He always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad things of her but they are always said as if she were a woman. Some of the younger fishermen, those who used buoys as floats for their lines and motor-boats, bought when shark livers brought much money, spoke of her as el mar which is masculine. They spoke of her as a contestant or place or even an enemy. But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought.
He looked down into the water and watched the lines that went straight down into the dark of the water. He kept them straighter than anyone did, so that each level in the darkness of the stream there would be a bait waiting exactly where he wished it to be for any fish that swam there. Others let them drift with the current and sometimes they were at sixty fathoms when the fishermen thought they were at a hundred.
But, he thought, I keep them with precision. Only I have no luck any more. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.
He could not talk to the fish anymore because the fish had been ruined too badly. Then something came into his head.
‘Half-fish’, he said. ‘Fish that you were. I am sorry that I went too far out. I ruined us both…’
And the great sea with its friends and its enemies. And bed, he thought. Bed is my friend. Just bed, he thought. Bed will be a great thing. It is easy when you are beaten, he thought. I never knew how easy it was. And what beat you, he thought.
‘Nothing’, he said aloud. ‘I went out too far.’
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