“He is tiring or he is resting,”the old man said.“Now let me get through the eating of this dolphin and get some rest and a little sleep.”
“He hasn't changed at all,”he said.But watching the movement of the water against his hand he noticed that it was perceptibly slower.
“I do not know,”he said aloud.“I never had a bone spur.”
“But you have not slept yet,old man,”he said aloud.“ It is half a day and a night and now another day and you have not slept.You must devise a way so that you sleep a little if he is quiet and steady.If you do not sleep you might become unclear in the head.”
He rested for what he believed to be two hours. The moon did not rise now until late and he had no way of judging the time. Nor was he really resting except comparatively.He was still bearing the pull of the fish across his shoulders but he placed his left hand on the gunwale of the bow and confided more and more of the resistance to the fish to the skiff itself.
This is the second day now that I do not know the result of the juegos,he thought.But I must have confidence and I must be worthy of the great DiMaggio who does all things perfectly even with the pain of the bone spur in his heel. What is a bone spur?He asked himself.Un espuela de hueso. We do not have them.Can it be as painful as the spur of a fighting cock in one's heel?I do not think I could endure that or the loss of the eye and of both eyes and continue to fight as the fighting cocks do.Man is not much beside the great birds and beasts.Still I would rather be that beast down there in the darkness of the sea.