Animal Farm(116)

Whymper had bought himself a dogcart. The windmill,however,had not after all been used for generating electrical power.  It was used for milling corn,and brought in a handsome money profit.  The animals were hard at working building yet another windmill;when that one was finished,so it was said,the dynamo would be installed. But the luxuries of which Snowball had once taught the animals to dream,the stalls with electric light and hot and cold water,and three-day week,were no longer talked about.  Napoleon had denounced such ideas as contrary to the spirit of Animalism.  The truest happiness,he said,lay in working hard and living frugally【adv. 节约地;节省地】.

温普尔给自己买了一辆马车。然而,风车毕竟还没有被用来发电。它被用来磨玉米,并带来了可观的利润。动物们正忙着再建一座风车;据说那座风车一建成,就得装上发电机。但是,那些斯诺鲍曾经教动物们梦想的奢侈生活,那些有电灯、冷水和热水的小隔间,以及每周三天的工作制,再也没有人提起。拿破仑谴责这种思想是与动物主义精神相违背的。他说,最真正的幸福在于努力工作和俭朴生活。

Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer—except,of course,for the pigs and the dogs.  Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs.  It was not that these creatures did not work,after their fashion.  There was,as Squealer was never tired of explaining,endless work in the supervision and organisation of the farm.  Much of this work was of a kind that the other animals were too ignorant to understand.  For example,Squealer told them that the pigs had to expend enormous labours every day upon mysterious things called “files,” “reports,” “minutes,”and “memoranda. ” These were large sheets of paper which had to be closely covered with writing,and as soon as they were so covered,there were burnt in the furnace.

不知怎么的,似乎庄园变得更富有了,但动物们并没有变得更富有——当然,猪和狗除外。部分原因也许是有太多的猪和太多的狗。这并不是说这些家伙不按他们的方式工作。正如斯奎拉不厌其烦地解释的那样,庄园的监督和组织工作没完没了。这些工作大部分是其他动物由于太无知而无法理解的。例如,斯奎拉告诉他们,猪每天不得不花费大量的精力在一些神秘的东西上,这些东西叫做“文件”、“报告”、“会议记录”和“备忘录”。“这些是很大的纸,上面布满密密麻麻的文字,一旦写满了,就会在炉子里烧掉。

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