PASSAGE THREE In the construction of the story the old man is seen with the boy at the beginning and at the end. For the rest of the time he is alone with the sea and its creatures. The very moving relationship between Santiago and the boy is shown through conversation that is distinguished by its tact and courtesy. The old man makes the boy feel mature and responsible. The boy, in turn, is protector as well as pupil, providing refreshment, companionship, and hope. In a sense, the child is the father of the man. Without him, however, Santiago is not achingly lonely. Like so many of Hemingway's men, he finds his mind good company. He relives his experiences and thinks about the sea, the creatures that travel under it and over it, the successes and failures of his life, and those baseball players with whose lives he feels an affinity . The sea of the story lies out beyond Havana, Cuba. It is vast, majestic, and timeless, calm for much of the year, feeling the benign influences of the trade winds and the Gulf Stream. The old man loves its beauty, power, and mystery. "He always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her." Hemingway has testified to his own feeling about the timelessness and majesty of the Gulf Stream in a passage in Green Hills of Africa. The old man shares the writer's conviction that the things a man alone with the Gulf Stream finds out about it and about those that have always lived in it are permanent and of value.