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Years passed. The seasons came and went, the short animal lives fled by. A time came when there was no one who remembered the old days before the Rebellion, except Clover, Benjamin, Moses the raven, and a number of the pigs.
春去秋来，年复一年。随着岁月的流逝，寿命较短的动物都已相继死去。眼下，除了克拉弗、本杰明、乌鸦摩西和一些猪之外，已经没有一个能记得起义前的日子了。
Muriel was dead; Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher were dead. Jones too was dead--he had died in an inebriates' home in another part of the country. Snowball was forgotten.
穆丽尔死了，布鲁拜尔、杰西、平彻尔都死了。琼斯也死了，他死在国内其他一个地方的一个酒鬼家里。斯诺鲍被忘掉了。
Boxer was forgotten, except by the few who had known him. Clover was an old stout mare now, stiff in the joints and with a tendency to rheumy eyes.
鲍克瑟也被忘掉了，所不同的是，唯有几个本来就相识的动物还记得。克拉弗如今也老了，她身体肥胖，关节僵硬，眼里总带着一团眼屎。
She was two years past the retiring age, but in fact no animal had ever actually retired. The talk of setting aside a corner of the pasture for superannuated animals had long since been dropped.
按退休年龄来说，她的年龄已超过两年了，但实际上，从未有一个动物真正退休。拨出大牧场一角给退休动物享用的话题也早就搁到一边了。
Napoleon was now a mature boar of twenty-four stone. Squealer was so fat that he could with difficulty see out of his eyes.
如今的拿破仑已是一头完全成熟的雄猪，体重三百多磅。斯奎拉胖得连睁眼往外看都似乎感到困难。
Only old Benjamin was much the same as ever, except for being a little greyer about the muzzle, and, since Boxer's death, more morose and taciturn than ever.
只有老本杰明，几乎和过去一个样，就是鼻子和嘴周围有点发灰，再有一点，自从鲍克瑟死去后，他比以前更加孤僻和沉默寡言。
There were many more creatures on the farm now, though the increase was not so great as had been expected in earlier years.
现在，庄园里的牲口比以前多得多了，尽管增长的数目不象早些年所预见的那么大。
Many animals had been born to whom the Rebellion was only a dim tradition, passed on by word of mouth, and others had been bought who had never heard mention of such a thing before their arrival. The farm possessed three horses now besides Clover.
很多动物生在庄园，还有一些则来自别的地方。对于那些出生在庄园的动物来说，起义只不过是一个朦朦胧胧的口头上的传说而已；而对那些来自外乡的动物来说，他们在来到庄园之前，还从未听说过起义的事。现在的庄园，除了克拉弗之外，另外还有三匹马。
They were fine upstanding beasts, willing workers and good comrades, but very stupid. None of them proved able to learn the alphabet beyond the letter B.
他们都是好同志，都很了不起，也都十分温顺，可惜反应都很慢。看起来，他们中间没有一个能学会字母表上“B”以后的字母。
They accepted everything that they were told about the Rebellion and the principles of Animalism, especially from Clover, for whom they had an almost filial respect.
对于有关起义和动物主义原则的事，凡是他们能听到的，他们都毫无保留地全盘接受，尤其是对出自克拉弗之口的更是如此。他们对克拉弗的尊敬，已近乎于孝顺。
But it was doubtful whether they understood very much of it. The farm was more prosperous now, and better organised. It had even been enlarged by two fields which had been bought from Mr. Pilkington.
但是，他们究竟是不是能弄通这些道理，仍然值得怀疑。现在的庄园更是欣欣向荣，也更是井然有序了。庄园里增加了两块地，这两块地是从皮尔金顿先生那里买来的。
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.
风车最终还是成功地建成了，庄园里也有了自己的一台打谷机及草料升降机，另外，还加盖了许多种类不一的新建筑。
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.
温普尔也为自己买了一辆双轮单驾马车。不过，风车最终没有用来发电。而是用来磨谷子，它为庄园创收了数目可观的利润。
The animals were hard at work building yet another windmill. When that one was finished, so it was said, the dynamos would be installed.
如今，动物们又为建造另一座风车而辛勤劳作。据说，等这一座建成了，就要安装上发电机。
But the luxuries of which Snowball had once taught the animals to dream, the stalls with electric light and hot and cold water, and the three-day week, were no longer talked about.
但是，当年谈论风车时，斯诺鲍引导动物们所想像的那种享受不尽的舒适，那种带电灯和冷热水的窝棚，那种每周三天工作制，如今不再谈论了。
Napoleon had denounced such ideas as contrary to the spirit of Animalism. The truest happiness, he said, lay in working hard and living frugally.
拿破仑早就斥责说，这些想法是与动物主义的精神背道而驰的。他说，最纯粹的幸福在于工作勤奋和生活俭朴。
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.
不知道为什么，反正看上去，庄园似乎已经变得富裕了，但动物们自己一点没有变富，当然猪和狗要排除在外。
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.
也许，其中的部分原因是由于猪和狗都多吧。处在他们这一等级的动物，都是用他们自己的方式从事劳动。
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.
正像斯奎拉乐于解释的那样，在庄园的监督和组织工作中，有很多没完没了的事。在这类事情中，有大量工作是其它动物由于无知而无法理解的。
For example, Squealer told them that the pigs had to expend enormous labors every day upon mysterious things called "files," "reports," "minutes," and "memoranda".
例如，斯奎拉告诉他们说，猪每天要耗费大量的精力，用来处理所谓“文件”、“报告”、“会议记录”和“备忘录”等等神秘的事宜。
These were large sheets of paper which had to be closely covered with writing, and as soon as they were so covered, they were burnt in the furnace.
这类文件数量很大，还必须仔细填写，而且一旦填写完毕，又得把它们在炉子里烧掉。
This was of the highest importance for the welfare of the farm, Squealer said. But still, neither pigs nor dogs produced any food by their own labor; and there were very many of them, and their appetites were always good.
斯奎拉说，这是为了庄园的幸福所做的最重要的工作。但是至今为止，无论是猪还是狗，都还没有亲自生产过一粒粮食，而他们仍然为数众多，他们的食欲还总是十分旺盛。
As for the others, their life, so far as they knew, was as it had always been. They were generally hungry, they slept on straw, they drank from the pool, they labored in the fields.
至于其它动物，迄今就他们所知，他们的生活还是一如既往。他们普遍都在挨饿，睡的是草垫，喝的是池塘里的水，干的是田间里的活。
In winter they were troubled by the cold, and in summer by the flies. Sometimes the older ones among them racked their dim memories and tried to determine whether in the early days of the Rebellion, when Jones's expulsion was still recent, things had been better or worse than now.
冬天被寒冷所困，夏天又换成了苍蝇。有时，他们中间的年长者绞尽脑汁，竭尽全力从那些淡漠的印象中搜索着回忆的线索，他们试图以此来推定起义后的早期，刚赶走琼斯那会，情况是比现在好呢还是糟。
They could not remember. There was nothing with which they could compare their present lives: they had nothing to go upon except Squealer's lists of figures, which invariably demonstrated that everything was getting better and better. The animals found the problem insoluble.
但他们都记不得了。没有一件事情可以用来和现在的生活做比较，除了斯奎拉的一系列数字以外，他们没有任何凭据用来比较，而斯奎拉的数字总是千篇一律地表明，所有的事正变得越来越好。动物们发现这个问题解释不清。
In any case, they had little time for speculating on such things now. Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse--hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.
不管怎么说，他们现在很少有时间去思索这类事情。唯有老本杰明与众不同，他自称对自己那漫长的一生中的每个细节都记忆犹新，还说他认识到事物过去没有，将来也不会有什么更好或更糟之分。因此他说，饥饿、艰难、失望的现实，是生活不可改变的规律。
