← But I will come to the dream later. I have something else to say first. 🔊
← It is about this that I wish to speak to you. 🔊
← I cannot describe that dream to you. It was a dream of the earth as it will be when Man has vanished. 🔊
← But it reminded me of something that I had long forgotten. Many years ago, when I was a little pig, my mother and the other sows used to sing an old song of which they knew only the tune and the first three words. 🔊
← Last night, however, it came back to me in my dream. And what is more, the words of the song also came back−words, I am certain, which were sung by the animals of long ago and have been lost to memory for generations. 🔊
← Squealer was sent to make the necessary explanations to the others. "Comrades!" he cried. "You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? 🔊
← The only good human being is a dead one." "I have no wish to take life, not even human life," repeated Boxer, and his eyes were full of tears. 🔊
← And−I was a long way away, but I am almost certain I saw this−he was talking to you and you were allowing him to stroke your nose. 🔊
← What does that mean, Mollie?" "He didn't! I wasn't! It isn't true!" 🔊
← "Loyalty and obedience are more important. And as to the Battle of the Cowshed, I believe the time will come when we shall find that Snowball's part in it was much exaggerated. 🔊
← "I do not believe that," he said. "Snowball fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed. 🔊
← And he very nearly succeeded−I will even say, comrades, he would have succeeded if it had not been for our heroic Leader, Comrade Napoleon. 🔊
← "I do not believe that Snowball was a traitor at the beginning," he said finally. 🔊
← "What he has done since is different. But I believe that at the Battle of the Cowshed he was a good comrade." 🔊
← Finally he said: "I do not understand it. I would not have believed that such things could happen on our farm. 🔊
← At such times his lips were seen to form the words, "I will work harder"; he had no voice left. 🔊
← "It does not matter. I think you will be able to finish the windmill without me. 🔊
← To tell you the truth, I had been looking forward to my retirement. And perhaps, as Benjamin is growing old too, they will let him retire at the same time and be a companion to me." 🔊
← "I was at his bedside at the very last. And at the end, almost too weak to speak, he whispered in my ear that his sole sorrow was to have passed on before the windmill was finished. 🔊
← But it appears to me that that wall looks different. Are the Seven Commandments the same as they used to be, Benjamin?" 🔊