finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Lord Jim/section_7_part_0.txt
Lord Jim.chapter 8
chapter 8
{"name": "Chapter 8", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapter-8", "summary": "Marlow now recounts more of what Jim told him. On that fateful night, Jim could recall that he was running along the deck, stepping with difficulty over the sleeping Moslems. One man asked for water, and Jim hit him, then thrust his own water bottle at him. Later, on the bridge, Jim again felt alone and doomed. He stood frozen, unable to decide what action to take. He was not afraid to die, but he was paralyzed by the possibility of his dying anonymously among hundreds of screaming natives, disappearing forever beneath the exploding ship. Marlow admits that had he been aboard ship, he probably would not have \"given a counterfeit farthing\" for the possibility that the Patna would not sink. Then he recalls that as he was listening to Jim, he realized that Jim was not speaking to him as a person, but as a symbol -- someone who would justify what Jim had done, as though Marlow were \"an inseparable partner . . . another possessor of his soul.\" For Marlow, this was additional proof that Jim was \"one of us.\" Marlow reminded Jim that a man couldn't continually \"be prepared\" for any and all preconceived emergencies. It was the unexpected which always happened, Marlow told him, never what one expected to happen. Jim scoffed and began to sulk. The Patna, his fellow officers, and even the sea had tricked him. It had all been a cruel, unfair, and tragic joke. Then Jim returned to the events that happened the night he deserted the Patna. One of the officers, he said, pleaded with him to help free a lifeboat, but he refused, and later he slugged the officer. Then the officer shouted out that Jim was a coward. Remembering that moment, Jim laughed with such a savage bitterness that the hotel guests stopped talking and turned to look at Jim in bewilderment.", "analysis": "Chapter 8 continues in an indirect manner, further unraveling the mysterious catastrophe connected with the Patna. Conrad, through Marlow, continues to approach the incident indirectly . For example, instead of attacking the narrative directly, he gives us the reactions of the various members of the crew. He examines Jim first because as first mate, Jim has all of the lifeboats ready for use in spite of the fact that there are not enough to save even half of the pilgrims. Then we see Jim panicking when one of the pilgrims asks for some drinking water for his sick child; Jim interprets the request as a threat and reacts with hostility. Further panicking is seen when Jim feels a \"heavy blow on  shoulder\" only to discover that it is the second engineer, and the captain himself charges against Jim until he realizes that it is actually Jim. Then Jim hears the captain say that he is going to \"clear out\" -- a horribly shocking statement. Throughout this narration, Conrad  is conveying the confusion and horror of the situation which creates the panic and confusion, causing Jim to jump without ever really knowing why he jumped. Again in this chapter, Marlow and the reader are reinvolved in the mystery when Jim once again cries out: \"You think me a cur for standing there, but what would you have done? What! You can't tell nobody can tell.\" And then in the very next paragraph, Marlow reinforces this idea and again repeats it: \"The occasion was obscure, insignificant -- what you will: a lost youngster, one of a million -- but then he was one of us,\" and thus each of us might have done exactly as Jim did. Later in the novel, Stein will categorize Jim as being an extreme romantic. Here in this chapter, Conrad is already preparing us for this scene as he emphasizes Jim's simplicity and his innocence -- two qualities most often associated with the romantic. It is Jim's innocence which makes it so hard for him to deal with the deviousness of the other members of the crew, especially when the first engineer attacks Jim and then cries out: \"Won't you save your own life -- you infernal coward?\" Jim cannot react to this except to laugh bitterly over the irony of it, especially now that he has been internationally branded as a coward because he did save his life by jumping. Even though the reader is still not informed precisely as to the true nature of the Patna episode, this chapter does provide a final clue: \"And still she floated! These sleeping pilgrims were destined to accomplish their whole pilgrimage to the bitterness of some other end.\" By now there should be enough clues for the reader to form a very definite view -- that the crew, thinking that the ship would sink, abandoned the ship and yet the ship miraculously did not sink."}

'How long he stood stock-still by the hatch expecting every moment to
feel the ship dip under his feet and the rush of water take him at the
back and toss him like a chip, I cannot say. Not very long--two minutes
perhaps. A couple of men he could not make out began to converse
drowsily, and also, he could not tell where, he detected a curious
noise of shuffling feet. Above these faint sounds there was that awful
stillness preceding a catastrophe, that trying silence of the moment
before the crash; then it came into his head that perhaps he would have
time to rush along and cut all the lanyards of the gripes, so that the
boats would float as the ship went down.

'The Patna had a long bridge, and all the boats were up there, four on
one side and three on the other--the smallest of them on the port-side
and nearly abreast of the steering gear. He assured me, with evident
anxiety to be believed, that he had been most careful to keep them ready
for instant service. He knew his duty. I dare say he was a good enough
mate as far as that went. "I always believed in being prepared for the
worst," he commented, staring anxiously in my face. I nodded my approval
of the sound principle, averting my eyes before the subtle unsoundness
of the man.

'He started unsteadily to run. He had to step over legs, avoid stumbling
against the heads. Suddenly some one caught hold of his coat from below,
and a distressed voice spoke under his elbow. The light of the lamp he
carried in his right hand fell upon an upturned dark face whose eyes
entreated him together with the voice. He had picked up enough of the
language to understand the word water, repeated several times in a tone
of insistence, of prayer, almost of despair. He gave a jerk to get away,
and felt an arm embrace his leg.

'"The beggar clung to me like a drowning man," he said impressively.
"Water, water! What water did he mean? What did he know? As calmly as
I could I ordered him to let go. He was stopping me, time was pressing,
other men began to stir; I wanted time--time to cut the boats adrift.
He got hold of my hand now, and I felt that he would begin to shout. It
flashed upon me it was enough to start a panic, and I hauled off with
my free arm and slung the lamp in his face. The glass jingled, the light
went out, but the blow made him let go, and I ran off--I wanted to get
at the boats; I wanted to get at the boats. He leaped after me from
behind. I turned on him. He would not keep quiet; he tried to shout; I
had half throttled him before I made out what he wanted. He wanted some
water--water to drink; they were on strict allowance, you know, and
he had with him a young boy I had noticed several times. His child was
sick--and thirsty. He had caught sight of me as I passed by, and was
begging for a little water. That's all. We were under the bridge, in
the dark. He kept on snatching at my wrists; there was no getting rid of
him. I dashed into my berth, grabbed my water-bottle, and thrust it into
his hands. He vanished. I didn't find out till then how much I was in
want of a drink myself." He leaned on one elbow with a hand over his
eyes.

'I felt a creepy sensation all down my backbone; there was something
peculiar in all this. The fingers of the hand that shaded his brow
trembled slightly. He broke the short silence.

'"These things happen only once to a man and . . . Ah! well! When I got
on the bridge at last the beggars were getting one of the boats off the
chocks. A boat! I was running up the ladder when a heavy blow fell on
my shoulder, just missing my head. It didn't stop me, and the chief
engineer--they had got him out of his bunk by then--raised the
boat-stretcher again. Somehow I had no mind to be surprised at anything.
All this seemed natural--and awful--and awful. I dodged that miserable
maniac, lifted him off the deck as though he had been a little child,
and he started whispering in my arms: 'Don't! don't! I thought you were
one of them niggers.' I flung him away, he skidded along the bridge and
knocked the legs from under the little chap--the second. The skipper,
busy about the boat, looked round and came at me head down, growling
like a wild beast. I flinched no more than a stone. I was as solid
standing there as this," he tapped lightly with his knuckles the wall
beside his chair. "It was as though I had heard it all, seen it all,
gone through it all twenty times already. I wasn't afraid of them. I
drew back my fist and he stopped short, muttering--

'"'Ah! it's you. Lend a hand quick.'

'"That's what he said. Quick! As if anybody could be quick enough.
'Aren't you going to do something?' I asked. 'Yes. Clear out,' he
snarled over his shoulder.

'"I don't think I understood then what he meant. The other two had
picked themselves up by that time, and they rushed together to the boat.
They tramped, they wheezed, they shoved, they cursed the boat, the ship,
each other--cursed me. All in mutters. I didn't move, I didn't speak.
I watched the slant of the ship. She was as still as if landed on the
blocks in a dry dock--only she was like this," He held up his hand,
palm under, the tips of the fingers inclined downwards. "Like this," he
repeated. "I could see the line of the horizon before me, as clear as a
bell, above her stem-head; I could see the water far off there black
and sparkling, and still--still as a-pond, deadly still, more still than
ever sea was before--more still than I could bear to look at. Have you
watched a ship floating head down, checked in sinking by a sheet of old
iron too rotten to stand being shored up? Have you? Oh yes, shored up? I
thought of that--I thought of every mortal thing; but can you shore up a
bulkhead in five minutes--or in fifty for that matter? Where was I going
to get men that would go down below? And the timber--the timber! Would
you have had the courage to swing the maul for the first blow if you
had seen that bulkhead? Don't say you would: you had not seen it; nobody
would. Hang it--to do a thing like that you must believe there is a
chance, one in a thousand, at least, some ghost of a chance; and you
would not have believed. Nobody would have believed. You think me a
cur for standing there, but what would you have done? What! You can't
tell--nobody can tell. One must have time to turn round. What would you
have me do? Where was the kindness in making crazy with fright all those
people I could not save single-handed--that nothing could save? Look
here! As true as I sit on this chair before you . . ."

'He drew quick breaths at every few words and shot quick glances at my
face, as though in his anguish he were watchful of the effect. He was
not speaking to me, he was only speaking before me, in a dispute with
an invisible personality, an antagonistic and inseparable partner of his
existence--another possessor of his soul. These were issues beyond the
competency of a court of inquiry: it was a subtle and momentous quarrel
as to the true essence of life, and did not want a judge. He wanted
an ally, a helper, an accomplice. I felt the risk I ran of being
circumvented, blinded, decoyed, bullied, perhaps, into taking a definite
part in a dispute impossible of decision if one had to be fair to all
the phantoms in possession--to the reputable that had its claims and
to the disreputable that had its exigencies. I can't explain to you who
haven't seen him and who hear his words only at second hand the mixed
nature of my feelings. It seemed to me I was being made to comprehend
the Inconceivable--and I know of nothing to compare with the discomfort
of such a sensation. I was made to look at the convention that lurks in
all truth and on the essential sincerity of falsehood. He appealed to
all sides at once--to the side turned perpetually to the light of day,
and to that side of us which, like the other hemisphere of the moon,
exists stealthily in perpetual darkness, with only a fearful ashy light
falling at times on the edge. He swayed me. I own to it, I own up. The
occasion was obscure, insignificant--what you will: a lost youngster,
one in a million--but then he was one of us; an incident as completely
devoid of importance as the flooding of an ant-heap, and yet the mystery
of his attitude got hold of me as though he had been an individual
in the forefront of his kind, as if the obscure truth involved were
momentous enough to affect mankind's conception of itself. . . .'

Marlow paused to put new life into his expiring cheroot, seemed to
forget all about the story, and abruptly began again.

'My fault of course. One has no business really to get interested. It's
a weakness of mine. His was of another kind. My weakness consists in not
having a discriminating eye for the incidental--for the externals--no
eye for the hod of the rag-picker or the fine linen of the next man.
Next man--that's it. I have met so many men,' he pursued, with momentary
sadness--'met them too with a certain--certain--impact, let us say; like
this fellow, for instance--and in each case all I could see was merely
the human being. A confounded democratic quality of vision which may be
better than total blindness, but has been of no advantage to me, I can
assure you. Men expect one to take into account their fine linen. But
I never could get up any enthusiasm about these things. Oh! it's a
failing; it's a failing; and then comes a soft evening; a lot of men too
indolent for whist--and a story. . . .'

He paused again to wait for an encouraging remark, perhaps, but nobody
spoke; only the host, as if reluctantly performing a duty, murmured--

'You are so subtle, Marlow.'

'Who? I?' said Marlow in a low voice. 'Oh no! But _he_ was; and try as I
may for the success of this yarn, I am missing innumerable shades--they
were so fine, so difficult to render in colourless words. Because he
complicated matters by being so simple, too--the simplest poor
devil! . . . By Jove! he was amazing. There he sat telling me that just
as I saw him before my eyes he wouldn't be afraid to face anything--and
believing in it too. I tell you it was fabulously innocent and it was
enormous, enormous! I watched him covertly, just as though I had
suspected him of an intention to take a jolly good rise out of me. He
was confident that, on the square, "on the square, mind!" there was
nothing he couldn't meet. Ever since he had been "so high"--"quite a
little chap," he had been preparing himself for all the difficulties
that can beset one on land and water. He confessed proudly to this kind
of foresight. He had been elaborating dangers and defences, expecting
the worst, rehearsing his best. He must have led a most exalted
existence. Can you fancy it? A succession of adventures, so much glory,
such a victorious progress! and the deep sense of his sagacity crowning
every day of his inner life. He forgot himself; his eyes shone; and with
every word my heart, searched by the light of his absurdity, was growing
heavier in my breast. I had no mind to laugh, and lest I should smile I
made for myself a stolid face. He gave signs of irritation.

'"It is always the unexpected that happens," I said in a propitiatory
tone. My obtuseness provoked him into a contemptuous "Pshaw!" I suppose
he meant that the unexpected couldn't touch him; nothing less than the
unconceivable itself could get over his perfect state of preparation. He
had been taken unawares--and he whispered to himself a malediction upon
the waters and the firmament, upon the ship, upon the men. Everything
had betrayed him! He had been tricked into that sort of high-minded
resignation which prevented him lifting as much as his little finger,
while these others who had a very clear perception of the actual
necessity were tumbling against each other and sweating desperately over
that boat business. Something had gone wrong there at the last moment.
It appears that in their flurry they had contrived in some mysterious
way to get the sliding bolt of the foremost boat-chock jammed tight, and
forthwith had gone out of the remnants of their minds over the deadly
nature of that accident. It must have been a pretty sight, the fierce
industry of these beggars toiling on a motionless ship that floated
quietly in the silence of a world asleep, fighting against time for the
freeing of that boat, grovelling on all-fours, standing up in despair,
tugging, pushing, snarling at each other venomously, ready to kill,
ready to weep, and only kept from flying at each other's throats by
the fear of death that stood silent behind them like an inflexible and
cold-eyed taskmaster. Oh yes! It must have been a pretty sight. He
saw it all, he could talk about it with scorn and bitterness; he had a
minute knowledge of it by means of some sixth sense, I conclude, because
he swore to me he had remained apart without a glance at them and at the
boat--without one single glance. And I believe him. I should think he
was too busy watching the threatening slant of the ship, the suspended
menace discovered in the midst of the most perfect security--fascinated
by the sword hanging by a hair over his imaginative head.

'Nothing in the world moved before his eyes, and he could depict to
himself without hindrance the sudden swing upwards of the dark sky-line,
the sudden tilt up of the vast plain of the sea, the swift still rise,
the brutal fling, the grasp of the abyss, the struggle without hope, the
starlight closing over his head for ever like the vault of a tomb--the
revolt of his young life--the black end. He could! By Jove! who
couldn't? And you must remember he was a finished artist in that
peculiar way, he was a gifted poor devil with the faculty of swift and
forestalling vision. The sights it showed him had turned him into cold
stone from the soles of his feet to the nape of his neck; but there
was a hot dance of thoughts in his head, a dance of lame, blind, mute
thoughts--a whirl of awful cripples. Didn't I tell you he confessed
himself before me as though I had the power to bind and to loose? He
burrowed deep, deep, in the hope of my absolution, which would have been
of no good to him. This was one of those cases which no solemn deception
can palliate, where no man can help; where his very Maker seems to
abandon a sinner to his own devices.

'He stood on the starboard side of the bridge, as far as he could get
from the struggle for the boat, which went on with the agitation
of madness and the stealthiness of a conspiracy. The two Malays had
meantime remained holding to the wheel. Just picture to yourselves
the actors in that, thank God! unique, episode of the sea, four beside
themselves with fierce and secret exertions, and three looking on in
complete immobility, above the awnings covering the profound ignorance
of hundreds of human beings, with their weariness, with their dreams,
with their hopes, arrested, held by an invisible hand on the brink of
annihilation. For that they were so, makes no doubt to me: given the
state of the ship, this was the deadliest possible description of
accident that could happen. These beggars by the boat had every reason
to go distracted with funk. Frankly, had I been there, I would not have
given as much as a counterfeit farthing for the ship's chance to keep
above water to the end of each successive second. And still she
floated! These sleeping pilgrims were destined to accomplish their
whole pilgrimage to the bitterness of some other end. It was as if the
Omnipotence whose mercy they confessed had needed their humble testimony
on earth for a while longer, and had looked down to make a sign,
"Thou shalt not!" to the ocean. Their escape would trouble me as a
prodigiously inexplicable event, did I not know how tough old iron can
be--as tough sometimes as the spirit of some men we meet now and then,
worn to a shadow and breasting the weight of life. Not the least
wonder of these twenty minutes, to my mind, is the behaviour of the two
helmsmen. They were amongst the native batch of all sorts brought over
from Aden to give evidence at the inquiry. One of them, labouring under
intense bashfulness, was very young, and with his smooth, yellow,
cheery countenance looked even younger than he was. I remember perfectly
Brierly asking him, through the interpreter, what he thought of it at
the time, and the interpreter, after a short colloquy, turning to the
court with an important air--

'"He says he thought nothing."

'The other, with patient blinking eyes, a blue cotton handkerchief,
faded with much washing, bound with a smart twist over a lot of grey
wisps, his face shrunk into grim hollows, his brown skin made darker by
a mesh of wrinkles, explained that he had a knowledge of some evil thing
befalling the ship, but there had been no order; he could not remember
an order; why should he leave the helm? To some further questions he
jerked back his spare shoulders, and declared it never came into his
mind then that the white men were about to leave the ship through
fear of death. He did not believe it now. There might have been secret
reasons. He wagged his old chin knowingly. Aha! secret reasons. He was
a man of great experience, and he wanted _that_ white Tuan to know--he
turned towards Brierly, who didn't raise his head--that he had acquired
a knowledge of many things by serving white men on the sea for a great
number of years--and, suddenly, with shaky excitement he poured upon
our spellbound attention a lot of queer-sounding names, names of
dead-and-gone skippers, names of forgotten country ships, names of
familiar and distorted sound, as if the hand of dumb time had been at
work on them for ages. They stopped him at last. A silence fell upon
the court,--a silence that remained unbroken for at least a minute, and
passed gently into a deep murmur. This episode was the sensation of
the second day's proceedings--affecting all the audience, affecting
everybody except Jim, who was sitting moodily at the end of the first
bench, and never looked up at this extraordinary and damning witness
that seemed possessed of some mysterious theory of defence.

'So these two lascars stuck to the helm of that ship without
steerage-way, where death would have found them if such had been their
destiny. The whites did not give them half a glance, had probably
forgotten their existence. Assuredly Jim did not remember it. He
remembered he could do nothing; he could do nothing, now he was alone.
There was nothing to do but to sink with the ship. No use making a
disturbance about it. Was there? He waited upstanding, without a sound,
stiffened in the idea of some sort of heroic discretion. The first
engineer ran cautiously across the bridge to tug at his sleeve.

'"Come and help! For God's sake, come and help!"

'He ran back to the boat on the points of his toes, and returned
directly to worry at his sleeve, begging and cursing at the same time.

'"I believe he would have kissed my hands," said Jim savagely, "and,
next moment, he starts foaming and whispering in my face, 'If I had
the time I would like to crack your skull for you.' I pushed him away.
Suddenly he caught hold of me round the neck. Damn him! I hit him. I
hit out without looking. 'Won't you save your own life--you infernal
coward?' he sobs. Coward! He called me an infernal coward! Ha! ha! ha!
ha! He called me--ha! ha! ha! . . ."

'He had thrown himself back and was shaking with laughter. I had never
in my life heard anything so bitter as that noise. It fell like a blight
on all the merriment about donkeys, pyramids, bazaars, or what not.
Along the whole dim length of the gallery the voices dropped, the pale
blotches of faces turned our way with one accord, and the silence
became so profound that the clear tinkle of a teaspoon falling on
the tesselated floor of the verandah rang out like a tiny and silvery
scream.

'"You mustn't laugh like this, with all these people about," I
remonstrated. "It isn't nice for them, you know."

'He gave no sign of having heard at first, but after a while, with a
stare that, missing me altogether, seemed to probe the heart of some
awful vision, he muttered carelessly--"Oh! they'll think I am drunk."

'And after that you would have thought from his appearance he would
never make a sound again. But--no fear! He could no more stop telling
now than he could have stopped living by the mere exertion of his will.'



Chapter 8
Marlow now recounts more of what Jim told him. On that fateful night, Jim could recall that he was running along the deck, stepping with difficulty over the sleeping Moslems. One man asked for water, and Jim hit him, then thrust his own water bottle at him. Later, on the bridge, Jim again felt alone and doomed. He stood frozen, unable to decide what action to take. He was not afraid to die, but he was paralyzed by the possibility of his dying anonymously among hundreds of screaming natives, disappearing forever beneath the exploding ship. Marlow admits that had he been aboard ship, he probably would not have "given a counterfeit farthing" for the possibility that the Patna would not sink. Then he recalls that as he was listening to Jim, he realized that Jim was not speaking to him as a person, but as a symbol -- someone who would justify what Jim had done, as though Marlow were "an inseparable partner . . . another possessor of his soul." For Marlow, this was additional proof that Jim was "one of us." Marlow reminded Jim that a man couldn't continually "be prepared" for any and all preconceived emergencies. It was the unexpected which always happened, Marlow told him, never what one expected to happen. Jim scoffed and began to sulk. The Patna, his fellow officers, and even the sea had tricked him. It had all been a cruel, unfair, and tragic joke. Then Jim returned to the events that happened the night he deserted the Patna. One of the officers, he said, pleaded with him to help free a lifeboat, but he refused, and later he slugged the officer. Then the officer shouted out that Jim was a coward. Remembering that moment, Jim laughed with such a savage bitterness that the hotel guests stopped talking and turned to look at Jim in bewilderment.
Chapter 8 continues in an indirect manner, further unraveling the mysterious catastrophe connected with the Patna. Conrad, through Marlow, continues to approach the incident indirectly . For example, instead of attacking the narrative directly, he gives us the reactions of the various members of the crew. He examines Jim first because as first mate, Jim has all of the lifeboats ready for use in spite of the fact that there are not enough to save even half of the pilgrims. Then we see Jim panicking when one of the pilgrims asks for some drinking water for his sick child; Jim interprets the request as a threat and reacts with hostility. Further panicking is seen when Jim feels a "heavy blow on  shoulder" only to discover that it is the second engineer, and the captain himself charges against Jim until he realizes that it is actually Jim. Then Jim hears the captain say that he is going to "clear out" -- a horribly shocking statement. Throughout this narration, Conrad  is conveying the confusion and horror of the situation which creates the panic and confusion, causing Jim to jump without ever really knowing why he jumped. Again in this chapter, Marlow and the reader are reinvolved in the mystery when Jim once again cries out: "You think me a cur for standing there, but what would you have done? What! You can't tell nobody can tell." And then in the very next paragraph, Marlow reinforces this idea and again repeats it: "The occasion was obscure, insignificant -- what you will: a lost youngster, one of a million -- but then he was one of us," and thus each of us might have done exactly as Jim did. Later in the novel, Stein will categorize Jim as being an extreme romantic. Here in this chapter, Conrad is already preparing us for this scene as he emphasizes Jim's simplicity and his innocence -- two qualities most often associated with the romantic. It is Jim's innocence which makes it so hard for him to deal with the deviousness of the other members of the crew, especially when the first engineer attacks Jim and then cries out: "Won't you save your own life -- you infernal coward?" Jim cannot react to this except to laugh bitterly over the irony of it, especially now that he has been internationally branded as a coward because he did save his life by jumping. Even though the reader is still not informed precisely as to the true nature of the Patna episode, this chapter does provide a final clue: "And still she floated! These sleeping pilgrims were destined to accomplish their whole pilgrimage to the bitterness of some other end." By now there should be enough clues for the reader to form a very definite view -- that the crew, thinking that the ship would sink, abandoned the ship and yet the ship miraculously did not sink.