第1章 The Old Mans Hard Life[第1页/共8页]

“May I get the sardines?I know where I can get four baits too.”

“Can you really remember that or did I just tell it to you?”

“I'll get the cast net and go for sardines.Will you sit in the sun in the doorway?”

“A pot of yellow rice with fish.Do you want some?”

“Five and you nearly were killed when I brought the fish in too green and he nearly tore the boat to pieces.Can you remember?”

“You bought me a beer,”the old man said.“You are already a man.”

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.In the first forty days a boy had been with him.But after forty days without a fish the boy's parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao,which is the worst form of unlucky,and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week.It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that was furled around the mast.The sail was patched with flour sacks and,furled,it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.

“Santiago,”the boy said to him as they climbed the bank from where the skiff was hauled up.“I could go with you again.We've made some money.”