'He locked his fingers together and tore them apart. Nothing could be
more true: he had indeed jumped into an everlasting deep hole. He had
tumbled from a height he could never scale again. By that time the boat
had gone driving forward past the bows. It was too dark just then
for them to see each other, and, moreover, they were blinded and half
drowned with rain. He told me it was like being swept by a flood through
a cavern. They turned their backs to the squall; the skipper, it seems,
got an oar over the stern to keep the boat before it, and for two or
three minutes the end of the world had come through a deluge in a pitchy
blackness. The sea hissed "like twenty thousand kettles." That's his
simile, not mine. I fancy there was not much wind after the first gust;
and he himself had admitted at the inquiry that the sea never got up
that night to any extent. He crouched down in the bows and stole a
furtive glance back. He saw just one yellow gleam of the mast-head light
high up and blurred like a last star ready to dissolve. "It terrified me
to see it still there," he said. That's what he said. What terrified him
was the thought that the drowning was not over yet. No doubt he wanted
to be done with that abomination as quickly as possible. Nobody in the
boat made a sound. In the dark she seemed to fly, but of course she
could not have had much way. Then the shower swept ahead, and the great,
distracting, hissing noise followed the rain into distance and died out.
There was nothing to be heard then but the slight wash about the boat's
sides. Somebody's teeth were chattering violently. A hand touched his
back. A faint voice said, "You there?" Another cried out shakily,
"She's gone!" and they all stood up together to look astern. They saw no
lights. All was black. A thin cold drizzle was driving into their faces.
The boat lurched slightly. The teeth chattered faster, stopped, and
began again twice before the man could master his shiver sufficiently to
say, "Ju-ju-st in ti-ti-me. . . . Brrrr." He recognised the voice of the
chief engineer saying surlily, "I saw her go down. I happened to turn my
head." The wind had dropped almost completely.

'They watched in the dark with their heads half turned to windward as if
expecting to hear cries. At first he was thankful the night had covered
up the scene before his eyes, and then to know of it and yet to have
seen and heard nothing appeared somehow the culminating point of an
awful misfortune. "Strange, isn't it?" he murmured, interrupting himself
in his disjointed narrative.

'It did not seem so strange to me. He must have had an unconscious
conviction that the reality could not be half as bad, not half as
anguishing, appalling, and vengeful as the created terror of his
imagination. I believe that, in this first moment, his heart was wrung
with all the suffering, that his soul knew the accumulated savour of all
the fear, all the horror, all the despair of eight hundred human beings
pounced upon in the night by a sudden and violent death, else why should
he have said, "It seemed to me that I must jump out of that accursed
boat and swim back to see--half a mile--more--any distance--to the very
spot . . ."? Why this impulse? Do you see the significance? Why back to
the very spot? Why not drown alongside--if he meant drowning? Why back
to the very spot, to see--as if his imagination had to be soothed by the
assurance that all was over before death could bring relief? I defy any
one of you to offer another explanation. It was one of those bizarre and
exciting glimpses through the fog. It was an extraordinary disclosure.
He let it out as the most natural thing one could say. He fought down
that impulse and then he became conscious of the silence. He mentioned
this to me. A silence of the sea, of the sky, merged into one indefinite
immensity still as death around these saved, palpitating lives.
"You might have heard a pin drop in the boat," he said with a queer
contraction of his lips, like a man trying to master his sensibilities
while relating some extremely moving fact. A silence! God alone, who had
willed him as he was, knows what he made of it in his heart. "I didn't
think any spot on earth could be so still," he said. "You couldn't
distinguish the sea from the sky; there was nothing to see and nothing
to hear. Not a glimmer, not a shape, not a sound. You could have
believed that every bit of dry land had gone to the bottom; that every
man on earth but I and these beggars in the boat had got drowned." He
leaned over the table with his knuckles propped amongst coffee-cups,
liqueur-glasses, cigar-ends. "I seemed to believe it. Everything was
gone and--all was over . . ." he fetched a deep sigh . . . "with me."'

Marlow sat up abruptly and flung away his cheroot with force. It made
a darting red trail like a toy rocket fired through the drapery of
creepers. Nobody stirred.

'Hey, what do you think of it?' he cried with sudden animation. 'Wasn't
he true to himself, wasn't he? His saved life was over for want of
ground under his feet, for want of sights for his eyes, for want of
voices in his ears. Annihilation--hey! And all the time it was only a
clouded sky, a sea that did not break, the air that did not stir. Only a
night; only a silence.

'It lasted for a while, and then they were suddenly and unanimously
moved to make a noise over their escape. "I knew from the first she
would go." "Not a minute too soon." "A narrow squeak, b'gosh!" He said
nothing, but the breeze that had dropped came back, a gentle draught
freshened steadily, and the sea joined its murmuring voice to this
talkative reaction succeeding the dumb moments of awe. She was gone! She
was gone! Not a doubt of it. Nobody could have helped. They repeated the
same words over and over again as though they couldn't stop themselves.
Never doubted she would go. The lights were gone. No mistake. The
lights were gone. Couldn't expect anything else. She had to go. . . . He
noticed that they talked as though they had left behind them nothing but
an empty ship. They concluded she would not have been long when she once
started. It seemed to cause them some sort of satisfaction. They assured
each other that she couldn't have been long about it--"Just shot down
like a flat-iron." The chief engineer declared that the mast-head light
at the moment of sinking seemed to drop "like a lighted match you throw
down." At this the second laughed hysterically. "I am g-g-glad, I am
gla-a-a-d." His teeth went on "like an electric rattle," said Jim,
"and all at once he began to cry. He wept and blubbered like a child,
catching his breath and sobbing 'Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!' He would
be quiet for a while and start suddenly, 'Oh, my poor arm! oh, my poor
a-a-a-arm!' I felt I could knock him down. Some of them sat in the
stern-sheets. I could just make out their shapes. Voices came to me,
mumble, mumble, grunt, grunt. All this seemed very hard to bear. I was
cold too. And I could do nothing. I thought that if I moved I would have
to go over the side and . . ."

'His hand groped stealthily, came in contact with a liqueur-glass, and
was withdrawn suddenly as if it had touched a red-hot coal. I pushed the
bottle slightly. "Won't you have some more?" I asked. He looked at me
angrily. "Don't you think I can tell you what there is to tell without
screwing myself up?" he asked. The squad of globe-trotters had gone to
bed. We were alone but for a vague white form erect in the shadow, that,
being looked at, cringed forward, hesitated, backed away silently. It
was getting late, but I did not hurry my guest.

'In the midst of his forlorn state he heard his companions begin to
abuse some one. "What kept you from jumping, you lunatic?" said a
scolding voice. The chief engineer left the stern-sheets, and could
be heard clambering forward as if with hostile intentions against "the
greatest idiot that ever was." The skipper shouted with rasping effort
offensive epithets from where he sat at the oar. He lifted his head
at that uproar, and heard the name "George," while a hand in the dark
struck him on the breast. "What have you got to say for yourself, you
fool?" queried somebody, with a sort of virtuous fury. "They were after
me," he said. "They were abusing me--abusing me . . . by the name of
George."

'He paused to stare, tried to smile, turned his eyes away and went on.
"That little second puts his head right under my nose, 'Why, it's that
blasted mate!' 'What!' howls the skipper from the other end of the boat.
'No!' shrieks the chief. And he too stooped to look at my face."

'The wind had left the boat suddenly. The rain began to fall again, and
the soft, uninterrupted, a little mysterious sound with which the sea
receives a shower arose on all sides in the night. "They were too taken
aback to say anything more at first," he narrated steadily, "and what
could I have to say to them?" He faltered for a moment, and made an
effort to go on. "They called me horrible names." His voice, sinking to
a whisper, now and then would leap up suddenly, hardened by the passion
of scorn, as though he had been talking of secret abominations. "Never
mind what they called me," he said grimly. "I could hear hate in their
voices. A good thing too. They could not forgive me for being in that
boat. They hated it. It made them mad. . . ." He laughed short. . . .
"But it kept me from--Look! I was sitting with my arms crossed, on the
gunwale! . . ." He perched himself smartly on the edge of the table and
crossed his arms. . . . "Like this--see? One little tilt backwards and
I would have been gone--after the others. One little tilt--the least
bit--the least bit." He frowned, and tapping his forehead with the tip
of his middle finger, "It was there all the time," he said impressively.
"All the time--that notion. And the rain--cold, thick, cold as melted
snow--colder--on my thin cotton clothes--I'll never be so cold again in
my life, I know. And the sky was black too--all black. Not a star, not
a light anywhere. Nothing outside that confounded boat and those two
yapping before me like a couple of mean mongrels at a tree'd thief. Yap!
yap! 'What you doing here? You're a fine sort! Too much of a bloomin'
gentleman to put your hand to it. Come out of your trance, did you? To
sneak in? Did you?' Yap! yap! 'You ain't fit to live!' Yap! yap! Two of
them together trying to out-bark each other. The other would bay from
the stern through the rain--couldn't see him--couldn't make it out--some
of his filthy jargon. Yap! yap! Bow-ow-ow-ow-ow! Yap! yap! It was sweet
to hear them; it kept me alive, I tell you. It saved my life. At it they
went, as if trying to drive me overboard with the noise! . . . 'I wonder
you had pluck enough to jump. You ain't wanted here. If I had known who
it was, I would have tipped you over--you skunk! What have you done with
the other? Where did you get the pluck to jump--you coward? What's to
prevent us three from firing you overboard?' . . . They were out of
breath; the shower passed away upon the sea. Then nothing. There was
nothing round the boat, not even a sound. Wanted to see me overboard,
did they? Upon my soul! I think they would have had their wish if they
had only kept quiet. Fire me overboard! Would they? 'Try,' I said. 'I
would for twopence.' 'Too good for you,' they screeched together. It was
so dark that it was only when one or the other of them moved that I was
quite sure of seeing him. By heavens! I only wish they had tried."

'I couldn't help exclaiming, "What an extraordinary affair!"

'"Not bad--eh?" he said, as if in some sort astounded. "They pretended
to think I had done away with that donkey-man for some reason or other.
Why should I? And how the devil was I to know? Didn't I get somehow
into that boat? into that boat--I . . ." The muscles round his lips
contracted into an unconscious grimace that tore through the mask of his
usual expression--something violent, short-lived and illuminating like
a twist of lightning that admits the eye for an instant into the secret
convolutions of a cloud. "I did. I was plainly there with them--wasn't
I? Isn't it awful a man should be driven to do a thing like that--and be
responsible? What did I know about their George they were howling after?
I remembered I had seen him curled up on the deck. 'Murdering coward!'
the chief kept on calling me. He didn't seem able to remember any other
two words. I didn't care, only his noise began to worry me. 'Shut up,' I
said. At that he collected himself for a confounded screech. 'You killed
him! You killed him!' 'No,' I shouted, 'but I will kill you directly.' I
jumped up, and he fell backwards over a thwart with an awful loud thump.
I don't know why. Too dark. Tried to step back I suppose. I stood still
facing aft, and the wretched little second began to whine, 'You
ain't going to hit a chap with a broken arm--and you call yourself a
gentleman, too.' I heard a heavy tramp--one--two--and wheezy grunting.
The other beast was coming at me, clattering his oar over the stern. I
saw him moving, big, big--as you see a man in a mist, in a dream. 'Come
on,' I cried. I would have tumbled him over like a bale of shakings. He
stopped, muttered to himself, and went back. Perhaps he had heard the
wind. I didn't. It was the last heavy gust we had. He went back to his
oar. I was sorry. I would have tried to--to . . ."

'He opened and closed his curved fingers, and his hands had an eager and
cruel flutter. "Steady, steady," I murmured.

'"Eh? What? I am not excited," he remonstrated, awfully hurt, and with
a convulsive jerk of his elbow knocked over the cognac bottle. I started
forward, scraping my chair. He bounced off the table as if a mine had
been exploded behind his back, and half turned before he alighted,
crouching on his feet to show me a startled pair of eyes and a face
white about the nostrils. A look of intense annoyance succeeded.
"Awfully sorry. How clumsy of me!" he mumbled, very vexed, while the
pungent odour of spilt alcohol enveloped us suddenly with an atmosphere
of a low drinking-bout in the cool, pure darkness of the night. The
lights had been put out in the dining-hall; our candle glimmered
solitary in the long gallery, and the columns had turned black from
pediment to capital. On the vivid stars the high corner of the Harbour
Office stood out distinct across the Esplanade, as though the sombre
pile had glided nearer to see and hear.

'He assumed an air of indifference.

'"I dare say I am less calm now than I was then. I was ready for
anything. These were trifles. . . ."

'"You had a lively time of it in that boat," I remarked

'"I was ready," he repeated. "After the ship's lights had gone, anything
might have happened in that boat--anything in the world--and the world
no wiser. I felt this, and I was pleased. It was just dark enough too.
We were like men walled up quick in a roomy grave. No concern with
anything on earth. Nobody to pass an opinion. Nothing mattered." For the
third time during this conversation he laughed harshly, but there was
no one about to suspect him of being only drunk. "No fear, no law, no
sounds, no eyes--not even our own, till--till sunrise at least."

'I was struck by the suggestive truth of his words. There is something
peculiar in a small boat upon the wide sea. Over the lives borne from
under the shadow of death there seems to fall the shadow of madness.
When your ship fails you, your whole world seems to fail you; the world
that made you, restrained you, took care of you. It is as if the souls
of men floating on an abyss and in touch with immensity had been set
free for any excess of heroism, absurdity, or abomination. Of course, as
with belief, thought, love, hate, conviction, or even the visual aspect
of material things, there are as many shipwrecks as there are men, and
in this one there was something abject which made the isolation more
complete--there was a villainy of circumstances that cut these men off
more completely from the rest of mankind, whose ideal of conduct had
never undergone the trial of a fiendish and appalling joke. They were
exasperated with him for being a half-hearted shirker: he focussed on
them his hatred of the whole thing; he would have liked to take a signal
revenge for the abhorrent opportunity they had put in his way. Trust
a boat on the high seas to bring out the Irrational that lurks at the
bottom of every thought, sentiment, sensation, emotion. It was part of
the burlesque meanness pervading that particular disaster at sea that
they did not come to blows. It was all threats, all a terribly effective
feint, a sham from beginning to end, planned by the tremendous disdain
of the Dark Powers whose real terrors, always on the verge of triumph,
are perpetually foiled by the steadfastness of men. I asked, after
waiting for a while, "Well, what happened?" A futile question. I knew
too much already to hope for the grace of a single uplifting touch, for
the favour of hinted madness, of shadowed horror. "Nothing," he said. "I
meant business, but they meant noise only. Nothing happened."

'And the rising sun found him just as he had jumped up first in the bows
of the boat. What a persistence of readiness! He had been holding the
tiller in his hand, too, all the night. They had dropped the rudder
overboard while attempting to ship it, and I suppose the tiller got
kicked forward somehow while they were rushing up and down that boat
trying to do all sorts of things at once so as to get clear of the
side. It was a long heavy piece of hard wood, and apparently he had been
clutching it for six hours or so. If you don't call that being ready!
Can you imagine him, silent and on his feet half the night, his face to
the gusts of rain, staring at sombre forms watchful of vague movements,
straining his ears to catch rare low murmurs in the stern-sheets!
Firmness of courage or effort of fear? What do you think? And the
endurance is undeniable too. Six hours more or less on the defensive;
six hours of alert immobility while the boat drove slowly or floated
arrested, according to the caprice of the wind; while the sea, calmed,
slept at last; while the clouds passed above his head; while the sky
from an immensity lustreless and black, diminished to a sombre and
lustrous vault, scintillated with a greater brilliance, faded to the
east, paled at the zenith; while the dark shapes blotting the low
stars astern got outlines, relief became shoulders, heads, faces,
features,--confronted him with dreary stares, had dishevelled hair, torn
clothes, blinked red eyelids at the white dawn. "They looked as though
they had been knocking about drunk in gutters for a week," he described
graphically; and then he muttered something about the sunrise being of a
kind that foretells a calm day. You know that sailor habit of referring
to the weather in every connection. And on my side his few mumbled words
were enough to make me see the lower limb of the sun clearing the
line of the horizon, the tremble of a vast ripple running over all the
visible expanse of the sea, as if the waters had shuddered, giving birth
to the globe of light, while the last puff of the breeze would stir the
air in a sigh of relief.

'"They sat in the stern shoulder to shoulder, with the skipper in the
middle, like three dirty owls, and stared at me," I heard him say
with an intention of hate that distilled a corrosive virtue into the
commonplace words like a drop of powerful poison falling into a glass
of water; but my thoughts dwelt upon that sunrise. I could imagine
under the pellucid emptiness of the sky these four men imprisoned in the
solitude of the sea, the lonely sun, regardless of the speck of life,
ascending the clear curve of the heaven as if to gaze ardently from a
greater height at his own splendour reflected in the still ocean. "They
called out to me from aft," said Jim, "as though we had been chums
together. I heard them. They were begging me to be sensible and drop
that 'blooming piece of wood.' Why _would_ I carry on so? They hadn't
done me any harm--had they? There had been no harm. . . . No harm!"

'His face crimsoned as though he could not get rid of the air in his
lungs.

'"No harm!" he burst out. "I leave it to you. You can understand. Can't
you? You see it--don't you? No harm! Good God! What more could they have
done? Oh yes, I know very well--I jumped. Certainly. I jumped! I told
you I jumped; but I tell you they were too much for any man. It was
their doing as plainly as if they had reached up with a boat-hook and
pulled me over. Can't you see it? You must see it. Come. Speak--straight
out."

'His uneasy eyes fastened upon mine, questioned, begged, challenged,
entreated. For the life of me I couldn't help murmuring, "You've been
tried." "More than is fair," he caught up swiftly. "I wasn't given half
a chance--with a gang like that. And now they were friendly--oh, so
damnably friendly! Chums, shipmates. All in the same boat. Make the best
of it. They hadn't meant anything. They didn't care a hang for George.
George had gone back to his berth for something at the last moment and
got caught. The man was a manifest fool. Very sad, of course. . . .
Their eyes looked at me; their lips moved; they wagged their heads at
the other end of the boat--three of them; they beckoned--to me. Why
not? Hadn't I jumped? I said nothing. There are no words for the sort of
things I wanted to say. If I had opened my lips just then I would have
simply howled like an animal. I was asking myself when I would wake up.
They urged me aloud to come aft and hear quietly what the skipper had to
say. We were sure to be picked up before the evening--right in the track
of all the Canal traffic; there was smoke to the north-west now.

'"It gave me an awful shock to see this faint, faint blur, this low
trail of brown mist through which you could see the boundary of sea and
sky. I called out to them that I could hear very well where I was. The
skipper started swearing, as hoarse as a crow. He wasn't going to talk
at the top of his voice for _my_ accommodation. 'Are you afraid they
will hear you on shore?' I asked. He glared as if he would have liked to
claw me to pieces. The chief engineer advised him to humour me. He
said I wasn't right in my head yet. The other rose astern, like a thick
pillar of flesh--and talked--talked. . . ."

'Jim remained thoughtful. "Well?" I said. "What did I care what story
they agreed to make up?" he cried recklessly. "They could tell what they
jolly well liked. It was their business. I knew the story. Nothing
they could make people believe could alter it for me. I let him talk,
argue--talk, argue. He went on and on and on. Suddenly I felt my legs
give way under me. I was sick, tired--tired to death. I let fall the
tiller, turned my back on them, and sat down on the foremost thwart. I
had enough. They called to me to know if I understood--wasn't it true,
every word of it? It was true, by God! after their fashion. I did not
turn my head. I heard them palavering together. 'The silly ass won't say
anything.' 'Oh, he understands well enough.' 'Let him be; he will be all
right.' 'What can he do?' What could I do? Weren't we all in the same
boat? I tried to be deaf. The smoke had disappeared to the northward.
It was a dead calm. They had a drink from the water-breaker, and I drank
too. Afterwards they made a great business of spreading the boat-sail
over the gunwales. Would I keep a look-out? They crept under, out of my
sight, thank God! I felt weary, weary, done up, as if I hadn't had one
hour's sleep since the day I was born. I couldn't see the water for the
glitter of the sunshine. From time to time one of them would creep out,
stand up to take a look all round, and get under again. I could hear
spells of snoring below the sail. Some of them could sleep. One of them
at least. I couldn't! All was light, light, and the boat seemed to be
falling through it. Now and then I would feel quite surprised to find
myself sitting on a thwart. . . ."

'He began to walk with measured steps to and fro before my chair, one
hand in his trousers-pocket, his head bent thoughtfully, and his right
arm at long intervals raised for a gesture that seemed to put out of his
way an invisible intruder.

'"I suppose you think I was going mad," he began in a changed tone. "And
well you may, if you remember I had lost my cap. The sun crept all the
way from east to west over my bare head, but that day I could not come
to any harm, I suppose. The sun could not make me mad. . . ." His right
arm put aside the idea of madness. . . . "Neither could it kill
me. . . ." Again his arm repulsed a shadow. . . . "_That_ rested with
me."

'"Did it?" I said, inexpressibly amazed at this new turn, and I looked
at him with the same sort of feeling I might be fairly conceived to
experience had he, after spinning round on his heel, presented an
altogether new face.

'"I didn't get brain fever, I did not drop dead either," he went on. "I
didn't bother myself at all about the sun over my head. I was thinking
as coolly as any man that ever sat thinking in the shade. That greasy
beast of a skipper poked his big cropped head from under the canvas
and screwed his fishy eyes up at me. 'Donnerwetter! you will die,' he
growled, and drew in like a turtle. I had seen him. I had heard him. He
didn't interrupt me. I was thinking just then that I wouldn't."

'He tried to sound my thought with an attentive glance dropped on me
in passing. "Do you mean to say you had been deliberating with yourself
whether you would die?" I asked in as impenetrable a tone as I could
command. He nodded without stopping. "Yes, it had come to that as I sat
there alone," he said. He passed on a few steps to the imaginary end
of his beat, and when he flung round to come back both his hands were
thrust deep into his pockets. He stopped short in front of my chair and
looked down. "Don't you believe it?" he inquired with tense curiosity.
I was moved to make a solemn declaration of my readiness to believe
implicitly anything he thought fit to tell me.'

When the squall hits, the men in the lifeboat are blinded by wind and rain. They watch as the lights on the Patna go out. They think this means the ship has sunk At this, Marlow confirms that the lights did go out, but the ship of course didn't sink. Jim describes his hellish time aboard the lifeboat. When the men start to make plans to lie to everyone and get their story straight, Jim ignores them. At least he's showing some signs of morality. When Jim asks Marlow if he believes him, Marlow tells him he does. Do you?

Lost in their own thoughts and fears, nobody in the lifeboat makes a sound or acknowledges Jim's presence. The skipper silently takes an oar and tries to steer the boat through the black night, but the sea is too rough and they are left to drift with the storm. Suddenly the engineer speaks out, declaring that he has seen the ship go down. Jim feels that he should jump from the lifeboat, swim to the sinking Patna, and rescue the eight hundred pilgrims. As dawn begins to lighten the sky, Jim sees a light on the Patna and realizes the ship has not sunk. He feels miserable. The others also see Jim for the first time. In the darkness of the night, they have thought that George had jumped into the boat; when they realize that Jim has joined them, they are outraged, for he is not one of them. They stare at him, making Jim feel like an intruder. They threaten to kill him, for he has been a witness to their cowardice. They believe that he will testify against them. In order to protect himself, Jim grabs a tiller and threatens the others with it. Jim is not glad to be alive; he is ashamed that he has jumped from the Patna. He even has thoughts of leaving the lifeboat and sits on its edge, as if tempting fate. The others in the lifeboat start talking normally, trying to rationalize their desertion. They also tell Jim that he is "one of them." Jim is enraged at their talk; he knows he can never be one of them. Unlike him, they planned their desertion; they chose to jump off the Patna. At times he has the urge to kill all of them and blames them for calling him into the lifeboat. He says, "It  was their doing as plainly as if they had reached up with a boathook and pulled him over." Finally, the light from the Patna can no longer be seen. Jim and the other crew members believe that the ship has finally sunk. Jim is greatly relieved.

Notes Being in the lifeboat with the other crew is miserable for Jim. Although he is with them, he is not one of them. He feels he is better than they are, for he did not plan his desertion. In fact, he blames his jumping on them, for he heard them calling. It is also obvious that the others do not want Jim in the lifeboat with them and even threaten to kill him. Since he is not one of them, they fear he will testify against them and tell of their cowardice. Jim must defend himself with the tiller. Jim is horrified when he first sees the light on the Patna, which reveals that he has been lying to himself about wanting to save the pilgrims. He is also greatly relieved when he can no longer see the light from the Patna and incorrectly assumes that the boat has gone down. Jim has an urge to swim back to the ship. He would like to make certain that the ship is really gone and that his 800 possible accusers are dead; he would also like to escape from the horrible crew in the lifeboat. Being with them is almost worse than death itself. It is important to notice that Jim is still a dreamer in this chapter. Although he has jumped into a black hole, he still fools himself with unrealistic visions. He thinks about swimming back to the Patna, first to rescue the 800 pilgrims; later he thinks about swimming back to make certain that the ship has sunk and the pilgrims are all dead.


'He heard me out with his head on one side, and I had another glimpse
through a rent in the mist in which he moved and had his being. The dim
candle spluttered within the ball of glass, and that was all I had to
see him by; at his back was the dark night with the clear stars, whose
distant glitter disposed in retreating planes lured the eye into the
depths of a greater darkness; and yet a mysterious light seemed to show
me his boyish head, as if in that moment the youth within him had, for
a moment, glowed and expired. "You are an awful good sort to listen like
this," he said. "It does me good. You don't know what it is to me. You
don't" . . . words seemed to fail him. It was a distinct glimpse. He was
a youngster of the sort you like to see about you; of the sort you like
to imagine yourself to have been; of the sort whose appearance claims
the fellowship of these illusions you had thought gone out, extinct,
cold, and which, as if rekindled at the approach of another flame, give
a flutter deep, deep down somewhere, give a flutter of light . . . of
heat! . . . Yes; I had a glimpse of him then . . . and it was not the
last of that kind. . . . "You don't know what it is for a fellow in my
position to be believed--make a clean breast of it to an elder man. It
is so difficult--so awfully unfair--so hard to understand."

'The mists were closing again. I don't know how old I appeared to
him--and how much wise. Not half as old as I felt just then; not half
as uselessly wise as I knew myself to be. Surely in no other craft as in
that of the sea do the hearts of those already launched to sink or swim
go out so much to the youth on the brink, looking with shining eyes upon
that glitter of the vast surface which is only a reflection of his
own glances full of fire. There is such magnificent vagueness in
the expectations that had driven each of us to sea, such a glorious
indefiniteness, such a beautiful greed of adventures that are their own
and only reward. What we get--well, we won't talk of that; but can one
of us restrain a smile? In no other kind of life is the illusion more
wide of reality--in no other is the beginning _all_ illusion--the
disenchantment more swift--the subjugation more complete. Hadn't we all
commenced with the same desire, ended with the same knowledge, carried
the memory of the same cherished glamour through the sordid days of
imprecation? What wonder that when some heavy prod gets home the bond
is found to be close; that besides the fellowship of the craft there is
felt the strength of a wider feeling--the feeling that binds a man to a
child. He was there before me, believing that age and wisdom can find
a remedy against the pain of truth, giving me a glimpse of himself as a
young fellow in a scrape that is the very devil of a scrape, the sort
of scrape greybeards wag at solemnly while they hide a smile. And he
had been deliberating upon death--confound him! He had found that to
meditate about because he thought he had saved his life, while all its
glamour had gone with the ship in the night. What more natural! It
was tragic enough and funny enough in all conscience to call aloud for
compassion, and in what was I better than the rest of us to refuse him
my pity? And even as I looked at him the mists rolled into the rent, and
his voice spoke--

'"I was so lost, you know. It was the sort of thing one does not expect
to happen to one. It was not like a fight, for instance."

'"It was not," I admitted. He appeared changed, as if he had suddenly
matured.

'"One couldn't be sure," he muttered.

'"Ah! You were not sure," I said, and was placated by the sound of
a faint sigh that passed between us like the flight of a bird in the
night.

'"Well, I wasn't," he said courageously. "It was something like that
wretched story they made up. It was not a lie--but it wasn't truth all
the same. It was something. . . . One knows a downright lie. There was
not the thickness of a sheet of paper between the right and the wrong of
this affair."

'"How much more did you want?" I asked; but I think I spoke so low that
he did not catch what I said. He had advanced his argument as though
life had been a network of paths separated by chasms. His voice sounded
reasonable.

'"Suppose I had not--I mean to say, suppose I had stuck to the ship?
Well. How much longer? Say a minute--half a minute. Come. In thirty
seconds, as it seemed certain then, I would have been overboard; and do
you think I would not have laid hold of the first thing that came in my
way--oar, life-buoy, grating--anything? Wouldn't you?"

'"And be saved," I interjected.

'"I would have meant to be," he retorted. "And that's more than I meant
when I" . . . he shivered as if about to swallow some nauseous
drug . . . "jumped," he pronounced with a convulsive effort, whose
stress, as if propagated by the waves of the air, made my body stir a
little in the chair. He fixed me with lowering eyes. "Don't you believe
me?" he cried. "I swear! . . . Confound it! You got me here to talk,
and . . . You must! . . . You said you would believe." "Of course I do,"
I protested, in a matter-of-fact tone which produced a calming effect.
"Forgive me," he said. "Of course I wouldn't have talked to you about
all this if you had not been a gentleman. I ought to have known . . . I
am--I am--a gentleman too . . ." "Yes, yes," I said hastily. He was
looking me squarely in the face, and withdrew his gaze slowly. "Now you
understand why I didn't after all . . . didn't go out in that way. I
wasn't going to be frightened at what I had done. And, anyhow, if I had
stuck to the ship I would have done my best to be saved. Men have been
known to float for hours--in the open sea--and be picked up not much the
worse for it. I might have lasted it out better than many others.
There's nothing the matter with my heart." He withdrew his right fist
from his pocket, and the blow he struck on his chest resounded like a
muffled detonation in the night.

'"No," I said. He meditated, with his legs slightly apart and his
chin sunk. "A hair's-breadth," he muttered. "Not the breadth of a hair
between this and that. And at the time . . ."

'"It is difficult to see a hair at midnight," I put in, a little
viciously I fear. Don't you see what I mean by the solidarity of the
craft? I was aggrieved against him, as though he had cheated me--me!--of
a splendid opportunity to keep up the illusion of my beginnings, as
though he had robbed our common life of the last spark of its glamour.
"And so you cleared out--at once."

'"Jumped," he corrected me incisively. "Jumped--mind!" he repeated, and
I wondered at the evident but obscure intention. "Well, yes! Perhaps I
could not see then. But I had plenty of time and any amount of light
in that boat. And I could think, too. Nobody would know, of course, but
this did not make it any easier for me. You've got to believe that, too.
I did not want all this talk. . . . No . . . Yes . . . I won't
lie . . . I wanted it: it is the very thing I wanted--there. Do you
think you or anybody could have made me if I . . . I am--I am not afraid
to tell. And I wasn't afraid to think either. I looked it in the face. I
wasn't going to run away. At first--at night, if it hadn't been for
those fellows I might have . . . No! by heavens! I was not going to give
them that satisfaction. They had done enough. They made up a story, and
believed it for all I know. But I knew the truth, and I would live it
down--alone, with myself. I wasn't going to give in to such a beastly
unfair thing. What did it prove after all? I was confoundedly cut up.
Sick of life--to tell you the truth; but what would have been the good
to shirk it--in--in--that way? That was not the way. I believe--I
believe it would have--it would have ended--nothing."

'He had been walking up and down, but with the last word he turned short
at me.

'"What do _you_ believe?" he asked with violence. A pause ensued, and
suddenly I felt myself overcome by a profound and hopeless fatigue, as
though his voice had startled me out of a dream of wandering through
empty spaces whose immensity had harassed my soul and exhausted my body.

'". . . Would have ended nothing," he muttered over me obstinately,
after a little while. "No! the proper thing was to face it out--alone
for myself--wait for another chance--find out . . ."'

Our chatty narrator Marlow rambles a bit about life at sea and what it means to be a sailor. We'd all find this a bit more interesting if he were singing. Or maybe if he looked like this. Alas, we have no idea what he looks like, so we'll have to settle for Marlow and Jim arguing for about Jim's motives and actions. Understandably, Jim defends himself, but Marlow finds Jim's decisions shifty. But Jim won't give up. He explains his decision to stand trial and expresses his distant hope to somehow redeem himself in the future. We'll see, Jimmy, we'll see.

In this chapter, Marlow reminds the reader that he and Jim are on the verandah. As Jim continues his tale, Marlow notices that mist is rising around them and sees the candle flicker. He comments that truth and illusion are often alike and that it is difficult to know what is right. It is obvious that once again he is sympathizing with Jim's story. Jim now tries to justify his desertion. He tells Marlow that he would never have jumped if the crew in the lifeboat had not called to him. He also admits that he had been miserable about the jump and had considered suicide several times while in the lifeboat. Jim is trying to be completely truthful so that Marlow will believe every word of what he says. He then turns to Marlow and asks him whether or not he believes him to be guilty. Marlow is so surprised over Jim's question that he cannot answer it.

Notes Light from the candle mingles with the darkness of the night as Jim speaks. The light and dark blend together in the mist, much like Jim's truth and illusion and much like his dark side and bright side. In the changing pattern of light and dark, Jim sometimes looks boyish and sometimes mature to Marlow. In truth, Jim vacillates between youth and maturity in his approach to life. The symbolic nature of Jim's jump into evil is emphasized in this chapter. Jim has already lost his peace of mind. He is trying to convince Marlow that he should not be judged harshly over jumping, for he was "forced" into it by the calls of the crewmen in the lifeboat. He also explains that had he stayed on board and gone down with the ship, he would have grabbed on to the first thing floating past in order to save himself. He sees no difference in either action, for both are natural instincts towards self- preservation. In trying to convince Marlow of his innocence, Jim is indirectly trying to atone for his "sin". He implies that he will dedicate the rest of his life to the performance of heroic deeds so that the memory of his failure may be wiped out forever; he is just waiting for a chance to prove himself. Jim is definitely showing his romantic side once again. It is obvious that Jim is a character filled with conflict. This device of choosing a hero who has done something wrong, but who is, at least, better than most, is common in Conrad's writing. He does a similar thing with Kurtz in Heart of Darkness.


'All around everything was still as far as the ear could reach. The mist
of his feelings shifted between us, as if disturbed by his struggles,
and in the rifts of the immaterial veil he would appear to my staring
eyes distinct of form and pregnant with vague appeal like a symbolic
figure in a picture. The chill air of the night seemed to lie on my
limbs as heavy as a slab of marble.

'"I see," I murmured, more to prove to myself that I could break my
state of numbness than for any other reason.

'"The Avondale picked us up just before sunset," he remarked moodily.
"Steamed right straight for us. We had only to sit and wait."

'After a long interval, he said, "They told their story." And again
there was that oppressive silence. "Then only I knew what it was I had
made up my mind to," he added.

'"You said nothing," I whispered.

'"What could I say?" he asked, in the same low tone. . . . "Shock
slight. Stopped the ship. Ascertained the damage. Took measures to get
the boats out without creating a panic. As the first boat was lowered
ship went down in a squall. Sank like lead. . . . What could be more
clear" . . . he hung his head . . . "and more awful?" His lips quivered
while he looked straight into my eyes. "I had jumped--hadn't I?" he
asked, dismayed. "That's what I had to live down. The story didn't
matter." . . . He clasped his hands for an instant, glanced right and
left into the gloom: "It was like cheating the dead," he stammered.

'"And there were no dead," I said.

'He went away from me at this. That is the only way I can describe it.
In a moment I saw his back close to the balustrade. He stood there for
some time, as if admiring the purity and the peace of the night. Some
flowering-shrub in the garden below spread its powerful scent through
the damp air. He returned to me with hasty steps.

'"And that did not matter," he said, as stubbornly as you please.

'"Perhaps not," I admitted. I began to have a notion he was too much for
me. After all, what did _I_ know?

'"Dead or not dead, I could not get clear," he said. "I had to live;
hadn't I?"

'"Well, yes--if you take it in that way," I mumbled.

'"I was glad, of course," he threw out carelessly, with his mind fixed
on something else. "The exposure," he pronounced slowly, and lifted
his head. "Do you know what was my first thought when I heard? I was
relieved. I was relieved to learn that those shouts--did I tell you I
had heard shouts? No? Well, I did. Shouts for help . . . blown along
with the drizzle. Imagination, I suppose. And yet I can hardly . . . How
stupid. . . . The others did not. I asked them afterwards. They all
said No. No? And I was hearing them even then! I might have known--but
I didn't think--I only listened. Very faint screams--day after day. Then
that little half-caste chap here came up and spoke to me. 'The
Patna . . . French gunboat . . . towed successfully to Aden . . .
Investigation . . . Marine Office . . . Sailors' Home . . . arrangements
made for your board and lodging!' I walked along with him, and I enjoyed
the silence. So there had been no shouting. Imagination. I had to
believe him. I could hear nothing any more. I wonder how long I could
have stood it. It was getting worse, too . . . I mean--louder." 'He fell
into thought.

'"And I had heard nothing! Well--so be it. But the lights! The lights
did go! We did not see them. They were not there. If they had been, I
would have swam back--I would have gone back and shouted alongside--I
would have begged them to take me on board. . . . I would have had my
chance. . . . You doubt me? . . . How do you know how I felt? . . . What
right have you to doubt? . . . I very nearly did it as it was--do you
understand?" His voice fell. "There was not a glimmer--not a glimmer,"
he protested mournfully. "Don't you understand that if there had been,
you would not have seen me here? You see me--and you doubt."

'I shook my head negatively. This question of the lights being lost
sight of when the boat could not have been more than a quarter of a mile
from the ship was a matter for much discussion. Jim stuck to it that
there was nothing to be seen after the first shower had cleared away;
and the others had affirmed the same thing to the officers of the
Avondale. Of course people shook their heads and smiled. One old skipper
who sat near me in court tickled my ear with his white beard to murmur,
"Of course they would lie." As a matter of fact nobody lied; not even
the chief engineer with his story of the mast-head light dropping like a
match you throw down. Not consciously, at least. A man with his liver in
such a state might very well have seen a floating spark in the corner of
his eye when stealing a hurried glance over his shoulder. They had seen
no light of any sort though they were well within range, and they could
only explain this in one way: the ship had gone down. It was obvious
and comforting. The foreseen fact coming so swiftly had justified their
haste. No wonder they did not cast about for any other explanation. Yet
the true one was very simple, and as soon as Brierly suggested it the
court ceased to bother about the question. If you remember, the ship had
been stopped, and was lying with her head on the course steered through
the night, with her stern canted high and her bows brought low down in
the water through the filling of the fore-compartment. Being thus out of
trim, when the squall struck her a little on the quarter, she swung head
to wind as sharply as though she had been at anchor. By this change in
her position all her lights were in a very few moments shut off from
the boat to leeward. It may very well be that, had they been seen, they
would have had the effect of a mute appeal--that their glimmer lost in
the darkness of the cloud would have had the mysterious power of the
human glance that can awaken the feelings of remorse and pity. It would
have said, "I am here--still here" . . . and what more can the eye of
the most forsaken of human beings say? But she turned her back on them
as if in disdain of their fate: she had swung round, burdened, to glare
stubbornly at the new danger of the open sea which she so strangely
survived to end her days in a breaking-up yard, as if it had been her
recorded fate to die obscurely under the blows of many hammers. What
were the various ends their destiny provided for the pilgrims I am
unable to say; but the immediate future brought, at about nine o'clock
next morning, a French gunboat homeward bound from Reunion. The report
of her commander was public property. He had swept a little out of
his course to ascertain what was the matter with that steamer floating
dangerously by the head upon a still and hazy sea. There was an ensign,
union down, flying at her main gaff (the serang had the sense to make a
signal of distress at daylight); but the cooks were preparing the food
in the cooking-boxes forward as usual. The decks were packed as close
as a sheep-pen: there were people perched all along the rails, jammed on
the bridge in a solid mass; hundreds of eyes stared, and not a sound was
heard when the gunboat ranged abreast, as if all that multitude of lips
had been sealed by a spell.

'The Frenchman hailed, could get no intelligible reply, and after
ascertaining through his binoculars that the crowd on deck did not look
plague-stricken, decided to send a boat. Two officers came on board,
listened to the serang, tried to talk with the Arab, couldn't make head
or tail of it: but of course the nature of the emergency was obvious
enough. They were also very much struck by discovering a white man, dead
and curled up peacefully on the bridge. "Fort intrigues par ce cadavre,"
as I was informed a long time after by an elderly French lieutenant whom
I came across one afternoon in Sydney, by the merest chance, in a sort
of cafe, and who remembered the affair perfectly. Indeed this affair,
I may notice in passing, had an extraordinary power of defying the
shortness of memories and the length of time: it seemed to live, with
a sort of uncanny vitality, in the minds of men, on the tips of their
tongues. I've had the questionable pleasure of meeting it often, years
afterwards, thousands of miles away, emerging from the remotest possible
talk, coming to the surface of the most distant allusions. Has it not
turned up to-night between us? And I am the only seaman here. I am the
only one to whom it is a memory. And yet it has made its way out! But if
two men who, unknown to each other, knew of this affair met accidentally
on any spot of this earth, the thing would pop up between them as sure
as fate, before they parted. I had never seen that Frenchman before, and
at the end of an hour we had done with each other for life: he did not
seem particularly talkative either; he was a quiet, massive chap in a
creased uniform, sitting drowsily over a tumbler half full of some
dark liquid. His shoulder-straps were a bit tarnished, his clean-shaved
cheeks were large and sallow; he looked like a man who would be given
to taking snuff--don't you know? I won't say he did; but the habit would
have fitted that kind of man. It all began by his handing me a number of
Home News, which I didn't want, across the marble table. I said "Merci."
We exchanged a few apparently innocent remarks, and suddenly, before
I knew how it had come about, we were in the midst of it, and he was
telling me how much they had been "intrigued by that corpse." It turned
out he had been one of the boarding officers.

'In the establishment where we sat one could get a variety of foreign
drinks which were kept for the visiting naval officers, and he took a
sip of the dark medical-looking stuff, which probably was nothing more
nasty than cassis a l'eau, and glancing with one eye into the tumbler,
shook his head slightly. "Impossible de comprendre--vous concevez," he
said, with a curious mixture of unconcern and thoughtfulness. I could
very easily conceive how impossible it had been for them to understand.
Nobody in the gunboat knew enough English to get hold of the story as
told by the serang. There was a good deal of noise, too, round the two
officers. "They crowded upon us. There was a circle round that dead
man (autour de ce mort)," he described. "One had to attend to the most
pressing. These people were beginning to agitate themselves--Parbleu!
A mob like that--don't you see?" he interjected with philosophic
indulgence. As to the bulkhead, he had advised his commander that the
safest thing was to leave it alone, it was so villainous to look at.
They got two hawsers on board promptly (en toute hale) and took the
Patna in tow--stern foremost at that--which, under the circumstances,
was not so foolish, since the rudder was too much out of the water to
be of any great use for steering, and this manoeuvre eased the strain on
the bulkhead, whose state, he expounded with stolid glibness, demanded
the greatest care (exigeait les plus grands menagements). I could not
help thinking that my new acquaintance must have had a voice in most of
these arrangements: he looked a reliable officer, no longer very active,
and he was seamanlike too, in a way, though as he sat there, with his
thick fingers clasped lightly on his stomach, he reminded you of one
of those snuffy, quiet village priests, into whose ears are poured the
sins, the sufferings, the remorse of peasant generations, on whose faces
the placid and simple expression is like a veil thrown over the mystery
of pain and distress. He ought to have had a threadbare black soutane
buttoned smoothly up to his ample chin, instead of a frock-coat with
shoulder-straps and brass buttons. His broad bosom heaved regularly
while he went on telling me that it had been the very devil of a job,
as doubtless (sans doute) I could figure to myself in my quality of a
seaman (en votre qualite de marin). At the end of the period he inclined
his body slightly towards me, and, pursing his shaved lips, allowed the
air to escape with a gentle hiss. "Luckily," he continued, "the sea was
level like this table, and there was no more wind than there is here."
. . . The place struck me as indeed intolerably stuffy, and very hot;
my face burned as though I had been young enough to be embarrassed and
blushing. They had directed their course, he pursued, to the nearest
English port "naturellement," where their responsibility ceased, "Dieu
merci." . . . He blew out his flat cheeks a little. . . . "Because,
mind you (notez bien), all the time of towing we had two quartermasters
stationed with axes by the hawsers, to cut us clear of our tow in case
she . . ." He fluttered downwards his heavy eyelids, making his meaning
as plain as possible. . . . "What would you! One does what one can
(on fait ce qu'on peut)," and for a moment he managed to invest
his ponderous immobility with an air of resignation. "Two
quartermasters--thirty hours--always there. Two!" he repeated, lifting
up his right hand a little, and exhibiting two fingers. This was
absolutely the first gesture I saw him make. It gave me the opportunity
to "note" a starred scar on the back of his hand--effect of a gunshot
clearly; and, as if my sight had been made more acute by this discovery,
I perceived also the seam of an old wound, beginning a little below the
temple and going out of sight under the short grey hair at the side of
his head--the graze of a spear or the cut of a sabre. He clasped his
hands on his stomach again. "I remained on board that--that--my memory
is going (s'en va). Ah! Patt-na. C'est bien ca. Patt-na. Merci. It is
droll how one forgets. I stayed on that ship thirty hours. . . ."

'"You did!" I exclaimed. Still gazing at his hands, he pursed his lips a
little, but this time made no hissing sound. "It was judged proper," he
said, lifting his eyebrows dispassionately, "that one of the officers
should remain to keep an eye open (pour ouvrir l'oeil)" . . . he sighed
idly . . . "and for communicating by signals with the towing ship--do
you see?--and so on. For the rest, it was my opinion too. We made our
boats ready to drop over--and I also on that ship took measures. . . .
Enfin! One has done one's possible. It was a delicate position. Thirty
hours! They prepared me some food. As for the wine--go and whistle for
it--not a drop." In some extraordinary way, without any marked change in
his inert attitude and in the placid expression of his face, he managed
to convey the idea of profound disgust. "I--you know--when it comes to
eating without my glass of wine--I am nowhere."

'I was afraid he would enlarge upon the grievance, for though he didn't
stir a limb or twitch a feature, he made one aware how much he was
irritated by the recollection. But he seemed to forget all about it.
They delivered their charge to the "port authorities," as he expressed
it. He was struck by the calmness with which it had been received. "One
might have thought they had such a droll find (drole de trouvaille)
brought them every day. You are extraordinary--you others," he
commented, with his back propped against the wall, and looking himself
as incapable of an emotional display as a sack of meal. There happened
to be a man-of-war and an Indian Marine steamer in the harbour at the
time, and he did not conceal his admiration of the efficient manner in
which the boats of these two ships cleared the Patna of her passengers.
Indeed his torpid demeanour concealed nothing: it had that mysterious,
almost miraculous, power of producing striking effects by means
impossible of detection which is the last word of the highest art.
"Twenty-five minutes--watch in hand--twenty-five, no more." . . . He
unclasped and clasped again his fingers without removing his hands from
his stomach, and made it infinitely more effective than if he had thrown
up his arms to heaven in amazement. . . . "All that lot (tout ce monde)
on shore--with their little affairs--nobody left but a guard of
seamen (marins de l'Etat) and that interesting corpse (cet interessant
cadavre). Twenty-five minutes." . . . With downcast eyes and his head
tilted slightly on one side he seemed to roll knowingly on his tongue
the savour of a smart bit of work. He persuaded one without any further
demonstration that his approval was eminently worth having, and resuming
his hardly interrupted immobility, he went on to inform me that, being
under orders to make the best of their way to Toulon, they left in
two hours' time, "so that (de sorte que) there are many things in this
incident of my life (dans cet episode de ma vie) which have remained
obscure."'

Resuming his story, Jim tells us that the men in the lifeboat were rescued by the Avondale. But of course before we can settle in to the story again, Marlow breaks in with his own information on the Patna and how the news of it broke. He seems to have something against telling stories in chronological order. We jump forward in time to Marlow's conversation with a French lieutenant, who was serving aboard the vessel that rescued the Patna. The two meet up in Sydney, and Marlow learns from the lieutenant that his French gunboat towed the Patna to safety. The French lieutenant recalls being bored during much of this, though he and his crew were very interested in the dead body they found .

The next morning, Jim and the others in the lifeboat are rescued by the Avondale. As the others tell a lie about what has happened, Jim remains silent. The captain says that the first lifeboat was lowered slowly when suddenly the Patna went down, sinking like lead. He manages to save himself and some of his crew. As Jim hears the lies, he is thinking about the voices he has heard throughout the night, coming from people on the Patna screaming for help as they drown. When the Avondale arrives in port, Jim immediately learns that a French gunboat has towed the Patna to Aden successfully and an investigation is to begin immediately, Jim realizes that the voices he had heard were in his imagination. He still feels guilty about not helping the people on the boat and convinces himself that he would have tried to rescue them if he had been able to see the lights of the ship.

Notes In this chapter, Jim's imagination continues to play tricks on him. He still thinks that he has heard the screaming voices of the pilgrims as they drown. When he learns that the Patna and the pilgrims have been saved, he finally acknowledges that the voices were only in his imagination. He still imagines, however, that he would have tried to rescue them if he had been able to see the lights of the ship. It is obvious that Jim continues to exist in a dream world, even after the reality of the Patna is known.


'After these words, and without a change of attitude, he, so to speak,
submitted himself passively to a state of silence. I kept him company;
and suddenly, but not abruptly, as if the appointed time had arrived
for his moderate and husky voice to come out of his immobility, he
pronounced, "Mon Dieu! how the time passes!" Nothing could have been
more commonplace than this remark; but its utterance coincided for me
with a moment of vision. It's extraordinary how we go through life with
eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it's just
as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to
the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome. Nevertheless,
there can be but few of us who had never known one of these rare moments
of awakening when we see, hear, understand ever so much--everything--in
a flash--before we fall back again into our agreeable somnolence. I
raised my eyes when he spoke, and I saw him as though I had never seen
him before. I saw his chin sunk on his breast, the clumsy folds of his
coat, his clasped hands, his motionless pose, so curiously suggestive
of his having been simply left there. Time had passed indeed: it had
overtaken him and gone ahead. It had left him hopelessly behind with
a few poor gifts: the iron-grey hair, the heavy fatigue of the tanned
face, two scars, a pair of tarnished shoulder-straps; one of those
steady, reliable men who are the raw material of great reputations,
one of those uncounted lives that are buried without drums and
trumpets under the foundations of monumental successes. "I am now third
lieutenant of the Victorieuse" (she was the flagship of the French
Pacific squadron at the time), he said, detaching his shoulders from
the wall a couple of inches to introduce himself. I bowed slightly on my
side of the table, and told him I commanded a merchant vessel at present
anchored in Rushcutters' Bay. He had "remarked" her,--a pretty little
craft. He was very civil about it in his impassive way. I even fancy
he went the length of tilting his head in compliment as he repeated,
breathing visibly the while, "Ah, yes. A little craft painted
black--very pretty--very pretty (tres coquet)." After a time he twisted
his body slowly to face the glass door on our right. "A dull town
(triste ville)," he observed, staring into the street. It was a
brilliant day; a southerly buster was raging, and we could see the
passers-by, men and women, buffeted by the wind on the sidewalks, the
sunlit fronts of the houses across the road blurred by the tall whirls
of dust. "I descended on shore," he said, "to stretch my legs a little,
but . . ." He didn't finish, and sank into the depths of his repose.
"Pray--tell me," he began, coming up ponderously, "what was there at the
bottom of this affair--precisely (au juste)? It is curious. That dead
man, for instance--and so on."

'"There were living men too," I said; "much more curious."

'"No doubt, no doubt," he agreed half audibly, then, as if after
mature consideration, murmured, "Evidently." I made no difficulty in
communicating to him what had interested me most in this affair. It
seemed as though he had a right to know: hadn't he spent thirty hours
on board the Patna--had he not taken the succession, so to speak, had
he not done "his possible"? He listened to me, looking more priest-like
than ever, and with what--probably on account of his downcast eyes--had
the appearance of devout concentration. Once or twice he elevated
his eyebrows (but without raising his eyelids), as one would say "The
devil!" Once he calmly exclaimed, "Ah, bah!" under his breath, and when
I had finished he pursed his lips in a deliberate way and emitted a sort
of sorrowful whistle.

'In any one else it might have been an evidence of boredom, a sign of
indifference; but he, in his occult way, managed to make his immobility
appear profoundly responsive, and as full of valuable thoughts as an
egg is of meat. What he said at last was nothing more than a "Very
interesting," pronounced politely, and not much above a whisper. Before
I got over my disappointment he added, but as if speaking to himself,
"That's it. That _is_ it." His chin seemed to sink lower on his breast,
his body to weigh heavier on his seat. I was about to ask him what he
meant, when a sort of preparatory tremor passed over his whole person,
as a faint ripple may be seen upon stagnant water even before the wind
is felt. "And so that poor young man ran away along with the others," he
said, with grave tranquillity.

'I don't know what made me smile: it is the only genuine smile of mine
I can remember in connection with Jim's affair. But somehow this simple
statement of the matter sounded funny in French. . . . "S'est enfui avec
les autres," had said the lieutenant. And suddenly I began to admire the
discrimination of the man. He had made out the point at once: he did
get hold of the only thing I cared about. I felt as though I were taking
professional opinion on the case. His imperturbable and mature calmness
was that of an expert in possession of the facts, and to whom one's
perplexities are mere child's-play. "Ah! The young, the young," he said
indulgently. "And after all, one does not die of it." "Die of what?" I
asked swiftly. "Of being afraid." He elucidated his meaning and sipped
his drink.

'I perceived that the three last fingers of his wounded hand were stiff
and could not move independently of each other, so that he took up his
tumbler with an ungainly clutch. "One is always afraid. One may talk,
but . . ." He put down the glass awkwardly. . . . "The fear, the
fear--look you--it is always there." . . . He touched his breast near
a brass button, on the very spot where Jim had given a thump to his
own when protesting that there was nothing the matter with his heart. I
suppose I made some sign of dissent, because he insisted, "Yes! yes! One
talks, one talks; this is all very fine; but at the end of the reckoning
one is no cleverer than the next man--and no more brave. Brave! This
is always to be seen. I have rolled my hump (roule ma bosse)," he said,
using the slang expression with imperturbable seriousness, "in all parts
of the world; I have known brave men--famous ones! Allez!" . . . He
drank carelessly. . . . "Brave--you conceive--in the Service--one has
got to be--the trade demands it (le metier veut ca). Is it not so?" he
appealed to me reasonably. "Eh bien! Each of them--I say each of them,
if he were an honest man--bien entendu--would confess that there is a
point--there is a point--for the best of us--there is somewhere a point
when you let go everything (vous lachez tout). And you have got to
live with that truth--do you see? Given a certain combination
of circumstances, fear is sure to come. Abominable funk (un trac
epouvantable). And even for those who do not believe this truth there is
fear all the same--the fear of themselves. Absolutely so. Trust me. Yes.
Yes. . . . At my age one knows what one is talking about--que diable!"
. . . He had delivered himself of all this as immovably as though he had
been the mouthpiece of abstract wisdom, but at this point he heightened
the effect of detachment by beginning to twirl his thumbs slowly. "It's
evident--parbleu!" he continued; "for, make up your mind as much as you
like, even a simple headache or a fit of indigestion (un derangement
d'estomac) is enough to . . . Take me, for instance--I have made my
proofs. Eh bien! I, who am speaking to you, once . . ."

'He drained his glass and returned to his twirling. "No, no; one does
not die of it," he pronounced finally, and when I found he did not mean
to proceed with the personal anecdote, I was extremely disappointed; the
more so as it was not the sort of story, you know, one could very well
press him for. I sat silent, and he too, as if nothing could please him
better. Even his thumbs were still now. Suddenly his lips began to move.
"That is so," he resumed placidly. "Man is born a coward (L'homme est ne
poltron). It is a difficulty--parbleu! It would be too easy other vise.
But habit--habit--necessity--do you see?--the eye of others--voila. One
puts up with it. And then the example of others who are no better than
yourself, and yet make good countenance. . . ."

'His voice ceased.

'"That young man--you will observe--had none of these inducements--at
least at the moment," I remarked.

'He raised his eyebrows forgivingly: "I don't say; I don't say. The
young man in question might have had the best dispositions--the best
dispositions," he repeated, wheezing a little.

'"I am glad to see you taking a lenient view," I said. "His own feeling
in the matter was--ah!--hopeful, and . . ."

'The shuffle of his feet under the table interrupted me. He drew up
his heavy eyelids. Drew up, I say--no other expression can describe the
steady deliberation of the act--and at last was disclosed completely to
me. I was confronted by two narrow grey circlets, like two tiny steel
rings around the profound blackness of the pupils. The sharp glance,
coming from that massive body, gave a notion of extreme efficiency, like
a razor-edge on a battle-axe. "Pardon," he said punctiliously. His right
hand went up, and he swayed forward. "Allow me . . . I contended that
one may get on knowing very well that one's courage does not come of
itself (ne vient pas tout seul). There's nothing much in that to
get upset about. One truth the more ought not to make life
impossible. . . . But the honour--the honour, monsieur! . . . The honour
. . . that is real--that is! And what life may be worth when" . . . he
got on his feet with a ponderous impetuosity, as a startled ox might
scramble up from the grass . . . "when the honour is gone--ah
ca! par exemple--I can offer no opinion. I can offer no
opinion--because--monsieur--I know nothing of it."

'I had risen too, and, trying to throw infinite politeness into
our attitudes, we faced each other mutely, like two china dogs on a
mantelpiece. Hang the fellow! he had pricked the bubble. The blight
of futility that lies in wait for men's speeches had fallen upon our
conversation, and made it a thing of empty sounds. "Very well," I said,
with a disconcerted smile; "but couldn't it reduce itself to not being
found out?" He made as if to retort readily, but when he spoke he had
changed his mind. "This, monsieur, is too fine for me--much above me--I
don't think about it." He bowed heavily over his cap, which he held
before him by the peak, between the thumb and the forefinger of his
wounded hand. I bowed too. We bowed together: we scraped our feet at
each other with much ceremony, while a dirty specimen of a waiter looked
on critically, as though he had paid for the performance. "Serviteur,"
said the Frenchman. Another scrape. "Monsieur" . . . "Monsieur." . . .
The glass door swung behind his burly back. I saw the southerly buster
get hold of him and drive him down wind with his hand to his head, his
shoulders braced, and the tails of his coat blown hard against his legs.

'I sat down again alone and discouraged--discouraged about Jim's case.
If you wonder that after more than three years it had preserved its
actuality, you must know that I had seen him only very lately. I had
come straight from Samarang, where I had loaded a cargo for Sydney: an
utterly uninteresting bit of business,--what Charley here would call one
of my rational transactions,--and in Samarang I had seen something
of Jim. He was then working for De Jongh, on my recommendation.
Water-clerk. "My representative afloat," as De Jongh called him. You
can't imagine a mode of life more barren of consolation, less capable of
being invested with a spark of glamour--unless it be the business of an
insurance canvasser. Little Bob Stanton--Charley here knew him well--had
gone through that experience. The same who got drowned afterwards trying
to save a lady's-maid in the Sephora disaster. A case of collision on a
hazy morning off the Spanish coast--you may remember. All the passengers
had been packed tidily into the boats and shoved clear of the ship, when
Bob sheered alongside again and scrambled back on deck to fetch that
girl. How she had been left behind I can't make out; anyhow, she had
gone completely crazy--wouldn't leave the ship--held to the rail like
grim death. The wrestling-match could be seen plainly from the boats;
but poor Bob was the shortest chief mate in the merchant service, and
the woman stood five feet ten in her shoes and was as strong as a horse,
I've been told. So it went on, pull devil, pull baker, the wretched girl
screaming all the time, and Bob letting out a yell now and then to
warn his boat to keep well clear of the ship. One of the hands told me,
hiding a smile at the recollection, "It was for all the world, sir, like
a naughty youngster fighting with his mother." The same old chap said
that "At the last we could see that Mr. Stanton had given up hauling
at the gal, and just stood by looking at her, watchful like. We thought
afterwards he must've been reckoning that, maybe, the rush of water
would tear her away from the rail by-and-by and give him a show to save
her. We daren't come alongside for our life; and after a bit the old
ship went down all on a sudden with a lurch to starboard--plop. The suck
in was something awful. We never saw anything alive or dead come up."
Poor Bob's spell of shore-life had been one of the complications of a
love affair, I believe. He fondly hoped he had done with the sea for
ever, and made sure he had got hold of all the bliss on earth, but it
came to canvassing in the end. Some cousin of his in Liverpool put up
to it. He used to tell us his experiences in that line. He made us laugh
till we cried, and, not altogether displeased at the effect, undersized
and bearded to the waist like a gnome, he would tiptoe amongst us and
say, "It's all very well for you beggars to laugh, but my immortal soul
was shrivelled down to the size of a parched pea after a week of that
work." I don't know how Jim's soul accommodated itself to the new
conditions of his life--I was kept too busy in getting him something to
do that would keep body and soul together--but I am pretty certain his
adventurous fancy was suffering all the pangs of starvation. It had
certainly nothing to feed upon in this new calling. It was distressing
to see him at it, though he tackled it with a stubborn serenity for
which I must give him full credit. I kept my eye on his shabby plodding
with a sort of notion that it was a punishment for the heroics of his
fancy--an expiation for his craving after more glamour than he could
carry. He had loved too well to imagine himself a glorious racehorse,
and now he was condemned to toil without honour like a costermonger's
donkey. He did it very well. He shut himself in, put his head down, said
never a word. Very well; very well indeed--except for certain
fantastic and violent outbreaks, on the deplorable occasions when the
irrepressible Patna case cropped up. Unfortunately that scandal of the
Eastern seas would not die out. And this is the reason why I could never
feel I had done with Jim for good.

'I sat thinking of him after the French lieutenant had left, not,
however, in connection with De Jongh's cool and gloomy backshop, where
we had hurriedly shaken hands not very long ago, but as I had seen him
years before in the last flickers of the candle, alone with me in the
long gallery of the Malabar House, with the chill and the darkness of
the night at his back. The respectable sword of his country's law was
suspended over his head. To-morrow--or was it to-day? (midnight had
slipped by long before we parted)--the marble-faced police
magistrate, after distributing fines and terms of imprisonment in the
assault-and-battery case, would take up the awful weapon and smite his
bowed neck. Our communion in the night was uncommonly like a last vigil
with a condemned man. He was guilty too. He was guilty--as I had told
myself repeatedly, guilty and done for; nevertheless, I wished to spare
him the mere detail of a formal execution. I don't pretend to explain
the reasons of my desire--I don't think I could; but if you haven't got
a sort of notion by this time, then I must have been very obscure in
my narrative, or you too sleepy to seize upon the sense of my words.
I don't defend my morality. There was no morality in the impulse which
induced me to lay before him Brierly's plan of evasion--I may call
it--in all its primitive simplicity. There were the rupees--absolutely
ready in my pocket and very much at his service. Oh! a loan; a loan of
course--and if an introduction to a man (in Rangoon) who could put some
work in his way . . . Why! with the greatest pleasure. I had pen, ink,
and paper in my room on the first floor And even while I was speaking I
was impatient to begin the letter--day, month, year, 2.30 A.M. . . . for
the sake of our old friendship I ask you to put some work in the way of
Mr. James So-and-so, in whom, &c., &c. . . . I was even ready to write
in that strain about him. If he had not enlisted my sympathies he had
done better for himself--he had gone to the very fount and origin of
that sentiment he had reached the secret sensibility of my egoism. I
am concealing nothing from you, because were I to do so my action would
appear more unintelligible than any man's action has the right to be,
and--in the second place--to-morrow you will forget my sincerity along
with the other lessons of the past. In this transaction, to speak
grossly and precisely, I was the irreproachable man; but the subtle
intentions of my immorality were defeated by the moral simplicity of the
criminal. No doubt he was selfish too, but his selfishness had a higher
origin, a more lofty aim. I discovered that, say what I would, he was
eager to go through the ceremony of execution, and I didn't say much,
for I felt that in argument his youth would tell against me heavily: he
believed where I had already ceased to doubt. There was something fine
in the wildness of his unexpressed, hardly formulated hope. "Clear out!
Couldn't think of it," he said, with a shake of the head. "I make you
an offer for which I neither demand nor expect any sort of gratitude,"
I said; "you shall repay the money when convenient, and . . ." "Awfully
good of you," he muttered without looking up. I watched him narrowly:
the future must have appeared horribly uncertain to him; but he did not
falter, as though indeed there had been nothing wrong with his heart.
I felt angry--not for the first time that night. "The whole wretched
business," I said, "is bitter enough, I should think, for a man of your
kind . . ." "It is, it is," he whispered twice, with his eyes fixed on
the floor. It was heartrending. He towered above the light, and I could
see the down on his cheek, the colour mantling warm under the smooth
skin of his face. Believe me or not, I say it was outrageously
heartrending. It provoked me to brutality. "Yes," I said; "and allow me
to confess that I am totally unable to imagine what advantage you can
expect from this licking of the dregs." "Advantage!" he murmured out of
his stillness. "I am dashed if I do," I said, enraged. "I've been trying
to tell you all there is in it," he went on slowly, as if meditating
something unanswerable. "But after all, it is _my_ trouble." I opened my
mouth to retort, and discovered suddenly that I'd lost all confidence in
myself; and it was as if he too had given me up, for he mumbled like a
man thinking half aloud. "Went away . . . went into hospitals. . . . Not
one of them would face it. . . . They! . . ." He moved his hand slightly
to imply disdain. "But I've got to get over this thing, and I mustn't
shirk any of it or . . . I won't shirk any of it." He was silent. He
gazed as though he had been haunted. His unconscious face reflected the
passing expressions of scorn, of despair, of resolution--reflected
them in turn, as a magic mirror would reflect the gliding passage of
unearthly shapes. He lived surrounded by deceitful ghosts, by austere
shades. "Oh! nonsense, my dear fellow," I began. He had a movement of
impatience. "You don't seem to understand," he said incisively; then
looking at me without a wink, "I may have jumped, but I don't run away."
"I meant no offence," I said; and added stupidly, "Better men than you
have found it expedient to run, at times." He coloured all over, while
in my confusion I half-choked myself with my own tongue. "Perhaps so,"
he said at last, "I am not good enough; I can't afford it. I am bound to
fight this thing down--I am fighting it now." I got out of my chair and
felt stiff all over. The silence was embarrassing, and to put an end
to it I imagined nothing better but to remark, "I had no idea it was so
late," in an airy tone. . . . "I dare say you have had enough of this,"
he said brusquely: "and to tell you the truth"--he began to look round
for his hat--"so have I."

'Well! he had refused this unique offer. He had struck aside my helping
hand; he was ready to go now, and beyond the balustrade the night seemed
to wait for him very still, as though he had been marked down for its
prey. I heard his voice. "Ah! here it is." He had found his hat. For a
few seconds we hung in the wind. "What will you do after--after . . ."
I asked very low. "Go to the dogs as likely as not," he answered in a
gruff mutter. I had recovered my wits in a measure, and judged best to
take it lightly. "Pray remember," I said, "that I should like very much
to see you again before you go." "I don't know what's to prevent
you. The damned thing won't make me invisible," he said with intense
bitterness,--"no such luck." And then at the moment of taking leave he
treated me to a ghastly muddle of dubious stammers and movements, to an
awful display of hesitations. God forgive him--me! He had taken it
into his fanciful head that I was likely to make some difficulty as to
shaking hands. It was too awful for words. I believe I shouted suddenly
at him as you would bellow to a man you saw about to walk over a cliff;
I remember our voices being raised, the appearance of a miserable grin
on his face, a crushing clutch on my hand, a nervous laugh. The candle
spluttered out, and the thing was over at last, with a groan that
floated up to me in the dark. He got himself away somehow. The night
swallowed his form. He was a horrible bungler. Horrible. I heard the
quick crunch-crunch of the gravel under his boots. He was running.
Absolutely running, with nowhere to go to. And he was not yet
four-and-twenty.'

As the French lieutenant wraps up his story about rescuing the Patna, he assesses Jim's situation and the significance of Jim's actions. By the way, we learn that this conversation took place three years after Jim's trial, at which point Jim was working as a water-clerk. This reminds Marlow of another one-time water-clerk named Bob Stanton, who drowned while trying to rescue a woman from a sinking ship. We now interrupt this digression to bring you back to Jim and Marlow's conversation. We go back to the night of Jim and Marlow's conversation. Jim is going to be sentenced the next day, so Marlow offers him some cash to skip town, just as Captain Brierly suggested. But Jim is more moral than Marlow gives him credit for. He refuses and insists on seeing the trial through to the end. The pair parts awkwardly, and Jim runs off into the night.

This chapter shifts its emphasis to the rescue of the Patna by a French gunboat. Marlow met the French lieutenant in charge of the gunboat three years after the incident and learned the details of the rescue. The lieutenant had boarded the Patna and stayed to oversee the towing procedure, which lasted thirty hours. Throughout the ordeal, he was aware that the ship could sink at any moment, and he would have been forced to go down with it and the 800 pilgrims. Fortunately, the Patna was towed to shore without incident. Surprisingly, the French lieutenant does not condemn Jim for his desertion. He says that even the bravest of men have some element of fear, for "all men are weak." Marlow thinks about Bob Stanton, a small man he once knew. Even though he performed menial labor, he died a hero. He once tried to rescue a woman who refused to vacate a drowning ship. Bob tried to pull her off, but the large woman refused to budge. Finally when the boat went down, both Bob and the woman went down with it. Marlow then returns to the story of Jim and tells of the night before Jim is sentenced. Marlow offers to loan the young sailor some money and give him a letter of recommendation so that he can escape. Jim refuses the offer; he will not "clear out." Although he jumped from the Patna, he will not run away from the trial. He already feels tortured by abandoning the 800 pilgrims; he must fact the inquiry and sentencing in order to restore some faith in himself. Jim then departs, and Marlow is amazed once again at the young sailor's romanticism. He thinks if he were in Jim's shoes he probably would have taken the money and left.

Notes This chapter is one of the more difficult ones to follow in the book, for Marlow jumps around in time and place. It also introduces several new characters. Three years after Jim's desertion, the French lieutenant tells Marlow about rescuing the Patna. For thirty hours he stayed on board the broken ship that was being towed, fearing it might sink at any moment. In spite of what he himself did to save the pilgrims, the lieutenant does not condemn Jim, for he knows that all men are fearful and weak. This philosophy voiced by the lieutenant presents a basic theme of the novel. Bob Stanton is also introduced in the chapter and presented as a stark contrast to Jim. Stanton's heroism in going down with one stubborn lady is contrasted with the cowardice of Jim, who left 800 pilgrims to die on the Patna. Jim, however, redeems himself to some degree by the end of the chapter. When Marlow offers him a means of escape, the young, idealistic sailor refuses. He knows that he must not run away from the inquiry like he ran away from the pilgrims. Jim is determined to regain some sense of self-worth. It is important to notice that when Jim tells Marlow his story, he is always nervous and uncomfortable. He does not like to face up to his weaknesses. Since he is portrayed as 'every man' throughout the novel, Jim's discomfort highlights the fact that every individual tries to shy away from her/his own negative deeds or traits; mankind finds it uncomfortable to face the truth.