← When Major saw that they had all made themselves comfortable and were waiting attentively, he cleared his throat and began: "Comrades, you have heard already about the strange dream that I had last night. 🔊
← Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty. 🔊
← All animals are equal. "And now, comrades, I will tell you about my dream of last night. 🔊
← 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. 🔊
← At last they could stand it no longer. One of the cows broke in the door of the store−shed with her horn and all the animals began to help themselves from the bins. 🔊
← For the first few minutes the animals could hardly believe in their good fortune. Their first act was to gallop in a body right round the boundaries of the farm, as though to make quite sure that no human being was hiding anywhere upon it; then they raced back to the farm buildings to wipe out the last traces of Jones's hated reign. 🔊
← Moreover, it was the biggest harvest that the farm had ever seen. There was no wastage whatever; the hens and ducks with their sharp eyes had gathered up the very last stalk. 🔊
← At last the day came when Snowball's plans were completed. At the Meeting on the following Sunday the question of whether or not to begin work on the windmill was to be put to the vote. 🔊
← The plans, however, had all been prepared, down to the last detail. A special committee of pigs had been at work upon them for the past three weeks. 🔊
← At last, feeling this to be in some way a substitute for the words she was unable to find, she began to sing Beasts of England. 🔊
← Somehow or other, the last two words had slipped out of the animals' memory. But they saw now that the Commandment had not been violated; for clearly there was good reason for killing the traitors who had leagued themselves with Snowball. 🔊
← The animals chased them right down to the bottom of the field, and got in some last kicks at them as they forced their way through the thorn hedge. 🔊
← Yes, it was gone; almost the last trace of their labour was gone! Even the foundations were partially destroyed. 🔊
← "A horse's lungs do not last for ever," she said to him. But Boxer would not listen. 🔊
← The winter was as cold as the last one had been, and food was even shorter. 🔊
← Squealer came to announce the news to the others. He had, he said, been present during Boxer's last hours. 🔊
← "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. 🔊
← Long live Comrade Napoleon! Napoleon is always right.' Those were his very last words, comrades." 🔊
← And when Squealer went on to give further graphic details of Boxer's death−bed, the admirable care he had received, and the expensive medicines for which Napoleon had paid without a thought as to the cost, their last doubts disappeared and the sorrow that they felt for their comrade's death was tempered by the thought that at least he had died happy. 🔊
← The windmill had been successfully completed at last, and the farm possessed a threshing machine and a hay elevator of its own, and various new buildings had been added to it. 🔊