'I did not start in search of Jim at once, only because I had really an
appointment which I could not neglect. Then, as ill-luck would have
it, in my agent's office I was fastened upon by a fellow fresh from
Madagascar with a little scheme for a wonderful piece of business. It
had something to do with cattle and cartridges and a Prince Ravonalo
something; but the pivot of the whole affair was the stupidity of some
admiral--Admiral Pierre, I think. Everything turned on that, and the
chap couldn't find words strong enough to express his confidence. He had
globular eyes starting out of his head with a fishy glitter, bumps on
his forehead, and wore his long hair brushed back without a parting.
He had a favourite phrase which he kept on repeating triumphantly, "The
minimum of risk with the maximum of profit is my motto. What?" He made
my head ache, spoiled my tiffin, but got his own out of me all right;
and as soon as I had shaken him off, I made straight for the water-side.
I caught sight of Jim leaning over the parapet of the quay. Three native
boatmen quarrelling over five annas were making an awful row at his
elbow. He didn't hear me come up, but spun round as if the slight
contact of my finger had released a catch. "I was looking," he
stammered. I don't remember what I said, not much anyhow, but he made no
difficulty in following me to the hotel.

'He followed me as manageable as a little child, with an obedient air,
with no sort of manifestation, rather as though he had been waiting
for me there to come along and carry him off. I need not have been so
surprised as I was at his tractability. On all the round earth, which to
some seems so big and that others affect to consider as rather smaller
than a mustard-seed, he had no place where he could--what shall I
say?--where he could withdraw. That's it! Withdraw--be alone with his
loneliness. He walked by my side very calm, glancing here and there, and
once turned his head to look after a Sidiboy fireman in a cutaway coat
and yellowish trousers, whose black face had silky gleams like a lump
of anthracite coal. I doubt, however, whether he saw anything, or even
remained all the time aware of my companionship, because if I had not
edged him to the left here, or pulled him to the right there, I believe
he would have gone straight before him in any direction till stopped by
a wall or some other obstacle. I steered him into my bedroom, and sat
down at once to write letters. This was the only place in the world
(unless, perhaps, the Walpole Reef--but that was not so handy) where he
could have it out with himself without being bothered by the rest of
the universe. The damned thing--as he had expressed it--had not made
him invisible, but I behaved exactly as though he were. No sooner in my
chair I bent over my writing-desk like a medieval scribe, and, but for
the movement of the hand holding the pen, remained anxiously quiet. I
can't say I was frightened; but I certainly kept as still as if there
had been something dangerous in the room, that at the first hint of a
movement on my part would be provoked to pounce upon me. There was not
much in the room--you know how these bedrooms are--a sort of four-poster
bedstead under a mosquito-net, two or three chairs, the table I was
writing at, a bare floor. A glass door opened on an upstairs verandah,
and he stood with his face to it, having a hard time with all possible
privacy. Dusk fell; I lit a candle with the greatest economy of movement
and as much prudence as though it were an illegal proceeding. There is
no doubt that he had a very hard time of it, and so had I, even to the
point, I must own, of wishing him to the devil, or on Walpole Reef at
least. It occurred to me once or twice that, after all, Chester was,
perhaps, the man to deal effectively with such a disaster. That strange
idealist had found a practical use for it at once--unerringly, as it
were. It was enough to make one suspect that, maybe, he really could see
the true aspect of things that appeared mysterious or utterly hopeless
to less imaginative persons. I wrote and wrote; I liquidated all the
arrears of my correspondence, and then went on writing to people who had
no reason whatever to expect from me a gossipy letter about nothing at
all. At times I stole a sidelong glance. He was rooted to the spot,
but convulsive shudders ran down his back; his shoulders would heave
suddenly. He was fighting, he was fighting--mostly for his breath, as it
seemed. The massive shadows, cast all one way from the straight flame of
the candle, seemed possessed of gloomy consciousness; the immobility of
the furniture had to my furtive eye an air of attention. I was becoming
fanciful in the midst of my industrious scribbling; and though, when the
scratching of my pen stopped for a moment, there was complete silence
and stillness in the room, I suffered from that profound disturbance
and confusion of thought which is caused by a violent and menacing
uproar--of a heavy gale at sea, for instance. Some of you may know what
I mean: that mingled anxiety, distress, and irritation with a sort of
craven feeling creeping in--not pleasant to acknowledge, but which gives
a quite special merit to one's endurance. I don't claim any merit
for standing the stress of Jim's emotions; I could take refuge in the
letters; I could have written to strangers if necessary. Suddenly, as I
was taking up a fresh sheet of notepaper, I heard a low sound, the first
sound that, since we had been shut up together, had come to my ears in
the dim stillness of the room. I remained with my head down, with my
hand arrested. Those who have kept vigil by a sick-bed have heard such
faint sounds in the stillness of the night watches, sounds wrung from a
racked body, from a weary soul. He pushed the glass door with such force
that all the panes rang: he stepped out, and I held my breath, straining
my ears without knowing what else I expected to hear. He was really
taking too much to heart an empty formality which to Chester's rigorous
criticism seemed unworthy the notice of a man who could see things as
they were. An empty formality; a piece of parchment. Well, well. As to
an inaccessible guano deposit, that was another story altogether. One
could intelligibly break one's heart over that. A feeble burst of many
voices mingled with the tinkle of silver and glass floated up from the
dining-room below; through the open door the outer edge of the light
from my candle fell on his back faintly; beyond all was black; he stood
on the brink of a vast obscurity, like a lonely figure by the shore of
a sombre and hopeless ocean. There was the Walpole Reef in it--to
be sure--a speck in the dark void, a straw for the drowning man. My
compassion for him took the shape of the thought that I wouldn't have
liked his people to see him at that moment. I found it trying myself.
His back was no longer shaken by his gasps; he stood straight as an
arrow, faintly visible and still; and the meaning of this stillness sank
to the bottom of my soul like lead into the water, and made it so heavy
that for a second I wished heartily that the only course left open for
me was to pay for his funeral. Even the law had done with him. To bury
him would have been such an easy kindness! It would have been so much
in accordance with the wisdom of life, which consists in putting out of
sight all the reminders of our folly, of our weakness, of our mortality;
all that makes against our efficiency--the memory of our failures, the
hints of our undying fears, the bodies of our dead friends. Perhaps he
did take it too much to heart. And if so then--Chester's offer. . . . At
this point I took up a fresh sheet and began to write resolutely. There
was nothing but myself between him and the dark ocean. I had a sense of
responsibility. If I spoke, would that motionless and suffering youth
leap into the obscurity--clutch at the straw? I found out how difficult
it may be sometimes to make a sound. There is a weird power in a spoken
word. And why the devil not? I was asking myself persistently while I
drove on with my writing. All at once, on the blank page, under the very
point of the pen, the two figures of Chester and his antique partner,
very distinct and complete, would dodge into view with stride and
gestures, as if reproduced in the field of some optical toy. I would
watch them for a while. No! They were too phantasmal and extravagant
to enter into any one's fate. And a word carries far--very far--deals
destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space. I said
nothing; and he, out there with his back to the light, as if bound
and gagged by all the invisible foes of man, made no stir and made no
sound.'

'The time was coming when I should see him loved, trusted, admired, with
a legend of strength and prowess forming round his name as though he
had been the stuff of a hero. It's true--I assure you; as true as
I'm sitting here talking about him in vain. He, on his side, had that
faculty of beholding at a hint the face of his desire and the shape
of his dream, without which the earth would know no lover and no
adventurer. He captured much honour and an Arcadian happiness (I won't
say anything about innocence) in the bush, and it was as good to him
as the honour and the Arcadian happiness of the streets to another man.
Felicity, felicity--how shall I say it?--is quaffed out of a golden cup
in every latitude: the flavour is with you--with you alone, and you can
make it as intoxicating as you please. He was of the sort that would
drink deep, as you may guess from what went before. I found him, if not
exactly intoxicated, then at least flushed with the elixir at his lips.
He had not obtained it at once. There had been, as you know, a period of
probation amongst infernal ship-chandlers, during which he had suffered
and I had worried about--about--my trust--you may call it. I don't
know that I am completely reassured now, after beholding him in all his
brilliance. That was my last view of him--in a strong light, dominating,
and yet in complete accord with his surroundings--with the life of the
forests and with the life of men. I own that I was impressed, but I must
admit to myself that after all this is not the lasting impression. He
was protected by his isolation, alone of his own superior kind, in close
touch with Nature, that keeps faith on such easy terms with her lovers.
But I cannot fix before my eye the image of his safety. I shall always
remember him as seen through the open door of my room, taking, perhaps,
too much to heart the mere consequences of his failure. I am pleased,
of course, that some good--and even some splendour--came out of my
endeavours; but at times it seems to me it would have been better for my
peace of mind if I had not stood between him and Chester's confoundedly
generous offer. I wonder what his exuberant imagination would have made
of Walpole islet--that most hopelessly forsaken crumb of dry land on the
face of the waters. It is not likely I would ever have heard, for I must
tell you that Chester, after calling at some Australian port to patch
up his brig-rigged sea-anachronism, steamed out into the Pacific with a
crew of twenty-two hands all told, and the only news having a possible
bearing upon the mystery of his fate was the news of a hurricane which
is supposed to have swept in its course over the Walpole shoals, a month
or so afterwards. Not a vestige of the Argonauts ever turned up; not a
sound came out of the waste. Finis! The Pacific is the most discreet of
live, hot-tempered oceans: the chilly Antarctic can keep a secret too,
but more in the manner of a grave.

'And there is a sense of blessed finality in such discretion, which is
what we all more or less sincerely are ready to admit--for what else is
it that makes the idea of death supportable? End! Finis! the potent word
that exorcises from the house of life the haunting shadow of fate. This
is what--notwithstanding the testimony of my eyes and his own earnest
assurances--I miss when I look back upon Jim's success. While there's
life there is hope, truly; but there is fear too. I don't mean to say
that I regret my action, nor will I pretend that I can't sleep o' nights
in consequence; still, the idea obtrudes itself that he made so much of
his disgrace while it is the guilt alone that matters. He was not--if I
may say so--clear to me. He was not clear. And there is a suspicion he
was not clear to himself either. There were his fine sensibilities,
his fine feelings, his fine longings--a sort of sublimated, idealised
selfishness. He was--if you allow me to say so--very fine; very
fine--and very unfortunate. A little coarser nature would not have borne
the strain; it would have had to come to terms with itself--with a sigh,
with a grunt, or even with a guffaw; a still coarser one would have
remained invulnerably ignorant and completely uninteresting.

'But he was too interesting or too unfortunate to be thrown to the dogs,
or even to Chester. I felt this while I sat with my face over the paper
and he fought and gasped, struggling for his breath in that terribly
stealthy way, in my room; I felt it when he rushed out on the verandah
as if to fling himself over--and didn't; I felt it more and more all the
time he remained outside, faintly lighted on the background of night, as
if standing on the shore of a sombre and hopeless sea.

'An abrupt heavy rumble made me lift my head. The noise seemed to roll
away, and suddenly a searching and violent glare fell on the blind face
of the night. The sustained and dazzling flickers seemed to last for an
unconscionable time. The growl of the thunder increased steadily while I
looked at him, distinct and black, planted solidly upon the shores of a
sea of light. At the moment of greatest brilliance the darkness leaped
back with a culminating crash, and he vanished before my dazzled eyes as
utterly as though he had been blown to atoms. A blustering sigh passed;
furious hands seemed to tear at the shrubs, shake the tops of the
trees below, slam doors, break window-panes, all along the front of
the building. He stepped in, closing the door behind him, and found me
bending over the table: my sudden anxiety as to what he would say was
very great, and akin to a fright. "May I have a cigarette?" he asked. I
gave a push to the box without raising my head. "I want--want--tobacco,"
he muttered. I became extremely buoyant. "Just a moment." I grunted
pleasantly. He took a few steps here and there. "That's over," I heard
him say. A single distant clap of thunder came from the sea like a
gun of distress. "The monsoon breaks up early this year," he remarked
conversationally, somewhere behind me. This encouraged me to turn round,
which I did as soon as I had finished addressing the last envelope. He
was smoking greedily in the middle of the room, and though he heard the
stir I made, he remained with his back to me for a time.

'"Come--I carried it off pretty well," he said, wheeling suddenly.
"Something's paid off--not much. I wonder what's to come." His face did
not show any emotion, only it appeared a little darkened and swollen, as
though he had been holding his breath. He smiled reluctantly as it
were, and went on while I gazed up at him mutely. . . . "Thank you,
though--your room--jolly convenient--for a chap--badly hipped." . . .
The rain pattered and swished in the garden; a water-pipe (it must
have had a hole in it) performed just outside the window a parody of
blubbering woe with funny sobs and gurgling lamentations, interrupted
by jerky spasms of silence. . . . "A bit of shelter," he mumbled and
ceased.

'A flash of faded lightning darted in through the black framework of the
windows and ebbed out without any noise. I was thinking how I had best
approach him (I did not want to be flung off again) when he gave a
little laugh. "No better than a vagabond now" . . . the end of
the cigarette smouldered between his fingers . . . "without a
single--single," he pronounced slowly; "and yet . . ." He paused; the
rain fell with redoubled violence. "Some day one's bound to come upon
some sort of chance to get it all back again. Must!" he whispered
distinctly, glaring at my boots.

'I did not even know what it was he wished so much to regain, what it
was he had so terribly missed. It might have been so much that it was
impossible to say. A piece of ass's skin, according to Chester. . . .
He looked up at me inquisitively. "Perhaps. If life's long enough," I
muttered through my teeth with unreasonable animosity. "Don't reckon too
much on it."

'"Jove! I feel as if nothing could ever touch me," he said in a tone
of sombre conviction. "If this business couldn't knock me over, then
there's no fear of there being not enough time to--climb out, and . . ."
He looked upwards.

'It struck me that it is from such as he that the great army of waifs
and strays is recruited, the army that marches down, down into all the
gutters of the earth. As soon as he left my room, that "bit of shelter,"
he would take his place in the ranks, and begin the journey towards the
bottomless pit. I at least had no illusions; but it was I, too, who a
moment ago had been so sure of the power of words, and now was afraid to
speak, in the same way one dares not move for fear of losing a slippery
hold. It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that
we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty are the beings
that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun. It
is as if loneliness were a hard and absolute condition of existence; the
envelope of flesh and blood on which our eyes are fixed melts before the
outstretched hand, and there remains only the capricious, unconsolable,
and elusive spirit that no eye can follow, no hand can grasp. It was
the fear of losing him that kept me silent, for it was borne upon me
suddenly and with unaccountable force that should I let him slip away
into the darkness I would never forgive myself.

'"Well. Thanks--once more. You've been--er--uncommonly--really there's
no word to . . . Uncommonly! I don't know why, I am sure. I am afraid
I don't feel as grateful as I would if the whole thing hadn't been so
brutally sprung on me. Because at bottom . . . you, yourself . . ." He
stuttered.

'"Possibly," I struck in. He frowned.

'"All the same, one is responsible." He watched me like a hawk.

'"And that's true, too," I said.

'"Well. I've gone with it to the end, and I don't intend to let any man
cast it in my teeth without--without--resenting it." He clenched his
fist.

'"There's yourself," I said with a smile--mirthless enough, God
knows--but he looked at me menacingly. "That's my business," he said.
An air of indomitable resolution came and went upon his face like a vain
and passing shadow. Next moment he looked a dear good boy in trouble,
as before. He flung away the cigarette. "Good-bye," he said, with the
sudden haste of a man who had lingered too long in view of a pressing
bit of work waiting for him; and then for a second or so he made not the
slightest movement. The downpour fell with the heavy uninterrupted rush
of a sweeping flood, with a sound of unchecked overwhelming fury that
called to one's mind the images of collapsing bridges, of uprooted
trees, of undermined mountains. No man could breast the colossal and
headlong stream that seemed to break and swirl against the dim stillness
in which we were precariously sheltered as if on an island. The
perforated pipe gurgled, choked, spat, and splashed in odious ridicule
of a swimmer fighting for his life. "It is raining," I remonstrated,
"and I . . ." "Rain or shine," he began brusquely, checked himself, and
walked to the window. "Perfect deluge," he muttered after a while: he
leaned his forehead on the glass. "It's dark, too."

'"Yes, it is very dark," I said.

'He pivoted on his heels, crossed the room, and had actually opened the
door leading into the corridor before I leaped up from my chair. "Wait,"
I cried, "I want you to . . ." "I can't dine with you again to-night,"
he flung at me, with one leg out of the room already. "I haven't the
slightest intention to ask you," I shouted. At this he drew back his
foot, but remained mistrustfully in the very doorway. I lost no time
in entreating him earnestly not to be absurd; to come in and shut the
door.'

'He came in at last; but I believe it was mostly the rain that did it;
it was falling just then with a devastating violence which quieted
down gradually while we talked. His manner was very sober and set; his
bearing was that of a naturally taciturn man possessed by an idea. My
talk was of the material aspect of his position; it had the sole aim of
saving him from the degradation, ruin, and despair that out there close
so swiftly upon a friendless, homeless man; I pleaded with him to
accept my help; I argued reasonably: and every time I looked up at that
absorbed smooth face, so grave and youthful, I had a disturbing sense of
being no help but rather an obstacle to some mysterious, inexplicable,
impalpable striving of his wounded spirit.

'"I suppose you intend to eat and drink and to sleep under shelter in
the usual way," I remember saying with irritation. "You say you won't
touch the money that is due to you." . . . He came as near as his sort
can to making a gesture of horror. (There were three weeks and five
days' pay owing him as mate of the Patna.) "Well, that's too little to
matter anyhow; but what will you do to-morrow? Where will you turn? You
must live . . ." "That isn't the thing," was the comment that escaped
him under his breath. I ignored it, and went on combating what I assumed
to be the scruples of an exaggerated delicacy. "On every conceivable
ground," I concluded, "you must let me help you." "You can't," he said
very simply and gently, and holding fast to some deep idea which I
could detect shimmering like a pool of water in the dark, but which
I despaired of ever approaching near enough to fathom. I surveyed his
well-proportioned bulk. "At any rate," I said, "I am able to help what
I can see of you. I don't pretend to do more." He shook his head
sceptically without looking at me. I got very warm. "But I can," I
insisted. "I can do even more. I _am_ doing more. I am trusting
you . . ." "The money . . ." he began. "Upon my word you deserve being
told to go to the devil," I cried, forcing the note of indignation. He
was startled, smiled, and I pressed my attack home. "It isn't a question
of money at all. You are too superficial," I said (and at the same time
I was thinking to myself: Well, here goes! And perhaps he is, after
all). "Look at the letter I want you to take. I am writing to a man of
whom I've never asked a favour, and I am writing about you in terms that
one only ventures to use when speaking of an intimate friend. I make
myself unreservedly responsible for you. That's what I am doing. And
really if you will only reflect a little what that means . . ."

'He lifted his head. The rain had passed away; only the water-pipe went
on shedding tears with an absurd drip, drip outside the window. It was
very quiet in the room, whose shadows huddled together in corners, away
from the still flame of the candle flaring upright in the shape of a
dagger; his face after a while seemed suffused by a reflection of a soft
light as if the dawn had broken already.

'"Jove!" he gasped out. "It is noble of you!"

'Had he suddenly put out his tongue at me in derision, I could not have
felt more humiliated. I thought to myself--Serve me right for a sneaking
humbug. . . . His eyes shone straight into my face, but I perceived
it was not a mocking brightness. All at once he sprang into jerky
agitation, like one of those flat wooden figures that are worked by a
string. His arms went up, then came down with a slap. He became another
man altogether. "And I had never seen," he shouted; then suddenly bit
his lip and frowned. "What a bally ass I've been," he said very slow
in an awed tone. . . . "You are a brick!" he cried next in a muffled
voice. He snatched my hand as though he had just then seen it for the
first time, and dropped it at once. "Why! this is what I--you--I . . ."
he stammered, and then with a return of his old stolid, I may say
mulish, manner he began heavily, "I would be a brute now if I . . ." and
then his voice seemed to break. "That's all right," I said. I was almost
alarmed by this display of feeling, through which pierced a strange
elation. I had pulled the string accidentally, as it were; I did not
fully understand the working of the toy. "I must go now," he said.
"Jove! You _have_ helped me. Can't sit still. The very thing . . ." He
looked at me with puzzled admiration. "The very thing . . ."

'Of course it was the thing. It was ten to one that I had saved him from
starvation--of that peculiar sort that is almost invariably associated
with drink. This was all. I had not a single illusion on that score, but
looking at him, I allowed myself to wonder at the nature of the one he
had, within the last three minutes, so evidently taken into his bosom.
I had forced into his hand the means to carry on decently the serious
business of life, to get food, drink, and shelter of the customary kind
while his wounded spirit, like a bird with a broken wing, might hop and
flutter into some hole to die quietly of inanition there. This is what
I had thrust upon him: a definitely small thing; and--behold!--by the
manner of its reception it loomed in the dim light of the candle like
a big, indistinct, perhaps a dangerous shadow. "You don't mind me not
saying anything appropriate," he burst out. "There isn't anything one
could say. Last night already you had done me no end of good. Listening
to me--you know. I give you my word I've thought more than once the top
of my head would fly off. . ." He darted--positively darted--here and
there, rammed his hands into his pockets, jerked them out again, flung
his cap on his head. I had no idea it was in him to be so airily
brisk. I thought of a dry leaf imprisoned in an eddy of wind, while a
mysterious apprehension, a load of indefinite doubt, weighed me down in
my chair. He stood stock-still, as if struck motionless by a discovery.
"You have given me confidence," he declared, soberly. "Oh! for God's
sake, my dear fellow--don't!" I entreated, as though he had hurt me.
"All right. I'll shut up now and henceforth. Can't prevent me thinking
though. . . . Never mind! . . . I'll show yet . . ." He went to the
door in a hurry, paused with his head down, and came back, stepping
deliberately. "I always thought that if a fellow could begin with a
clean slate . . . And now you . . . in a measure . . . yes . . . clean
slate." I waved my hand, and he marched out without looking back; the
sound of his footfalls died out gradually behind the closed door--the
unhesitating tread of a man walking in broad daylight.

'But as to me, left alone with the solitary candle, I remained strangely
unenlightened. I was no longer young enough to behold at every turn
the magnificence that besets our insignificant footsteps in good and in
evil. I smiled to think that, after all, it was yet he, of us two, who
had the light. And I felt sad. A clean slate, did he say? As if the
initial word of each our destiny were not graven in imperishable
characters upon the face of a rock.'

Marlow finally found Jim gazing emptily off the quay, and he told him to come to his room. Jim followed him, seemingly still in a daze. Marlow led him into his bedroom and began writing letters immediately, so that Jim could feel that he was not totally alone, but that he was sufficiently alone so that he could confront his unhappiness and despair during this darkest moment of his life. Marlow tells us that throughout that afternoon and into the evening, he, Marlow, filled sheet after sheet of fresh paper, stopping only momentarily to notice Jim's convulsive shoulders and his struggling for breath as he stood rooted in front of a glass door. Then, suddenly, Jim opened the glass door and lurched onto the upstairs verandah, as if to throw himself off. Marlow noted his straight, resolute outline. Symbolically, it seemed as though Jim were alone, abandoned on the brink of a dark and hopeless ocean. What would have happened if Marlow had offered Jim the job as Chester's overseer? He felt, at that moment, that he had saved Jim from what would probably have been a living death on the Guano Island. But, at the same time, Marlow felt that "to bury him would have been such an easy kindness." What had he saved Jim for? Marlow was aware of a sense of deep responsibility for Jim, a sense of kinship and responsibility that he could no longer ignore. Marlow breaks the suspense and tells us that eventually Jim became "loved, trusted, admired." He became a "legend of strength and prowess . . . the stuff of a hero." In short, Marlow says, Jim "captured much honour," meaning that Jim became a hero in the eyes of himself and others. This is what Jim desired so desperately and what he thought was denied to him because of his actions aboard the Patna. Jim's future, then, was not as black as he believed it was; eventually, he would perform an act of bravery that would balance and cancel out the enormous guilt that he had carried after jumping from the Patna and leaving 800 Moslems to what he believed was certain death. At that moment, a violent tropical rainstorm suddenly ruptured the stillness, and Jim stepped back into the room. At last, he seemed ready to talk. Desperately, he said that a person was "bound to come upon some sort of a chance to get it all back -- must!" He was determined to convince himself that he would someday have a chance to redeem himself in his own eyes, a chance to do something that would erase the blot of guilt on his character. Marlow tried to force Jim to talk about the future -- how he planned to earn money, and how he planned to pay for food and lodging. But Jim refused to talk about practical matters. "That isn't the thing," he said, and he added that it was useless for Marlow to try and convince him to accept the back pay that was still due him from the Patna. Marlow found Jim's torturous soul-searching to be blindly melodramatic; he couldn't understand why Jim seemed determined to dwell on "some deep idea." He sensed intuitively that he himself could probably never heal the agony in Jim's "wounded spirit." Nevertheless, Marlow told Jim that he had written a letter of recommendation to a man who would give Jim a second chance. He stressed that he, Marlow, had faith in Jim's goodness and promise even if Jim did not; he was making himself "unreservedly responsible" for Jim. After awhile, the rain stopped and Jim leapt up. "It is noble of you!" he shouted. Marlow was so stunned that he wondered if Jim were mocking him. Jim seemed madly exhilarated. But the young man was not mocking Marlow's offer. His eyes were bright, and his voice was a stammer of half-sentences. He was agitated and seemingly wild with newfound confidence. "You have given me a clean slate," he announced to Marlow.

After showing Jim at his lowest point in the preceding chapter, Marlow tells us that he lived to see Jim "loved, trusted, admired, with a legend of strength and prowess forming round his name as though he had been the stuff of a hero." It is as though Marlow is telling us to wait -- because his evaluation of Jim is correct. That is, Jim is indeed one of us. He also lets us know that had he not interceded between Chester and Jim, then he would never have seen Jim again because he learns later that the men on Chester's guano enterprise disappeared. And yet, Chester, and all that pertains to him, is important because it shows Marlow's development. Marlow still feels that Jim is concerned not so much with his guilt as he is with the humiliating and treacherous "Jump" and its shameful consequences. Jim is seen here writhing in the agonies of romantic melancholy with his "refined sensibilities and his fine feelings, fine longings -- a sort of sublimated, idealized selfishness"; that is, Jim is too "fine a fellow" to throw over to Chester and his kind. These descriptions of Jim prepare us for Stein's firm statement that Jim is a romantic. And certainly in the romantic tradition, Jim's raging emotions within are symbolically reflected in the raging storm outside. Throughout these scenes, Marlow watches Jim writhe and squirm in agony like one of Stein's impaled beetles, but then Marlow is also impaled on the sharp point of his own new affection for Jim and the sense of his responsibility for Jim. Since the trial is now over, Marlow turns to practical matters , and when Marlow volunteers to help, Jim responds by saying, "You can't." Of course, Marlow meant "help with practical matters," but Jim means help in an entirely different sense -- in assuaging his feelings of disgrace and guilt. Thus, when Marlow tells Jim that he is writing to a man in Jim's behalf, Jim's appreciation is immense -- mainly because he now realizes that there is someone who still cares for him, or believes in him, a fact which gives Jim a new confidence in himself. Jim's soaring gratitude and unbounded delight as Marlow unfolds his plan indicate a relief and a deliverance from an alternative so forbidding as to suggest nothing short of death itself.


'Six months afterwards my friend (he was a cynical, more than
middle-aged bachelor, with a reputation for eccentricity, and owned
a rice-mill) wrote to me, and judging, from the warmth of my
recommendation, that I would like to hear, enlarged a little upon Jim's
perfections. These were apparently of a quiet and effective sort.
"Not having been able so far to find more in my heart than a resigned
toleration for any individual of my kind, I have lived till now alone
in a house that even in this steaming climate could be considered as too
big for one man. I have had him to live with me for some time past. It
seems I haven't made a mistake." It seemed to me on reading this letter
that my friend had found in his heart more than tolerance for Jim--that
there were the beginnings of active liking. Of course he stated his
grounds in a characteristic way. For one thing, Jim kept his freshness
in the climate. Had he been a girl--my friend wrote--one could have
said he was blooming--blooming modestly--like a violet, not like some of
these blatant tropical flowers. He had been in the house for six weeks,
and had not as yet attempted to slap him on the back, or address him
as "old boy," or try to make him feel a superannuated fossil. He had
nothing of the exasperating young man's chatter. He was good-tempered,
had not much to say for himself, was not clever by any means, thank
goodness--wrote my friend. It appeared, however, that Jim was clever
enough to be quietly appreciative of his wit, while, on the other hand,
he amused him by his naiveness. "The dew is yet on him, and since I
had the bright idea of giving him a room in the house and having him
at meals I feel less withered myself. The other day he took it into his
head to cross the room with no other purpose but to open a door for
me; and I felt more in touch with mankind than I had been for years.
Ridiculous, isn't it? Of course I guess there is something--some awful
little scrape--which you know all about--but if I am sure that it is
terribly heinous, I fancy one could manage to forgive it. For my part,
I declare I am unable to imagine him guilty of anything much worse than
robbing an orchard. Is it much worse? Perhaps you ought to have told me;
but it is such a long time since we both turned saints that you may have
forgotten we, too, had sinned in our time? It may be that some day I
shall have to ask you, and then I shall expect to be told. I don't care
to question him myself till I have some idea what it is. Moreover, it's
too soon as yet. Let him open the door a few times more for me. . . ."
Thus my friend. I was trebly pleased--at Jim's shaping so well, at the
tone of the letter, at my own cleverness. Evidently I had known what
I was doing. I had read characters aright, and so on. And what if
something unexpected and wonderful were to come of it? That evening,
reposing in a deck-chair under the shade of my own poop awning (it
was in Hong-Kong harbour), I laid on Jim's behalf the first stone of a
castle in Spain.

'I made a trip to the northward, and when I returned I found another
letter from my friend waiting for me. It was the first envelope I tore
open. "There are no spoons missing, as far as I know," ran the first
line; "I haven't been interested enough to inquire. He is gone, leaving
on the breakfast-table a formal little note of apology, which is either
silly or heartless. Probably both--and it's all one to me. Allow me to
say, lest you should have some more mysterious young men in reserve,
that I have shut up shop, definitely and for ever. This is the last
eccentricity I shall be guilty of. Do not imagine for a moment that I
care a hang; but he is very much regretted at tennis-parties, and for
my own sake I've told a plausible lie at the club. . . ." I flung the
letter aside and started looking through the batch on my table, till
I came upon Jim's handwriting. Would you believe it? One chance in a
hundred! But it is always that hundredth chance! That little second
engineer of the Patna had turned up in a more or less destitute state,
and got a temporary job of looking after the machinery of the mill. "I
couldn't stand the familiarity of the little beast," Jim wrote from a
seaport seven hundred miles south of the place where he should have been
in clover. "I am now for the time with Egstrom & Blake, ship-chandlers,
as their--well--runner, to call the thing by its right name. For
reference I gave them your name, which they know of course, and if you
could write a word in my favour it would be a permanent employment." I
was utterly crushed under the ruins of my castle, but of course I wrote
as desired. Before the end of the year my new charter took me that way,
and I had an opportunity of seeing him.

'He was still with Egstrom & Blake, and we met in what they called
"our parlour" opening out of the store. He had that moment come in from
boarding a ship, and confronted me head down, ready for a tussle. "What
have you got to say for yourself?" I began as soon as we had shaken
hands. "What I wrote you--nothing more," he said stubbornly. "Did the
fellow blab--or what?" I asked. He looked up at me with a troubled
smile. "Oh, no! He didn't. He made it a kind of confidential business
between us. He was most damnably mysterious whenever I came over to the
mill; he would wink at me in a respectful manner--as much as to say 'We
know what we know.' Infernally fawning and familiar--and that sort of
thing . . ." He threw himself into a chair and stared down his legs.
"One day we happened to be alone and the fellow had the cheek to say,
'Well, Mr. James'--I was called Mr. James there as if I had been the
son--'here we are together once more. This is better than the old
ship--ain't it?' . . . Wasn't it appalling, eh? I looked at him, and
he put on a knowing air. 'Don't you be uneasy, sir,' he says. 'I know
a gentleman when I see one, and I know how a gentleman feels. I hope,
though, you will be keeping me on this job. I had a hard time of it too,
along of that rotten old Patna racket.' Jove! It was awful. I don't know
what I should have said or done if I had not just then heard Mr. Denver
calling me in the passage. It was tiffin-time, and we walked together
across the yard and through the garden to the bungalow. He began to
chaff me in his kindly way . . . I believe he liked me . . ."

'Jim was silent for a while.

'"I know he liked me. That's what made it so hard. Such a splendid man!
. . . That morning he slipped his hand under my arm. . . . He, too, was
familiar with me." He burst into a short laugh, and dropped his chin on
his breast. "Pah! When I remembered how that mean little beast had been
talking to me," he began suddenly in a vibrating voice, "I couldn't bear
to think of myself . . . I suppose you know . . ." I nodded. . . . "More
like a father," he cried; his voice sank. "I would have had to tell him.
I couldn't let it go on--could I?" "Well?" I murmured, after waiting a
while. "I preferred to go," he said slowly; "this thing must be buried."

'We could hear in the shop Blake upbraiding Egstrom in an abusive,
strained voice. They had been associated for many years, and every day
from the moment the doors were opened to the last minute before closing,
Blake, a little man with sleek, jetty hair and unhappy, beady eyes,
could be heard rowing his partner incessantly with a sort of scathing
and plaintive fury. The sound of that everlasting scolding was part of
the place like the other fixtures; even strangers would very soon come
to disregard it completely unless it be perhaps to mutter "Nuisance," or
to get up suddenly and shut the door of the "parlour." Egstrom himself,
a raw-boned, heavy Scandinavian, with a busy manner and immense blonde
whiskers, went on directing his people, checking parcels, making out
bills or writing letters at a stand-up desk in the shop, and comported
himself in that clatter exactly as though he had been stone-deaf. Now
and again he would emit a bothered perfunctory "Sssh," which neither
produced nor was expected to produce the slightest effect. "They are
very decent to me here," said Jim. "Blake's a little cad, but Egstrom's
all right." He stood up quickly, and walking with measured steps to a
tripod telescope standing in the window and pointed at the roadstead,
he applied his eye to it. "There's that ship which has been becalmed
outside all the morning has got a breeze now and is coming in," he
remarked patiently; "I must go and board." We shook hands in silence,
and he turned to go. "Jim!" I cried. He looked round with his hand on
the lock. "You--you have thrown away something like a fortune." He came
back to me all the way from the door. "Such a splendid old chap," he
said. "How could I? How could I?" His lips twitched. "Here it does not
matter." "Oh! you--you--" I began, and had to cast about for a suitable
word, but before I became aware that there was no name that would just
do, he was gone. I heard outside Egstrom's deep gentle voice saying
cheerily, "That's the Sarah W. Granger, Jimmy. You must manage to be
first aboard"; and directly Blake struck in, screaming after the manner
of an outraged cockatoo, "Tell the captain we've got some of his mail
here. That'll fetch him. D'ye hear, Mister What's-your-name?" And there
was Jim answering Egstrom with something boyish in his tone. "All right.
I'll make a race of it." He seemed to take refuge in the boat-sailing
part of that sorry business.

'I did not see him again that trip, but on my next (I had a six months'
charter) I went up to the store. Ten yards away from the door Blake's
scolding met my ears, and when I came in he gave me a glance of utter
wretchedness; Egstrom, all smiles, advanced, extending a large bony
hand. "Glad to see you, captain. . . . Sssh. . . . Been thinking you
were about due back here. What did you say, sir? . . . Sssh. . . . Oh!
him! He has left us. Come into the parlour." . . . After the slam of the
door Blake's strained voice became faint, as the voice of one scolding
desperately in a wilderness. . . . "Put us to a great inconvenience,
too. Used us badly--I must say . . ." "Where's he gone to? Do you
know?" I asked. "No. It's no use asking either," said Egstrom, standing
bewhiskered and obliging before me with his arms hanging down his sides
clumsily, and a thin silver watch-chain looped very low on a rucked-up
blue serge waistcoat. "A man like that don't go anywhere in particular."
I was too concerned at the news to ask for the explanation of that
pronouncement, and he went on. "He left--let's see--the very day a
steamer with returning pilgrims from the Red Sea put in here with
two blades of her propeller gone. Three weeks ago now." "Wasn't there
something said about the Patna case?" I asked, fearing the worst. He
gave a start, and looked at me as if I had been a sorcerer. "Why, yes!
How do you know? Some of them were talking about it here. There was a
captain or two, the manager of Vanlo's engineering shop at the harbour,
two or three others, and myself. Jim was in here too, having a sandwich
and a glass of beer; when we are busy--you see, captain--there's no time
for a proper tiffin. He was standing by this table eating sandwiches,
and the rest of us were round the telescope watching that steamer come
in; and by-and-by Vanlo's manager began to talk about the chief of the
Patna; he had done some repairs for him once, and from that he went on
to tell us what an old ruin she was, and the money that had been made
out of her. He came to mention her last voyage, and then we all struck
in. Some said one thing and some another--not much--what you or any
other man might say; and there was some laughing. Captain O'Brien of the
Sarah W. Granger, a large, noisy old man with a stick--he was sitting
listening to us in this arm-chair here--he let drive suddenly with his
stick at the floor, and roars out, 'Skunks!' . . . Made us all jump.
Vanlo's manager winks at us and asks, 'What's the matter, Captain
O'Brien?' 'Matter! matter!' the old man began to shout; 'what are you
Injuns laughing at? It's no laughing matter. It's a disgrace to human
natur'--that's what it is. I would despise being seen in the same room
with one of those men. Yes, sir!' He seemed to catch my eye like, and
I had to speak out of civility. 'Skunks!' says I, 'of course, Captain
O'Brien, and I wouldn't care to have them here myself, so you're quite
safe in this room, Captain O'Brien. Have a little something cool to
drink.' 'Dam' your drink, Egstrom,' says he, with a twinkle in his eye;
'when I want a drink I will shout for it. I am going to quit. It stinks
here now.' At this all the others burst out laughing, and out they go
after the old man. And then, sir, that blasted Jim he puts down the
sandwich he had in his hand and walks round the table to me; there was
his glass of beer poured out quite full. 'I am off,' he says--just like
this. 'It isn't half-past one yet,' says I; 'you might snatch a smoke
first.' I thought he meant it was time for him to go down to his work.
When I understood what he was up to, my arms fell--so! Can't get a man
like that every day, you know, sir; a regular devil for sailing a boat;
ready to go out miles to sea to meet ships in any sort of weather. More
than once a captain would come in here full of it, and the first thing
he would say would be, 'That's a reckless sort of a lunatic you've got
for water-clerk, Egstrom. I was feeling my way in at daylight under
short canvas when there comes flying out of the mist right under my
forefoot a boat half under water, sprays going over the mast-head, two
frightened niggers on the bottom boards, a yelling fiend at the tiller.
Hey! hey! Ship ahoy! ahoy! Captain! Hey! hey! Egstrom & Blake's man
first to speak to you! Hey! hey! Egstrom & Blake! Hallo! hey! whoop!
Kick the niggers--out reefs--a squall on at the time--shoots ahead
whooping and yelling to me to make sail and he would give me a lead
in--more like a demon than a man. Never saw a boat handled like that in
all my life. Couldn't have been drunk--was he? Such a quiet, soft-spoken
chap too--blush like a girl when he came on board. . . .' I tell you,
Captain Marlow, nobody had a chance against us with a strange ship when
Jim was out. The other ship-chandlers just kept their old customers, and
. . ."

'Egstrom appeared overcome with emotion.

'"Why, sir--it seemed as though he wouldn't mind going a hundred miles
out to sea in an old shoe to nab a ship for the firm. If the business
had been his own and all to make yet, he couldn't have done more in
that way. And now . . . all at once . . . like this! Thinks I to myself:
'Oho! a rise in the screw--that's the trouble--is it?' 'All right,' says
I, 'no need of all that fuss with me, Jimmy. Just mention your figure.
Anything in reason.' He looks at me as if he wanted to swallow something
that stuck in his throat. 'I can't stop with you.' 'What's that blooming
joke?' I asks. He shakes his head, and I could see in his eye he was as
good as gone already, sir. So I turned to him and slanged him till all
was blue. 'What is it you're running away from?' I asks. 'Who has been
getting at you? What scared you? You haven't as much sense as a rat;
they don't clear out from a good ship. Where do you expect to get a
better berth?--you this and you that.' I made him look sick, I can tell
you. 'This business ain't going to sink,' says I. He gave a big jump.
'Good-bye,' he says, nodding at me like a lord; 'you ain't half a
bad chap, Egstrom. I give you my word that if you knew my reasons you
wouldn't care to keep me.' 'That's the biggest lie you ever told in your
life,' says I; 'I know my own mind.' He made me so mad that I had to
laugh. 'Can't you really stop long enough to drink this glass of beer
here, you funny beggar, you?' I don't know what came over him; he didn't
seem able to find the door; something comical, I can tell you, captain.
I drank the beer myself. 'Well, if you're in such a hurry, here's luck
to you in your own drink,' says I; 'only, you mark my words, if you keep
up this game you'll very soon find that the earth ain't big enough to
hold you--that's all.' He gave me one black look, and out he rushed with
a face fit to scare little children."

'Egstrom snorted bitterly, and combed one auburn whisker with knotty
fingers. "Haven't been able to get a man that was any good since. It's
nothing but worry, worry, worry in business. And where might you have
come across him, captain, if it's fair to ask?"

'"He was the mate of the Patna that voyage," I said, feeling that I
owed some explanation. For a time Egstrom remained very still, with his
fingers plunged in the hair at the side of his face, and then exploded.
"And who the devil cares about that?" "I daresay no one," I began . . .
"And what the devil is he--anyhow--for to go on like this?" He stuffed
suddenly his left whisker into his mouth and stood amazed. "Jee!" he
exclaimed, "I told him the earth wouldn't be big enough to hold his
caper."'

'I have told you these two episodes at length to show his manner of
dealing with himself under the new conditions of his life. There were
many others of the sort, more than I could count on the fingers of my
two hands. They were all equally tinged by a high-minded absurdity of
intention which made their futility profound and touching. To fling away
your daily bread so as to get your hands free for a grapple with a ghost
may be an act of prosaic heroism. Men had done it before (though we who
have lived know full well that it is not the haunted soul but the hungry
body that makes an outcast), and men who had eaten and meant to eat
every day had applauded the creditable folly. He was indeed unfortunate,
for all his recklessness could not carry him out from under the shadow.
There was always a doubt of his courage. The truth seems to be that
it is impossible to lay the ghost of a fact. You can face it or shirk
it--and I have come across a man or two who could wink at their familiar
shades. Obviously Jim was not of the winking sort; but what I could
never make up my mind about was whether his line of conduct amounted to
shirking his ghost or to facing him out.

'I strained my mental eyesight only to discover that, as with the
complexion of all our actions, the shade of difference was so delicate
that it was impossible to say. It might have been flight and it might
have been a mode of combat. To the common mind he became known as a
rolling stone, because this was the funniest part: he did after a time
become perfectly known, and even notorious, within the circle of his
wanderings (which had a diameter of, say, three thousand miles), in the
same way as an eccentric character is known to a whole countryside. For
instance, in Bankok, where he found employment with Yucker Brothers,
charterers and teak merchants, it was almost pathetic to see him go
about in sunshine hugging his secret, which was known to the very
up-country logs on the river. Schomberg, the keeper of the hotel where
he boarded, a hirsute Alsatian of manly bearing and an irrepressible
retailer of all the scandalous gossip of the place, would, with both
elbows on the table, impart an adorned version of the story to any guest
who cared to imbibe knowledge along with the more costly liquors. "And,
mind you, the nicest fellow you could meet," would be his generous
conclusion; "quite superior." It says a lot for the casual crowd that
frequented Schomberg's establishment that Jim managed to hang out
in Bankok for a whole six months. I remarked that people, perfect
strangers, took to him as one takes to a nice child. His manner was
reserved, but it was as though his personal appearance, his hair, his
eyes, his smile, made friends for him wherever he went. And, of course,
he was no fool. I heard Siegmund Yucker (native of Switzerland), a
gentle creature ravaged by a cruel dyspepsia, and so frightfully lame
that his head swung through a quarter of a circle at every step he took,
declare appreciatively that for one so young he was "of great gabasidy,"
as though it had been a mere question of cubic contents. "Why not send
him up country?" I suggested anxiously. (Yucker Brothers had concessions
and teak forests in the interior.) "If he has capacity, as you say,
he will soon get hold of the work. And physically he is very fit. His
health is always excellent." "Ach! It's a great ting in dis goundry
to be vree vrom tispep-shia," sighed poor Yucker enviously, casting a
stealthy glance at the pit of his ruined stomach. I left him drumming
pensively on his desk and muttering, "Es ist ein' Idee. Es ist ein'
Idee." Unfortunately, that very evening an unpleasant affair took place
in the hotel.

'I don't know that I blame Jim very much, but it was a truly regrettable
incident. It belonged to the lamentable species of bar-room scuffles,
and the other party to it was a cross-eyed Dane of sorts whose
visiting-card recited, under his misbegotten name: first lieutenant in
the Royal Siamese Navy. The fellow, of course, was utterly hopeless at
billiards, but did not like to be beaten, I suppose. He had had enough
to drink to turn nasty after the sixth game, and make some scornful
remark at Jim's expense. Most of the people there didn't hear what
was said, and those who had heard seemed to have had all precise
recollection scared out of them by the appalling nature of the
consequences that immediately ensued. It was very lucky for the Dane
that he could swim, because the room opened on a verandah and the Menam
flowed below very wide and black. A boat-load of Chinamen, bound, as
likely as not, on some thieving expedition, fished out the officer of
the King of Siam, and Jim turned up at about midnight on board my ship
without a hat. "Everybody in the room seemed to know," he said, gasping
yet from the contest, as it were. He was rather sorry, on general
principles, for what had happened, though in this case there had been,
he said, "no option." But what dismayed him was to find the nature of
his burden as well known to everybody as though he had gone about all
that time carrying it on his shoulders. Naturally after this he couldn't
remain in the place. He was universally condemned for the brutal
violence, so unbecoming a man in his delicate position; some maintained
he had been disgracefully drunk at the time; others criticised his want
of tact. Even Schomberg was very much annoyed. "He is a very nice young
man," he said argumentatively to me, "but the lieutenant is a first-rate
fellow too. He dines every night at my table d'hote, you know. And
there's a billiard-cue broken. I can't allow that. First thing this
morning I went over with my apologies to the lieutenant, and I think
I've made it all right for myself; but only think, captain, if everybody
started such games! Why, the man might have been drowned! And here I
can't run out into the next street and buy a new cue. I've got to write
to Europe for them. No, no! A temper like that won't do!" . . . He was
extremely sore on the subject.

'This was the worst incident of all in his--his retreat. Nobody could
deplore it more than myself; for if, as somebody said hearing him
mentioned, "Oh yes! I know. He has knocked about a good deal out here,"
yet he had somehow avoided being battered and chipped in the process.
This last affair, however, made me seriously uneasy, because if his
exquisite sensibilities were to go the length of involving him in
pot-house shindies, he would lose his name of an inoffensive, if
aggravating, fool, and acquire that of a common loafer. For all my
confidence in him I could not help reflecting that in such cases
from the name to the thing itself is but a step. I suppose you will
understand that by that time I could not think of washing my hands
of him. I took him away from Bankok in my ship, and we had a longish
passage. It was pitiful to see how he shrank within himself. A seaman,
even if a mere passenger, takes an interest in a ship, and looks at
the sea-life around him with the critical enjoyment of a painter,
for instance, looking at another man's work. In every sense of the
expression he is "on deck"; but my Jim, for the most part, skulked down
below as though he had been a stowaway. He infected me so that I avoided
speaking on professional matters, such as would suggest themselves
naturally to two sailors during a passage. For whole days we did
not exchange a word; I felt extremely unwilling to give orders to my
officers in his presence. Often, when alone with him on deck or in the
cabin, we didn't know what to do with our eyes.

'I placed him with De Jongh, as you know, glad enough to dispose of him
in any way, yet persuaded that his position was now growing intolerable.
He had lost some of that elasticity which had enabled him to rebound
back into his uncompromising position after every overthrow. One
day, coming ashore, I saw him standing on the quay; the water of the
roadstead and the sea in the offing made one smooth ascending plane, and
the outermost ships at anchor seemed to ride motionless in the sky.
He was waiting for his boat, which was being loaded at our feet
with packages of small stores for some vessel ready to leave. After
exchanging greetings, we remained silent--side by side. "Jove!" he said
suddenly, "this is killing work."

'He smiled at me; I must say he generally could manage a smile. I made
no reply. I knew very well he was not alluding to his duties; he had an
easy time of it with De Jongh. Nevertheless, as soon as he had spoken
I became completely convinced that the work was killing. I did not even
look at him. "Would you like," said I, "to leave this part of the world
altogether; try California or the West Coast? I'll see what I can
do . . ." He interrupted me a little scornfully. "What difference would
it make?" . . . I felt at once convinced that he was right. It would make
no difference; it was not relief he wanted; I seemed to perceive dimly
that what he wanted, what he was, as it were, waiting for, was something
not easy to define--something in the nature of an opportunity. I had
given him many opportunities, but they had been merely opportunities to
earn his bread. Yet what more could any man do? The position struck me
as hopeless, and poor Brierly's saying recurred to me, "Let him creep
twenty feet underground and stay there." Better that, I thought, than
this waiting above ground for the impossible. Yet one could not be sure
even of that. There and then, before his boat was three oars' lengths
away from the quay, I had made up my mind to go and consult Stein in the
evening.

'This Stein was a wealthy and respected merchant. His "house" (because
it was a house, Stein & Co., and there was some sort of partner who,
as Stein said, "looked after the Moluccas") had a large inter-island
business, with a lot of trading posts established in the most
out-of-the-way places for collecting the produce. His wealth and his
respectability were not exactly the reasons why I was anxious to seek
his advice. I desired to confide my difficulty to him because he was
one of the most trustworthy men I had ever known. The gentle light of a
simple, unwearied, as it were, and intelligent good-nature illumined his
long hairless face. It had deep downward folds, and was pale as of a
man who had always led a sedentary life--which was indeed very far from
being the case. His hair was thin, and brushed back from a massive and
lofty forehead. One fancied that at twenty he must have looked very much
like what he was now at threescore. It was a student's face; only the
eyebrows nearly all white, thick and bushy, together with the resolute
searching glance that came from under them, were not in accord with his,
I may say, learned appearance. He was tall and loose-jointed; his slight
stoop, together with an innocent smile, made him appear benevolently
ready to lend you his ear; his long arms with pale big hands had rare
deliberate gestures of a pointing out, demonstrating kind. I speak of
him at length, because under this exterior, and in conjunction with
an upright and indulgent nature, this man possessed an intrepidity of
spirit and a physical courage that could have been called reckless had
it not been like a natural function of the body--say good digestion, for
instance--completely unconscious of itself. It is sometimes said of a
man that he carries his life in his hand. Such a saying would have been
inadequate if applied to him; during the early part of his existence in
the East he had been playing ball with it. All this was in the past, but
I knew the story of his life and the origin of his fortune. He was also
a naturalist of some distinction, or perhaps I should say a learned
collector. Entomology was his special study. His collection of
Buprestidae and Longicorns--beetles all--horrible miniature monsters,
looking malevolent in death and immobility, and his cabinet of
butterflies, beautiful and hovering under the glass of cases on
lifeless wings, had spread his fame far over the earth. The name of this
merchant, adventurer, sometime adviser of a Malay sultan (to whom he
never alluded otherwise than as "my poor Mohammed Bonso"), had, on
account of a few bushels of dead insects, become known to learned
persons in Europe, who could have had no conception, and certainly would
not have cared to know anything, of his life or character. I, who knew,
considered him an eminently suitable person to receive my confidences
about Jim's difficulties as well as my own.'

Six months later, while Marlow was in Hong Kong, he received a letter from a Mr. Denver, the owner of a rice mill, the friend to whom he recommended Jim. Denver, an eccentric, middle-aged bachelor, wrote quietly but glowingly about Jim; he was especially fond of Jim's quality of "freshness" -- his quiet, naive, generous nature. Marlow smiled to himself. He was right to send Jim to his friend. Perhaps, he speculated, Jim might inherit a good sum of money from the old bachelor. Marlow then made a trip northward, and when he returned to Hong Kong, another letter from Denver was awaiting him. Denver was furious: Jim had vanished. Also in the pile of letters, there was a note from Jim. He was working in a seaport town seven hundred miles south, and he wrote that he had no choice; he had to leave Denver's rice mill. The second engineer from the Patna unexpectedly turned up at Denver's mill and was given temporary employment. Shortly thereafter, this man began making insinuations about Jim's past, threatening blackmail unless he were put on full-time at the mill. Jim said that he could "no longer stand the familiarity of the little beast," so he left. He asked Marlow for another letter of recommendation. He had found temporary work as a "runner," or a water-clerk, for a ship-chandler, and he wanted permanence as soon as possible. Some months later, Marlow was in port and met Jim. He seemed to be happy and busy and popular. Marlow had a good feeling about the future of the young man. Then, six months afterward, Marlow was again in port and inquired about Jim at Egstrom & Blake, the ship-chandlers who employed him. Egstrom told Marlow that suddenly one day, Jim left -- without an explanation. Jim was his best runner, he says; there was no better water-clerk in port than Jim. He told Marlow that he offered Jim more money, emphasizing that business was exceptionally good: "This business ain't going to sink," Egstrom told Jim. Marlow asked pointedly if anyone mentioned anything about the Patna just prior to Jim's disappearance. Egstrom remembered that one of the old sea captains had expounded on the whole disgraceful business of the Patna. Marlow told the ship-chandler that that explained it: Jim was the first mate of the Patna on the night of "the incident." The ship-chandler was puzzled. "Who the devil cares about that?" he asked. Then he added that if Jim were that sensitive about his past, then even the earth itself "wouldn't be big enough" for him to hide in. Jim continued running, and it was not long before he became known as "a rolling stone," Marlow says. In fact, Jim even became "notorious" within the sphere of about three thousand miles that he traversed. All around that area, people recognized his name and knew all about the secret that he considered so shameful. Jim, of course, never dreamed that so many people knew so many details about the secret that he kept so tightly hidden within his breast. One night, however, during a brawl in a hotel billiards room, Jim got an inkling that a lot of people knew a great deal more about him than he cared for them to know. He was playing billiards with a Navy officer, a cross-eyed Dane who was employed by the Royal Siamese Navy. The fellow had drunk too much, and he made a slurring reference to Jim's part in the Patna fiasco. Jim reacted like a madman. He broke a billiard cue in half and then threw the naval officer off the verandah and into the Menam River. Marlow realized that after that incident, Jim was no doubt beginning to think that all jobs would eventually be dead ends for him. There would be money paid to him for a job well done, but the situation itself would never be satisfying. What Jim needed was a challenge for his soul, not a job for his hands. Marlow, therefore, went to see "the most trustworthy man" he knew -- a Mr. Stein. Stein was very wealthy and very respected, and he had trading posts all over the world. Moreover, he was a learned man -- in particular, an internationally known expert on beetles and butterflies. Marlow felt that it was time to discuss Jim's problems with another person, someone who could see the enormous guilt that Jim insisted on living with. Marlow was looking for someone who could offer Jim a job that would be entirely different from the sort of menial laboring that might lend itself to ridicule and third-class status.

In these two chapters, Marlow relates three episodes involving Jim, and the episodes occurred at immense geographical distances from each other. In each case where some connection or comment was made about the Patna episode, Jim would literally flee. For example, in his first job where he had earned the respect of his employer, Mr. Denver stood to reap great financial rewards; the happenstance appearance of the second mate was bad enough, but when this second mate tried to become intimate with Jim, Jim could not "stand the familiarity of the little beast." After all, Jim was a gentleman, and furthermore, after the sinking of the Patna, the second mate and his fellow officers had considered killing Jim. Likewise, at Jim's next job -- one in which he was extremely successful and well liked -- he fled immediately when someone began discussing the Patna episode, and his final adventure was with the Dane in the Siamese Navy. All three of these episodes represent what must have been dozens more , and thus Jim's almost obsessive, almost pathological sense of guilt has made him known over thousands of miles all through the South Pacific. It is ironic that Jim feels his guilt more than other people. His innate sensitivity makes him feel that everyone condemns him, and then we hear that Egstrom did not care at all. Egstrom says, "And who the devil cares about that?" Furthermore, the physical attack on the Dane represents the one time that Jim did not behave as though he was "one of us." After one episode when Marlow brings Jim aboard his ship, Jim constantly remains below deck and is quiet and reticent. Note that when Marlow asks him if he would like to go to California, Jim responds, "What difference would it make?" In other words, Jim cannot escape from himself even if it be across continents and oceans; instead, he is looking for an opportunity to prove himself to himself.