第10章 The Old Mans Return[第1页/共7页]

“How is he?”one of the fishermen shouted.

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.

“No.I will remember.”

“Tiburon,”the waiter said,“Eshark.”He was meaning to explain what had happened.

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.

“No.Truly.It was afterwards.”

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.