feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/novelguide/Lord Jim/section_12_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapters 30-32
feat_summary_id: chapters 30-32
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapters 30-32", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210215030710/https://www.novelguide.com/lord-jim/summaries/chapter30-32", "summary": "Thirty One and Thirty Two . In Chapter Thirty, Jim tells Marlow he does not know why he 'hung on' there , but Marlow says we may guess as Jim sympathized deeply with Jewel who was at the mercy of this 'scoundrel'. Cornelius demanded respect from his step-daughter, yet he would also abuse her dead mother. . . At this time, danger was also gathering and Doramin twice sent a servant to ask him to come back across the river to the Bugis people for his safety . Others also came to inform Jim of the plots to kill him and Cornelius said he would procure a man - for 80 dollars - to help him leave the area. Finally, Jim lost his temper with Cornelius. He told him 'nothing can touch me' and defied all of Patusan to scare him away. Afterwards, he felt ashamed, but slept well for the first time in two weeks. . . The next day, in Chapter Thirty One, it is described how Jim persuaded the Bugis to attack Sherif Ali. He felt elated by their commitment and tried to be civil with Cornelius when he returned home. He fell asleep and was woken by Jewel. She said he should follow her outside as he is to be set upon. It was a beautiful night and Marlow reminds his listeners  that this is a love story he is telling us now. Jewel told Jim that the men who are waiting to attack him are in the storeroom and he is elated when she lets him know she has been watching him sleep. Marlow repeats his view that this is a love story. . . Jewel then asked Jim to go to Doramin, but he decided to look in the storeroom instead. She held the torch as he entered. A man ran at him with a weapon and Jim shot him through the mouth. Jim later felt calm as though this man's death 'atoned for everything'. The other three men surrendered. . . Chapter Thirty Two continues with this story and relates how Jewel maintained her grip on the torch as the three men came out and obeyed his instructions. He ordered them to go back to Sherif Ali. . . Jim tells Marlow that he now loves Jewel and feels absolutely necessary to another person. He compares finding her to going out for a stroll and coming suddenly across 'somebody drowning in a lonely dark place'. He also says that even after two years of living there he cannot conceive of returning home as he has not forgotten the reason he first came there. These people can never know 'the real, real truth', but adds that he is 'nearly satisfied'. He believes Marlow would not like him aboard his own ship, and Marlow demurs at this. Later, Jewel stops Marlow when he is alone and he sees that she is anxious that he will take Jim away from her. . . .", "analysis": "Thirty One and Thirty Two . As Marlow recounts the 'love story' between Jewel and Jim, he heightens the sense of romance that is attached to this hero. His bravery is also highlighted in these passages; for example, he defies all of Patusan when he says nothing can touch him. He is seen to refuse to submit to intimidation and his decision to enter the storeroom, rather than run away to Doramin as Jewel wishes him to, demonstrates his regained self-belief. . . It is also telling that he considers the shooting of one of his attackers as a form of atonement. It is as though he feels he has made some amends for jumping from the ship, because he has now stayed and faced his fear."}
text: 
  'He told me further that he didn't know what made him hang on--but of
  course we may guess. He sympathised deeply with the defenceless girl, at
  the mercy of that "mean, cowardly scoundrel." It appears Cornelius led
  her an awful life, stopping only short of actual ill-usage, for which
  he had not the pluck, I suppose. He insisted upon her calling him
  father--"and with respect, too--with respect," he would scream, shaking
  a little yellow fist in her face. "I am a respectable man, and what are
  you? Tell me--what are you? You think I am going to bring up somebody
  else's child and not be treated with respect? You ought to be glad I let
  you. Come--say Yes, father. . . . No? . . . You wait a bit." Thereupon
  he would begin to abuse the dead woman, till the girl would run off with
  her hands to her head. He pursued her, dashing in and out and round the
  house and amongst the sheds, would drive her into some corner, where she
  would fall on her knees stopping her ears, and then he would stand at a
  distance and declaim filthy denunciations at her back for half an hour
  at a stretch. "Your mother was a devil, a deceitful devil--and you too
  are a devil," he would shriek in a final outburst, pick up a bit of dry
  earth or a handful of mud (there was plenty of mud around the house),
  and fling it into her hair. Sometimes, though, she would hold out full
  of scorn, confronting him in silence, her face sombre and contracted,
  and only now and then uttering a word or two that would make the other
  jump and writhe with the sting. Jim told me these scenes were terrible.
  It was indeed a strange thing to come upon in a wilderness. The
  endlessness of such a subtly cruel situation was appalling--if you think
  of it. The respectable Cornelius (Inchi 'Nelyus the Malays called him,
  with a grimace that meant many things) was a much-disappointed man. I
  don't know what he had expected would be done for him in consideration
  of his marriage; but evidently the liberty to steal, and embezzle, and
  appropriate to himself for many years and in any way that suited him
  best, the goods of Stein's Trading Company (Stein kept the supply up
  unfalteringly as long as he could get his skippers to take it there) did
  not seem to him a fair equivalent for the sacrifice of his honourable
  name. Jim would have enjoyed exceedingly thrashing Cornelius within an
  inch of his life; on the other hand, the scenes were of so painful
  a character, so abominable, that his impulse would be to get out of
  earshot, in order to spare the girl's feelings. They left her agitated,
  speechless, clutching her bosom now and then with a stony,
  desperate face, and then Jim would lounge up and say unhappily,
  "Now--come--really--what's the use--you must try to eat a bit," or give
  some such mark of sympathy. Cornelius would keep on slinking through
  the doorways, across the verandah and back again, as mute as a fish, and
  with malevolent, mistrustful, underhand glances. "I can stop his game,"
  Jim said to her once. "Just say the word." And do you know what she
  answered? She said--Jim told me impressively--that if she had not been
  sure he was intensely wretched himself, she would have found the courage
  to kill him with her own hands. "Just fancy that! The poor devil of a
  girl, almost a child, being driven to talk like that," he exclaimed in
  horror. It seemed impossible to save her not only from that mean
  rascal but even from herself! It wasn't that he pitied her so much, he
  affirmed; it was more than pity; it was as if he had something on his
  conscience, while that life went on. To leave the house would have
  appeared a base desertion. He had understood at last that there was
  nothing to expect from a longer stay, neither accounts nor money, nor
  truth of any sort, but he stayed on, exasperating Cornelius to the
  verge, I won't say of insanity, but almost of courage. Meantime he felt
  all sorts of dangers gathering obscurely about him. Doramin had sent
  over twice a trusty servant to tell him seriously that he could do
  nothing for his safety unless he would recross the river again and live
  amongst the Bugis as at first. People of every condition used to call,
  often in the dead of night, in order to disclose to him plots for
  his assassination. He was to be poisoned. He was to be stabbed in the
  bath-house. Arrangements were being made to have him shot from a boat
  on the river. Each of these informants professed himself to be his very
  good friend. It was enough--he told me--to spoil a fellow's rest for
  ever. Something of the kind was extremely possible--nay, probable--but
  the lying warnings gave him only the sense of deadly scheming going on
  all around him, on all sides, in the dark. Nothing more calculated to
  shake the best of nerve. Finally, one night, Cornelius himself, with a
  great apparatus of alarm and secrecy, unfolded in solemn wheedling tones
  a little plan wherein for one hundred dollars--or even for eighty; let's
  say eighty--he, Cornelius, would procure a trustworthy man to smuggle
  Jim out of the river, all safe. There was nothing else for it now--if
  Jim cared a pin for his life. What's eighty dollars? A trifle. An
  insignificant sum. While he, Cornelius, who had to remain behind, was
  absolutely courting death by this proof of devotion to Mr. Stein's young
  friend. The sight of his abject grimacing was--Jim told me--very hard
  to bear: he clutched at his hair, beat his breast, rocked himself to
  and fro with his hands pressed to his stomach, and actually pretended to
  shed tears. "Your blood be on your own head," he squeaked at last, and
  rushed out. It is a curious question how far Cornelius was sincere in
  that performance. Jim confessed to me that he did not sleep a wink after
  the fellow had gone. He lay on his back on a thin mat spread over the
  bamboo flooring, trying idly to make out the bare rafters, and listening
  to the rustlings in the torn thatch. A star suddenly twinkled through a
  hole in the roof. His brain was in a whirl; but, nevertheless, it was on
  that very night that he matured his plan for overcoming Sherif Ali. It
  had been the thought of all the moments he could spare from the hopeless
  investigation into Stein's affairs, but the notion--he says--came to him
  then all at once. He could see, as it were, the guns mounted on the top
  of the hill. He got very hot and excited lying there; sleep was out of
  the question more than ever. He jumped up, and went out barefooted
  on the verandah. Walking silently, he came upon the girl, motionless
  against the wall, as if on the watch. In his then state of mind it did
  not surprise him to see her up, nor yet to hear her ask in an anxious
  whisper where Cornelius could be. He simply said he did not know. She
  moaned a little, and peered into the campong. Everything was very quiet.
  He was possessed by his new idea, and so full of it that he could not
  help telling the girl all about it at once. She listened, clapped her
  hands lightly, whispered softly her admiration, but was evidently on the
  alert all the time. It seems he had been used to make a confidant of
  her all along--and that she on her part could and did give him a lot of
  useful hints as to Patusan affairs there is no doubt. He assured me more
  than once that he had never found himself the worse for her advice. At
  any rate, he was proceeding to explain his plan fully to her there and
  then, when she pressed his arm once, and vanished from his side. Then
  Cornelius appeared from somewhere, and, perceiving Jim, ducked sideways,
  as though he had been shot at, and afterwards stood very still in the
  dusk. At last he came forward prudently, like a suspicious cat. "There
  were some fishermen there--with fish," he said in a shaky voice. "To
  sell fish--you understand." . . . It must have been then two o'clock in
  the morning--a likely time for anybody to hawk fish about!
  
  'Jim, however, let the statement pass, and did not give it a single
  thought. Other matters occupied his mind, and besides he had neither
  seen nor heard anything. He contented himself by saying, "Oh!" absently,
  got a drink of water out of a pitcher standing there, and leaving
  Cornelius a prey to some inexplicable emotion--that made him embrace
  with both arms the worm-eaten rail of the verandah as if his legs had
  failed--went in again and lay down on his mat to think. By-and-by he
  heard stealthy footsteps. They stopped. A voice whispered tremulously
  through the wall, "Are you asleep?" "No! What is it?" he answered
  briskly, and there was an abrupt movement outside, and then all was
  still, as if the whisperer had been startled. Extremely annoyed at this,
  Jim came out impetuously, and Cornelius with a faint shriek fled
  along the verandah as far as the steps, where he hung on to the broken
  banister. Very puzzled, Jim called out to him from the distance to know
  what the devil he meant. "Have you given your consideration to what
  I spoke to you about?" asked Cornelius, pronouncing the words with
  difficulty, like a man in the cold fit of a fever. "No!" shouted Jim in
  a passion. "I have not, and I don't intend to. I am going to live here,
  in Patusan." "You shall d-d-die h-h-here," answered Cornelius,
  still shaking violently, and in a sort of expiring voice. The whole
  performance was so absurd and provoking that Jim didn't know whether he
  ought to be amused or angry. "Not till I have seen you tucked away,
  you bet," he called out, exasperated yet ready to laugh. Half seriously
  (being excited with his own thoughts, you know) he went on shouting,
  "Nothing can touch me! You can do your damnedest." Somehow the shadowy
  Cornelius far off there seemed to be the hateful embodiment of all the
  annoyances and difficulties he had found in his path. He let himself
  go--his nerves had been over-wrought for days--and called him many
  pretty names,--swindler, liar, sorry rascal: in fact, carried on in an
  extraordinary way. He admits he passed all bounds, that he was quite
  beside himself--defied all Patusan to scare him away--declared he would
  make them all dance to his own tune yet, and so on, in a menacing,
  boasting strain. Perfectly bombastic and ridiculous, he said. His ears
  burned at the bare recollection. Must have been off his chump in some
  way. . . . The girl, who was sitting with us, nodded her little head at
  me quickly, frowned faintly, and said, "I heard him," with child-like
  solemnity. He laughed and blushed. What stopped him at last, he said,
  was the silence, the complete deathlike silence, of the indistinct
  figure far over there, that seemed to hang collapsed, doubled over the
  rail in a weird immobility. He came to his senses, and ceasing suddenly,
  wondered greatly at himself. He watched for a while. Not a stir, not a
  sound. "Exactly as if the chap had died while I had been making all that
  noise," he said. He was so ashamed of himself that he went indoors in a
  hurry without another word, and flung himself down again. The row seemed
  to have done him good though, because he went to sleep for the rest of
  the night like a baby. Hadn't slept like that for weeks. "But _I_ didn't
  sleep," struck in the girl, one elbow on the table and nursing her
  cheek. "I watched." Her big eyes flashed, rolling a little, and then she
  fixed them on my face intently.'
  'You may imagine with what interest I listened. All these details were
  perceived to have some significance twenty-four hours later. In the
  morning Cornelius made no allusion to the events of the night. "I
  suppose you will come back to my poor house," he muttered, surlily,
  slinking up just as Jim was entering the canoe to go over to Doramin's
  campong. Jim only nodded, without looking at him. "You find it good fun,
  no doubt," muttered the other in a sour tone. Jim spent the day with the
  old nakhoda, preaching the necessity of vigorous action to the principal
  men of the Bugis community, who had been summoned for a big talk. He
  remembered with pleasure how very eloquent and persuasive he had been.
  "I managed to put some backbone into them that time, and no mistake," he
  said. Sherif Ali's last raid had swept the outskirts of the settlement,
  and some women belonging to the town had been carried off to the
  stockade. Sherif Ali's emissaries had been seen in the market-place the
  day before, strutting about haughtily in white cloaks, and boasting of
  the Rajah's friendship for their master. One of them stood forward
  in the shade of a tree, and, leaning on the long barrel of a rifle,
  exhorted the people to prayer and repentance, advising them to kill all
  the strangers in their midst, some of whom, he said, were infidels and
  others even worse--children of Satan in the guise of Moslems. It was
  reported that several of the Rajah's people amongst the listeners had
  loudly expressed their approbation. The terror amongst the common people
  was intense. Jim, immensely pleased with his day's work, crossed the
  river again before sunset.
  
  'As he had got the Bugis irretrievably committed to action and had made
  himself responsible for success on his own head, he was so elated that
  in the lightness of his heart he absolutely tried to be civil with
  Cornelius. But Cornelius became wildly jovial in response, and it was
  almost more than he could stand, he says, to hear his little squeaks of
  false laughter, to see him wriggle and blink, and suddenly catch hold of
  his chin and crouch low over the table with a distracted stare. The
  girl did not show herself, and Jim retired early. When he rose to say
  good-night, Cornelius jumped up, knocking his chair over, and ducked out
  of sight as if to pick up something he had dropped. His good-night came
  huskily from under the table. Jim was amazed to see him emerge with a
  dropping jaw, and staring, stupidly frightened eyes. He clutched the
  edge of the table. "What's the matter? Are you unwell?" asked Jim. "Yes,
  yes, yes. A great colic in my stomach," says the other; and it is
  Jim's opinion that it was perfectly true. If so, it was, in view of his
  contemplated action, an abject sign of a still imperfect callousness for
  which he must be given all due credit.
  
  'Be it as it may, Jim's slumbers were disturbed by a dream of heavens
  like brass resounding with a great voice, which called upon him to
  Awake! Awake! so loud that, notwithstanding his desperate determination
  to sleep on, he did wake up in reality. The glare of a red spluttering
  conflagration going on in mid-air fell on his eyes. Coils of black thick
  smoke curved round the head of some apparition, some unearthly being,
  all in white, with a severe, drawn, anxious face. After a second or so
  he recognised the girl. She was holding a dammar torch at arm's-length
  aloft, and in a persistent, urgent monotone she was repeating, "Get up!
  Get up! Get up!"
  
  'Suddenly he leaped to his feet; at once she put into his hand a
  revolver, his own revolver, which had been hanging on a nail, but loaded
  this time. He gripped it in silence, bewildered, blinking in the light.
  He wondered what he could do for her.
  
  'She asked rapidly and very low, "Can you face four men with this?"
  He laughed while narrating this part at the recollection of his polite
  alacrity. It seems he made a great display of it. "Certainly--of
  course--certainly--command me." He was not properly awake, and had a
  notion of being very civil in these extraordinary circumstances, of
  showing his unquestioning, devoted readiness. She left the room, and
  he followed her; in the passage they disturbed an old hag who did the
  casual cooking of the household, though she was so decrepit as to be
  hardly able to understand human speech. She got up and hobbled behind
  them, mumbling toothlessly. On the verandah a hammock of sail-cloth,
  belonging to Cornelius, swayed lightly to the touch of Jim's elbow. It
  was empty.
  
  'The Patusan establishment, like all the posts of Stein's Trading
  Company, had originally consisted of four buildings. Two of them were
  represented by two heaps of sticks, broken bamboos, rotten thatch,
  over which the four corner-posts of hardwood leaned sadly at different
  angles: the principal storeroom, however, stood yet, facing the agent's
  house. It was an oblong hut, built of mud and clay; it had at one end a
  wide door of stout planking, which so far had not come off the hinges,
  and in one of the side walls there was a square aperture, a sort of
  window, with three wooden bars. Before descending the few steps the girl
  turned her face over her shoulder and said quickly, "You were to be set
  upon while you slept." Jim tells me he experienced a sense of deception.
  It was the old story. He was weary of these attempts upon his life. He
  had had his fill of these alarms. He was sick of them. He assured me he
  was angry with the girl for deceiving him. He had followed her under the
  impression that it was she who wanted his help, and now he had half
  a mind to turn on his heel and go back in disgust. "Do you know," he
  commented profoundly, "I rather think I was not quite myself for whole
  weeks on end about that time." "Oh yes. You were though," I couldn't
  help contradicting.
  
  'But she moved on swiftly, and he followed her into the courtyard. All
  its fences had fallen in a long time ago; the neighbours' buffaloes
  would pace in the morning across the open space, snorting profoundly,
  without haste; the very jungle was invading it already. Jim and the girl
  stopped in the rank grass. The light in which they stood made a dense
  blackness all round, and only above their heads there was an opulent
  glitter of stars. He told me it was a beautiful night--quite cool, with
  a little stir of breeze from the river. It seems he noticed its friendly
  beauty. Remember this is a love story I am telling you now. A lovely
  night seemed to breathe on them a soft caress. The flame of the torch
  streamed now and then with a fluttering noise like a flag, and for
  a time this was the only sound. "They are in the storeroom waiting,"
  whispered the girl; "they are waiting for the signal." "Who's to give
  it?" he asked. She shook the torch, which blazed up after a shower of
  sparks. "Only you have been sleeping so restlessly," she continued in
  a murmur; "I watched your sleep, too." "You!" he exclaimed, craning his
  neck to look about him. "You think I watched on this night only!" she
  said, with a sort of despairing indignation.
  
  'He says it was as if he had received a blow on the chest. He gasped.
  He thought he had been an awful brute somehow, and he felt remorseful,
  touched, happy, elated. This, let me remind you again, is a love story;
  you can see it by the imbecility, not a repulsive imbecility, the
  exalted imbecility of these proceedings, this station in torchlight, as
  if they had come there on purpose to have it out for the edification of
  concealed murderers. If Sherif Ali's emissaries had been possessed--as
  Jim remarked--of a pennyworth of spunk, this was the time to make a
  rush. His heart was thumping--not with fear--but he seemed to hear the
  grass rustle, and he stepped smartly out of the light. Something dark,
  imperfectly seen, flitted rapidly out of sight. He called out in a
  strong voice, "Cornelius! O Cornelius!" A profound silence succeeded:
  his voice did not seem to have carried twenty feet. Again the girl was
  by his side. "Fly!" she said. The old woman was coming up; her broken
  figure hovered in crippled little jumps on the edge of the light; they
  heard her mumbling, and a light, moaning sigh. "Fly!" repeated the girl
  excitedly. "They are frightened now--this light--the voices. They know
  you are awake now--they know you are big, strong, fearless . . ." "If
  I am all that," he began; but she interrupted him: "Yes--to-night! But
  what of to-morrow night? Of the next night? Of the night after--of all
  the many, many nights? Can I be always watching?" A sobbing catch of her
  breath affected him beyond the power of words.
  
  'He told me that he had never felt so small, so powerless--and as to
  courage, what was the good of it? he thought. He was so helpless that
  even flight seemed of no use; and though she kept on whispering, "Go to
  Doramin, go to Doramin," with feverish insistence, he realised that for
  him there was no refuge from that loneliness which centupled all his
  dangers except--in her. "I thought," he said to me, "that if I went
  away from her it would be the end of everything somehow." Only as they
  couldn't stop there for ever in the middle of that courtyard, he made
  up his mind to go and look into the storehouse. He let her follow
  him without thinking of any protest, as if they had been indissolubly
  united. "I am fearless--am I?" he muttered through his teeth. She
  restrained his arm. "Wait till you hear my voice," she said, and,
  torch in hand, ran lightly round the corner. He remained alone in the
  darkness, his face to the door: not a sound, not a breath came from
  the other side. The old hag let out a dreary groan somewhere behind his
  back. He heard a high-pitched almost screaming call from the girl. "Now!
  Push!" He pushed violently; the door swung with a creak and a clatter,
  disclosing to his intense astonishment the low dungeon-like interior
  illuminated by a lurid, wavering glare. A turmoil of smoke eddied down
  upon an empty wooden crate in the middle of the floor, a litter of rags
  and straw tried to soar, but only stirred feebly in the draught. She had
  thrust the light through the bars of the window. He saw her bare round
  arm extended and rigid, holding up the torch with the steadiness of
  an iron bracket. A conical ragged heap of old mats cumbered a distant
  corner almost to the ceiling, and that was all.
  
  'He explained to me that he was bitterly disappointed at this. His
  fortitude had been tried by so many warnings, he had been for weeks
  surrounded by so many hints of danger, that he wanted the relief of
  some reality, of something tangible that he could meet. "It would have
  cleared the air for a couple of hours at least, if you know what I
  mean," he said to me. "Jove! I had been living for days with a stone on
  my chest." Now at last he had thought he would get hold of something,
  and--nothing! Not a trace, not a sign of anybody. He had raised his
  weapon as the door flew open, but now his arm fell. "Fire! Defend
  yourself," the girl outside cried in an agonising voice. She, being in
  the dark and with her arm thrust in to the shoulder through the small
  hole, couldn't see what was going on, and she dared not withdraw
  the torch now to run round. "There's nobody here!" yelled Jim
  contemptuously, but his impulse to burst into a resentful exasperated
  laugh died without a sound: he had perceived in the very act of turning
  away that he was exchanging glances with a pair of eyes in the heap of
  mats. He saw a shifting gleam of whites. "Come out!" he cried in a fury,
  a little doubtful, and a dark-faced head, a head without a body, shaped
  itself in the rubbish, a strangely detached head, that looked at him
  with a steady scowl. Next moment the whole mound stirred, and with a
  low grunt a man emerged swiftly, and bounded towards Jim. Behind him the
  mats as it were jumped and flew, his right arm was raised with a crooked
  elbow, and the dull blade of a kriss protruded from his fist held off,
  a little above his head. A cloth wound tight round his loins seemed
  dazzlingly white on his bronze skin; his naked body glistened as if wet.
  
  'Jim noted all this. He told me he was experiencing a feeling of
  unutterable relief, of vengeful elation. He held his shot, he says,
  deliberately. He held it for the tenth part of a second, for three
  strides of the man--an unconscionable time. He held it for the pleasure
  of saying to himself, That's a dead man! He was absolutely positive
  and certain. He let him come on because it did not matter. A dead man,
  anyhow. He noticed the dilated nostrils, the wide eyes, the intent,
  eager stillness of the face, and then he fired.
  
  'The explosion in that confined space was stunning. He stepped back a
  pace. He saw the man jerk his head up, fling his arms forward, and drop
  the kriss. He ascertained afterwards that he had shot him through the
  mouth, a little upwards, the bullet coming out high at the back of the
  skull. With the impetus of his rush the man drove straight on, his face
  suddenly gaping disfigured, with his hands open before him gropingly, as
  though blinded, and landed with terrific violence on his forehead, just
  short of Jim's bare toes. Jim says he didn't lose the smallest detail
  of all this. He found himself calm, appeased, without rancour, without
  uneasiness, as if the death of that man had atoned for everything. The
  place was getting very full of sooty smoke from the torch, in which
  the unswaying flame burned blood-red without a flicker. He walked in
  resolutely, striding over the dead body, and covered with his revolver
  another naked figure outlined vaguely at the other end. As he was about
  to pull the trigger, the man threw away with force a short heavy spear,
  and squatted submissively on his hams, his back to the wall and his
  clasped hands between his legs. "You want your life?" Jim said. The
  other made no sound. "How many more of you?" asked Jim again. "Two more,
  Tuan," said the man very softly, looking with big fascinated eyes into
  the muzzle of the revolver. Accordingly two more crawled from under the
  mats, holding out ostentatiously their empty hands.''Jim took up an advantageous position and shepherded them out in a bunch
  through the doorway: all that time the torch had remained vertical in
  the grip of a little hand, without so much as a tremble. The three men
  obeyed him, perfectly mute, moving automatically. He ranged them in a
  row. "Link arms!" he ordered. They did so. "The first who withdraws his
  arm or turns his head is a dead man," he said. "March!" They stepped out
  together, rigidly; he followed, and at the side the girl, in a trailing
  white gown, her black hair falling as low as her waist, bore the light.
  Erect and swaying, she seemed to glide without touching the earth; the
  only sound was the silky swish and rustle of the long grass. "Stop!"
  cried Jim.
  
  'The river-bank was steep; a great freshness ascended, the light fell on
  the edge of smooth dark water frothing without a ripple; right and left
  the shapes of the houses ran together below the sharp outlines of the
  roofs. "Take my greetings to Sherif Ali--till I come myself," said
  Jim. Not one head of the three budged. "Jump!" he thundered. The
  three splashes made one splash, a shower flew up, black heads bobbed
  convulsively, and disappeared; but a great blowing and spluttering went
  on, growing faint, for they were diving industriously in great fear of
  a parting shot. Jim turned to the girl, who had been a silent and
  attentive observer. His heart seemed suddenly to grow too big for his
  breast and choke him in the hollow of his throat. This probably made
  him speechless for so long, and after returning his gaze she flung the
  burning torch with a wide sweep of the arm into the river. The ruddy
  fiery glare, taking a long flight through the night, sank with a vicious
  hiss, and the calm soft starlight descended upon them, unchecked.
  
  'He did not tell me what it was he said when at last he recovered his
  voice. I don't suppose he could be very eloquent. The world was still,
  the night breathed on them, one of those nights that seem created for
  the sheltering of tenderness, and there are moments when our souls, as
  if freed from their dark envelope, glow with an exquisite sensibility
  that makes certain silences more lucid than speeches. As to the girl,
  he told me, "She broke down a bit. Excitement--don't you know.
  Reaction. Deucedly tired she must have been--and all that kind of thing.
  And--and--hang it all--she was fond of me, don't you see. . . . I
  too . . . didn't know, of course . . . never entered my head . . ."
  
  'Then he got up and began to walk about in some agitation. "I--I love
  her dearly. More than I can tell. Of course one cannot tell. You take a
  different view of your actions when you come to understand, when you
  are _made_ to understand every day that your existence is necessary--you
  see, absolutely necessary--to another person. I am made to feel that.
  Wonderful! But only try to think what her life has been. It is too
  extravagantly awful! Isn't it? And me finding her here like this--as you
  may go out for a stroll and come suddenly upon somebody drowning in a
  lonely dark place. Jove! No time to lose. Well, it is a trust too . . .
  I believe I am equal to it . . ."
  
  'I must tell you the girl had left us to ourselves some time before. He
  slapped his chest. "Yes! I feel that, but I believe I am equal to all my
  luck!" He had the gift of finding a special meaning in everything that
  happened to him. This was the view he took of his love affair; it was
  idyllic, a little solemn, and also true, since his belief had all the
  unshakable seriousness of youth. Some time after, on another occasion,
  he said to me, "I've been only two years here, and now, upon my word, I
  can't conceive being able to live anywhere else. The very thought of the
  world outside is enough to give me a fright; because, don't you see," he
  continued, with downcast eyes watching the action of his boot busied in
  squashing thoroughly a tiny bit of dried mud (we were strolling on the
  river-bank)--"because I have not forgotten why I came here. Not yet!"
  
  'I refrained from looking at him, but I think I heard a short sigh; we
  took a turn or two in silence. "Upon my soul and conscience," he began
  again, "if such a thing can be forgotten, then I think I have a right to
  dismiss it from my mind. Ask any man here" . . . his voice changed. "Is
  it not strange," he went on in a gentle, almost yearning tone, "that all
  these people, all these people who would do anything for me, can never
  be made to understand? Never! If you disbelieved me I could not call
  them up. It seems hard, somehow. I am stupid, am I not? What more can I
  want? If you ask them who is brave--who is true--who is just--who is it
  they would trust with their lives?--they would say, Tuan Jim. And yet
  they can never know the real, real truth . . ."
  
  'That's what he said to me on my last day with him. I did not let a
  murmur escape me: I felt he was going to say more, and come no nearer
  to the root of the matter. The sun, whose concentrated glare dwarfs the
  earth into a restless mote of dust, had sunk behind the forest, and
  the diffused light from an opal sky seemed to cast upon a world without
  shadows and without brilliance the illusion of a calm and pensive
  greatness. I don't know why, listening to him, I should have noted
  so distinctly the gradual darkening of the river, of the air; the
  irresistible slow work of the night settling silently on all the visible
  forms, effacing the outlines, burying the shapes deeper and deeper, like
  a steady fall of impalpable black dust.
  
  '"Jove!" he began abruptly, "there are days when a fellow is too absurd
  for anything; only I know I can tell you what I like. I talk about
  being done with it--with the bally thing at the back of my head . . .
  Forgetting . . . Hang me if I know! I can think of it quietly. After
  all, what has it proved? Nothing. I suppose you don't think so . . ."
  
  'I made a protesting murmur.
  
  '"No matter," he said. "I am satisfied . . . nearly. I've got to
  look only at the face of the first man that comes along, to regain my
  confidence. They can't be made to understand what is going on in me.
  What of that? Come! I haven't done so badly."
  
  '"Not so badly," I said.
  
  '"But all the same, you wouldn't like to have me aboard your own ship
  hey?"
  
  '"Confound you!" I cried. "Stop this."
  
  '"Aha! You see," he said, crowing, as it were, over me placidly. "Only,"
  he went on, "you just try to tell this to any of them here. They would
  think you a fool, a liar, or worse. And so I can stand it. I've done a
  thing or two for them, but this is what they have done for me."
  
  '"My dear chap," I cried, "you shall always remain for them an insoluble
  mystery." Thereupon we were silent.
  
  '"Mystery," he repeated, before looking up. "Well, then let me always
  remain here."
  
  'After the sun had set, the darkness seemed to drive upon us, borne in
  every faint puff of the breeze. In the middle of a hedged path I saw the
  arrested, gaunt, watchful, and apparently one-legged silhouette of Tamb'
  Itam; and across the dusky space my eye detected something white moving
  to and fro behind the supports of the roof. As soon as Jim, with Tamb'
  Itam at his heels, had started upon his evening rounds, I went up to the
  house alone, and, unexpectedly, found myself waylaid by the girl, who
  had been clearly waiting for this opportunity.
  
  'It is hard to tell you what it was precisely she wanted to wrest
  from me. Obviously it would be something very simple--the simplest
  impossibility in the world; as, for instance, the exact description of
  the form of a cloud. She wanted an assurance, a statement, a promise, an
  explanation--I don't know how to call it: the thing has no name. It was
  dark under the projecting roof, and all I could see were the flowing
  lines of her gown, the pale small oval of her face, with the white flash
  of her teeth, and, turned towards me, the big sombre orbits of her eyes,
  where there seemed to be a faint stir, such as you may fancy you can
  detect when you plunge your gaze to the bottom of an immensely deep
  well. What is it that moves there? you ask yourself. Is it a blind
  monster or only a lost gleam from the universe? It occurred to me--don't
  laugh--that all things being dissimilar, she was more inscrutable in
  her childish ignorance than the Sphinx propounding childish riddles
  to wayfarers. She had been carried off to Patusan before her eyes
  were open. She had grown up there; she had seen nothing, she had known
  nothing, she had no conception of anything. I ask myself whether she
  were sure that anything else existed. What notions she may have formed
  of the outside world is to me inconceivable: all that she knew of its
  inhabitants were a betrayed woman and a sinister pantaloon. Her lover
  also came to her from there, gifted with irresistible seductions; but
  what would become of her if he should return to these inconceivable
  regions that seemed always to claim back their own? Her mother had
  warned her of this with tears, before she died . . .
  
  'She had caught hold of my arm firmly, and as soon as I had stopped she
  had withdrawn her hand in haste. She was audacious and shrinking. She
  feared nothing, but she was checked by the profound incertitude and the
  extreme strangeness--a brave person groping in the dark. I belonged to
  this Unknown that might claim Jim for its own at any moment. I was,
  as it were, in the secret of its nature and of its intentions--the
  confidant of a threatening mystery--armed with its power perhaps! I
  believe she supposed I could with a word whisk Jim away out of her very
  arms; it is my sober conviction she went through agonies of apprehension
  during my long talks with Jim; through a real and intolerable anguish
  that might have conceivably driven her into plotting my murder, had the
  fierceness of her soul been equal to the tremendous situation it had
  created. This is my impression, and it is all I can give you: the whole
  thing dawned gradually upon me, and as it got clearer and clearer I was
  overwhelmed by a slow incredulous amazement. She made me believe her,
  but there is no word that on my lips could render the effect of the
  headlong and vehement whisper, of the soft, passionate tones, of the
  sudden breathless pause and the appealing movement of the white arms
  extended swiftly. They fell; the ghostly figure swayed like a slender
  tree in the wind, the pale oval of the face drooped; it was impossible
  to distinguish her features, the darkness of the eyes was unfathomable;
  two wide sleeves uprose in the dark like unfolding wings, and she stood
  silent, holding her head in her hands.'
  
feat_summary_name: Chapters 30-32
target: Thirty One and Thirty Two . In Chapter Thirty, Jim tells Marlow he does not know why he 'hung on' there , but Marlow says we may guess as Jim sympathized deeply with Jewel who was at the mercy of this 'scoundrel'. Cornelius demanded respect from his step-daughter, yet he would also abuse her dead mother. . . At this time, danger was also gathering and Doramin twice sent a servant to ask him to come back across the river to the Bugis people for his safety . Others also came to inform Jim of the plots to kill him and Cornelius said he would procure a man - for 80 dollars - to help him leave the area. Finally, Jim lost his temper with Cornelius. He told him 'nothing can touch me' and defied all of Patusan to scare him away. Afterwards, he felt ashamed, but slept well for the first time in two weeks. . . The next day, in Chapter Thirty One, it is described how Jim persuaded the Bugis to attack Sherif Ali. He felt elated by their commitment and tried to be civil with Cornelius when he returned home. He fell asleep and was woken by Jewel. She said he should follow her outside as he is to be set upon. It was a beautiful night and Marlow reminds his listeners  that this is a love story he is telling us now. Jewel told Jim that the men who are waiting to attack him are in the storeroom and he is elated when she lets him know she has been watching him sleep. Marlow repeats his view that this is a love story. . . Jewel then asked Jim to go to Doramin, but he decided to look in the storeroom instead. She held the torch as he entered. A man ran at him with a weapon and Jim shot him through the mouth. Jim later felt calm as though this man's death 'atoned for everything'. The other three men surrendered. . . Chapter Thirty Two continues with this story and relates how Jewel maintained her grip on the torch as the three men came out and obeyed his instructions. He ordered them to go back to Sherif Ali. . . Jim tells Marlow that he now loves Jewel and feels absolutely necessary to another person. He compares finding her to going out for a stroll and coming suddenly across 'somebody drowning in a lonely dark place'. He also says that even after two years of living there he cannot conceive of returning home as he has not forgotten the reason he first came there. These people can never know 'the real, real truth', but adds that he is 'nearly satisfied'. He believes Marlow would not like him aboard his own ship, and Marlow demurs at this. Later, Jewel stops Marlow when he is alone and he sees that she is anxious that he will take Jim away from her. . . .
feat_summary_analysis: Thirty One and Thirty Two . As Marlow recounts the 'love story' between Jewel and Jim, he heightens the sense of romance that is attached to this hero. His bravery is also highlighted in these passages; for example, he defies all of Patusan when he says nothing can touch him. He is seen to refuse to submit to intimidation and his decision to enter the storeroom, rather than run away to Doramin as Jewel wishes him to, demonstrates his regained self-belief. . . It is also telling that he considers the shooting of one of his attackers as a form of atonement. It is as though he feels he has made some amends for jumping from the ship, because he has now stayed and faced his fear.