'An outward-bound mail-boat had come in that afternoon, and the
big dining-room of the hotel was more than half full of people with
a-hundred-pounds-round-the-world tickets in their pockets. There were
married couples looking domesticated and bored with each other in the
midst of their travels; there were small parties and large parties,
and lone individuals dining solemnly or feasting boisterously, but all
thinking, conversing, joking, or scowling as was their wont at home;
and just as intelligently receptive of new impressions as their trunks
upstairs. Henceforth they would be labelled as having passed through
this and that place, and so would be their luggage. They would cherish
this distinction of their persons, and preserve the gummed tickets on
their portmanteaus as documentary evidence, as the only permanent trace
of their improving enterprise. The dark-faced servants tripped without
noise over the vast and polished floor; now and then a girl's laugh
would be heard, as innocent and empty as her mind, or, in a sudden hush
of crockery, a few words in an affected drawl from some wit embroidering
for the benefit of a grinning tableful the last funny story of shipboard
scandal. Two nomadic old maids, dressed up to kill, worked acrimoniously
through the bill of fare, whispering to each other with faded lips,
wooden-faced and bizarre, like two sumptuous scarecrows. A little wine
opened Jim's heart and loosened his tongue. His appetite was good, too,
I noticed. He seemed to have buried somewhere the opening episode of
our acquaintance. It was like a thing of which there would be no more
question in this world. And all the time I had before me these blue,
boyish eyes looking straight into mine, this young face, these capable
shoulders, the open bronzed forehead with a white line under the roots
of clustering fair hair, this appearance appealing at sight to all
my sympathies: this frank aspect, the artless smile, the youthful
seriousness. He was of the right sort; he was one of us. He talked
soberly, with a sort of composed unreserve, and with a quiet bearing
that might have been the outcome of manly self-control, of impudence, of
callousness, of a colossal unconsciousness, of a gigantic deception. Who
can tell! From our tone we might have been discussing a third person,
a football match, last year's weather. My mind floated in a sea of
conjectures till the turn of the conversation enabled me, without being
offensive, to remark that, upon the whole, this inquiry must have been
pretty trying to him. He darted his arm across the tablecloth, and
clutching my hand by the side of my plate, glared fixedly. I was
startled. "It must be awfully hard," I stammered, confused by this
display of speechless feeling. "It is--hell," he burst out in a muffled
voice.

'This movement and these words caused two well-groomed male
globe-trotters at a neighbouring table to look up in alarm from their
iced pudding. I rose, and we passed into the front gallery for coffee
and cigars.

'On little octagon tables candles burned in glass globes; clumps of
stiff-leaved plants separated sets of cosy wicker chairs; and between
the pairs of columns, whose reddish shafts caught in a long row the
sheen from the tall windows, the night, glittering and sombre, seemed
to hang like a splendid drapery. The riding lights of ships winked afar
like setting stars, and the hills across the roadstead resembled rounded
black masses of arrested thunder-clouds.

'"I couldn't clear out," Jim began. "The skipper did--that's all very
well for him. I couldn't, and I wouldn't. They all got out of it in one
way or another, but it wouldn't do for me."

'I listened with concentrated attention, not daring to stir in my chair;
I wanted to know--and to this day I don't know, I can only guess. He
would be confident and depressed all in the same breath, as if some
conviction of innate blamelessness had checked the truth writhing within
him at every turn. He began by saying, in the tone in which a man would
admit his inability to jump a twenty-foot wall, that he could never
go home now; and this declaration recalled to my mind what Brierly had
said, "that the old parson in Essex seemed to fancy his sailor son not a
little."

'I can't tell you whether Jim knew he was especially "fancied," but the
tone of his references to "my Dad" was calculated to give me a notion
that the good old rural dean was about the finest man that ever had been
worried by the cares of a large family since the beginning of the world.
This, though never stated, was implied with an anxiety that there should
be no mistake about it, which was really very true and charming, but
added a poignant sense of lives far off to the other elements of the
story. "He has seen it all in the home papers by this time," said Jim.
"I can never face the poor old chap." I did not dare to lift my eyes
at this till I heard him add, "I could never explain. He wouldn't
understand." Then I looked up. He was smoking reflectively, and after
a moment, rousing himself, began to talk again. He discovered at once
a desire that I should not confound him with his partners in--in crime,
let us call it. He was not one of them; he was altogether of another
sort. I gave no sign of dissent. I had no intention, for the sake of
barren truth, to rob him of the smallest particle of any saving grace
that would come in his way. I didn't know how much of it he believed
himself. I didn't know what he was playing up to--if he was playing up
to anything at all--and I suspect he did not know either; for it is my
belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape
from the grim shadow of self-knowledge. I made no sound all the time
he was wondering what he had better do after "that stupid inquiry was
over."

'Apparently he shared Brierly's contemptuous opinion of these
proceedings ordained by law. He would not know where to turn, he
confessed, clearly thinking aloud rather than talking to me. Certificate
gone, career broken, no money to get away, no work that he could obtain
as far as he could see. At home he could perhaps get something; but it
meant going to his people for help, and that he would not do. He
saw nothing for it but ship before the mast--could get perhaps a
quartermaster's billet in some steamer. Would do for a quartermaster.
. . . "Do you think you would?" I asked pitilessly. He jumped up, and
going to the stone balustrade looked out into the night. In a moment he
was back, towering above my chair with his youthful face clouded yet by
the pain of a conquered emotion. He had understood very well I did not
doubt his ability to steer a ship. In a voice that quavered a bit he
asked me why did I say that? I had been "no end kind" to him. I had not
even laughed at him when--here he began to mumble--"that mistake, you
know--made a confounded ass of myself." I broke in by saying rather
warmly that for me such a mistake was not a matter to laugh at. He sat
down and drank deliberately some coffee, emptying the small cup to the
last drop. "That does not mean I admit for a moment the cap fitted,"
he declared distinctly. "No?" I said. "No," he affirmed with quiet
decision. "Do you know what _you_ would have done? Do you? And you
don't think yourself" . . . he gulped something . . . "you don't think
yourself a--a--cur?"

'And with this--upon my honour!--he looked up at me inquisitively. It
was a question it appears--a bona fide question! However, he didn't wait
for an answer. Before I could recover he went on, with his eyes straight
before him, as if reading off something written on the body of the
night. "It is all in being ready. I wasn't; not--not then. I don't want
to excuse myself; but I would like to explain--I would like somebody to
understand--somebody--one person at least! You! Why not you?"

'It was solemn, and a little ridiculous too, as they always are, those
struggles of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what
his moral identity should be, this precious notion of a convention, only
one of the rules of the game, nothing more, but all the same so terribly
effective by its assumption of unlimited power over natural instincts,
by the awful penalties of its failure. He began his story quietly
enough. On board that Dale Line steamer that had picked up these four
floating in a boat upon the discreet sunset glow of the sea, they had
been after the first day looked askance upon. The fat skipper told some
story, the others had been silent, and at first it had been accepted.
You don't cross-examine poor castaways you had the good luck to save,
if not from cruel death, then at least from cruel suffering. Afterwards,
with time to think it over, it might have struck the officers of the
Avondale that there was "something fishy" in the affair; but of course
they would keep their doubts to themselves. They had picked up the
captain, the mate, and two engineers of the steamer Patna sunk at sea,
and that, very properly, was enough for them. I did not ask Jim about
the nature of his feelings during the ten days he spent on board. From
the way he narrated that part I was at liberty to infer he was partly
stunned by the discovery he had made--the discovery about himself--and
no doubt was at work trying to explain it away to the only man who
was capable of appreciating all its tremendous magnitude. You must
understand he did not try to minimise its importance. Of that I am sure;
and therein lies his distinction. As to what sensations he experienced
when he got ashore and heard the unforeseen conclusion of the tale in
which he had taken such a pitiful part, he told me nothing of them, and
it is difficult to imagine.

'I wonder whether he felt the ground cut from under his feet? I wonder?
But no doubt he managed to get a fresh foothold very soon. He was ashore
a whole fortnight waiting in the Sailors' Home, and as there were six or
seven men staying there at the time, I had heard of him a little.
Their languid opinion seemed to be that, in addition to his other
shortcomings, he was a sulky brute. He had passed these days on the
verandah, buried in a long chair, and coming out of his place of
sepulture only at meal-times or late at night, when he wandered on the
quays all by himself, detached from his surroundings, irresolute and
silent, like a ghost without a home to haunt. "I don't think I've spoken
three words to a living soul in all that time," he said, making me very
sorry for him; and directly he added, "One of these fellows would have
been sure to blurt out something I had made up my mind not to put up
with, and I didn't want a row. No! Not then. I was too--too . . . I
had no heart for it." "So that bulkhead held out after all," I remarked
cheerfully. "Yes," he murmured, "it held. And yet I swear to you I felt
it bulge under my hand." "It's extraordinary what strains old iron will
stand sometimes," I said. Thrown back in his seat, his legs stiffly out
and arms hanging down, he nodded slightly several times. You could not
conceive a sadder spectacle. Suddenly he lifted his head; he sat up;
he slapped his thigh. "Ah! what a chance missed! My God! what a chance
missed!" he blazed out, but the ring of the last "missed" resembled a
cry wrung out by pain.

'He was silent again with a still, far-away look of fierce yearning
after that missed distinction, with his nostrils for an instant dilated,
sniffing the intoxicating breath of that wasted opportunity. If you
think I was either surprised or shocked you do me an injustice in more
ways than one! Ah, he was an imaginative beggar! He would give himself
away; he would give himself up. I could see in his glance darted into
the night all his inner being carried on, projected headlong into the
fanciful realm of recklessly heroic aspirations. He had no leisure to
regret what he had lost, he was so wholly and naturally concerned for
what he had failed to obtain. He was very far away from me who watched
him across three feet of space. With every instant he was penetrating
deeper into the impossible world of romantic achievements. He got to
the heart of it at last! A strange look of beatitude overspread his
features, his eyes sparkled in the light of the candle burning between
us; he positively smiled! He had penetrated to the very heart--to
the very heart. It was an ecstatic smile that your faces--or mine
either--will never wear, my dear boys. I whisked him back by saying, "If
you had stuck to the ship, you mean!"

'He turned upon me, his eyes suddenly amazed and full of pain, with a
bewildered, startled, suffering face, as though he had tumbled down
from a star. Neither you nor I will ever look like this on any man. He
shuddered profoundly, as if a cold finger-tip had touched his heart.
Last of all he sighed.

'I was not in a merciful mood. He provoked one by his contradictory
indiscretions. "It is unfortunate you didn't know beforehand!" I
said with every unkind intention; but the perfidious shaft fell
harmless--dropped at his feet like a spent arrow, as it were, and he did
not think of picking it up. Perhaps he had not even seen it. Presently,
lolling at ease, he said, "Dash it all! I tell you it bulged. I was
holding up my lamp along the angle-iron in the lower deck when a
flake of rust as big as the palm of my hand fell off the plate, all of
itself." He passed his hand over his forehead. "The thing stirred and
jumped off like something alive while I was looking at it." "That made
you feel pretty bad," I observed casually. "Do you suppose," he said,
"that I was thinking of myself, with a hundred and sixty people at my
back, all fast asleep in that fore-'tween-deck alone--and more of them
aft; more on the deck--sleeping--knowing nothing about it--three times
as many as there were boats for, even if there had been time? I expected
to see the iron open out as I stood there and the rush of water going
over them as they lay. . . . What could I do--what?"

'I can easily picture him to myself in the peopled gloom of the
cavernous place, with the light of the globe-lamp falling on a small
portion of the bulkhead that had the weight of the ocean on the other
side, and the breathing of unconscious sleepers in his ears. I can see
him glaring at the iron, startled by the falling rust, overburdened by
the knowledge of an imminent death. This, I gathered, was the second
time he had been sent forward by that skipper of his, who, I rather
think, wanted to keep him away from the bridge. He told me that his
first impulse was to shout and straightway make all those people
leap out of sleep into terror; but such an overwhelming sense of his
helplessness came over him that he was not able to produce a sound. This
is, I suppose, what people mean by the tongue cleaving to the roof of
the mouth. "Too dry," was the concise expression he used in reference to
this state. Without a sound, then, he scrambled out on deck through
the number one hatch. A windsail rigged down there swung against him
accidentally, and he remembered that the light touch of the canvas on
his face nearly knocked him off the hatchway ladder.

'He confessed that his knees wobbled a good deal as he stood on the
foredeck looking at another sleeping crowd. The engines having been
stopped by that time, the steam was blowing off. Its deep rumble made
the whole night vibrate like a bass string. The ship trembled to it.

'He saw here and there a head lifted off a mat, a vague form uprise in
sitting posture, listen sleepily for a moment, sink down again into the
billowy confusion of boxes, steam-winches, ventilators. He was aware
all these people did not know enough to take intelligent notice of
that strange noise. The ship of iron, the men with white faces, all the
sights, all the sounds, everything on board to that ignorant and pious
multitude was strange alike, and as trustworthy as it would for ever
remain incomprehensible. It occurred to him that the fact was fortunate.
The idea of it was simply terrible.

'You must remember he believed, as any other man would have done in
his place, that the ship would go down at any moment; the bulging,
rust-eaten plates that kept back the ocean, fatally must give way, all
at once like an undermined dam, and let in a sudden and overwhelming
flood. He stood still looking at these recumbent bodies, a doomed man
aware of his fate, surveying the silent company of the dead. They _were_
dead! Nothing could save them! There were boats enough for half of them
perhaps, but there was no time. No time! No time! It did not seem worth
while to open his lips, to stir hand or foot. Before he could shout
three words, or make three steps, he would be floundering in a sea
whitened awfully by the desperate struggles of human beings, clamorous
with the distress of cries for help. There was no help. He imagined
what would happen perfectly; he went through it all motionless by the
hatchway with the lamp in his hand--he went through it to the very last
harrowing detail. I think he went through it again while he was telling
me these things he could not tell the court.

'"I saw as clearly as I see you now that there was nothing I could do.
It seemed to take all life out of my limbs. I thought I might just as
well stand where I was and wait. I did not think I had many
seconds. . . ." Suddenly the steam ceased blowing off. The noise, he
remarked, had been distracting, but the silence at once became
intolerably oppressive.

'"I thought I would choke before I got drowned," he said.

'He protested he did not think of saving himself. The only distinct
thought formed, vanishing, and re-forming in his brain, was: eight
hundred people and seven boats; eight hundred people and seven boats.

'"Somebody was speaking aloud inside my head," he said a little wildly.
"Eight hundred people and seven boats--and no time! Just think of it."
He leaned towards me across the little table, and I tried to avoid his
stare. "Do you think I was afraid of death?" he asked in a voice very
fierce and low. He brought down his open hand with a bang that made the
coffee-cups dance. "I am ready to swear I was not--I was not. . . . By
God--no!" He hitched himself upright and crossed his arms; his chin fell
on his breast.

'The soft clashes of crockery reached us faintly through the high
windows. There was a burst of voices, and several men came out in high
good-humour into the gallery. They were exchanging jocular reminiscences
of the donkeys in Cairo. A pale anxious youth stepping softly on long
legs was being chaffed by a strutting and rubicund globe-trotter about
his purchases in the bazaar. "No, really--do you think I've been done
to that extent?" he inquired very earnest and deliberate. The band moved
away, dropping into chairs as they went; matches flared, illuminating
for a second faces without the ghost of an expression and the flat glaze
of white shirt-fronts; the hum of many conversations animated with the
ardour of feasting sounded to me absurd and infinitely remote.

'"Some of the crew were sleeping on the number one hatch within reach of
my arm," began Jim again.

'You must know they kept Kalashee watch in that ship, all hands sleeping
through the night, and only the reliefs of quartermasters and look-out
men being called. He was tempted to grip and shake the shoulder of the
nearest lascar, but he didn't. Something held his arms down along his
sides. He was not afraid--oh no! only he just couldn't--that's all. He
was not afraid of death perhaps, but I'll tell you what, he was afraid
of the emergency. His confounded imagination had evoked for him all
the horrors of panic, the trampling rush, the pitiful screams, boats
swamped--all the appalling incidents of a disaster at sea he had ever
heard of. He might have been resigned to die but I suspect he wanted
to die without added terrors, quietly, in a sort of peaceful trance. A
certain readiness to perish is not so very rare, but it is seldom
that you meet men whose souls, steeled in the impenetrable armour of
resolution, are ready to fight a losing battle to the last; the desire
of peace waxes stronger as hope declines, till at last it conquers the
very desire of life. Which of us here has not observed this, or maybe
experienced something of that feeling in his own person--this extreme
weariness of emotions, the vanity of effort, the yearning for rest?
Those striving with unreasonable forces know it well,--the shipwrecked
castaways in boats, wanderers lost in a desert, men battling against the
unthinking might of nature, or the stupid brutality of crowds.'

At dinner with Marlow, Jim slowly starts to talk about everything that happened. Now we're talking. He tells Marlow about his shame and how hard everything has been for him with the trial. And then he tells us what we've really been dying to know: what happened in the moments after the collision aboard the Patna. Go on, Jimmy, we're all ears. After examining the ship, Jim, along with the rest of the crew, was totally convinced that the Patna was about to sink. Seizing a storyteller's opportunity, Marlow breaks in to let us know that the crew of the Patna was found floating in a lifeboat the day after the collision, shipless, and passengerless, too. The crew said the Patna had sunk. But the ship didn't sink after all. Nope, no matter what they say, this crew abandoned ship, and that is a Big Scandal. Huge. We go back to Jim, who describes the horror he was feeling, thinking that the ship was about to sink. We get it, Jimmy. It was awful. Standing there frozen, Jim is unable to warn any of the passengers about the impending doom. Jim's overactive imagination, Marlow tells us, fueled his panic.

During dinner, the wine loosened Jim's tongue, and he began his painful story. Now, he has no money, no job, no future as a sailor, and he has shamed his pastor father, who is incapable of understanding what has happened. Impulsively, Jim asks Marlow if he can understand it all. What would Marlow have done? Jim said that after he and his fellow officers were picked up and taken ashore, he learned that the Patna did not sink. The news seemed impossible to believe; the Patna had been doomed. Jim recalled in detail how he himself examined the bulkhead of the ship; he remembered how it had bulged, ready to crack momentarily. There were seven lifeboats and 800 passengers. If Jim had alerted the passengers, their panic would have caused virtual chaos. He was surrounded by a sea ready to swallow him up, and he was surrounded by 800 sleeping natives who would soon be drowning, screaming like frightened, panicking animals. "They were dead. Nothing could save them!" Jim swore to Marlow that he was not afraid of death, even as they were talking; nor was he afraid of death then, and Marlow was inclined to believe him -- simply because Jim's mind dwelled not on death, but on his fear of unleashed panic. Marlow realized also that Jim never tried to suggest that what the crewmen did was not terribly wrong, and "therein lies his distinction." In anguish, Jim moaned, "What a chance missed!" What should he have done? Even now, he didn't know. All he could do was remember what he did do.

Chapter 7 allows the reader to know more about Jim's predicament, but not before Marlow again lets us know that Jim "was of the right sort; he was one of us." The repetition of this phrase functions to remind us again and again that we are like Jim and would probably have reacted the same way that he did, especially since Jim states his case directly to Marlow in such a way that aligns all of us to Jim. "Do you know what you would have done? Do you? and you don't think yourself . . . you don't think yourself a -- a -- cur?" When Jim maintains that after this terrible event, "this . . . hell," he can never go home again, and after he explains further that with his "certificate gone, career broken, no money . . . no work that he could obtain," that he is, in essence, ruined, the reader's interest in Jim's disgrace is intensified. The reason for the narrative of Jim's exploits lies simply in his statement to Marlow: "It is all in being ready. I wasn't; not -- not then. I don't want to excuse myself, but I would like to explain -- I would like somebody to understand -- somebody -- one person at least! You! Why not you?" Thus Marlow, through his initial empathy for this young and handsome man, is chosen by him to be the recipient of this horrible experience. Our first real intimation as to what really happened comes when Marlow says: "So that bulkhead held out after all," and then a second hint comes when Jim murmurs: "Ali! What a chance missed! My God! what a chance missed." It is then after some contemplation that Marlow finally reacts and says, "If you had stuck to the ship, you mean." Still, even the most sensitive readers might miss this clue or not come to the full implication of its meaning. For many readers, it will not be clear what happened until much later, when we hear that the Patna was towed to Aden. Some readers, of course, will not be fully aware of what has happened until they hear the French lieutenant's story. But nevertheless, most readers, by now, are forming some definite impressions about the character of Jim and the character of Marlow, as well as some of the other characters. When Jim maintains that there was nothing that he could do for the pilgrims , he also protests that he was not thinking of saving himself, that he was not afraid of death. At this point, Marlow interprets for the reader by saying that Jim was not afraid of death, but . . . he was afraid of the emergency." Marlow then interprets for us that Jim "might have been resigned to die, but I suspect he wanted to die without added terrors, quietly, in a sort of peaceful trance." Marlow will continue to interpret for the reader, but we should always remember that we are still free to disagree with his viewpoint.

Over dinner, Jim talks about the misery of his present life, which is "hell". He is broke and has no hope of obtaining another job on the sea since his papers have been revoked. In addition, he has shamed his father, who is a minister, and feels he will never be able to go home again. It is obvious that Jim is miserable and feels disgraced. He wants just one person to understand his actions, to believe he simply was not prepared to handle the tragedy of the Patna. Hoping to make Marlow understand, Jim asks him what he would have done in the same situation. Jim starts telling his emotional story of the Patna disaster. He speaks soberly with a lot of self-control. When he realized that the ship was sinking, he wanted to alert everyone; but there were eight hundred people sleeping in the ship, and only seven lifeboats to take them out. The task was impossible. If he had alerted the pilgrims, they would have panicked and created a stampede. As a result, he decided to keep quiet. Jim claims he was not afraid of death, but the fact that he could not save eight hundred people troubled him immensely. After Jim is rescued and taken ashore, he learned that the Patna did not sink. He could not believe it, for he had personally inspected the ship and thought it would break in half at any moment. He was sure that nothing could save the pilgrims. Marlow listens to the story intently. He is impressed that Jim makes no excuses; he does not attempt to justify his actions aboard the Patna. As a result, Marlow feels that he is a young man of distinction. Again he thinks that Jim is "the right sort; he is one of us."

Notes This chapter gives a clearer insight into Jim. As he tells his story of the Patna, he does not seem like a coward. He deserted the ship because he felt helpless, because he could not handle a stampede, not because he was afraid of dying. Now Jim, the dreamer, realizes that he passed up a wonderful opportunity. If he had just stayed with the pilgrims on the Patna, he would have become a hero. He moans to Marlow, "Ah! What a chance missed!" Marlow believes Jim's story and accepts that the young man is not afraid of death. Once again Marlow emphasizes that Jim is "one of us." Conrad is clearly pointing out, as he will do several times throughout the novel, that Jim is a representative common man, and that most people would have acted no differently than Jim.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'You are so subtle, Marlow.'

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

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

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

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

'"He says he thought nothing."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Imagine Jim, still frozen, waiting for the ship to sink. He manages to snap out of it and rushes to the lifeboats, of which there are only three. Notice he's not exactly sounding the alarm. Nope, he's too busy saving his own skin. When he is stopped on his mad dash to the lifeboats by a beggar asking for water, Jim gets so agitated by the interruption that he nearly flips out. Actually he does flip out: Jim whacks him in the face with a lantern. Chill out, Jimmy. Take a deep breath. The poor beggar keeps asking for water, and Jim finally tosses his entire water canteen at the guy. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew are anxiously working on getting the lifeboat ready to go. Not wanting to wake the passengers, they work in a quiet panic. It's clear by now that this is one of those every-man-for-himself situations. To defend his actions, Jim interrupts himself and asks Marlow what he would have done in the same situation. We also learn that two Malays remained at the wheel of the ship the entire time. The white men pretty much ignored them. They were too busy looking out for number one. Taking over the storytelling for a bit, Marlow tells us about the pilgrims who were left alone and adrift on the ship. We hope they got a refund. When the scandal broke and the pilgrims and Malay helmsmen were rescued, the two "native" helmsmen had to give evidence. One of these Malay men couldn't believe that the white men had abandoned ship in such a cowardly fashion and insisted they had "secret reasons" for leaving , perhaps racist ones. There's all sorts of social commentary going on. We hate to break it to you, dude, but the secret reason was that they were all a bunch of punks. But before we get too sidetracked, let's jump back to Jim's story. As he relates it to Marlow, Jim starts to laugh hysterically in the restaurant with Marlow: "Along the whole dim length of the gallery the voices dropped and the silence became so profound that the clear tinkle of a teaspoon falling on the tessellated floor of the verandah rang out like a tiny silvery scream." Awkward.

Marlow now recounts more of what Jim told him. On that fateful night, Jim could recall that he was running along the deck, stepping with difficulty over the sleeping Moslems. One man asked for water, and Jim hit him, then thrust his own water bottle at him. Later, on the bridge, Jim again felt alone and doomed. He stood frozen, unable to decide what action to take. He was not afraid to die, but he was paralyzed by the possibility of his dying anonymously among hundreds of screaming natives, disappearing forever beneath the exploding ship. Marlow admits that had he been aboard ship, he probably would not have "given a counterfeit farthing" for the possibility that the Patna would not sink. Then he recalls that as he was listening to Jim, he realized that Jim was not speaking to him as a person, but as a symbol -- someone who would justify what Jim had done, as though Marlow were "an inseparable partner . . . another possessor of his soul." For Marlow, this was additional proof that Jim was "one of us." Marlow reminded Jim that a man couldn't continually "be prepared" for any and all preconceived emergencies. It was the unexpected which always happened, Marlow told him, never what one expected to happen. Jim scoffed and began to sulk. The Patna, his fellow officers, and even the sea had tricked him. It had all been a cruel, unfair, and tragic joke. Then Jim returned to the events that happened the night he deserted the Patna. One of the officers, he said, pleaded with him to help free a lifeboat, but he refused, and later he slugged the officer. Then the officer shouted out that Jim was a coward. Remembering that moment, Jim laughed with such a savage bitterness that the hotel guests stopped talking and turned to look at Jim in bewilderment.

Chapter 8 continues in an indirect manner, further unraveling the mysterious catastrophe connected with the Patna. Conrad, through Marlow, continues to approach the incident indirectly . For example, instead of attacking the narrative directly, he gives us the reactions of the various members of the crew. He examines Jim first because as first mate, Jim has all of the lifeboats ready for use in spite of the fact that there are not enough to save even half of the pilgrims. Then we see Jim panicking when one of the pilgrims asks for some drinking water for his sick child; Jim interprets the request as a threat and reacts with hostility. Further panicking is seen when Jim feels a "heavy blow on  shoulder" only to discover that it is the second engineer, and the captain himself charges against Jim until he realizes that it is actually Jim. Then Jim hears the captain say that he is going to "clear out" -- a horribly shocking statement. Throughout this narration, Conrad  is conveying the confusion and horror of the situation which creates the panic and confusion, causing Jim to jump without ever really knowing why he jumped. Again in this chapter, Marlow and the reader are reinvolved in the mystery when Jim once again cries out: "You think me a cur for standing there, but what would you have done? What! You can't tell nobody can tell." And then in the very next paragraph, Marlow reinforces this idea and again repeats it: "The occasion was obscure, insignificant -- what you will: a lost youngster, one of a million -- but then he was one of us," and thus each of us might have done exactly as Jim did. Later in the novel, Stein will categorize Jim as being an extreme romantic. Here in this chapter, Conrad is already preparing us for this scene as he emphasizes Jim's simplicity and his innocence -- two qualities most often associated with the romantic. It is Jim's innocence which makes it so hard for him to deal with the deviousness of the other members of the crew, especially when the first engineer attacks Jim and then cries out: "Won't you save your own life -- you infernal coward?" Jim cannot react to this except to laugh bitterly over the irony of it, especially now that he has been internationally branded as a coward because he did save his life by jumping. Even though the reader is still not informed precisely as to the true nature of the Patna episode, this chapter does provide a final clue: "And still she floated! These sleeping pilgrims were destined to accomplish their whole pilgrimage to the bitterness of some other end." By now there should be enough clues for the reader to form a very definite view -- that the crew, thinking that the ship would sink, abandoned the ship and yet the ship miraculously did not sink.

In this chapter, Marlow continues telling Jim's story of what happened on the Patna, giving some of the details that he had learned from the young sailor. After he realized that the ship would surely sink, Jim stood on deck not knowing what to do. He was not afraid of death, but he did not want to die alone and unknown amongst 800 foreign pilgrims. Suddenly it struck him that if he could free the seven lifeboats, some people could be saved in them. Stepping over sleeping pilgrims, he quickly ran towards where the boats were kept in the hope of loosening them. On the way, someone caught him by his coat and shouted, "Water, Water!" Jim struck him before realizing that he only wanted water for his baby. Jim then threw his water bottle at the man and ran on as the boat swayed dangerously. He soon approached the lifeboats and saw the captain trying to loosen one of them. Then one of the engineers ran up to Jim and asked him for help in freeing a lifeboat for his escape, but Jim refused him. When the officer called Jim a coward for not wanting to save himself, he slugged the engineer. He then heard the captain say that he was ready to "clear out". Jim bemoaned the fact that he felt that he was tricked by the officers, the boat, and the sea; he then laughed loudly and bitterly at the memories.

Notes The narrator probes deeper into the psyche of Jim, hoping the reader will identify with the young sailor. When Jim was stopped by one of the pilgrims and struck him, it clearly revealed the depth of the panic that Jim himself was feeling. When he learned that the captain and engineer were going to leave in the lifeboats, deserting the Patna and the pilgrims, Jim was confused and horrified. He was too shocked to try and stop them. He then obviously panicked himself and jumped overboard, not fully realizing what he was doing. Jim told Marlow his story because he wanted an ally, someone who could understand him. As he gave the details of the horrid night on the Patna, he kept asking Marlow what he would have done had he been there. Marlow is obviously not certain of what his reaction would have been, for he knows that he is only human. As a result, Marlow seems to fully sympathize with Jim, again calling him "one of us." It is important to realize that Jim's story has not been clearly told in a chronological fashion. There has been much talking about the Patna incident, but the reader has still been expected to fill in some of the details and piece the tale together. By the end of this chapter, the whole story of that fateful night should be obvious to the reader, who now can understand why Jim was on trial in a courtroom.


'"I was saying to myself, 'Sink--curse you! Sink!'" These were the
words with which he began again. He wanted it over. He was severely left
alone, and he formulated in his head this address to the ship in a
tone of imprecation, while at the same time he enjoyed the privilege of
witnessing scenes--as far as I can judge--of low comedy. They were still
at that bolt. The skipper was ordering, "Get under and try to lift"; and
the others naturally shirked. You understand that to be squeezed flat
under the keel of a boat wasn't a desirable position to be caught in if
the ship went down suddenly. "Why don't you--you the strongest?" whined
the little engineer. "Gott-for-dam! I am too thick," spluttered the
skipper in despair. It was funny enough to make angels weep. They stood
idle for a moment, and suddenly the chief engineer rushed again at Jim.

'"Come and help, man! Are you mad to throw your only chance away? Come
and help, man! Man! Look there--look!"

'And at last Jim looked astern where the other pointed with maniacal
insistence. He saw a silent black squall which had eaten up already
one-third of the sky. You know how these squalls come up there about
that time of the year. First you see a darkening of the horizon--no
more; then a cloud rises opaque like a wall. A straight edge of vapour
lined with sickly whitish gleams flies up from the southwest, swallowing
the stars in whole constellations; its shadow flies over the waters, and
confounds sea and sky into one abyss of obscurity. And all is still.
No thunder, no wind, no sound; not a flicker of lightning. Then in
the tenebrous immensity a livid arch appears; a swell or two like
undulations of the very darkness run past, and suddenly, wind and rain
strike together with a peculiar impetuosity as if they had burst through
something solid. Such a cloud had come up while they weren't looking.
They had just noticed it, and were perfectly justified in surmising
that if in absolute stillness there was some chance for the ship to keep
afloat a few minutes longer, the least disturbance of the sea would make
an end of her instantly. Her first nod to the swell that precedes the
burst of such a squall would be also her last, would become a plunge,
would, so to speak, be prolonged into a long dive, down, down to the
bottom. Hence these new capers of their fright, these new antics in
which they displayed their extreme aversion to die.

'"It was black, black," pursued Jim with moody steadiness. "It had
sneaked upon us from behind. The infernal thing! I suppose there had
been at the back of my head some hope yet. I don't know. But that was
all over anyhow. It maddened me to see myself caught like this. I was
angry, as though I had been trapped. I _was_ trapped! The night was hot,
too, I remember. Not a breath of air."

'He remembered so well that, gasping in the chair, he seemed to sweat
and choke before my eyes. No doubt it maddened him; it knocked him over
afresh--in a manner of speaking--but it made him also remember that
important purpose which had sent him rushing on that bridge only to slip
clean out of his mind. He had intended to cut the lifeboats clear of the
ship. He whipped out his knife and went to work slashing as though he
had seen nothing, had heard nothing, had known of no one on board. They
thought him hopelessly wrong-headed and crazy, but dared not protest
noisily against this useless loss of time. When he had done he returned
to the very same spot from which he had started. The chief was there,
ready with a clutch at him to whisper close to his head, scathingly, as
though he wanted to bite his ear--

'"You silly fool! do you think you'll get the ghost of a show when all
that lot of brutes is in the water? Why, they will batter your head for
you from these boats."

'He wrung his hands, ignored, at Jim's elbow. The skipper kept up a
nervous shuffle in one place and mumbled, "Hammer! hammer! Mein Gott!
Get a hammer."

'The little engineer whimpered like a child, but, broken arm and all,
he turned out the least craven of the lot as it seems, and, actually,
mustered enough pluck to run an errand to the engine-room. No trifle, it
must be owned in fairness to him. Jim told me he darted desperate looks
like a cornered man, gave one low wail, and dashed off. He was back
instantly clambering, hammer in hand, and without a pause flung himself
at the bolt. The others gave up Jim at once and ran off to assist.
He heard the tap, tap of the hammer, the sound of the released chock
falling over. The boat was clear. Only then he turned to look--only
then. But he kept his distance--he kept his distance. He wanted me to
know he had kept his distance; that there was nothing in common between
him and these men--who had the hammer. Nothing whatever. It is more than
probable he thought himself cut off from them by a space that could
not be traversed, by an obstacle that could not be overcome, by a chasm
without bottom. He was as far as he could get from them--the whole
breadth of the ship.

'His feet were glued to that remote spot and his eyes to their
indistinct group bowed together and swaying strangely in the common
torment of fear. A hand-lamp lashed to a stanchion above a little table
rigged up on the bridge--the Patna had no chart-room amidships--threw a
light on their labouring shoulders, on their arched and bobbing backs.
They pushed at the bow of the boat; they pushed out into the night; they
pushed, and would no more look back at him. They had given him up as if
indeed he had been too far, too hopelessly separated from themselves, to
be worth an appealing word, a glance, or a sign. They had no leisure to
look back upon his passive heroism, to feel the sting of his abstention.
The boat was heavy; they pushed at the bow with no breath to spare for
an encouraging word: but the turmoil of terror that had scattered their
self-command like chaff before the wind, converted their desperate
exertions into a bit of fooling, upon my word, fit for knockabout clowns
in a farce. They pushed with their hands, with their heads, they pushed
for dear life with all the weight of their bodies, they pushed with all
the might of their souls--only no sooner had they succeeded in canting
the stem clear of the davit than they would leave off like one man and
start a wild scramble into her. As a natural consequence the boat would
swing in abruptly, driving them back, helpless and jostling against each
other. They would stand nonplussed for a while, exchanging in fierce
whispers all the infamous names they could call to mind, and go at it
again. Three times this occurred. He described it to me with morose
thoughtfulness. He hadn't lost a single movement of that comic business.
"I loathed them. I hated them. I had to look at all that," he said
without emphasis, turning upon me a sombrely watchful glance. "Was ever
there any one so shamefully tried?"

'He took his head in his hands for a moment, like a man driven to
distraction by some unspeakable outrage. These were things he could not
explain to the court--and not even to me; but I would have been little
fitted for the reception of his confidences had I not been able at times
to understand the pauses between the words. In this assault upon
his fortitude there was the jeering intention of a spiteful and
vile vengeance; there was an element of burlesque in his ordeal--a
degradation of funny grimaces in the approach of death or dishonour.

'He related facts which I have not forgotten, but at this distance of
time I couldn't recall his very words: I only remember that he managed
wonderfully to convey the brooding rancour of his mind into the bare
recital of events. Twice, he told me, he shut his eyes in the certitude
that the end was upon him already, and twice he had to open them again.
Each time he noted the darkening of the great stillness. The shadow of
the silent cloud had fallen upon the ship from the zenith, and seemed
to have extinguished every sound of her teeming life. He could no longer
hear the voices under the awnings. He told me that each time he closed
his eyes a flash of thought showed him that crowd of bodies, laid out
for death, as plain as daylight. When he opened them, it was to see the
dim struggle of four men fighting like mad with a stubborn boat. "They
would fall back before it time after time, stand swearing at each other,
and suddenly make another rush in a bunch. . . . Enough to make you
die laughing," he commented with downcast eyes; then raising them for a
moment to my face with a dismal smile, "I ought to have a merry life
of it, by God! for I shall see that funny sight a good many times yet
before I die." His eyes fell again. "See and hear. . . . See and hear,"
he repeated twice, at long intervals, filled by vacant staring.

'He roused himself.

'"I made up my mind to keep my eyes shut," he said, "and I couldn't. I
couldn't, and I don't care who knows it. Let them go through that kind
of thing before they talk. Just let them--and do better--that's all. The
second time my eyelids flew open and my mouth too. I had felt the
ship move. She just dipped her bows--and lifted them gently--and slow!
everlastingly slow; and ever so little. She hadn't done that much for
days. The cloud had raced ahead, and this first swell seemed to travel
upon a sea of lead. There was no life in that stir. It managed, though,
to knock over something in my head. What would you have done? You are
sure of yourself--aren't you? What would you do if you felt now--this
minute--the house here move, just move a little under your chair. Leap!
By heavens! you would take one spring from where you sit and land in
that clump of bushes yonder."

'He flung his arm out at the night beyond the stone balustrade. I held
my peace. He looked at me very steadily, very severe. There could be no
mistake: I was being bullied now, and it behoved me to make no sign lest
by a gesture or a word I should be drawn into a fatal admission about
myself which would have had some bearing on the case. I was not disposed
to take any risk of that sort. Don't forget I had him before me, and
really he was too much like one of us not to be dangerous. But if you
want to know I don't mind telling you that I did, with a rapid glance,
estimate the distance to the mass of denser blackness in the middle of
the grass-plot before the verandah. He exaggerated. I would have landed
short by several feet--and that's the only thing of which I am fairly
certain.

'The last moment had come, as he thought, and he did not move. His feet
remained glued to the planks if his thoughts were knocking about loose
in his head. It was at this moment too that he saw one of the men around
the boat step backwards suddenly, clutch at the air with raised arms,
totter and collapse. He didn't exactly fall, he only slid gently into a
sitting posture, all hunched up, and with his shoulders propped against
the side of the engine-room skylight. "That was the donkey-man.
A haggard, white-faced chap with a ragged moustache. Acted third
engineer," he explained.

'"Dead," I said. We had heard something of that in court.

'"So they say," he pronounced with sombre indifference. "Of course I
never knew. Weak heart. The man had been complaining of being out of
sorts for some time before. Excitement. Over-exertion. Devil only knows.
Ha! ha! ha! It was easy to see he did not want to die either. Droll,
isn't it? May I be shot if he hadn't been fooled into killing himself!
Fooled--neither more nor less. Fooled into it, by heavens! just as
I . . . Ah! If he had only kept still; if he had only told them to go to
the devil when they came to rush him out of his bunk because the ship
was sinking! If he had only stood by with his hands in his pockets and
called them names!"

'He got up, shook his fist, glared at me, and sat down.

'"A chance missed, eh?" I murmured.

'"Why don't you laugh?" he said. "A joke hatched in hell. Weak
heart! . . . I wish sometimes mine had been."

'This irritated me. "Do you?" I exclaimed with deep-rooted irony. "Yes!
Can't _you_ understand?" he cried. "I don't know what more you could
wish for," I said angrily. He gave me an utterly uncomprehending glance.
This shaft had also gone wide of the mark, and he was not the man to
bother about stray arrows. Upon my word, he was too unsuspecting; he was
not fair game. I was glad that my missile had been thrown away,--that he
had not even heard the twang of the bow.

'Of course he could not know at the time the man was dead. The next
minute--his last on board--was crowded with a tumult of events and
sensations which beat about him like the sea upon a rock. I use the
simile advisedly, because from his relation I am forced to believe
he had preserved through it all a strange illusion of passiveness, as
though he had not acted but had suffered himself to be handled by the
infernal powers who had selected him for the victim of their practical
joke. The first thing that came to him was the grinding surge of the
heavy davits swinging out at last--a jar which seemed to enter his body
from the deck through the soles of his feet, and travel up his spine to
the crown of his head. Then, the squall being very near now, another
and a heavier swell lifted the passive hull in a threatening heave that
checked his breath, while his brain and his heart together were pierced
as with daggers by panic-stricken screams. "Let go! For God's sake,
let go! Let go! She's going." Following upon that the boat-falls ripped
through the blocks, and a lot of men began to talk in startled tones
under the awnings. "When these beggars did break out, their yelps were
enough to wake the dead," he said. Next, after the splashing shock
of the boat literally dropped in the water, came the hollow noises of
stamping and tumbling in her, mingled with confused shouts: "Unhook!
Unhook! Shove! Unhook! Shove for your life! Here's the squall down on
us. . . ." He heard, high above his head, the faint muttering of the
wind; he heard below his feet a cry of pain. A lost voice alongside
started cursing a swivel hook. The ship began to buzz fore and aft
like a disturbed hive, and, as quietly as he was telling me of all
this--because just then he was very quiet in attitude, in face, in
voice--he went on to say without the slightest warning as it were, "I
stumbled over his legs."

'This was the first I heard of his having moved at all. I could not
restrain a grunt of surprise. Something had started him off at last, but
of the exact moment, of the cause that tore him out of his immobility,
he knew no more than the uprooted tree knows of the wind that laid it
low. All this had come to him: the sounds, the sights, the legs of the
dead man--by Jove! The infernal joke was being crammed devilishly down
his throat, but--look you--he was not going to admit of any sort of
swallowing motion in his gullet. It's extraordinary how he could cast
upon you the spirit of his illusion. I listened as if to a tale of black
magic at work upon a corpse.

'"He went over sideways, very gently, and this is the last thing I
remember seeing on board," he continued. "I did not care what he did.
It looked as though he were picking himself up: I thought he was picking
himself up, of course: I expected him to bolt past me over the rail and
drop into the boat after the others. I could hear them knocking about
down there, and a voice as if crying up a shaft called out 'George!'
Then three voices together raised a yell. They came to me separately:
one bleated, another screamed, one howled. Ough!"

'He shivered a little, and I beheld him rise slowly as if a steady
hand from above had been pulling him out of the chair by his hair. Up,
slowly--to his full height, and when his knees had locked stiff the hand
let him go, and he swayed a little on his feet. There was a suggestion
of awful stillness in his face, in his movements, in his very voice when
he said "They shouted"--and involuntarily I pricked up my ears for
the ghost of that shout that would be heard directly through the false
effect of silence. "There were eight hundred people in that ship," he
said, impaling me to the back of my seat with an awful blank stare.
"Eight hundred living people, and they were yelling after the one dead
man to come down and be saved. 'Jump, George! Jump! Oh, jump!' I stood
by with my hand on the davit. I was very quiet. It had come over pitch
dark. You could see neither sky nor sea. I heard the boat alongside go
bump, bump, and not another sound down there for a while, but the ship
under me was full of talking noises. Suddenly the skipper howled 'Mein
Gott! The squall! The squall! Shove off!' With the first hiss of rain,
and the first gust of wind, they screamed, 'Jump, George! We'll catch
you! Jump!' The ship began a slow plunge; the rain swept over her like
a broken sea; my cap flew off my head; my breath was driven back into
my throat. I heard as if I had been on the top of a tower another wild
screech, 'Geo-o-o-orge! Oh, jump!' She was going down, down, head first
under me. . . ."

'He raised his hand deliberately to his face, and made picking motions
with his fingers as though he had been bothered with cobwebs, and
afterwards he looked into the open palm for quite half a second before
he blurted out--

'"I had jumped . . ." He checked himself, averted his gaze. . . . "It
seems," he added.

'His clear blue eyes turned to me with a piteous stare, and looking at
him standing before me, dumfounded and hurt, I was oppressed by a sad
sense of resigned wisdom, mingled with the amused and profound pity of
an old man helpless before a childish disaster.

'"Looks like it," I muttered.

'"I knew nothing about it till I looked up," he explained hastily. And
that's possible, too. You had to listen to him as you would to a small
boy in trouble. He didn't know. It had happened somehow. It would never
happen again. He had landed partly on somebody and fallen across a
thwart. He felt as though all his ribs on his left side must be broken;
then he rolled over, and saw vaguely the ship he had deserted uprising
above him, with the red side-light glowing large in the rain like a fire
on the brow of a hill seen through a mist. "She seemed higher than a
wall; she loomed like a cliff over the boat . . . I wished I could die,"
he cried. "There was no going back. It was as if I had jumped into a
well--into an everlasting deep hole. . . ."'

After his laughing fit, Jim continues his narrative, leaving us to wonder what in the world that was all about. He describes how the crew members verbally abused him as they struggled with the lifeboat. In the chaos, the second engineer has broken his arm . As the men work frantically to free a lifeboat, Jim succumbs to complete and utter panic. All he can think about is his impending death and the pilgrims aboard who might wake up and riot. It gets worse: a squall, or storm, is approaching. This is so not good. Finally, they get the lifeboat free and push it overboard. This is the moment when some of the passengers begin to wake up. Uh oh. As the crew members are scrambling to reach the now floating lifeboat, the third engineer of the Patna, George, drops dead from a heart attack. The crew jump overboard to the boat and yell for George to join them. Guess they didn't notice the dude's dead. Finally, Jim jumps overboard, too. So much for women and children first, folks.

Watching the other officers battle to free the lifeboats, Jim was so maddened by the sudden "black, black" squall and the impending disaster that he grabbed his knife and sliced the ropes holding the lifeboats; then he gazed on the almost comical struggling scene below "of four men fighting like mad with a stubborn lifeboat." All their efforts were futile. He hated these insect-like men. He told Marlow that had he, Marlow, been on board, he too "would have leaped" overboard, as Jim did when he heard the captain yelling from a lifeboat to jump! Jim recalled the black rain squall that "sneaked up" and loomed overhead, eating up "a third of the sky" before it broke over the ship and began to awaken the Moslems. The threat of drowning during a furious storm from heaven, lost among a frenzied mob of screaming natives, filled Jim with such alarm that it seemed as though life itself were pounding against him, beating on him "like the sea upon a rock." It was pitch black. Jim could not see. He could hear only the skipper and an engineer yelling for a comrade who died suddenly of a heart attack. The Patna seemed to slip, then go into a slow, downward plunge and at that moment, Jim jumped. He jumped without thought and without realizing that he had jumped. He no longer felt as if he were in control of his actions. Something else -- something larger and more powerful than he -- was now controlling him; all that he could do was passively accept the unknown. He felt that he was a hopeless victim, lost at the bottom "of an everlasting deep hole."

Chapter 9 finally presents Jim's jump from the presumably sinking ship. But the jump is surrounded by so many real and so many impressionistic details that it is difficult to separate the real from the impressionistic. From a distance, Jim wants to laugh at the tragic-comic frantic actions of the captain and the crew: "It was funny enough to make angels weep." Then suddenly a squall came up and the crew was sure that the squall would immediately sink the ship: "In absolute stillness there was some chance for the ship to keep afloat a few minutes longer,  the least disturbance of the sea would make an end of her instantly." At this, the others "displayed their extreme aversion to die." Jim soon realizes "that there was nothing in common between him and these men," and when Jim expresses his anger at them for their cowardly actions, the entire crew here  turns against him, calling him a fool and pointing out that he wouldn't have a ghost of a chance if they awaken "that lot of brutes . They will batter your head for you." Consequently, after the captain and the crew are safely in the water, they call for George, the third engineer  to jump into the lifeboat, but they do not call for Jim to jump. And later, Jim's life is endangered by the hatred of these cowards. Amidst the confusion, the oncoming squall, the definite sensation of the ship sinking, the terrified and desperate activities of the captain and the crew, and the sudden dipping of the bow of the ship, Jim is completely lost in confusion. Again he aligns Marlow and the readers by asking "What would you have done? You are sure of yourself -- aren't you? What would you do if you felt now -- this minute the house here move, just move a little under your chair? Leap! By heavens! You would take one spring from where you sit and land in that clump of bushes yonder." The answer, of course, is that almost every one of us, amid such confusion and confronted with certain death, would also have jumped. Even Marlow admits how uncomfortable it made him feel, and he was careful not to answer because of his fear of being "drawn into a fatal admission about myself." And furthermore, Marlow reiterates that "really he  was too much like one of us . . ." Thus, amidst all the confusion, with the captain and the crew calling for George  to jump, and with Jim feeling that the ship "was going down, down, head first under me. . ." he apparently jumped. Jim puts his actions in the past: "I had jumped . . . it seems." He doesn't actually remember the jump, only the painful landing in the boat and then he feels regretfully that he "had jumped into a well -- into an everlasting deep hole." The rest of his life will hereafter be determined by this one act, and later, his every job and his every act until, finally, his tragic decision concerning Gentleman Brown will be determined by this tragic jump.

When the other officers struggled to loosen the lifeboat, Jim stood away from them. He did not want to participate in their escape. He grew angry, however, as he thought about the storm and the disaster that was about to happen. In the end, he went up to the boat and cut the ropes that were holding it. He then watched in amazement as the officers scrambled to get in and save themselves; he judged them as cowards and hated them. The departing crew called Jim a fool for staying behind and told him that the pilgrims would probably batter him before he drowned. As Jim looked into the pitch darkness, the ship heaved in the storm that was growing worse. Suddenly, he heard the men shouting from the lifeboat below, calling out for George, the third engineer, to jump in the boat. Before Jim even realized what he was doing, he followed their commands and jumped. He would blame himself for that mistake forever. He feels as though he has jumped into an "everlasting deep hole."

Notes Marlow repeats Jim's vivid account of his desertion of the Patna. The reader clearly perceives the confusion that Jim experienced and is told that in the confusion and panic, the young sailor did not realize what he was doing. Jim's jump into the everlasting black hole is symbolic of his fall from idealism into the real world, the drop from his dream into the truth. The hole becomes Jim's hell, both physically and mentally. His self-torture starts with the jump, which becomes the turning point in his life, the point that becomes the black spot in his character and career. While Jim narrated his tale, he shivered uncomfortably, and Marlow could see clearly that he was very much upset. Again he asks Marlow, "What would you have done?" Marlow continues to be sympathetic to the young sailor, saying one more time that he is "one of us." He clearly believes that most people, when confronted with certain death, would react like Jim and jump.