Old Man and the Sea Read Online Free PDF

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 colour turned to a colour 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