ometimes someone ould seak in most of the boats ere silent excet for the di of th sread aart after they ere out of the mouth of the harbor and each one headed for the art of the ocean here he hoed to fin old man kne he as going far out and he left the smell of the land behind and roed out into the clean early morning smell of th sa the hoshorescence of the ulf eed in the ater as he roed over the art of the ocean that the fishermen called the great ell because there as a sudden dee of seven hundred fathoms here all sorts of fish congregated because of the sirl the current made against the stee alls of the floor of th there ere concentrations of shrim and bait and sometimes schools of squid in the deeest holes and these rose close to the surface at night here all the andering fish fed o the dark the old man could feel the morning coming and as he roed he heard the trembling sound as flying fish left the ater and the hissing that their stiff set ings made as they soared aay in th as very fond of flying fish as they ere his rincial friends on th as sorry for the birds,esecially the small delicate dark terns that ere alays flying and looking and almost never finding,and he thought,“he birds have a harder life than e do excet for the robber birds and the heavy stron did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea sallos hen the ocean can be so cruel?

he is kind and ver she can be so cruel and it comes so suddenly and such birds that fly,diing and hunting,ith their small sad voices are made too delicately for the sea.”

e alays thought of the sea as la mar hich is hat eole call her in anish hen they lov those ho love her say bad things of her but they are alays said as though she ere of the younger fishermen,those ho used buoys as floats for their lines and had motorboats,bought hen the shark livers had brought much money,soke of her as el mar hich i soke of her as a contestant or a lace or even a the old man alays thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or ithheld great favors,and if she did ild or icked things it as because she could not hel moon affects her as it does a oman,h as roing steadily and it as no effort for him since he ket ell ithin his seed and the surface of the ocean as flat excet for the occasional sirls of th as letting the current do a third of the ork and as it started to be light he sa he as already further out than he had hoed to be at thi the dee ells for a eek and did nothing,h 'll ork out here the schools of bonita and albacore are and maybe there ill be a big one it it as really light he had his baits out and as drifting ith th bait as don fort second as at seventy-five and the third and fourth ere don in the blue ater at one hundred and one hundred and tenty-fiv bait hung head don ith the shank of the hook inside the bait fish,tied and seed solid and all the rojecting art of the hook,the curve and the oint,as covered ith fres sardine as hooked through both eyes so that they made a half-garland on the rojectin as no art of the hook that a great fish could feel hich as not seet smelling and goo boy had given him to fresh small tunas, or albacores,hich hung on the to deeest lines like lummets and,on the others,he had a big blue runner and a yello jack that had been used before;but they ere in good condition still and had the excellent sardines to give them scent an line,as thick around as a big encil,as looed onto a green-saed stick so that any ull or touch on the bait ould make the stick di and each line had to forty-fathom coils hich could be made fast to the other sare coils so that,if it ere necessary,a fish could take out over three hundred fathoms o the man atched the di of the three sticks over the side of the skiff and roed gently to kee the lines straight u and don and at their roe as quite light and any moment no the sun oul sun rose thinly from the sea and the old man could see the other boats,lo on the ater and ell in toard the shore,sread out across th the sun as brighter and the glare came on the ater and then,as it rose clear,the flat sea sent it back at his eyes so that it hurt sharly and he roed ithout looking into it.

e looked don into the ater and atched the lines that ent straight don into the dark of th ket them straighter than anyone did,so that at each level in the darkness of the stream there ould be a bait aiting exactly here he ished it to be for any fish that sa let them drift ith the current and sometimes they ere at sixty fathoms hen the fishermen thought they ere at ,he thought, kee them it have no luck an ho knos?

aybe t day is a ne is better to b ould rather b hen luck comes you ar sun as to hours higher no and it did not hurt his eyes so much to look into th ere only three boats in sight no and they shoed very lo and fa my life the early sun has hurt my eyes,h they are stil the evening can look straight into it ithout getting th has more force in the evenin in the morning it i then he sa a man-of-ar bird ith his long black ings circling in the sky ahead o made a quick dro,slanting don on his backset ings,and then circled again.

“e's got something,”the old man said aloud.

“e's not just looking.”

e roed sloly and steadily toard here the bird a did not hurry and he ket his lines straight u an he croded the current a little so that he as still fishing correctly though faster than he ould have fished if he as not trying to use th bird ent higher in the air and circled again,his ing he dove suddenly and the old man sa flying fish surt out of the ater and sail deserately over the surface.

“olhin,”the old man said aloud.

“ ig dolhin.”

e shied his oars and brought a small line from under th had a ire leader and a medium-sized hook and he baited it ith one of th let it go over the side and then made it fast to a ring bolt in th he baited another line and left it coiled in the shade of th ent back to roing and to atching the long inged black bird ho as orking,no,lo over th he atched the bird died again slanting his ings for the dive and then singing them ildly and ineffectually as he folloed the flyin old man could see the slight bulge in the ater that the big dolhin raised as they folloed the escain dolhin ere cutting through the ater belo the flight of the fish and ould be in the ater,driving at seed,hen the fis is a big school of dolhin,h are ide sread and the flying fish have littl bird has n flying fish are too big for him and they go to atched the flying fish burst out again and again and the ineffectual movements of th school has gotten aay from me,h are moving out too fast and to erhas ill ick u a stray and erhas my big fish is aroun big fish must b clouds over the land no rose like mountains and the coast as only a long green line ith the gray blue hills behind it.

he ater as a dark blue no,so dark that it as almos he looked don into it he sa the red sifting of the lankton in the dark ater and the strange light the sun mad atched his lines to see them go straight don out of sight into the ater and he as hay to see so much lankton because it mean strange light the sun made in the ater,no that the sun as higher, meant good eather and so did the shae of the clouds over th the bird as almost out of sight no and nothing shoed on the surface of the ater but some atches of yello, sun-bleached argasso eed and the urle, formalized,iridescent ,gelatinous bladder of a ortuguese man-of-ar floating close beside th turned on its side and then righte floated cheerfully as a bubble ith its long deadly urle filaments trailing a yard behind it in the ater.

“gua mala,”the man said.

“ ou hore.”

rom here he sung lightly against his oars he looked don into the ater and sa the tiny fish that ere colored like the trailing filaments and sam beteen them and under the small shade the bubble made as i ere immune to it men ere not and hen some of the filaments ould catch on a line and rest there slimy and urle hile the old man as orking a fish,he ould have elts and sores on his arms and hands of the sort that oison ivy or oison oak ca these oisonings from the agua mala came quickly and struck like iridescent bubbles er they ere the falsest thing in the sea and the old man loved to see the big sea turtles eatin turtles sa them,aroached them from the front,then shut their eyes so they ere comletely caraaced and ate them filaments an old man loved to see the turtles eat them and he loved to alk on them on the beach after a storm and hear them o hen he steed on them ith the horny soles of hi loved green turtles and haks-bills ith their elegance and seed and their great value and he had a friendly contemt for the huge,stuid loggerheads,yello in their armor-lating, strange in their love-making, and haily eating the ortuguese men-of-ar ith their eye had no mysticism about turtles although he had gone in turtle boats for man as sorry for them all,even the great trunk backs that ere as long as the skiff and eighed eole are heartless about turtles because a turtle's heart ill beat for hours after he has been cut u an the old man thought, have such a heart too and my feet and hands are lik ate the hite eggs to give himsel ate them all through ay to be strong in etember and ctober for the truly bi also drank a cu of shark liver oil each day from the big drum in the shack here many of the fishermen ket thei as there for all fishermen ho anted it.

ost fishermen hated th it as no orse than getting u at the hours that they rose and it as very good against all colds and gries and it as good for th the old man looked u and sa that the bird as circling again.

“e's found fish,”he sai flying fish broke the surface and there as no scattering of bai as the old man atched,a small tuna rose in the air,turned and droed head first into th tuna shone silver in the sun and after he had droed back into the ater another and another rose and they ere juming in all directions, churning the ater and leaing in long jums after th ere circling it and driving it.

f they don't travel too fast ill get into them,the old man thought,and he atched the school orking the ater hite and the bird no droing and diing into the bait fish that ere forced to the surface in their anic.

“he bird is a great hel,”the old ma then the stern line came taut under his foot,here he had ket a loo of the line,and he droed his oars and felt the eight of the small tuna's shivering ull as he held the line firm and commenced to haul it in.

he shivering increased as he ulled in and he could see the blue back of the fish in the ater and the gold of his sides before he sung him over the side and into th lay in the stern in the sun,comact and bullet shaed,his big,unintelligent eyes staring as he thumed his life out against the lanking of the boat ith the quick shivering strokes of his neat,fast-movin old man hit him on the head for kindness and kicked him,his body still shuddering,under the shade of the stern.

“lbacore,”he said aloud.

“ e'll make a beautifu'll eigh ten ounds.”

e did not remember hen he had first started to talk aloud hen he as b had sung hen he as by himself in the old days and he had sung at night sometimes hen he as alone steering on his atch in the smacks or in the turtl had robably started to talk aloud, hen alone,hen the boy ha he did no he and the boy fished together they usually soke only hen it a talked at night or hen they ere stormbound by ba as considered a virtue not to talk unnecessarily at sea and the old man had alays considered it so and resected it.

ut no he said his thoughts aloud many times since there as no one that they could annoy.

“f the others heard me talking out loud they ould think that am crazy,”he said aloud.

“ut since am not crazy, do no the rich have radios to talk to them in their boats and to bring them the baseball.”

o is no time to think of baseball,h is the time to think of only on hich as bor might be a big one around that school,h u only a straggler from the albacore that er they are orking far out an that shos on the surface today travels very fast and to th that be the time of day?

r is it some sign of eather that do not kno?

e could not see the green of the shore no but only the tos of the blue hills that shoed hite as though they ere sno-caed and the clouds that looked like high sno mountains abov sea as very dark and the light made risms in th myriad flecks of the lankton ere annulled no by the high sun and it as only the great dee risms in the blue ater that the old man sa no ith his lines going straight don into the ater that as a mil tuna,the fishermen called all the fish of that secies tuna and only distinguished among them by their roer names hen they came to sell them or to trade them for baits, ere do sun as hot no and the old man felt it on the back of his neck and felt the seat trickle don his back as h just drift,he thought,and slee and ut a bight of line around my toe to ake me.

ut today is eighty-five days and should fish the day ell.
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