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

easily since he had broken the
confidence of the negro from Cienfuegos in the first
match. After that he had a few matches and then no more. He decided that he
could beat anyone if he wanted to badly enough and he decided that it was bad
for his right hand for fishing. He had tried a few practice matches with his
left hand. But his left hand had always been a traitor and would not do what he
called on it to do and he did not trust it.
       The sun will bake it out well now, he
thought. It should not cramp on me again unless it gets too cold in the night.
I wonder what this night will bring.
       An airplane passed overhead on its course to
Miami and he watched its shadow scaring up the schools of flying fish.
       “With so much flying fish there should be
dolphin,” he said, and leaned back on the line to see if it was possible to
gain any on his fish. But he could not and it stayed at the hardness and
water-drop shivering that preceded breaking. The boat moved ahead slowly and he
watched the airplane until he could no longer see it.
       It must be very strange in an airplane, he
thought. I wonder what the sea looks like from that height? They should be able to see the fish well if they do not fly too high. I would
like to fly very slowly at two hundred fathoms high and see the fish from
above. In the turtle boats I was in the cross-trees of the mast-head and even
at that height I saw much. The dolphin look greener from there and you can see
their stripes and their purple spots and you can see all of the school as they
swim. Why is it that all the fast-moving fish of the dark current have purple
backs and usually purple stripes or spots? The dolphin looks green of course
because he is really golden. But when he comes to feed, truly hungry, purple
stripes show on his sides as on a marlin. Can it be anger, or the greater speed
he makes that brings them out?
       Just before it was dark, as they passed a
great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and swung in the light sea as though
the ocean were making love with something under a yellow blanket, his small
line was taken by a dolphin. He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true
gold in the last of the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air. It
jumped again and again in the acrobatics of its fear and he worked his way back
to the stern and crouching and holding the big line with his right hand and
arm, he pulled the dolphin in with his left hand, stepping on the gained line
each time with his bare left foot. When the fish was at the stem, plunging and
cutting from side to side in desperation, the old man leaned over the stern and
lifted the burnished gold fish with its purple spots over the stem. Its jaws
were working convulsively in quick bites against the hook and it pounded the
bottom of the skiff with its long flat body, its tail and its head until he
clubbed it across the shining golden head until it shivered and was still.
       The old man unhooked the fish, re-baited the
line with another sardine and tossed it over. Then he worked his way slowly
back to the bow. He washed his left hand and wiped it on his trousers. Then he
shifted the heavy line from his right hand to his left and washed his right
hand in the sea while he watched the sun go into the ocean and the slant of the
big cord.
       “He hasn’t changed at all,” he said. But
watching the movement of the water against his hand he noted that it was
perceptibly slower.
       “I’ll lash the two oars together across the
stern and that will slow him in the night,” he said. “He’s good for the night
and so am I.”
       It would be better to gut the dolphin a
little later to save the blood in the meat, he thought. I can do that a little
later and lash the oars to make a drag at the same time. I had better keep the
fish quiet now and not disturb him too much at sunset. The setting of the sun
is a difficult time for all fish. He let his hand dry in the air then grasped
the line with it