Great events always begin on the day before. Sometimes even on the morning of the day before. And so it was on Animal Farm when Benjamin Jr. — the son of that same Benjamin who had taken part in the expulsion of Mr Jones — opened his eyes.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxbQQgTYIoX
Old Benjamin was best remembered for his sermon that donkeys live a long time, but none of you has ever seen a dead donkey. And with that, he vanished from the scene: no one ever knew how or where Benjamin died. Yet another mystery remained — how do donkeys reproduce in the face of death?
The thing was, eighteen months after old Benjamin’s disappearance, a young donkey appeared on the farm. He quietly announced his name as Benjamin Jr. and, without asking anyone’s permission, clop-clopped his way straight to the stall where his father had once lived. The crowd, dumbstruck by this strangeness, watched him pass and then broke into little groups, tormented by the mystery of how the old donkey had managed to leave offspring.
By evening, the goose Scarlett had the best answer: donkeys, she announced, were the flesh and spirit of God’s own sons, and the moment they died — pop, back to life. With that, the animals gathered in a ring, each gripping a neighbour’s hoof, and sang out two verses in praise of Napoleon gone to glory.
“Took Junior his sweet time coming back, didn’t he?” the goat Harold, known on the farm as a scholar, ventured as soon as the singing had faded. No one could deny that he was the most literate beast on the farm — Harold had chewed his way through nearly every book in Jones’s house. But the debate he proposed never got off the ground, and the animals drifted away.
19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGWHktDBXgi
And so it was that the first to open his eyes that morning was Benjamin Jr. He cast a sleepy glance around the stall and saw that the overcrowding the farm’s inhabitants had long endured had not eased overnight. On the contrary — right beside him, something that had never happened before! — lay the entire litter of the sow Lucia; beneath him were seven hens and two geese; and digging into his back were the hooves of Harold, who, to make matters worse, was snoring horribly.
Carefully extricating himself from the sticky heap, Benjamin got to his feet and, stepping softly over the sleeping bodies, crept out of the dormitory. The sun was just beginning to bathe the farm in its first soft peach light; the air was crisp and clean, and Benjamin decided to take a stroll along the edge of the cabbage field, to see how the crop was faring.
The cabbages looked like a fine crop, Benjamin noted to himself as he strolled along the edge of the field. That meant, first, that he would have to haul many cartloads, and second — for each load he would get an extra carrot. A prospect he could not help but relish. Benjamin stood there, picturing the crunch of a juicy carrot between his strong teeth, when suddenly he felt something warm and sticky land with a wet slap on his head. From experience, he knew it could only be the old, insolent raven, Moses. Lifting his muzzle to the sky, Benjamin saw that such was the truth of it: the raven, looking relieved, weary, and self-satisfied, swooped down from the heavens towards the house of the runaway Jones, where the members of the Swine Council had now been living for many years. The donkey shook his head and decided that this minor mishap was surely a sign of a fine harvest, and, pleased with his logic, carried on along the cabbage beds.
19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4l8LFyvVZd
Moses was the oldest creature in the South of England — so old that he had not only witnessed the rebellion against Mr Jones but (some whispered) the whole of England’s history. For the last fifty years or so, the raven had constantly hung about the farm, keeping an eye on everything, and often after Mr Jones’s flight he was seen flying out of the window of the master’s house. What he got up to in there was anybody’s guess.
19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAjgOEGIWQ2
The second to wake up on Animal Farm was a boar named Billy — the very one thanks to whom Poond had come to be Napoleon’s successor. On the farm, Billy went by the nickname “Stinker” for the fateful mishap at the bedside of the dying Leader. But Billy could not have cared less, for two reasons. First — needless to say — Poond had duly appreciated that bit of heroics and, as a token of thanks, had made him Deputy General Secretary of the Council — in other words, his own deputy. The second reason was simpler: Billy had a large private room in the house of the runaway Jones, and had long ago decided that, whatever they called him behind his back, the size of his quarters would not get any smaller.
Unlike Benjamin Jr., Billy — having no overcrowding to contend with — woke in excellent spirits, grunted a cheerful “G’morning!” to himself, climbed out of bed, and trotted off to the bathroom. Turning the taps on full, he filled the tub to the brim, lowered himself in, and, with a smug expression on his snout, set about scrubbing the bristles on his back with a brush, all the while pondering how this day was surely destined to go down in history alongside his name.
There were good reasons for this, and within ten minutes the first of them tapped its raven beak at the window. Impatiently, Billy leaped out of the bath just as he was and, in two heavy bounds, reached the windowsill. Moses modestly averted his eyes from the soaped-up member of the Swine Council and quietly croaked his report. Billy listened carefully, then gave a brisk order:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiUSUNsRnx7
“At noon!” — and slammed the window shut.
19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUuUJvWgDdu
The true source of Billy’s high spirits, however, was not so much the comforts of his room or the raven’s visit as his long-standing part in Poond’s grand conspiracy — a scheme that promised to yield its first dividends any day now.
19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFKqysMnWmd
This involvement had come about by chance some six months earlier, when the pigs were marking the anniversary of Napoleon’s death with considerable ceremony. The evening began with a commemorative rally: the animals of Animal Farm gathered at the foot of the pyramid housing the remains of the great pigs of the past, recited the Commandments three times, after which six sheep performed a mournful cantata. Thereafter, the Swine Council, in full force, proceeded to the farmhouse for a solemn sitting, where they once again pledged themselves to the precepts of the departed Leader. Special attention was paid to the second Commandment — about living at whose expense. One thing led to another, and before long they were back upon the familiar sore point: the livestock was breeding like rabbits, there was less and less food, more and more headaches, Mr Pilkington’s potato field still remained stubbornly his own — and for the present...
Just then came a knock at the door, with word that the memorial buffet was laid out downstairs and that all could come down. The meeting was not yet over, the resolutions had not yet been passed — so Poond ordered the aperitifs brought up. With glasses in their hooves, the Council resumed the discussion: livestock breeding like hell, food running damn short, headaches... The more often they raised their glasses, the more progressive the conclusions became: Pilkington — bastard, hoarding his potato field; old donkeys and sheep — out of the yard (no room for them!); seize the whole of the South of England; anyone who isn’t a pig is a goat; smash their horns as a lesson to them...
At the point about goats, bagpipers arrived at the house of the runaway Jones: Billy, who was in charge of the mourning arrangements, had hired a trio to add a touch of solemnity. However, after the aperitifs, dancing to bagpipes turned out to be tricky, so within ten minutes they were replaced by mouth organs; Tyrolean songs rang out across the farm, another cart rolled up to the house, laden with huge jugs of homebrew... In short, the mourning was picking up steam.
It was already well past midnight when Poond, dead pickled to the bristles, dancing the twist, missed his footing on the stair and went tumbling down the whole flight — but amid the din of the jazz band and the thick cigar smoke, few noticed.
Only Billy. Towards dawn he went in search of the Leader and discovered him in a dusty cupboard of the runaway Jones’s house: Poond, a cracked pince-nez perched on his snout, bent over an old map. It turned out that he had stumbled upon a scroll wrapped in sticky cobwebs and, unrolling it out of idle curiosity, had realised that he was looking at a map of that corner of England where Animal Farm stood, together with several neighbouring villages and towns. For the next couple of hours Poond got glued to the scroll — and, good Lord! — the solution to the problem of clearing Animal Farm of its unwanted rabble had been found.
As it turned out, in the farthest corner of the map there was a small town whose name was unreadable thanks to spiders’ droppings, but above the centre of the settlement a tiny drawing of an elephant had miraculously survived. Poond plunged into the map’s legend and learned that the elephant marked a zoo. Around it, he remembered, there were other strange little arrows, and he decided to work out what they meant later. To skip ahead — those mysterious arrows would yet pour, oh how they would pour! — water on the mill of Poond’s schemes, but neither he, nor Billy, nor anyone else in all the South of England knew it yet.
At this rush of success, the bristles on the boar's back rippled like corn in the wind, the pince-nez cracked further, and sweat broke out on his nape: a zoo, he reasoned, was a place where animals lived, so other animals could live there too, alongside the ones already there... And that meant those second animals could lay their paws on what belonged to the first animals. And to put one's paw on another paw that had already laid a paw — that was sacred piggishness, as Napoleon's Commandments themselves declared! Poond's thoughts about whose paw was where, and who had laid what on whom, began to tangle from all the excitement, but of one thing he was certain: he was on the right track.
The news of the geographical find and the plans it inspired instantly sobered Billy up, and together with Poond, who had clamped the map in his teeth, the two boars clattered up the stairs. Bursting into the study, Poond's first act was to find a chemical pencil and a folder with strings and a clasp on the shelves. He sat down at the table, licked the lead, shot Billy a triumphant glance, and on the title page, in clumsy fat letters, scrawled:19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdiV83xXX3M
19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2WESjnlaKQ
TOP SIKRET19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhnpR7irDaW
FOR MY AIES ONLY END BILLY'S19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKh1ktCG2Aa
APERATION "IXODUS"19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGiISTxbYrJ
19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhSTVp36Eiz
and with due ceremony filed the map away. After that, Poond began pacing the study, untangling the thoughts that had flooded him, occasionally darting back to the table to scribble on sheets of paper. Billy sat on a stool the whole while, feeling himself present at the birth of an epoch.
By morning, the plan was ready. The enterprise fell into two parts: Poond was to gather intelligence on the zoo, while Billy was to work out how to persuade the surplus half of the animalfarmers to up sticks and set off for new lands.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtNcU9Yrt7K
“If we didn’t have to feed both the animals and their offspring, we’d have no trouble!” Billy sighed, his voice thick with nostalgia.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB84eJOoI0L
“Oh, yes!” Poond chimed in. “But let’s not forget — they might yet be useful to us!”19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡULo9HnEIA6
“We’re talking about Mr Pilkington and his field?”19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA4zyAd1Ynu
“Just so!”
Naturally, the field would not be settled overnight — they would have to tinker with it yet — but first and foremost, they needed to shed the dead weight on the farm and all the headaches that came with it. They could not simply put every useless creature under the knife. Those bright old days were gone — when, without a twinge of conscience or fear of consequences, they would knock off a couple of dozen hens, geese, and even sheep in a single night, putting it all down to the hardships of the Revolution.
19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLbfvbSCZvo
Billy recalled those times with a kind of longing — for though still young, he had been there for the rebellion against Jones, for the young Napoleon, and for Squealer, who always kept his head safely behind the backs of the other pigs. Billy also remembered the executions — which, it must be said, had never troubled him; on the contrary, the brutal, frenzied snouts of his elders filled him with awe and respect for strength and nerve — especially those carried out in drunken nightly frenzies, when Napoleon could barely stand even on four legs, let alone two, and yet, with a single swing of an axe, could split any sheep that crossed his path clean in two. Billy had seen it himself, more than once.
Squealer had it worst of all — come morning, he had to sell to the whole farm why, say, an entire goose family and its goslings had been butchered the night before. For what revolutionary crime? Still, by one means or another, Squealer always managed to wriggle out of it…
Now, however, Animal Farm had eyes on it from all sides — from neighbouring Pinchfield and from the human farms, with which trade still went on, sluggish as it was. A couple of years earlier, some snakes (most likely grass-snakes) had got the word "image" circulating all over England, and it quickly caught on — a trend the Swine Council, like it or not, had to reckon with.
In any case, Billy flung himself into his part of Operation "Exodus" with a will.
He had always been quick to nuzzle up to ideas that came from other piggy brains — especially Squealer’s and Napoleon’s. In that, Billy saw his calling: to help, to cook up something special. And the more special, the better. Napoleon had taken note of some of his services and had even let him finish from his own trough a couple of times. But Billy’s real stroke of luck came the day it became clear that Boxer was on his last legs.
Those familiar with the classic eyewitness's account of those events will, of course, remember Boxer — the mighty horse who lived on Animal Farm. Huge, strong, and docile, he had taken the rebellion against Jones for granted and decided, quite sensibly, that for the sake of a bright future, everyone must strain every muscle: the pigs would do the thinking and deciding, and he would do the ploughing and hauling stone. He swallowed whole whatever Squealer told them in the barn each evening. And he had also worked out that the less he slept, the more stone he could shift.
The animals adored Boxer (though, apart from him, none of them actually slept less), and when the horse’s lungs finally gave way from overwork and he collapsed in exhaustion to the ground, a groan of pity swept across the farm.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDFUQcbKDL6
The pigs groaned too. To some, it seemed, out of pity as well. But in truth, the reason was a good deal less sentimental — what were they to do with the farm’s favourite, coughing up blood all over the place? Treat him? And what would be the point? Yet to abandon him was risky: there would be gossip, murmurs, talk... Fine if it stayed within Animal Farm. But God forbid the neighbours got wind of it! Napoleon and Squealer would not have wished for that even in their worst nightmares — yet no sensible solution came to mind.
As would emerge much later, the idea of sending Boxer to the knacker's had been Billy's brainchild. He had even named the yard. The animals were told their beloved was off to the finest animal hospital. To be sure, on the day Boxer was seen for the last time, some did pause to wonder about the lettering on the van into which the dying horse had been bundled: “Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler. Dealer in Hides and Bone-Meal. Kennels Supplied.” No, no, it only looked that way, Squealer assured them — the animal hospital simply did not have its own transport, so they had hired one from Mr Simmonds, and simply had not had time to paint over the lettering. And with that, everyone calmed down.
19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe8gXq7fvlY
And what of Billy? By now, we know for a certainty: had he not helped Napoleon back then, he would never have found himself on his knees at the bedside of the dying Leader. How he had hoped, in that fateful hour, to hear his own name! And of all the stupid things to have happened! To break the speech right there... And in such a way! Oh, nerves, nerves...19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiLZHmsD802
And then Poond took over the Council. Well... bitter.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8MsPhRe1qo
For the time being, Billy threw himself zealously into his part of Operation “Exodus”. After a couple of days’ mulling, he decided his best asset would be the old informer, Moses. His instinct proved right — that very morning, from the bathroom windowsill, the raven croaked surreptitiously that his end of the bargain was complete.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyfYG0gewLs
“At noon!” — Billy ordered, and slammed the window shut.
and then Add to home screen.