finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Lord Jim/section_17_part_0.txt
Lord Jim.chapters 26-27
chapters 26-27
{"name": "Chapters 26-27", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapters-2627", "summary": "At this point, Marlow interrupts his narrative in order to introduce us to the incredible person of Doramin, the longtime friend of Stein. Doramin, Marlow says, was remarkable. He was an imposing, monumental hulk of a man, with proud, staring eyes. In contrast, his wife was light, delicate, quick, and a little witchlike, despite the fact that she was always fussing over him. Their only son, Dain Waris, was Jim's best friend. He was married at eighteen and was now twenty-five. He was attentive and deeply respectful of his parents, and he loved Jim and trusted him implicitly and without reservation. Because of their deep, warm, war-comrade sort of friendship, each of the men, Marlow says, was a \"captive\" of the other, just as Marlow observed earlier that Jim was a \"captive\" of Patusan. These, then, were Jim's most trusted allies, those to whom he would owe complete allegiance when he initiated his plan to bring peace to Patusan. He had no other choice than to try and bring peace to the island, he told Marlow; in fact, he felt compelled to try and bring peace to the island. \"It seemed to come to me. All at once I saw what I had to do.\" Everywhere that Jim looked, he saw fear. He realized that he would have to do something dramatic and daring in order to control both Rajah Allang and Sherif Ali. In a moment of almost mystical vision, Jim realized that he had \"the power to make peace\"; that was to be his purpose in Patusan. His plan was bold and audacious, but he believed that he could persuade enough of the natives who supported Doramin to help him destroy Sherif Ali's stockade. Not surprisingly, Dain Waris was the first native to support Jim's plan. First, two old and rusty \"seven-pound brass cannons\" had to be hauled by ingenious means up one of the mountains. From that vantage point, Jim could blow up Sherif Ali's camp on the other mountain, and then a large group of men would storm through the remains of Sherif Ali's camp. The men worked all night long in a superhuman effort to pull the enormously heavy cannons up the mountain, the noses of them \"tearing slowly through the bushes, like a wild pig rooting its way in the undergrowth.\" Sherif Ali watched Jim and the natives and thought that they were idiotic. But old Doramin was so fascinated by Jim's plan that he had himself carried up the hill in his armchair so that he could watch. Jim figured that if his plan didn't work, Doramin had decided that he wanted to die on the mountain. Nobody, Jim says, truly believed that his plan would work -- except Jim himself. Marlow says that after Jim's dramatically successful rout of Sherif Ali, he became a legend in Patusan; the natives believed that he had supernatural powers. Stories were told about Jim's literally carrying the enormous brass cannons up the mountain on his back. Jim laughed a \"Homeric peal of laughter\" when he related this tale to Marlow. Speaking of the enormous explosion, he said, \"You should have seen the splinters fly.\" Jim and Dain Waris were the first ones to invade the stockade, which was built so flimsily that it almost fell down before them. Instantly, Dain Waris saved Jim's life from the spear of a \"pockmarked tattooed native.\" The third man into the ruins of the stockade was young Tamb' Itam, and from that moment on, Tamb' Itam became inseparable from Jim. Symbolically, he would follow Jim everywhere, like, Marlow says, \"a morose shadow of darkness.\" Very soon, Jim made him \"headman,\" and all Patusan respected him and accepted him as a man of much influence. The rout was complete, but afterwards, it was, Jim said, \"an awful responsibility,\" for when success came, Jim realized almost instantly that his soul had been absorbed \"into the innermost life of the people.\" He was the epitome of a hero to the Patusan people. He had their \"blind trust.\" They were totally dependent on him. Their dependence was Jim's total responsibility. Jim was suddenly granted power. Thus, it was no wonder that Jim told Marlow that he had a sudden, jarring sense of isolation and loneliness. He had become \"an exceptional man.\" Every word that he spoke was \"the one truth of every passing day.\" From now on, the natives would look to Jim for Truth.", "analysis": "Chapter 26 establishes the fact that Doramin, his wife, and their son Dain Waris are a very closely knit family, with Dain Waris being the son of their later life. Likewise, Conrad  is anxious to establish the close bond of friendship that exists between Lord Jim and Dain Waris. It should also perhaps be noted that although we are constantly told about the depth of this friendship between Dain Waris and Lord Jim, we seldom see it in operation except for the fact that Dain Waris was the first person to endorse Lord Jim's plan to bombard Sherif Ali's stronghold, and that it was Dain Waris who saved Jim's life. Of course, we are also told that Dain Waris \"not only trusted Jim, he understood him.\" The emphasis upon the closeness between Doramin and his son and upon the close friendship between Lord Jim and Dain Waris foreshadows the final moments in Lord Jim's life. Likewise, the pair of magnificent pistols on Doramin's knees will play a sinister part later on. These are the \"immense flintlock pistols\" which Stein gave Doramin in exchange for the ring which Doramin gave Stein, and these are the pistols which will be the instruments of death for Jim. Jim's desire to bring peace to the land becomes tantamount in his mind. His own fate and, later, his fame are both based upon the success of his attack against Sherif Ali. After the success of the bold plan to take the cannons up the mountain and after his routing Sherif Ali, Jim's fame becomes so great that some of the natives even report that he carried the cannons singlehandedly on his own back. After this military success, Jim's fame places him in a position where he is expected to settle everything -- even divorce cases: \"His word decided everything.\" Jim's victory, we realize, gave him a firm sense of his own worth and value: \"Thus he illustrated the moral effect of his victory in war. It was in truth immense.\""}

'Doramin was one of the most remarkable men of his race I had ever seen.
His bulk for a Malay was immense, but he did not look merely fat; he
looked imposing, monumental. This motionless body, clad in rich stuffs,
coloured silks, gold embroideries; this huge head, enfolded in a
red-and-gold headkerchief; the flat, big, round face, wrinkled,
furrowed, with two semicircular heavy folds starting on each side of
wide, fierce nostrils, and enclosing a thick-lipped mouth; the throat
like a bull; the vast corrugated brow overhanging the staring proud
eyes--made a whole that, once seen, can never be forgotten. His
impassive repose (he seldom stirred a limb when once he sat down) was
like a display of dignity. He was never known to raise his voice. It
was a hoarse and powerful murmur, slightly veiled as if heard from a
distance. When he walked, two short, sturdy young fellows, naked to the
waist, in white sarongs and with black skull-caps on the backs of their
heads, sustained his elbows; they would ease him down and stand behind
his chair till he wanted to rise, when he would turn his head slowly,
as if with difficulty, to the right and to the left, and then they would
catch him under his armpits and help him up. For all that, there was
nothing of a cripple about him: on the contrary, all his ponderous
movements were like manifestations of a mighty deliberate force. It
was generally believed he consulted his wife as to public affairs; but
nobody, as far as I know, had ever heard them exchange a single word.
When they sat in state by the wide opening it was in silence. They could
see below them in the declining light the vast expanse of the forest
country, a dark sleeping sea of sombre green undulating as far as the
violet and purple range of mountains; the shining sinuosity of the river
like an immense letter S of beaten silver; the brown ribbon of houses
following the sweep of both banks, overtopped by the twin hills uprising
above the nearer tree-tops. They were wonderfully contrasted: she,
light, delicate, spare, quick, a little witch-like, with a touch of
motherly fussiness in her repose; he, facing her, immense and heavy,
like a figure of a man roughly fashioned of stone, with something
magnanimous and ruthless in his immobility. The son of these old people
was a most distinguished youth.

'They had him late in life. Perhaps he was not really so young as he
looked. Four- or five-and-twenty is not so young when a man is already
father of a family at eighteen. When he entered the large room, lined
and carpeted with fine mats, and with a high ceiling of white sheeting,
where the couple sat in state surrounded by a most deferential retinue,
he would make his way straight to Doramin, to kiss his hand--which the
other abandoned to him, majestically--and then would step across to
stand by his mother's chair. I suppose I may say they idolised him, but
I never caught them giving him an overt glance. Those, it is true, were
public functions. The room was generally thronged. The solemn formality
of greetings and leave-takings, the profound respect expressed in
gestures, on the faces, in the low whispers, is simply indescribable.
"It's well worth seeing," Jim had assured me while we were crossing the
river, on our way back. "They are like people in a book, aren't they?"
he said triumphantly. "And Dain Waris--their son--is the best
friend (barring you) I ever had. What Mr. Stein would call a good
'war-comrade.' I was in luck. Jove! I was in luck when I tumbled amongst
them at my last gasp." He meditated with bowed head, then rousing
himself he added--'"Of course I didn't go to sleep over it, but . . ."
He paused again. "It seemed to come to me," he murmured. "All at once I
saw what I had to do . . ."

'There was no doubt that it had come to him; and it had come through
war, too, as is natural, since this power that came to him was the power
to make peace. It is in this sense alone that might so often is right.
You must not think he had seen his way at once. When he arrived the
Bugis community was in a most critical position. "They were all afraid,"
he said to me--"each man afraid for himself; while I could see as plain
as possible that they must do something at once, if they did not want
to go under one after another, what between the Rajah and that vagabond
Sherif." But to see that was nothing. When he got his idea he had
to drive it into reluctant minds, through the bulwarks of fear, of
selfishness. He drove it in at last. And that was nothing. He had to
devise the means. He devised them--an audacious plan; and his task
was only half done. He had to inspire with his own confidence a lot
of people who had hidden and absurd reasons to hang back; he had to
conciliate imbecile jealousies, and argue away all sorts of senseless
mistrusts. Without the weight of Doramin's authority, and his son's
fiery enthusiasm, he would have failed. Dain Waris, the distinguished
youth, was the first to believe in him; theirs was one of those strange,
profound, rare friendships between brown and white, in which the very
difference of race seems to draw two human beings closer by some mystic
element of sympathy. Of Dain Waris, his own people said with pride that
he knew how to fight like a white man. This was true; he had that
sort of courage--the courage in the open, I may say--but he had also a
European mind. You meet them sometimes like that, and are surprised to
discover unexpectedly a familiar turn of thought, an unobscured vision,
a tenacity of purpose, a touch of altruism. Of small stature, but
admirably well proportioned, Dain Waris had a proud carriage, a
polished, easy bearing, a temperament like a clear flame. His dusky
face, with big black eyes, was in action expressive, and in repose
thoughtful. He was of a silent disposition; a firm glance, an ironic
smile, a courteous deliberation of manner seemed to hint at great
reserves of intelligence and power. Such beings open to the Western eye,
so often concerned with mere surfaces, the hidden possibilities of races
and lands over which hangs the mystery of unrecorded ages. He not only
trusted Jim, he understood him, I firmly believe. I speak of him because
he had captivated me. His--if I may say so--his caustic placidity,
and, at the same time, his intelligent sympathy with Jim's aspirations,
appealed to me. I seemed to behold the very origin of friendship. If
Jim took the lead, the other had captivated his leader. In fact, Jim
the leader was a captive in every sense. The land, the people, the
friendship, the love, were like the jealous guardians of his body.
Every day added a link to the fetters of that strange freedom. I felt
convinced of it, as from day to day I learned more of the story.

'The story! Haven't I heard the story? I've heard it on the march, in
camp (he made me scour the country after invisible game); I've listened
to a good part of it on one of the twin summits, after climbing the last
hundred feet or so on my hands and knees. Our escort (we had volunteer
followers from village to village) had camped meantime on a bit of level
ground half-way up the slope, and in the still breathless evening the
smell of wood-smoke reached our nostrils from below with the penetrating
delicacy of some choice scent. Voices also ascended, wonderful in their
distinct and immaterial clearness. Jim sat on the trunk of a felled
tree, and pulling out his pipe began to smoke. A new growth of grass and
bushes was springing up; there were traces of an earthwork under a mass
of thorny twigs. "It all started from here," he said, after a long and
meditative silence. On the other hill, two hundred yards across a sombre
precipice, I saw a line of high blackened stakes, showing here and there
ruinously--the remnants of Sherif Ali's impregnable camp.

'But it had been taken, though. That had been his idea. He had
mounted Doramin's old ordnance on the top of that hill; two rusty iron
7-pounders, a lot of small brass cannon--currency cannon. But if the
brass guns represent wealth, they can also, when crammed recklessly to
the muzzle, send a solid shot to some little distance. The thing was
to get them up there. He showed me where he had fastened the cables,
explained how he had improvised a rude capstan out of a hollowed log
turning upon a pointed stake, indicated with the bowl of his pipe the
outline of the earthwork. The last hundred feet of the ascent had been
the most difficult. He had made himself responsible for success on his
own head. He had induced the war party to work hard all night. Big
fires lighted at intervals blazed all down the slope, "but up here," he
explained, "the hoisting gang had to fly around in the dark." From the
top he saw men moving on the hillside like ants at work. He himself on
that night had kept on rushing down and climbing up like a squirrel,
directing, encouraging, watching all along the line. Old Doramin had
himself carried up the hill in his arm-chair. They put him down on the
level place upon the slope, and he sat there in the light of one of the
big fires--"amazing old chap--real old chieftain," said Jim, "with his
little fierce eyes--a pair of immense flintlock pistols on his knees.
Magnificent things, ebony, silver-mounted, with beautiful locks and
a calibre like an old blunderbuss. A present from Stein, it seems--in
exchange for that ring, you know. Used to belong to good old McNeil. God
only knows how _he_ came by them. There he sat, moving neither hand nor
foot, a flame of dry brushwood behind him, and lots of people rushing
about, shouting and pulling round him--the most solemn, imposing old
chap you can imagine. He wouldn't have had much chance if Sherif Ali had
let his infernal crew loose at us and stampeded my lot. Eh? Anyhow, he
had come up there to die if anything went wrong. No mistake! Jove! It
thrilled me to see him there--like a rock. But the Sherif must have
thought us mad, and never troubled to come and see how we got on. Nobody
believed it could be done. Why! I think the very chaps who pulled and
shoved and sweated over it did not believe it could be done! Upon my
word I don't think they did. . . ."

'He stood erect, the smouldering brier-wood in his clutch, with a smile
on his lips and a sparkle in his boyish eyes. I sat on the stump of a
tree at his feet, and below us stretched the land, the great expanse of
the forests, sombre under the sunshine, rolling like a sea, with glints
of winding rivers, the grey spots of villages, and here and there a
clearing, like an islet of light amongst the dark waves of continuous
tree-tops. A brooding gloom lay over this vast and monotonous landscape;
the light fell on it as if into an abyss. The land devoured the
sunshine; only far off, along the coast, the empty ocean, smooth and
polished within the faint haze, seemed to rise up to the sky in a wall
of steel.

'And there I was with him, high in the sunshine on the top of that
historic hill of his. He dominated the forest, the secular gloom, the
old mankind. He was like a figure set up on a pedestal, to represent in
his persistent youth the power, and perhaps the virtues, of races that
never grow old, that have emerged from the gloom. I don't know why he
should always have appeared to me symbolic. Perhaps this is the real
cause of my interest in his fate. I don't know whether it was exactly
fair to him to remember the incident which had given a new direction to
his life, but at that very moment I remembered very distinctly. It was
like a shadow in the light.'
'Already the legend had gifted him with supernatural powers. Yes, it
was said, there had been many ropes cunningly disposed, and a strange
contrivance that turned by the efforts of many men, and each gun went
up tearing slowly through the bushes, like a wild pig rooting its way in
the undergrowth, but . . . and the wisest shook their heads. There was
something occult in all this, no doubt; for what is the strength of
ropes and of men's arms? There is a rebellious soul in things which must
be overcome by powerful charms and incantations. Thus old Sura--a very
respectable householder of Patusan--with whom I had a quiet chat one
evening. However, Sura was a professional sorcerer also, who attended
all the rice sowings and reapings for miles around for the purpose of
subduing the stubborn souls of things. This occupation he seemed to
think a most arduous one, and perhaps the souls of things are more
stubborn than the souls of men. As to the simple folk of outlying
villages, they believed and said (as the most natural thing in the
world) that Jim had carried the guns up the hill on his back--two at a
time.

'This would make Jim stamp his foot in vexation and exclaim with an
exasperated little laugh, "What can you do with such silly beggars? They
will sit up half the night talking bally rot, and the greater the lie
the more they seem to like it." You could trace the subtle influence of
his surroundings in this irritation. It was part of his captivity. The
earnestness of his denials was amusing, and at last I said, "My dear
fellow, you don't suppose _I_ believe this." He looked at me quite
startled. "Well, no! I suppose not," he said, and burst into a Homeric
peal of laughter. "Well, anyhow the guns were there, and went off all
together at sunrise. Jove! You should have seen the splinters fly," he
cried. By his side Dain Waris, listening with a quiet smile, dropped his
eyelids and shuffled his feet a little. It appears that the success in
mounting the guns had given Jim's people such a feeling of confidence
that he ventured to leave the battery under charge of two elderly Bugis
who had seen some fighting in their day, and went to join Dain Waris and
the storming party who were concealed in the ravine. In the small hours
they began creeping up, and when two-thirds of the way up, lay in the
wet grass waiting for the appearance of the sun, which was the agreed
signal. He told me with what impatient anguishing emotion he watched the
swift coming of the dawn; how, heated with the work and the climbing,
he felt the cold dew chilling his very bones; how afraid he was he
would begin to shiver and shake like a leaf before the time came for
the advance. "It was the slowest half-hour in my life," he declared.
Gradually the silent stockade came out on the sky above him. Men
scattered all down the slope were crouching amongst the dark stones and
dripping bushes. Dain Waris was lying flattened by his side. "We
looked at each other," Jim said, resting a gentle hand on his friend's
shoulder. "He smiled at me as cheery as you please, and I dared not stir
my lips for fear I would break out into a shivering fit. 'Pon my word,
it's true! I had been streaming with perspiration when we took cover--so
you may imagine . . ." He declared, and I believe him, that he had no
fears as to the result. He was only anxious as to his ability to repress
these shivers. He didn't bother about the result. He was bound to get to
the top of that hill and stay there, whatever might happen. There could
be no going back for him. Those people had trusted him implicitly. Him
alone! His bare word. . . .

'I remember how, at this point, he paused with his eyes fixed upon me.
"As far as he knew, they never had an occasion to regret it yet,"
he said. "Never. He hoped to God they never would. Meantime--worse
luck!--they had got into the habit of taking his word for anything and
everything. I could have no idea! Why, only the other day an old fool he
had never seen in his life came from some village miles away to find
out if he should divorce his wife. Fact. Solemn word. That's the sort
of thing. . . He wouldn't have believed it. Would I? Squatted on the
verandah chewing betel-nut, sighing and spitting all over the place for
more than an hour, and as glum as an undertaker before he came out with
that dashed conundrum. That's the kind of thing that isn't so funny as
it looks. What was a fellow to say?--Good wife?--Yes. Good wife--old
though. Started a confounded long story about some brass pots. Been
living together for fifteen years--twenty years--could not tell. A long,
long time. Good wife. Beat her a little--not much--just a little, when
she was young. Had to--for the sake of his honour. Suddenly in her old
age she goes and lends three brass pots to her sister's son's wife, and
begins to abuse him every day in a loud voice. His enemies jeered at
him; his face was utterly blackened. Pots totally lost. Awfully cut up
about it. Impossible to fathom a story like that; told him to go home,
and promised to come along myself and settle it all. It's all very well
to grin, but it was the dashedest nuisance! A day's journey through the
forest, another day lost in coaxing a lot of silly villagers to get at
the rights of the affair. There was the making of a sanguinary shindy
in the thing. Every bally idiot took sides with one family or the other,
and one half of the village was ready to go for the other half with
anything that came handy. Honour bright! No joke! . . . Instead of
attending to their bally crops. Got him the infernal pots back of
course--and pacified all hands. No trouble to settle it. Of course not.
Could settle the deadliest quarrel in the country by crooking his little
finger. The trouble was to get at the truth of anything. Was not sure
to this day whether he had been fair to all parties. It worried him. And
the talk! Jove! There didn't seem to be any head or tail to it. Rather
storm a twenty-foot-high old stockade any day. Much! Child's play to
that other job. Wouldn't take so long either. Well, yes; a funny set
out, upon the whole--the fool looked old enough to be his grandfather.
But from another point of view it was no joke. His word decided
everything--ever since the smashing of Sherif Ali. An awful
responsibility," he repeated. "No, really--joking apart, had it been
three lives instead of three rotten brass pots it would have been the
same. . . ."

'Thus he illustrated the moral effect of his victory in war. It was in
truth immense. It had led him from strife to peace, and through death
into the innermost life of the people; but the gloom of the land spread
out under the sunshine preserved its appearance of inscrutable, of
secular repose. The sound of his fresh young voice--it's extraordinary
how very few signs of wear he showed--floated lightly, and passed away
over the unchanged face of the forests like the sound of the big guns
on that cold dewy morning when he had no other concern on earth but
the proper control of the chills in his body. With the first slant of
sun-rays along these immovable tree-tops the summit of one hill wreathed
itself, with heavy reports, in white clouds of smoke, and the other
burst into an amazing noise of yells, war-cries, shouts of anger, of
surprise, of dismay. Jim and Dain Waris were the first to lay their
hands on the stakes. The popular story has it that Jim with a touch
of one finger had thrown down the gate. He was, of course, anxious
to disclaim this achievement. The whole stockade--he would insist on
explaining to you--was a poor affair (Sherif Ali trusted mainly to the
inaccessible position); and, anyway, the thing had been already knocked
to pieces and only hung together by a miracle. He put his shoulder to it
like a little fool and went in head over heels. Jove! If it hadn't been
for Dain Waris, a pock-marked tattooed vagabond would have pinned him
with his spear to a baulk of timber like one of Stein's beetles. The
third man in, it seems, had been Tamb' Itam, Jim's own servant. This was
a Malay from the north, a stranger who had wandered into Patusan, and
had been forcibly detained by Rajah Allang as paddler of one of the
state boats. He had made a bolt of it at the first opportunity, and
finding a precarious refuge (but very little to eat) amongst the Bugis
settlers, had attached himself to Jim's person. His complexion was very
dark, his face flat, his eyes prominent and injected with bile. There
was something excessive, almost fanatical, in his devotion to his
"white lord." He was inseparable from Jim like a morose shadow. On state
occasions he would tread on his master's heels, one hand on the haft
of his kriss, keeping the common people at a distance by his truculent
brooding glances. Jim had made him the headman of his establishment, and
all Patusan respected and courted him as a person of much influence. At
the taking of the stockade he had distinguished himself greatly by the
methodical ferocity of his fighting. The storming party had come on so
quick--Jim said--that notwithstanding the panic of the garrison, there
was a "hot five minutes hand-to-hand inside that stockade, till some
bally ass set fire to the shelters of boughs and dry grass, and we all
had to clear out for dear life."

'The rout, it seems, had been complete. Doramin, waiting immovably in
his chair on the hillside, with the smoke of the guns spreading slowly
above his big head, received the news with a deep grunt. When informed
that his son was safe and leading the pursuit, he, without another
sound, made a mighty effort to rise; his attendants hurried to his help,
and, held up reverently, he shuffled with great dignity into a bit of
shade, where he laid himself down to sleep, covered entirely with a
piece of white sheeting. In Patusan the excitement was intense. Jim told
me that from the hill, turning his back on the stockade with its embers,
black ashes, and half-consumed corpses, he could see time after time the
open spaces between the houses on both sides of the stream fill suddenly
with a seething rush of people and get empty in a moment. His ears
caught feebly from below the tremendous din of gongs and drums; the wild
shouts of the crowd reached him in bursts of faint roaring. A lot of
streamers made a flutter as of little white, red, yellow birds amongst
the brown ridges of roofs. "You must have enjoyed it," I murmured,
feeling the stir of sympathetic emotion.

'"It was . . . it was immense! Immense!" he cried aloud, flinging his
arms open. The sudden movement startled me as though I had seen him bare
the secrets of his breast to the sunshine, to the brooding forests, to
the steely sea. Below us the town reposed in easy curves upon the banks
of a stream whose current seemed to sleep. "Immense!" he repeated for a
third time, speaking in a whisper, for himself alone.

'Immense! No doubt it was immense; the seal of success upon his words,
the conquered ground for the soles of his feet, the blind trust of
men, the belief in himself snatched from the fire, the solitude of his
achievement. All this, as I've warned you, gets dwarfed in the telling.
I can't with mere words convey to you the impression of his total and
utter isolation. I know, of course, he was in every sense alone of his
kind there, but the unsuspected qualities of his nature had brought him
in such close touch with his surroundings that this isolation seemed
only the effect of his power. His loneliness added to his stature. There
was nothing within sight to compare him with, as though he had been one
of those exceptional men who can be only measured by the greatness of
their fame; and his fame, remember, was the greatest thing around for
many a day's journey. You would have to paddle, pole, or track a long
weary way through the jungle before you passed beyond the reach of its
voice. Its voice was not the trumpeting of the disreputable goddess we
all know--not blatant--not brazen. It took its tone from the stillness
and gloom of the land without a past, where his word was the one truth
of every passing day. It shared something of the nature of that
silence through which it accompanied you into unexplored depths, heard
continuously by your side, penetrating, far-reaching--tinged with wonder
and mystery on the lips of whispering men.'
Chapters 26-27
At this point, Marlow interrupts his narrative in order to introduce us to the incredible person of Doramin, the longtime friend of Stein. Doramin, Marlow says, was remarkable. He was an imposing, monumental hulk of a man, with proud, staring eyes. In contrast, his wife was light, delicate, quick, and a little witchlike, despite the fact that she was always fussing over him. Their only son, Dain Waris, was Jim's best friend. He was married at eighteen and was now twenty-five. He was attentive and deeply respectful of his parents, and he loved Jim and trusted him implicitly and without reservation. Because of their deep, warm, war-comrade sort of friendship, each of the men, Marlow says, was a "captive" of the other, just as Marlow observed earlier that Jim was a "captive" of Patusan. These, then, were Jim's most trusted allies, those to whom he would owe complete allegiance when he initiated his plan to bring peace to Patusan. He had no other choice than to try and bring peace to the island, he told Marlow; in fact, he felt compelled to try and bring peace to the island. "It seemed to come to me. All at once I saw what I had to do." Everywhere that Jim looked, he saw fear. He realized that he would have to do something dramatic and daring in order to control both Rajah Allang and Sherif Ali. In a moment of almost mystical vision, Jim realized that he had "the power to make peace"; that was to be his purpose in Patusan. His plan was bold and audacious, but he believed that he could persuade enough of the natives who supported Doramin to help him destroy Sherif Ali's stockade. Not surprisingly, Dain Waris was the first native to support Jim's plan. First, two old and rusty "seven-pound brass cannons" had to be hauled by ingenious means up one of the mountains. From that vantage point, Jim could blow up Sherif Ali's camp on the other mountain, and then a large group of men would storm through the remains of Sherif Ali's camp. The men worked all night long in a superhuman effort to pull the enormously heavy cannons up the mountain, the noses of them "tearing slowly through the bushes, like a wild pig rooting its way in the undergrowth." Sherif Ali watched Jim and the natives and thought that they were idiotic. But old Doramin was so fascinated by Jim's plan that he had himself carried up the hill in his armchair so that he could watch. Jim figured that if his plan didn't work, Doramin had decided that he wanted to die on the mountain. Nobody, Jim says, truly believed that his plan would work -- except Jim himself. Marlow says that after Jim's dramatically successful rout of Sherif Ali, he became a legend in Patusan; the natives believed that he had supernatural powers. Stories were told about Jim's literally carrying the enormous brass cannons up the mountain on his back. Jim laughed a "Homeric peal of laughter" when he related this tale to Marlow. Speaking of the enormous explosion, he said, "You should have seen the splinters fly." Jim and Dain Waris were the first ones to invade the stockade, which was built so flimsily that it almost fell down before them. Instantly, Dain Waris saved Jim's life from the spear of a "pockmarked tattooed native." The third man into the ruins of the stockade was young Tamb' Itam, and from that moment on, Tamb' Itam became inseparable from Jim. Symbolically, he would follow Jim everywhere, like, Marlow says, "a morose shadow of darkness." Very soon, Jim made him "headman," and all Patusan respected him and accepted him as a man of much influence. The rout was complete, but afterwards, it was, Jim said, "an awful responsibility," for when success came, Jim realized almost instantly that his soul had been absorbed "into the innermost life of the people." He was the epitome of a hero to the Patusan people. He had their "blind trust." They were totally dependent on him. Their dependence was Jim's total responsibility. Jim was suddenly granted power. Thus, it was no wonder that Jim told Marlow that he had a sudden, jarring sense of isolation and loneliness. He had become "an exceptional man." Every word that he spoke was "the one truth of every passing day." From now on, the natives would look to Jim for Truth.
Chapter 26 establishes the fact that Doramin, his wife, and their son Dain Waris are a very closely knit family, with Dain Waris being the son of their later life. Likewise, Conrad  is anxious to establish the close bond of friendship that exists between Lord Jim and Dain Waris. It should also perhaps be noted that although we are constantly told about the depth of this friendship between Dain Waris and Lord Jim, we seldom see it in operation except for the fact that Dain Waris was the first person to endorse Lord Jim's plan to bombard Sherif Ali's stronghold, and that it was Dain Waris who saved Jim's life. Of course, we are also told that Dain Waris "not only trusted Jim, he understood him." The emphasis upon the closeness between Doramin and his son and upon the close friendship between Lord Jim and Dain Waris foreshadows the final moments in Lord Jim's life. Likewise, the pair of magnificent pistols on Doramin's knees will play a sinister part later on. These are the "immense flintlock pistols" which Stein gave Doramin in exchange for the ring which Doramin gave Stein, and these are the pistols which will be the instruments of death for Jim. Jim's desire to bring peace to the land becomes tantamount in his mind. His own fate and, later, his fame are both based upon the success of his attack against Sherif Ali. After the success of the bold plan to take the cannons up the mountain and after his routing Sherif Ali, Jim's fame becomes so great that some of the natives even report that he carried the cannons singlehandedly on his own back. After this military success, Jim's fame places him in a position where he is expected to settle everything -- even divorce cases: "His word decided everything." Jim's victory, we realize, gave him a firm sense of his own worth and value: "Thus he illustrated the moral effect of his victory in war. It was in truth immense."