The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.
The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown
blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were
on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased
scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as
erosions in a fishless desert.
Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were
cheerful and undefeated.
"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."
The old man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him.
"No," the old man said. "You're with a lucky boat. Stay with them."
"But remember how you went eighty-seven days without fish and then we caught big ones
every day for three weeks."
"I remember," the old man said. "I know you did not leave me because you doubted."
"It was papa made me leave. I am a boy and I must obey him."
"I know," the old man said. "It is quite normal."
"He hasn't much faith."
"No," the old man said. "But we have. Haven't we?"
'Yes," the boy said. "Can I offer you a beer on the Terrace and then we'll take the stuff home."
"Why not?" the old man said. "Between fishermen."
They sat on the Terrace and many of the fishermen made fun of the old man and he was not
angry. Others, of the older fishermen, looked at him and were sad. But they did not show it and they
spoke politely about the current and the depths they had drifted their lines at and the steady good
weather and of what they had seen. The successful fishermen of that day were already in and had
butchered their marlin out and carried them laid full length across two planks,
with two men staggering at the end of each plank, to the fish house where they waited for the ice truck to carry them to the market in Havana.

Those who had caught sharks had taken them to the shark factory on the other side of the cove
where they were hoisted on a block and tackle, their livers removed, their fins cut off and their hides skinned out and their flesh cut into strips for salting.
When the wind was in the east a smell came across the harbour from the shark factory;
but today there was only the faint edge of the odour because the wind had backed into the north and then dropped off and it was pleasant and sunny on the Terrace.
"Santiago," the boy said.
"Yes," the old man said. He was holding his glass and thinking of many years ago.
"Can I go out to get sardines for you for tomorrow?"
"No. Go and play baseball. I can still row and Rogelio will throw the net."
"I would like to go. If I cannot fish with you. I would like to serve in some way."
"You bought me a beer," the old man said. "You are already a man."