第3章 The Old Man on the Sea[第2页/共12页]

“If the others heard me talking out loud they would think that I am crazy,”he said aloud.“But since I am not crazy,I do not care.And the rich have radios to talk to them in their boats and to bring them the baseball.”

He rowed slowly and steadily toward where the bird was circling.He did not hurry and he kept his lines straight up and down.But he crowded the current a little so that he was still fishing correctly though faster than he would have fished if he was not trying to use the bird.

The tuna,the fishermen called all the fish of that species tuna and only distinguished among them by their proper names when they came to sell them or to trade them for baits, were down again.The sun was hot now and the old man felt it on the back of his neck and felt the sweat trickle down his back as he rowed.

Before it was really light he had his baits out and was drifting with the current.One bait was down forty fathoms. The second was at seventy-five and the third and fourth were down in the blue water at one hundred and one hundred and twenty-five fathoms.Each bait hung head down with the shank of the hook inside the bait fish,tied and sewed solid and all the projecting part of the hook,the curve and the point,was covered with fresh sardines.Each sardine was hooked through both eyes so that they made a half-garland on the projecting steel.There was no part of the hook that a great fish could feel which was not sweet smelling and good tasting.