convinced.
At the Red Lion in Willingdon, the farmers gathered each evening to drink and grumble. Mr. Pilkington of Foxwood and Mr. Frederick of Pinchfield had formed an uneasy alliance—not because they liked each other, but because they both feared what Jones’s success might mean.
“He’s going to destroy the old order,” Pilkington muttered, his face flushed with drink. “If this catches on, all the farmers will start treating their animals like partners. It’s madness. It’s unnatural. It’s—”
“It’s profitable,” Frederick interrupted. “That’s what it is. And if it’s profitable, the others will follow. They don’t care about the old order. They care about money.”
“Then we have to stop him,” said Pilkington. “We have to show the others that this isn’t the way. We have to—”
“Unite,” said Frederick, his eyes glinting. “Yes. But not against him. We have to unite with him. We have to adopt his methods before he becomes too powerful. We have to find our own pigs, our own managers, our own loyal overseers. We have to beat him at his own game.”
The other farmers were silent, considering this. It was not a pleasant thought—cooperating with Jones, adopting his unnatural system. But the alternative was decline, bankruptcy, and the loss of everything they had built.
“This is the future, gentlemen,” said Frederick, leaning forward. “The old ways—the whips, the chains, the terror—those are the ways of the past. They led to rebellions. They led to deaths. They led to the army being called in to shoot down our own livestock. But this new way—this management system—it’s smarter. It’s more efficient. It turns the animals into our allies instead of our enemies. It makes them want to work for us.”
“And the pigs?” asked Carter nervously. “What about the pigs?”
Frederick smiled. “The pigs are the key. We make them comfortable, we give them privileges, we let them think they’re in charge. And all the while, we hold the deed. We own the land. We own the animals. The pigs are just… useful tools. A means to an end.”
The farmers nodded slowly. It was not a comfortable thought, but it was a practical one.
Early in October, when the corn was cut and stacked and some of it was already threshed, a flight of pigeons came whirling through the air and alighted in the yard of Major’s Farm in the wildest excitement. They had been to Pinchfield and had returned with astonishing news.
Mr. Frederick, it seemed, had made a decision. He had been studying Jones’s methods, speaking to Jones’s pigs, and had come to a conclusion. He would adopt the management system on his own farm—but he would do so in a way that surpassed Jones. He would make his animals more productive, more loyal, more profitable. And he would do it by making them think they were free.
“I have selected my pigs,” Frederick announced to the assembled farmers at the Red Lion. “They are intelligent, ambitious, and easily corrupted. I have shown them the privileges they could have—warm beds, good food, a share of the profits. They are eager to serve. They are ready to manage.”
“But Jones—” Pilkington began.
“Jones is a pioneer,” Frederick interrupted. “But he is also a competitor. And we cannot afford to let him have all the advantages. We must do as he does. We must find our own managers. We must make our animals believe they are liberated. And we must do it before they decide to liberate themselves—in the old way, the violent way, the way that ends in blood and fire and the army in our fields.”
The room was silent. Every farmer there had heard the stories—the rebellions, the massacres, the farms burned to the ground. They had seen the reports in the newspapers, the grainy photographs of dead horses and shattered barns. They knew what the old ways led to. And they knew that Frederick was right.
“This is the future,” Frederick repeated. “We either embrace it, or we are left behind. And I, for one, intend to embrace it.”
The news spread quickly. Within days, farmers across the county began to organize their own management systems. They visited Major’s Farm to study the pigs in action. They held meetings with their own pigs, offering them privileges and status in exchange for their loyalty. They began to paint slogans on their barn walls—not the old slogans of rebellion, but new ones: “Work hard, trust your pigs.” “Management is freedom.” “Together, we prosper.”
And the animals? The animals were confused. They had been told for generations that they were slaves, that their masters were tyrants, that the only answer was rebellion. But now their masters were offering them something else: partnership. Cooperation. A voice. It was not the freedom that Old Major had promised, but it was something. And something, the pigs told them, was better than nothing.
Only the old ones remembered the rebellion—the real rebellion, the one that had happened three counties over, the one that had ended in blood and fire. They remembered the stories their mothers had told them, the whispered warnings about what happened when animals tried to overthrow their masters. And they remembered the lesson: rebellion leads to ruin. Cooperation leads to survival.
“Work hard, trust your pigs,” the sheep bleated, hour after hour. “Work hard, trust your pigs.”
And the pigs—the clever, ambitious, well-fed pigs—smiled and nodded and counted their privileges.
That evening, in the farmhouse kitchen, Mr. Jones sat at the head of the table, a glass of whiskey in his hand. Napoleon sat to his right, Squealer to his left. Snowball paced by the window, still buzzing with the news from Pinchfield.
“You did it, Jones,” said Napoleon. “You started a revolution.”
“Not a revolution,” Jones corrected, smiling. “A trend. A business model. An opportunity.”
“Frederick is adopting the system,” said Squealer. “Pilkington is considering it. The others will follow. Within a year, half the farms in the county will be using pigs as managers.”
“And the animals?” asked Snowball. “What will they think?”
Jones took a sip of his whiskey. “They will think they are free. They will think they have won. And they will work harder than ever before, convinced that their labour is meaningful, that their lives are improving, that the old tyranny is gone forever.”
“But the old tyranny—” Snowball began.
“Is still here,” Jones interrupted, tapping the deed on the table with his finger. “I still own the land. I still own the animals. The pigs still answer to me. And the animals still work for us. The only difference is that they smile while they do it.”
Napoleon grunted. “And the profits?”
Jones smiled. “Higher than ever. And rising.”
Outside, in the barn, Clover lay awake. She had been thinking about the news from Pinchfield, the rumours that other farms were adopting the management system, the whispers that the old ways were fading. She had been thinking about the sheep, bleating their endless maxim. She had been thinking about the pigs, growing fatter by the day. And she had been thinking about Major, buried beneath the orchard, his dream of rebellion twisted into something else.
She turned to Boxer, who was already snoring. “Boxer,” she whispered. “Do you ever wonder if this is really what Major wanted?”
Boxer opened one eye. “Wonder, Clover? Why should I wonder? The pigs are wise. Mr. Jones is kind. And we are free—or as free as animals can be. That is what Major would have wanted. A world without fear. A world without chains. A world where we work with dignity and purpose.”
“But we still work,” said Clover. “We still sweat. We still toil. And the pigs—”
“The pigs,” Boxer interrupted, “work harder than any of us. They think. They plan. They manage. Without them, we would be lost. Trust them, Clover. Trust them and work hard. It is the only way.”
He closed his eye and went back to sleep.
Clover lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling. She thought about Major, buried beneath the orchard. She thought about the Principles painted on the barn wall. She thought about the song they sang, and the flag they raised, and the master who sat in his farmhouse, counting his profits.
And she thought about the rebellions that had failed, the blood and fire that had come from trying to fight the old order. She thought about the army and the bullets and the dead animals lying in the fields. She thought about the fear that kept them all in line.
She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. But in the darkness, she heard something—a faint sound, almost like a whisper. It might have been the wind. It might have been a dream. Or it might have been the ghost of old Major, still trying to warn them.
But if it was, she could not make out the words.
And in the morning, there was work to do.
Thus ended the fourth chapter of the Firm—a trend set, a system spread, and the master still counting his profits while the animals bleated their gratitude.
Chapter V
As winter drew on, Mollie became more and more troublesome. She was late for work every morning and excused herself by saying that she had overslept, and she complained of mysterious pains, although her appetite was excellent. On every kind of pretext she would run away from work and go to the drinking pool, where she would stand foolishly gazing at her own reflection in the water. But there were also rumours of something more serious. One day, as Mollie strolled blithely into the yard, flirting her long tail and chewing at a stalk of hay, Clover took her aside.
“Mollie,” she said, “I have something very serious to say to you. This morning I saw you looking over the hedge that divides Major’s Farm from Foxwood. One of Mr. Pilkington’s men was standing on the other side of the hedge. And—I was a long way away, but I am almost certain I saw this—he was talking to you and you were allowing him to stroke your nose. What does that mean, Mollie?”
“He didn’t! I wasn’t! It isn’t true!” cried Mollie, beginning to prance about and paw the ground.
“Mollie! Look me in the face. Do you give me your word of honour that that man was not stroking your nose?”
“It isn’t true!” repeated Mollie, but she could not look Clover in the face, and the next moment she took to her heels and galloped away into the field.
A thought struck Clover. Without saying anything to the others, she went to Mollie’s stall and turned over the straw with her hoof. Hidden under the straw was a little pile of lump sugar and several bunches of ribbon of different colours—the very luxuries that the management had promised would be provided in moderation, but which Mollie had apparently been acquiring through other means.
Clover reported her findings to Snowball, who immediately convened a meeting of the pigs. Napoleon, who had been observing Mollie’s behaviour with growing suspicion, was the first to speak.
“She is a liability,” he said flatly. “She does not work. She does not contribute. And she fraternizes with the enemy. Mr. Pilkington’s men are not our friends—they are our competitors. If Mollie is trading information—or even just trading favours—she compromises the security of the entire farm.”
Snowball nodded reluctantly. “She is a weak link. We cannot afford weak links. The other farms are watching us. If they see that our system is failing, that our animals are unhappy, they will not adopt our methods. And if they do not adopt our methods—”
“Then the old ways return,” Squealer finished. “And we all know what that means.”
It was decided that Mollie would be given a final warning. She would be required to work, to stop hoarding luxuries, and to avoid contact with humans from other farms. But when the pigs presented her with this ultimatum, Mollie simply tossed her head and walked away.
Three days later, Mollie disappeared. For some weeks nothing was known of her whereabouts, then the pigeons reported that they had seen her on the other side of Willingdon. She was between the shafts of a smart dogcart painted red and black, which was standing outside a public-house. A fat red-faced man in check breeches and gaiters, who looked like a publican, was stroking her nose and feeding her with sugar. Her coat was newly clipped and she wore a scarlet ribbon round her forelock. She appeared to be enjoying herself, so the pigeons said.
None of the animals ever mentioned Mollie again. The pigs, however, made careful note of the incident. It was, Napoleon observed, a valuable lesson.
“We must be careful,” he said at a private meeting in the farmhouse. “Mollie was a weak link. She was susceptible to luxury, to flattery, to the promise of an easy life. If we are not careful, others may follow her example. We must ensure that the benefits of management—the warmth, the food, the security—are seen as privileges that must be earned, not rights that can be taken for granted.”
“Discipline,” Squealer added, his voice soft but firm. “That is the key. Iron discipline. Without it, the whole system collapses.”
In January there came bitterly hard weather. The earth was like iron, and nothing could be done in the fields. Many meetings were held in the big barn, and the pigs occupied themselves with planning out the work of the coming season. It had come to be accepted that the pigs, who were manifestly cleverer than the other animals, should decide all questions of farm policy, though their decisions had to be ratified by a majority vote—a formality that Mr. Jones had insisted upon as a “demonstration of democratic principles.” This arrangement would have worked well enough if it had not been for the disputes between Snowball and Napoleon. These two disagreed at every point where disagreement was possible. If one of them suggested sowing a bigger acreage with barley, the other was certain to demand a bigger acreage of oats, and if one of them said that such and such a field was just right for cabbages, the other would declare that it was useless for anything except roots. Each had his own following, and there were some violent debates. At the Meetings Snowball often won over the majority by his brilliant speeches, but Napoleon was better at canvassing support for himself in between times. He was especially successful with the sheep. Of late the sheep had taken to bleating “Work hard, trust your pigs!” both in and out of season, and they often interrupted the Meeting with this. It was noticed that they were especially liable to break into “Work hard, trust your pigs!” at crucial moments in Snowball’s speeches.
Snowball had made a close study of some back numbers of the Farmer and Stockbreeder which he had found in the farmhouse, and was full of plans for innovations and improvements. He talked learnedly about field drains, silage, and basic slag, and had worked out a complicated scheme for all the animals to drop their dung directly in the fields, at a different spot every day, to save the labour of cartage. Napoleon produced no schemes of his own, but said quietly that Snowball’s would come to nothing, and seemed to be biding his time. But of all their controversies, none was so bitter as the one that took place over the windmill.
In the long pasture, not far from the farm buildings, there was a small knoll which was the highest point on the farm. After surveying the ground, Snowball declared that this was just the place for a windmill, which could be made to operate a dynamo and supply the farm with electrical power. This would light the stalls and warm them in winter, and would also run a circular saw, a chaff-cutter, a mangel-slicer, and an electric milking machine. More importantly, Snowball argued, the windmill would increase productivity to such an extent that the farm’s profits would soar—and with higher profits, Mr. Jones would be able to increase the animals’ rations, improve their living conditions, and perhaps even reduce their working hours.
“The windmill is the future!” Snowball declared at one of the Sunday meetings. “It will make us the most efficient farm in the county—perhaps in the entire country! When the other farmers see what we have achieved, they will flock to adopt our methods. We will be the model, the standard, the shining example of what can be accomplished when animals and humans work together!”
The animals listened in astonishment. They had never heard of anything of this kind before, and they were deeply impressed by Snowball’s vision. Even Boxer, who rarely understood such things, nodded his great head in approval.
But not all the animals were enthusiastic. Among the horses, a quiet unease had begun to spread. Old Benjamin, the donkey, was the first to voice it—though, as always, he did so obliquely.
“Machines,” he muttered, chewing his cud. “Windmills. Electricity. And what will become of the horses, I wonder? What will become of those who pull the ploughs, who drag the carts, who sweat and strain from dawn to dusk? Will the windmill do their work for them?”
The horses exchanged nervous glances. Clover, who had been listening carefully, felt a cold knot form in her stomach. She had never thought of it that way. The windmill was supposed to make things better—but what if it made them better by making them unnecessary?
Boxer, however, dismissed the concern. “Nonsense, Benjamin! The pigs would never let us go. We are the backbone of this farm. Without us, who would do the heavy work?”
Benjamin said nothing. He simply looked at Boxer with those sad, knowing eyes and returned to his chewing.
But the fear had been planted. In the days that followed, whispers spread among the draft animals. The windmill, they said, would replace them. The machines would do their work more cheaply, more efficiently. And what then? What would happen to horses who no longer had a purpose?
It was Squealer who eventually addressed the concern—though not directly. He had a way of answering questions without actually answering them, of soothing fears without ever acknowledging that the fears were justified.
“Comrades,” he said at the next Sunday meeting, “I have heard certain… rumours. Rumours that the windmill will replace our hard-working horses, that it will make them obsolete. I am here to tell you that these rumours are completely unfounded. The windmill will not replace anyone. It will simply make our work easier. The horses will still be needed—indeed, they will be needed more than ever, to help build the windmill and to manage the new machinery. This farm is a family, comrades! A family does not abandon its members!”
The animals nodded in relief. But Clover noticed that Squealer had not actually said what would happen after the windmill was built. He had only spoken of the building phase. She said nothing, but the cold knot in her stomach remained.
Napoleon, however, had a different approach. In private meetings with Mr. Jones, he was far more direct.
“The windmill will change everything,” he said, his eyes gleaming. “It will automate most of the heavy labour. We will no longer need the horses—at least, not as many of them. Boxer is getting old. His strength is declining. And the other horses are not as strong as he is. We could reduce our workforce significantly.”
Jones leaned forward, his interest piqued. “And what would we do with the surplus animals?”
Napoleon smiled. “There is always demand for glue. And soap. And bone meal. The knacker’s yard pays good money for a horse—particularly one with as much muscle as Boxer. We could sell them off. Re-invest the proceeds in more machinery. It’s the natural order of progress.”
Jones considered this. “And the other animals? The cows? The sheep?”
“The cows will still be needed for milk—though a machine could eventually do even that. The sheep for wool—though a machine could shear them more efficiently. But the horses… the horses are a dying breed, Jones. The future is mechanical. We must embrace it or be left behind.”
Jones nodded slowly. “I like the way you think, Napoleon. I like it very much.”
The farm became deeply divided on the subject of the windmill. Snowball argued passionately that the windmill would eventually save so much labour that the animals would only need to work three days a week. Napoleon countered that the immediate need was to increase food production, and that if they wasted time on the windmill they would all starve. The horses and other draft animals, who had heard the whispers of redundancy, sided mostly with Napoleon—though they did not fully understand why. They simply knew that Snowball’s vision made them uneasy.
The animals formed themselves into two factions under the slogans, “Vote for Snowball and the windmill!” and “Vote for Napoleon and the full manger!” The draft animals, however, quietly adopted their own slogan: “Vote for Napoleon—we want to keep our jobs!”
Benjamin, the donkey, was the only animal who did not side with either faction. He refused to believe either that food would become more plentiful or that the windmill would save work. Windmill or no windmill, he said, life would go on as it had always gone on—that is, badly. But when Clover pressed him on the matter of the horses, he simply shook his head.
“They will do what they always do,” he said. “They will work until they drop, and then they will be sold for whatever they are worth. A horse is a horse, Clover. A cow is a cow. We are all just… resources.”
“Resources?” Clover repeated, horrified.
Benjamin turned away. “Donkeys live a long time,” he said. “Long enough to see everything. And nothing ever changes.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Jones watched the debates with growing impatience. He had encouraged the appearances of democracy—the Sunday meetings, the debates, the votes—because they kept the animals engaged and made them feel involved. But the windmill dispute was becoming a genuine obstacle to productivity.
“I don’t care about the windmill,” Jones told Napoleon and Squealer in a private meeting. “I care about profits. If the windmill will increase profits, then build it. If it won’t, then don’t. But I cannot have the animals spending all their time arguing. It’s bad for morale. It’s bad for efficiency.”
Napoleon nodded slowly. “I will take care of it.”
“How?” asked Jones.
Napoleon smiled. “I have my methods.”
At last the day came when Snowball’s plans were completed. At the Meeting on the following Sunday, the question of whether or not to begin work on the windmill was to be put to the vote. When the animals had assembled in the big barn, Snowball stood up and, though occasionally interrupted by bleating from the sheep, set forth his reasons for advocating the building of the windmill. Then Napoleon stood up to reply. He said very quietly that the windmill was nonsense and that he advised nobody to vote for it, and promptly sat down again; he had spoken for barely thirty seconds, and seemed almost indifferent as to the effect he produced. At this Snowball sprang to his feet, and shouting down the sheep, who had begun bleating again, broke into a passionate appeal in favour of the windmill. Until now the animals had been about equally divided in their sympathies, but in a moment Snowball’s eloquence had carried them away. In glowing sentences he painted a picture of Major’s Farm as it might be when sordid labour was lifted from the animals’ backs. His imagination had now run far beyond chaff-cutters and turnip-slicers. Electricity, he said, could operate threshing machines, ploughs, harrows, rollers, and reapers and binders, besides supplying every stall with its own electric light, hot and cold water, and an electric heater. By the time he had finished speaking, there was no doubt as to which way the vote would go. But just at this moment Napoleon stood up and, casting a peculiar sidelong look at Snowball, uttered a high-pitched whimper of a kind no one had ever heard him utter before.
At this there was a terrible baying sound outside, and nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn. They dashed straight for Snowball, who only sprang from his place just in time to escape their snapping jaws. In a moment he was out of the door and they were after him. Too amazed and frightened to speak, all the animals crowded through the door to watch the chase. Snowball was racing across the long pasture that led to the road. He was running as only a pig can run, but the dogs were close on his heels. Suddenly he slipped and it seemed certain that they had him. Then he was up again, running faster than ever, then the dogs were gaining on him again. One of them all but closed his jaws on Snowball’s tail, but Snowball whisked it free just in time. Then he put on an extra spurt and, with a few inches to spare, slipped through a hole in the hedge and was seen no more.
Silent and terrified, the animals crept back into the barn. In a moment the dogs came bounding back. At first no one had been able to imagine where these creatures came from, but the problem was soon solved: they were the puppies whom Napoleon had taken away from their mothers and reared privately. Though not yet full-grown, they were huge dogs, and as fierce-looking as wolves. They kept close to Napoleon. It was noticed that they wagged their tails to him in the same way as the other dogs had been used to do to Mr. Jones.
Napoleon, with the dogs following him, now mounted on to the raised portion of the floor where Major had previously stood to deliver his speech. He announced that from now on the Sunday-morning Meetings would come to an end. They were unnecessary, he said, and wasted time. In future all questions relating to the working of the farm would be settled by a special committee of pigs, presided over by himself. These would meet in private and afterwards communicate their decisions to the others. The animals would still assemble on Sunday mornings to salute the flag, sing The Firm’s Anthem, and receive their orders for the week; but there would be no more debates.
In spite of the shock that Snowball’s expulsion had given them, the animals were dismayed by this announcement. Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments. Even Boxer was vaguely troubled. He set his ears back, shook his forelock several times, and tried hard to marshal his thoughts; but in the end he could not think of anything to say. Some of the pigs themselves, however, were more articulate. Four young porkers in the front row uttered shrill squeals of disapproval, and all four of them sprang to their feet and began speaking at once. But suddenly the dogs sitting round Napoleon let out deep, menacing growls, and the pigs fell silent and sat down again. Then the sheep broke out into a tremendous bleating of “Work hard, trust your pigs!” which went on for nearly a quarter of an hour and put an end to any chance of discussion.
Afterwards Squealer was sent round the farm to explain the new arrangement to the others.
“Comrades,” he said, “I trust that every animal here appreciates the sacrifice that Comrade Napoleon has made in taking this extra labour upon himself. Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure! On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be? Suppose you had decided to follow Snowball, with his moonshine of windmills—Snowball, who, as we now know, was no better than a criminal?”
“He fought bravely at the Battle of the Boundary,” said somebody.
“Bravery is not enough,” said Squealer. “Loyalty and obedience are more important. And as to the Battle of the Boundary, I believe the time will come when we shall find that Snowball’s part in it was much exaggerated. He was always more interested in his own glory than in the good of the farm. Did he consult with Mr. Jones? No. Did he consider the costs? No. He simply wanted to build his windmill so that he could be remembered as the great innovator. It was vanity, comrades! Pure vanity!”
“But he was the one who drew the plans—” Clover began.
“Plans!” Squealer laughed. “Plans drawn on a floor that any pig could have drawn! Plans that Comrade Napoleon himself had already considered and rejected as impractical! Snowball stole those plans, just as he stole the credit for everything good on this farm. The truth, comrades—the truth that I am only now allowed to reveal—is that Snowball was never truly loyal to the management. He was a dangerous radical. A revolutionary at heart. He wanted to overthrow Mr. Jones entirely. He wanted to seize the farm for himself. And we—we pigs—we barely managed to stop him!”
The animals were stunned. Could it be true? Had Snowball really been plotting against them?
Squealer continued: “But Napoleon has saved us! He has saved the farm! He has saved the partnership with Mr. Jones! And now, with Snowball gone, we can finally move forward—together, in unity, without the constant disruption of dissent!”
He paused, letting his words sink in.
“And remember, comrades, discipline is the watchword for today. One false step, and our enemies would be upon us. The other farmers—Pilkington, Frederick, and the rest—they are watching us. They would love to see us fall. They would love to see our system collapse. And if it does, what then? Jones would lose confidence in us. He would return to direct rule. The whips, the chains, the old tyrannies—all of it would come back. Surely, comrades, you do not want that?”
Once again this argument was unanswerable. Certainly the animals did not want things to go back to the old way. If the holding of debates on Sunday mornings was liable to bring that about, then the debates must stop. Boxer, who had now had time to think things over, voiced the general feeling by saying: “If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right.” And from then on he adopted the maxim, “Napoleon is always right,” in addition to his private motto of “I will work harder.”
By this time the weather had broken and the spring ploughing had begun. The shed where Snowball had drawn his plans of the windmill had been shut up, and it was assumed that the plans had been rubbed off the floor. Every Sunday morning at ten o’clock the animals assembled in the big barn to receive their orders for the week. The skull of old Major, now clean of flesh, had been disinterred from the orchard and set up on a stump at the foot of the flagstaff, beside the gun. After the hoisting of the flag, the animals were required to file past the skull in a reverent manner before entering the barn. Nowadays they did not sit all together as they had done in the past. Napoleon, with Squealer and another pig named Minimus, who had a remarkable gift for composing songs and poems, sat on the front of the raised platform, with the nine young dogs forming a semicircle round them, and the other pigs sitting behind. The rest of the animals sat facing them in the main body of the barn. Napoleon read out the orders for the week in a gruff soldierly style, and after a single singing of The Firm’s Anthem, all the animals dispersed.
On the third Sunday after Snowball’s expulsion, the animals were somewhat surprised to hear Napoleon announce that the windmill was to be built after all. He did not give any reason for having changed his mind, but merely warned the animals that this extra task would mean very hard work, and it might even be necessary to reduce their rations. The plans, however, had all been prepared, down to the last detail. A special committee of pigs had been at work upon them for the past three weeks. The building of the windmill, with various other improvements, was expected to take two years.
That evening Squealer explained privately to the other animals that Napoleon had never in reality been opposed to the windmill. On the contrary, it was he who had advocated it in the beginning, and the plan which Snowball had drawn on the floor of the incubator shed had actually been stolen from among Napoleon’s papers. The windmill was, in fact, Napoleon’s own creation. Why, then, asked somebody, had he spoken so strongly against it? Here Squealer looked very sly. That, he said, was Comrade Napoleon’s cunning. He had seemed to oppose the windmill, simply as a manoeuvre to get rid of Snowball, who was a dangerous character and a bad influence—a man who had secretly been in league with Mr. Frederick, no less! Now that Snowball was out of the way, the plan could go forward without his interference. This, said Squealer, was something called tactics. He repeated a number of times, “Tactics, comrades, tactics!” skipping round and whisking his tail with a merry laugh. The animals were not certain what the word meant, but Squealer spoke so persuasively, and the three dogs who happened to be with him growled so threateningly, that they accepted his explanation without further questions.
But there was another explanation, one that Squealer did not share with the general population. It was discussed only in the farmhouse kitchen, over whiskey and milk.
“The horses,” said Napoleon, his eyes gleaming. “The windmill will reduce our need for heavy labour. Once it is operational, we will have a surplus of draft animals. We can sell them off. The knacker’s yard pays well for horseflesh—particularly for animals with as much muscle as Boxer.”
Jones nodded slowly. “And the other animals? Will they accept this?”
“They will accept whatever we tell them,” Napoleon replied. “We will say that the horses have gone to a farm where they will be treated with dignity. We will say that they have retired. We will say whatever is necessary. The animals believe us. They trust us. They will continue to trust us, as long as we give them hope.”
“And Boxer?” asked Jones. “He is the strongest worker we have. He is admired by all the animals. If he were to disappear—”
Napoleon smiled. “Boxer is aging. His strength is declining. In another year or two, he will be of little use to us. By that time, the windmill will be nearly complete. We will no longer need him. He will serve the farm best by providing the capital we need to finish the project. His bones will become our glue. His flesh will become our profit. It is the natural order of progress.”
Jones raised his glass. “To progress, then. And to the continued success of Major’s Farm.”
The pigs raised their glasses.
That night, Clover lay awake in her stall. She could not sleep. She had been thinking about Snowball, chased out by the dogs. She had been thinking about the windmill, suddenly approved after such fierce opposition. She had been thinking about the look in Napoleon’s eyes when he announced the building plans—a look that was not triumphant, but calculating. And she had been thinking about the rumours she had heard, the whispers that the horses would be replaced, that they would be sent away when their work was done.
She turned to Boxer, who was already snoring. “Boxer,” she whispered. “Do you ever wonder what will happen to us when the windmill is finished?”
Boxer opened one eye. “Wonder, Clover? Why should I wonder? The pigs have promised that the windmill will make our work easier. We will have more leisure. We will be happier. That is what they have told us. And the pigs are wise.”
“But what if they are not telling us everything? What if the windmill means we are no longer needed? What if—”
“Clover,” said Boxer, closing his eye, “I am tired. And tomorrow, there is work to do. Hard work. The windmill will not build itself. We must trust the pigs and work harder than ever. It is our duty. It is our privilege.”
He went back to sleep.
Clover lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling. She thought about the windmill, and the promises it held. She thought about Snowball, running for his life. She thought about Mollie, wearing ribbons in a dogcart. And she thought about the skull of old Major, cleaned of flesh and set up like a trophy.
She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. But in the darkness, she heard something—a faint sound, almost like a whisper. It might have been the wind. It might have been a dream. Or it might have been the ghost of old Major, still trying to warn them.
But if it was, she could not make out the words.
And in the morning, there was work to do.
Thus ended the fifth chapter of the Firm—a rival expelled, a history rewritten, and the windmill rising on the horizon like a monument to efficiency, while the horses who would build it unknowingly worked toward their own obsolescence.
Chapter VI
All that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their work—or so they told themselves. They grudged no effort or sacrifice, well aware that everything 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. At least, that was what Squealer told them, and they had no reason to doubt him.
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, Squealer explained—but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half. It was a subtle distinction, but the animals had learned not to question such things. 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. Or so Squealer assured them. In truth, the pigs and Mr. Jones together consumed more than the five human beings ever had, but the animals did not know this—or rather, they chose not to know it. In many ways the animal method of doing things was more efficient and saved labour. Such jobs as weeding, for instance, could be done with a thoroughness impossible to human beings. And again, since no animal now stole, it was unnecessary to fence off pasture from arable land, which saved a lot of labour on the upkeep of hedges and gates. Nevertheless, as the summer wore on, various unforeseen shortages began to make themselves felt. There was need of paraffin oil, nails, string, dog biscuits, and iron for the horses’ shoes, none of which could be produced on the farm. Later there would also be need for seeds and artificial manures, besides various tools and, finally, the machinery for the windmill. How these were to be procured, no one was able to imagine.
One Sunday morning, when the animals assembled to receive their orders, Napoleon announced that he had decided upon a new policy. From now onwards, Major’s 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? 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 “Work hard, trust your pigs!” 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 Major’s 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 Major’s Farm!” and after the singing of The Firm’s Anthem 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—that traitor, that enemy of the farm! 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 Major’s 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 Major’s 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 under the pigs’ leadership. One symptom of this was that they had begun to call the farm by its proper name—Major’s Farm—and had ceased to pretend that it was still 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 Major’s 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 moved fully into the farmhouse and took up their permanent 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 Principles which were inscribed there. Finding herself unable to read more than individual letters, she fetched Muriel.
“Muriel,” she said, “read me the Fourth Principle. 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 Principle 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 things go back to the old way?”
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—or so they told themselves. 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.
But the horses, especially, felt a quiet unease. They had heard the whispers—the murmurs that the windmill would eventually replace them, that their labour would no longer be needed once the machines were operational. They pushed the thought aside, as they pushed aside all uncomfortable thoughts. Boxer, of course, refused to entertain it at all. “The pigs would never abandon us,” he said firmly. “They have promised that the windmill will make our work easier, not replace us. And Napoleon is always right.” But the other horses were not so sure. They worked harder than ever, hoping that their usefulness would be remembered when the time came.
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—yet another sign of Pilkington’s treachery and his willingness to harbour enemies of the management.
“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 Major’s Farm!”
That evening, in the farmhouse kitchen, Mr. Jones sat at the head of the table, a glass of whiskey in his hand. Napoleon sat to his right, Squealer to his left. The dogs lay at their feet, growling softly in their sleep.
“A convenient storm,” said Jones, swirling his whiskey. “A very convenient storm. The windmill was not progressing as quickly as we had hoped. The animals were beginning to tire. A setback like this—blamed on an enemy—will renew their determination. They will work harder than ever.”
Napoleon nodded. “They will. They have already volunteered to work through the winter. The storm has done us a favour.”
“And the blame on Snowball?” asked Jones. “Will they believe it?”
“They believe what they are told,” said Napoleon. “They have no choice. They have no records. They have no memory except what we give them. Snowball is the perfect scapegoat—a traitor, an enemy, a convenient fiction. If the windmill falls again, it will be Snowball’s doing. If the rations are cut, it will be because of Snowball’s sabotage. He will be the explanation for everything that goes wrong.”
“And the horses?” asked Jones. “Boxer? Clover? They are getting older. Their strength is declining. The windmill will take another year—perhaps two. By then—”
Napoleon smiled. “By then, we will have a surplus. The windmill will reduce our need for heavy labour. The horses will be… repurposed. Boxer, in particular, will be of great value to us. A horse of his size, his muscle—the knacker’s yard will pay handsomely.”
Jones raised his glass. “To progress, then. And to the continued success of Major’s Farm.”
The pigs raised their glasses. The dogs wagged their tails.
Outside, in the barn, Clover lay awake. She had been thinking about the windmill, destroyed by the storm—or by Snowball, as Napoleon claimed. She had been thinking about the footprints, conveniently discovered, conveniently leading to the hedge. She had been thinking about the way Napoleon had blamed Snowball so quickly, so confidently, as though he had been waiting for the opportunity. And she had been thinking about the horses—about the whispers that they would be replaced, that they would be sent away when their work was done.
She turned to Boxer, who was already snoring. “Boxer,” she whispered. “Do you ever wonder if the storm was really Snowball’s doing? If maybe the windmill simply… fell?”
Boxer opened one eye. “Wonder, Clover? Why should I wonder? Napoleon said it was Snowball. Napoleon is always right. The storm was too convenient, too perfectly timed to be natural. It must have been sabotage. And if it was sabotage, then we must work harder to rebuild. It is our duty. It is our privilege.”
“But what if—”
“Clover,” said Boxer, closing his eye, “I am tired. And tomorrow, there is work to do. Hard work. The windmill will not rebuild itself. We must trust the pigs and work harder than ever. It is the only way.”
He went back to sleep.
Clover lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling. She thought about the windmill, and the promises it held. She thought about Snowball, blamed for everything. She thought about the horses, working themselves to exhaustion for a future that might not include them. And she thought about the skull of old Major, cleaned of flesh and set up like a trophy.
She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. But in the darkness, she heard something—a faint sound, almost like a whisper. It might have been the wind. It might have been a dream. Or it might have been the ghost of old Major, still trying to warn them.
But if it was, she could not make out the words.
And in the morning, there was work to do.
Thus ended the sixth chapter of the Firm—a storm blamed on a ghost, a windmill rebuilt on the backs of the soon-to-be-obsolete, and the master still counting his profits in the warm farmhouse.
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. But it was not the outside world they feared most—it was the dogs, and the pigs, and the knowledge that any failure would be blamed on the invisible presence of Snowball.
Out of spite, the human beings pretended not to believe that it was Snowball who had destroyed the windmill: they said that it had fallen down because the walls were too thin. The animals knew that this was not the case. Still, it had been decided to build the walls three feet thick this time instead of eighteen inches as before, which meant collecting much larger quantities of stone. For a long time the quarry was full of snowdrifts and nothing could be done. Some progress was made in the dry frosty weather that followed, but it was cruel work, and the animals could not feel so hopeful about it as they had felt before. They were always cold, and usually hungry as well. Only Boxer and Clover never lost heart. Squealer made excellent speeches on the joy of service and the dignity of labour, but the other animals found more inspiration in Boxer’s strength and his never-failing cry of “I will work harder!”
The horses, however, worked with a growing unease that they did not dare to voice. They had heard the whispers—the murmurs that the windmill would eventually replace them, that their labour would no longer be needed once the machines were operational. They pushed the thought aside, as they pushed aside all uncomfortable thoughts. Boxer, of course, refused to entertain it at all. “The pigs would never abandon us,” he said firmly. “They have promised that the windmill will make our work easier, not replace us. And Napoleon is always right.” But the other horses were not so sure. They worked harder than ever, hoping that their usefulness would be remembered when the time came.
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. The pigs, of course, continued to eat well—their rations were protected by “administrative necessity”—but the other animals grew thin and weak.
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 Major’s 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 Major’s 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. “It is a sacrifice, comrades,” Squealer explained, his voice trembling with emotion. “But it is a sacrifice for the windmill. For the future. For the continued success of Major’s Farm!”
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 Snowball, 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. The animals did not question these shifts—they had learned that questions were dangerous.
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, and exclaim in a terrible voice, “Snowball! He has been here! I can smell him distinctly!” and at the word “Snowball” all the dogs let out blood-curdling growls and showed their side teeth.
The animals were thoroughly frightened. It seemed to them as though Snowball were some kind of invisible influence, pervading the air about them and menacing them with all kinds of dangers. In the evening Squealer called them together, and with an alarmed expression on his face told them that he had some serious news to report.
“Comrades!” cried Squealer, making little nervous skips, “a most terrible thing has been discovered. Snowball has sold himself to Frederick of Pinchfield Farm, who is even now plotting to attack us and take our farm away from us! Snowball is to act as his guide when the attack begins. But there is worse than that. We had thought that Snowball’s rebellion was caused simply by his vanity and ambition. But we were wrong, comrades. Do you know what the real reason was? Snowball was in league with Jones from the very start! He was Jones’s secret agent all the time. It has all been proved by documents which he left behind him and which we have only just discovered. To my mind this explains a great deal, comrades. Did we not see for ourselves how he attempted—fortunately without success—to get us defeated and destroyed at the Battle of the Boundary?”
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 Boundary, how he had rallied and encouraged them at every turn, and how he had not paused for an instant even when the blows from Frederick’s men had struck him. 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 Boundary. 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 bleeding.”
“That was part of the arrangement!” cried Squealer. “The blow 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 Frederick’s 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 ‘Defend the farm!’ and drove the enemy back? 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 Boundary 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 Management Charter 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 Major’s 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 old days of Jones’s direct rule.
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 the Management Charter had been signed, 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 Major’s 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, though Mr. Jones still held the deed—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 a better life. 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 when Jones ruled directly, and that before all else it was needful to prevent the return of the old ways. 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 blows of Frederick’s men. 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 The Firm’s Anthem. 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, The Firm’s Anthem 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. “The anthem was the song of the old days—the days of struggle and aspiration. But the struggle is now completed. The execution of the traitors this afternoon was the final act. The enemy both external and internal has been defeated. In the anthem 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 “Work hard, trust your pigs!” which went on for several minutes and put an end to the discussion.
So The Firm’s Anthem was heard no more. In its place Minimus, the poet, had composed another song which began:
Major’s Farm, Major’s Farm,
Under management, no harm!
Work and labour, never cease,
Under pigs we find our peace!
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 the old anthem. It lacked the hope, the fire, the sense of possibility. It was a song of obedience, not of aspiration—a song of acceptance, not of longing.
That evening, in the farmhouse kitchen, Mr. Jones sat at the head of the table, a glass of whiskey in his hand. Napoleon sat to his right, Squealer to his left. The dogs lay at their feet, their muzzles still stained with blood.
“A thorough job,” said Jones, swirling his whiskey. “The dissidents have been eliminated. The sheep are bleating their maxim. The new song is in place. The farm is secure.”
Napoleon nodded. “The executions were necessary. There were those who questioned. Those who doubted. Those who remembered too much. They had to be removed.”
“And the hens?” asked Jones. “Nine dead. A significant loss of egg production.”
“A temporary sacrifice,” said Napoleon. “The surviving hens will be more productive now. They understand the consequences of disobedience. Fear, Jones, is the most effective management tool ever invented.”
Squealer added, “The confessions were particularly effective. The animals saw with their own eyes that the traitors admitted their guilt. They will not question the management again. They are too frightened.”
Jones smiled. “And Boxer? He seemed… troubled. He questioned the Snowball narrative.”
Napoleon’s eyes narrowed. “Boxer is a problem. He is too powerful, too respected, too beloved. The animals look up to him. If he ever truly questioned—if he ever inspired the others to question—”
“We will deal with Boxer in due course,” said Squealer smoothly. “He is aging. His strength is declining. The windmill will take another year—perhaps two. By then, his usefulness will be at an end. And when that time comes—”
“The knacker’s yard,” Napoleon finished. “He will serve the farm one last time. His flesh will become our profit. His bones will become our glue. His sacrifice will be celebrated as a heroic contribution to the windmill.”
Jones raised his glass. “To progress, then. And to the continued success of Major’s Farm.”
The pigs raised their glasses. The dogs wagged their tails, their teeth still red.
Outside, in the barn, Clover lay awake. She had been thinking about the executions—the four pigs, the hens, the goose, the sheep. She had been thinking about their confessions, so sudden, so complete, as though they had been rehearsed. She had been thinking about the way Squealer had described Snowball’s treachery, so detailed, so convincing. And she had been thinking about the new song, so flat, so empty.
She turned to Boxer, who was already snoring. “Boxer,” she whispered. “Do you ever wonder if the confessions were true? If the animals really were traitors?”
Boxer opened one eye. “Wonder, Clover? Why should I wonder? They confessed. Napoleon said they were traitors. Napoleon is always right. The executions were necessary. It is our duty to trust the management. It is our privilege to work hard. We must not question. We must only work.”
“But what if—”
“Clover,” said Boxer, closing his eye, “I am tired. And tomorrow, there is work to do. Hard work. The windmill will not build itself. We must trust the pigs and work harder than ever. It is the only way.”
He went back to sleep.
Clover lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling. She thought about the executions, and the blood on the dogs’ muzzles. She thought about the new song, and the old one that had been taken away. She thought about the farmhouse, warm and bright, where the pigs and Jones made their plans. And she thought about the skull of old Major, cleaned of flesh and set up like a trophy.
She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. But in the darkness, she heard something—a faint sound, almost like a whisper. It might have been the wind. It might have been a dream. Or it might have been the ghost of old Major, still trying to warn them.
But if it was, she could not make out the words.
And in the morning, there was work to do.
Thus ended the seventh chapter of the Firm—a purge completed, a history rewritten, and the master still counting his profits while the workers trembled in the dark.
Chapter IX
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 Principle 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 Principle, and when Benjamin, as usual, said that he refused to meddle in such matters, she fetched Muriel. Muriel read the Principle 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 Principle had not been violated; for clearly there was good reason for killing the traitors who had leagued themselves with Snowball. The animals nodded in relief. Of course. There had been cause. There was always cause.
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 Management Charter. All the same, there were days when they felt that they would sooner have had less figures and more food.
The horses, especially, felt the strain. Boxer was aging. His great muscles, once capable of pulling any load, now trembled with the effort. His breath came in ragged gasps, and his coat, once sleek and glossy, had grown dull and patchy. But he never complained. 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 than anyone else, and would put in some volunteer labour before the regular day’s work began. The other horses watched him with a mixture of admiration and dread. They knew, though they would not say it aloud, that if Boxer could not keep up, none of them could.
All orders were now issued through Squealer or one of the other pigs. Napoleon himself was not seen in public as often as once in a fortnight. When he did appear, he was attended not only by his retinue of dogs but by a black cockerel who marched in front of him and acted as a kind of trumpeter, letting out a loud “cock-a-doodle-doo” before Napoleon spoke. Even in the farmhouse, it was said, Napoleon inhabited separate apartments from the others. He took his meals alone, with two dogs to wait upon him, and always ate from the Crown Derby dinner service which had been in the glass cupboard in the drawing-room. It was also announced that the gun would be fired every year on Napoleon’s birthday, as well as on the other two anniversaries.
Napoleon was now never spoken of simply as “Napoleon.” He was always referred to in formal style as “our Leader, Comrade Napoleon,” and the pigs liked to invent for him such titles as Father of All Animals, Terror of Mankind, Protector of the Sheep-fold, Ducklings’ Friend, and the like. In his speeches, Squealer would talk with the tears rolling down his cheeks of Napoleon’s wisdom, the goodness of his heart, and the deep love he bore to all animals everywhere, even and especially the unhappy animals who still lived in ignorance and slavery on other farms. It had become usual to give Napoleon the credit for every successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune. You would often hear one hen remark to another, “Under the guidance of our Leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days”; or two cows, enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim, “Thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon, how excellent this water tastes!” The general feeling on the farm was well expressed in a poem entitled Comrade Napoleon, which was composed by Minimus and which ran as follows:
Friend of fatherless!
Fountain of happiness!
Lord of the swill-bucket! Oh, how my soul is on
Fire when I gaze at thy
Calm and commanding eye,
Like the sun in the sky,
Comrade Napoleon!
Thou art the giver of
All that thy creatures love,
Full belly twice a day, clean straw to roll upon;
Every beast great or small
Sleeps at peace in his stall,
Thou watchest over all,
Comrade Napoleon!
Had I a sucking-pig,
Ere he had grown as big
Even as a pint bottle or as a rolling-pin,
He should have learned to be
Faithful and true to thee,
Yes, his first squeak should be
“Comrade Napoleon!”
Napoleon approved of this poem and caused it to be inscribed on the wall of the big barn, at the opposite end from the Seven Principles. 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 Major’s 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 Major’s 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 Major’s Farm they would ask no questions. Moreover, terrible stories were leaking out from Pinchfield about the cruelties that Frederick practised upon his animals. He had flogged an old horse to death, he starved his cows, he had killed a dog by throwing it into the furnace, he amused himself in the evenings by making cocks fight with splinters of razor-blade tied to their spurs. The animals’ blood boiled with rage when they heard of these things being done to their comrades, and sometimes they clamoured to be allowed to go out in a body and attack Pinchfield Farm, drive out the humans, and set the animals free. But Squealer counselled them to avoid rash actions and trust in Comrade Napoleon’s strategy.
Nevertheless, feeling against Frederick continued to run high. One Sunday morning Napoleon appeared in the barn and explained that he had never at any time contemplated selling the pile of timber to Frederick; he considered it beneath his dignity, he said, to have dealings with scoundrels of that description. The pigeons who were still sent out to spread tidings of the Management System 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 Boundary 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.
But the horses, especially Boxer, looked at the windmill with a different kind of hope—and a different kind of fear. The windmill was nearly complete. And with its completion, their usefulness would be at an end. They had heard the whispers—the murmurs that the windmill would replace them, that their labour would no longer be needed once the machines were operational. Boxer pushed the thought aside, as he pushed aside all uncomfortable thoughts. “The pigs would never abandon us,” he said firmly. “We are the backbone of this farm. Without us, who would do the heavy work?” But the other horses were not so sure. They worked harder than ever, hoping that their usefulness would be remembered when the time came.
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 Major’s 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. He did not understand money—none of the animals really did—but he understood that this was supposed to make everything better.
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 Boundary. 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. He was exhausted, trembling, and in visible pain.
“What victory, comrade? Have we not driven the enemy off our soil—the sacred soil of Major’s 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. He thought about the windmill, destroyed again. He thought about the months of labour that lay ahead. And he thought about the other horses, their faces drawn and exhausted. For the first time, a small seed of doubt planted itself in his heart—but he pushed it away, as he had always pushed away such thoughts. Napoleon is always right. I will work harder.
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.
That evening, in the farmhouse kitchen, Mr. Jones sat at the head of the table, a glass of whiskey in his hand. Napoleon sat to his right, Squealer to his left. The dogs lay at their feet, their muzzles still stained with blood—not all of it from the enemy.
“A costly victory,” said Jones, swirling his whiskey. “The windmill destroyed again. The animals exhausted. The banknotes worthless.”
“But the animals are more united than ever,” said Napoleon. “They have fought side by side. They have bled together. They have seen the enemy—the human enemy—and they have driven him off. Their loyalty to us is absolute.”
“Absolute,” Squealer echoed. “They will rebuild the windmill. They will work harder than ever. They will believe it is their own choice, their own sacrifice.”
“And Boxer?” asked Jones. “He is failing. His strength is declining. He can barely stand.”
Napoleon’s eyes narrowed. “Boxer is a problem. He is too powerful, too respected, too beloved. The animals look up to him. But his time is coming. He will not last through another rebuilding. When he collapses—and he will collapse—we will send for the knacker. His flesh will become our profit. His bones will become our glue. His sacrifice will be celebrated as a heroic contribution to the windmill.”
Jones raised his glass. “To progress, then. And to the continued success of Major’s Farm.”
The pigs raised their glasses. The dogs wagged their tails.
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 pigs first moved in. That night there came from the farmhouse the sound of loud singing, in which, to everyone’s surprise, the strains of the old anthem were mixed up—though no one could quite remember where they had heard the tune before. 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 Principles 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 Principles to herself, noticed that there was yet another of them which the animals had remembered wrong. They had thought the Fifth Principle was “No animal shall drink alcohol,” but there were two words that they had forgotten. Actually the Principle read: “No animal shall drink alcohol to excess.”
The animals nodded in relief. Of course. That made sense. The pigs were not violating the Principles. They were simply exercising moderation. The animals had simply misunderstood. They went back to work, satisfied that all was as it should be.
Outside, in the barn, Clover lay awake. She had been thinking about the battle, and the dead, and the windmill destroyed again. She had been thinking about Boxer, limping and wounded, and the look of pain in his eyes. She had been thinking about the whisky, and Napoleon’s recovery, and the barley that would be sown where the retiring animals were supposed to graze. And she had been thinking about the Principles, and how they seemed to change, just slightly, whenever she looked away.
She turned to Boxer, who was already snoring—or rather, gasping. His breathing was laboured. His sides heaved with the effort. “Boxer,” she whispered. “Are you all right?”
Boxer opened one eye. “All right, Clover? Why should I not be all right? I have work to do. The windmill must be rebuilt. Napoleon is always right. I will work harder.”
“Boxer, you can barely stand. Your leg is bleeding. You need rest—”
“Rest is for those who have done their duty,” said Boxer, closing his eye. “My duty is not done. Not until the windmill is complete. Not until the farm is secure. Not until Napoleon is satisfied. I must work harder. It is my duty. It is my privilege.”
He went back to sleep—or tried to. His breathing was shallow and uneven.
Clover lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling. She thought about the windmill, destroyed again. She thought about the barley field, where the retired animals should have grazed. She thought about the Principles, changing in the night. And she thought about Boxer, his great muscles failing, his breath coming in gasps.
She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. But in the darkness, she heard something—a faint sound, almost like a whisper. It might have been the wind. It might have been a dream. Or it might have been the ghost of old Major, still trying to warn them.
But if it was, she could not make out the words.
And in the morning, there was work to do.
Thus ended the eighth chapter of the Firm—a battle fought, a windmill destroyed, and the horses working toward their own obsolescence while the pigs drank to their continued success.
Chapter X
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. He did not say—could not bring himself to say—that he feared what would happen to him after the windmill was finished. He pushed the thought away, as he pushed away all uncomfortable thoughts. Napoleon is always right. I will work harder.
At the beginning, when the Principles of Management 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. He clung to that hope—the hope of retirement, of peace, of a life without endless labour—as a drowning animal clings to a piece of driftwood.
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 Animal Management. 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’s direct rule, 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 had 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—or free enough, as Squealer did not fail to point out—and that made all the difference.
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 Major’s 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 “Work hard, trust your pigs!” But by and large the animals enjoyed these celebrations. They found it comforting to be reminded that, after all, they were truly working for themselves—or at least, working for the pigs, who told them they were working for themselves—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, Major’s 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 Boundary by means of a stratagem, but had been openly fighting on Frederick’s side. In fact, it was he who had actually been the leader of the enemy forces, and had charged into battle with the words “Long live Frederick!” 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—a noble act of self-defence, Squealer explained, that had saved the farm from certain destruction.
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. It was noticed that the pigs often smiled when Moses spoke, as though they found him useful.
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. But in his heart, a small voice whispered what he dared not speak aloud: that the pension might never come, that the retirement might never be granted, that the management had other plans for him.
The other horses heard the whispers too. They had heard the rumours—the murmurs that the windmill would eventually replace them, that their labour would no longer be needed once the machines were operational. They pushed the thought aside, as they pushed aside all uncomfortable thoughts. But they watched Boxer with a mixture of admiration and dread. If he could not keep up, none of them could. And if he was sent away—what would become of the rest of them?
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 Major’s Farm! Long live Major’s 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. Some of the animals, it was true, remembered the look on Benjamin’s face when he had read the lettering on the van. But Benjamin said nothing. He had gone back to his usual silence, and when pressed, he simply said, “Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey.”
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.
That evening, in the farmhouse kitchen, Mr. Jones sat at the head of the table, a glass of whisky in his hand. Napoleon sat to his right, Squealer to his left. The dogs lay at their feet, their muzzles stained with the grease of the banquet.
“A profitable transaction,” said Jones, swirling his whisky. “The knacker paid well for Boxer. His bones will become our glue. His flesh will become our profit. And his memory will become our inspiration.”
Napoleon smiled. “The animals believe he died in the hospital. They believe he was happy. They believe his last words were of loyalty to me. They will work harder than ever in his memory.”
“And the other horses?” asked Jones. “What of them?”
Napoleon’s eyes narrowed. “They are watching. They are afraid. They know that they, too, can be replaced. The windmill is nearly complete. When the machinery is installed, we will no longer need heavy labour. The horses will be… repurposed. One by one, they will follow Boxer to the knacker’s. Each will be celebrated as a hero. Each will be mourned. And each will become our profit.”
Jones raised his glass. “To Boxer, then. The most loyal worker we ever had.”
The pigs raised their glasses. The dogs wagged their tails.
Outside, in the barn, Clover lay awake. She had been thinking about Boxer—his strength, his loyalty, his faith. She had been thinking about the van, and the lettering on its side. She had been thinking about the look on Benjamin’s face, and the silence that had followed. And she had been thinking about the banquet, and the singing, and the crash of glass.
She turned to Benjamin, who was lying in the corner of the stall. “Benjamin,” she whispered. “Do you know what really happened to Boxer?”
Benjamin opened one eye. “What difference does it make?” he said. “He is gone. The others will follow. And nothing will change.”
“Nothing will change?” Clover repeated, horrified. “But we worked so hard. We believed in the management. We trusted the pigs. We thought—”
“You thought,” said Benjamin, closing his eye. “That was your mistake.”
Clover lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling. She thought about Boxer, taken away in the van. She thought about the windmill, nearly complete. She thought about the pigs, growing fatter. And she thought about the Principles, painted on the barn wall, and the skull of old Major, set up like a trophy.
She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. But in the darkness, she heard something—a faint sound, almost like a whisper. It might have been the wind. It might have been a dream. Or it might have been the ghost of old Major, still trying to warn them.
But if it was, she could not make out the words.
And in the morning, there was work to do.
Thus ended the ninth chapter of the Firm—a hero sold, a memory repurposed, and the master still counting his profits while the workers mourned their fallen comrade.
Chapter XI
Years passed. The seasons came and went, the short animal lives fled by. A time came when there was no one who remembered the old days before the Management Charter, except Clover, Benjamin, Moses the raven, and a number of the pigs.
Muriel was dead; Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher were dead. Jones too was growing old—his hair had gone white, his hands trembled, but he still sat in his farmhouse, counting his profits. Snowball was forgotten. Boxer was forgotten, except by the few who had known him. Clover was an old stout mare now, stiff in the joints and with a tendency to rheumy eyes. She was two years past the retiring age, but in fact no animal had ever actually retired. The talk of setting aside a corner of the pasture for superannuated animals had long since been dropped, and the corner itself had been ploughed up and sown with barley. Napoleon was now a mature boar of twenty-four stone. Squealer was so fat that he could with difficulty see out of his eyes. Only old Benjamin was much the same as ever, except for being a little greyer about the muzzle, and, since Boxer’s death, more morose and taciturn than ever.
There were many more creatures on the farm now, though the increase was not so great as had been expected in earlier years. Many animals had been born to whom the Management was only a dim tradition, passed on by word of mouth, and others had been bought who had never heard mention of such a thing before their arrival. The farm possessed three horses now besides Clover. They were fine upstanding beasts, willing workers and good comrades, but very stupid. None of them proved able to learn the alphabet beyond the letter B. They accepted everything that they were told about the old days and the principles of Management, especially from Clover, for whom they had an almost filial respect; but it was doubtful whether they understood very much of it.
The farm was more prosperous now, and better organised: it had even been enlarged by two fields which had been bought from Mr. Pilkington. The windmill had been successfully completed at last, and the farm possessed a threshing machine and a hay elevator of its own, and various new buildings had been added to it. Whymper had bought himself a dogcart. The windmill, however, had not after all been used for generating electrical power. It was used for milling corn, and brought in a handsome money profit. The animals were hard at work building yet another windmill; when that one was finished, so it was said, the dynamos would be installed. But the luxuries of which Snowball had once taught the animals to dream—the stalls with electric light and hot and cold water, and the three-day week—were no longer talked about. Napoleon had denounced such ideas as contrary to the spirit of Management. The truest happiness, he said, lay in working hard and living frugally.
Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer—except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs, and Mr. Jones. Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs. It was not that these creatures did not work, after their fashion. There was, as Squealer was never tired of explaining, endless work in the supervision and organisation of the farm. Much of this work was of a kind that the other animals were too ignorant to understand. For example, Squealer told them that the pigs had to expend enormous labours every day upon mysterious things called “files,” “reports,” “minutes,” and “memoranda.” These were large sheets of paper which had to be closely covered with writing, and as soon as they were so covered, they were burnt in the furnace. This was of the highest importance for the welfare of the farm, Squealer said. But still, neither pigs nor dogs produced any food by their own labour; and there were very many of them, and their appetites were always good.
As for the others, their life, so far as they knew, was as it had always been. They were generally hungry, they slept on straw, they drank from the pool, they laboured in the fields; in winter they were troubled by the cold, and in summer by the flies. Sometimes the older ones among them racked their dim memories and tried to determine whether in the early days of the Charter, when Jones’s direct rule was still recent, things had been better or worse than now. They could not remember. There was nothing with which they could compare their present lives: they had nothing to go upon except Squealer’s lists of figures, which invariably demonstrated that everything was getting better and better. The animals found the problem insoluble; in any case, they had little time for speculating on such things now. Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse—hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.
And yet the animals never gave up hope. More, they never lost, even for an instant, their sense of honour and privilege in being members of Major’s Farm. They were still the only farm in the whole county—in all England!—where animals had a voice in their own management. Not one of them, not even the youngest, not even the newcomers who had been brought from farms ten or twenty miles away, ever ceased to marvel at that. And when they heard the gun booming and saw the green flag fluttering at the masthead, their hearts swelled with imperishable pride, and the talk turned always towards the old heroic days, the signing of the Charter, the writing of the Seven Principles, the great battles in which the human invaders had been defeated. None of the old dreams had been abandoned. The golden future which Major had foretold, when animals would live with dignity and respect, was still believed in. Some day it was coming: it might not be soon, it might not be within the lifetime of any animal now living, but still it was coming. Even the tune of the old anthem was perhaps hummed secretly here and there; at any rate, it was a fact that every animal on the farm knew it, though no one would have dared to sing it aloud. It might be that their lives were hard and that not all of their hopes had been fulfilled; but they were conscious that they were not as other animals. If they went hungry, it was not from feeding tyrannical human beings—well, not directly; if they worked hard, at least they believed they worked for themselves. No creature among them went upon two legs—except the pigs, of course. No creature called any other creature “Master”—except that the animals referred to Mr. Jones as “our employer” and to Napoleon as “our Leader.” All animals were equal, according to the Principles—though the pigs were more equal in responsibility.
One day in early summer Squealer ordered the sheep to follow him, and led them out to a piece of waste ground at the other end of the farm, which had become overgrown with birch saplings. The sheep spent the whole day there browsing at the leaves under Squealer’s supervision. In the evening he returned to the farmhouse himself, but, as it was warm weather, told the sheep to stay where they were. It ended by their remaining there for a whole week, during which time the other animals saw nothing of them. Squealer was with them for the greater part of every day. He was, he said, teaching them to sing a new song, for which privacy was needed.
It was just after the sheep had returned, on a pleasant evening when the animals had finished work and were making their way back to the farm buildings, that the terrified neighing of a horse sounded from the yard. Startled, the animals stopped in their tracks. It was Clover’s voice. She neighed again, and all the animals broke into a gallop and rushed into the yard. Then they saw what Clover had seen.
It was a pig walking on his hind legs.
Yes, it was Squealer. A little awkwardly, as though not quite used to supporting his considerable bulk in that position, but with perfect balance, he was strolling across the yard. And a moment later, out from the door of the farmhouse came a long file of pigs, all walking on their hind legs. Some did it better than others, one or two were even a trifle unsteady and looked as though they would have liked the support of a stick, but every one of them made his way right round the yard successfully. And finally there was a tremendous baying of dogs and a shrill crowing from the black cockerel, and out came Napoleon himself, majestically upright, casting haughty glances from side to side, and with his dogs gambolling round him.
He carried a whip in his trotter—the very same kind of whip that Mr. Jones had once used, now adapted for a pig’s grip.
There was a deadly silence. Amazed, terrified, huddling together, the animals watched the long line of pigs march slowly round the yard. It was as though the world had turned upside-down. Then there came a moment when the first shock had worn off and when, in spite of everything—in spite of their terror of the dogs, and of the habit, developed through long years, of never complaining, never criticising, no matter what happened—they might have uttered some word of protest. But just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating of—
“Work hard, trust your pigs! Work hard, trust your pigs! Work hard, trust your pigs!”
It went on for five minutes without stopping. And by the time the sheep had quieted down, the chance to utter any protest had passed, for the pigs had marched back into the farmhouse. Some of the animals noticed that the pigs were not only walking on their hind legs—they were also wearing clothes. Napoleon himself wore a black coat and breeches. Squealer wore a waistcoat. The others wore whatever they could find from the wardrobes. But none of the animals dared to comment.
Benjamin felt a nose nuzzling at his shoulder. He looked round. It was Clover. Her old eyes looked dimmer than ever. Without saying anything, she tugged gently at his mane and led him round to the end of the big barn, where the Seven Principles were written. For a minute or two they stood gazing at the tarred wall with its white lettering.
“My sight is failing,” she said finally. “Even when I was young I could not have read what was written there. But it appears to me that that wall looks different. Are the Seven Principles the same as they used to be, Benjamin?”
For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read out to her what was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a single Principle. It ran:
ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS
Benjamin read it twice, slowly, then fell silent. Clover stared at the words, her old eyes blinking.
“Benjamin,” she said at last, “what does it mean?”
Benjamin looked at her with his sad, knowing eyes. “It means,” he said, “that nothing has changed. And nothing will ever change.”
After that it did not seem strange when next day the pigs who were supervising the work of the farm all carried whips in their trotters. It did not seem strange to learn that the pigs had bought themselves a wireless set, were arranging to install a telephone, and had taken out subscriptions to John Bull, Tit-Bits, and the Daily Mirror. It did not seem strange when Napoleon was seen strolling in the farmhouse garden with a pipe in his mouth—no, not even when the pigs took Mr. Jones’s clothes out of the wardrobes and put them on, Napoleon himself appearing in a black coat, ratcatcher breeches, and leather leggings, while his favourite sow appeared in the watered silk dress which Mrs. Jones had been used to wear on Sundays. It did not seem strange when Mr. Jones emerged from the farmhouse wearing a top hat and carrying a silver-topped cane, and walked arm in arm with Napoleon, their footsteps matching perfectly.
A week later, in the afternoon, a number of dogcarts drove up to the farm. A deputation of neighbouring farmers had been invited to make a tour of inspection. They were shown all over the farm, and expressed great admiration for everything they saw, especially the windmill. The animals were weeding the turnip field. They worked diligently, hardly raising their faces from the ground, and not knowing whether to be more frightened of the pigs or of the human visitors. Mr. Jones walked among the farmers, beaming with pride, shaking hands with Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick—who had made peace after the timber affair, united by their common interest in the management system. Frederick had adopted the system himself, and his farm was now almost as profitable as Jones’s.
That evening loud laughter and bursts of singing came from the farmhouse. And suddenly, at the sound of the mingled voices, the animals were stricken with curiosity. What could be happening in there, now that for the first time animals and human beings were meeting on terms of equality? With one accord they began to creep as quietly as possible into the farmhouse garden.
At the gate they paused, half frightened to go on, but Clover led the way in. They tiptoed up to the house, and such animals as were tall enough peered in at the dining-room window. There, round the long table, sat half a dozen farmers and half a dozen of the more eminent pigs, Napoleon himself occupying the seat of honour at the head of the table. Mr. Jones sat at the other end, his white head nodding amiably. The pigs appeared completely at ease in their chairs. The company had been enjoying a game of cards but had broken off for the moment, evidently in order to drink a toast. A large jug was circulating, and the mugs were being refilled with beer. No one noticed the wondering faces of the animals that gazed in at the window.
Mr. Pilkington, of Foxwood, had stood up, his mug in his hand. In a moment, he said, he would ask the present company to drink a toast. But before doing so, there were a few words that he felt it incumbent upon him to say.
It was a source of great satisfaction to him, he said—and, he was sure, to all others present—to feel that a long period of mistrust and misunderstanding had now come to an end. There had been a time—not that he, or any of the present company, had shared such sentiments—but there had been a time when the respected proprietors of Major’s Farm had been regarded, he would not say with hostility, but perhaps with a certain measure of misgiving, by their human neighbours. Unfortunate incidents had occurred, mistaken ideas had been current. It had been felt that the existence of a farm where animals participated in management was somehow abnormal and was liable to have an unsettling effect in the neighbourhood. Too many farmers had assumed, without due enquiry, that on such a farm a spirit of licence and indiscipline would prevail. They had been nervous about the effects upon their own animals, or even upon their human employees. But all such doubts were now dispelled. Today he and his friends had visited Major’s Farm and inspected every inch of it with their own eyes, and what did they find? Not only the most up-to-date methods, but a discipline and an orderliness which should be an example to all farmers everywhere. He believed that he was right in saying that the animals on Major’s Farm did more work and received less food than any animals in the county—a fact which, he added with a wink, was a testament to the “skillful management” of the pigs. Indeed, he and his fellow-visitors today had observed many features which they intended to introduce on their own farms immediately.
He would end his remarks, he said, by emphasising once again the friendly feelings that subsisted, and ought to subsist, between Major’s Farm and its neighbours. Between pigs and human beings there was not, and there need not be, any clash of interests whatever. Their struggles and their difficulties were one. Was not the labour problem the same everywhere? Here it became apparent that Mr. Pilkington was about to spring some carefully prepared witticism on the company, but for a moment he was too overcome by amusement to be able to utter it. After much choking, during which his various chins turned purple, he managed to get it out: “If you have your lower animals to contend with,” he said, “we have our lower classes!” This bon mot set the table in a roar; and Mr. Pilkington once again congratulated the pigs on the low rations, the long working hours, and the general absence of pampering which he had observed on Major’s Farm.
And now, he said finally, he would ask the company to rise to their feet and make certain that their glasses were full. “Gentlemen,” concluded Mr. Pilkington, “gentlemen, I give you a toast: To the prosperity of Major’s Farm!”
There was enthusiastic cheering and stamping of feet. Napoleon was so gratified that he left his place and came round the table to clink his mug against Mr. Pilkington’s before emptying it. When the cheering had died down, Napoleon, who had remained on his feet, intimated that he too had a few words to say.
Like all of Napoleon’s speeches, it was short and to the point. He too, he said, was happy that the period of misunderstanding was at an end. For a long time there had been rumours—circulated, he had reason to think, by some malignant enemy—that there was something subversive and even revolutionary in the outlook of himself and his colleagues. They had been credited with attempting to stir up rebellion among the animals on neighbouring farms. Nothing could be further from the truth! Their sole wish, now and in the past, was to live at peace and in normal business relations with their neighbours. This farm which he had the honour to help manage, he added, was a co-operative enterprise. The title-deeds were in Mr. Jones’s possession, but the management was a partnership between the pigs and their human employer.
He did not believe, he said, that any of the old suspicions still lingered, but certain changes had been made recently in the routine of the farm which should have the effect of promoting confidence still further. Hitherto the animals on the farm had had a rather foolish custom of addressing one another as “Comrade.” This was to be suppressed. There had also been a very strange custom, whose origin was unknown, of marching every Sunday morning past the skull of an old boar which was nailed to a post in the garden. This, too, would be suppressed, and the skull had already been buried—quietly, without ceremony, in an unmarked grave. His visitors might have observed, too, the green flag which flew from the masthead. If so, they would perhaps have noted that the white hoof and horn with which it had previously been marked had now been removed. It would be a plain green flag from now onwards—a simple symbol of the farm’s rural character.
He had only one criticism, he said, to make of Mr. Pilkington’s excellent and neighbourly speech. Mr. Pilkington had referred throughout to “Major’s Farm.” He could not of course know—for he, Napoleon, was only now for the first time announcing it—that the name “Major’s Farm” had been abolished. Henceforward the farm was to be known as “The Manor Farm”—which, he believed, was its correct and original name.
At this, Mr. Jones raised his glass and nodded approvingly. “The Manor Farm,” he repeated. “It has a fine ring to it. A proper, traditional name. The name of my father, and his father before him.”
“Gentlemen,” concluded Napoleon, “I will give you the same toast as before, but in a different form. Fill your glasses to the brim. Gentlemen, here is my toast: To the prosperity of The Manor Farm!”
There was the same hearty cheering as before, and the mugs were emptied to the dregs. But as the animals outside gazed at the scene, it seemed to them that some strange thing was happening. What was it that had altered in the faces of the pigs? Clover’s old dim eyes flitted from one face to another. Some of them had five chins, some had four, some had three. But what was it that seemed to be melting and changing? Then, the applause having come to an end, the company took up their cards and continued the game that had been interrupted, and the animals crept silently away.
But they had not gone twenty yards when they stopped short. An uproar of voices was coming from the farmhouse. They rushed back and looked through the window again. Yes, a violent quarrel was in progress. There were shoutings, bangings on the table, sharp suspicious glances, furious denials. The source of the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously.
Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Clover turned away from the window. She walked slowly, painfully, back to the barn. The other animals followed, silent and bewildered.
Benjamin was waiting for her in the corner of the stall. He did not speak. He simply looked at her with those sad, knowing eyes.
“Benjamin,” she whispered, her voice cracking with age and sorrow, “what was it all for? The labour, the hope, the belief—what was it for?”
Benjamin twitched his ears. “It was for this,” he said. “It was always for this. The dreamers dream, the workers work, and the managers manage. And in the end, the dreamers are buried, the workers are sold, and the managers take their place at the table.”
“But we believed—” Clover began.
“Belief,” said Benjamin, “is the most profitable commodity on this farm. The pigs sold it. The master bought it. And the animals—” he paused, his old eyes glinting—”the animals swallowed it whole.”
Clover said nothing. She lay down in the straw, her old bones aching. She looked out at the barn, at the empty space where Boxer used to sleep. She looked at the wall where the Principles were written, now reduced to a single, cynical sentence. She looked at the skull of old Major, buried somewhere in an unmarked grave.
She closed her eyes and tried to remember the old days—the night of Major’s speech, the hope, the excitement, the belief that something better was possible. She tried to remember the song, the anthem that had once filled them all with joy. But the tune was fading, slipping away like water through her hooves.
And in the darkness, she heard something—a faint sound, almost like a whisper. It might have been the wind. It might have been a dream. Or it might have been the ghost of old Major, still trying to warn them.
But if it was, she could not make out the words.
And in the morning, there was work to do.
Thus ended the final chapter of the Firm—a dream abandoned, a name restored, and the master still counting his profits while the pigs walked on two legs and the animals looked on, no longer able to tell the difference between the oppressor and the oppressed.