第8章 The Sharks Attack[第5页/共13页]

He knew quite well the pattern of what could happen when he reached the inner part of the current.But there was nothing to be done now.

Now they have beaten me,he thought.I am too old to club sharks to death.But I will try it as long as I have the oars and the short club and the tiller.

Sometimes he lost the scent.But he would pick it up again,or have just a trace of it and he swam fast and hard on the course.He was a very big Mako shark built to swim as fast as the fastest fish in the sea and everything about him was beautiful except his jaws.

“Ay,”he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily,feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood.

“He took about forty pounds,”the old man said aloud. He took my harpoon too and all the rope,he thought,and now my fish bleeds again and there will be others.

I have no understanding of it and I am not sure that I believe in it.Perhaps it was a sin to kill the fish.I suppose it was even though I did it to keep me alive and feed many people. But then everything is a sin. Do not think about sin.It is much too late for that and there are people who are paid to do it.Let them think about it.You were born to be a fisherman as the fish was born to be a fish.San Pedro was a fisherman as was the father of the great DiMaggio.