The animals were hard at work building yet another windmill.

如今，动物们又为建造另一座风车而辛勤劳作。

When that one was finished, so it was said, the dynamos would be installed.

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,

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，

the stalls with electric light and hot and cold water, and the three-day week, were no longer talked about.

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.

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。

The truest happiness, he said, lay in working hard and living frugally.

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.

也许，其中的部分原因是由于猪和狗都多吧。

It was not that these creatures did not work, after their fashion.

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.

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。

Much of this work was of a kind that the other animals were too ignorant to understand.

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.

斯奎拉说，这是为了庄园的幸福所做的最重要的工作。

But still, neither pigs nor dogs produced any food by their own labor;

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，

and there were very many of them, and their appetites were always good.

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.

至于其它动物，迄今就他们所知，他们的生活还是一如既往。

They were generally hungry, they slept on straw, they drank from the pool, they labored in the fields.

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.

冬天被寒冷所困，夏天又换成了苍蝇。

Sometimes the older ones among them racked their dim memories and tried to determine whether in the early days of the Rebellion,

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，

when Jones's expulsion was still recent, things had been better or worse than now.

刚赶走琼斯那会，情况是比现在好呢还是糟。

They could not remember.

但他们都记不得了。

There was nothing with which they could compare their present lives:

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，

they had nothing to go upon except Squealer's lists of figures, which invariably demonstrated that everything was getting better and better.

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。

The animals found the problem insoluble.

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.

不管怎么说，他们现在很少有时间去思索这类事情。

Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been,

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，

nor ever could be much better or much worse--hunger, hardship, and disappointment being,

将来也不会有什么更好或更糟之分。

so he said, the unalterable law of life.

因此他说，饥饿、艰难、失望的现实，是生活不可改变的规律。