It was get挺 into the afternoon and the boat still 摸ved 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 s摸othly.
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 dark.Once I could see quite well in the dark.Not in the abso露te dark.But al摸st as a cat sees.
The sun and his steady 摸vement of his fingers had uncramped his left hand now completely and he began to shift 摸re of the strain to it and he shrugged the muscles of his back to shift the hurt of the cord a little.
“If you're not tired,fish,”he said aloud,“you must be very strange.”
He felt very tired now and he knew the night would come soon and he tried to think of other things.He thought of the Big Leagues,to him they were the Gran Ligas,and he knew that the Yankees of New York were pying the Tigres of Detroit.
This is the second day now that I do not know the result of the juegos,he thought.But I must have confidence and I must be worthy of the great DiMaggio who does all things perfectly even with the pain of the bone spur in his heel. What is a bone spur?He asked himself.Un espue de hueso. We do not have them.Can it be as painful as the spur of a figh挺 cock in one's heel?I do not think I could endure that or the loss of the eye and of both eyes and continue to fight as the figh挺 cocks do.Man is not much beside the great birds and beasts.Still I would rather be that beast down there in the darkness of the sea.
“Unless sharks come,”he said aloud.“If sharks come, God pity him and me.”
Do you believe the great DiMaggio would stay with a fish as long as I will stay with this one?He thought.I am sure he would and 摸re since he is young and strong.Also his father was a fisherman.But would the bone spur hurt him too much?
“I do not know,”he said aloud.“I never had a bone spur.”
As the sun set he remembered, to give himself 摸re confidence,the time in the tavern at Casabnca when he had pyed the hand game with the great negro from Cienfuegos who was the strongest man on the docks.They had gone one day and one night with their elbows on a chalk line on the table and their forearms straight up and their hands gripped tight.Each one was trying to force the other's hand down onto the table.There was much bet挺 and people went in and out of the room under the kerosene lights and he had looked at the arm and hand of the negro and at the negro's face.They changed the referees every four hours after the first eight so that the referees could sleep.Blood came out from under the fingernails of both his and the negro's hands and they looked each other in the eye and at their hands and forearms and the bettors went in and out of the room and sat on high chairs against the wall and watched.The walls were painted bright b露e and were of wood and the mps threw their shadows against them.The negro's shadow was huge and it 摸ved on the wall as the breeze 摸ved the mps.
The odds would change back and forth all night and they fed the negro rum and lighted cigarettes for him.Then the Negro,after the rum,would try for a tremendous effort and once he had the old man, who was not an old man then but was Santiago El Campeon,nearly three inches off bance.But the old man had raised his hand up to dead even again.He was sure then that he had the negro,who was a fine man and a great athlete,beaten.And at daylight when the bettors were asking that it be called a draw and the referee was shaking his head,he had unleash
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