The farm was more prosperous（繁榮的）now, and better organised: it had even been enlarged (擴(kuò)大) by two fields which had been bought from Mr. Pilkington.
The windmill had been successfully completed at last, and the farm possessed (擁有) a threshing (脫粒) machine and a hay elevator of its own, and various new buildings had been added to it.
Whymper had bought himself a dogcart (雙輪馬車). The windmill, however, had not after all been used for generating electrical power.
It was used for milling (磨) corn, and brought in a handsome money profit.{1} The animals were hard at work building yet another windmill; when that one was finished, so it was said, the dynamos (發(fā)電機(jī)) 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 (譴責(zé)) such ideas as contrary to the spirit of Animalism. The truest happiness, he said, lay in working hard and living frugally (節(jié)約地).
Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer?except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs. Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs. It was not that these creatures did not work, after their fashion.
There was, as Squealer was never tired of explaining, endless work in the supervision (管理) 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 (會(huì)議記錄)," and "memoranda (備忘錄，memorandum 的復(fù)數(shù)形式).
" These were large sheets of paper which had to be closely covered (處理) with writing, and as soon as they were so covered, they were burnt in the furnace (熔爐).
This was of the highest importance for the welfare of the farm, Squealer said.{2} 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 Rebellion, when Jones's expulsion was still recent, things had been better or worse than now.
They could not remember. There was nothing with which they could compare their present lives: they had nothing to go upon except Squealer's lists of figures, which invariably (總燕耿，老是) demonstrated that everything was getting better and better.
The animals found the problem insoluble (無法解決的); in any case, they had little time for speculating (猜測(cè)) on such things now.
Only old Benjamin professed (自稱) 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.{3}
And yet the animals never gave up hope. More, they never lost, even for an instant, their sense of honour and privilege in being members of Animal Farm.{4} They were still the only farm in the whole county?in all England!?owned and operated by animals.
Not one of them, not even the youngest, not even the newcomers who had been brought from farms ten or twenty miles away, ever ceased to marvel (驚嘆) at that.
And when they heard the gun booming and saw the green flag fluttering at the masthead (桿頂), their hearts swelled (隆起) with imperishable (不滅的) pride, and the talk turned always towards the old heroic days, the expulsion of Jones, the writing of the Seven Commandments, the great battles in which the human invaders had been defeated.
None of the old dreams had been abandoned.
The Republic of the Animals which Major had foretold (預(yù)言), when the green fields of England should be untrodden by human feet, was still believed in. Some day it was coming: it might not be soon, it might not be with in the lifetime of any animal now living, but still it was coming.
Even the tune of Beasts of England was perhaps hummed (發(fā)低哼聲) 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 (專制的) human beings; if they worked hard, at least they worked for themselves.
No creature among them went upon two legs. No creature called any other creature "Master." All animals were equal.
One day in early summer Squealer ordered the sheep to follow him, and led them out to a piece of waste ground at the other end of the farm, which had become overgrown with birch (樺樹) saplings (樹苗).
The sheep spent the whole day there browsing (吃樹葉) 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 (嘶鳴) 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 (飛奔) and rushed into the yard. Then they saw what Clover had seen.
It was a pig walking on his hind(后部的) legs.
Yes, it was Squealer. A little awkwardly (笨拙地), as though not quite used to supporting his considerable bulk in that position, but with perfect balance, he was strolling (溜達(dá)) 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.
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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 (傲慢的) glances from side to side, and with his dogs gambolling (歡快地跳躍) round him.
He carried a whip (皮鞭) in his trotter.
There was a deadly silence. Amazed, terrified, huddling together, the animals watched the long line of pigs march slowly round the yard. It was as though the world had turned upside?down.
Then there came a moment when the first shock had worn off and when, in spite of everything?in spite of their terror of the dogs, and of the habit, developed through long years, of never complaining, never criticising, no matter what happened?they might have uttered some word of protest.
But just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating of?
"Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!"
