Santiago remembers the time he hooked the female of a pair of marlins and the male stayed nearby until after Santiago had her in the boat. As Santiago was preparing the harpoon, the male jumped to see where the female was and then dove deep and was gone. Santiago still recalls the male marlin's beauty and how the whole incident was the saddest thing he ever saw. Both he and the boy felt sad afterwards, so they begged the female marlin's pardon and quickly butchered her.
Santiago thinks about the fact that both he and the marlin he has hooked have made a choice: the marlin's "to stay in the deep, dark water far out beyond all snares and traps and treacheries" and Santiago's "to go there to find him beyond all people." So now both are joined together, with no one to help either of them. At that moment, Santiago wonders whether he should not have been a fishermen, but then he reminds himself, "that was the thing that I was born for." Immediately, he snaps back to matters at hand, reminding himself to eat the tuna in the morning to keep up his strength.
In the night, Santiago catches another fish on one of his other lines but cuts it loose before he even knows what it is. He also cuts away the other leader line that is still in the water, so he can use all the reserve coils of line to bring in the marlin that he is joined in battle with. He abandons the other catch, the hooks, the lines, and the leaders to land this one fish. Santiago yearns for the boy but then yanks himself back to what he must do at the moment. When the marlin surges forward, the line cuts Santiago's face. He thinks that the fish's back cannot feel as bad as his does but that he has made all possible preparations and that the fish cannot pull the skiff forever. Santiago vows to stay with the fish until he's dead and then recognizes that the fish will do the same with him.
