Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway Read Free Book Online

pace.
       I wonder why he jumped, the old man thought.
He jumped almost as though to show me how big he was. I know now, anyway, he
thought. I wish I could show him what sort of man I am. But then he would see
the cramped hand. Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so. I
wish I was the fish, he thought, with everything he has against only my will
and my intelligence.
       He settled comfortably against the wood and
took his suffering as it came and the fish swam steadily and the boat moved
slowly through the dark water. There was a small sea rising with the wind
coming up from the east and at noon the old man’s left hand was uncramped.
       “Bad news for you, fish,” he said and
shifted the line over the sacks that covered his shoulders.
       He was comfortable but suffering, although
he did not admit the suffering at all.
       “I am not religious,” he said. “But I will
say ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys that I should catch this fish, and I
promise to make a pilgrimage to the Virgin of Cobre if I catch him. That is a
promise.”
       He commenced to say his prayers
mechanically. Sometimes he would be so tired that he could not remember the
prayer and then he would say them fast so that they would come automatically.
Hail Marys are easier to say than Our Fathers, he thought.
       “Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with
thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.” Then he added, “Blessed Virgin, pray for the death of this fish. Wonderful though he is.”
       With his prayers said, and feeling much
better, but suffering exactly as much, and perhaps a little more, he leaned
against the wood of the bow and began, mechanically, to work the fingers of his
left hand.
       The sun was hot now although the breeze was
rising gently.
       “I had better re-bait that little line out
over the stern,” he said. “If the fish decides to stay another night I will
need to eat again and the water is low in the bottle. I don’t think I can get
anything but a dolphin here. But if I eat him fresh enough he won’t be bad. I
wish a flying fish would come on board tonight. But I have no light to attract
them. A flying fish is excellent to eat raw and I would not have to cut him up.
I must save all my strength now. Christ, I did not know he was so big.”
       “I’ll kill him though,” he said. “In all his greatness and his glory.”
       Although it is unjust, he thought. But I
will show him what a man can do and what a man endures.
       “I told the boy I was a strange old man,” he
said.
       “Now is when I must prove it.”
       The thousand times that he had proved it
meant nothing. Now he was proving it again. Each time was a new time and he
never thought about the past when he was doing it.
       I wish he’d sleep and I could sleep and
dream about the lions, he thought. Why are the lions the main thing that is
left? Don’t think, old man, he said to himself, Rest gently now against the
wood and think of nothing. He is working. Work as little as you can.
       It was getting into the afternoon and the
boat still moved slowly and steadily. But there was an added drag now from the
easterly breeze and the old man rode gently with the small sea and the hurt of
the cord across his back came to him easily and smoothly.
       Once in the afternoon the line started to
rise again. But the fish only continued to swim at a slightly higher level. The
sun was on the old man’s left arm and shoulder and on his back. So he knew the
fish had turned east of north.
       Now that he had seen him once, he could
picture the fish swimming in the water with his purple pectoral fins set wide
as wings and the great erect tail slicing through the dark. I wonder how much
he sees at that depth, the old man thought. His eye is huge and a horse, with
much less eye, can see in the