He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.
他一个老人，划着小船独自在墨西哥湾中捕鱼，接连八十四天，一条鱼也没有捕到。
In the first forty days a boy had been with him.
最初的四十天里，有个孩子跟他在一起。
But after forty days without a fish the boy's parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky,
可是，过了四十天没有捕到一条鱼，孩子的爸妈就对他说，老人现在一定是“背运”，简直倒霉透顶了。
and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week.
孩子在父母的命令下，转到了另外一条船上捕鱼，不出一个星期，就捕到了三条大鱼。

It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty,
然而，孩子看见老人日复一日划着空荡荡的小船回来，心里非常难过，
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.
他总会走下岸去，帮老人拿卷起的绳索，鱼钩，鱼叉，以及绕在桅杆上的帆。
The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.
那面帆上补了一些面粉袋，卷起来时，好似一面象征无限失败的旗帜。
The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck.
老人后颈上有很深的皱纹，显得又瘦又憔悴。
The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks.
从热带海面上反射出来的强烈阳光，在老人的双颊上留下了一块块棕色的斑点。