book.txt

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 I 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 _cordel_ 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 north," 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 line.

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.

"I 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 stern 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 bad
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 unite 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
boat 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 diarrhoea 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 Fathers and ten
Hail Marys that I should catch this fish, and I promise to make a
pilgrimage to the Virgen de 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.

"I 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 over head 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 stern, 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 stern.  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, rebaited 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.

I 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 of
fish 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 of fish 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 hand, 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 of fish 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 the 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 tireder 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 swam 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 back 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