***

To Charlie Shribner

And

To Max Perkins

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff |лодке| in the Gulf Stream and he had gone |на тот момент он уже провел| eighty-four days now without taking a fish |без пойманной рыбы|. 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 |невезучий с португальского|, which is the worst form of unlucky |худшая форма неудачи|, and the boy had gone at their orders |по их приказу| 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 |то снасти, то багор и гарпун и парус, обернутый вокруг мачты|. The sail was patched with flour sacks |в заплатках из мешков из-под муки| and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat |поражения|.

The old man was thin and gaunt |измучен| with deep wrinkles |морщинами| in the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer |пятна от неопасной формы рака| the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides |нисходили от сторон| of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars |глубокие зажившие шрамы| from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none |ни один| of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions |трещины в почве| in a fishless desert.

Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful |веселые| and undefeated.

“Santiago,” the boy said to him as they climbed the bank from where the skiff was hauled up |пришвартована|. “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 |сомневался|.”

“It was papa made |заставил| me leave. I am a boy and I must obey |подчиняться| 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 |снаряжение| home.”

“Why not?” the old man said. “Between fishermen.”

They sat on the Terrace and many of the fishermen made fun |смеялись| 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 |течение| and the depths they had drifted their lines at |глубины, на которых они тащили свои лески| 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 |разделали своих марлинов. Марлин — вид рыбы| and carried them laid full length across two planks |поперек двух досок|, with two men staggering |взявшись| 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 |поймали… отвезли| them to the shark factory on the other side of the cove |бухты| where they were hoisted on a block and tackle |были подвешены на блоках|, their livers removed, their fins cut off and their hides skinned out and their flesh cut into strips |печень была удалена, плавники отрезаны, кожа снята, а мясо порезано на полоски| for salting.