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

he frightened by
something in the night? Maybe he suddenly felt fear. But he was such a calm,
strong fish and he seemed so fearless and so confident. It is strange.
       “You better be fearless and confident
yourself, old man,” he said. “You’re holding him again but you cannot get line.
But soon he has to circle.”
       The old man held him with his left hand and
his shoulders now and stooped down and scooped up water in his right hand to
get the crushed dolphin flesh off of his face. He was afraid that it might
nauseate him and he would vomit and lose his strength. When his face was
cleaned he washed his right hand in the water over the side and then let it
stay in the salt water while he watched the first light come before the
sunrise. He’s headed almost east, he thought. That means he is tired and going
with the current. Soon he will have to circle. Then our true work begins.
       After he judged that his right hand had been
in the water long enough he took it out and looked at it.
       “It is not bad,” he said. “And pain does not
matter to a man.”
       He took hold of the line carefully so that
it did not fit into any of the fresh line cuts and shifted his weight so that
he could put his left hand into the sea on the other side of the skiff.
       “You did not do so badly for something
worthless,” he said to his left hand. “But there was a moment when I could not
find you.”
       Why was I not born with two good hands? he thought. Perhaps it was my fault in not training that one
properly. But God knows he has had enough chances to learn. He did not do so
badly in the night, though, and he has only cramped once. If he cramps again
let the line cut him off.
       When he thought that he knew that he was not
being clear-headed and he thought he should chew some more of the dolphin. But
I can’t, he told himself. It is better to be light-headed than to lose your
strength from nausea. And I know I cannot keep it if I eat it since my face was
in it. I will keep it for an emergency until it goes bad. But it is too late to
try for strength now through nourishment. You’re stupid, he told himself. Eat
the other flying fish.
       It was there, cleaned and ready, and he
picked it up with his left hand and ate it chewing the bones carefully and
eating all of it down to the tail.
       It has more nourishment than almost any
fish, he thought. At least the kind of strength that I need. Now I have done what I can, he thought. Let him begin to circle and let the
fight come.
       The sun was rising for the third time since
he had put to sea when the fish started to circle.
       He could not see by the slant of the line
that the fish was circling. It was too early for that. He just felt a faint
slackening of the pressure of the line and he commenced to pull on it gently
with his right hand. It tightened, as always, but just when he reached the
point where it would break, line began to come in. He slipped his shoulders and
head from under the line and began to pull in line steadily and gently. He used
both of his hands in a swinging motion and tried to do the pulling as much as he
could with his body and his legs. His old legs and shoulders pivoted with the
swinging of the pulling.
       “It is a very big circle,” he said. “But he
is circling.” Then the line would not come in any more and he held it until he
saw the drops jumping from it in the sun. Then it started out and the old man
knelt down and let it go grudgingly back into the dark water.
       “He is making the far part of his circle
now,” he said. I must hold all I can, he thought. The strain will shorten his
circle each time. Perhaps in an hour I will see him. Now I must convince him
and then I must kill him.
       But the fish kept on circling slowly and the
old man was wet with sweat and tired deep into his bones two hours later. But
the circles were much shorter now and from the way the line slanted he could
tell the fish had