By Ernest Hemingway
He
was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he
had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty
days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the
boy’s parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and
finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky and the boy had gone
at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first
week. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his
skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled
lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that was furled around the
mast. The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled; it looked like
the flag of permanent defeat.
The
old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck.
The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its
reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well
down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from
handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh.
They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert
Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the .sea and were cheerful and undefeated
Santiago,”
the boy said to him as they climbed the bank from where the skiff was”
“.hauled up.”I could go with you again. We’ve made some money. The old
man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him
“.No,” the old man said. “You’re with a lucky boat. Stay with them”
“But remember how you went eighty-seven days without fish and then we caught big ones every day for three weeks”
“I remember,” the old man said. “I know you did not leave me because you doubted.”
“.It was papa made me leave. “I am a boy and I must obey him”
“.I know,” the old man said. “It is quite normal”
“He hasn’t much faith.”
“No,” the old man said. “But we have. Haven’t we?”
Yes,” the boy said. “Can I offer you a beer on the Terrace and then we’ll take the stuff home.”
“Why not?” the old man said. “Between fishermen”
They
sat on the Terrace and many of the fishermen made fun of the old man
and he was not angry. Others, of the older fishermen, looked at him and
were sad. But they did not show it and they spoke politely about the
current and the depths they had drifted their
lines at and the steady good weather and of what they had seen. The
successful fishermen of that day were already in and had butchered their
marlin out and carried them laid full length across two planks, with
two men staggering at the end of each ,plank to the fish house where
they waited for the ice truck to carry them to the market in Havana.
Those who had caught sharks had taken them to the shark factory on the
other side of the cove where they were hoisted on a block and tackle,
their livers removed, their fins cut off and their hides skinned out and
their flesh cut into strips for salting.
When
the wind was in the east a smell came across the harbour from the shark
factory; but today there was only the faint edge of the odour because
the wind had backed into the north and then dropped off and it was
pleasant and sunny on the Terrace.
Santiago,” the boy said.
“Yes,”
the old man said. He was holding his glass and thinking of many years
ago. Can I go out to get sardines for you for tomorrow?”
“No. Go and play baseball. I can still row and Rogelio will throw the net”
“I
would like to go. If I cannot fish with you, I would like to serve in
some way” “.You bought me a beer,” the old man said. “You are already a
man”
“How old was I when you first took me in a boat?”
Five and you nearly were killed when I brought the fish in too green and he nearly tore the boat to pieces. Can you remember?
I
can remember the tail slapping and banging and the thwart breaking and
the noise of the clubbing. I can remember you throwing me into the bow
where the wet coiled lines were and feeling the whole boat shiver and
the noise of you clubbing him like chopping a tree down and the sweet
blood smell all over me.”
“Can you really remember that or did I just tell it to you?”
“I remember everything from when we first went together.”
The old man looked at him with his sun-burned, confident loving eyes.
If
you were my boy I’d take you out and gamble,” he said. “But you are
your “father’s and your mother’s and you are in a lucky boat.”
“May I get the sardines? I know where I can get four baits too”
“I have mine left from today. I put them in salt in the box”
“.Let me get four fresh ones”
One,” the old man said. His hope and his confidence had never gone. But now they were freshening as when the breeze rises.
“ Two,” the boy said”
“Two,” the old man agreed. “You didn’t steal them?”
“I would,” the boy said. “But I bought these”
“Thank you,” the old man said. He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride.
“Tomorrow is going to be a good day with this current,” he said”
“Where are you going?” the boy asked”
“Far out to come in when the wind shifts. I want to be out before it is light.”
I’ll try to get him to work far out,” the boy said.
“Then if you hook something truly big we can come to your aid.”
“He does not like to work too far out,”
No,” the boy said. “But I will see something that he cannot see such as a bird working and get him to come out after dolphin.”
“Are his eyes that bad?”
“He is almost blind.”
“It is strange,” the old man said. “He never went turtle-ing. That is what kills the eyes.”
“But you went turtle-ing for years off the Mosquito Coast and your eyes are goods.”
“I am a strange old man.”
“But are you strong enough now for a truly big fish?”
“I think so. And there are many tricks.”
Let us take the stuff home,” the boy said. “So I can get the cast net and go after the sardines.”
They
picked up the gear from the boat. The old man carried the mast on his
shoulder and the boy carried the wooden boat with the coiled,
hard-braided brown lines, the gaff and the harpoon with its shaft. The
box with the baits was under the stern of the skiff along with the club
that was used to subdue the big fish when they were brought alongside.
No one would steal from the old man but it was better to take the sail
and the heavy lines home as the dew was bad for them and, though he was
quite sure no local people would steal from him, the old man thought
that a gaff and a harpoon were needless temptations to leave in a boat.
They
walked up the road together to the old man’s shack and went in through
its open door. The old man leaned the mast with its wrapped sail against
the wall and the boy put the box and the other gear beside it. The mast
was nearly as long as the one room of the shack. The shack was made of
the tough budshields of the royal palm which are called guano and in it
there was a bed, a table, one chair, and a place on the dirt floor to
cook with charcoal. On the brown walls of the flattened, overlapping
leaves of the sturdy fibered guano there was a picture in color of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus and another of the Virgin of Cobre. These were
relics of his wife. Once there had been a tinted photograph of his wife
on the wall but he had taken it down because it made him too lonely to
see it and it was on the shelf in the corner under his clean shirt.
What do you have to eat?” the boy asked.
“A pot of yellow rice with fish. Do you want some?”
“No. I will eat at home. Do you want me to make the fire?” “.No. I will make it later on. Or I may eat the rice cold”
“May I take the cast net”
“Of course.”
There
was no cast net and the boy remembered when they had sold it. But they
went through this fiction every day. There was no pot of yellow rice and
fish and the boy knew this too.
“Eighty-five
is a lucky number,” the old man said. “How would you like to see me
bring one in that dressed out over a thousand pounds?”
“I’ll get the cast net and go for sardines. Will you sit in the sun in the doorway?”
“Yes.
I have yesterday’s paper and I will read the baseball.” The boy did
not” know whether yesterday’s paper was a fiction too. But the old man
brought it out from under the bed.
Perico gave it to me at the bodega,” he explained.
“I’ll be back when I have the” sardines. I’ll keep yours and mine together on ice and we can share them in the morning
“When I come back you can tell me about the baseball.”
“The Yankees cannot lose”
“But I fear the Indians of Cleveland.”
“Have faith in the Yankees my son. Think of the great DiMaggio”
“I fear both the Tigers of Detroit and the Indians of Cleveland.”
“Be careful or you will fear even the Reds of Cincinnati and the White Fox of Chicago.”
“You study it and tell me when I come back.”
“Do you think we should buy a terminal of the lottery with an eighty-five? Tomorrow is the eighty-fifth day.”
“We can do that,” the boy said. “But what about the eighty-seven of your great record?”
“It could not happen twice. Do you think you can find an eighty-five?”
“1 can order one”
“ One sheet. That’s two dollars and a half. Who can we borrow that from?”
“That’s easy. I can always borrow two dollars and a half.”
“I think perhaps I can too. But I try not to borrow. First you borrow. Then you beg.”
“Keep warm old man,” the boy said. “Remember we are in September.”
“The month when the great fish come,” the old man said. “Anyone can be a fisherman in May.”
“1 go now for the sardines,” the boy said”
When
the boy came back the old man was asleep in the chair and the sun was
down. The boy took the old army blanket off the bed and spread it over
the back of the chair and over the old man’s shoulders. They were
strange shoulders, still powerful although very old, and the neck was
still strong too and the creases did not show so much when the old man
was asleep and his head fallen forward. His shirt had been patched so
many times that it was like the sail and the patches were faded to many
different shades by the sun. The old man’s head was very old though and
with his eyes closed there was no life in his face. The newspaper lay
across his knees and the weight of his arm held it there in the evening
breeze. He was barefooted.
The boy left him there and when he came back the old man was still asleep.
“ Wake up old man,” the boy said and put his hand on one of the old man’s knees”
The old man opened his eyes and for a moment he was coming back from a long way away. Then he smiled.
“What have you got?” he asked.
“.Supper,” said the boy. “We’re going to have supper”
“I’m not very hungry”
“Come on and eat. You can’t fish and not eat.”
I have,” the old man said getting up and taking the newspaper and folding it. Then he started to fold the blanket.
“Keep the blanket around you,” the boy said. “You’ll not fish without eating while I’m alive.”
Then live a long time and take care of yourself,” the old man said. “What are we”
Eating?”
“Black beans and rice, fried bananas, and some stew”
.The
boy had brought them in a two-decker metal container from the Terrace
The two sets of knives and forks and spoons were in his pocket with a
paper napkin wrapped around each set.
“Who gave this to you”
“Martin. The owner.”
“I must thank him”
“I thanked him already,” the boy said. “You don’t need to thank him.”
“I’ll give him the belly meat of a big fish,” the old man said. “Has he done this for us
more than once?
“I think so”
“I must give him something more than the belly meat then. He is very thoughtful for us.”
“He sent two beers”
“I like the beer in cans best”
“I know. But this is in bottles, Hatuey beer, and I take back the bottles.”
“That’s very kind of you,” the old man said. “Should we eat?”
“I’ve been asking you too,” the boy told him gently. “I have not wished to open the container until you were ready.”
“I’m ready now,” the old man said. “I only needed time to wash.”
Where
did you wash? the boy thought. The village water supply was two streets
down the road. I must have water here for him, the boy thought, and
soap and a good towel. Why am I so thoughtless? I must get him another
shirt and a jacket for the winter and some sort of shoes and another
blanket.
“Your stew is excellent,” the old man said.
“Tell me about the baseball,” the boy asked him.
“In the American League it is the Yankees as I said,” the old man said happily.”
“The lost today,” the boy told him”
“That means nothing. The great DiMaggio is himself again”
“They have other men on the team.”
“Naturally. But he makes the difference. In the other league, between Brooklyn And
Philadelphia I must take Brooklyn. But then I think of Dick Sisler and those great drives in the old park.”
“There was nothing ever like them. He hits the longest ball I have ever seen.”
“Do
you remember when he used to come to the Terrace?” I wanted to take him
fishing but I was too timid to ask him. Then I asked you to ask him and
you were too timid.”
“I know. It was a great mistake. He might have gone with us. Then we would have that for all of our lives.”
“I
would like to take the great DiMaggio fishing,” the old man said. “They
say his father was a fisherman. Maybe he was as poor as we are and
would understand.”
“The great Sisler’s father was never poor and he, the father, was playing in the Big Leagues when he was my age.”
“When
I was your age I was before the mast on a square rigged ship that ran
to Africa and I have seen lions on the beaches in the evening.”
“I know. You told me”
“Should we talk about Africa or about baseball?”
“Baseball I think,” the boy said. “Tell me about the great John J. McGraw.” He said Jota for J.
“He
used to come to the Terrace sometimes too in the older days. But he was
rough and harsh-spoken and difficult when he was drinking. His mind was
on horses as well as
baseball.
At least he carried lists of horses at all times in his pocket and
frequently spoke the names of horses on the telephone.”
“He was a great manager,” the boy said. “My father thinks he was the greatest.”
Because he came here the most times,” the old man said.
“If Durocher had continued to come here each year your father would think him the greatest manager.”
“Who is the greatest manager, really, Luque or Mike Gonzalez?”
“I think they are equal.”
“And the best fisherman is you”
“No. I know others better.”
“Que Va,” the boy said. “There are many good fishermen and some great ones. But there is only you.”
“Thank you. You make me happy. I hope no fish will come along so great that he will prove us wrong.”
“There is no such fish if you are still strong as you say.”
I may not be as strong as I think,” the old man said. “But I know many tricks and I have resolution.”
“You ought to go to bed now so that you will be fresh in the morning. I will take the things back to the Terrace.”
“Good night then. I will wake you in the morning.”
“You’re my alarm clock,” the boy said”
“Age is my alarm clock,” the old man said. “Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have one longer day?”
“.I don’t know,” the boy said. “All I know is that young boys sleep late and hard.”
“I can remember it,” the old man said. “I’ll waken you in time.”
“I do not like for him to waken me. It is as though I were inferior.”
“I know.”
“Sleep well old man.”
The
boy went out. They had eaten with no light on the table and the old man
took off ,his trousers and went to bed in the dark. He rolled his
trousers up to make a pillow putting the newspaper inside them. He
rolled himself in the blanket and slept on the other old newspapers that
covered the springs of the bed
He
was asleep in a short time and he dreamed of Africa when he was a boy
and the long golden beaches and the white beaches, so white they hurt
your eyes, and the high capes and the great brown mountains. He lived
along that coast now every night and in his dreams he heard the surf
roar and saw the native boats come riding through it. He smelled the tar
and oakum of the deck as he slept and he smelled the smell of Africa
that the land breeze brought at morning.
Usually
when he smelled the land breeze he woke up and dressed to go and wake
the boy. But tonight the smell of the land breeze came very early and he
knew it was too early in his dream and went on dreaming to see the
white peaks of the Islands rising from the sea and then he dreamed of
the different harbours and roadsteads of the CanaryIslands.
He
no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences,
nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his
wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They
played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the
boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open
door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on. He urinated
outside the shack and then went up the road to wake the boy. He was
shivering with the morning cold. But he knew he would shiver himself
warm and that soon he would be rowing.
The
door of the house where the boy lived was unlocked and he opened it and
walked in quietly with his bare feet. The boy was asleep on a cot in
the first room and the old man could see him clearly with the light that
came in from the dying moon. He took hold of one foot gently and held
it until the boy woke and turned and looked at him. The old man nodded
and the boy took his trousers from the chair by the bed and, sitting on
the bed, pulled them on.
The
old man went out the door and the boy came after him. He was sleepy and
the “.old man put his arm across his shoulders and said, “I am sorry “Qua Va,” the boy said. “It is what a man must do.”
They
walked down the road to the old man’s shack and all along the road, in
the dark, barefoot men were moving, carrying the masts of their boats.
When
they reached the old man’s shack the boy took the rolls of line in the
basket and the harpoon and gaff and the old man carried the mast with
the furled sail on his .shoulder.
“Do you want coffee?” the boy asked”
“We’ll put the gear in the boat and then get some.”
They had coffee from condensed milk cans at an early morning place that served fishermen.
How did you sleep old man?” the boy asked. He was waking up now although it was still hard for him to leave his sleep.”
“Very well, Manolin,” the old man said. “I feel confident today”
So do I,” the boy said. “Now I must get your sardines and mine and your fresh baits.
“He brings our gear himself. He never wants anyone to carry anything.”
“We’re different,” the old man said. “I let you carry things when you were five years old’”
I know it,” the boy said. “I’ll be right back. Have another coffee. We have credit here.”
He walked off, bare-footed on the coral rocks, to the ice house where the baits were stored.
The
old man drank his coffee slowly. It was all he would have all day and
he knew that he should take it. For a long time now eating had bored him
and he never carried a lunch. He had a bottle of water in the bow of
the skiff and that was all he needed for the day.
The
boy was back now with the sardines and the two baits wrapped in a
newspaper and they went down the trail to the skiff, feeling the pebbled
sand under their feet, and .lifted the skiff and slid her into the
water.”
“Good luck old man.”
Good
luck, the old man said. He fitted the rope lashings of the oars onto
the thole pins and, leaning forward against the thrust of the blades in
the water, he began to row out of the harbor in the dark. There were
other boats from the other beaches going out to sea and the old man
heard the dip and push of their oars even though he could not see them
now the moon was below the hills.
Sometimes
someone would speak in a boat. But most of the boats were silent except
for the dip of the oars. They spread apart after they were out of the
mouth of the harbor and each one headed for the part of the ocean where
he hoped to find fish. The old man knew he was going far out and he left
the smell of the land behind and rowed out into the clean early morning
smell of the ocean. He saw the phosphorescence of the Gulf weed in the
water as he rowed over the part of the ocean that the fishermen called
the great well because there was a sudden deep of seven hundred fathoms
where all sorts offish congregated because of the swirl the current made
against the steep walls of the floor of the ocean. Here there were
concentrations of shrimp and bait fish and sometimes schools of squid in
the deepest holes and these rose close to the surface at night where
all the wandering fish fed on them.
In
the dark the old man could feel the morning coming and as he rowed he
heard the trembling sound as flying fish left the water and the hissing
that their stiff set wings made as they soared away in the darkness. He
was very fond of flying fish as they were his principal friends on the
ocean. He was sorry for the birds, especially the small delicate dark
terns that were always flying and looking and almost never finding, and
he, thought the birds have a harder life than we do except for the
robber birds and the heavy strong ones. Why did they make birds so
delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel?
She is kind and very beautiful. But she can be so cruel and it comes so
suddenly and such birds that fly, dipping and hunting, with their small
sad voices are made too delicately for the sea.
He
always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in
Spanish when they love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad things
of her but they are always said as though she were a woman. Some of the
younger fishermen, those who used buoys as floats for their lines and
had motorboats, bought when the shark livers had brought much money,
spoke of her as el mar which is masculine. They spoke of her as a
contestant or a place or even an enemy. But the old man always thought
of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours,
and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help
them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought
He
was rowing steadily and it was no effort for him since he kept well
within his speed and the surface of the ocean was flat except for the
occasional swirls of the current. He was letting the current do a third
of the work and as it started to be light he saw he was already further
out than he had hoped to be at this hour.
I
worked the deep wells for a week and did nothing, he thought. Today
I’ll work out where the schools of bonito and albacore are and maybe
there will be a big one with them.
Before it was really light he had his baits out and was drifting with the current. One bait was down forty fathoms.
The
second was at seventy-five and the third and fourth were down in the
blue water at one hundred and one hundred and twenty-five fathoms. Each
bait hung head down with the shank of the hook inside the bait fish,
tied and sewed solid and all the projecting part of the hook, the curve
and the point, was covered with fresh sardines. Each sardine was hooked
through both eyes so that they made a half-garland on the projecting
steel. There was no part of the hook that a great fish could feel which
was not sweet smelling and good tasting.
The
boy had given him two fresh small tunas, or albacores, which hung on
the two deepest lines like plummets and, on the others, he had a big
blue runner and a yellow jack that had been used before; but they were
in good condition still and had the excellent sardines to give them
scent and attractiveness. Each line, as thick around as a big pencil,
was looped onto a green-sapped stick so that any pull or touch on the
bait would make the stick dip and each line had two forty-fathom coils
which could be made fast to the other spare coils so that, if it were
necessary, a fish could take out over three hundred fathoms of line
Now
the man watched the dip of the three sticks over the side of the skiff
and rowed gently to keep the lines straight up and down and at their
proper depths. It was quite light and any moment now the sun would rise.
The
sun rose thinly from the sea and the old man could see the other boats,
low on the water and well in toward the shore, spread out across the
current. Then the sun was brighter and the glare came on the water and
then, as it rose clear, the flat sea sent it back at his eyes so that it
hurt sharply and he rowed without looking into it. He looked down into
the water and watched the lines that went straight down into the dark of
the water. He kept them straighter than anyone did, so that at each
level in the darkness of the stream there would be bait waiting exactly
where he wished it to be for any fish that swam there. Others let them
drift with the current and sometimes they were at sixty fathoms when the
fishermen thought they were at a hundred.
But,
he thought, I keep them with precision. Only I have no luck any more.
But who knows? May be today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be
lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready
The
sun was two hours higher now and it did not [32] hurt his eyes so much
to look into the east. There were only three boats in sight now and they
showed very low and far inshore.
All
my life the early sun has hurt my eyes, he thought. Yet they are still
good. In the evening I can look straight into it without getting the
blackness. It has more force in the evening too. But in the morning it
is painful.
Just
then he saw a man-of-war bird with his long black wings circling in the
sky ahead of him. He made a quick drop, slanting down on his back-swept
wings, and then circled again.
“He’s got something,” the old man said aloud. “He’s not just looking.”
He
rowed slowly and steadily toward where the bird was circling. He did
not hurry and he kept his lines straight up and down. But he crowded the
current a little so that he was still fishing correctly though faster
than he would have fished if he was not trying to use the bird.
The
bird went higher in the air and circled again, his wings motionless.
Then he dove suddenly and the old man saw flying fish spurt out of the
water and sail desperately over the surface.
“Dolphin,” the old man said aloud. “Big dolphin.”
He
shipped his oars and brought a small line from under the bow. It had a
wire leader and a medium-sized hook and he baited it with one of the
sardines. He let it go over the side and then made it fast to a ring
bolt in the stern. Then he baited another line and left it coiled in the
shade of the bow. He went back to rowing and to watching the
long-winged black bird who was working, now, low over the water.
As
he watched the bird dipped again slanting his wings for the dive and
then swinging them wildly and ineffectually as he followed the flying
fish. The old man could see the slight bulge in the water that the big
dolphin raised as they followed the escaping fish. The dolphin were
cutting through the water below the flight of the fish and would be in
the water, driving at speed, when the fish dropped. It is a big school
of dolphin, he thought. They are widespread and the flying fish have
little chance. The bird has no chance. The flying fish are too big for
him and they go too fast.
He
watched the flying fish burst out again and again and the ineffectual
movements of the bird. That school has gotten away from me, he thought.
They are moving out too fast and too far. But perhaps I will pick up a
stray and perhaps my big fish is around them. My big fish must be
somewhere.
The
clouds over the land now rose like mountains and the coast was only a
long green line with the gray blue hills behind it. The water was a dark
blue now, so dark that it was almost purple. As he looked down into it
he saw the red sifting of the plankton in the dark water and the strange
light the sun made now. He watched his lines to see them go straight
down out of sight into the water and he was happy to see so much
plankton because it meant fish. The strange light the sun made in the
water, now that the sun was higher, meant good weather and so did the
shape of the clouds over the land. But the bird was almost out of sight
now and nothing showed on the surface of the water but some ,patches of
yellow, sun-bleached Sargasso weed and the purple, formalized,
iridescent gelatinous bladder of a Portuguese man-of-war floating dose
beside the boat. It turned on its side and then righted itself. It
floated cheerfully as a bubble with its long deadly purple filaments
trailing a yard behind it in the water.
“Agua mala,” the man said. “You whore.”
From
where he swung lightly against his oars he looked down into the water
and Saw the tiny fish that [35] were coloured like the trailing
filaments and swam between them and under the small shade the bubble
made as it drifted. They were immune to its poison. But men were not and
when same of the filaments would catch on a line and rest there slimy
and purple while the old man was working a fish, he would have welts and
sores on his arms and hands of the sort that poison ivy or poison oak
can give. But these poisonings from the agua mala came quickly and
struck like a whiplash.
The
iridescent bubbles were beautiful. But they were the falsest thing in
the sea and ,the old man loved to see the big sea turtles eating them.
The turtles saw them approached them from the front, then shut their
eyes so they were completely carapaced and ate them filaments and all.
The old man loved to see the turtles eat them and he loved to walk on
them on the beach after a storm and hear them pop when he stepped on
them with the horny soles of his feet.
He
loved green turtles and hawk-bills with their elegance and speed and
their great value and he had a friendly contempt for the huge, stupid
loggerheads, yellow in their armour-plating, strange in their
love-making, and happily eating the Portuguese men-of-war with their
eyes shut.
He
had no mysticism about turtles although he had gone in turtle boats for
many years. He was sorry for them all, even the great trunk backs that
were as long as the skiff and weighed a ton. Most people are heartless
about turtles because a turtle’s heart will beat for hours after he has
been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart
too and my feet and hands are like theirs. He ate the white eggs to give
himself strength. He ate them all through May to be strong in September
and October for the truly big fish.
He
also drank a cup of shark liver oil each day from the big drum in the
shack where many of the fishermen kept their gear. It was there for all
fishermen who wanted it. Most fishermen hated the taste. But it was no
worse than getting up at the hours that they rose and it was very good
against all colds and grippes and it was good for the eyes.
Now the old man looked up and saw that the bird was circling again.
He’s
found fish,” he said aloud. No flying fish broke the surface and there
was no scattering of bait fish. But as the old man watched, a small tuna
rose in the air turned and dropped head first into the water. The tuna
shone silver in the sun and after he had dropped back into the water
another and another rose and they were jumping in all directions,
churning the water and leaping in long jumps after the bait. They were
circling it and driving it.
If
they don’t travel too fast I will get into them, the old man thought,
and he watched the school working the water white and the bird now
dropping and dipping into the bait fish that were forced to the surface
in their panic.
“The
bird is a great help,” the old man said. Just then the stern line came
taut under his foot, where he had kept a loop of the line, and he
dropped his oars and felt tile weight of the small tuna’s shivering pull
as he held the line firm and commenced to haul it in. The shivering
increased as he pulled in and he could see the blue back of the fish in
the water and the gold of his sides before he swung him over the side
and into the boat. He lay in the stern in the sun, compact and bullet
shaped, his big, unintelligent eyes staring as he thumped his life out
against the planking of the boat with the quick shivering strokes of his
neat, fast-moving [38] tail. The old man hit him on the head for
kindness and kicked him, his body still shuddering, under the shade of
the stern.
“.Albacore,” he said aloud. “He’ll make a beautiful bait. He’ll weigh ten pounds”
He did not remember when he had first started to talk aloud when he was by himself.
He
had sung when he was by himself in the old days and he had sung at
night sometimes when he was alone steering on his watch in the smacks or
in the turtle boats. He had probably started to talk aloud, when alone,
when the boy had left. But he did not remember. When he and the boy
fished together they usually spoke only when it was necessary. They
talked at night or when they were storm-bound by bad weather. It was
considered a virtue not to talk unnecessarily at sea and the old man had
always considered it so and respected it. But now he said his thoughts
aloud many times since there was no one that they could annoy.
“If
the others heard me talking out loud they would think that I am crazy,”
he said” aloud. “But since I am not crazy, I do not care. And the rich
have radios to talk to them in their boats and to bring them the
baseball.”
Now
is no time to think of baseball, he thought. Now is the time to think
of only one thing. That which I was born for. There might be a big one
around that school, he thought. I picked up only a straggler from the
albacore that were feeding. But they are working far out and fast.
Everything that shows on the surface today travels very fast and to the
north-east. Can that be the time of day? Or is it some sign of weather
that I do not know?
He
could not see the green of the shore now but only the tops of the blue
hills that showed white as though they were snow-capped and the clouds
that looked like high snow mountains above them. The sea was very dark
and the light made prisms in the water. The myriad flecks of the
plankton were annulled now by the high sun and it was only the great
deep prisms in the blue water that the old man saw now with his lines
going straight down into the water that was a mile deep.
The
tuna, the fishermen called all the fish of that species tuna and only
distinguished among them by their proper names when they came to sell
them or to trade them for baits, were down again. The sun was hot now
and the old man felt it on the back of his neck and felt the sweat
trickle down his back as he rowed.
I
could just drift, he thought, and sleep and put a bight of line around
my toe to wake me. But today is eighty-five days and I should fish the
day well.
Just
then, watching his lines, he saw one of the projecting the boat. He
reached out for the line and held it softly between the thumb and
forefinger of his right hand. He felt no strain nor weight and he held
the line lightly. Then it came again. This time it was a tentative pull,
not solid nor heavy, and he knew exactly what it was. One hundred
fathoms down a marlin was eating the sardines that covered the point and
the shank of the hook where the hand-forged hook projected from the
head of the small tuna.
The
old man held the line delicately, and softly, with his left hand,
unleashed it from the stick. Now he could let it run through his fingers
without the fish feeling any tension.
This
far out, he must be huge in this month, he thought. Eat them, fish. Eat
them. Please eat them. Now fresh they are and you down there six
hundred feet in that cold water in the dark. Make another turn in the
dark and come back and eat them.
He
felt the light delicate pulling and then a harder pull when a sardine’s
head must have been more difficult to break from the hook. Then there
was nothing.
“Come
on,” the old man said aloud. “Make another turn. Just smell them.
Aren’t they lovely? Eat them good now and then there is the tuna. Hard
and cold and lovely. Don’t be shy, fish. Eat them.”
He
waited with the line between his thumb and his finger, watching it and
the other lines at the same time for the fish might have swum up or
down. Then came the same .delicate pulling touch again
“He’ll take it,” the old man said aloud. “God help him to take it”
He did not take it though. He was gone and the old man felt nothing.
“He
can’t have gone,” he said. “Christ knows he can’t have gone. He’s
making a turn. Maybe he has been hooked before and he remembers
something of it.
Then he felt the gentle touch on the line and he was happy.
“It
was only his turn,” he said. “He’ll take it” He was happy feeling the
gentle pulling and then he felt something hard and, unbelievably heavy.
It was the weight of the fish and he let the line slip down, down down,
unrolling off the first of the two reserve coils. As it went down,
slipping lightly through the old man’s fingers, he still could feel the
great weight, though the pressure of his thumb and finger were almost
imperceptible.
“What a fish,” he said. “He was moving it sideways in his mouth now and he is moving off with it.”
Then
he will turn and swallow it, he thought. He did not say that because he
knew that if you said a good thing it might not happen. He knew what a
huge fish this was and he thought of him moving away in the darkness
with the tuna held crosswise in his mouth. At that moment he felt him
stop moving but the weight was still there. Then the weight increased
and he gave more line. He tightened the pressure of his thumb and finger
for a moment and the weight increased and was going straight down.
“He’s
taken it,” he said. “Now I’ll let him eat it well.” He let the line
slip through his fingers while he reached down with his left hand and
made fast the free end of the two reserve coils to the loop of the two
reserve coils of the next line. Now he was ready. He had three
forty-fathom coils of line in reserve now, as well as the coil he was
using.
“.Eat it a little more,” he said. “Eat it well.”
Eat it so that the point of the hook goes into your heart and kills you, he thought.
Come up easy and let me put the harpoon into you. All right. Are you ready? Have you been long enough at table?
“Now!”
he said aloud and struck hard with both hands, gained a yard of line
and then struck again and again, swinging with each arm alternately on
the cord with all the strength of his arms and the pivoted weight of his
body.
Nothing
happened. The fish just moved away slowly and the old man could not
raise him an inch. His line was strong and made for heavy fish and he
held it against his hack until it was so taut that beads of water were
jumping from it. Then it began to make a slow hissing sound in the water
and he still held it, bracing himself against the thwart and leaning
back against the pull. The boat began to move slowly off toward the
North-West.
The
fish moved steadily and they travelled slowly on the calm water. The
other baits were still in the water but there was nothing to be done.
I wish I had the boy” the old man said aloud. “I’m being towed by a fish and I’m being
Towards
by a fish and I’m the towing bitt. I could make the line fast. But then
he could break it. I must hold him all I can and give him line when he
must have it. Thank God he is travelling and not going down.
What
I will do if he decides to go down, I don’t know. What I’ll do if he
sounds and dies I don’t know. But I’ll do something. There are plenty of
things I can do.
He held the line against his back and watched its slant in the water and the skiff moving steadily to the North-West.
This
will kill him, the old man thought. He can’t do this forever. But four
hours later the fish was still swimming steadily out to sea, towing the
skiff, and the old man was still braced solidly with the line across his
back.
“It was noon when I hooked him,” he said. “And I have never seen him.”
He
had pushed his straw hat hard down on his head before he hooked the
fish and it was cutting his forehead. He was thirsty too and he got down
on his knees and, being careful not to jerk on the line, moved as far
into the bow as he could get and reached the water bottle with one hand.
He opened it and drank a little. Then he rested against the bow. He
rested sitting on the un-stepped mast and sail and tried not to think
but only to endure.
Then
he looked behind him and saw that no land was visible. That makes no
difference, he thought. I can always come in on the glow from Havana.
There are two more hours before the sun sets and maybe he will come up
before that. If he doesn’t maybe he will come up with the moon. If he
does not do that maybe he will come up with the sunrise. I have no
cramps and I feel strong. It is he that has the hook in his mouth But
what a fish to pull like that. He must have his mouth shut tight on the
wire. I wish I could see him. I wish I could see him only once to know
what I have against me.
The
fish never changed his course nor his direction all that night as far
as the man could tell from watching the stars. It was cold after the sun
went down and the old man’s sweat dried cold on his back and his arms
and his old legs. During the day he had taken the sack that covered the
bait box and spread it in the sun to dry. After the sun went down he
tied it around his neck so that it hung down over his back and he
cautiously worked it down under the line that was across his shoulders
now. The sack cushioned the line and he had found a way of leaning
forward against the bow so that he was almost comfortable. The position
actually was only somewhat less intolerable; but he thought of it as
almost comfortable.
I can do nothing with him and he can do nothing with me, he thought. Not as long as he keeps this up.
Once
he stood up and urinated over the side of the skiff and looked at the
stars and checked his course. The line showed like a phosphorescent
streak in the water straight out from his shoulders. They were moving
more slowly now and the glow of Havana was not so strong, so that he
knew the current must be carrying them to the eastward. If I lose the
glare of Havana we must be going more to the eastward, he thought. For
if the fish’s course held true I must see it for many more hours. I
wonder how the baseball came out in the grand leagues today, he thought.
It would be wonderful to do this with a radio. Then he thought, think
of it always. Think of what you are doing. You must do nothing stupid.
Then he said aloud, “I wish I had the boy. To help me and to see this.”
No
one should be alone in their old age, he thought. But it is
unavoidable. I must remember to eat the tuna before he spoils in order
to keep strong. Remember, no matter how little you want to, that you
must eat him in the morning. Remember, he said to himself.
During
the night two porpoises came around the boat and he could hear them
rolling and blowing. He could tell the difference between the blowing
noise the male made and the sighing blow of the female.
They are good,” he said. “They play and make jokes and love one another. They are our brothers like the flying fish.”
Then
he began to pity the great fish that he had hooked. He is wonderful and
strange and who knows how old he is, he thought. Never have I had such a
strong fish nor one who acted so strangely. Perhaps he is too wise to
jump. He could ruin me by jumping or by a wild rush. But perhaps he has
been hooked many times before and he knows that this is how he should
make his fight. He cannot know that it is only one man against him, nor
that it is an old man. But what a great fish he is and what will he
bring in the market if the flesh is good. He took the bait like a male
and he pulls like a male and his fight has no panic in it. I wonder if
he has any plans or if he is just as desperate as I am?
He
remembered the time he had hooked one of a pair of marlin. The male
fish always let the female fish feed first and the hooked fish, the
female, made a wild panic-stricken, despairing fight that soon exhausted
her, and all the time the male had stayed with her, crossing the line
and circling with her on the surface. He had stayed so close that the
old man was afraid he would cut the line with his tail which was sharp
as a scythe and almost of that size and shape. When the old man had
gaffed her and clubbed her, holding the rapier bill with its sandpaper
edge and dubbing her across the top of her head until her color turned
to a color almost like the backing of mirrors, and then, with the boy’s
aid, hoisted her aboard, the male fish had stayed by the side of the
boat. Then, while the old man was clearing the lines and preparing the
harpoon, the male fish jumped high into the air beside the boat to see
where the female was and then went down deep, his lavender wings, that
were his pectoral fins, spread wide and all his wide lavender stripes
showing. He was beautiful, the old man remembered, and he had stayed.
That
was the saddest thing I ever saw with them, the old man thought. The
boy was sad too and we begged her pardon and butchered her promptly.
“I
wish the boy was here,” he said aloud and settled himself against the
rounded planks of the bow and felt the strength of the great fish
through the line he held across his shoulders moving steadily toward
whatever he had chosen.
When once, through my treachery, it had been necessary to him to make a choice the old man thought.
His
choice had been to stay in the deep dark water far out beyond all
snares and traps and treacheries. My choice was to go there to find him
beyond all people. Beyond all people in the world. Now we are joined
together and have been since noon. And no one to help either one of us.
Perhaps
I should not have been a fisherman, he thought. But that was the thing
that .1 was born for. I must surely remember to eat the tuna after it
gets light.
Some
time before daylight something took one of the baits that were behind
him. He heard the stick break and the line begin to rush out over the
gunwale of the skiff. In the darkness he loosened his sheath knife and
taking all the strain of the fish on his left shoulder he leaned back
and cut the line against the wood of the gunwale. Then he cut the other
line closest to him and in the dark made the loose ends of the reserve
coils fast. He worked skillfully with the one hand and put his foot on
the coils to hold them as he drew his knots tight. Now he had six
reserve coils of line. There were two from each bait he had severed and
the two from the bait the fish had taken and they were all connected.
After
it is light, he thought, I will work back to the forty-fathom bait and
cut it away too and link up the reserve coils. I will have lost two
hundred fathoms of good Catalan cardel and the hooks and leaders. That
can be replaced. But who replaces this fish if I hook some fish and it
cuts him off? I don’t know what that fish was that took the bait just
now. It could have been a marlin or a broadbill or a shark. I never felt
him. I had to get rid of him too fast.
Aloud he said, “I wish I had the boy.”
But
you haven’t got the boy, he thought. You have only yourself and you had
better work back to the last line now, in the dark or not in the dark,
and cut it away and hook up the two reserve coils.
So
he did it. It was difficult in the dark and once the fish made a surge
that pulled him down on his face and made a cut below his eye. The blood
ran down his cheek a little way. But it coagulated and dried before it
reached his chin and he worked his way back to the bow and rested
against the wood. He adjusted the sack and carefully worked the line so
that it came across a new part of his shoulders and, holding it anchored
with his shoulders, he carefully felt the pull of the fish and then
felt with his hand the progress of the skiff through the water.
I
wonder what he made that lurch for, he thought. The wire must have
slipped on the great hill of his back. Certainly his back cannot feel as
badly as mine does. But he cannot pull this skiff forever, no matter
how great he is. Now everything is cleared away that might make trouble
and I have a big reserve of line; all that a man can ask.
“.Fish,” he said softly, aloud, “I’ll stay with you until I am dead”
He’ll
stay with me too, I suppose, the old man thought and he waited for it
to be light. It was cold now in the time before daylight and he pushed
against the wood to be warm. I can do it as long as he can, he thought.
And in the first light the line extended out and down into the water.
The boat moved steadily and when the first edge of the sun rose it was
on the old man’s right shoulder.
He’s
headed worth,” the old man said. The current will have set us far to
the eastward, he thought. I wish he would turn with the current. That
would show that he was tiring. When the sun had risen further the old
man realized that the fish was not tiring.
There
was only one favorable sign. The slant of the line showed he was
swimming at a lesser depth. That did not necessarily mean that he would
jump. But he might.”
“God let him jump,” the old man said. “I have enough line to handle him”
Maybe
if I can increase the tension just a little it will hurt him and he
will jump, he thought. Now that it is daylight let him jump so that
he’ll fill the sacks along his backbone with air and then he cannot go
deep to die.
He
tried to increase the tension, but the line had been taut up to the
very edge of the breaking point since he had hooked the fish and he felt
the harshness as he leaned back to pull and knew he could put no more
strain on it. I must not jerk it ever, he thought. Each jerk widens the
cut the hook makes and then when he does jump he might throw it. Anyway I
feel better with the sun and for once I do not have to look into it.
There
was yellow weed on the line but the old man knew that only made an
added drag and he was pleased. It was the yellow Gulf weed that had made
so much .phosphorescence in the night.
Fish,” he said, “I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.”
Let us hope so, he thought.
A
small bird came toward the skiff from the north. He was a warbler and
flying very low over the water. The old man could see that he was very
tired.
The
bird made the stern of the boat and rested there. Then he flew around
the old man’s head and rested on the line where he was more comfortable.
“How old are you?” the old man asked the bird. “Is this your first trip?”
The
bird looked at him when he spoke. He was too tired even to examine the
line and he teetered on it as his delicate feet gripped it fast.
“It’s
steady,” the old man told him. “It’s too steady” You shouldn’t be that
tired after a windless night. What are birds coming to?”
The
hawks, he thought, that come out to sea to meet them. But he said
nothing of this to the bird who could not understand him anyway and who
would learn about the .hawks soon enough.
“Take a good rest, small bird,” he said. “Then go in and take your chance like any” “.man or bird or fish.”
It encouraged him to talk because his back had stiffened in the night and it hurt truly now.
Stay
at my house if you like, bird,” he said. “I am sorry I cannot hoist the
sail and take you in with the small breeze that is rising. But I am
with a friend.”
Just
then the fish gave a sudden lurch that pulled the old man down onto the
bow and would have pulled him overboard if he had not braced himself
and given some lien.
The
bird had flown up when the line jerked and the old man had not even
seen him go. He felt the line carefully with his right hand and noticed
his hand was bleeding.
“Something
hurt him then,” he said aloud and pulled back on the line to see if he
could turn the fish. But when he was touching the breaking point he held
steady and settled back against the strain of the line.
“You’re feeling it now, fish,” he said. “And so, God knows, am I”
He looked around for the bird now because he would have liked him for company.The bird was gone.
You
did not stay long, the man thought. But it is rougher where you are
going until you make the shore. How did I let the fish cut me with that
one quick pull he made? I must be getting very stupid. Or perhaps I was
looking at the small bird and thinking of him. Now I will pay attention
to my work and then I must eat the tuna so that I will not have a
failure of strength.
“1 wish the boy were here and that I had some salt,” he said aloud.
Shifting
the weight of the line to his left shoulder and kneeling carefully he
washed his hand in the ocean and held it there, submerged, for more than
a minute watching the blood trail away and the steady movement of the
water against his hand as the boat moved.
“He has slowed much,” he said.
The
old man would have liked to keep his hand in the salt water longer but
he was afraid of another sudden lurch by the fish and he stood up and
braced himself and held his hand up against the sun. It was only a line
burn that had cut his flesh. But it was in the working part of his hand.
He knew he would need his hands before this was over and he did not
like to be cut before it started.
“Now,” he said, when his hand had dried, “I must eat the small tuna. I can reach him with the gaff and eat him here in comfort.”
He
knelt down and found the tuna under the stem with the gaff and drew it
toward him keeping it clear of the coiled lines. Holding the line with
his left shoulder again, and bracing on his left hand and arm, he took
the tuna off the gaff hook and put the gaff back in place. He put one
knee on the fish and cut strips of dark red meat longitudinally from the
back of the head to the tail. They were wedge-shaped strips and he cut
them from next to the back bone down to the edge of the belly. When he
had cut six strips he spread them out on the wood of the bow, wiped his
knife on his trousers, and lifted the carcass of the bonito by the tail
and dropped it overboard.
“I
don’t think I can eat an entire one,” he said and drew his knife across
one of the strips. He could feel the steady hard pull of the line and
his left hand was cramped. It drew up tight on the heavy cord and he
looked at it in disgust.
“What kind of a hand is that,” he said. “Cramp then if you want. Make yourself into a claw. It will do you no good.”
Come
on, he thought and looked down into the dark water at the slant of the
line Eat it now and it will strengthen the hand. It is not the hand’s
fault and you have been many hours with the fish. But you can stay with
him forever. Eat the bonito now.
He picked up a piece and put it in his mouth and chewed it slowly. It was not unpleasant.
Chew it well, he thought, and get all the juices. It would not be had to eat with a little lime or with lemon or with salt.
“How do you feel, hand?” he asked the cramped hand that was almost as stiff as rigor mortis. “I’ll eat some more for you.
He ate the other part of the piece that he had cut in two, He chewed it carefully and then spat out the skin.
“How does it go, hand? Or is it too early to know?”
He took another full piece and chewed it.
It
is a strong full-blooded fish,” he thought. “I was lucky to get him
instead of dolphin. Dolphin is too sweet. This is hardly sweet at all
and all the strength is still in it.
There
is no sense in being anything but practical though, he thought. I wish I
had some salt. And I do not know whether the sun will rot or dry what
is left, so I had better eat it all although I am not hungry. The fish
is calm and steady. I will eat it all and then I will be ready.
“Be patient, hand,” he said. “I do this for you.”
I
wish I could feed the fish, he thought. He is my brother. But I must
kill him and keep strong to do it. Slowly and conscientiously he ate all
of the wedge-shaped strips of fish.
He straightened up, wiping his hand on his trousers.
“Now,”
he said. “You can let the cord go, hand, and I will handle him with the
right arm alone until you stop that nonsense.” He put his left foot on
the heavy line that the left hand had held and lay back against the pull
against his back.
“God help me to have the cramp go,” he said. “Because I do not know what the fish is going to do.”
But
he seems calm, he thought, and following his plan. But what is his
plan, he thought. And what is mine? Mine I must improvise to his because
of his great size. If he will jump I can kill him. But he stays down
forever. Then I will stay down with him forever.
He
rubbed the cramped hand against his trousers and tried to gentle the
fingers. But it would not open. Maybe it will open with the sun, he
thought. Maybe it will open when the strong raw tuna is digested. If I
have to have it, I will open it, cost whatever it costs. But I do not
want to open it now by force. Let it open by itself and come back of its
own accord. After all I abused it much in the night when it was
necessary to free and untie the various lines.
He
looked across the sea and knew how alone he was now. But he could see
the prisms in the deep dark water and the line stretching ahead and the
strange undulation of the calm. The clouds were building up now for the
trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching
themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching
again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea. He thought of how
some men feared being out of sight of land in a small boar and knew they
were right in the months of sudden bad weather. But now they were in
hurricane months and, when there are no hurricanes, the weather of
hurricane months is the best of all the year.
If
there is a hurricane you always see the signs of it in the sky for days
ahead, if you are at sea. They do not see it ashore because they do not
know what to look for, he thought. The land must make a difference too,
in the shape of the clouds. But we have no hurricane coming now.
He
looked at the sky and saw the white cumulus built like friendly piles
of ice cream and high above were the thin feathers of the cirrus against
the high September sky.
“Light brisa,” he said. “Better weather for me than for you, fish.”
His left hand was still cramped, but he was unknotting it slowly.
I
hate a cramp, he thought. It is a treachery of one’s own body. It is
humiliating before others to have a diarrhea from ptomaine poisoning or
to vomit from it. But a cramp, he thought of it as a calambre,
humiliates oneself especially when one is alone.
If the boy were here he could rub it for me and loosen it down from the forearm, he thought. But it will loosen up.
Then,
with his right hand he felt the difference in the pull of the line
before he saw the slant change in the water. Then, as he leaned against
the line and slapped his left hand hard and fast against his thigh he
saw the line slanting slowly upward.
“He’s coming up,” he said. “Come on hand. Please come on.”
The
line rose slowly and steadily and then the surface of the ocean bulged
ahead of the boat and the fish came out. He came out unendingly and
water poured from his sides. He was bright in the sun and his head and
back were dark purple and in the sun the stripes on his sides showed
wide and a light lavender. His sword was as long as a baseball bat and
tapered like a rapier and he rose his full length from the water and
then re-entered it, smoothly, like a diver and the old man saw the great
scythe-blade of his tail go under and the line commenced to race out.
“He
is two feet longer than the skiff,” the old man said. The line was
going out fast but steadily and the fish was not panicked. The old man
was trying with both hands to keep the line just inside of breaking
strength. He knew that if he could not slow the fish with a steady
pressure the fish could take out all the line and break it.
He
is a great fish and I must convince him, he thought. I must never let
him learn his strength nor what he could do if he made his run. If I
were him I would put in everything now and go until something broke.
But, thank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them;
although they are more noble and more able.
The
old man had seen many great fish. He had seen many that weighed more
than a thousand pounds and he had caught two of that size in his life,
but never alone. Now alone, and out of sight of land, he was fast to the
biggest fish that he had ever seen and bigger than he had ever heard
of, and his left hand was still as tight as the gripped claws of an
eagle.
It
will uncramp though, he thought. Surely it will uncramp to help my
right hand. There are three things that are brothers: the fish and my
two hands. It must uncramp. It is unworthy of it to be cramped. The fish
had slowed again and was going at his usual pace.
I
wonder why he jumped, the old man thought. He jumped almost as though
to show me how big he was. I know now, anyway, he thought. I wish I
could show him what sort of man I am. But then he would see the cramped
hand. Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so. I wish I
was the fish, he thought, with everything he has against only my will
and my intelligence.
He
settled comfortably against the wood and took his suffering as it came
and the fish swam steadily and the boat moved slowly through the dark
water. There was a small sea rising with the wind coming up from the
east and at noon the old man’s left hand was uncramped.
“Bad news for you, fish,” he said and shifted the line over the sacks that covered his shoulders.
He was comfortable but suffering, although he did not admit the suffering at all.
“I
am not religious,” he said. “But I will say ten Our [64] Fathers and
ten Hail Marys that I should catch this fish, and I promise to make a
pilgrimage to the Virgin of Cobre if I catch him. That is a promise.”
He
commenced to say his prayers mechanically. Sometimes he would be so
tired that he could not remember the prayer and then he would say them
fast so that they would come automatically. Hail Marys are easier to say
than Our Fathers, he thought.
“Hail
Mary full of Grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” Then he
added, “Blessed Virgin, pray for the death of this fish. Wonderful
though he is.”
With
his prayers said, and feeling much better, but suffering exactly as
much, and perhaps a little more, he leaned against the wood of the bow
and began, mechanically, to work the fingers of his left hand.
The sun was hot now although the breeze was rising gently.
“I
had better re-bait that little line out over the stern,” he said. “If
the fish decides to stay another night I will need to eat again and the
water is low in the bottle. I don’t think. I can get anything but a
dolphin here. But if I eat him fresh enough he won’t be bad I wish a
flying fish would come on board tonight. But I have no light to attract
them. A flying fish is excellent to eat raw and I would not have to cut
him up. I must save all my strength now. Christ, I did not know he was
so big.”
“I’ll kill him though,” he said. “In all his greatness and his glory.”
Although it is unjust, he thought. But I will show him what a man can do and what a man endures.
“1 told the boy I was a strange old man,” he said. “Now is when I must prove it.”
The
thousand times that he had proved it meant nothing. Now he was proving
it again. Each time was a new time and he never thought about the past
when he was doing it.
I
wish he’d sleep and I could sleep and dream about the lions, he
thought. Why are the lions the main thing that is left? Don’t think, old
man, he said to himself, Rest gently now against the wood and think of
nothing. He is working. Work as little as you can.
It
was getting into the afternoon and the boat still moved slowly and
steadily. But there was an added drag now from the easterly breeze and
the old man rode gently with the small sea and the hurt of the cord
across his back came to him easily and smoothly.
Once
in the afternoon the line started to rise again. But the fish only
continued to swim at a slightly higher level. The sun was on the old
man’s left arm and shoulder and on his back. So he knew the fish had
turned east of north.
Now
that he had seen him once, he could picture the fish swimming in the
water with his purple pectoral fins set wide as wings and the great
erect tail slicing through the dark. I wonder how much he sees at that
depth, the old man thought. His eye is huge and a horse, with much less
eye, can see in the dark. Once I could see quite well in the dark. Not
in the absolute dark. But almost as a cat sees.
The
sun and his steady movement of his fingers had uncramped his left hand
now completely and he began to shift more of the strain to it and he
shrugged the muscles of his back to shift the hurt of the cord a little.
“If you’re not tired, fish,” he said aloud, “you must be very strange.”
He
felt very tired now and he knew the night would come soon and he tried
to think of other things. He thought of the Big Leagues, to him they
were the Gran Ligas, and he knew that the Yankees of New York were
playing the Tigres of Detroit.
This
is the second day now that I do not know the result of the juegos, he
thought. But I must have confidence and I must be worthy of the great
DiMaggio who does all things perfectly even with the pain of the bone
spur in his heel. What is a bone spur? He asked himself. Un espuela de
hueso. We do not have them. Can it be as painful as the spur of a
fighting cock in one’s heel? I do not think I could endure that or the
loss of the eye and of both eyes and continue to fight as the fighting
cocks do. Man is not much beside the great birds and beasts. Still I
would rather be that beast down there in the darkness of the sea.
“Unless sharks come,” he said aloud. “If sharks come, God pity him and me.”
Do
you believe the great DiMaggio would stay with a fish as long as I will
stay with this one? He thought. I am sure he would and more since he is
young and strong. Also his father was a fisherman. But would the bone
spur hurt him too much?
“I do not know,” he said aloud. “I never had a bone spur.”
As
the sun set he remembered, to give himself more confidence, the time in
the tavern at Casablanca when he had played the hand game with the
great negro from Cienfuegos who was the strongest man on the docks. They
had gone one day and one night with their elbows on a chalk line on the
table and their forearms straight up and their hands gripped tight.
Each one was trying to force the other’s hand down onto the table. There
was much betting and people went in and out of the room under the
kerosene lights and he had looked at the arm and hand of the negro and
at the Negro’s face. They changed the referees every four hours after
the first eight so that the referees could sleep. Blood came out from
under the fingernails of both his and the Negro’s hands and they looked
each other in the eye and at their hands and forearms and the bettors
went in and out of the room and sat on high chairs against the wall and
watched. The walls were painted bright blue and were of wood and the
lamps threw their shadows against them. The negro’s shadow was huge and
it moved on the wall as the breeze moved the lamps.
The
odds would change back and forth all night and they fed the negro rum
and lighted cigarettes for him. Then the negro, after the rum, would try
for a tremendous effort and once he had the old man, who was not an old
man then but was Santiago El Campeon, nearly three inches off balance.
But the old man had raised his hand up to dead even again. He was sure
then that he had the negro, who was a fine man and a great athlete,
beaten. And at daylight when the bettors were asking that it be called a
draw and the referee was shaking his head, he had unleashed his effort
and forced the hand of the negro down and down until it rested on the
wood. The match had started on a Sunday morning and ended on a Monday
morning. Many of the bettors had asked for a draw because they had to go
to work on the docks loading sacks of sugar or at the Havana Coal
Company. Otherwise everyone would have wanted it to go to a finish. But
he had finished it anyway and before anyone had to go to work.
For
a long time after that everyone had called him The Champion and there
had been a return match in the spring. But not much money was bet and he
had won it quite easily since he had broken the confidence of the negro
from Cienfuegos in the first match. After that he had a few matches and
then no more. He decided that he could beat anyone if he wanted to
badly enough and he decided that it was bad for his right hand for
fishing. He had tried a few practice matches with his left hand. But his
left hand had always been a traitor and would not do what he called on
it to do and he did not trust it.
The
sun will bake it out well now, he thought. It should not cramp on me
again unless it gets too cold in the night. I wonder what this night
will bring.
An airplane passed overhead on its course to Miami and he watched its shadow scaring up the schools of flying fish.
“With
so much flying fish there should be dolphin,” he said, and leaned back
on the line to see if it was possible to gain any on his fish. But he
could not and it stayed at the hardness and water-drop shivering that
preceded breaking. The boat moved ahead slowly and he watched the
airplane until he could no longer see it.
It
must be very strange in an airplane, he thought. I wonder what the sea
looks like from that height? They should be able to see the fish well if
they do not fly too high. I would like to fly very slowly at two
hundred fathoms high and see the fish from above. In the turtle boats I
was in the cross-trees of the mast-head and even at that height I saw
much. The dolphin look greener from there and you can see their stripes
and their purple spots and you can see all of the school as they swim.
Why is it that all the fast- moving fish of the dark current have purple
backs and usually purple stripes or spots? The ,dolphin looks green of
course because he is really golden. But when he comes to feed truly
hungry, purple stripes show on his sides as on a marlin. Can it be
anger, or the greater speed he makes that brings them out?
Just
before it was dark, as they passed a great island of Sargasso weed that
heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love
with something under a yellow blanket, his small line was taken by a
dolphin. He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true gold in the
last of the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air. It jumped
again and again in the acrobatics of its fear and he worked his way back
to the stern and crouching and holding the big line with his right hand
and arm, he pulled the dolphin in with his left hand, stepping on the
gained line each time with his bare left foot. When the fish was at the
stem, plunging and cutting from side to side in desperation, the old man
leaned over the stern and lifted the burnished gold fish with its
purple spots over the stem. Its jaws were working convulsively in quick
bites against the hook and it pounded the bottom of the skiff with its
long flat body, its tail and its head until he clubbed it across the
shining golden head until it shivered and was still.
The
old man unhooked the fish, re-baited the line with another sardine and
tossed it over. Then he worked his way slowly back to the bow. He washed
his left hand and wiped it on his trousers. Then he shifted the heavy
line from his right hand to his left and washed his right hand in the
sea while he watched the sun go into the ocean and the slant of the big
cord.
“He
hasn’t changed at all,” he said. But watching the movement of the water
against his hand he noted that it was perceptibly slower.
“I’ll
lash the two oars together across the stern and that will slow him in
the night,”he said, “He’s good for the night and so am I.”
It
would be better to gut the dolphin a little later to save the blood in
the meat, he thought. I can do that a little later and lash the oars to
make a drag at the same time. I had better keep the fish quiet now and
not disturb him too much at sunset. The setting of the sun is a
difficult time for all fish.
He
let his hand dry in the air then grasped the line with it and eased
himself as much as he could and allowed himself to be pulled forward
against the wood so that the boat took the strain as much, or more, than
he did.
I’m
learning how to do it, he thought. This part of it anyway. Then too,
remember he hasn’t eaten since he took the bait and he is huge and needs
much food. I have eaten the whole bonito. Tomorrow I will eat the
dolphin. He called it dorado. Perhaps I should eat some of it when I
clean it. It will be harder to eat than the bonito. But, then, nothing
is easy.
“How
do you feel, fish?” he asked aloud. “I feel good and my left hand is
better and I have food for a night and a day. Pull the boat, fish.”
He
did not truly feel good because the pain from the cord across his back
had almost passed pain and gone into a dullness that he mistrusted. But I
have had worse things than that, he thought. My hand is only cut a
little and the cramp is gone from the other. My legs are all right. Also
now I have gained on him in the question of sustenance.
It
was dark now as it becomes dark quickly after the sun sets in
September. He lay against the worn wood of the bow and rested all that
he could. The first stars were out. He did not know the name of Rigel
but he saw it and knew soon they would all be out and he would have all
his distant friends.
“The
fish is my friend too,” he said aloud. “I have never seen or heard of
such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to
kill the stars.”
Imagine
if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs
away. But imagine if a man each day should have to try to kill the sun?
We were born lucky, he thought.
Then
he was sorry for the great fish that had nothing to eat and his
determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow for him. How many
people will he feed, he thought. But are they worthy to eat him? No, of
course not. There is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his
behaviour and his great dignity.
I
do not understand these things, he thought. But it is good that we do
not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough
to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.
Now,
he thought, I must think about the drag. It has its perils and its
merits. I may lose so much line that I will lose him, if he makes his
effort and the drag made by the oars is in place and the boat loses all
her lightness. Her lightness prolongs both our suffering but it is my
safety since he has great speed that he has never yet employed. No
matter what passes I must gut the dolphin so he does not spoil and eat
some of him to be strong.
Now
I will rest an hour more and feel that he is solid and steady before I
move back to the stern to do the work and make the decision. In the
meantime I can see how he acts and if he shows any changes. The oars are
a good trick; but it has reached the time to play for safety. He is
much fish still and I saw that the hook was in the corner of his mouth
and he has kept his mouth tight shut. The punishment of the hook is
nothing. The punishment of hunger, and that he is against something that
he does not comprehend, is .everything. Rest now, old man, and let him
work until your next duty comes.
He
rested for what he believed to be two hours. The moon did not rise now
until late and he had no way of judging the time. Nor was he really
resting except comparatively. He was still bearing the pull of the fish
across his shoulders but he placed his left hand on the gunwale of the
bow and confided more and more of the resistance to the fish to the
skiff itself.
How
simple it would be if I could make the line fast, he thought. But with
one Small lurch he could break it. I must cushion the pull of the line
with my body and at all times be ready to give line with both hands.
“But
you have not slept yet, old man,” he said aloud. “It is half a day and a
night and now another day and you have not slept. You must devise a way
so that you sleep a little if he is quiet and steady. If you do not
sleep you might become unclear in the head.”
I’m
clear enough in the head,” he thought. Too clear. I am as clear as the
stars that are my brothers. Still I must sleep. They sleep and the moon
and the sun sleep and even the ocean sleeps sometimes on certain days
when there is no current and a flat calm.
But
remember to sleep, he thought. Make yourself do it and devise some
simple and sure way about the lines. Now go back and prepare the
dolphin. It is too dangerous to rig the oars as a drag if you must
sleep.
1 could go without sleeping, he told himself. But it would be too dangerous.
He
started to work his way back to the stern on his hands and knees, being
careful not to jerk against the fish. He may be half asleep himself, he
thought. But I do not want him to rest. He must pull until he dies.
Back
in the stern he turned so that his left hand held the strain of the
line across his shoulders and drew his knife from its sheath with his
right hand. The stars were bright now and he saw the dolphin clearly and
he pushed the blade of his knife into his head and drew him out from
under the stern. He put one of his feet on the fish and slit him quickly
from the vent up to the tip of his lower jaw. Then he put his knife
down and gutted him with his right hand, scooping him clean and pulling
the gills clear. He felt the maw heavy and slippery in his hands and he
slit it open. There were two flying fish inside. They were fresh and
hard and he laid them side by side and dropped the guts and the gills
over the stern. They sank leaving a trail of phosphorescence in the
water. The dolphin was cold and a leprous gray-white now in the
starlight and the old man skinned one side of him while he held his
right foot on the fish’s head. Then he turned him over and skinned the
other side and cut each side off from the head down to the tail.
He
slid the carcass overboard and looked to see if there was any swirl in
the water. But there was only the light of its slow descent. He turned
then and placed the two flying fish inside the two fillets offish and
putting his knife back in its sheath, he worked his way slowly back to
the bow. His back was bent with the weight of the line across it and he
carried the fish in his right hand.
Back
in the bow he laid the two fillets offish out on the wood with the
flying fish beside them. After that he settled the line across his
shoulders in a new place and held it again with his left hand resting on
the gunwale. Then he leaned over the side and washed the flying fish in
the water, noting the speed of the water against his hand. His hand was
phosphorescent from skinning the fish and he watched the flow of the
water against it The flow was less strong and as he rubbed the side of
his hand against the planking of the skiff, particles of phosphorus
floated off and drifted slowly astern.
He
is tiring or he is resting,” the old man said. “Now let me get through
the eating of this dolphin and get some rest and a little sleep.”
Under
the stars and with the night colder all the time he ate half of one of
the .dolphin fillets and one of the flying fish, gutted and with its
head cut off.
“What
an excellent fish dolphin is to eat cooked,” he said. “And what a
miserable fish raw. I will never go in a boat again without salt or
limes.”
If
I had brains I would have splashed water on the bow all day and drying,
it would have made salt, he thought. But then I did not hook the
dolphin until almost sunset. Still it was a lack of preparation. But I
have chewed it all well and I am not nauseated.
The
sky was clouding over to the east and one after another the stars he
knew were gone. It looked now as though he were moving into a great
canyon of clouds and the wind had dropped.
“There
will be bad weather in three or four days,” he said. “But not tonight
and not tomorrow. Rig now to get some sleep, old man, while the fish is
calm and steady.”
He
held the line tight in his right hand and then pushed his thigh against
his right hand as he leaned all his weight against the wood of the bow.
Then he passed the line a little lower on his shoulders and braced his
left hand on it
My
right hand can hold it as long as it is braced, he thought If it
relaxes in sleep my left hand will wake me as the line goes out. It is
hard on the right hand. But he is used to punishment Even if I sleep
twenty minutes or a half an hour it is good. He lay forward cramping
himself against the line with all of his body, putting all his weight
onto his right band, and he was asleep.
He
did not dream of the lions but instead of a vast school of porpoises
that stretched for eight or ten miles and it was in the time of their
mating and they would leap high into the air and return into the same
hole they had made in the water when they leaped.
Then
he dreamed that he was in the village on his bed and there was a
norther and he was very cold and his right arm was asleep because his
head had rested on it instead of a pillow.
After
that he began to dream of the long yellow beach and he saw the first of
the lions come down onto it in the early dark and then the other lions
came and he rested his chin on the wood of the bows where the ship lay
anchored with the evening off-shore breeze and he waited to see if there
would be more lions and he was happy.
The
moon had been up for a long time but he slept on and the fish pulled on
steadily and the boat moved into the tunnel of clouds.
He
woke with the jerk of his right fist coming up against his face and the
line burning out through his right hand. He had no feeling of his left
hand but he braked all he could with his right and the line rushed out.
Finally his left hand found the line and he leaned back against the line
and now it burned his back and his left hand, and his left hand was
taking all the strain and cutting badly. He looked back at the coils of
line and they were feeding smoothly. Just then the fish jumped making a
great bursting of the ocean and then a heavy fall. Then he jumped again
and again and the boat was going fast although line was still racing out
and the old man was raising the strain to breaking point and raising it
to breaking point again and again. He had been pulled down tight onto
the bow and his face was in the cut slice of dolphin and he could not
move.
This is what we waited for, he thought. So now let us take it. Make him pay for the .line, he thought. Make him pay for it.
He
could not see the fish’s jumps but only heard the breaking of the ocean
and the heavy splash as he fell. The speed of the line was cutting his
hands badly but he had always known this would happen and he tried to
keep the cutting across the calloused parts and not let the line slip
into the palm nor cut the fingers.
If the boy was here he would wet the coils of line, he thought. Yes. If the boy were here. If the boy were here.
The
line went out and out and out but it was slowing now and he was making
the fish earn each inch of it. Now he got his head up from the wood and
out of the slice offish that his cheek had crushed. Then he was on his
knees and then he rose slowly to his feet. He was ceding line but more
slowly all he time. He worked back to where he could feel with his foot
the coils of line that he could not see. There was plenty of line still
and now the fish had to pull the friction of all that new line through
the water.
Yes,
he thought. And now he has jumped more than a dozen times and filled
the sacks along his back with air and he cannot go down deep to die
where I cannot bring him up. He will start circling soon and then I must
work on him. I wonder what started him so suddenly? Could it have been
hunger that made him desperate, or was he frightened by something in the
night? Maybe he suddenly felt fear. But he was such a calm, strong fish
and he seemed so fearless and so confident. It is strange.
“You
better be fearless and confident yourself, old man,” he said. “You’re
holding him again but you cannot get line. But soon he has to circle.”
The
old man held him with his left hand and his shoulders now and stooped
down and scooped up water in his right hand to get the crushed dolphin
flesh off of his face. He was afraid that it might nauseate him and he
would vomit and lose his strength. When his face was cleaned he washed
his right hand in the water over the side and then let it stay in the
salt water while he watched the first light come before the sunrise.
He’s headed almost east, he thought. That means he is tired and going
with the current. Soon he will have to circle. Then our true work
begins.
After he judged that his right hand had been in the water long enough he took it out and looked at it.
“It
is not bad,” he said. “And pain does not matter to a man.” He took hold
of the line carefully so that it did not fit into any of the fresh line
cuts and shifted his weight so that he could put his left hand into the
sea on the other .side of the skiff.”
“You did not do so badly for something worthless,” he said to his left hand. “But there was a moment when I could not find you.”
Why
was I not born with two good hands? he thought. Perhaps it was my fault
in not training that one properly. But God knows he has had enough
chances to learn. He did not do so badly in the night, though, and he
has only cramped once. If he cramps again let the line cut him off.
When
he thought that he knew that he was not being clear-headed and he
thought he should chew some more of the dolphin. But I can’t, he told
himself. It is better to be light-headed than to lose your strength from
nausea. And I know I cannot keep it if I eat it since my face was in
it. I will keep it for an emergency until it goes bad. But it is too
late to try for strength now through nourishment. You’re stupid, he told
himself. Eat the other flying fish.
It
was there, cleaned and ready, and he picked it up with his left hand
and ate it chewing the bones carefully and eating all of it down to the
tail.
It
has more nourishment than almost any fish, he thought. At least the
kind of strength that I need. Now I have done what I can, he thought.
Let him begin to circle and let the fight come.
The sun was rising for the third time since he had put to sea when the fish started to circle.
He
could not see by the slant of the line that the fish was circling. It
was too early for that. He just felt a faint slackening of the pressure
of the line and he commenced to pull on it gently with his right hand.
It tightened, as always, but just when he reached the point where it
would break, line began to come in. He slipped his shoulders and head
from under the line and began to pull in line steadily and gently. He
used both of his hands in a swinging motion and tried to do the pulling
as much as he could with his body and his legs. His old legs and
shoulders pivoted with the swinging of the pulling.
It is a very big circle,” he said. “But he is circling.”
Then
the line would not come in any more and he held it until he saw the
drops jumping from it in the sun. Then it started out and the old man
knelt down and let it go grudgingly back into the dark water.
“He
is making the far part of his circle now,” he said. I must hold all I
can, he thought. The strain will shorten his circle each time. Perhaps
in an hour I will see him. Now I must convince him and then I must kill
him.
But
the fish kept on circling slowly and the old man was wet with sweat and
tired deep into his bones two hours later. But the circles were much
shorter now and from the way the line slanted he could tell the fish had
risen steadily while he swam.
For
an hour the old man had been seeing black spots before his eyes and the
sweat salted his eyes and salted the cut over his eye and on his
forehead. He was not afraid of the black spots. They were normal at the
tension that he was pulling on the line. , Twice though, he had felt
faint and dizzy and that had worried him.
“I
could not fail myself and die on a fish like this,” he said. “Now that I
have him” coming so beautifully, God help me endure. I’ll say a hundred
Our Fathers and a hundred Hail Marys. But I cannot say them now.”
Consider
them said, he thought. I’ll say them later. Just then he felt a sudden
banging and jerking on the line he held with his two hands. It was sharp
and hard-feeling and heavy.
He
is hitting the wire leader with his spear, he thought. That was bound
to come. He had to do that. It may make him jump though and I would
rather he stayed circling now. The jumps were necessary for him to take
air. But after that each one can widen the opening of the hook wound and
he can throw the hook.
“Don’t jump, fish,” he said. “Don’t jump.”
The fish hit the wire several times more and each time he shook his head the old man gave up a little line.
I must hold his pain where it is, he thought. Mine does not matter. I can control mine. But his pain could drive him mad.
After
a while the fish stopped beating at the wire and started circling
slowly again The old man was gaining line steadily now. But he felt
faint again. He lifted some sea water with his left hand and put it on
his head. Then he put more on and rubbed the back of his neck.
“I have no cramps,” he said. “He’ll be up soon and I can last. You have to last. Don’t
even speak of it.”
He
kneeled against the bow and, for a moment, slipped the line over his
back again. I’ll rest now while he goes out on the circle and then stand
up and work on him when he comes in, he decided.
It
was a great temptation to rest in the bow and let the fish make one
circle by himself without recovering any line. But when the strain
showed the fish had turned to come toward the boat, the old man rose to
his feet and started the pivoting and the weaving pulling that brought
in all the line he gained.
I’m
tired than I have ever been, he thought, and now the trade wind is
rising. But that will be good to take him in with. I need that badly.
“I’ll rest on the next turn as he goes out,” he said. “I feel much better. Then in two or three turns more I will have him.”
His straw hat was far on the back of his head and he sank down into the bow with the pull of the line as he felt the fish turn.
You
work now, fish, he thought. I’ll take you at the turn. The sea had
risen considerably. But it was a fair-weather breeze and he had to have
it to get home.
“I’ll just steer south and west,” he said. “A man is never lost at sea and it is a long island.”
It was on the third turn that he saw the fish first.
He saw him first as a dark shadow that took so long to pass under the boat that he could not believe its length.
“No,” he said. “He can’t be that big”
But
he was that big and at the end of this circle he came to the surface
only thirty yards away and the man saw his tail out of water. It was
higher than a big scythe blade and a very pale lavender above the dark
blue water. It raked back and as the fish swam just below the surface
the old man could see his huge bulk and the purple stripes that banded
him. His dorsal fin was down and his huge pectorals were spread wide.
On
this circle the old man could see the fish’s eye and the two gray
sucking fish that swain around him. Sometimes they attached themselves
to him. Sometimes they darted off. Sometimes they would swim easily in
his shadow. They were each over three feet long and when they swam fast
they lashed their whole bodies like eels.
The
old man was sweating now but from something else besides the sun. On
each calm placid turn the fish made he was gaining line and he was sure
that in two turns more he would have a chance to get the harpoon in.
But
I must get him close, close, close, he thought. I mustn’t try for the
head. I must get the heart. “Be calm and strong, old man,” he said.
On
the next circle the fish’s beck was out but he was a little too far
from the boat. On the next circle he was still too far away but he was
higher out of water and the old man was sure that by gaining some more
line he could have him alongside.
He
had rigged his harpoon long before and its coil of light rope was in a
round basket and the end was made fast to the bitt in the bow.
The
fish was coming in on his circle now calm and beautiful looking and
only his great tail moving. The old man pulled on him all that he could
to bring him closer. For just a moment the fish turned a little on his
side. Then he straightened himself and began another circle.
“I moved him,” the old man said. “I moved him then.”
He
felt faint again now but he held on the great fish all the strain that
he could. I moved him, he thought. Maybe this time I can get him over.
Pull, hands, he thought. Hold up, legs. Last for me, head. Last for me.
You never went. This time I’ll pull him over.
But
when he put all of his effort on, starting it well out before the fish
came alongside and pulling with all his strength, the fish pulled part
way over and then righted himself and swam away.
Fish,” the old man said. “Fish, you are going to have to die anyway. Do you have to kill me too?”
That
way nothing is accomplished, he thought. His mouth was too dry to speak
but he could not reach for the water now. I must get him alongside this
time, he thought. I am not good for many more turns. Yes you are, he
told himself. You’re good for ever.
On the next turn, he nearly had him. But again the fish righted himself and swam slowly away.
You
are killing me, fish, the old man thought. But you have a right to.
Never have I .seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more
noble thing than you, brother .Come on and kill me. I do not care who
kills who.
Now
you are getting confused in the head, he thought. You must keep your
head .clear. Keep your head clear and know how to suffer like a man. Or a
fish, he thought.
“Clear up, head,” he said in a voice he could hardly hear. “Clear up.”
Twice more it was the same on the turns.
I
do not know, the old man thought. He had been on the point of feeling
himself go each time. I do not know. But I will try it once more.
He
tried it once more and he felt himself going when he turned the fish.
The fish righted himself and swam off again slowly with the great tail
weaving in the air.
I’ll try it again, the old man promised, although his hands were mushy now and he could only see well in flashes.
He tried it again and it was the same. So he thought, and he felt himself going before he started; I will try it once again
He
took all his pain and what was left of his strength and his long gone
pride and he put it against the fish’s agony and the fish came over onto
his side and swam gently on his side, his bill almost touching the
planking of the skiff and started to pass the boat, long deep, wide,
silver and barred with purple and in-terminable in the water.
The
old man dropped the line and put his foot on it and lifted the harpoon
as high as he could and drove it down with all his strength, and more
strength he had just summoned, into the fish’s side just behind the
great chest fin that rose high in the air to the altitude of the man’s
chest. He felt the iron go in and he leaned on it and drove it further
and then pushed all his weight after it.
Then
the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the
water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his
beauty. He seemed to hang in the air above the old man in the skiff.
Then he fell into the water with a crash that sent spray over the old
man and over all of the skiff.
The
old man felt faint and sick and he could not see well. But he cleared
the harpoon line and let it run slowly through his raw hands and, when
he could see, he saw the fish was on his back with his silver belly up.
The shaft of the harpoon was projecting at an angle from the fish’s
shoulder and the sea was discoloring with the red of the blood from his
heart. First it was dark as a shoal in the blue water that was more than
a mile deep. Then it spread like a cloud. The fish was silvery and
still and floated with the waves.
The
old man looked carefully in the glimpse of vision that he had. Then he
took two turns of the harpoon line around the bitt in the bow and hid
his head on his hands.
“Keep
my head dear,” he said against the wood of the bow. “I am a tired old
man. But I have killed this fish which is my brother and now I must do
the slave work.”
Now
I must prepare the nooses and the rope to lash him alongside, he
thought. Even if we were two and swamped her to load him and bailed her
out, this skiff would never hold him. I must prepare everything, then
bring him in and lash him well and step the .mast and set sail for home.
He
started to pull the fish in to have him alongside so that he could pass
a line through his gills and out his mouth and make his head fast
alongside the bow. I want to see him, he thought, and to touch and to
feel him. He is my fortune, he thought. But that is not why I wish to
feel him. I think I felt his heart, he thought. When I pushed on the
harpoon shaft the second time. Bring him in now and make him fast and
get the noose around his tail and another around his middle to bind him
to the skiff.
“Get
to work, old man,” he said. He took a very small drink of the water.
“There is very much slave work to be done now that the fight is over.”
He
looked up at the sky and then out to his fish. He looked at the sun
carefully. It is not much more than noon, he thought. And the trade wind
is rising. The lines all mean nothing now. The boy and I will splice
them when we are home.
“Come
on, fish,” he said. But the fish did not come. Instead he lay there
wallowing now in the seas and the old man pulled the skiff up onto him.
When
he was even with him and had the fish’s head against the bow he could
not believe his size. But he untied the harpoon rope from the bitt,
passed it through the fish’s gills and out his jaws, made a turn around
his sword then passed the rope through the other gill, made another turn
around the bill and knotted the double rope and made it fast to the
bitt in the bow. He cut the rope then and went astern to noose the tail.
The fish had turned silver from his original purple and silver, and the
stripes showed the same pale violet color as his tail. They were wider
than a man’s hand with his fingers spread and the fish’s eye looked as
detached as the mirrors in a periscope or as a saint in a procession.
“It
was the only way to kill him,” the old man said. He was feeling better
since the water and he knew he would not go away and his head was clear.
He’s over fifteen hundred pounds the way he is, he thought. Maybe much
more. If he dresses out two-thirds of that at thirty cents a pound?
“I
need a pencil for that,” he said. “My head is not that clear. But I
think the great DiMaggio would be proud of me today. I had no bone
spurs. But the hands and the back hurt truly.” I wonder what a bone spur
is, he thought. Maybe we have them without knowing of it.
He
made the fish fast to bow and stern and to the middle thwart. He was so
big it was like lashing a much bigger skiff alongside. He cut a piece
of line and tied the fish’s lower jaw against his bill so his mouth
would not open and they would sail as cleanly as possible. Then he
stepped the mast and, with the stick that was his gaff and with his boom
rigged, the patched sail drew, the boat began to move, and half lying
in the stern he sailed south-west.
He
did not need a compass to tell him where southwest was. He only needed
the feel of the trade wind and the drawing of the sail. I better put a
small line out with a spoon on it and try and get something to eat and
drink for the moisture. But he could not find a spoon and his sardines
were rotten. So he hooked a patch of yellow Gulf weed with the gaff as
they passed and shook it so that the small shrimps that were in it fell
onto the planking of the skiff. There were more than a dozen of them and
they jumped and kicked like sand fleas. The old man pinched their heads
off with his thumb and forefinger and ate them chewing up the shells
and the tails. They were very tiny but he knew they were nourishing and
they tasted good.
The
old man still had two drinks of water in the bottle and he used half of
one after he had eaten the shrimps. The skiff was sailing well
considering the handicaps and he steered with the tiller under his arm.
He could see the fish and he had only to look at his hands and feel his
back against the stern to know that this had truly happened and was not a
dream. At one time when he was feeling so badly toward the end, he had
thought perhaps it was a dream. Then when he had seen the fish come out
of the water and hang motionless in the sky before he fell, he was sure
there was some great strangeness and he could not believe it Then he
could not see well, although now he saw as well as ever.
Now
he knew there was the fish and his hands and back were no dream. The
hands cure quickly, he thought. I bled them clean and the salt water
will heal them. The dark water of the true gulf is the greatest healer
that there is. All I must do is keep the head clear. The hands have done
their work and we sail well. With his mouth shut and his tail straight
up and down we sail like brothers. Then his head started to become a
little unclear and he thought, is he bringing me in or am I bringing him
in? If I were towing him behind there would be no question. Nor if the
fish were in the skiff, with all dignity gone, there would be no
question either. But they were sailing together lashed side by side and
the old man thought, let him bring me in if it pleases him. I am only
better than him through trickery and he meant me no harm.
They
sailed well and the old man soaked his hands in the salt water and
tried to keep his head clear. There were high cumulus clouds and enough
cirrus above them so that the old man knew the breeze would last all
night. The old man looked at the fish constantly to make sure it was
true. It was an hour before the first shark hit him.
The
shark was not an accident. He had come up from deep down in the water
as the dark cloud of blood had settled and dispersed in the mile deep
sea. He had come up so fast and absolutely without caution that he broke
the surface of the blue water and was in the sun. Then he fell back
into the sea and picked up the scent and started swimming on the course
the skiff and the fish had taken.
Sometimes
he lost the scent. But he would pick it up again, or have just a trace
of it, and he swam fast and hard on the course. He was a very big Make
shark built to swim as fast as the fastest fish in the sea and
everything about him was beautiful except his jaws. His back was as blue
as a sword fish’s and his belly was silver and his hide was smooth and
handsome. He was built as a sword fish except for his huge jaws which
were tight shut now as he swam fast, just under the surface with his
high dorsal fin knifing through the water without wavering. Inside the
closed double lip of his jaws all of his eight rows of teeth were
slanted inwards. They were not the ordinary pyramid-shaped teeth of most
sharks. They were shaped like a man’s fingers when they are crisped
like claws. They were nearly as long as the fingers of the old man and
they had razor-sharp cutting edges on both sides. This was a fish built
to feed on all the fishes in the sea, that were so fast and strong and
well armed that they had no other enemy. Now he speeded up as he smelled
the fresher scent and his blue dorsal fin cut the water.
When
the old man saw him coming he knew that this was a shark that had no
fear at all and would do exactly what he wished. He prepared the harpoon
and made the rope fast while he watched the shark come on. The rope was
short as it lacked what he had cut away to lash the fish.
The
old man’s head was clear and good now and he was full of resolution but
he had little hope. It was too good to last, he thought. He took one
look at the great fish as he watched the shark close in. It might as
well have been a dream, he thought. I cannot keep him from hitting me
but maybe I can get him. Dentuso, he thought. Bad luck to your mother.
The
shark closed fast astern and when he hit the fish the old man saw his
mouth open and his strange eyes and the clicking chop of the teeth as he
drove forward in the meat just above the tail. The shark’s head was out
of water and his back was coming out and the old man could hear the
noise of skin and flesh ripping on the big fish when he rammed the
harpoon down onto the shark’s head at a spot where the line between his
eyes intersected with the line that ran straight back from his nose.
There were no such, lines. There was only the heavy sharp blue head and
the big eyes and the clicking thrusting all-swallowing jaws. But that
was the location of the brain and the old man hit it. He hit it with his
blood mushed hands driving a good harpoon with all his strength. He hit
it without hope but with resolution and complete malignancy.
The
shark swung over and the old man saw his eye was not alive and then he
swung over once again, wrapping himself in two loops of the rope. The
old man knew that he was dead but the shark would not accept it. Then,
on his back, with his tail lashing and his jaws clicking, the shark
plowed over the water as a speedboat does. The water was white where his
tail beat it and three-quarters of his body was clear above the water
when the rope came taut, shivered, and then snapped. The shark lay
quietly for a little while on the surface and the old man watched him.
Then he went down very slowly.
“He
took about forty pounds,” the old man said aloud. He took my harpoon
too and all the rope, he thought, and now my fish bleeds again and there
will be others.
He
did not like to look at the fish anymore since he had been mutilated.
When the fish had been hit it was as though he himself were hit.
But
I killed the shark that hit my fish, he thought. And he was the biggest
dentuso that I have ever seen. And God knows that I have seen big ones.
It
was too good to last, he thought. I wish it had been a dream now and
that I had never hooked the fish and was alone in bed on the newspapers.
“But
man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not
defeated.” I am sorry that I killed the fish though, he thought. Now the
bad time is coming and I do not even have the harpoon. The dentuso is
cruel and able and strong and intelligent. But I was more intelligent
than he was. Perhaps not, he thought. Perhaps I was only better armed.
“Don’t think, old man,” he said aloud. “Sail on this course and take it when it comes.”
But
I must think, he thought. Because it is all I have left. That and
baseball. I wonder how the great DiMaggio would have liked the way I hit
him in the brain? It was no great thing, he thought. Any man could do
it. But do you think my hands were as great a handicap as the bone
spurs? I cannot know. I never had anything wrong with my heel except the
time the sting ray stung it when I stepped on him when swimming and
paralyzed the lower leg and made the unbearable pain.
“Think
about something cheerful, old man,” he said. “Every minute now you are
closer to home. You sail lighter for the loss of forty pounds.”
He
knew quite well the pattern of what could happen when he reached the
inner part of the current. But there was nothing to be done now.
“Yes there is,” he said aloud. “I can lash my knife to the butt of one of the oars.”
So he did that with the tiller under his arm and the sheet of the sail under his foot.
“Now,” he said. “I am still an old man. But I am not unarmed.”
The breeze was fresh now and he sailed on well. He watched only the forward part of the fish and some of his hope returned.
It
is silly not to hope, he thought. Besides I believe it is a sin. Do not
think about sin, he thought. There are enough problems now without sin.
Also I have no understanding of it.
I
have no understanding of it and I am not sure that I believe in it.
Perhaps it was a sin to kill the fish. I suppose it was even though I
did it to keep me alive and feed many people. But then everything is a
sin. Do not think about sin. It is much too late for that and there are
people who are paid to do it. Let them think about it. You were born to
be a fisherman as the fish was born to be a fish. San Pedro was a
fisherman as was the father of the great DiMaggio.
But
he liked to think about all things that he was involved in and since
there was nothing to read and he did not have a radio, he thought much
and he kept on thinking about sin. You did not kill the fish only to
keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride
and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you
loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it
more?
“You think too much, old man,” he said aloud.
But
you enjoyed killing the dentuso, he thought. He lives on the live fish
as you do. He is not a scavenger nor just a moving appetite as some
sharks are. He is beautiful and noble and knows no fear of anything.
“I
killed him in self-defense,” the old man said aloud. “And I killed him
well” Besides, he thought, everything kills everything else in some way.
Fishing kills me exactly as it keeps me alive. The boy keeps me alive,
he thought. I must not deceive myself too much.
He
leaned over the side and pulled loose a piece of the meat of the fish
where the shark had cut him. He chewed it and noted its quality and its
good taste. It was firm and juicy, like meat, but it was not red. There
was no stringiness in it and he knew that it would bring the highest
price In the market. But there was no way to keep its scent out of the
water and the old man knew that a very had time was coming.
The
breeze was steady. It had backed a little further into the north-east
and he knew that meant that it would not fall off. The old man looked
ahead of him but he could see no sails nor could he see the hull nor the
smoke of any ship. There were only the flying fish that went up from
his bow sailing away to either side and the yellow patches of Gulf weed.
He could not even see a bird.
He
had sailed for two hours, resting in the stern and sometimes chewing a
bit of the meat from the marlin, trying to rest and to be strong, when
he saw the first of the two sharks.
“Ay,”
he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is
just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail
go through his hands and into the wood.
“Galanos,”
he said aloud. He had seen the second fin now coming up behind the
first and had identified them as shovel-nosed sharks by the brown,
triangular fin and the sweeping movements of the tail. They had the
scent and were excited and in the stupidity of their great hunger they
were losing and finding the scent in their excitement. But they were
closing all the time.
The
old man made the sheet fast and jammed the tiller. Then he took up the
oar with the knife lashed to it. He lifted it as lightly as he could
because his hands rebelled at the pain. Then he opened and closed them
on it lightly to loosen them. He closed them firmly so they would take
the pain now and would not flinch and watched the sharks come. He could
see their wide, flattened, shovel-pointed heads now and their white
tipped wide pectoral fins. They were hateful sharks, bad smelling,
scavengers as well as, killers and when they were hungry they would bite
at an oar or the rudder of a boat. It was these sharks that would cut
the turtles’ legs and flippers off when the turtles were asleep on the
surface, and they would hit a man in the water, if they were hungry,
even if the man had no smell offish blood nor offish slime on him.
“Ay,” the old man said. “Galanos. Come on galanos.”
They
came. But they did not come as the Mako had come. One turned and went
out of sight under the skiff and the old man could feel the skiff shake
as he jerked and pulled on the fish. The other watched the old man with
his slitted yellow eyes and then came in fast with his half circle of
jaws wide to hit the fish where he had already been bitten. The line
showed clearly on the top of his brown head and back where the brain
joined the spinal cord and the old man drove the knife on the oar into
the juncture, withdrew it, and drove it in again into the shark’s yellow
cat-like eyes. The shark let go of the fish and slid down, swallowing
what he had taken as he died.
The
skiff was still shaking with the destruction the other shark was doing
to the fish and the old man let go the sheet so that the skiff would
swing broadside and bring the shark out from under. When he saw the
shark he leaned over the side and punched at him. He hit only meat and
the hide was set hard and he barely got the knife in. The blow hurt not
only his hands but his shoulder too. But the shark came up fast with his
head out and the old man hit him squarely in the center of his
flat-topped head as his nose came out of water and lay against the fish.
The old man withdrew the blade and punched the shark exactly in the
same spot again. He still hung to the fish with his jaws hooked and the
old man stabbed him in his left eye. The shark still hung there.
“No?”
the old man said and he drove the blade between the vertebrae and the
brain. It was an easy shot now and he felt the cartilage sever. The old
man reversed the oar and put the blade between the shark’s jaws to open
them. He twisted the blade and as the shark slid loose he said, “Go on,
galano. Slide down a mile deep. Go see your friend, or maybe it’s your
mother.”
The
old man wiped the blade of his knife and laid down the oar. Then he
found the sheet and the sail filled and he brought the skiff onto her
course.
“They
must have taken a quarter of him and of the best meat,” he said aloud.
“I wish it were a dream and that I had never hooked him. I’m sorry about
it, fish. It makes everything wrong.” He stopped and he did not want to
look at the fish now. Drained of blood and awash he looked the color of
the silver backing of a minor and his stripes still showed.
“I shouldn’t have gone out so far, fish,” he said. “Neither for you nor for me. I’m sorry, fish.”
Now,
he said to himself. Look to the lashing on the knife and see if it has
been cut. Then get your hand in order because there still is more to
come.
I
wish I had a stone for the knife,” the old man said after he had
checked the lashing on the oar butt. “I should have brought a stone.”
You should have brought many things he thought. But you did not bring
them, old man. Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of
what you can do with what there is.
“You give me much good counsel,” he said aloud. “I’m tired of it.”
He
held the tiller under his arm and soaked both his hands in the water as
the skiff drove forward. “God knows how much that last one took,” he
said.
“But
she’s much lighter now.” He did not want to think of the mutilated
under-side of the fish. He knew that each of the jerking bumps of the
shark had been meat torn away and that the fish now made a trail for all
sharks as wide as a highway through the sea.
He
was a fish to keep a man all winter, he thought Don’t think of that.
Just rest and try to get your hands in shape to defend what is left of
him. The blood smell from my hands means nothing now with all that scent
in the water. Besides they do not bleed much. There is nothing cut that
means anything. The bleeding may keep the left from cramping.
What
can I think of now? he thought. Nothing. I must think of nothing and
wait for the next ones. I wish it had really been a dream, he thought.
But who knows? It might have turned out well.
The
next shark that came was a single shovelnose. He came like a pig to the
trough if a pig had a mouth so wide that you could put your head in it.
The old man let him hit the fish and then drove the knife on the oar
don into his brain. But the shark jerked backwards as he rolled and the
knife blade snapped.
The
old man settled himself to steer. He did not even watch the big shark
sinking slowly in the water, showing first life-size, then small, then
tiny. That always fascinated the old man. But he did not even watch it
now.
I have the gaff now,” he said. “But it will do no good. I have the two oars and the tiller and the short club.”
Now
they have beaten me, he thought. I am too old to club sharks to death.
But I will try it as long as I have the oars and the short club and the
tiller.
He
put his hands in the water again to soak them. It was getting late in
the afternoon and he saw nothing but the sea and the sky. There was more
wind in the sky than there had been, and soon he hoped that he would
see land.
“You’re tired, old man,” he said. “You’re tired inside.”
The sharks did not hit him again until just before sunset.
The
old man saw the brown fins coming along the wide trail the fish must
make in the water. They were not even quartering on the scent. They were
headed straight for the skiff swimming side by side.
He
jammed the tiller, made the sheet fast and reached under the stem for
the club. It was an oar handle from a broken oar sawed off to about two
and a half feet in length. He could only use it effectively with one
hand because of the grip of the handle and he took good hold of it with
his right hand, flexing his hand on it, as he watched the sharks come.
They were both galanos.
I
must let the first one get a good hold and hit him on the point of the
nose or straight across the top of the head, he thought.
The
two sharks closed together and as he saw the one nearest him open his
jaws and sink them into the silver side of the fish, he raised the club
high and brought it down heavy and slamming onto the top of the shark’s
broad head. He felt the rubbery solidity as the club came down. But he
felt the rigidity of bone too and he struck the shark once more hard
across the point of the nose as he slid down from the fish.
The
other shark had been in and out and now came in again with his jaws
wide. The old man could see pieces of the meat of the fish spilling
white from the corner of his jaws as he bumped the fish and closed his
jaws. He swung at him and hit only the head and the shark looked at him
and wrenched the meat loose. The old man swung the club down on him
again as he slipped away to swallow and hit only the heavy solid
rubberiness.
“Come on, galano,” the old man said. “Come in again.”
The
shark came in a rush and the old man hit him as he shut his jaws. He
hit him solidly and from as high up as he could raise the club. This
time he felt the bone at the base of the brain and he hit him again in
the same place while the shark tore the meat .loose sluggishly and slid
down from the fish
The
old man watched for him to come again but neither shark showed. Then he
saw one on the surface swimming in circles. He did not see the fin of
the other.
I
could not expect to kill them, he thought. I could have in my time. But
I have hurt them both badly and neither one can feel very good. If I
could have used a bat with two hands I could have killed the first one
surely. Even now, he thought.
He
did not want to look at the fish. He knew that half of him had been
destroyed. The sun had gone down while he had been in the fight with the
sharks.
It
will be dark soon,” he said. “Then I should see the glow of Havana. If I
am too far to the eastward I will see the lights of one of the new
beaches.”
I
cannot be too far out now, he thought. I hope no one has been too
worried. There is only the boy to worry, of course. But I am sure he
would have confidence. Many of the older fishermen will worry. Many
others too, he thought. I live in a good town.
He could not talk to the fish anymore because the fish had been ruined too badly. Then something came into his head.
“Half
fish,” he said. “Fish that you were. I am sorry that I went too far
out. I ruined us both. But we have killed many sharks, you and I, and
ruined many others. How many did you ever kill, old fish? You do not
have that spear on your head for nothing.”
He
liked to think of the fish and what he could do to a shark if he were
swimming free. I should have chopped the bill off to fight them with, he
thought. But there was no hatchet and then there was no knife.
But
if I had, and could have lashed it to an oar butt, what a weapon. Then
we might have fought them together. What will you do now if they come in
the night? What can you?
“Fight them,” he said. “I’ll fight them until I die.”
But
in the dark now and no glow showing and no lights and only the wind and
the steady pull of the sail he felt that perhaps he was already dead.
He put his two hands together and felt the palms. They were not dead and
he could bring the pain of life by simply opening and closing them. He
leaned his back against the stern and knew he was not dead. His
shoulders told him.
I
have all those prayers I promised if I caught the fish, he thought. But
I am too tired to say them now. I better get the sack and put it over
my shoulders.
He
lay in the stern and steered and watched for the glow to come in the
sky. I have half of him, he thought. Maybe I’ll have the luck to bring
the forward half in. I should .have some luck. No, he said. You violated
your luck when you went too far outside.
“Don’t be silly,” he said aloud. “And keep awake and steer. You may have much luck yet.
“I’d like to buy some if there’s any place they sell it,” he said.
What could I buy it with? He asked himself. Could I buy it with a lost harpoon and a broken knife and two bad hands?
“You might,” he said. “You tried to buy it with eighty-four days at sea. They nearly sold it to you too.”
I
must not think nonsense, he thought. Luck is a thing that comes in many
forms and who can recognize her? I would take some though in any form
and pay what they asked. I wish I could see the glow from the lights, he
thought. I wish too many things. But that is the thing I wish for now.
He tried to settle more comfortably to steer and from his pain he knew
he was not dead.
He
saw the reflected glare of the lights of the city at what must have
been around ten o’clock at night. They were only perceptible at first as
the light is in the sky before the moon rises. Then they were steady to
see across the ocean which was rough now with the increasing breeze. He
steered inside of the glow and he thought that now, soon, he must hit
the edge of the stream.
Now it is over, he thought. They will probably hit me again. But what can a man do against them in the dark without a weapon?
He
was stiff and sore now and his wounds and all of the strained parts of
his body hurt with the cold of the night. I hope I do not have to fight
again, he thought. I hope so much I do not have to fight again.
But
by midnight he fought and this time he knew the fight was useless. They
came in a pack and he could only see the lines in the water that their
fins made and their phosphorescence as they threw themselves on the
fish. He clubbed at heads and heard the jaws chop and the shaking of the
skiff as they took hold below. He clubbed desperately at what he could
only feel and hear and he felt something seize the club and it was gone.
He
jerked the tiller free from the rudder and beat and chopped with it,
holding it in both hands and driving it down again and again. But they
were up to the bow now and driving in one after the other and together,
tearing off the pieces of meat that showed glowing below the sea as they
turned to come once more.
One
came, finally, against the head itself and he knew that it was over. He
swung the tiller across the shark’s head where the jaws were caught in
the heaviness of the fish’s head which would not tear. He swung it once
and twice and again. He heard the tiller break and he lunged at the
shark with the splintered butt. He felt it go in and knowing it was
sharp he drove it in again. The shark let go and rolled away. That was
the last shark of the pack that came. There was nothing more for them to
eat.
The
old man could hardly breathe now and he felt a strange taste in his
mouth. It was coppery and sweet and he was afraid of it for a moment.
But there was not much of it.
He spat into the ocean and said, “Eat that, galanos. And make a dream you’ve killed a man.”
He
knew he was beaten now finally and without remedy and he went back to
the stern and found the jagged end of the tiller would fit in the slot
of the rudder well enough for him to steer. He settled the sack around
his shoulders and put the skiff on her course. He sailed lightly now and
he had no thoughts nor any feelings of any kind. He was past everything
now and he sailed the skiff to make his home port as well and as
intelligently as he could. In the night sharks hit the carcass as
someone might pick up crumbs from the table. The old man paid no
attention to them and did not pay any attention to anything except
steering. He only noticed how lightly and bow well the skiff sailed now
there was no great weight beside her.
She’s good, he thought. She is sound and not harmed in any way except for the tiller. That is easily replaced.
He
could feel he was inside the current now and he could see the lights of
the beach colonies along the shore. He knew where he was now and it
.was nothing to get home.
The
wind is our friend, anyway, he thought. Then he added, sometimes. And
the great sea with our friends and our enemies. And bed, he thought. Bed
is my friend. Just bed, he thought. Bed will be a great thing. It is
easy when you are beaten, he thought. I never knew how easy it was. And
what beat you, he thought.
“Nothing,” he said aloud. “I went out too far.”
When
he sailed into the little harbor the lights of the Terrace were out and
he knew everyone was in bed. The breeze had risen steadily and was
blowing strongly now. It was quiet in the harbor though and he sailed up
onto the little patch of shingle below the rocks. There was no one to
help him so he pulled the boat up as far as he could. Then he stepped
out and made her fast to a rock.
He
unstepped the mast and furled the sail and tied it. Then he shouldered
the mast and started to climb. It was then he knew the depth of his
tiredness. He stopped for a moment and looked back and saw in the
reflection from the street light the great tail of the fish standing up
well behind the skiffs stern. He saw the white naked line of his
backbone and the dark mass of the head with the projecting bill and all
the nakedness between.
He
started to climb again and at the top he fell and lay for some time
with the mast across his shoulder. He tried to get up. But it was too
difficult and he sat there with the mast on his shoulder and looked at
the road. A cat passed on the far side going about its business and the
old man watched it. Then he just watched the road.
Finally
he put the mast down and stood up. He picked the mast up and put it on
his shoulder and started up the road. He had to sit down five times
before he reached his shack.
Inside
the shack he leaned the mast against the wall. In the dark he found a
water bottle and took a drink. Then he lay down on the bed. He pulled
the blanket over his shoulders and then over his back and legs and he
slept face down on the newspapers with his arms out straight and the
palms of his hands up.
He
was asleep when the boy looked in the door in the morning. It was
blowing so hard that the drifting-boats would not be going out and the
boy had slept late and then come to the old man’s shack as he had come
each morning. The boy saw that the old man was breathing and then he saw
the old man’s hands and he started to cry. He went out very quietly to
go to bring some coffee and all the way down the road he was crying.
Many
fishermen were around the skiff looking at what was lashed beside it
and one was in the water, his trousers rolled up, measuring the skeleton
with a length of line.
The boy did not go down. He had been there before and one of the fishermen was looking after the skiff for him.
“How is he?” one of the fishermen shouted.
“Sleeping,”
the boy called. He did not care that they saw him crying. “Let no one
disturb him.” “He was eighteen feet from nose to tail,” the fisherman
who was measuring him called.
“1 believe it,” the boy said.
He went into the Terrace and asked for a can of coffee.
“Hot and with plenty of milk and sugar in it.”
“Anything more?”
“No. Afterwards I will see what he can eat.”
“What
a fish it was,” the proprietor said. “There has never been such a fish.
Those” were two fine fish you took yesterday too.”
“Damn my fish,” the boy said and he started to cry again.
“Do you want a drink of any kind?” the proprietor asked.
“No,” the boy said. “Tell them not to bother Santiago. I’ll be back.”
“Tell him how sorry I am.”
“Thanks,” the boy said.
The
boy carried the hot can of coffee up to the old man’s shack and sat by
him until he woke. Once it looked as though he were waking. But he had
gone back into heavy sleep and the boy had gone across the road to
borrow some wood to heat the coffee.
Finally the old man woke.
“Don’t sit up,” the boy said. “Drink this.”
He poured some of the coffee in a glass.
The old man took it and drank it.
“They beat me, Manolin,” he said. “They truly beat me.”
“He didn’t beat you. Not the fish.”
“No. Truly. It was afterwards.”
“Pedrico is looking after the skiff and the gear. What do you want done with the head?”
“Let Pedrico chop it up to use in fish traps.”
“And the spear?”
“You keep it if you want it.”
“I want it,” the boy said. “Now we must make our plans about the other things.”
“Did they search for me?”
“Of course. With coast guard and with planes.”
“The
ocean is very big and a skiff is small and hard to see,” the old man
said. He noticed how pleasant it was to have someone to talk to instead
of speaking only to himself and to the sea. “I missed you,” he said.
“What did you catch?”
“One the first day. One the second and two the third.”
“Very good.”
“Now we fish together again.”
“No. I am not lucky. I am not lucky anymore.”
“The hell with luck,” the boy said. “I’ll bring the luck with me.”
“What will your family say?”
“I do not care. I caught two yesterday. But we will fish together now for I still have much to learn.”
“We
must get a good killing lance and always have it on board. You can make
the blade from a spring leaf from an old Ford. We can grind it in
Guanabacoa. It should be sharp and not tempered so it will break. My
knife broke.”
“I’ll get another knife and have the spring ground. How many days of heavy brisa have we?
“Maybe three. Maybe more.”
“I will have everything in order,” the boy said. “You get your hands well old man.”
I know how to care for them. In the night I spat something strange and felt something in my chest was broken.”
“Get that well too,” the boy said. “Lie down, old man, and I will bring you your clean shirt. And something to eat.”
“Bring any of the papers of the time that I was gone,” the old man said.
“You must get well fast for there is much that I can learn and you can teach me everything. How much did you suffer?”
“Plenty,” the old man said
I’ll bring the food and the papers,” the boy said. “Rest well, old man. I will bring stuff from the drugstore.”
“Don’t forget to tell Pedrico the head is his.”
“No. I will remember.”
As the boy went out the door and down the worn coral rock road he was crying again.
That
afternoon there was a party of tourists at the Terrace and looking down
in the water among the empty beer cans and dead barracudas a woman saw a
great long white spine with a huge tail at the end that lifted and
swung with the tide while the east wind blew a heavy steady sea outside
the entrance to the harbor.
What’s
that?” she asked a waiter and pointed to the long backbone of the great
fish that was now just garbage waiting to go out with the tide.
“Tiburon,” the waiter said. “Shark.” He was meaning to explain what had happened.
“I didn’t know sharks had such handsome, beautifully formed tails.”
“1 didn’t either,” her male companion said.
Up
the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still
sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The
old man was dreaming about the lions.
**********
My most favorite story of all time... :)
