The Old Man and the Sea

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.

He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride.

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.

“Fish,” he said, “I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.” Let us hope so, he thought.

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.

Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.

But, thank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them; although they are more noble and more able.

It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.

“But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

No one should be alone in their old age, he thought. But it is unavoidable.

But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought.

You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him.

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 punishment of the hook is nothing. The punishment of hunger, and that he is against something that he does not comprehend, is everything.

Besides, he thought, everything kills everything else in some way. Fishing kills me exactly as it keeps me alive.

“I think perhaps I can too. But I try not to borrow. First you borrow. Then you beg.”

He spat into the ocean and said, “Eat that, galanos. And make a dream you’ve killed a man.”

“Don’t think, old man,” he said aloud. “Sail on this course and take it when it comes.”

It was considered a virtue not to talk unnecessarily at sea and the old man had always considered it so and respected it. But now he said his thoughts aloud many times since there was no one that they could annoy.

He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach.