Kitabı oku: «Скотный двор / Animal Farm», sayfa 12

Chapter VI

All that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their work. They were aware that everything that they did was for the benefit of themselves, and not for a pack of idle, thieving human beings.

Throughout the spring and summer they worked a sixty-hour week. In August Napoleon announced that there would be work on Sunday afternoons as well. This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.

The harvest was a little less successful than in the previous year, and two fields were not sown. The coming winter will be a hard one.

The windmill presented unexpected difficulties. There was a good quarry of limestone on the farm, and they found plenty of sand and cement in one of the outhouses. All the materials for building were at hand. But the problem was how to break up the stone into pieces. Picks and crowbars? No animal could use them, because no animal could stand on his hind legs. Then the right idea occurred to somebody – namely, to utilise the force of gravity. Huge boulders were lying all over the quarry. The animals lashed ropes round these, and then all together, cows, horses, sheep – 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. To transport the broken stone 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 cart. Then the building began, under the superintendence of the pigs.

But it was a slow, laborious process. Nothing was 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, it was always Boxer who strained himself against the rope and brought the boulder to a stop. Clover warned him sometimes to be careful not to overstrain himself, but Boxer never listened to her. His two slogans, «I will work harder» and «Napoleon is always right,» seemed to him a sufficient answer to all problems. He woke up three-quarters of an hour earlier in the mornings instead of half an hour. And in his free time, he went alone to the quarry, collected broken stones, and dragged them down.

The animals were not unhappy throughout that summer, in spite of the hardness of their work. If they had no more food than in Jones’s day, at least they did not have less. The must feed only themselves, and must not support five extravagant human beings! And in many ways the animal method of work was more efficient and saved labour. Since no animal now stole, it was unnecessary to fence off pasture from arable land.

Nevertheless, there was need of paraffin oil, nails, string, dog biscuits, and iron for the horses’ shoes. Nothing was produced on the farm. Later there will also be need for seeds and artificial manures, besides various tools and, finally, the machinery for the windmill. How will these be procured? No one was able to imagine.

One Sunday morning, when the animals assembled to receive their orders, Napoleon announced a new policy. From now onwards Animal Farm will 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 hay and part of the current year’s wheat crop, and later on, eggs, for which there was always a market in Willingdon. The hens will welcome this sacrifice as their own special contribution towards the building of the windmill.

Once again the animals were uneasy. Never to have any dealings with human beings, never to engage in trade, never to make use of money – were not these their resolutions? All the animals remembered such resolutions: or at least they thought that they remembered it. Four young pigs raised their voices timidly, but they were promptly silenced by a tremendous growling from the dogs. Then, as usual, the sheep broke into «Four legs good, two legs bad!» Finally Napoleon raised his trotter for silence and announced that he had already made all the arrangements. There will be no need for any of the animals to come in contact with human beings, which will clearly be most undesirable. He intended to take the whole burden upon his own shoulders. Mr. Whymper, a solicitor from Willingdon, agreed to act as intermediary between Animal Farm and the outside world. He will visit the farm every Monday morning to receive his instructions. Napoleon ended his speech with his usual cry of «Long live Animal Farm!»

Afterwards Squealer made a round of the farm and assured the animals that the resolution against engaging in trade and using money was pure imagination. It was Snowball’s invention. A few animals still felt faintly doubtful, but Squealer asked them shrewdly, «Are you certain, comrades? Have you any record of such a resolution? Is it written down anywhere?» And the animals were satisfied that they were mistaken.