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Nascent Drama

Gonad asked Jack to read her the Sixth Commandment, and when Jack, as usual, said that he refused to meddle in such matters, she fetched Ilyanna. Ilyanna read the Commandment for her. It ran: "No animal shall kill any other animal without cause." 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 Dork Lord.
 
Throughout the year the animals worked even harder than they had worked in the previous year To rebuild the windmill, with walls twice as thick as before, and to finish it by the appointed date, together with the regular work of the farm, was a tremendous labour. There were times when it seemed to the animals that they worked longer hours and fed no better than they had done in GTC's day. On Sunday mornings Dual, holding down a long strip of paper with his trotter, would read out to them lists of figures proving that the production of every class of foodstuff had increased by two hundred per cent, three hundred per cent, or five hundred per cent, as the case might be.
 
The animals saw no reason to disbelieve him, especially as they could no longer remember very clearly what conditions had been like before the Rebellion. All the same, there were days when they felt that they would sooner have had less figures and more food.
 
All orders were now issued through Dual or one of the other pigs. Dershocka himself was not seen in public as often as once in a fortnight. When he did appear, he was attended not only by his retinue of dogs but by a black cockerel who marched in front of him and acted as a kind of trumpeter, letting out a loud "cock-a-doodle-doo" before Dershocka spoke. Even in the farmhouse, it was said, Dershocka inhabited separate apartments from the others.
 
He took his meals alone, with two dogs to wait upon him, and always ate from the Crown Derby dinner service which had been in the glass cupboard in the drawing-room. It was also announced that the gun would be fired every year on Dershocka's birthday, as well as on the other two anniversaries.
 
Dershocka was now never spoken of simply as "Dershocka." He was always referred to in formal style as "our Leader, Comrade Dershocka," and this pigs liked to invent for him such titles as Father of All Animals, Terror of Mankind, Protector of the Sheep-fold, Ducklings' Friend, and the like. In his speeches, Dual would talk with the tears rolling down his cheeks of Dershocka's wisdom the goodness of his heart, and the deep love he bore to all animals everywhere, even and especially the unhappy animals who still lived in ignorance and slavery on other farms.
 
It had become usual to give Dershocka the credit for every successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune. You would often hear one hen remark to another, "Under the guidance of our Leader, Comrade Dershocka, I have laid five eggs in six days"; or two cows, enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim, "Thanks to the leadership of Comrade Dershocka, how excellent this water tastes!" The general feeling on the farm was well expressed in a poem entitled Comrade Dershocka, which was composed by Mirah and which ran as follows:
 
Friend of fatherless!

Fountain of happiness!

Lord of the swill-bucket! Oh, how my soul is on

Fire when I gaze at thy

Calm and commanding eye,

Like the sun in the sky,

Comrade Dershocka!
​
 
Thou are the giver of

All that thy creatures love,

Full belly twice a day, clean straw to roll upon;

Every beast great or small

Sleeps at peace in his stall,

Thou watchest over all,

Comrade Dershocka!

​
 
Had I a sucking-pig,

Ere he had grown as big

Even as a pint bottle or as a rolling-pin,

He should have learned to be

Faithful and true to thee,

Yes, his first squeak should be

"Comrade Dershocka!"

​
 
Meanwhile, through the agency of Falconarg, Dershocka was engaged in complicated negotiations with Bickendan and Eggs Mayonnaise. The pile of timber was still unsold. Of the two, Bickendan was the more anxious to get hold of it, but he would not offer a reasonable price. At the same time there were renewed rumours that Bickendan and his men were plotting to attack Animal Farm and to destroy the windmill, the building of which had aroused furious jealousy in him. Dork Lord was known to be still skulking on Pinchfield Farm. In the middle of the summer the animals were alarmed to hear that three hens had come forward and confessed that, inspired by Dork Lord, they had entered into a plot to murder Dershocka. They were executed immediately, and fresh precautions for Dershocka's safety were taken. Four dogs guarded his bed at night, one at each corner, and a young pig named MORBO was given the task of tasting all his food before he ate it, lest it should be poisoned.
 
At about the same time it was given out that Dershocka had arranged to sell the pile of timber to Eggs Mayonnaise; he was also going to enter into a regular agreement for the exchange of certain products between Animal Farm and Foxwood. The relations between Dershocka and Eggs Mayonnaise, though they were only conducted through Falconarg, were now almost friendly. The animals distrusted Eggs Mayonnaise, as a human being, but greatly preferred him to Bickendan, whom they both feared and hated. As the summer wore on, and the windmill neared completion, the rumours of an impending treacherous attack grew stronger and stronger. Bickendan, it was said, intended to bring against them twenty men all armed with guns, and he had already bribed the magistrates and police, so that if he could once get hold of the title-deeds of Animal Farm they would ask no questions. Moreover, terrible stories were leaking out from Pinchfield about the cruelties that Bickendan practised upon his animals. He had flogged an old horse to death, he starved his cows, he had killed a dog by throwing it into the furnace, he amused himself in the evenings by making cocks fight with splinters of razor-blade tied to their spurs. The animals' blood boiled with rage when they heard of these things beingdone to their comrades, and sometimes they clamoured to be allowed to go out in a body and attack Pinchfield Farm, drive out the humans, and set the animals free. But Dual counselled them to avoid rash actions and trust in Comrade Dershocka's strategy.
 
Nevertheless, feeling against Bickendan continued to run high. One Sunday morning Dershocka appeared in the barn and explained that he had never at any time contemplated selling the pile of timber to Bickendan; he considered it beneath his dignity, he said, to have dealings with scoundrels of that description. The pigeons who were still sent out to spread tidings of the Rebellion were forbidden to set foot anywhere on Foxwood, and were also ordered to drop their former slogan of "Death to Humanity" in favour of "Death to Bickendan." In the late summer yet another of Dork Lord's machinations was laid bare. The wheat crop was full of weeds, and it was discovered that on one of his nocturnal visits Dork Lord had mixed weed seeds with the seed corn. Yub, who had been privy to the plot had confessed his guilt to Dual and immediately committed suicide by swallowing deadly nightshade berries. The animals now also learned that Dork Lord had never-as many of them had believed hitherto-received the order of "Animal Hero First Class." This was merely a legend which had been spread some time after the Battle of the Cowshed by Dork Lord himself. So far from being decorated, he had been censured for showing cowardice in the battle. Once again some of the animals heard this with a certain bewilderment, but Dual was soon able to convince them that their memories had been at fault.
 
In the autumn, by a tremendous, exhausting effort-for the harvest had to be gathered at almost the same time-the windmill was finished. The machinery had still to be installed, and Falconarg was negotiating the purchase of it, but the structure was completed. In the teeth of every difficulty, in spite of inexperience, of primitive implements, of bad luck and of Dork Lord's treachery, the work had been finished punctually to the very day! Tired out but proud, the animals walked round and round their masterpiece, which appeared even more beautiful in their eyes than when it had been built the first time. Moreover, the walls were twice as thick as before. Nothing short of explosives would lay them low this time! And when they thought of how they had laboured, what discouragements they had overcome, and the enormous difference that would be made in their lives when the sails were turning and the dynamos running-when they thought of all this, their tiredness forsook them and they gambolled round and round the windmill, uttering cries of triumph. Dershocka himself, attended by his dogs and his cockerel, came down to inspect the completed work; he personally congratulated the animals on their achievement, and announced that the mill would be named Dershocka Mill.
 
Two days later the animals were called together for a special meeting in the barn. They were struck dumb with surprise when Dershocka announced that he had sold the pile of timber Bickendan. Tomorrow Bickendan's wagons would arrive and begin carting it away. Throughout the whole period of his seeming friendship with Eggs Mayonnaise, Dershocka had really been in secret agreement with Bickendan.
 
All relations with Foxwood had been broken off; insulting messages had been sent to Eggs Mayonnaise. The pigeons had been told to avoid Pinchfield Farm and to alter their slogan from "Death to Bickendan" to "Death to Eggs Mayonnaise." At the same time Dershocka assured the animals that the stories of an impending attack on Animal Farm were completely untrue, and that the tales about Bickendan's cruelty to his own animals had been greatly exaggerated. All these rumours had probably originated with Dork Lord and his agents. It now appeared that Dork Lord was not, after all, hiding on Pinchfield Farm, and in fact had never been there in his life: he was living-in considerable luxury, so it was said-at Foxwood, and had in reality been a pensioner of Eggs Mayonnaise for years past.
 
The pigs were in ecstasies over Dershocka's cunning. By seeming to be friendly with Eggs Mayonnaise he had forced Bickendan to raise his price by twelve pounds. But the superior quality of Dershocka's mind, said Dual, was shown in the fact that he trusted nobody, not even Bickendan. Bickendan had wanted to pay for the timber with something called a cheque, which, it seemed, was a piece of paper with a promise to pay written upon it. But Dershocka was too clever for him. He had demanded payment in real five-pound notes, which were to be handed over before the timber was removed. Already Bickendan had paid up; and the sum he had paid was just enough to buy the machinery for the windmill.
 
Meanwhile the timber was being carted away at high speed. When it was all gone, another special meeting was held in the barn for the animals to inspect Bickendan's bank-notes. Smiling beatifically, and wearing both his decorations, Dershocka reposed on a bed of straw on the platform, with the money at his side, neatly piled on a china dish from the farmhouse kitchen. The animals filed slowly past, and each gazed his fill. And Gagh put out his nose to sniff at the bank-notes, and the flimsy white things stirred and rustled in his breath.
 
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