feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Lord Jim/section_19_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapters 31-33
feat_summary_id: chapters 31-33
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapters 31-33", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapters-3133", "summary": "The next day, Jim spent a long time with Doramin, the old nakhoda, trying to impress on him and the principal men of the Bugis community the absolute necessity for immediate and vigorous action in order to counter Sherif Ali. Meanwhile, Sherif Ali's men strutted about, \"haughtily in white cloaks,\" spreading the rumor that Rajah Allang intended to join them in raiding and defeating the Bugis once and for all. The attack seemed imminent, and terror among the natives was intense and widespread. Jim returned home at sunset, pleased at having convinced Doramin of his plan to rout Sherif Ali. Now he had \"irretrievably committed\" the Bugis to action. Now, also, Jim had committed himself; in fact, all of the responsibility for success was \"on his own head.\" And yet he was elated and lighthearted with the fantastic possibility of his vision. In the middle of a deep sleep that night, Jim was awakened by Jewel. She put his revolver into his hand and insisted that he get up. Four men, she said, were waiting to kill him. Then she took him to one of the storehouses. Jim sighed. He was tired of these alarms, and he was angry with Jewel for her increasing anxiety. But he pushed open the door of the dungeon-like ruin of a storehouse anyway. At first, he saw nothing -- an empty wooden crate, and a litter of rags and straw. For days, he had been living with a heavy weight on his soul; if only there had been something here -- a trace or a sign of someone. But there was nothing. Suddenly, Jewel shouted at Jim to defend himself, and in the pale light, he saw the gleam of a pair of eyes within a heap of mats. Jim yelled for the man to come out, and a half-naked, glistening native pounced toward Jim, the blade of his knife above his head. Jim felt utter relief. He let the man come toward him until he could see his dilated nostrils and his wide eyes. Then he fired, his bullet exploding inside the man's mouth and disappearing through the back of his head. Afterward, Jim was strangely calm. He felt \"appeased, without rancour, without uneasiness.\" He stepped over the body and routed out three other naked figures, crawling forward from under the mats and holding out their empty hands. Jim led the prisoners out into the night, and Jewel followed, her white nightgown trailing and her black hair falling to her waist. At the edge of the river bank, Jim stopped. He told the men to take his greetings to Sherif Ali, and then he ordered them all to \"Jump!\" Afterward, when he and Jewel were alone on the river bank, Jim told Marlow that never before had he realized how dearly he loved Jewel. \"More than I can tell,\" Jim said; to him, his love for Jewel was \"idyllic, a little solemn, and also true.\" In addition, Jim expressed his almost disbelief in the natives' complete trust of him. He knew that he was equated with what was \"true\" and \"brave\" and \"just,\" and yet he knew his own secret nature -- that is, he knew how utterly he had failed, once. Later, after sundown, Marlow was stopped by Jewel. She wanted assurance\" from Marlow, \"a statement, a promise, an explanation.\" Her life had been a puzzle and a living hell -- until Jim's appearance. Now she had fallen in love with him -- a white man -- exactly what her mother warned her against. What would keep Jim from leaving her and Patusan one day? The world \"out there\" had always been one vast Unknown to her, and then Jim came to her from that vast Unknown, as did Marlow now. Marlow sensed that she felt that he could -- and would -- \"with a word whisk Jim away -- out of her arms.\" He was overwhelmed by her breathless urgency to keep Jim. Marlow was touched by Jewel's innocence and her youth, as well as by her \"wild flower\" beauty and by her tremulous fears. To her, Marlow clearly stood for the frightening void of the Unknown. If he had not come for Jim, Jewel asked, why had he come? Marlow tried to explain that he had come because of friendship and because of business. But the girl was firmly convinced that he had come for Jim. Marlow said that she must trust Jim: he would never leave her. Marlow also told her that she was the only one in Patusan who doubted Jim's word. Jewel said that Jim swore never to leave her, but she could not believe him. His promise was not enough. And yet she feared for his life if he stayed. She had even begged him to go. But after Jim killed a man and sent three others back to Sherif Ali, he and Jewel fell in love \"under the shadow of a life's disaster.\" Jewel said that she feared dying like her mother -- that is, dying of sorrow because of a man. And even if Jim did swear never to leave her, what made his vow any more honorable than any other white man's vow? Was Jim, she asked Marlow, any different from other men? Marlow answered Jewel. He said that yes, Jim was different. Was Jim, Jewel asked, more brave? More true? Marlow tried to discover what Jim had told the girl about his past, but he could not. Seemingly, Jim had told her only that once, long ago, he was \"afraid.\" Jewel beseeched Marlow to tell her what it was that Jim was afraid of. How could she battle this ghost in Jim's past? Jim had told her that \"the world out there\" did not want him; was it true, she asked. Marlow answered that yes, it was true. Jewel continued to ask questions about Jim until Marlow exasperatedly shouted that Jim was \"not good enough\" for the world. Jewel was stunned. Those were the same words that Jim had uttered when he had told her why he had to stay on at Patusan. \"You lie!\" she cried out to Marlow. Hearing footsteps, Marlow slipped away.", "analysis": "These chapters are essentially devoted to the love that developed between Jim and Jewel, and the difficulties that Jewel encountered when she tried to believe Jim and trust him -- in spite of the fact that everyone else in the village trusted him completely. In Chapter 31, we go back in narrative time to a point before Jim blew up Sherif Ali's fortress; we return to a night when four of Sherif Ali's men attempted to kill Jim. It was the first night that Jim discovered that the girl, Jewel, had constantly kept a vigil over him while he was sleeping, thus indicating to him her deep concern for him. At first, when Jewel came to him, Jim thought that she was in trouble; then he was annoyed when she told him that his life was in danger. He had heard this fear expressed so many times from so many people that the threat had become boring. This time, however, Jewel was correct, and we see Jim confronting the charging killer and capturing the three men in hiding. The entire purpose of this scene is to illustrate both to the reader and to Jewel the nature of Jim's courage. Here, in the face of almost certain death, Jim did not \"jump.\" He held his ground until the last possible moment, and then he fired at the charging killer. By standing his ground, Jim displayed considerable courage; in one sense, he has begun to redeem himself from his jump from the Patna. Furthermore, Jim grew in stature in Jewel's eyes. In Chapter 32, Jim expressed some of the paradoxes of his love for Jewel. First of all, he couldn't leave her because he had become convinced that his very existence was essential for her own continued existence. He was obligated to her. He was, however, troubled that he could never be completely honest with her, partly because she would never believe him if he were to tell her the true reason for his being in Patusan. That is, Jewel has seen Lord Jim perform outstanding acts of bravery, courage, and defiance; thus, she would never believe him if he were to tell her the true state of affairs. But the colossal irony is that if Jim were to tell Jewel or anyone else about his past, they not only wouldn't care, but they would agree that Jim had done the right thing in saving his own life. This view is what will make it so impossible for Jewel and Tamb' Itam to accept Jim's decision, at the end of the novel, not to \"run for his life.\" Chapters 32 and 33 present a fuller view of Jewel. When she is alone with Marlow, she questions him about Jim because she can't understand Jim. We see her as an acute, sharp, intelligent woman, but one who is still naive and innocent. She also has deep fears of Marlow's \"hold\" over Jim, and as Marlow says: I belonged to the Unknown that might claim Jim for its own at any moment.\" Jewel greatly fears this great Unknown. Jewel knows that other white men have come, and they have always left after awhile: \"They always leave us.\" Sometimes she thinks that Jim \"in his sleep when he cannot see me  then arise and go\" because even though \"other men had sworn the same,\" yet they all have left. The irony of these fears is that, in the ultimate analysis, Jewel is right. In deciding not to flee  and in his decision to face death rather than live with her, Jim will be \"deserting\" Jewel."}
text: 
  '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.'
  
  'I was immensely touched: her youth, her ignorance, her pretty beauty,
  which had the simple charm and the delicate vigour of a wild-flower,
  her pathetic pleading, her helplessness, appealed to me with almost
  the strength of her own unreasonable and natural fear. She feared the
  unknown as we all do, and her ignorance made the unknown infinitely
  vast. I stood for it, for myself, for you fellows, for all the world
  that neither cared for Jim nor needed him in the least. I would have
  been ready enough to answer for the indifference of the teeming earth
  but for the reflection that he too belonged to this mysterious unknown
  of her fears, and that, however much I stood for, I did not stand for
  him. This made me hesitate. A murmur of hopeless pain unsealed my lips.
  I began by protesting that I at least had come with no intention to take
  Jim away.
  
  'Why did I come, then? After a slight movement she was as still as a
  marble statue in the night. I tried to explain briefly: friendship,
  business; if I had any wish in the matter it was rather to see him stay.
  . . . "They always leave us," she murmured. The breath of sad wisdom
  from the grave which her piety wreathed with flowers seemed to pass in a
  faint sigh. . . . Nothing, I said, could separate Jim from her.
  
  'It is my firm conviction now; it was my conviction at the time; it was
  the only possible conclusion from the facts of the case. It was not made
  more certain by her whispering in a tone in which one speaks to oneself,
  "He swore this to me." "Did you ask him?" I said.
  
  'She made a step nearer. "No. Never!" She had asked him only to go away.
  It was that night on the river-bank, after he had killed the man--after
  she had flung the torch in the water because he was looking at her so.
  There was too much light, and the danger was over then--for a little
  time--for a little time. He said then he would not abandon her to
  Cornelius. She had insisted. She wanted him to leave her. He said that
  he could not--that it was impossible. He trembled while he said this.
  She had felt him tremble. . . . One does not require much imagination
  to see the scene, almost to hear their whispers. She was afraid for him
  too. I believe that then she saw in him only a predestined victim of
  dangers which she understood better than himself. Though by nothing
  but his mere presence he had mastered her heart, had filled all
  her thoughts, and had possessed himself of all her affections, she
  underestimated his chances of success. It is obvious that at about
  that time everybody was inclined to underestimate his chances. Strictly
  speaking he didn't seem to have any. I know this was Cornelius's view.
  He confessed that much to me in extenuation of the shady part he had
  played in Sherif Ali's plot to do away with the infidel. Even Sherif Ali
  himself, as it seems certain now, had nothing but contempt for the white
  man. Jim was to be murdered mainly on religious grounds, I believe. A
  simple act of piety (and so far infinitely meritorious), but otherwise
  without much importance. In the last part of this opinion Cornelius
  concurred. "Honourable sir," he argued abjectly on the only occasion he
  managed to have me to himself--"honourable sir, how was I to know? Who
  was he? What could he do to make people believe him? What did Mr. Stein
  mean sending a boy like that to talk big to an old servant? I was ready
  to save him for eighty dollars. Only eighty dollars. Why didn't the
  fool go? Was I to get stabbed myself for the sake of a stranger?" He
  grovelled in spirit before me, with his body doubled up insinuatingly
  and his hands hovering about my knees, as though he were ready to
  embrace my legs. "What's eighty dollars? An insignificant sum to give to
  a defenceless old man ruined for life by a deceased she-devil." Here he
  wept. But I anticipate. I didn't that night chance upon Cornelius till I
  had had it out with the girl.
  
  'She was unselfish when she urged Jim to leave her, and even to leave
  the country. It was his danger that was foremost in her thoughts--even
  if she wanted to save herself too--perhaps unconsciously: but then look
  at the warning she had, look at the lesson that could be drawn from
  every moment of the recently ended life in which all her memories were
  centred. She fell at his feet--she told me so--there by the river, in
  the discreet light of stars which showed nothing except great masses of
  silent shadows, indefinite open spaces, and trembling faintly upon the
  broad stream made it appear as wide as the sea. He had lifted her up.
  He lifted her up, and then she would struggle no more. Of course not.
  Strong arms, a tender voice, a stalwart shoulder to rest her poor lonely
  little head upon. The need--the infinite need--of all this for the
  aching heart, for the bewildered mind;--the promptings of youth--the
  necessity of the moment. What would you have? One understands--unless
  one is incapable of understanding anything under the sun. And so she was
  content to be lifted up--and held. "You know--Jove! this is serious--no
  nonsense in it!" as Jim had whispered hurriedly with a troubled
  concerned face on the threshold of his house. I don't know so much about
  nonsense, but there was nothing light-hearted in their romance: they
  came together under the shadow of a life's disaster, like knight and
  maiden meeting to exchange vows amongst haunted ruins. The starlight was
  good enough for that story, a light so faint and remote that it cannot
  resolve shadows into shapes, and show the other shore of a stream. I
  did look upon the stream that night and from the very place; it rolled
  silent and as black as Styx: the next day I went away, but I am not
  likely to forget what it was she wanted to be saved from when she
  entreated him to leave her while there was time. She told me what
  it was, calmed--she was now too passionately interested for mere
  excitement--in a voice as quiet in the obscurity as her white half-lost
  figure. She told me, "I didn't want to die weeping." I thought I had not
  heard aright.
  
  '"You did not want to die weeping?" I repeated after her. "Like my
  mother," she added readily. The outlines of her white shape did not
  stir in the least. "My mother had wept bitterly before she died," she
  explained. An inconceivable calmness seemed to have risen from the
  ground around us, imperceptibly, like the still rise of a flood in the
  night, obliterating the familiar landmarks of emotions. There came
  upon me, as though I had felt myself losing my footing in the midst of
  waters, a sudden dread, the dread of the unknown depths. She went on
  explaining that, during the last moments, being alone with her mother,
  she had to leave the side of the couch to go and set her back against
  the door, in order to keep Cornelius out. He desired to get in, and
  kept on drumming with both fists, only desisting now and again to shout
  huskily, "Let me in! Let me in! Let me in!" In a far corner upon a few
  mats the moribund woman, already speechless and unable to lift her arm,
  rolled her head over, and with a feeble movement of her hand seemed to
  command--"No! No!" and the obedient daughter, setting her shoulders with
  all her strength against the door, was looking on. "The tears fell from
  her eyes--and then she died," concluded the girl in an imperturbable
  monotone, which more than anything else, more than the white statuesque
  immobility of her person, more than mere words could do, troubled my
  mind profoundly with the passive, irremediable horror of the scene. It
  had the power to drive me out of my conception of existence, out of
  that shelter each of us makes for himself to creep under in moments of
  danger, as a tortoise withdraws within its shell. For a moment I had
  a view of a world that seemed to wear a vast and dismal aspect of
  disorder, while, in truth, thanks to our unwearied efforts, it is
  as sunny an arrangement of small conveniences as the mind of man can
  conceive. But still--it was only a moment: I went back into my shell
  directly. One _must_--don't you know?--though I seemed to have lost all
  my words in the chaos of dark thoughts I had contemplated for a second
  or two beyond the pale. These came back, too, very soon, for words also
  belong to the sheltering conception of light and order which is our
  refuge. I had them ready at my disposal before she whispered softly, "He
  swore he would never leave me, when we stood there alone! He swore to
  me!". . . "And it is possible that you--you! do not believe him?"
  I asked, sincerely reproachful, genuinely shocked. Why couldn't she
  believe? Wherefore this craving for incertitude, this clinging to fear,
  as if incertitude and fear had been the safeguards of her love. It was
  monstrous. She should have made for herself a shelter of inexpugnable
  peace out of that honest affection. She had not the knowledge--not the
  skill perhaps. The night had come on apace; it had grown pitch-dark
  where we were, so that without stirring she had faded like the
  intangible form of a wistful and perverse spirit. And suddenly I heard
  her quiet whisper again, "Other men had sworn the same thing." It was
  like a meditative comment on some thoughts full of sadness, of awe. And
  she added, still lower if possible, "My father did." She paused the
  time to draw an inaudible breath. "Her father too." . . . These were the
  things she knew! At once I said, "Ah! but he is not like that." This,
  it seemed, she did not intend to dispute; but after a time the strange
  still whisper wandering dreamily in the air stole into my ears. "Why
  is he different? Is he better? Is he . . ." "Upon my word of honour," I
  broke in, "I believe he is." We subdued our tones to a mysterious pitch.
  Amongst the huts of Jim's workmen (they were mostly liberated slaves
  from the Sherif's stockade) somebody started a shrill, drawling song.
  Across the river a big fire (at Doramin's, I think) made a glowing
  ball, completely isolated in the night. "Is he more true?" she murmured.
  "Yes," I said. "More true than any other man," she repeated in
  lingering accents. "Nobody here," I said, "would dream of doubting his
  word--nobody would dare--except you."
  
  'I think she made a movement at this. "More brave," she went on in a
  changed tone. "Fear will never drive him away from you," I said a little
  nervously. The song stopped short on a shrill note, and was succeeded by
  several voices talking in the distance. Jim's voice too. I was struck
  by her silence. "What has he been telling you? He has been telling you
  something?" I asked. There was no answer. "What is it he told you?" I
  insisted.
  
  '"Do you think I can tell you? How am I to know? How am I to
  understand?" she cried at last. There was a stir. I believe she was
  wringing her hands. "There is something he can never forget."
  
  '"So much the better for you," I said gloomily.
  
  '"What is it? What is it?" She put an extraordinary force of appeal into
  her supplicating tone. "He says he had been afraid. How can I believe
  this? Am I a mad woman to believe this? You all remember something! You
  all go back to it. What is it? You tell me! What is this thing? Is it
  alive?--is it dead? I hate it. It is cruel. Has it got a face and a
  voice--this calamity? Will he see it--will he hear it? In his sleep
  perhaps when he cannot see me--and then arise and go. Ah! I shall never
  forgive him. My mother had forgiven--but I, never! Will it be a sign--a
  call?"
  
  'It was a wonderful experience. She mistrusted his very slumbers--and
  she seemed to think I could tell her why! Thus a poor mortal seduced by
  the charm of an apparition might have tried to wring from another
  ghost the tremendous secret of the claim the other world holds over a
  disembodied soul astray amongst the passions of this earth. The very
  ground on which I stood seemed to melt under my feet. And it was so
  simple too; but if the spirits evoked by our fears and our unrest have
  ever to vouch for each other's constancy before the forlorn magicians
  that we are, then I--I alone of us dwellers in the flesh--have shuddered
  in the hopeless chill of such a task. A sign, a call! How telling in its
  expression was her ignorance. A few words! How she came to know them,
  how she came to pronounce them, I can't imagine. Women find their
  inspiration in the stress of moments that for us are merely awful,
  absurd, or futile. To discover that she had a voice at all was enough
  to strike awe into the heart. Had a spurned stone cried out in pain it
  could not have appeared a greater and more pitiful miracle. These few
  sounds wandering in the dark had made their two benighted lives tragic
  to my mind. It was impossible to make her understand. I chafed silently
  at my impotence. And Jim, too--poor devil! Who would need him? Who would
  remember him? He had what he wanted. His very existence probably had
  been forgotten by this time. They had mastered their fates. They were
  tragic.
  
  'Her immobility before me was clearly expectant, and my part was to
  speak for my brother from the realm of forgetful shade. I was deeply
  moved at my responsibility and at her distress. I would have given
  anything for the power to soothe her frail soul, tormenting itself in
  its invincible ignorance like a small bird beating about the cruel
  wires of a cage. Nothing easier than to say, Have no fear! Nothing more
  difficult. How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a spectre
  through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral
  throat? It is an enterprise you rush into while you dream, and are glad
  to make your escape with wet hair and every limb shaking. The bullet is
  not run, the blade not forged, the man not born; even the winged words
  of truth drop at your feet like lumps of lead. You require for such a
  desperate encounter an enchanted and poisoned shaft dipped in a lie too
  subtle to be found on earth. An enterprise for a dream, my masters!
  
  'I began my exorcism with a heavy heart, with a sort of sullen anger in
  it too. Jim's voice, suddenly raised with a stern intonation, carried
  across the courtyard, reproving the carelessness of some dumb sinner by
  the river-side. Nothing--I said, speaking in a distinct murmur--there
  could be nothing, in that unknown world she fancied so eager to rob her
  of her happiness, there was nothing, neither living nor dead, there was
  no face, no voice, no power, that could tear Jim from her side. I drew
  breath and she whispered softly, "He told me so." "He told you the
  truth," I said. "Nothing," she sighed out, and abruptly turned upon me
  with a barely audible intensity of tone: "Why did you come to us from
  out there? He speaks of you too often. You make me afraid. Do you--do
  you want him?" A sort of stealthy fierceness had crept into our hurried
  mutters. "I shall never come again," I said bitterly. "And I don't want
  him. No one wants him." "No one," she repeated in a tone of doubt. "No
  one," I affirmed, feeling myself swayed by some strange excitement. "You
  think him strong, wise, courageous, great--why not believe him to be
  true too? I shall go to-morrow--and that is the end. You shall never be
  troubled by a voice from there again. This world you don't know is too
  big to miss him. You understand? Too big. You've got his heart in your
  hand. You must feel that. You must know that." "Yes, I know that," she
  breathed out, hard and still, as a statue might whisper.
  
  'I felt I had done nothing. And what is it that I had wished to do? I am
  not sure now. At the time I was animated by an inexplicable ardour, as
  if before some great and necessary task--the influence of the moment
  upon my mental and emotional state. There are in all our lives
  such moments, such influences, coming from the outside, as it were,
  irresistible, incomprehensible--as if brought about by the mysterious
  conjunctions of the planets. She owned, as I had put it to her, his
  heart. She had that and everything else--if she could only believe it.
  What I had to tell her was that in the whole world there was no one who
  ever would need his heart, his mind, his hand. It was a common fate, and
  yet it seemed an awful thing to say of any man. She listened without
  a word, and her stillness now was like the protest of an invincible
  unbelief. What need she care for the world beyond the forests? I asked.
  From all the multitudes that peopled the vastness of that unknown there
  would come, I assured her, as long as he lived, neither a call nor a
  sign for him. Never. I was carried away. Never! Never! I remember with
  wonder the sort of dogged fierceness I displayed. I had the illusion
  of having got the spectre by the throat at last. Indeed the whole real
  thing has left behind the detailed and amazing impression of a dream.
  Why should she fear? She knew him to be strong, true, wise, brave. He
  was all that. Certainly. He was more. He was great--invincible--and the
  world did not want him, it had forgotten him, it would not even know
  him.
  
  'I stopped; the silence over Patusan was profound, and the feeble dry
  sound of a paddle striking the side of a canoe somewhere in the middle
  of the river seemed to make it infinite. "Why?" she murmured. I felt
  that sort of rage one feels during a hard tussle. The spectre was trying
  to slip out of my grasp. "Why?" she repeated louder; "tell me!" And as
  I remained confounded, she stamped with her foot like a spoilt child.
  "Why? Speak." "You want to know?" I asked in a fury. "Yes!" she cried.
  "Because he is not good enough," I said brutally. During the moment's
  pause I noticed the fire on the other shore blaze up, dilating the
  circle of its glow like an amazed stare, and contract suddenly to a
  red pin-point. I only knew how close to me she had been when I felt
  the clutch of her fingers on my forearm. Without raising her voice, she
  threw into it an infinity of scathing contempt, bitterness, and despair.
  
  '"This is the very thing he said. . . . You lie!"
  
  'The last two words she cried at me in the native dialect. "Hear me
  out!" I entreated; she caught her breath tremulously, flung my arm away.
  "Nobody, nobody is good enough," I began with the greatest earnestness.
  I could hear the sobbing labour of her breath frightfully quickened. I
  hung my head. What was the use? Footsteps were approaching; I slipped
  away without another word. . . .'
  
feat_summary_name: Chapters 31-33
target: The next day, Jim spent a long time with Doramin, the old nakhoda, trying to impress on him and the principal men of the Bugis community the absolute necessity for immediate and vigorous action in order to counter Sherif Ali. Meanwhile, Sherif Ali's men strutted about, "haughtily in white cloaks," spreading the rumor that Rajah Allang intended to join them in raiding and defeating the Bugis once and for all. The attack seemed imminent, and terror among the natives was intense and widespread. Jim returned home at sunset, pleased at having convinced Doramin of his plan to rout Sherif Ali. Now he had "irretrievably committed" the Bugis to action. Now, also, Jim had committed himself; in fact, all of the responsibility for success was "on his own head." And yet he was elated and lighthearted with the fantastic possibility of his vision. In the middle of a deep sleep that night, Jim was awakened by Jewel. She put his revolver into his hand and insisted that he get up. Four men, she said, were waiting to kill him. Then she took him to one of the storehouses. Jim sighed. He was tired of these alarms, and he was angry with Jewel for her increasing anxiety. But he pushed open the door of the dungeon-like ruin of a storehouse anyway. At first, he saw nothing -- an empty wooden crate, and a litter of rags and straw. For days, he had been living with a heavy weight on his soul; if only there had been something here -- a trace or a sign of someone. But there was nothing. Suddenly, Jewel shouted at Jim to defend himself, and in the pale light, he saw the gleam of a pair of eyes within a heap of mats. Jim yelled for the man to come out, and a half-naked, glistening native pounced toward Jim, the blade of his knife above his head. Jim felt utter relief. He let the man come toward him until he could see his dilated nostrils and his wide eyes. Then he fired, his bullet exploding inside the man's mouth and disappearing through the back of his head. Afterward, Jim was strangely calm. He felt "appeased, without rancour, without uneasiness." He stepped over the body and routed out three other naked figures, crawling forward from under the mats and holding out their empty hands. Jim led the prisoners out into the night, and Jewel followed, her white nightgown trailing and her black hair falling to her waist. At the edge of the river bank, Jim stopped. He told the men to take his greetings to Sherif Ali, and then he ordered them all to "Jump!" Afterward, when he and Jewel were alone on the river bank, Jim told Marlow that never before had he realized how dearly he loved Jewel. "More than I can tell," Jim said; to him, his love for Jewel was "idyllic, a little solemn, and also true." In addition, Jim expressed his almost disbelief in the natives' complete trust of him. He knew that he was equated with what was "true" and "brave" and "just," and yet he knew his own secret nature -- that is, he knew how utterly he had failed, once. Later, after sundown, Marlow was stopped by Jewel. She wanted assurance" from Marlow, "a statement, a promise, an explanation." Her life had been a puzzle and a living hell -- until Jim's appearance. Now she had fallen in love with him -- a white man -- exactly what her mother warned her against. What would keep Jim from leaving her and Patusan one day? The world "out there" had always been one vast Unknown to her, and then Jim came to her from that vast Unknown, as did Marlow now. Marlow sensed that she felt that he could -- and would -- "with a word whisk Jim away -- out of her arms." He was overwhelmed by her breathless urgency to keep Jim. Marlow was touched by Jewel's innocence and her youth, as well as by her "wild flower" beauty and by her tremulous fears. To her, Marlow clearly stood for the frightening void of the Unknown. If he had not come for Jim, Jewel asked, why had he come? Marlow tried to explain that he had come because of friendship and because of business. But the girl was firmly convinced that he had come for Jim. Marlow said that she must trust Jim: he would never leave her. Marlow also told her that she was the only one in Patusan who doubted Jim's word. Jewel said that Jim swore never to leave her, but she could not believe him. His promise was not enough. And yet she feared for his life if he stayed. She had even begged him to go. But after Jim killed a man and sent three others back to Sherif Ali, he and Jewel fell in love "under the shadow of a life's disaster." Jewel said that she feared dying like her mother -- that is, dying of sorrow because of a man. And even if Jim did swear never to leave her, what made his vow any more honorable than any other white man's vow? Was Jim, she asked Marlow, any different from other men? Marlow answered Jewel. He said that yes, Jim was different. Was Jim, Jewel asked, more brave? More true? Marlow tried to discover what Jim had told the girl about his past, but he could not. Seemingly, Jim had told her only that once, long ago, he was "afraid." Jewel beseeched Marlow to tell her what it was that Jim was afraid of. How could she battle this ghost in Jim's past? Jim had told her that "the world out there" did not want him; was it true, she asked. Marlow answered that yes, it was true. Jewel continued to ask questions about Jim until Marlow exasperatedly shouted that Jim was "not good enough" for the world. Jewel was stunned. Those were the same words that Jim had uttered when he had told her why he had to stay on at Patusan. "You lie!" she cried out to Marlow. Hearing footsteps, Marlow slipped away.
feat_summary_analysis: These chapters are essentially devoted to the love that developed between Jim and Jewel, and the difficulties that Jewel encountered when she tried to believe Jim and trust him -- in spite of the fact that everyone else in the village trusted him completely. In Chapter 31, we go back in narrative time to a point before Jim blew up Sherif Ali's fortress; we return to a night when four of Sherif Ali's men attempted to kill Jim. It was the first night that Jim discovered that the girl, Jewel, had constantly kept a vigil over him while he was sleeping, thus indicating to him her deep concern for him. At first, when Jewel came to him, Jim thought that she was in trouble; then he was annoyed when she told him that his life was in danger. He had heard this fear expressed so many times from so many people that the threat had become boring. This time, however, Jewel was correct, and we see Jim confronting the charging killer and capturing the three men in hiding. The entire purpose of this scene is to illustrate both to the reader and to Jewel the nature of Jim's courage. Here, in the face of almost certain death, Jim did not "jump." He held his ground until the last possible moment, and then he fired at the charging killer. By standing his ground, Jim displayed considerable courage; in one sense, he has begun to redeem himself from his jump from the Patna. Furthermore, Jim grew in stature in Jewel's eyes. In Chapter 32, Jim expressed some of the paradoxes of his love for Jewel. First of all, he couldn't leave her because he had become convinced that his very existence was essential for her own continued existence. He was obligated to her. He was, however, troubled that he could never be completely honest with her, partly because she would never believe him if he were to tell her the true reason for his being in Patusan. That is, Jewel has seen Lord Jim perform outstanding acts of bravery, courage, and defiance; thus, she would never believe him if he were to tell her the true state of affairs. But the colossal irony is that if Jim were to tell Jewel or anyone else about his past, they not only wouldn't care, but they would agree that Jim had done the right thing in saving his own life. This view is what will make it so impossible for Jewel and Tamb' Itam to accept Jim's decision, at the end of the novel, not to "run for his life." Chapters 32 and 33 present a fuller view of Jewel. When she is alone with Marlow, she questions him about Jim because she can't understand Jim. We see her as an acute, sharp, intelligent woman, but one who is still naive and innocent. She also has deep fears of Marlow's "hold" over Jim, and as Marlow says: I belonged to the Unknown that might claim Jim for its own at any moment." Jewel greatly fears this great Unknown. Jewel knows that other white men have come, and they have always left after awhile: "They always leave us." Sometimes she thinks that Jim "in his sleep when he cannot see me  then arise and go" because even though "other men had sworn the same," yet they all have left. The irony of these fears is that, in the ultimate analysis, Jewel is right. In deciding not to flee  and in his decision to face death rather than live with her, Jim will be "deserting" Jewel.