The fisherman rolled down in the sand beside him.
“Excuse me,” he said. “When I felt you catch me I didn’t think, and I put you down.”
The painter laughed.
“Now you see how much better your trade is than mine?”
“No. What have trades to do with it? One of us had to go under. Another time you would probably beat me. Let’s try again. Come!”
He started to get up, but the painter pulled him back.
“You know perfectly well that I couldn’t beat you if I tried all day! Look at that!” He held out his arm this time, and made the fisherman do the same. “And look at that!” He stretched a lean white leg beside the muscular brown one of the fisherman. The comparison made him wince, as he marked again how toil and peril had only wrought on the other’s body like surpassing sculpture. He went on: “There is no reason why I should not be as strong and as good to look at as you. I am perhaps no older, and I am not ill, and I have never been hurt. Then why are we so different? It is just this very thing—the difference between our mestieri. For when you were pulling up nets on the sand, I was making little paper sunsets for people to buy—when they could have new and better ones every day for nothing, by looking out of the window! And when you were watching the stars play behind your sail, I was sitting in stuffy rooms. Lamps are not so good for one as stars! And when you were fighting the sea in storms, I was running about the world trying to find some new thing. And so you are what you are, and I am this!” He looked down at himself and laughed bitterly.
“That may be,” said the fisherman, puzzled and a little embarrassed. “But what if I am strong? You are strong enough. You have not been prevented from enjoying. Was it worth while for me to do all those things just to be able to put you down? What difference does it make to me? I would rather have been in your place.”
“No! Outside things cannot make you happy, unless they fit with something inside. And the things which make happiness are so few and so simple that anybody can find them—like love, and sunshine. That is all the good my journeys have done me—to teach me this. I know these things, but you have them.” He stopped abruptly.
The fisherman looked at him a long time saying nothing. When finally he spoke it was humbly, as one lower to one higher.