It was getting into the afternoon and the boat still moved slowly and steadily.

　　时间已是下午，船依旧缓慢而稳定地移动着。

　　But there was an added drag now from the easterly breeze and the old man rode gently with the...

Some

time before daylight something took one of the baits that were behind him. He

heard the stick break and the line begin to rush out over the gunwale of the

skiff. In the darkness he loosened his sheath knife and taking all the strain

of the...

Once

he stood up and urinated over the side of the skiff and looked at the stars and

checked his course. The line showed like a phosphorescent streak in the water

straight out from his shoulders. They were moving more slowly now and the glow

of...

He

was happy feeling the gentle pulling and then he felt something hard and

unbelievably heavy. It was the weight of the fish and he let the line slip

down, down, down, unrolling off the first of the two reserve coils. As it went

down, slipping...

He

did not remember when he had first started to talk aloud when he was by

himself. He had sung when he was by himself in the old days and he had sung at

night sometimes when he was alone steering on his watch in the smacks or in the

turtle boa...

From

where he swung lightly against his oars he looked down into the water and saw

the tiny fish that were coloured like the trailing filaments and swam between

them and under the small shade the bubble made as it drifted. They were immune

to i...

The

sun rose thinly from the sea and the old man could see the other boats, low on

the water and well in toward the shore, spread out across the current. Then the

sun was brighter and the glare came on the water and then, as it rose clear,

the ...

Sometimes someone would speak in a boat. But most of the boats were silent except for the dip of the oars. They spread apart after they were out of the mouth of the harbour and each one headed for the part of the ocean where he hoped to find fish. ...

The boy went out. They had eaten with no light on the table and the old man took off his trousers and went to bed in the dark. He rolled his trousers up to make a pillow, putting the newspaper inside them. He rolled himself in the blanket and slept...

When the boy came back the old man was asleep in the chair and the sun was down. The boy took the old army blanket off the bed and spread it over the back of the chair and over the old man’s shoulders. They were strange shoulders, still powerful a...