第7章 The Old Mans Victory[第4页/共16页]

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.

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.

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.

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.