Animal Farm | Page 8

with a
kind of awe at the unbelievable luxury, at the beds with their feather mattresses, the looking-glasses, the
horsehair sofa, the Brussels carpet, the lithograph of Queen Victoria over the drawing-room mantelpiece.
They were lust coming down the stairs when Mollie was discovered to be missing. Going back, the others
found that she had remained behind in the best bedroom. She had taken a piece of blue ribbon from Mrs.
Jones's dressing-table, and was holding it against her shoulder and admiring herself in the glass in a very
foolish manner. The others reproached her sharply, and they went outside. Some hams hanging in the kitchen Animal Farm
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were taken out for burial, and the barrel of beer in the scullery was stove in with a kick from Boxer's
hoof,-otherwise nothing in the house was touched. A unanimous resolution was passed on the spot that the
farmhouse should be preserved as a museum. All were agreed that no animal must ever live there.
The animals had their breakfast, and then Snowball and Napoleon called them together again.
"Comrades," said Snowball, "it is half-past six and we have a long day before us. Today we begin the hay
harvest. But there is another matter that must be attended to first."
The pigs now revealed that during the past three months they had taught themselves to read and write from an
old spelling book which had belonged to Mr. Jones's children and which had been thrown on the rubbish
heap. Napoleon sent for pots of black and white paint and led the way down to the five-barred gate that gave
on to the main road. Then Snowball (for it was Snowball who was best at writing) took a brush between the
two knuckles of his trotter, painted out MANOR FARM
from the top bar of the gate and in its place painted
ANIMAL FARM . This was to be the name of the farm from now onwards. After this they went back to the farm
buildings, where Snowball and Napoleon sent for a ladder which they caused to be set against the end wall of
the big barn. They explained that by their studies of the past three months the pigs had succeeded in reducing
the principles of Animalism to Seven Commandments. These Seven Commandments would now be inscribed
on the wall; they would form an unalterable law by which all the animals on Animal Farm must live for ever
after. With some difficulty (for it is not easy for a pig to balance himself on a ladder) Snowball climbed up
and set to work, with Squealer a few rungs below him holding the paint-pot. The Commandments were
written on the tarred wall in great white letters that could be read thirty yards away. They ran thus:
THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
1.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
2.
No animal shall wear clothes.
3.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
4.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
5.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
6.
All animals are equal.
7.
It was very neatly written, and except that "friend" was written "freind" and one of the "S's" was the wrong
way round, the spelling was correct all the way through. Snowball read it aloud for the benefit of the others.
All the animals nodded in complete agreement, and the cleverer ones at once began to learn the
Commandments by heart.
"Now, comrades," cried Snowball, throwing down the paint-brush, "to the hayfield! Let us make it a point of
honour to get in the harvest more quickly than Jones and his men could do."
But at this moment the three cows, who had seemed uneasy for some time past, set up a loud lowing.