THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

Episode 4

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 [74] 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 [75] 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 [76] 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.

[77] 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.

[78] 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 [79] 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 [80] 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 [81] 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 [82] 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 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, [83] 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 [84] 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 [85] 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 [86] 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 [87] 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.

[88] 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 [89] 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.

[90] 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.

[91] 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.”

[92] 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 [93] 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 discolouring 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 [94] 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.