George Orwell - Animal farm / Скотный двор. Уровень 2

Sometimes the work was hard. The instruments were for men and not for animals. At first, no animal was able to use any tool. But the pigs were very clever. They found the way. As for the horses, they knew every inch of the field, and understood the business better than Jones and his men.

The pigs did not actually work, but directed and supervised the others. They had their superior knowledge, so they were the leaders.

Boxer and Clover harnessed themselves to the cutter or the horse-rake. No bits or reins, of course. Then they and tramped steadily round and round the field. A pig walked behind and called out “Gee up, comrade!” or “Whoa back, comrade!”

Every animal worked. They turned the hay and gathered it. Even the ducks and hens toiled all day in the sun. They carried tiny wisps of hay in their beaks. In the end they finished the harvest sooner than usually did Jones and his men. Moreover, it was the biggest harvest on the farm. There was no wastage. The hens and ducks with their sharp eyes gathered up every stalk. And nobody on the farm stole anything.

In that summer the work of the farm went like clockwork. The animals were happy. Every mouthful of food was their big pleasure. It was truly their own food. They produced it by themselves and for themselves! The worthless parasitical men are gone, there was more food for everyone. There was more leisure too.

But the animals met with many difficulties. For instance, when they harvested the corn, they treaded it out blew away the chaff with their breath. But the pigs with their cleverness and Boxer with his tremendous muscles always helped them. Everybody admired Boxer. He was a hard worker even in Jones’s time. Now he worked like three horses. There were days when the entire work of the farm rested on his mighty shoulders. From morning to night he pushed and pulled something. One of the cockerels called him very early in the mornings to start his work. His answer to every problem was “I will work harder!” It was his personal motto.

Everyone worked according to his capacity. The hens and ducks, for instance, saved five bushels of corn at the harvest. They gathered up the stray grains. Nobody stole, nobody grumbled over his rations. The quarrels and jealousy which were normal features of life in the old days almost disappeared. Nobody shirked-or almost nobody.

Mollie, it was true, did not like to get up early in the mornings. She was always ready to leave work early when she saw a stone in her hoof. And the behaviour of the cat was peculiar. When there was work the cat was always absent. She vanished for hours, and then reappeared at meal-times, or in the evening after work. But she always made excellent excuses, and purred affectionately. It was impossible not to believe in her good intentions.

Old Benjamin, the donkey, seemed unchanged since the Rebellion. He did his work slowly as in Jones’s time. He never shirked and never volunteered for extra work either. He expressed no opinion about the Rebellion and its results. When the others asked him whether he was happy or not, he said only “Donkeys live a long time. None of you saw dead donkey, right?”

On Sundays there was no work. Breakfast was an hour later than usual. After breakfast there was a ceremony. First came the hoisting of the flag. Snowball found in the harness-room an old green tablecloth of Mrs. Jones’s. He painted on it a hoof and a horn in white. This was the flag in the farmhouse garden. The flag was green, Snowball explained, to represent the green fields of England. And the hoof and horn signified the future Republic of the Animals. This Republic will arise when the human race is finally disappeared.

After that all the animals trooped into the big barn for a general assembly. It was called the Meeting. Here they planned the work of the next week and put forward some resolutions. It was always the pigs who put forward the resolutions. The other animals understood how to vote, but they never thought of their own resolutions.

Snowball and Napoleon were the most active in the debates. But these clever pigs were never in agreement. Whatever suggestion either of them made, the other was against it. Even when the animals resolved to set aside the small paddock behind the orchard as a home of rest for the old animals, there was a stormy debate over the correct retiring age [15] retiring age – пенсионный возраст for each class of animal. The Meeting always ended with the song 'Beasts of England’.

The harness-room was a headquarters for the pigs. Here, in the evenings, they studied necessary arts from books which they brought out of the farmhouse. Snowball also organized the other animals into Animal Committees. He was indefatigable at this. He formed the Egg Production Committee for the hens, the Clean Tails League for the cows, the Wild Comrades’ Re-education Committee (the object of this was to tame the rats and rabbits), the Whiter Wool Movement for the sheep, and various others. Besides that there were classes in reading and writing.

But these projects were a failure. The attempt to tame the wild creatures, for instance, broke down almost immediately. If someone treated the wild animals with generosity, they simply took advantage of it. The cat joined the Re-education Committee and was very active in it for some days. One day she sat on a roof and talked to some sparrows. She told them that all animals were now comrades and invited sparrows to come and perch on her paw. But the sparrows kept their distance.

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

As for the pigs, they read and wrote perfectly. The dogs learned to read fairly well, but were not interested in this art. They read the Seven Commandments only. Muriel, the goat, read better than the dogs, and sometimes read to the others in the evenings from scraps of newspaper which she found on the rubbish heap.

Benjamin read as well as a pig, but never exercised his faculty. He said, this was useless. Clover learned the alphabet, but to put words together was a problem. Boxer knew the first four letters of the alphabet only. He wrote A, B, C, D, in the dust with his great hoof, and then stared at the letters. Sometimes he shook his forelock, and tried to remember what came next. He never succeeded. On several occasions, indeed, he learned E, F, G, H, but he suddenly forgot A, B, C, and D. Finally he decided to be content with the first four letters. He wrote them once or twice every day to refresh his memory.

Mollie learned six letters which spelt her own name. She made these letters from some twigs, and then decorated them with flowers and walked round them.

The other animals on the farm knew the letter A only. And this was enough. The stupider animals, such as the sheep, hens, and ducks, were unable to learn the Seven Commandments by heart. Snowball offered to reduce the Seven Commandments to a single maxim: “Four legs good, two legs bad.” This, he said, contained the essential principle of Animalism. The birds at first objected, since they also had two legs, but Snowball said,

“A bird’s wing, comrades, is an organ of propulsion and not of manipulation. Therefore it is a leg. The mark of man is the HAND, the instrument with which he does all his mischief.”

The birds did not understand Snowball’s long words, but they accepted his explanation. All the humbler animals began to learn the new maxim by heart. Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad, was inscribed on the end wall of the barn, above the Seven Commandments and in bigger letters. The animals liked this maxim very much. Often as they lay in the field they started to bleat “Four legs good, two legs bad! Four legs good, two legs bad!” for hours.