# Chapter 8, George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, Audiobook (Bonus)

An episode of [George Orwell - 1984](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1795219843), 12 Sep 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75090948/chapter_8_homage_to_catalonia_george_orwell.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: CHAPTER VIII. OF HOMAGE TO CATALONIA. BY GEORGE ORWELL. This
[0:05] Speaker 1: Legamas recording may be distributed and adapted freely for any purpose.
[0:10] Speaker 1: Read by a fine voice. The days grew hotter and
[0:14] Speaker 1: even the nights grew tolerably warm. On a bullet-chip tree
[0:18] Speaker 1: in front of our parapet thick clusters of cherries were forming.
[0:22] Speaker 1: Bathing in the river ceased to be an agony and
[0:25] Speaker 1: became almost a pleasure. Wild roses with pink blooms the
[0:29] Speaker 1: size of saucers straggled over the shell holes, round Torre Fabienne.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Behind the line you met peasants wearing wild roses over
[0:38] Speaker 1: their ears. In the evenings they used to go out
[0:40] Speaker 1: with green nets, hunting quails. You spread the net over
[0:44] Speaker 1: the tops of the grasses, and then lay down and
[0:47] Speaker 1: made a noise like a female quail. Any male quail
[0:50] Speaker 1: that was within hearing then came running towards you, and
[0:53] Speaker 1: when he was underneath the net you threw a stone
[0:55] Speaker 1: to scare him. whereupon he sprang into the air and
[0:59] Speaker 1: was entangled in the net. Apparently only male quails were caught,
[1:03] Speaker 1: which struck me as unfair. There was a section of
[1:07] Speaker 1: Andalusians next to us in the line now. I do
[1:10] Speaker 1: not know quite how they got to this front. The
[1:13] Speaker 1: current explanation was that they had run away from Malaga
[1:16] Speaker 1: so fast that they had forgotten to stop at Valencia.
[1:20] Speaker 1: But this, of course, came from the Catalans, who professed
[1:23] Speaker 1: to look down on the Andalusians as a race of semi-savages.
[1:28] Speaker 1: Certainly the Andalusians were very ignorant, few if any of
[1:32] Speaker 1: them could read, and they seemed not even to know
[1:35] Speaker 1: the one thing that everybody knows in Spain, which political
[1:39] Speaker 1: party they belonged to. They thought they were anarchists, but
[1:43] Speaker 1: were not quite certain. Perhaps they were communists. They were gnarled,
[1:47] Speaker 1: rustic-looking men, shepherds or labourers from the olive groves, perhaps,
[1:52] Speaker 1: with faces deeply stained by the ferocious suns of farther south.
[1:57] Speaker 1: They were very useful to us, for they had an
[1:59] Speaker 1: extraordinary dexterity at rolling the dried-up Spanish tobacco into cigarettes.
[2:06] Speaker 1: The issue of cigarettes had ceased, but in Monflorite it
[2:10] Speaker 1: was occasionally possible to buy packets of the cheapest kind
[2:13] Speaker 1: of tobacco, which in appearance and texture was very like
[2:17] Speaker 1: chopped chaff. Its flavour was not bad, but it was
[2:21] Speaker 1: so dry that even when he had succeeded in making
[2:24] Speaker 1: a cigarette, The tobacco promptly fell out and left an
[2:27] Speaker 1: empty cylinder. The Andalusians, however, could roll admirable cigarettes and
[2:32] Speaker 1: had a special technique for tucking the ends in. Two
[2:35] Speaker 1: Englishmen were laid low by sunstroke. My salient memories of
[2:39] Speaker 1: that time are the heat of the midday sun and
[2:42] Speaker 1: working half-naked with sandbags punishing one's shoulders which were already
[2:47] Speaker 1: flayed by the sun and the lousiness of our clothes
[2:50] Speaker 1: and boots which were literally dropping to pieces and the
[2:54] Speaker 1: struggles with the mule, which brought our rations and which
[2:57] Speaker 1: did not mind rifle fire, but took to flight when
[3:00] Speaker 1: shrapnel burst in the air, and the mosquitoes just beginning
[3:04] Speaker 1: to be active, and the rats, which were a public nuisance,
[3:08] Speaker 1: and would even devour leather belts and cartridge pouches. Nothing
[3:12] Speaker 1: was happening except an occasional casualty from a sniper's bullet,
[3:16] Speaker 1: and the sporadic artillery fire and air raids onto Wesker.
[3:21] Speaker 1: Now that the trees were in full leaf, we had
[3:23] Speaker 1: constructed snipers' platforms, like Machan's in the popular trees that
[3:28] Speaker 1: fringe the line. On the other side of Huesca, the
[3:32] Speaker 1: attacks were petering out. The anarchists had had heavy losses
[3:36] Speaker 1: and had not succeeded in completely cutting the Haka road.
[3:40] Speaker 1: They had managed to establish themselves close enough on either
[3:43] Speaker 1: side to bring the road itself under machine-gun fire and
[3:47] Speaker 1: make it impassable for traffic. but the gap was a
[3:50] Speaker 1: kilometre wide and the fascists had constructed a sunken road,
[3:54] Speaker 1: a sort of enormous trench, along which a certain number
[3:58] Speaker 1: of lorries could come and go. Deserters reported that in
[4:02] Speaker 1: Huesca there were plenty of munitions and very little food,
[4:06] Speaker 1: but the town was evidently not going to fall. Probably
[4:09] Speaker 1: it would have been impossible to take it with the 15,000
[4:13] Speaker 1: ill-armed men who were available. Later, in June, the government
[4:17] Speaker 1: brought troops from the Madrid front and concentrated 30,000 men
[4:22] Speaker 1: on Huesca, with an enormous quantity of aeroplanes, but still
[4:26] Speaker 1: the town did not fall. When we went on leave,
[4:30] Speaker 1: I had been 115 days in the line, and at
[4:33] Speaker 1: the time this period seemed to me to have been
[4:35] Speaker 1: one of the most futile of my whole life. I
[4:38] Speaker 1: had joined the militia in order to fight against fascism,
[4:42] Speaker 1: and as yet I had scarcely fought at all, had
[4:44] Speaker 1: merely existed as a sort of passive object, doing nothing
[4:48] Speaker 1: in return for my rations, except to suffer from cold
[4:51] Speaker 1: and lack of sleep. Perhaps that is the fate of
[4:54] Speaker 1: most soldiers in most wars, but now that I can
[4:57] Speaker 1: see this period in perspective, I do not altogether regret it.
[5:02] Speaker 1: I wish indeed that I could have served the Spanish
[5:04] Speaker 1: government a little more effectively, but from a personal point
[5:07] Speaker 1: of view, from the point of view of my own development,
[5:11] Speaker 1: those first three or four months that I spent in
[5:13] Speaker 1: the line were less futile than I then thought. They
[5:18] Speaker 1: formed a kind of interregnum in my life, quite different
[5:21] Speaker 1: from anything that had gone before, and perhaps from anything
[5:24] Speaker 1: that is to come, and they taught me things that
[5:26] Speaker 1: I could not have learned in any other way. The
[5:29] Speaker 1: essential point is that all this time that I had
[5:31] Speaker 1: been isolated, for at the front one was almost completely
[5:35] Speaker 1: isolated from the outside world, even of what was happening
[5:38] Speaker 1: in Barcelona, one had only a dim conception, among people
[5:43] Speaker 1: who could roughly, but not too inaccurately, be described as revolutionaries.
[5:48] Speaker 1: This was the result of the militia system, which on
[5:51] Speaker 1: the Aragon front was not radically altered till about June 1937.
[5:55] Speaker 1: The workers' militias, based on the trade unions, and each
[6:00] Speaker 1: composed of people of approximately the same political opinions, had
[6:04] Speaker 1: the effect of canalising into one place all the most
[6:08] Speaker 1: revolutionary sentiment in the country. I had dropped more or
[6:11] Speaker 1: less by chance into the only community of any size
[6:15] Speaker 1: in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism
[6:20] Speaker 1: were more normal than their opposites. Up here, in Aragon,
[6:24] Speaker 1: one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though
[6:27] Speaker 1: not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same
[6:31] Speaker 1: level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory, it
[6:35] Speaker 1: was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not
[6:39] Speaker 1: far from it. There is a sense in which it
[6:41] Speaker 1: would be true to say that one was experiencing a
[6:44] Speaker 1: foretaste of socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing
[6:47] Speaker 1: mental atmosphere was that of socialism. Many of the normal
[6:51] Speaker 1: motives of civilised life– snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.–
[6:57] Speaker 1: had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class division of
[7:00] Speaker 1: society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable
[7:04] Speaker 1: in the money-tainted air of England. There was no one
[7:07] Speaker 1: there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned
[7:11] Speaker 1: anyone else as his master. Of course, such a state
[7:14] Speaker 1: of affairs could not last. It was simply a temporary
[7:18] Speaker 1: and local phase in an enormous game that is being
[7:21] Speaker 1: played over the whole surface of the earth. But it
[7:24] Speaker 1: lasted long enough to have its effect upon anyone who
[7:27] Speaker 1: experienced it. However much one cursed at the time, one
[7:31] Speaker 1: realised afterwards that one had been in contact with something
[7:35] Speaker 1: strange and valuable. One had been in a community where
[7:39] Speaker 1: hope was more normal than apathy or cynicism. where the
[7:42] Speaker 1: word comrade stood for comradeship and not, as in most countries,
[7:47] Speaker 1: for humbug. One had breathed the air of equality. I
[7:51] Speaker 1: am well aware that it is now the fashion to
[7:53] Speaker 1: deny that socialism has anything to do with equality. In
[7:57] Speaker 1: every country in the world, a huge tribe of party
[8:00] Speaker 1: hacks and sleek little professors are busy proving that socialism
[8:04] Speaker 1: means no more than a planned state capitalism with the
[8:08] Speaker 1: grab motive left intact. But fortunately, There also exists a
[8:12] Speaker 1: vision of socialism quite different from this. The thing that
[8:16] Speaker 1: attracts ordinary men to socialism and makes them willing to
[8:20] Speaker 1: risk their skins for it, the mystique of socialism, is
[8:24] Speaker 1: the idea of equality. To the vast majority of people,
[8:27] Speaker 1: socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all.
[8:32] Speaker 1: And it was here that those few months in the
[8:34] Speaker 1: militia were valuable to me. For the Spanish militias, while
[8:38] Speaker 1: they lasted, were a sort of microcosm of a classless society.
[8:43] Speaker 1: In that community where no one was on the make,
[8:46] Speaker 1: where there was a shortage of everything but no privilege
[8:48] Speaker 1: and no bootlicking, one got perhaps a crude forecast of
[8:52] Speaker 1: what the opening stages of socialism might be like. And
[8:56] Speaker 1: after all, instead of disillusioning me, it deeply attracted me.
[9:01] Speaker 1: The effect was to make my desire to see socialism
[9:03] Speaker 1: established much more actual than it had been before. Partly, perhaps,
[9:09] Speaker 1: this was due to the good luck of being among Spaniards, who,
[9:12] Speaker 1: with their innate decency and their ever-present anarchist tinge, would
[9:16] Speaker 1: make even the opening stages of socialism tolerable, if they
[9:20] Speaker 1: had the chance. Of course, at the time I was
[9:23] Speaker 1: hardly conscious of the changes that were occurring in my
[9:25] Speaker 1: own mind. Like everyone about me, I was chiefly conscious
[9:29] Speaker 1: of boredom, heat, cold, dirt, lice, privation and occasional danger.
[9:36] Speaker 1: It is quite different now, This period, which then seemed
[9:39] Speaker 1: so futile and eventless, is now of great importance to me.
[9:43] Speaker 1: It is so different from the rest of my life
[9:46] Speaker 1: that already it has taken on the magic quality which,
[9:49] Speaker 1: as a rule, belongs only to memories that are years old.
[9:53] Speaker 1: It was beastly while it was happening, but it is
[9:56] Speaker 1: a good patch for my mind to browse upon. I
[9:59] Speaker 1: wish I could convey to you the atmosphere of that time.
[10:02] Speaker 1: I hope I have done so a little in the
[10:04] Speaker 1: earlier chapters of this book. It is all bound up
[10:07] Speaker 1: in my mind with the winter cold, the ragged uniforms
[10:09] Speaker 1: of militiamen, the oval Spanish faces, the morse-like tapping of
[10:14] Speaker 1: machine guns, the smells of urine and rotting bread. the
[10:18] Speaker 1: tinny taste of bean stews wolfed hurriedly out of unclean pannikins.
[10:23] Speaker 1: The whole period stays by me with curious vividness. In
[10:27] Speaker 1: my memory I live over instants that might seem too
[10:29] Speaker 1: petty to be worth recalling. I am in the dugout
[10:32] Speaker 1: at Monte Pothero again, on the ledge of limestone that
[10:36] Speaker 1: serves as a bed, and young Ramon is snoring with
[10:40] Speaker 1: his nose flattened between my shoulder blades. I am stumbling
[10:43] Speaker 1: up the mucky trench, through the mist that swirls round
[10:46] Speaker 1: me like cold steam, I am halfway up a crack
[10:49] Speaker 1: in the mountainside, struggling to keep my balance and to
[10:52] Speaker 1: tug a root of wild rosemary out of the ground.
[10:56] Speaker 1: High overhead some meaningless bullets are singing. I am lying
[11:00] Speaker 1: hidden among small fir trees on the low ground west
[11:03] Speaker 1: of Monte Oscuro, with Cop and Bob Edwards and three Spaniards.
[11:08] Speaker 1: Up the naked grey hill to the right of us,
[11:11] Speaker 1: a string of fascists are climbing like ants. Close, in front,
[11:15] Speaker 1: a bugle call rings out from the fascist lines. Cop
[11:19] Speaker 1: catches my eye and, with a schoolboy gesture, thumbs his
[11:22] Speaker 1: nose at the sound. I am in the mucky yard
[11:25] Speaker 1: at La Granja, among the mob of men who are
[11:28] Speaker 1: struggling with their tin panikins round the cauldron of stew.
[11:32] Speaker 1: The fat and Harris cook is warding them off with
[11:34] Speaker 1: the ladle. At a table nearby, a bearded man with
[11:37] Speaker 1: a huge automatic pistol strapped to his belt is hewing
[11:41] Speaker 1: loaves of bread into five pieces. Behind me, a cockney voice,
[11:45] Speaker 1: Bill Chambers, with whom I quarrelled bitterly, and who was
[11:48] Speaker 1: afterwards killed outside Huesca, is singing, There are rats, rats,
[11:53] Speaker 1: rats as big as cats in the... A shell comes
[11:57] Speaker 1: screaming over. Children of fifteen fling themselves on their faces.
[12:02] Speaker 1: The cook dodges behind the cauldron. Everyone rises with a
[12:06] Speaker 1: sheepish expression as the shell plunges and booms a hundred
[12:10] Speaker 1: yards away. I am walking up and down the line
[12:13] Speaker 1: of sentries, under the dark boughs of the poplars. In
[12:16] Speaker 1: the flooded ditch outside, the rats are paddling about, making
[12:20] Speaker 1: as much noise as otters. As the yellow dawn comes
[12:24] Speaker 1: up behind us, the Andalusian sentry, muffled in his cloak,
[12:27] Speaker 1: begins singing. Across no man's land, a hundred or two
[12:31] Speaker 1: hundred yards away, you can hear the fascist sentry, also singing.
[12:36] Speaker 1: On 25th April, after the usual mañanas, another section relieved us,
[12:41] Speaker 1: and we handed over our rifles. packed our kits and
[12:45] Speaker 1: marched back to Mon Florite. I was not sorry to
[12:48] Speaker 1: leave the line. The lights were multiplying in my trousers
[12:51] Speaker 1: far faster than I could massacre them, and for a
[12:54] Speaker 1: month past I had had no socks and my boots
[12:56] Speaker 1: had very little sole left, so that I was walking
[12:59] Speaker 1: more or less barefoot. I wanted a hot bath, clean clothes,
[13:04] Speaker 1: and a night between sheets more passionately than it is
[13:07] Speaker 1: possible to want anything when one has been living a
[13:09] Speaker 1: normal civilised life. We slept a few hours in a
[13:13] Speaker 1: barn in Monflorite, jumped a lorry in the small hours,
[13:17] Speaker 1: caught the five o'clock train at Barbastro, and, having the
[13:20] Speaker 1: luck to connect with a fast train at Lareda, were
[13:23] Speaker 1: in Barcelona by three o'clock in the afternoon of the 26th.
[13:27] Speaker 1: And after that the trouble began. End of chapter 8

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