feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/novelguide/Lord Jim/section_8_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapters 19-21
feat_summary_id: chapters 19-21
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapters 19-21", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210215030710/https://www.novelguide.com/lord-jim/summaries/chapter19-21", "summary": "Twenty and Twenty One . In Chapter Nineteen, the readers are told that these instances of Jim leaving his post are just two examples that Marlow can give. All of them are 'equally tinged by a high-minded absurdity of intention which made their futility profound and touching'. He sees Jim as unfortunate, because 'his recklessness could not carry him out from under the shadow'. Marlow cannot work out if his conduct 'amounted to shirking his ghost or to facing him out'. It is ironic to Marlow that Jim becomes known as a rolling stone and is famous, even notorious, in the 'circle of his wandering' . . . Jim stays in Bangkok for six months until a first lieutenant of the Royal Siamese Navy makes a scornful remark at his expense. Jim turns up on Marlow's ship at midnight saying everybody in the room seemed to know about him and he cannot keep his job now because he has reacted violently to the lieutenant. Marlow finds him a position with De Jongh; Jim works hard but there are few opportunities for him. Marlow then decides to consult Stein, who is a wealthy and respected merchant, for trustworthy advice. Stein is known to learned persons in Europe for his extensive insect collection and Marlow knows he is eminently suitable to receive his confidences about Jim. . . Chapter Twenty begins with Marlow's visit to Stein. The room where they talk is lined with shelves filled with his insect collection. His background is explained a little . After Stein's wife and daughter died, he started a new life and acquired a fortune. He tells Marlow of how he caught one of his butterflies just after he killed some men who attacked him. Marlow says he has come to describe a specimen and relates the story of Jim. Stein says he understands 'very well' and calls Jim 'romantic'. Stein is also romantic, but, as Marlow points out, when his dream  came his way he did not let it escape. Stein counters this by saying that he has lost many other dreams though. Before the two men go to sleep, they decide to do something practical for Jim the next day. . . In Chapter Twenty One, the narrative returns to Marlow talking to his friends in the present and he asks them if they have heard of Patusan. It is a place known by the mercantile world, but no one present had been there. This is where Stein arranges for Jim to start again: ' left his earthly failings behind him and that sort of reputation he had and there was a totally new set of conditions for his imaginative faculty to work upon. Entirely new, entirely remarkable.' . . The narrative shifts to Marlow and Stein again as they make these arrangements for Jim. Marlow tells Stein about Brierly saying, 'let him creep twenty feet underground and stay there'. At this point, Stein suggests Patusan. Marlow is open to this idea for Jim's sake and because of his own conscience. Marlow explains that Jim went on to stay at Patusan and 'came on straight as a die'. .", "analysis": "Twenty and Twenty One . Chapter Nineteen highlights how Jim's behavior since jumping from the ship has brought him notoriety rather than the sought for anonymity. As he attempts to remain unknown, he becomes infamous as a rolling stone and unwittingly draws attention to himself. . . The beginning of his new life starts with the help of Marlow and Stein as they discuss his future. The choice of Patusan is based on its required isolation from white Western society and is figuratively comparable to Brierly's idea of sending Jim 'underground'. This is, of course, allowing Jim to continue to run away from what he sees as his shameful past. . . In Chapter Twenty, Stein relates his story of when he caught a butterfly and goes on to interpret Jim as a romantic. This understanding may be seen as based on mutual concerns as Stein resembles an older version of Jim. This is because both take pleasure in the thought of attaining their dreams."}
text: 
  'I have told you these two episodes at length to show his manner of
  dealing with himself under the new conditions of his life. There were
  many others of the sort, more than I could count on the fingers of my
  two hands. They were all equally tinged by a high-minded absurdity of
  intention which made their futility profound and touching. To fling away
  your daily bread so as to get your hands free for a grapple with a ghost
  may be an act of prosaic heroism. Men had done it before (though we who
  have lived know full well that it is not the haunted soul but the hungry
  body that makes an outcast), and men who had eaten and meant to eat
  every day had applauded the creditable folly. He was indeed unfortunate,
  for all his recklessness could not carry him out from under the shadow.
  There was always a doubt of his courage. The truth seems to be that
  it is impossible to lay the ghost of a fact. You can face it or shirk
  it--and I have come across a man or two who could wink at their familiar
  shades. Obviously Jim was not of the winking sort; but what I could
  never make up my mind about was whether his line of conduct amounted to
  shirking his ghost or to facing him out.
  
  'I strained my mental eyesight only to discover that, as with the
  complexion of all our actions, the shade of difference was so delicate
  that it was impossible to say. It might have been flight and it might
  have been a mode of combat. To the common mind he became known as a
  rolling stone, because this was the funniest part: he did after a time
  become perfectly known, and even notorious, within the circle of his
  wanderings (which had a diameter of, say, three thousand miles), in the
  same way as an eccentric character is known to a whole countryside. For
  instance, in Bankok, where he found employment with Yucker Brothers,
  charterers and teak merchants, it was almost pathetic to see him go
  about in sunshine hugging his secret, which was known to the very
  up-country logs on the river. Schomberg, the keeper of the hotel where
  he boarded, a hirsute Alsatian of manly bearing and an irrepressible
  retailer of all the scandalous gossip of the place, would, with both
  elbows on the table, impart an adorned version of the story to any guest
  who cared to imbibe knowledge along with the more costly liquors. "And,
  mind you, the nicest fellow you could meet," would be his generous
  conclusion; "quite superior." It says a lot for the casual crowd that
  frequented Schomberg's establishment that Jim managed to hang out
  in Bankok for a whole six months. I remarked that people, perfect
  strangers, took to him as one takes to a nice child. His manner was
  reserved, but it was as though his personal appearance, his hair, his
  eyes, his smile, made friends for him wherever he went. And, of course,
  he was no fool. I heard Siegmund Yucker (native of Switzerland), a
  gentle creature ravaged by a cruel dyspepsia, and so frightfully lame
  that his head swung through a quarter of a circle at every step he took,
  declare appreciatively that for one so young he was "of great gabasidy,"
  as though it had been a mere question of cubic contents. "Why not send
  him up country?" I suggested anxiously. (Yucker Brothers had concessions
  and teak forests in the interior.) "If he has capacity, as you say,
  he will soon get hold of the work. And physically he is very fit. His
  health is always excellent." "Ach! It's a great ting in dis goundry
  to be vree vrom tispep-shia," sighed poor Yucker enviously, casting a
  stealthy glance at the pit of his ruined stomach. I left him drumming
  pensively on his desk and muttering, "Es ist ein' Idee. Es ist ein'
  Idee." Unfortunately, that very evening an unpleasant affair took place
  in the hotel.
  
  'I don't know that I blame Jim very much, but it was a truly regrettable
  incident. It belonged to the lamentable species of bar-room scuffles,
  and the other party to it was a cross-eyed Dane of sorts whose
  visiting-card recited, under his misbegotten name: first lieutenant in
  the Royal Siamese Navy. The fellow, of course, was utterly hopeless at
  billiards, but did not like to be beaten, I suppose. He had had enough
  to drink to turn nasty after the sixth game, and make some scornful
  remark at Jim's expense. Most of the people there didn't hear what
  was said, and those who had heard seemed to have had all precise
  recollection scared out of them by the appalling nature of the
  consequences that immediately ensued. It was very lucky for the Dane
  that he could swim, because the room opened on a verandah and the Menam
  flowed below very wide and black. A boat-load of Chinamen, bound, as
  likely as not, on some thieving expedition, fished out the officer of
  the King of Siam, and Jim turned up at about midnight on board my ship
  without a hat. "Everybody in the room seemed to know," he said, gasping
  yet from the contest, as it were. He was rather sorry, on general
  principles, for what had happened, though in this case there had been,
  he said, "no option." But what dismayed him was to find the nature of
  his burden as well known to everybody as though he had gone about all
  that time carrying it on his shoulders. Naturally after this he couldn't
  remain in the place. He was universally condemned for the brutal
  violence, so unbecoming a man in his delicate position; some maintained
  he had been disgracefully drunk at the time; others criticised his want
  of tact. Even Schomberg was very much annoyed. "He is a very nice young
  man," he said argumentatively to me, "but the lieutenant is a first-rate
  fellow too. He dines every night at my table d'hote, you know. And
  there's a billiard-cue broken. I can't allow that. First thing this
  morning I went over with my apologies to the lieutenant, and I think
  I've made it all right for myself; but only think, captain, if everybody
  started such games! Why, the man might have been drowned! And here I
  can't run out into the next street and buy a new cue. I've got to write
  to Europe for them. No, no! A temper like that won't do!" . . . He was
  extremely sore on the subject.
  
  'This was the worst incident of all in his--his retreat. Nobody could
  deplore it more than myself; for if, as somebody said hearing him
  mentioned, "Oh yes! I know. He has knocked about a good deal out here,"
  yet he had somehow avoided being battered and chipped in the process.
  This last affair, however, made me seriously uneasy, because if his
  exquisite sensibilities were to go the length of involving him in
  pot-house shindies, he would lose his name of an inoffensive, if
  aggravating, fool, and acquire that of a common loafer. For all my
  confidence in him I could not help reflecting that in such cases
  from the name to the thing itself is but a step. I suppose you will
  understand that by that time I could not think of washing my hands
  of him. I took him away from Bankok in my ship, and we had a longish
  passage. It was pitiful to see how he shrank within himself. A seaman,
  even if a mere passenger, takes an interest in a ship, and looks at
  the sea-life around him with the critical enjoyment of a painter,
  for instance, looking at another man's work. In every sense of the
  expression he is "on deck"; but my Jim, for the most part, skulked down
  below as though he had been a stowaway. He infected me so that I avoided
  speaking on professional matters, such as would suggest themselves
  naturally to two sailors during a passage. For whole days we did
  not exchange a word; I felt extremely unwilling to give orders to my
  officers in his presence. Often, when alone with him on deck or in the
  cabin, we didn't know what to do with our eyes.
  
  'I placed him with De Jongh, as you know, glad enough to dispose of him
  in any way, yet persuaded that his position was now growing intolerable.
  He had lost some of that elasticity which had enabled him to rebound
  back into his uncompromising position after every overthrow. One
  day, coming ashore, I saw him standing on the quay; the water of the
  roadstead and the sea in the offing made one smooth ascending plane, and
  the outermost ships at anchor seemed to ride motionless in the sky.
  He was waiting for his boat, which was being loaded at our feet
  with packages of small stores for some vessel ready to leave. After
  exchanging greetings, we remained silent--side by side. "Jove!" he said
  suddenly, "this is killing work."
  
  'He smiled at me; I must say he generally could manage a smile. I made
  no reply. I knew very well he was not alluding to his duties; he had an
  easy time of it with De Jongh. Nevertheless, as soon as he had spoken
  I became completely convinced that the work was killing. I did not even
  look at him. "Would you like," said I, "to leave this part of the world
  altogether; try California or the West Coast? I'll see what I can
  do . . ." He interrupted me a little scornfully. "What difference would
  it make?" . . . I felt at once convinced that he was right. It would make
  no difference; it was not relief he wanted; I seemed to perceive dimly
  that what he wanted, what he was, as it were, waiting for, was something
  not easy to define--something in the nature of an opportunity. I had
  given him many opportunities, but they had been merely opportunities to
  earn his bread. Yet what more could any man do? The position struck me
  as hopeless, and poor Brierly's saying recurred to me, "Let him creep
  twenty feet underground and stay there." Better that, I thought, than
  this waiting above ground for the impossible. Yet one could not be sure
  even of that. There and then, before his boat was three oars' lengths
  away from the quay, I had made up my mind to go and consult Stein in the
  evening.
  
  'This Stein was a wealthy and respected merchant. His "house" (because
  it was a house, Stein & Co., and there was some sort of partner who,
  as Stein said, "looked after the Moluccas") had a large inter-island
  business, with a lot of trading posts established in the most
  out-of-the-way places for collecting the produce. His wealth and his
  respectability were not exactly the reasons why I was anxious to seek
  his advice. I desired to confide my difficulty to him because he was
  one of the most trustworthy men I had ever known. The gentle light of a
  simple, unwearied, as it were, and intelligent good-nature illumined his
  long hairless face. It had deep downward folds, and was pale as of a
  man who had always led a sedentary life--which was indeed very far from
  being the case. His hair was thin, and brushed back from a massive and
  lofty forehead. One fancied that at twenty he must have looked very much
  like what he was now at threescore. It was a student's face; only the
  eyebrows nearly all white, thick and bushy, together with the resolute
  searching glance that came from under them, were not in accord with his,
  I may say, learned appearance. He was tall and loose-jointed; his slight
  stoop, together with an innocent smile, made him appear benevolently
  ready to lend you his ear; his long arms with pale big hands had rare
  deliberate gestures of a pointing out, demonstrating kind. I speak of
  him at length, because under this exterior, and in conjunction with
  an upright and indulgent nature, this man possessed an intrepidity of
  spirit and a physical courage that could have been called reckless had
  it not been like a natural function of the body--say good digestion, for
  instance--completely unconscious of itself. It is sometimes said of a
  man that he carries his life in his hand. Such a saying would have been
  inadequate if applied to him; during the early part of his existence in
  the East he had been playing ball with it. All this was in the past, but
  I knew the story of his life and the origin of his fortune. He was also
  a naturalist of some distinction, or perhaps I should say a learned
  collector. Entomology was his special study. His collection of
  Buprestidae and Longicorns--beetles all--horrible miniature monsters,
  looking malevolent in death and immobility, and his cabinet of
  butterflies, beautiful and hovering under the glass of cases on
  lifeless wings, had spread his fame far over the earth. The name of this
  merchant, adventurer, sometime adviser of a Malay sultan (to whom he
  never alluded otherwise than as "my poor Mohammed Bonso"), had, on
  account of a few bushels of dead insects, become known to learned
  persons in Europe, who could have had no conception, and certainly would
  not have cared to know anything, of his life or character. I, who knew,
  considered him an eminently suitable person to receive my confidences
  about Jim's difficulties as well as my own.''Late in the evening I entered his study, after traversing an imposing
  but empty dining-room very dimly lit. The house was silent. I was
  preceded by an elderly grim Javanese servant in a sort of livery of
  white jacket and yellow sarong, who, after throwing the door open,
  exclaimed low, "O master!" and stepping aside, vanished in a mysterious
  way as though he had been a ghost only momentarily embodied for that
  particular service. Stein turned round with the chair, and in the same
  movement his spectacles seemed to get pushed up on his forehead. He
  welcomed me in his quiet and humorous voice. Only one corner of the vast
  room, the corner in which stood his writing-desk, was strongly lighted
  by a shaded reading-lamp, and the rest of the spacious apartment melted
  into shapeless gloom like a cavern. Narrow shelves filled with dark
  boxes of uniform shape and colour ran round the walls, not from floor
  to ceiling, but in a sombre belt about four feet broad. Catacombs of
  beetles. Wooden tablets were hung above at irregular intervals. The
  light reached one of them, and the word Coleoptera written in gold
  letters glittered mysteriously upon a vast dimness. The glass cases
  containing the collection of butterflies were ranged in three long rows
  upon slender-legged little tables. One of these cases had been removed
  from its place and stood on the desk, which was bestrewn with oblong
  slips of paper blackened with minute handwriting.
  
  '"So you see me--so," he said. His hand hovered over the case where
  a butterfly in solitary grandeur spread out dark bronze wings, seven
  inches or more across, with exquisite white veinings and a gorgeous
  border of yellow spots. "Only one specimen like this they have in _your_
  London, and then--no more. To my small native town this my collection I
  shall bequeath. Something of me. The best."
  
  'He bent forward in the chair and gazed intently, his chin over the
  front of the case. I stood at his back. "Marvellous," he whispered, and
  seemed to forget my presence. His history was curious. He had been born
  in Bavaria, and when a youth of twenty-two had taken an active part in
  the revolutionary movement of 1848. Heavily compromised, he managed
  to make his escape, and at first found a refuge with a poor republican
  watchmaker in Trieste. From there he made his way to Tripoli with a
  stock of cheap watches to hawk about,--not a very great opening truly,
  but it turned out lucky enough, because it was there he came upon a
  Dutch traveller--a rather famous man, I believe, but I don't remember
  his name. It was that naturalist who, engaging him as a sort of
  assistant, took him to the East. They travelled in the Archipelago
  together and separately, collecting insects and birds, for four years or
  more. Then the naturalist went home, and Stein, having no home to go to,
  remained with an old trader he had come across in his journeys in the
  interior of Celebes--if Celebes may be said to have an interior. This
  old Scotsman, the only white man allowed to reside in the country at the
  time, was a privileged friend of the chief ruler of Wajo States, who
  was a woman. I often heard Stein relate how that chap, who was slightly
  paralysed on one side, had introduced him to the native court a short
  time before another stroke carried him off. He was a heavy man with
  a patriarchal white beard, and of imposing stature. He came into
  the council-hall where all the rajahs, pangerans, and headmen were
  assembled, with the queen, a fat wrinkled woman (very free in her
  speech, Stein said), reclining on a high couch under a canopy. He
  dragged his leg, thumping with his stick, and grasped Stein's arm,
  leading him right up to the couch. "Look, queen, and you rajahs, this is
  my son," he proclaimed in a stentorian voice. "I have traded with your
  fathers, and when I die he shall trade with you and your sons."
  
  'By means of this simple formality Stein inherited the Scotsman's
  privileged position and all his stock-in-trade, together with a
  fortified house on the banks of the only navigable river in the country.
  Shortly afterwards the old queen, who was so free in her speech, died,
  and the country became disturbed by various pretenders to the throne.
  Stein joined the party of a younger son, the one of whom thirty years
  later he never spoke otherwise but as "my poor Mohammed Bonso." They
  both became the heroes of innumerable exploits; they had wonderful
  adventures, and once stood a siege in the Scotsman's house for a month,
  with only a score of followers against a whole army. I believe the
  natives talk of that war to this day. Meantime, it seems, Stein never
  failed to annex on his own account every butterfly or beetle he could
  lay hands on. After some eight years of war, negotiations, false truces,
  sudden outbreaks, reconciliation, treachery, and so on, and just as
  peace seemed at last permanently established, his "poor Mohammed
  Bonso" was assassinated at the gate of his own royal residence while
  dismounting in the highest spirits on his return from a successful
  deer-hunt. This event rendered Stein's position extremely insecure,
  but he would have stayed perhaps had it not been that a short time
  afterwards he lost Mohammed's sister ("my dear wife the princess," he
  used to say solemnly), by whom he had had a daughter--mother and child
  both dying within three days of each other from some infectious fever.
  He left the country, which this cruel loss had made unbearable to
  him. Thus ended the first and adventurous part of his existence. What
  followed was so different that, but for the reality of sorrow which
  remained with him, this strange part must have resembled a dream. He
  had a little money; he started life afresh, and in the course of years
  acquired a considerable fortune. At first he had travelled a good deal
  amongst the islands, but age had stolen upon him, and of late he seldom
  left his spacious house three miles out of town, with an extensive
  garden, and surrounded by stables, offices, and bamboo cottages for
  his servants and dependants, of whom he had many. He drove in his buggy
  every morning to town, where he had an office with white and Chinese
  clerks. He owned a small fleet of schooners and native craft, and dealt
  in island produce on a large scale. For the rest he lived solitary,
  but not misanthropic, with his books and his collection, classing and
  arranging specimens, corresponding with entomologists in Europe, writing
  up a descriptive catalogue of his treasures. Such was the history of
  the man whom I had come to consult upon Jim's case without any definite
  hope. Simply to hear what he would have to say would have been a relief.
  I was very anxious, but I respected the intense, almost passionate,
  absorption with which he looked at a butterfly, as though on the bronze
  sheen of these frail wings, in the white tracings, in the gorgeous
  markings, he could see other things, an image of something as perishable
  and defying destruction as these delicate and lifeless tissues
  displaying a splendour unmarred by death.
  
  '"Marvellous!" he repeated, looking up at me. "Look! The beauty--but
  that is nothing--look at the accuracy, the harmony. And so fragile! And
  so strong! And so exact! This is Nature--the balance of colossal forces.
  Every star is so--and every blade of grass stands so--and the mighty
  Kosmos ib perfect equilibrium produces--this. This wonder; this
  masterpiece of Nature--the great artist."
  
  '"Never heard an entomologist go on like this," I observed cheerfully.
  "Masterpiece! And what of man?"
  
  '"Man is amazing, but he is not a masterpiece," he said, keeping his
  eyes fixed on the glass case. "Perhaps the artist was a little mad. Eh?
  What do you think? Sometimes it seems to me that man is come where he is
  not wanted, where there is no place for him; for if not, why should
  he want all the place? Why should he run about here and there making
  a great noise about himself, talking about the stars, disturbing the
  blades of grass? . . ."
  
  '"Catching butterflies," I chimed in.
  
  'He smiled, threw himself back in his chair, and stretched his legs.
  "Sit down," he said. "I captured this rare specimen myself one very fine
  morning. And I had a very big emotion. You don't know what it is for a
  collector to capture such a rare specimen. You can't know."
  
  'I smiled at my ease in a rocking-chair. His eyes seemed to look far
  beyond the wall at which they stared; and he narrated how, one night,
  a messenger arrived from his "poor Mohammed," requiring his presence
  at the "residenz"--as he called it--which was distant some nine or ten
  miles by a bridle-path over a cultivated plain, with patches of forest
  here and there. Early in the morning he started from his fortified
  house, after embracing his little Emma, and leaving the "princess," his
  wife, in command. He described how she came with him as far as the
  gate, walking with one hand on the neck of his horse; she had on a white
  jacket, gold pins in her hair, and a brown leather belt over her left
  shoulder with a revolver in it. "She talked as women will talk," he
  said, "telling me to be careful, and to try to get back before dark, and
  what a great wickedness it was for me to go alone. We were at war, and
  the country was not safe; my men were putting up bullet-proof shutters
  to the house and loading their rifles, and she begged me to have no fear
  for her. She could defend the house against anybody till I returned. And
  I laughed with pleasure a little. I liked to see her so brave and young
  and strong. I too was young then. At the gate she caught hold of my
  hand and gave it one squeeze and fell back. I made my horse stand still
  outside till I heard the bars of the gate put up behind me. There was a
  great enemy of mine, a great noble--and a great rascal too--roaming with
  a band in the neighbourhood. I cantered for four or five miles; there
  had been rain in the night, but the musts had gone up, up--and the
  face of the earth was clean; it lay smiling to me, so fresh and
  innocent--like a little child. Suddenly somebody fires a volley--twenty
  shots at least it seemed to me. I hear bullets sing in my ear, and
  my hat jumps to the back of my head. It was a little intrigue, you
  understand. They got my poor Mohammed to send for me and then laid
  that ambush. I see it all in a minute, and I think--This wants a little
  management. My pony snort, jump, and stand, and I fall slowly forward
  with my head on his mane. He begins to walk, and with one eye I could
  see over his neck a faint cloud of smoke hanging in front of a clump
  of bamboos to my left. I think--Aha! my friends, why you not wait long
  enough before you shoot? This is not yet gelungen. Oh no! I get hold of
  my revolver with my right hand--quiet--quiet. After all, there were only
  seven of these rascals. They get up from the grass and start running
  with their sarongs tucked up, waving spears above their heads, and
  yelling to each other to look out and catch the horse, because I was
  dead. I let them come as close as the door here, and then bang, bang,
  bang--take aim each time too. One more shot I fire at a man's back, but
  I miss. Too far already. And then I sit alone on my horse with the clean
  earth smiling at me, and there are the bodies of three men lying on the
  ground. One was curled up like a dog, another on his back had an arm
  over his eyes as if to keep off the sun, and the third man he draws up
  his leg very slowly and makes it with one kick straight again. I watch
  him very carefully from my horse, but there is no more--bleibt ganz
  ruhig--keep still, so. And as I looked at his face for some sign of life
  I observed something like a faint shadow pass over his forehead. It was
  the shadow of this butterfly. Look at the form of the wing. This species
  fly high with a strong flight. I raised my eyes and I saw him fluttering
  away. I think--Can it be possible? And then I lost him. I dismounted
  and went on very slow, leading my horse and holding my revolver with one
  hand and my eyes darting up and down and right and left, everywhere! At
  last I saw him sitting on a small heap of dirt ten feet away. At once
  my heart began to beat quick. I let go my horse, keep my revolver in one
  hand, and with the other snatch my soft felt hat off my head. One step.
  Steady. Another step. Flop! I got him! When I got up I shook like a leaf
  with excitement, and when I opened these beautiful wings and made sure
  what a rare and so extraordinary perfect specimen I had, my head went
  round and my legs became so weak with emotion that I had to sit on the
  ground. I had greatly desired to possess myself of a specimen of that
  species when collecting for the professor. I took long journeys and
  underwent great privations; I had dreamed of him in my sleep, and here
  suddenly I had him in my fingers--for myself! In the words of the poet"
  (he pronounced it "boet")--
  
       "'So halt' ich's endlich denn in meinen Handen,
       Und nenn' es in gewissem Sinne mein.'"
  
  He gave to the last word the emphasis of a suddenly lowered voice, and
  withdrew his eyes slowly from my face. He began to charge a long-stemmed
  pipe busily and in silence, then, pausing with his thumb on the orifice
  of the bowl, looked again at me significantly.
  
  '"Yes, my good friend. On that day I had nothing to desire; I had
  greatly annoyed my principal enemy; I was young, strong; I had
  friendship; I had the love" (he said "lof") "of woman, a child I had,
  to make my heart very full--and even what I had once dreamed in my sleep
  had come into my hand too!"
  
  'He struck a match, which flared violently. His thoughtful placid face
  twitched once.
  
  '"Friend, wife, child," he said slowly, gazing at the small
  flame--"phoo!" The match was blown out. He sighed and turned again to
  the glass case. The frail and beautiful wings quivered faintly, as if
  his breath had for an instant called back to life that gorgeous object
  of his dreams.
  
  '"The work," he began suddenly, pointing to the scattered slips, and in
  his usual gentle and cheery tone, "is making great progress. I have been
  this rare specimen describing. . . . Na! And what is your good news?"
  
  '"To tell you the truth, Stein," I said with an effort that surprised
  me, "I came here to describe a specimen. . . ."
  
  '"Butterfly?" he asked, with an unbelieving and humorous eagerness.
  
  '"Nothing so perfect," I answered, feeling suddenly dispirited with all
  sorts of doubts. "A man!"
  
  '"Ach so!" he murmured, and his smiling countenance, turned to me,
  became grave. Then after looking at me for a while he said slowly,
  "Well--I am a man too."
  
  'Here you have him as he was; he knew how to be so generously
  encouraging as to make a scrupulous man hesitate on the brink of
  confidence; but if I did hesitate it was not for long.
  
  'He heard me out, sitting with crossed legs. Sometimes his head would
  disappear completely in a great eruption of smoke, and a sympathetic
  growl would come out from the cloud. When I finished he uncrossed his
  legs, laid down his pipe, leaned forward towards me earnestly with his
  elbows on the arms of his chair, the tips of his fingers together.
  
  '"I understand very well. He is romantic."
  
  'He had diagnosed the case for me, and at first I was quite startled to
  find how simple it was; and indeed our conference resembled so much a
  medical consultation--Stein, of learned aspect, sitting in an arm-chair
  before his desk; I, anxious, in another, facing him, but a little to one
  side--that it seemed natural to ask--
  
  '"What's good for it?"
  
  'He lifted up a long forefinger.
  
  '"There is only one remedy! One thing alone can us from being ourselves
  cure!" The finger came down on the desk with a smart rap. The case
  which he had made to look so simple before became if possible still
  simpler--and altogether hopeless. There was a pause. "Yes," said I,
  "strictly speaking, the question is not how to get cured, but how to
  live."
  
  'He approved with his head, a little sadly as it seemed. "Ja! ja! In
  general, adapting the words of your great poet: That is the
  question. . . ." He went on nodding sympathetically. . . . "How to be!
  Ach! How to be."
  
  'He stood up with the tips of his fingers resting on the desk.
  
  '"We want in so many different ways to be," he began again. "This
  magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it;
  but man he will never on his heap of mud keep still. He want to be so,
  and again he want to be so. . . ." He moved his hand up, then down. . . .
  "He wants to be a saint, and he wants to be a devil--and every time he
  shuts his eyes he sees himself as a very fine fellow--so fine as he can
  never be. . . . In a dream. . . ."
  
  'He lowered the glass lid, the automatic lock clicked sharply, and
  taking up the case in both hands he bore it religiously away to its
  place, passing out of the bright circle of the lamp into the ring of
  fainter light--into shapeless dusk at last. It had an odd effect--as
  if these few steps had carried him out of this concrete and perplexed
  world. His tall form, as though robbed of its substance, hovered
  noiselessly over invisible things with stooping and indefinite
  movements; his voice, heard in that remoteness where he could be
  glimpsed mysteriously busy with immaterial cares, was no longer
  incisive, seemed to roll voluminous and grave--mellowed by distance.
  
  '"And because you not always can keep your eyes shut there comes the
  real trouble--the heart pain--the world pain. I tell you, my friend, it
  is not good for you to find you cannot make your dream come true, for
  the reason that you not strong enough are, or not clever enough. . . .
  Ja! . . . And all the time you are such a fine fellow too! Wie? Was?
  Gott im Himmel! How can that be? Ha! ha! ha!"
  
  'The shadow prowling amongst the graves of butterflies laughed
  boisterously.
  
  '"Yes! Very funny this terrible thing is. A man that is born falls into
  a dream like a man who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb out into
  the air as inexperienced people endeavour to do, he drowns--nicht wahr?
  . . . No! I tell you! The way is to the destructive element submit
  yourself, and with the exertions of your hands and feet in the water
  make the deep, deep sea keep you up. So if you ask me--how to be?"
  
  'His voice leaped up extraordinarily strong, as though away there in
  the dusk he had been inspired by some whisper of knowledge. "I will tell
  you! For that too there is only one way."
  
  'With a hasty swish-swish of his slippers he loomed up in the ring of
  faint light, and suddenly appeared in the bright circle of the lamp. His
  extended hand aimed at my breast like a pistol; his deepset eyes seemed
  to pierce through me, but his twitching lips uttered no word, and the
  austere exaltation of a certitude seen in the dusk vanished from his
  face. The hand that had been pointing at my breast fell, and by-and-by,
  coming a step nearer, he laid it gently on my shoulder. There were
  things, he said mournfully, that perhaps could never be told, only he
  had lived so much alone that sometimes he forgot--he forgot. The light
  had destroyed the assurance which had inspired him in the distant
  shadows. He sat down and, with both elbows on the desk, rubbed his
  forehead. "And yet it is true--it is true. In the destructive element
  immerse." . . . He spoke in a subdued tone, without looking at me, one
  hand on each side of his face. "That was the way. To follow the dream,
  and again to follow the dream--and so--ewig--usque ad finem. . . ." The
  whisper of his conviction seemed to open before me a vast and uncertain
  expanse, as of a crepuscular horizon on a plain at dawn--or was it,
  perchance, at the coming of the night? One had not the courage to
  decide; but it was a charming and deceptive light, throwing the
  impalpable poesy of its dimness over pitfalls--over graves. His life had
  begun in sacrifice, in enthusiasm for generous ideas; he had travelled
  very far, on various ways, on strange paths, and whatever he followed
  it had been without faltering, and therefore without shame and without
  regret. In so far he was right. That was the way, no doubt. Yet for all
  that, the great plain on which men wander amongst graves and pitfalls
  remained very desolate under the impalpable poesy of its crepuscular
  light, overshadowed in the centre, circled with a bright edge as if
  surrounded by an abyss full of flames. When at last I broke the silence
  it was to express the opinion that no one could be more romantic than
  himself.
  
  'He shook his head slowly, and afterwards looked at me with a patient
  and inquiring glance. It was a shame, he said. There we were sitting
  and talking like two boys, instead of putting our heads together to find
  something practical--a practical remedy--for the evil--for the great
  evil--he repeated, with a humorous and indulgent smile. For all that,
  our talk did not grow more practical. We avoided pronouncing Jim's name
  as though we had tried to keep flesh and blood out of our discussion,
  or he were nothing but an erring spirit, a suffering and nameless shade.
  "Na!" said Stein, rising. "To-night you sleep here, and in the morning
  we shall do something practical--practical. . . ." He lit a two-branched
  candlestick and led the way. We passed through empty dark rooms,
  escorted by gleams from the lights Stein carried. They glided along the
  waxed floors, sweeping here and there over the polished surface of
  a table, leaped upon a fragmentary curve of a piece of furniture, or
  flashed perpendicularly in and out of distant mirrors, while the forms
  of two men and the flicker of two flames could be seen for a moment
  stealing silently across the depths of a crystalline void. He walked
  slowly a pace in advance with stooping courtesy; there was a profound,
  as it were a listening, quietude on his face; the long flaxen locks
  mixed with white threads were scattered thinly upon his slightly bowed
  neck.
  
  '"He is romantic--romantic," he repeated. "And that is very bad--very
  bad. . . . Very good, too," he added. "But _is he_?" I queried.
  
  '"Gewiss," he said, and stood still holding up the candelabrum, but
  without looking at me. "Evident! What is it that by inward pain makes
  him know himself? What is it that for you and me makes him--exist?"
  
  'At that moment it was difficult to believe in Jim's existence--starting
  from a country parsonage, blurred by crowds of men as by clouds of
  dust, silenced by the clashing claims of life and death in a material
  world--but his imperishable reality came to me with a convincing, with
  an irresistible force! I saw it vividly, as though in our progress
  through the lofty silent rooms amongst fleeting gleams of light and
  the sudden revelations of human figures stealing with flickering flames
  within unfathomable and pellucid depths, we had approached nearer to
  absolute Truth, which, like Beauty itself, floats elusive, obscure, half
  submerged, in the silent still waters of mystery. "Perhaps he is," I
  admitted with a slight laugh, whose unexpectedly loud reverberation
  made me lower my voice directly; "but I am sure you are." With his head
  dropping on his breast and the light held high he began to walk again.
  "Well--I exist, too," he said.
  
  'He preceded me. My eyes followed his movements, but what I did see was
  not the head of the firm, the welcome guest at afternoon receptions,
  the correspondent of learned societies, the entertainer of stray
  naturalists; I saw only the reality of his destiny, which he had known
  how to follow with unfaltering footsteps, that life begun in humble
  surroundings, rich in generous enthusiasms, in friendship, love, war--in
  all the exalted elements of romance. At the door of my room he faced me.
  "Yes," I said, as though carrying on a discussion, "and amongst other
  things you dreamed foolishly of a certain butterfly; but when one
  fine morning your dream came in your way you did not let the splendid
  opportunity escape. Did you? Whereas he . . ." Stein lifted his hand.
  "And do you know how many opportunities I let escape; how many dreams
  I had lost that had come in my way?" He shook his head regretfully. "It
  seems to me that some would have been very fine--if I had made them come
  true. Do you know how many? Perhaps I myself don't know." "Whether his
  were fine or not," I said, "he knows of one which he certainly did not
  catch." "Everybody knows of one or two like that," said Stein; "and that
  is the trouble--the great trouble. . . ."
  
  'He shook hands on the threshold, peered into my room under his
  raised arm. "Sleep well. And to-morrow we must do something
  practical--practical. . . ."
  
  'Though his own room was beyond mine I saw him return the way he came.
  He was going back to his butterflies.'
  'I don't suppose any of you have ever heard of Patusan?' Marlow resumed,
  after a silence occupied in the careful lighting of a cigar. 'It does
  not matter; there's many a heavenly body in the lot crowding upon us of
  a night that mankind had never heard of, it being outside the sphere
  of its activities and of no earthly importance to anybody but to the
  astronomers who are paid to talk learnedly about its composition,
  weight, path--the irregularities of its conduct, the aberrations of its
  light--a sort of scientific scandal-mongering. Thus with Patusan. It
  was referred to knowingly in the inner government circles in Batavia,
  especially as to its irregularities and aberrations, and it was known
  by name to some few, very few, in the mercantile world. Nobody, however,
  had been there, and I suspect no one desired to go there in person,
  just as an astronomer, I should fancy, would strongly object to being
  transported into a distant heavenly body, where, parted from his earthly
  emoluments, he would be bewildered by the view of an unfamiliar heavens.
  However, neither heavenly bodies nor astronomers have anything to do
  with Patusan. It was Jim who went there. I only meant you to understand
  that had Stein arranged to send him into a star of the fifth magnitude
  the change could not have been greater. He left his earthly failings
  behind him and what sort of reputation he had, and there was a totally
  new set of conditions for his imaginative faculty to work upon. Entirely
  new, entirely remarkable. And he got hold of them in a remarkable way.
  
  'Stein was the man who knew more about Patusan than anybody else. More
  than was known in the government circles I suspect. I have no doubt he
  had been there, either in his butterfly-hunting days or later on, when
  he tried in his incorrigible way to season with a pinch of romance the
  fattening dishes of his commercial kitchen. There were very few places
  in the Archipelago he had not seen in the original dusk of their being,
  before light (and even electric light) had been carried into them for
  the sake of better morality and--and--well--the greater profit, too.
  It was at breakfast of the morning following our talk about Jim that he
  mentioned the place, after I had quoted poor Brierly's remark: "Let him
  creep twenty feet underground and stay there." He looked up at me with
  interested attention, as though I had been a rare insect. "This could be
  done, too," he remarked, sipping his coffee. "Bury him in some sort,"
  I explained. "One doesn't like to do it of course, but it would be the
  best thing, seeing what he is." "Yes; he is young," Stein mused. "The
  youngest human being now in existence," I affirmed. "Schon. There's
  Patusan," he went on in the same tone. . . . "And the woman is dead
  now," he added incomprehensibly.
  
  'Of course I don't know that story; I can only guess that once before
  Patusan had been used as a grave for some sin, transgression, or
  misfortune. It is impossible to suspect Stein. The only woman that
  had ever existed for him was the Malay girl he called "My wife the
  princess," or, more rarely, in moments of expansion, "the mother of my
  Emma." Who was the woman he had mentioned in connection with Patusan I
  can't say; but from his allusions I understand she had been an educated
  and very good-looking Dutch-Malay girl, with a tragic or perhaps only a
  pitiful history, whose most painful part no doubt was her marriage with
  a Malacca Portuguese who had been clerk in some commercial house in
  the Dutch colonies. I gathered from Stein that this man was an
  unsatisfactory person in more ways than one, all being more or less
  indefinite and offensive. It was solely for his wife's sake that Stein
  had appointed him manager of Stein & Co.'s trading post in Patusan;
  but commercially the arrangement was not a success, at any rate for
  the firm, and now the woman had died, Stein was disposed to try another
  agent there. The Portuguese, whose name was Cornelius, considered
  himself a very deserving but ill-used person, entitled by his abilities
  to a better position. This man Jim would have to relieve. "But I don't
  think he will go away from the place," remarked Stein. "That has nothing
  to do with me. It was only for the sake of the woman that I . . . But as
  I think there is a daughter left, I shall let him, if he likes to stay,
  keep the old house."
  
  'Patusan is a remote district of a native-ruled state, and the chief
  settlement bears the same name. At a point on the river about forty
  miles from the sea, where the first houses come into view, there can
  be seen rising above the level of the forests the summits of two steep
  hills very close together, and separated by what looks like a deep
  fissure, the cleavage of some mighty stroke. As a matter of fact, the
  valley between is nothing but a narrow ravine; the appearance from the
  settlement is of one irregularly conical hill split in two, and with the
  two halves leaning slightly apart. On the third day after the full, the
  moon, as seen from the open space in front of Jim's house (he had a very
  fine house in the native style when I visited him), rose exactly behind
  these hills, its diffused light at first throwing the two masses into
  intensely black relief, and then the nearly perfect disc, glowing
  ruddily, appeared, gliding upwards between the sides of the chasm, till
  it floated away above the summits, as if escaping from a yawning grave
  in gentle triumph. "Wonderful effect," said Jim by my side. "Worth
  seeing. Is it not?"
  
  'And this question was put with a note of personal pride that made me
  smile, as though he had had a hand in regulating that unique spectacle.
  He had regulated so many things in Patusan--things that would have
  appeared as much beyond his control as the motions of the moon and the
  stars.
  
  'It was inconceivable. That was the distinctive quality of the part into
  which Stein and I had tumbled him unwittingly, with no other notion than
  to get him out of the way; out of his own way, be it understood. That
  was our main purpose, though, I own, I might have had another motive
  which had influenced me a little. I was about to go home for a time;
  and it may be I desired, more than I was aware of myself, to dispose of
  him--to dispose of him, you understand--before I left. I was going home,
  and he had come to me from there, with his miserable trouble and his
  shadowy claim, like a man panting under a burden in a mist. I cannot
  say I had ever seen him distinctly--not even to this day, after I had
  my last view of him; but it seemed to me that the less I understood
  the more I was bound to him in the name of that doubt which is the
  inseparable part of our knowledge. I did not know so much more about
  myself. And then, I repeat, I was going home--to that home distant
  enough for all its hearthstones to be like one hearthstone, by which the
  humblest of us has the right to sit. We wander in our thousands over the
  face of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond the
  seas our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to me
  that for each of us going home must be like going to render an account.
  We return to face our superiors, our kindred, our friends--those whom we
  obey, and those whom we love; but even they who have neither, the most
  free, lonely, irresponsible and bereft of ties,--even those for whom
  home holds no dear face, no familiar voice,--even they have to meet the
  spirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, in its
  valleys, and on its rises, in its fields, in its waters and its trees--a
  mute friend, judge, and inspirer. Say what you like, to get its joy,
  to breathe its peace, to face its truth, one must return with a clear
  conscience. All this may seem to you sheer sentimentalism; and indeed
  very few of us have the will or the capacity to look consciously under
  the surface of familiar emotions. There are the girls we love, the men
  we look up to, the tenderness, the friendships, the opportunities, the
  pleasures! But the fact remains that you must touch your reward with
  clean hands, lest it turn to dead leaves, to thorns, in your grasp. I
  think it is the lonely, without a fireside or an affection they may call
  their own, those who return not to a dwelling but to the land itself, to
  meet its disembodied, eternal, and unchangeable spirit--it is those who
  understand best its severity, its saving power, the grace of its secular
  right to our fidelity, to our obedience. Yes! few of us understand, but
  we all feel it though, and I say _all_ without exception, because those
  who do not feel do not count. Each blade of grass has its spot on earth
  whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land
  from which he draws his faith together with his life. I don't know
  how much Jim understood; but I know he felt, he felt confusedly but
  powerfully, the demand of some such truth or some such illusion--I don't
  care how you call it, there is so little difference, and the difference
  means so little. The thing is that in virtue of his feeling he mattered.
  He would never go home now. Not he. Never. Had he been capable of
  picturesque manifestations he would have shuddered at the thought
  and made you shudder too. But he was not of that sort, though he was
  expressive enough in his way. Before the idea of going home he would
  grow desperately stiff and immovable, with lowered chin and pouted lips,
  and with those candid blue eyes of his glowering darkly under a frown,
  as if before something unbearable, as if before something revolting.
  There was imagination in that hard skull of his, over which the thick
  clustering hair fitted like a cap. As to me, I have no imagination (I
  would be more certain about him today, if I had), and I do not mean to
  imply that I figured to myself the spirit of the land uprising above the
  white cliffs of Dover, to ask me what I--returning with no bones broken,
  so to speak--had done with my very young brother. I could not make
  such a mistake. I knew very well he was of those about whom there is
  no inquiry; I had seen better men go out, disappear, vanish utterly,
  without provoking a sound of curiosity or sorrow. The spirit of
  the land, as becomes the ruler of great enterprises, is careless of
  innumerable lives. Woe to the stragglers! We exist only in so far as we
  hang together. He had straggled in a way; he had not hung on; but he was
  aware of it with an intensity that made him touching, just as a man's
  more intense life makes his death more touching than the death of a
  tree. I happened to be handy, and I happened to be touched. That's all
  there is to it. I was concerned as to the way he would go out. It would
  have hurt me if, for instance, he had taken to drink. The earth is so
  small that I was afraid of, some day, being waylaid by a blear-eyed,
  swollen-faced, besmirched loafer, with no soles to his canvas shoes,
  and with a flutter of rags about the elbows, who, on the strength of old
  acquaintance, would ask for a loan of five dollars. You know the awful
  jaunty bearing of these scarecrows coming to you from a decent past,
  the rasping careless voice, the half-averted impudent glances--those
  meetings more trying to a man who believes in the solidarity of our
  lives than the sight of an impenitent death-bed to a priest. That, to
  tell you the truth, was the only danger I could see for him and for
  me; but I also mistrusted my want of imagination. It might even come
  to something worse, in some way it was beyond my powers of fancy to
  foresee. He wouldn't let me forget how imaginative he was, and your
  imaginative people swing farther in any direction, as if given a longer
  scope of cable in the uneasy anchorage of life. They do. They take to
  drink too. It may be I was belittling him by such a fear. How could I
  tell? Even Stein could say no more than that he was romantic. I only
  knew he was one of us. And what business had he to be romantic? I
  am telling you so much about my own instinctive feelings and bemused
  reflections because there remains so little to be told of him. He
  existed for me, and after all it is only through me that he exists for
  you. I've led him out by the hand; I have paraded him before you. Were
  my commonplace fears unjust? I won't say--not even now. You may be able
  to tell better, since the proverb has it that the onlookers see most of
  the game. At any rate, they were superfluous. He did not go out, not at
  all; on the contrary, he came on wonderfully, came on straight as a die
  and in excellent form, which showed that he could stay as well as spurt.
  I ought to be delighted, for it is a victory in which I had taken my
  part; but I am not so pleased as I would have expected to be. I ask
  myself whether his rush had really carried him out of that mist in
  which he loomed interesting if not very big, with floating outlines--a
  straggler yearning inconsolably for his humble place in the ranks. And
  besides, the last word is not said,--probably shall never be said. Are
  not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our
  stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention? I have given
  up expecting those last words, whose ring, if they could only be
  pronounced, would shake both heaven and earth. There is never time to
  say our last word--the last word of our love, of our desire, faith,
  remorse, submissions, revolt. The heaven and the earth must not be
  shaken, I suppose--at least, not by us who know so many truths about
  either. My last words about Jim shall be few. I affirm he had achieved
  greatness; but the thing would be dwarfed in the telling, or rather in
  the hearing. Frankly, it is not my words that I mistrust but your minds.
  I could be eloquent were I not afraid you fellows had starved your
  imaginations to feed your bodies. I do not mean to be offensive; it is
  respectable to have no illusions--and safe--and profitable--and dull.
  Yet you, too, in your time must have known the intensity of life, that
  light of glamour created in the shock of trifles, as amazing as the glow
  of sparks struck from a cold stone--and as short-lived, alas!'
  
feat_summary_name: Chapters 19-21
target: Twenty and Twenty One . In Chapter Nineteen, the readers are told that these instances of Jim leaving his post are just two examples that Marlow can give. All of them are 'equally tinged by a high-minded absurdity of intention which made their futility profound and touching'. He sees Jim as unfortunate, because 'his recklessness could not carry him out from under the shadow'. Marlow cannot work out if his conduct 'amounted to shirking his ghost or to facing him out'. It is ironic to Marlow that Jim becomes known as a rolling stone and is famous, even notorious, in the 'circle of his wandering' . . . Jim stays in Bangkok for six months until a first lieutenant of the Royal Siamese Navy makes a scornful remark at his expense. Jim turns up on Marlow's ship at midnight saying everybody in the room seemed to know about him and he cannot keep his job now because he has reacted violently to the lieutenant. Marlow finds him a position with De Jongh; Jim works hard but there are few opportunities for him. Marlow then decides to consult Stein, who is a wealthy and respected merchant, for trustworthy advice. Stein is known to learned persons in Europe for his extensive insect collection and Marlow knows he is eminently suitable to receive his confidences about Jim. . . Chapter Twenty begins with Marlow's visit to Stein. The room where they talk is lined with shelves filled with his insect collection. His background is explained a little . After Stein's wife and daughter died, he started a new life and acquired a fortune. He tells Marlow of how he caught one of his butterflies just after he killed some men who attacked him. Marlow says he has come to describe a specimen and relates the story of Jim. Stein says he understands 'very well' and calls Jim 'romantic'. Stein is also romantic, but, as Marlow points out, when his dream  came his way he did not let it escape. Stein counters this by saying that he has lost many other dreams though. Before the two men go to sleep, they decide to do something practical for Jim the next day. . . In Chapter Twenty One, the narrative returns to Marlow talking to his friends in the present and he asks them if they have heard of Patusan. It is a place known by the mercantile world, but no one present had been there. This is where Stein arranges for Jim to start again: ' left his earthly failings behind him and that sort of reputation he had and there was a totally new set of conditions for his imaginative faculty to work upon. Entirely new, entirely remarkable.' . . The narrative shifts to Marlow and Stein again as they make these arrangements for Jim. Marlow tells Stein about Brierly saying, 'let him creep twenty feet underground and stay there'. At this point, Stein suggests Patusan. Marlow is open to this idea for Jim's sake and because of his own conscience. Marlow explains that Jim went on to stay at Patusan and 'came on straight as a die'. .
feat_summary_analysis: Twenty and Twenty One . Chapter Nineteen highlights how Jim's behavior since jumping from the ship has brought him notoriety rather than the sought for anonymity. As he attempts to remain unknown, he becomes infamous as a rolling stone and unwittingly draws attention to himself. . . The beginning of his new life starts with the help of Marlow and Stein as they discuss his future. The choice of Patusan is based on its required isolation from white Western society and is figuratively comparable to Brierly's idea of sending Jim 'underground'. This is, of course, allowing Jim to continue to run away from what he sees as his shameful past. . . In Chapter Twenty, Stein relates his story of when he caught a butterfly and goes on to interpret Jim as a romantic. This understanding may be seen as based on mutual concerns as Stein resembles an older version of Jim. This is because both take pleasure in the thought of attaining their dreams.