finished_summaries/novelguide/Lord Jim/section_12_part_0.txt
Lord Jim.chapters 30-32
chapters 30-32
{"name": "Chapters 30-32", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210215030710/https://www.novelguide.com/lord-jim/summaries/chapter30-32", "summary": "Thirty One and Thirty Two . In Chapter Thirty, Jim tells Marlow he does not know why he 'hung on' there , but Marlow says we may guess as Jim sympathized deeply with Jewel who was at the mercy of this 'scoundrel'. Cornelius demanded respect from his step-daughter, yet he would also abuse her dead mother. . . At this time, danger was also gathering and Doramin twice sent a servant to ask him to come back across the river to the Bugis people for his safety . Others also came to inform Jim of the plots to kill him and Cornelius said he would procure a man - for 80 dollars - to help him leave the area. Finally, Jim lost his temper with Cornelius. He told him 'nothing can touch me' and defied all of Patusan to scare him away. Afterwards, he felt ashamed, but slept well for the first time in two weeks. . . The next day, in Chapter Thirty One, it is described how Jim persuaded the Bugis to attack Sherif Ali. He felt elated by their commitment and tried to be civil with Cornelius when he returned home. He fell asleep and was woken by Jewel. She said he should follow her outside as he is to be set upon. It was a beautiful night and Marlow reminds his listeners  that this is a love story he is telling us now. Jewel told Jim that the men who are waiting to attack him are in the storeroom and he is elated when she lets him know she has been watching him sleep. Marlow repeats his view that this is a love story. . . Jewel then asked Jim to go to Doramin, but he decided to look in the storeroom instead. She held the torch as he entered. A man ran at him with a weapon and Jim shot him through the mouth. Jim later felt calm as though this man's death 'atoned for everything'. The other three men surrendered. . . Chapter Thirty Two continues with this story and relates how Jewel maintained her grip on the torch as the three men came out and obeyed his instructions. He ordered them to go back to Sherif Ali. . . Jim tells Marlow that he now loves Jewel and feels absolutely necessary to another person. He compares finding her to going out for a stroll and coming suddenly across 'somebody drowning in a lonely dark place'. He also says that even after two years of living there he cannot conceive of returning home as he has not forgotten the reason he first came there. These people can never know 'the real, real truth', but adds that he is 'nearly satisfied'. He believes Marlow would not like him aboard his own ship, and Marlow demurs at this. Later, Jewel stops Marlow when he is alone and he sees that she is anxious that he will take Jim away from her. . . .", "analysis": "Thirty One and Thirty Two . As Marlow recounts the 'love story' between Jewel and Jim, he heightens the sense of romance that is attached to this hero. His bravery is also highlighted in these passages; for example, he defies all of Patusan when he says nothing can touch him. He is seen to refuse to submit to intimidation and his decision to enter the storeroom, rather than run away to Doramin as Jewel wishes him to, demonstrates his regained self-belief. . . It is also telling that he considers the shooting of one of his attackers as a form of atonement. It is as though he feels he has made some amends for jumping from the ship, because he has now stayed and faced his fear."}

'He told me further that he didn't know what made him hang on--but of
course we may guess. He sympathised deeply with the defenceless girl, at
the mercy of that "mean, cowardly scoundrel." It appears Cornelius led
her an awful life, stopping only short of actual ill-usage, for which
he had not the pluck, I suppose. He insisted upon her calling him
father--"and with respect, too--with respect," he would scream, shaking
a little yellow fist in her face. "I am a respectable man, and what are
you? Tell me--what are you? You think I am going to bring up somebody
else's child and not be treated with respect? You ought to be glad I let
you. Come--say Yes, father. . . . No? . . . You wait a bit." Thereupon
he would begin to abuse the dead woman, till the girl would run off with
her hands to her head. He pursued her, dashing in and out and round the
house and amongst the sheds, would drive her into some corner, where she
would fall on her knees stopping her ears, and then he would stand at a
distance and declaim filthy denunciations at her back for half an hour
at a stretch. "Your mother was a devil, a deceitful devil--and you too
are a devil," he would shriek in a final outburst, pick up a bit of dry
earth or a handful of mud (there was plenty of mud around the house),
and fling it into her hair. Sometimes, though, she would hold out full
of scorn, confronting him in silence, her face sombre and contracted,
and only now and then uttering a word or two that would make the other
jump and writhe with the sting. Jim told me these scenes were terrible.
It was indeed a strange thing to come upon in a wilderness. The
endlessness of such a subtly cruel situation was appalling--if you think
of it. The respectable Cornelius (Inchi 'Nelyus the Malays called him,
with a grimace that meant many things) was a much-disappointed man. I
don't know what he had expected would be done for him in consideration
of his marriage; but evidently the liberty to steal, and embezzle, and
appropriate to himself for many years and in any way that suited him
best, the goods of Stein's Trading Company (Stein kept the supply up
unfalteringly as long as he could get his skippers to take it there) did
not seem to him a fair equivalent for the sacrifice of his honourable
name. Jim would have enjoyed exceedingly thrashing Cornelius within an
inch of his life; on the other hand, the scenes were of so painful
a character, so abominable, that his impulse would be to get out of
earshot, in order to spare the girl's feelings. They left her agitated,
speechless, clutching her bosom now and then with a stony,
desperate face, and then Jim would lounge up and say unhappily,
"Now--come--really--what's the use--you must try to eat a bit," or give
some such mark of sympathy. Cornelius would keep on slinking through
the doorways, across the verandah and back again, as mute as a fish, and
with malevolent, mistrustful, underhand glances. "I can stop his game,"
Jim said to her once. "Just say the word." And do you know what she
answered? She said--Jim told me impressively--that if she had not been
sure he was intensely wretched himself, she would have found the courage
to kill him with her own hands. "Just fancy that! The poor devil of a
girl, almost a child, being driven to talk like that," he exclaimed in
horror. It seemed impossible to save her not only from that mean
rascal but even from herself! It wasn't that he pitied her so much, he
affirmed; it was more than pity; it was as if he had something on his
conscience, while that life went on. To leave the house would have
appeared a base desertion. He had understood at last that there was
nothing to expect from a longer stay, neither accounts nor money, nor
truth of any sort, but he stayed on, exasperating Cornelius to the
verge, I won't say of insanity, but almost of courage. Meantime he felt
all sorts of dangers gathering obscurely about him. Doramin had sent
over twice a trusty servant to tell him seriously that he could do
nothing for his safety unless he would recross the river again and live
amongst the Bugis as at first. People of every condition used to call,
often in the dead of night, in order to disclose to him plots for
his assassination. He was to be poisoned. He was to be stabbed in the
bath-house. Arrangements were being made to have him shot from a boat
on the river. Each of these informants professed himself to be his very
good friend. It was enough--he told me--to spoil a fellow's rest for
ever. Something of the kind was extremely possible--nay, probable--but
the lying warnings gave him only the sense of deadly scheming going on
all around him, on all sides, in the dark. Nothing more calculated to
shake the best of nerve. Finally, one night, Cornelius himself, with a
great apparatus of alarm and secrecy, unfolded in solemn wheedling tones
a little plan wherein for one hundred dollars--or even for eighty; let's
say eighty--he, Cornelius, would procure a trustworthy man to smuggle
Jim out of the river, all safe. There was nothing else for it now--if
Jim cared a pin for his life. What's eighty dollars? A trifle. An
insignificant sum. While he, Cornelius, who had to remain behind, was
absolutely courting death by this proof of devotion to Mr. Stein's young
friend. The sight of his abject grimacing was--Jim told me--very hard
to bear: he clutched at his hair, beat his breast, rocked himself to
and fro with his hands pressed to his stomach, and actually pretended to
shed tears. "Your blood be on your own head," he squeaked at last, and
rushed out. It is a curious question how far Cornelius was sincere in
that performance. Jim confessed to me that he did not sleep a wink after
the fellow had gone. He lay on his back on a thin mat spread over the
bamboo flooring, trying idly to make out the bare rafters, and listening
to the rustlings in the torn thatch. A star suddenly twinkled through a
hole in the roof. His brain was in a whirl; but, nevertheless, it was on
that very night that he matured his plan for overcoming Sherif Ali. It
had been the thought of all the moments he could spare from the hopeless
investigation into Stein's affairs, but the notion--he says--came to him
then all at once. He could see, as it were, the guns mounted on the top
of the hill. He got very hot and excited lying there; sleep was out of
the question more than ever. He jumped up, and went out barefooted
on the verandah. Walking silently, he came upon the girl, motionless
against the wall, as if on the watch. In his then state of mind it did
not surprise him to see her up, nor yet to hear her ask in an anxious
whisper where Cornelius could be. He simply said he did not know. She
moaned a little, and peered into the campong. Everything was very quiet.
He was possessed by his new idea, and so full of it that he could not
help telling the girl all about it at once. She listened, clapped her
hands lightly, whispered softly her admiration, but was evidently on the
alert all the time. It seems he had been used to make a confidant of
her all along--and that she on her part could and did give him a lot of
useful hints as to Patusan affairs there is no doubt. He assured me more
than once that he had never found himself the worse for her advice. At
any rate, he was proceeding to explain his plan fully to her there and
then, when she pressed his arm once, and vanished from his side. Then
Cornelius appeared from somewhere, and, perceiving Jim, ducked sideways,
as though he had been shot at, and afterwards stood very still in the
dusk. At last he came forward prudently, like a suspicious cat. "There
were some fishermen there--with fish," he said in a shaky voice. "To
sell fish--you understand." . . . It must have been then two o'clock in
the morning--a likely time for anybody to hawk fish about!

'Jim, however, let the statement pass, and did not give it a single
thought. Other matters occupied his mind, and besides he had neither
seen nor heard anything. He contented himself by saying, "Oh!" absently,
got a drink of water out of a pitcher standing there, and leaving
Cornelius a prey to some inexplicable emotion--that made him embrace
with both arms the worm-eaten rail of the verandah as if his legs had
failed--went in again and lay down on his mat to think. By-and-by he
heard stealthy footsteps. They stopped. A voice whispered tremulously
through the wall, "Are you asleep?" "No! What is it?" he answered
briskly, and there was an abrupt movement outside, and then all was
still, as if the whisperer had been startled. Extremely annoyed at this,
Jim came out impetuously, and Cornelius with a faint shriek fled
along the verandah as far as the steps, where he hung on to the broken
banister. Very puzzled, Jim called out to him from the distance to know
what the devil he meant. "Have you given your consideration to what
I spoke to you about?" asked Cornelius, pronouncing the words with
difficulty, like a man in the cold fit of a fever. "No!" shouted Jim in
a passion. "I have not, and I don't intend to. I am going to live here,
in Patusan." "You shall d-d-die h-h-here," answered Cornelius,
still shaking violently, and in a sort of expiring voice. The whole
performance was so absurd and provoking that Jim didn't know whether he
ought to be amused or angry. "Not till I have seen you tucked away,
you bet," he called out, exasperated yet ready to laugh. Half seriously
(being excited with his own thoughts, you know) he went on shouting,
"Nothing can touch me! You can do your damnedest." Somehow the shadowy
Cornelius far off there seemed to be the hateful embodiment of all the
annoyances and difficulties he had found in his path. He let himself
go--his nerves had been over-wrought for days--and called him many
pretty names,--swindler, liar, sorry rascal: in fact, carried on in an
extraordinary way. He admits he passed all bounds, that he was quite
beside himself--defied all Patusan to scare him away--declared he would
make them all dance to his own tune yet, and so on, in a menacing,
boasting strain. Perfectly bombastic and ridiculous, he said. His ears
burned at the bare recollection. Must have been off his chump in some
way. . . . The girl, who was sitting with us, nodded her little head at
me quickly, frowned faintly, and said, "I heard him," with child-like
solemnity. He laughed and blushed. What stopped him at last, he said,
was the silence, the complete deathlike silence, of the indistinct
figure far over there, that seemed to hang collapsed, doubled over the
rail in a weird immobility. He came to his senses, and ceasing suddenly,
wondered greatly at himself. He watched for a while. Not a stir, not a
sound. "Exactly as if the chap had died while I had been making all that
noise," he said. He was so ashamed of himself that he went indoors in a
hurry without another word, and flung himself down again. The row seemed
to have done him good though, because he went to sleep for the rest of
the night like a baby. Hadn't slept like that for weeks. "But _I_ didn't
sleep," struck in the girl, one elbow on the table and nursing her
cheek. "I watched." Her big eyes flashed, rolling a little, and then she
fixed them on my face intently.'
'You may imagine with what interest I listened. All these details were
perceived to have some significance twenty-four hours later. In the
morning Cornelius made no allusion to the events of the night. "I
suppose you will come back to my poor house," he muttered, surlily,
slinking up just as Jim was entering the canoe to go over to Doramin's
campong. Jim only nodded, without looking at him. "You find it good fun,
no doubt," muttered the other in a sour tone. Jim spent the day with the
old nakhoda, preaching the necessity of vigorous action to the principal
men of the Bugis community, who had been summoned for a big talk. He
remembered with pleasure how very eloquent and persuasive he had been.
"I managed to put some backbone into them that time, and no mistake," he
said. Sherif Ali's last raid had swept the outskirts of the settlement,
and some women belonging to the town had been carried off to the
stockade. Sherif Ali's emissaries had been seen in the market-place the
day before, strutting about haughtily in white cloaks, and boasting of
the Rajah's friendship for their master. One of them stood forward
in the shade of a tree, and, leaning on the long barrel of a rifle,
exhorted the people to prayer and repentance, advising them to kill all
the strangers in their midst, some of whom, he said, were infidels and
others even worse--children of Satan in the guise of Moslems. It was
reported that several of the Rajah's people amongst the listeners had
loudly expressed their approbation. The terror amongst the common people
was intense. Jim, immensely pleased with his day's work, crossed the
river again before sunset.

'As he had got the Bugis irretrievably committed to action and had made
himself responsible for success on his own head, he was so elated that
in the lightness of his heart he absolutely tried to be civil with
Cornelius. But Cornelius became wildly jovial in response, and it was
almost more than he could stand, he says, to hear his little squeaks of
false laughter, to see him wriggle and blink, and suddenly catch hold of
his chin and crouch low over the table with a distracted stare. The
girl did not show herself, and Jim retired early. When he rose to say
good-night, Cornelius jumped up, knocking his chair over, and ducked out
of sight as if to pick up something he had dropped. His good-night came
huskily from under the table. Jim was amazed to see him emerge with a
dropping jaw, and staring, stupidly frightened eyes. He clutched the
edge of the table. "What's the matter? Are you unwell?" asked Jim. "Yes,
yes, yes. A great colic in my stomach," says the other; and it is
Jim's opinion that it was perfectly true. If so, it was, in view of his
contemplated action, an abject sign of a still imperfect callousness for
which he must be given all due credit.

'Be it as it may, Jim's slumbers were disturbed by a dream of heavens
like brass resounding with a great voice, which called upon him to
Awake! Awake! so loud that, notwithstanding his desperate determination
to sleep on, he did wake up in reality. The glare of a red spluttering
conflagration going on in mid-air fell on his eyes. Coils of black thick
smoke curved round the head of some apparition, some unearthly being,
all in white, with a severe, drawn, anxious face. After a second or so
he recognised the girl. She was holding a dammar torch at arm's-length
aloft, and in a persistent, urgent monotone she was repeating, "Get up!
Get up! Get up!"

'Suddenly he leaped to his feet; at once she put into his hand a
revolver, his own revolver, which had been hanging on a nail, but loaded
this time. He gripped it in silence, bewildered, blinking in the light.
He wondered what he could do for her.

'She asked rapidly and very low, "Can you face four men with this?"
He laughed while narrating this part at the recollection of his polite
alacrity. It seems he made a great display of it. "Certainly--of
course--certainly--command me." He was not properly awake, and had a
notion of being very civil in these extraordinary circumstances, of
showing his unquestioning, devoted readiness. She left the room, and
he followed her; in the passage they disturbed an old hag who did the
casual cooking of the household, though she was so decrepit as to be
hardly able to understand human speech. She got up and hobbled behind
them, mumbling toothlessly. On the verandah a hammock of sail-cloth,
belonging to Cornelius, swayed lightly to the touch of Jim's elbow. It
was empty.

'The Patusan establishment, like all the posts of Stein's Trading
Company, had originally consisted of four buildings. Two of them were
represented by two heaps of sticks, broken bamboos, rotten thatch,
over which the four corner-posts of hardwood leaned sadly at different
angles: the principal storeroom, however, stood yet, facing the agent's
house. It was an oblong hut, built of mud and clay; it had at one end a
wide door of stout planking, which so far had not come off the hinges,
and in one of the side walls there was a square aperture, a sort of
window, with three wooden bars. Before descending the few steps the girl
turned her face over her shoulder and said quickly, "You were to be set
upon while you slept." Jim tells me he experienced a sense of deception.
It was the old story. He was weary of these attempts upon his life. He
had had his fill of these alarms. He was sick of them. He assured me he
was angry with the girl for deceiving him. He had followed her under the
impression that it was she who wanted his help, and now he had half
a mind to turn on his heel and go back in disgust. "Do you know," he
commented profoundly, "I rather think I was not quite myself for whole
weeks on end about that time." "Oh yes. You were though," I couldn't
help contradicting.

'But she moved on swiftly, and he followed her into the courtyard. All
its fences had fallen in a long time ago; the neighbours' buffaloes
would pace in the morning across the open space, snorting profoundly,
without haste; the very jungle was invading it already. Jim and the girl
stopped in the rank grass. The light in which they stood made a dense
blackness all round, and only above their heads there was an opulent
glitter of stars. He told me it was a beautiful night--quite cool, with
a little stir of breeze from the river. It seems he noticed its friendly
beauty. Remember this is a love story I am telling you now. A lovely
night seemed to breathe on them a soft caress. The flame of the torch
streamed now and then with a fluttering noise like a flag, and for
a time this was the only sound. "They are in the storeroom waiting,"
whispered the girl; "they are waiting for the signal." "Who's to give
it?" he asked. She shook the torch, which blazed up after a shower of
sparks. "Only you have been sleeping so restlessly," she continued in
a murmur; "I watched your sleep, too." "You!" he exclaimed, craning his
neck to look about him. "You think I watched on this night only!" she
said, with a sort of despairing indignation.

'He says it was as if he had received a blow on the chest. He gasped.
He thought he had been an awful brute somehow, and he felt remorseful,
touched, happy, elated. This, let me remind you again, is a love story;
you can see it by the imbecility, not a repulsive imbecility, the
exalted imbecility of these proceedings, this station in torchlight, as
if they had come there on purpose to have it out for the edification of
concealed murderers. If Sherif Ali's emissaries had been possessed--as
Jim remarked--of a pennyworth of spunk, this was the time to make a
rush. His heart was thumping--not with fear--but he seemed to hear the
grass rustle, and he stepped smartly out of the light. Something dark,
imperfectly seen, flitted rapidly out of sight. He called out in a
strong voice, "Cornelius! O Cornelius!" A profound silence succeeded:
his voice did not seem to have carried twenty feet. Again the girl was
by his side. "Fly!" she said. The old woman was coming up; her broken
figure hovered in crippled little jumps on the edge of the light; they
heard her mumbling, and a light, moaning sigh. "Fly!" repeated the girl
excitedly. "They are frightened now--this light--the voices. They know
you are awake now--they know you are big, strong, fearless . . ." "If
I am all that," he began; but she interrupted him: "Yes--to-night! But
what of to-morrow night? Of the next night? Of the night after--of all
the many, many nights? Can I be always watching?" A sobbing catch of her
breath affected him beyond the power of words.

'He told me that he had never felt so small, so powerless--and as to
courage, what was the good of it? he thought. He was so helpless that
even flight seemed of no use; and though she kept on whispering, "Go to
Doramin, go to Doramin," with feverish insistence, he realised that for
him there was no refuge from that loneliness which centupled all his
dangers except--in her. "I thought," he said to me, "that if I went
away from her it would be the end of everything somehow." Only as they
couldn't stop there for ever in the middle of that courtyard, he made
up his mind to go and look into the storehouse. He let her follow
him without thinking of any protest, as if they had been indissolubly
united. "I am fearless--am I?" he muttered through his teeth. She
restrained his arm. "Wait till you hear my voice," she said, and,
torch in hand, ran lightly round the corner. He remained alone in the
darkness, his face to the door: not a sound, not a breath came from
the other side. The old hag let out a dreary groan somewhere behind his
back. He heard a high-pitched almost screaming call from the girl. "Now!
Push!" He pushed violently; the door swung with a creak and a clatter,
disclosing to his intense astonishment the low dungeon-like interior
illuminated by a lurid, wavering glare. A turmoil of smoke eddied down
upon an empty wooden crate in the middle of the floor, a litter of rags
and straw tried to soar, but only stirred feebly in the draught. She had
thrust the light through the bars of the window. He saw her bare round
arm extended and rigid, holding up the torch with the steadiness of
an iron bracket. A conical ragged heap of old mats cumbered a distant
corner almost to the ceiling, and that was all.

'He explained to me that he was bitterly disappointed at this. His
fortitude had been tried by so many warnings, he had been for weeks
surrounded by so many hints of danger, that he wanted the relief of
some reality, of something tangible that he could meet. "It would have
cleared the air for a couple of hours at least, if you know what I
mean," he said to me. "Jove! I had been living for days with a stone on
my chest." Now at last he had thought he would get hold of something,
and--nothing! Not a trace, not a sign of anybody. He had raised his
weapon as the door flew open, but now his arm fell. "Fire! Defend
yourself," the girl outside cried in an agonising voice. She, being in
the dark and with her arm thrust in to the shoulder through the small
hole, couldn't see what was going on, and she dared not withdraw
the torch now to run round. "There's nobody here!" yelled Jim
contemptuously, but his impulse to burst into a resentful exasperated
laugh died without a sound: he had perceived in the very act of turning
away that he was exchanging glances with a pair of eyes in the heap of
mats. He saw a shifting gleam of whites. "Come out!" he cried in a fury,
a little doubtful, and a dark-faced head, a head without a body, shaped
itself in the rubbish, a strangely detached head, that looked at him
with a steady scowl. Next moment the whole mound stirred, and with a
low grunt a man emerged swiftly, and bounded towards Jim. Behind him the
mats as it were jumped and flew, his right arm was raised with a crooked
elbow, and the dull blade of a kriss protruded from his fist held off,
a little above his head. A cloth wound tight round his loins seemed
dazzlingly white on his bronze skin; his naked body glistened as if wet.

'Jim noted all this. He told me he was experiencing a feeling of
unutterable relief, of vengeful elation. He held his shot, he says,
deliberately. He held it for the tenth part of a second, for three
strides of the man--an unconscionable time. He held it for the pleasure
of saying to himself, That's a dead man! He was absolutely positive
and certain. He let him come on because it did not matter. A dead man,
anyhow. He noticed the dilated nostrils, the wide eyes, the intent,
eager stillness of the face, and then he fired.

'The explosion in that confined space was stunning. He stepped back a
pace. He saw the man jerk his head up, fling his arms forward, and drop
the kriss. He ascertained afterwards that he had shot him through the
mouth, a little upwards, the bullet coming out high at the back of the
skull. With the impetus of his rush the man drove straight on, his face
suddenly gaping disfigured, with his hands open before him gropingly, as
though blinded, and landed with terrific violence on his forehead, just
short of Jim's bare toes. Jim says he didn't lose the smallest detail
of all this. He found himself calm, appeased, without rancour, without
uneasiness, as if the death of that man had atoned for everything. The
place was getting very full of sooty smoke from the torch, in which
the unswaying flame burned blood-red without a flicker. He walked in
resolutely, striding over the dead body, and covered with his revolver
another naked figure outlined vaguely at the other end. As he was about
to pull the trigger, the man threw away with force a short heavy spear,
and squatted submissively on his hams, his back to the wall and his
clasped hands between his legs. "You want your life?" Jim said. The
other made no sound. "How many more of you?" asked Jim again. "Two more,
Tuan," said the man very softly, looking with big fascinated eyes into
the muzzle of the revolver. Accordingly two more crawled from under the
mats, holding out ostentatiously their empty hands.''Jim took up an advantageous position and shepherded them out in a bunch
through the doorway: all that time the torch had remained vertical in
the grip of a little hand, without so much as a tremble. The three men
obeyed him, perfectly mute, moving automatically. He ranged them in a
row. "Link arms!" he ordered. They did so. "The first who withdraws his
arm or turns his head is a dead man," he said. "March!" They stepped out
together, rigidly; he followed, and at the side the girl, in a trailing
white gown, her black hair falling as low as her waist, bore the light.
Erect and swaying, she seemed to glide without touching the earth; the
only sound was the silky swish and rustle of the long grass. "Stop!"
cried Jim.

'The river-bank was steep; a great freshness ascended, the light fell on
the edge of smooth dark water frothing without a ripple; right and left
the shapes of the houses ran together below the sharp outlines of the
roofs. "Take my greetings to Sherif Ali--till I come myself," said
Jim. Not one head of the three budged. "Jump!" he thundered. The
three splashes made one splash, a shower flew up, black heads bobbed
convulsively, and disappeared; but a great blowing and spluttering went
on, growing faint, for they were diving industriously in great fear of
a parting shot. Jim turned to the girl, who had been a silent and
attentive observer. His heart seemed suddenly to grow too big for his
breast and choke him in the hollow of his throat. This probably made
him speechless for so long, and after returning his gaze she flung the
burning torch with a wide sweep of the arm into the river. The ruddy
fiery glare, taking a long flight through the night, sank with a vicious
hiss, and the calm soft starlight descended upon them, unchecked.

'He did not tell me what it was he said when at last he recovered his
voice. I don't suppose he could be very eloquent. The world was still,
the night breathed on them, one of those nights that seem created for
the sheltering of tenderness, and there are moments when our souls, as
if freed from their dark envelope, glow with an exquisite sensibility
that makes certain silences more lucid than speeches. As to the girl,
he told me, "She broke down a bit. Excitement--don't you know.
Reaction. Deucedly tired she must have been--and all that kind of thing.
And--and--hang it all--she was fond of me, don't you see. . . . I
too . . . didn't know, of course . . . never entered my head . . ."

'Then he got up and began to walk about in some agitation. "I--I love
her dearly. More than I can tell. Of course one cannot tell. You take a
different view of your actions when you come to understand, when you
are _made_ to understand every day that your existence is necessary--you
see, absolutely necessary--to another person. I am made to feel that.
Wonderful! But only try to think what her life has been. It is too
extravagantly awful! Isn't it? And me finding her here like this--as you
may go out for a stroll and come suddenly upon somebody drowning in a
lonely dark place. Jove! No time to lose. Well, it is a trust too . . .
I believe I am equal to it . . ."

'I must tell you the girl had left us to ourselves some time before. He
slapped his chest. "Yes! I feel that, but I believe I am equal to all my
luck!" He had the gift of finding a special meaning in everything that
happened to him. This was the view he took of his love affair; it was
idyllic, a little solemn, and also true, since his belief had all the
unshakable seriousness of youth. Some time after, on another occasion,
he said to me, "I've been only two years here, and now, upon my word, I
can't conceive being able to live anywhere else. The very thought of the
world outside is enough to give me a fright; because, don't you see," he
continued, with downcast eyes watching the action of his boot busied in
squashing thoroughly a tiny bit of dried mud (we were strolling on the
river-bank)--"because I have not forgotten why I came here. Not yet!"

'I refrained from looking at him, but I think I heard a short sigh; we
took a turn or two in silence. "Upon my soul and conscience," he began
again, "if such a thing can be forgotten, then I think I have a right to
dismiss it from my mind. Ask any man here" . . . his voice changed. "Is
it not strange," he went on in a gentle, almost yearning tone, "that all
these people, all these people who would do anything for me, can never
be made to understand? Never! If you disbelieved me I could not call
them up. It seems hard, somehow. I am stupid, am I not? What more can I
want? If you ask them who is brave--who is true--who is just--who is it
they would trust with their lives?--they would say, Tuan Jim. And yet
they can never know the real, real truth . . ."

'That's what he said to me on my last day with him. I did not let a
murmur escape me: I felt he was going to say more, and come no nearer
to the root of the matter. The sun, whose concentrated glare dwarfs the
earth into a restless mote of dust, had sunk behind the forest, and
the diffused light from an opal sky seemed to cast upon a world without
shadows and without brilliance the illusion of a calm and pensive
greatness. I don't know why, listening to him, I should have noted
so distinctly the gradual darkening of the river, of the air; the
irresistible slow work of the night settling silently on all the visible
forms, effacing the outlines, burying the shapes deeper and deeper, like
a steady fall of impalpable black dust.

'"Jove!" he began abruptly, "there are days when a fellow is too absurd
for anything; only I know I can tell you what I like. I talk about
being done with it--with the bally thing at the back of my head . . .
Forgetting . . . Hang me if I know! I can think of it quietly. After
all, what has it proved? Nothing. I suppose you don't think so . . ."

'I made a protesting murmur.

'"No matter," he said. "I am satisfied . . . nearly. I've got to
look only at the face of the first man that comes along, to regain my
confidence. They can't be made to understand what is going on in me.
What of that? Come! I haven't done so badly."

'"Not so badly," I said.

'"But all the same, you wouldn't like to have me aboard your own ship
hey?"

'"Confound you!" I cried. "Stop this."

'"Aha! You see," he said, crowing, as it were, over me placidly. "Only,"
he went on, "you just try to tell this to any of them here. They would
think you a fool, a liar, or worse. And so I can stand it. I've done a
thing or two for them, but this is what they have done for me."

'"My dear chap," I cried, "you shall always remain for them an insoluble
mystery." Thereupon we were silent.

'"Mystery," he repeated, before looking up. "Well, then let me always
remain here."

'After the sun had set, the darkness seemed to drive upon us, borne in
every faint puff of the breeze. In the middle of a hedged path I saw the
arrested, gaunt, watchful, and apparently one-legged silhouette of Tamb'
Itam; and across the dusky space my eye detected something white moving
to and fro behind the supports of the roof. As soon as Jim, with Tamb'
Itam at his heels, had started upon his evening rounds, I went up to the
house alone, and, unexpectedly, found myself waylaid by the girl, who
had been clearly waiting for this opportunity.

'It is hard to tell you what it was precisely she wanted to wrest
from me. Obviously it would be something very simple--the simplest
impossibility in the world; as, for instance, the exact description of
the form of a cloud. She wanted an assurance, a statement, a promise, an
explanation--I don't know how to call it: the thing has no name. It was
dark under the projecting roof, and all I could see were the flowing
lines of her gown, the pale small oval of her face, with the white flash
of her teeth, and, turned towards me, the big sombre orbits of her eyes,
where there seemed to be a faint stir, such as you may fancy you can
detect when you plunge your gaze to the bottom of an immensely deep
well. What is it that moves there? you ask yourself. Is it a blind
monster or only a lost gleam from the universe? It occurred to me--don't
laugh--that all things being dissimilar, she was more inscrutable in
her childish ignorance than the Sphinx propounding childish riddles
to wayfarers. She had been carried off to Patusan before her eyes
were open. She had grown up there; she had seen nothing, she had known
nothing, she had no conception of anything. I ask myself whether she
were sure that anything else existed. What notions she may have formed
of the outside world is to me inconceivable: all that she knew of its
inhabitants were a betrayed woman and a sinister pantaloon. Her lover
also came to her from there, gifted with irresistible seductions; but
what would become of her if he should return to these inconceivable
regions that seemed always to claim back their own? Her mother had
warned her of this with tears, before she died . . .

'She had caught hold of my arm firmly, and as soon as I had stopped she
had withdrawn her hand in haste. She was audacious and shrinking. She
feared nothing, but she was checked by the profound incertitude and the
extreme strangeness--a brave person groping in the dark. I belonged to
this Unknown that might claim Jim for its own at any moment. I was,
as it were, in the secret of its nature and of its intentions--the
confidant of a threatening mystery--armed with its power perhaps! I
believe she supposed I could with a word whisk Jim away out of her very
arms; it is my sober conviction she went through agonies of apprehension
during my long talks with Jim; through a real and intolerable anguish
that might have conceivably driven her into plotting my murder, had the
fierceness of her soul been equal to the tremendous situation it had
created. This is my impression, and it is all I can give you: the whole
thing dawned gradually upon me, and as it got clearer and clearer I was
overwhelmed by a slow incredulous amazement. She made me believe her,
but there is no word that on my lips could render the effect of the
headlong and vehement whisper, of the soft, passionate tones, of the
sudden breathless pause and the appealing movement of the white arms
extended swiftly. They fell; the ghostly figure swayed like a slender
tree in the wind, the pale oval of the face drooped; it was impossible
to distinguish her features, the darkness of the eyes was unfathomable;
two wide sleeves uprose in the dark like unfolding wings, and she stood
silent, holding her head in her hands.'

Chapters 30-32
Thirty One and Thirty Two . In Chapter Thirty, Jim tells Marlow he does not know why he 'hung on' there , but Marlow says we may guess as Jim sympathized deeply with Jewel who was at the mercy of this 'scoundrel'. Cornelius demanded respect from his step-daughter, yet he would also abuse her dead mother. . . At this time, danger was also gathering and Doramin twice sent a servant to ask him to come back across the river to the Bugis people for his safety . Others also came to inform Jim of the plots to kill him and Cornelius said he would procure a man - for 80 dollars - to help him leave the area. Finally, Jim lost his temper with Cornelius. He told him 'nothing can touch me' and defied all of Patusan to scare him away. Afterwards, he felt ashamed, but slept well for the first time in two weeks. . . The next day, in Chapter Thirty One, it is described how Jim persuaded the Bugis to attack Sherif Ali. He felt elated by their commitment and tried to be civil with Cornelius when he returned home. He fell asleep and was woken by Jewel. She said he should follow her outside as he is to be set upon. It was a beautiful night and Marlow reminds his listeners  that this is a love story he is telling us now. Jewel told Jim that the men who are waiting to attack him are in the storeroom and he is elated when she lets him know she has been watching him sleep. Marlow repeats his view that this is a love story. . . Jewel then asked Jim to go to Doramin, but he decided to look in the storeroom instead. She held the torch as he entered. A man ran at him with a weapon and Jim shot him through the mouth. Jim later felt calm as though this man's death 'atoned for everything'. The other three men surrendered. . . Chapter Thirty Two continues with this story and relates how Jewel maintained her grip on the torch as the three men came out and obeyed his instructions. He ordered them to go back to Sherif Ali. . . Jim tells Marlow that he now loves Jewel and feels absolutely necessary to another person. He compares finding her to going out for a stroll and coming suddenly across 'somebody drowning in a lonely dark place'. He also says that even after two years of living there he cannot conceive of returning home as he has not forgotten the reason he first came there. These people can never know 'the real, real truth', but adds that he is 'nearly satisfied'. He believes Marlow would not like him aboard his own ship, and Marlow demurs at this. Later, Jewel stops Marlow when he is alone and he sees that she is anxious that he will take Jim away from her. . . .
Thirty One and Thirty Two . As Marlow recounts the 'love story' between Jewel and Jim, he heightens the sense of romance that is attached to this hero. His bravery is also highlighted in these passages; for example, he defies all of Patusan when he says nothing can touch him. He is seen to refuse to submit to intimidation and his decision to enter the storeroom, rather than run away to Doramin as Jewel wishes him to, demonstrates his regained self-belief. . . It is also telling that he considers the shooting of one of his attackers as a form of atonement. It is as though he feels he has made some amends for jumping from the ship, because he has now stayed and faced his fear.