Скотный двор и сборник эссе

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ-93
         О63

Animal Farm © The Estate of George Orwell
(first English edition 1945)
Such, Such Were the Joys © The Estate
of George Orwell (first published in English 1952)
Shooting an Elephant © The Estate
of George Orwell (first published in English 1936)
A Hanging © The Estate of George Orwell
(first published in English 1931)
© КАРО, 2017
Все права защищены
ISBN 978-5-9925-1235-9

Оруэлл, Джордж.
О63
Скотный двор и сборник эссе : книга для чтения на
английском языке. — Санкт-Петербург : КАРО, 2017. —
256 с. — (Modern Prose).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1235-9

Эта книга — сборник произведений английского писателя
Джорджа Оруэлла. Самый нашумевший его рассказ «Скотный двор», который по понятным причинам был запрещен к
изданию во времена СССР, а также подборка самых ярких
эссе открывают читателю интереснейшие моменты из жизни
автора.
Книга представляет собой неадаптированный текст для
чтения. Предназначена для учащихся старших классов языковых школ, вузов, курсов иностранных языков и самостоятельного чтения. Тексты снабжены заданиями на понимание,
примечаниями и словарем.

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ-93

Mr Jones of the Manor Farm, had locked the henhouses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to
shut the pop-holes. With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to side he lurched across the yard,
kicked off his boots at the back door, drew himself a last
glass of beer from the barrel in the scullery, and made his
way up to bed, where Mrs Jones was already snoring.
As soon as the light in the bedroom went out there
was a stirring and a fluttering all through the farm buildings. Word had gone round during the day that old
Major, the prize Middle White boar, had had a strange
dream on the previous night and wished to communicate it to the other animals. It had been agreed that they
should all meet in the big barn as soon as Mr Jones was
safely out of the way. Old Major (so he was always called,
though the name under which he had been exhibited
was Willingdon Beauty) was so highly regarded on the
farm that everyone was quite ready to lose an hour’s
sleep in order to hear what he had to say.
At one end of the big barn, on a sort of raised platform, Major was already ensconced on his bed of straw,
under a lantern which hung from a beam. He was twelve

GEORGE ORWELL

years old and had lately grown rather stout, but he was
still a majestic-looking pig, with a wise and benevolent
appearance in spite of the fact that his tushes had never
been cut. Before long the other animals began to arrive
and make themselves comfortable after their different
fashions. First came the three dogs, Bluebell, Jessie and
Pincher, and then the pigs, who settled down in the
straw immediately in front of the platform. The hens
perched themselves on the window-sills, the pigeons fluttered up to the rafters, the sheep and cows lay down
behind the pigs and began to chew the cud. The two
cart-horses, Boxer and Clover, came in together, walking very slowly and setting down their vast hairy hoofs
with great care lest1 there should be some small animal
concealed in the straw. Clover was a stout motherly mare
approaching middle life, who had never quite got her
figure back after her fourth foal. Boxer was an enormous beast, nearly eighteen hands high, and as strong
as any two ordinary horses put together. A white stripe
down his nose gave him a somewhat stupid appearance,
and in fact he was not of first-rate intelligence, but he
was universally respected for his steadiness of character
and tremendous powers of work. After the horses came
Muriel, the white goat, and Benjamin the donkey. Benjamin was the oldest animal on the farm, and the worst

1 lest — что (после глаголов и фраз, обозначающих опасение: вводит дополнение, называющее событие, которого опасаются)

ANIMAL FARM: A FAIRY STORY

tempered. He seldom talked, and when he did it was
usually to make some cynical remark — for instance he
would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies
off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no
flies. Alone among the animals on the farm he never
laughed. If asked why, he would say that he saw nothing
to laugh at. Nevertheless, without openly admitting it,
he was devoted to Boxer; the two of them usually spent
their Sundays together in the small paddock beyond the
orchard, grazing side by side and never speaking.
The two horses had just lain down when a brood of
ducklings which had lost their mother filed into the
barn, cheeping feebly and wandering from side to side
to find some place where they would not be trodden
on. Clover made a sort of wall round them with her
great foreleg, and the ducklings nestled down inside it
and promptly fell asleep. At the last moment Mollie,
the foolish, pretty white mare who drew Mr Jones’s trap,
came mincing daintily in, chewing at a lump of sugar.
She took a place near the front and began flirting her
white mane, hoping to draw attention to the red ribbons it was plaited with. Last of all came the cat, who
looked round, as usual, for the warmest place, and finally squeezed herself in between Boxer and Clover; there
she purred contentedly throughout Major’s speech without listening to a word of what he was saying.
All the animals were now present except Moses, the
tame raven, who slept on a perch behind the back door.

GEORGE ORWELL

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. But I will come to the dream
later. I have something else to say first. I do not think,
comrades, that I shall be with you for many months
longer, and before I die I feel it my duty to pass on to
you such wisdom as I have acquired. I have had a long
life, I have had much time for thought as I lay alone in
my stall, and I think I may say that I understand the
nature of life on this earth as well as any animal now
living. It is about this that I wish to speak to you.
‘Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours?
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. No animal in
England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after
he is a year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an
animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.
‘But is this simply part of the order of Nature? Is it
because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford
a decent life to those who dwell upon it? No, comrades,
a thousand times no! The soil of England is fertile, its
climate is good, it is capable of affording food in abun

ANIMAL FARM: A FAIRY STORY

dance to an enormously greater number of animals than
now inhabit it. This single farm of ours would support
a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep — and
all of them living in a comfort and a dignity that are
now almost beyond our imagining. Why then do we
continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly
the whole of the produce of our labour is stolen from us
by human beings. There, comrades, is the answer to all
our problems. It is summed up in a single word — Man.
Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from
the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is
abolished for ever.
‘Man is the only creature that consumes without
producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs,
he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast
enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.
He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare
minimum that will prevent them from starving, and
the rest he keeps for himself. Our labour tills the soil,
our dung fertilises it, and yet there is not one of us that
owns more than his bare skin. You cows that I see before me, how many thousands of gallons of milk have
you given during this last year? And what has happened
to that milk which should have been breeding up sturdy calves? Every drop of it has gone down the throats of
our enemies. And you hens, how many eggs have you
laid in this last year, and how many of those eggs ever
hatched into chickens? The rest have all gone to market

GEORGE ORWELL

to bring in money for Jones and his men. And you,
Clover, where are those four foals you bore, who should
have been the support and pleasure of your old age?
Each was sold at a year old — you will never see one of
them again. In return for your four confinements and
all your labour in the fields, what have you ever had
except your bare rations and a stall?
‘And even the miserable lives we lead are not allowed
to reach their natural span. For myself I do not grumble,
for I am one of the lucky ones. I am twelve years old and
have had over four hundred children. Such is the natural
life of a pig. But no animal escapes the cruel knife in the
end. You young porkers who are sitting in front of me,
every one of you will scream your lives out at the block
within a year. To that horror we all must come — cows,
pigs, hens, sheep, everyone. Even the horses and the dogs
have no better fate. You, Boxer, the very day that those
great muscles of yours lose their power, Jones will sell you
to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you
down for the foxhounds. As for the dogs, when they grow
old and toothless Jones ties a brick round their necks and
drowns them in the nearest pond.
‘Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades, that all the
evils of this life of ours spring from the tyranny of human beings? Only get rid of Man, and the produce of
our labour would be our own. Almost overnight we
could become rich and free. What then must we do?
Why, work night and day, body and soul, for the over