Old Man and the Sea (8 page)

  
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 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 interminable 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.