feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Lord Jim/section_12_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapters 15-17
feat_summary_id: chapters 15-17
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapters 15-17", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapters-1517", "summary": "Marlow finally found Jim gazing emptily off the quay, and he told him to come to his room. Jim followed him, seemingly still in a daze. Marlow led him into his bedroom and began writing letters immediately, so that Jim could feel that he was not totally alone, but that he was sufficiently alone so that he could confront his unhappiness and despair during this darkest moment of his life. Marlow tells us that throughout that afternoon and into the evening, he, Marlow, filled sheet after sheet of fresh paper, stopping only momentarily to notice Jim's convulsive shoulders and his struggling for breath as he stood rooted in front of a glass door. Then, suddenly, Jim opened the glass door and lurched onto the upstairs verandah, as if to throw himself off. Marlow noted his straight, resolute outline. Symbolically, it seemed as though Jim were alone, abandoned on the brink of a dark and hopeless ocean. What would have happened if Marlow had offered Jim the job as Chester's overseer? He felt, at that moment, that he had saved Jim from what would probably have been a living death on the Guano Island. But, at the same time, Marlow felt that \"to bury him would have been such an easy kindness.\" What had he saved Jim for? Marlow was aware of a sense of deep responsibility for Jim, a sense of kinship and responsibility that he could no longer ignore. Marlow breaks the suspense and tells us that eventually Jim became \"loved, trusted, admired.\" He became a \"legend of strength and prowess . . . the stuff of a hero.\" In short, Marlow says, Jim \"captured much honour,\" meaning that Jim became a hero in the eyes of himself and others. This is what Jim desired so desperately and what he thought was denied to him because of his actions aboard the Patna. Jim's future, then, was not as black as he believed it was; eventually, he would perform an act of bravery that would balance and cancel out the enormous guilt that he had carried after jumping from the Patna and leaving 800 Moslems to what he believed was certain death. At that moment, a violent tropical rainstorm suddenly ruptured the stillness, and Jim stepped back into the room. At last, he seemed ready to talk. Desperately, he said that a person was \"bound to come upon some sort of a chance to get it all back -- must!\" He was determined to convince himself that he would someday have a chance to redeem himself in his own eyes, a chance to do something that would erase the blot of guilt on his character. Marlow tried to force Jim to talk about the future -- how he planned to earn money, and how he planned to pay for food and lodging. But Jim refused to talk about practical matters. \"That isn't the thing,\" he said, and he added that it was useless for Marlow to try and convince him to accept the back pay that was still due him from the Patna. Marlow found Jim's torturous soul-searching to be blindly melodramatic; he couldn't understand why Jim seemed determined to dwell on \"some deep idea.\" He sensed intuitively that he himself could probably never heal the agony in Jim's \"wounded spirit.\" Nevertheless, Marlow told Jim that he had written a letter of recommendation to a man who would give Jim a second chance. He stressed that he, Marlow, had faith in Jim's goodness and promise even if Jim did not; he was making himself \"unreservedly responsible\" for Jim. After awhile, the rain stopped and Jim leapt up. \"It is noble of you!\" he shouted. Marlow was so stunned that he wondered if Jim were mocking him. Jim seemed madly exhilarated. But the young man was not mocking Marlow's offer. His eyes were bright, and his voice was a stammer of half-sentences. He was agitated and seemingly wild with newfound confidence. \"You have given me a clean slate,\" he announced to Marlow.", "analysis": "After showing Jim at his lowest point in the preceding chapter, Marlow tells us that he lived to see Jim \"loved, trusted, admired, with a legend of strength and prowess forming round his name as though he had been the stuff of a hero.\" It is as though Marlow is telling us to wait -- because his evaluation of Jim is correct. That is, Jim is indeed one of us. He also lets us know that had he not interceded between Chester and Jim, then he would never have seen Jim again because he learns later that the men on Chester's guano enterprise disappeared. And yet, Chester, and all that pertains to him, is important because it shows Marlow's development. Marlow still feels that Jim is concerned not so much with his guilt as he is with the humiliating and treacherous \"Jump\" and its shameful consequences. Jim is seen here writhing in the agonies of romantic melancholy with his \"refined sensibilities and his fine feelings, fine longings -- a sort of sublimated, idealized selfishness\"; that is, Jim is too \"fine a fellow\" to throw over to Chester and his kind. These descriptions of Jim prepare us for Stein's firm statement that Jim is a romantic. And certainly in the romantic tradition, Jim's raging emotions within are symbolically reflected in the raging storm outside. Throughout these scenes, Marlow watches Jim writhe and squirm in agony like one of Stein's impaled beetles, but then Marlow is also impaled on the sharp point of his own new affection for Jim and the sense of his responsibility for Jim. Since the trial is now over, Marlow turns to practical matters , and when Marlow volunteers to help, Jim responds by saying, \"You can't.\" Of course, Marlow meant \"help with practical matters,\" but Jim means help in an entirely different sense -- in assuaging his feelings of disgrace and guilt. Thus, when Marlow tells Jim that he is writing to a man in Jim's behalf, Jim's appreciation is immense -- mainly because he now realizes that there is someone who still cares for him, or believes in him, a fact which gives Jim a new confidence in himself. Jim's soaring gratitude and unbounded delight as Marlow unfolds his plan indicate a relief and a deliverance from an alternative so forbidding as to suggest nothing short of death itself."}
text: 'I did not start in search of Jim at once, only because I had really an
  appointment which I could not neglect. Then, as ill-luck would have
  it, in my agent's office I was fastened upon by a fellow fresh from
  Madagascar with a little scheme for a wonderful piece of business. It
  had something to do with cattle and cartridges and a Prince Ravonalo
  something; but the pivot of the whole affair was the stupidity of some
  admiral--Admiral Pierre, I think. Everything turned on that, and the
  chap couldn't find words strong enough to express his confidence. He had
  globular eyes starting out of his head with a fishy glitter, bumps on
  his forehead, and wore his long hair brushed back without a parting.
  He had a favourite phrase which he kept on repeating triumphantly, "The
  minimum of risk with the maximum of profit is my motto. What?" He made
  my head ache, spoiled my tiffin, but got his own out of me all right;
  and as soon as I had shaken him off, I made straight for the water-side.
  I caught sight of Jim leaning over the parapet of the quay. Three native
  boatmen quarrelling over five annas were making an awful row at his
  elbow. He didn't hear me come up, but spun round as if the slight
  contact of my finger had released a catch. "I was looking," he
  stammered. I don't remember what I said, not much anyhow, but he made no
  difficulty in following me to the hotel.
  
  'He followed me as manageable as a little child, with an obedient air,
  with no sort of manifestation, rather as though he had been waiting
  for me there to come along and carry him off. I need not have been so
  surprised as I was at his tractability. On all the round earth, which to
  some seems so big and that others affect to consider as rather smaller
  than a mustard-seed, he had no place where he could--what shall I
  say?--where he could withdraw. That's it! Withdraw--be alone with his
  loneliness. He walked by my side very calm, glancing here and there, and
  once turned his head to look after a Sidiboy fireman in a cutaway coat
  and yellowish trousers, whose black face had silky gleams like a lump
  of anthracite coal. I doubt, however, whether he saw anything, or even
  remained all the time aware of my companionship, because if I had not
  edged him to the left here, or pulled him to the right there, I believe
  he would have gone straight before him in any direction till stopped by
  a wall or some other obstacle. I steered him into my bedroom, and sat
  down at once to write letters. This was the only place in the world
  (unless, perhaps, the Walpole Reef--but that was not so handy) where he
  could have it out with himself without being bothered by the rest of
  the universe. The damned thing--as he had expressed it--had not made
  him invisible, but I behaved exactly as though he were. No sooner in my
  chair I bent over my writing-desk like a medieval scribe, and, but for
  the movement of the hand holding the pen, remained anxiously quiet. I
  can't say I was frightened; but I certainly kept as still as if there
  had been something dangerous in the room, that at the first hint of a
  movement on my part would be provoked to pounce upon me. There was not
  much in the room--you know how these bedrooms are--a sort of four-poster
  bedstead under a mosquito-net, two or three chairs, the table I was
  writing at, a bare floor. A glass door opened on an upstairs verandah,
  and he stood with his face to it, having a hard time with all possible
  privacy. Dusk fell; I lit a candle with the greatest economy of movement
  and as much prudence as though it were an illegal proceeding. There is
  no doubt that he had a very hard time of it, and so had I, even to the
  point, I must own, of wishing him to the devil, or on Walpole Reef at
  least. It occurred to me once or twice that, after all, Chester was,
  perhaps, the man to deal effectively with such a disaster. That strange
  idealist had found a practical use for it at once--unerringly, as it
  were. It was enough to make one suspect that, maybe, he really could see
  the true aspect of things that appeared mysterious or utterly hopeless
  to less imaginative persons. I wrote and wrote; I liquidated all the
  arrears of my correspondence, and then went on writing to people who had
  no reason whatever to expect from me a gossipy letter about nothing at
  all. At times I stole a sidelong glance. He was rooted to the spot,
  but convulsive shudders ran down his back; his shoulders would heave
  suddenly. He was fighting, he was fighting--mostly for his breath, as it
  seemed. The massive shadows, cast all one way from the straight flame of
  the candle, seemed possessed of gloomy consciousness; the immobility of
  the furniture had to my furtive eye an air of attention. I was becoming
  fanciful in the midst of my industrious scribbling; and though, when the
  scratching of my pen stopped for a moment, there was complete silence
  and stillness in the room, I suffered from that profound disturbance
  and confusion of thought which is caused by a violent and menacing
  uproar--of a heavy gale at sea, for instance. Some of you may know what
  I mean: that mingled anxiety, distress, and irritation with a sort of
  craven feeling creeping in--not pleasant to acknowledge, but which gives
  a quite special merit to one's endurance. I don't claim any merit
  for standing the stress of Jim's emotions; I could take refuge in the
  letters; I could have written to strangers if necessary. Suddenly, as I
  was taking up a fresh sheet of notepaper, I heard a low sound, the first
  sound that, since we had been shut up together, had come to my ears in
  the dim stillness of the room. I remained with my head down, with my
  hand arrested. Those who have kept vigil by a sick-bed have heard such
  faint sounds in the stillness of the night watches, sounds wrung from a
  racked body, from a weary soul. He pushed the glass door with such force
  that all the panes rang: he stepped out, and I held my breath, straining
  my ears without knowing what else I expected to hear. He was really
  taking too much to heart an empty formality which to Chester's rigorous
  criticism seemed unworthy the notice of a man who could see things as
  they were. An empty formality; a piece of parchment. Well, well. As to
  an inaccessible guano deposit, that was another story altogether. One
  could intelligibly break one's heart over that. A feeble burst of many
  voices mingled with the tinkle of silver and glass floated up from the
  dining-room below; through the open door the outer edge of the light
  from my candle fell on his back faintly; beyond all was black; he stood
  on the brink of a vast obscurity, like a lonely figure by the shore of
  a sombre and hopeless ocean. There was the Walpole Reef in it--to
  be sure--a speck in the dark void, a straw for the drowning man. My
  compassion for him took the shape of the thought that I wouldn't have
  liked his people to see him at that moment. I found it trying myself.
  His back was no longer shaken by his gasps; he stood straight as an
  arrow, faintly visible and still; and the meaning of this stillness sank
  to the bottom of my soul like lead into the water, and made it so heavy
  that for a second I wished heartily that the only course left open for
  me was to pay for his funeral. Even the law had done with him. To bury
  him would have been such an easy kindness! It would have been so much
  in accordance with the wisdom of life, which consists in putting out of
  sight all the reminders of our folly, of our weakness, of our mortality;
  all that makes against our efficiency--the memory of our failures, the
  hints of our undying fears, the bodies of our dead friends. Perhaps he
  did take it too much to heart. And if so then--Chester's offer. . . . At
  this point I took up a fresh sheet and began to write resolutely. There
  was nothing but myself between him and the dark ocean. I had a sense of
  responsibility. If I spoke, would that motionless and suffering youth
  leap into the obscurity--clutch at the straw? I found out how difficult
  it may be sometimes to make a sound. There is a weird power in a spoken
  word. And why the devil not? I was asking myself persistently while I
  drove on with my writing. All at once, on the blank page, under the very
  point of the pen, the two figures of Chester and his antique partner,
  very distinct and complete, would dodge into view with stride and
  gestures, as if reproduced in the field of some optical toy. I would
  watch them for a while. No! They were too phantasmal and extravagant
  to enter into any one's fate. And a word carries far--very far--deals
  destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space. I said
  nothing; and he, out there with his back to the light, as if bound
  and gagged by all the invisible foes of man, made no stir and made no
  sound.'
  
  'The time was coming when I should see him loved, trusted, admired, with
  a legend of strength and prowess forming round his name as though he
  had been the stuff of a hero. It's true--I assure you; as true as
  I'm sitting here talking about him in vain. He, on his side, had that
  faculty of beholding at a hint the face of his desire and the shape
  of his dream, without which the earth would know no lover and no
  adventurer. He captured much honour and an Arcadian happiness (I won't
  say anything about innocence) in the bush, and it was as good to him
  as the honour and the Arcadian happiness of the streets to another man.
  Felicity, felicity--how shall I say it?--is quaffed out of a golden cup
  in every latitude: the flavour is with you--with you alone, and you can
  make it as intoxicating as you please. He was of the sort that would
  drink deep, as you may guess from what went before. I found him, if not
  exactly intoxicated, then at least flushed with the elixir at his lips.
  He had not obtained it at once. There had been, as you know, a period of
  probation amongst infernal ship-chandlers, during which he had suffered
  and I had worried about--about--my trust--you may call it. I don't
  know that I am completely reassured now, after beholding him in all his
  brilliance. That was my last view of him--in a strong light, dominating,
  and yet in complete accord with his surroundings--with the life of the
  forests and with the life of men. I own that I was impressed, but I must
  admit to myself that after all this is not the lasting impression. He
  was protected by his isolation, alone of his own superior kind, in close
  touch with Nature, that keeps faith on such easy terms with her lovers.
  But I cannot fix before my eye the image of his safety. I shall always
  remember him as seen through the open door of my room, taking, perhaps,
  too much to heart the mere consequences of his failure. I am pleased,
  of course, that some good--and even some splendour--came out of my
  endeavours; but at times it seems to me it would have been better for my
  peace of mind if I had not stood between him and Chester's confoundedly
  generous offer. I wonder what his exuberant imagination would have made
  of Walpole islet--that most hopelessly forsaken crumb of dry land on the
  face of the waters. It is not likely I would ever have heard, for I must
  tell you that Chester, after calling at some Australian port to patch
  up his brig-rigged sea-anachronism, steamed out into the Pacific with a
  crew of twenty-two hands all told, and the only news having a possible
  bearing upon the mystery of his fate was the news of a hurricane which
  is supposed to have swept in its course over the Walpole shoals, a month
  or so afterwards. Not a vestige of the Argonauts ever turned up; not a
  sound came out of the waste. Finis! The Pacific is the most discreet of
  live, hot-tempered oceans: the chilly Antarctic can keep a secret too,
  but more in the manner of a grave.
  
  'And there is a sense of blessed finality in such discretion, which is
  what we all more or less sincerely are ready to admit--for what else is
  it that makes the idea of death supportable? End! Finis! the potent word
  that exorcises from the house of life the haunting shadow of fate. This
  is what--notwithstanding the testimony of my eyes and his own earnest
  assurances--I miss when I look back upon Jim's success. While there's
  life there is hope, truly; but there is fear too. I don't mean to say
  that I regret my action, nor will I pretend that I can't sleep o' nights
  in consequence; still, the idea obtrudes itself that he made so much of
  his disgrace while it is the guilt alone that matters. He was not--if I
  may say so--clear to me. He was not clear. And there is a suspicion he
  was not clear to himself either. There were his fine sensibilities,
  his fine feelings, his fine longings--a sort of sublimated, idealised
  selfishness. He was--if you allow me to say so--very fine; very
  fine--and very unfortunate. A little coarser nature would not have borne
  the strain; it would have had to come to terms with itself--with a sigh,
  with a grunt, or even with a guffaw; a still coarser one would have
  remained invulnerably ignorant and completely uninteresting.
  
  'But he was too interesting or too unfortunate to be thrown to the dogs,
  or even to Chester. I felt this while I sat with my face over the paper
  and he fought and gasped, struggling for his breath in that terribly
  stealthy way, in my room; I felt it when he rushed out on the verandah
  as if to fling himself over--and didn't; I felt it more and more all the
  time he remained outside, faintly lighted on the background of night, as
  if standing on the shore of a sombre and hopeless sea.
  
  'An abrupt heavy rumble made me lift my head. The noise seemed to roll
  away, and suddenly a searching and violent glare fell on the blind face
  of the night. The sustained and dazzling flickers seemed to last for an
  unconscionable time. The growl of the thunder increased steadily while I
  looked at him, distinct and black, planted solidly upon the shores of a
  sea of light. At the moment of greatest brilliance the darkness leaped
  back with a culminating crash, and he vanished before my dazzled eyes as
  utterly as though he had been blown to atoms. A blustering sigh passed;
  furious hands seemed to tear at the shrubs, shake the tops of the
  trees below, slam doors, break window-panes, all along the front of
  the building. He stepped in, closing the door behind him, and found me
  bending over the table: my sudden anxiety as to what he would say was
  very great, and akin to a fright. "May I have a cigarette?" he asked. I
  gave a push to the box without raising my head. "I want--want--tobacco,"
  he muttered. I became extremely buoyant. "Just a moment." I grunted
  pleasantly. He took a few steps here and there. "That's over," I heard
  him say. A single distant clap of thunder came from the sea like a
  gun of distress. "The monsoon breaks up early this year," he remarked
  conversationally, somewhere behind me. This encouraged me to turn round,
  which I did as soon as I had finished addressing the last envelope. He
  was smoking greedily in the middle of the room, and though he heard the
  stir I made, he remained with his back to me for a time.
  
  '"Come--I carried it off pretty well," he said, wheeling suddenly.
  "Something's paid off--not much. I wonder what's to come." His face did
  not show any emotion, only it appeared a little darkened and swollen, as
  though he had been holding his breath. He smiled reluctantly as it
  were, and went on while I gazed up at him mutely. . . . "Thank you,
  though--your room--jolly convenient--for a chap--badly hipped." . . .
  The rain pattered and swished in the garden; a water-pipe (it must
  have had a hole in it) performed just outside the window a parody of
  blubbering woe with funny sobs and gurgling lamentations, interrupted
  by jerky spasms of silence. . . . "A bit of shelter," he mumbled and
  ceased.
  
  'A flash of faded lightning darted in through the black framework of the
  windows and ebbed out without any noise. I was thinking how I had best
  approach him (I did not want to be flung off again) when he gave a
  little laugh. "No better than a vagabond now" . . . the end of
  the cigarette smouldered between his fingers . . . "without a
  single--single," he pronounced slowly; "and yet . . ." He paused; the
  rain fell with redoubled violence. "Some day one's bound to come upon
  some sort of chance to get it all back again. Must!" he whispered
  distinctly, glaring at my boots.
  
  'I did not even know what it was he wished so much to regain, what it
  was he had so terribly missed. It might have been so much that it was
  impossible to say. A piece of ass's skin, according to Chester. . . .
  He looked up at me inquisitively. "Perhaps. If life's long enough," I
  muttered through my teeth with unreasonable animosity. "Don't reckon too
  much on it."
  
  '"Jove! I feel as if nothing could ever touch me," he said in a tone
  of sombre conviction. "If this business couldn't knock me over, then
  there's no fear of there being not enough time to--climb out, and . . ."
  He looked upwards.
  
  'It struck me that it is from such as he that the great army of waifs
  and strays is recruited, the army that marches down, down into all the
  gutters of the earth. As soon as he left my room, that "bit of shelter,"
  he would take his place in the ranks, and begin the journey towards the
  bottomless pit. I at least had no illusions; but it was I, too, who a
  moment ago had been so sure of the power of words, and now was afraid to
  speak, in the same way one dares not move for fear of losing a slippery
  hold. It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that
  we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty are the beings
  that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun. It
  is as if loneliness were a hard and absolute condition of existence; the
  envelope of flesh and blood on which our eyes are fixed melts before the
  outstretched hand, and there remains only the capricious, unconsolable,
  and elusive spirit that no eye can follow, no hand can grasp. It was
  the fear of losing him that kept me silent, for it was borne upon me
  suddenly and with unaccountable force that should I let him slip away
  into the darkness I would never forgive myself.
  
  '"Well. Thanks--once more. You've been--er--uncommonly--really there's
  no word to . . . Uncommonly! I don't know why, I am sure. I am afraid
  I don't feel as grateful as I would if the whole thing hadn't been so
  brutally sprung on me. Because at bottom . . . you, yourself . . ." He
  stuttered.
  
  '"Possibly," I struck in. He frowned.
  
  '"All the same, one is responsible." He watched me like a hawk.
  
  '"And that's true, too," I said.
  
  '"Well. I've gone with it to the end, and I don't intend to let any man
  cast it in my teeth without--without--resenting it." He clenched his
  fist.
  
  '"There's yourself," I said with a smile--mirthless enough, God
  knows--but he looked at me menacingly. "That's my business," he said.
  An air of indomitable resolution came and went upon his face like a vain
  and passing shadow. Next moment he looked a dear good boy in trouble,
  as before. He flung away the cigarette. "Good-bye," he said, with the
  sudden haste of a man who had lingered too long in view of a pressing
  bit of work waiting for him; and then for a second or so he made not the
  slightest movement. The downpour fell with the heavy uninterrupted rush
  of a sweeping flood, with a sound of unchecked overwhelming fury that
  called to one's mind the images of collapsing bridges, of uprooted
  trees, of undermined mountains. No man could breast the colossal and
  headlong stream that seemed to break and swirl against the dim stillness
  in which we were precariously sheltered as if on an island. The
  perforated pipe gurgled, choked, spat, and splashed in odious ridicule
  of a swimmer fighting for his life. "It is raining," I remonstrated,
  "and I . . ." "Rain or shine," he began brusquely, checked himself, and
  walked to the window. "Perfect deluge," he muttered after a while: he
  leaned his forehead on the glass. "It's dark, too."
  
  '"Yes, it is very dark," I said.
  
  'He pivoted on his heels, crossed the room, and had actually opened the
  door leading into the corridor before I leaped up from my chair. "Wait,"
  I cried, "I want you to . . ." "I can't dine with you again to-night,"
  he flung at me, with one leg out of the room already. "I haven't the
  slightest intention to ask you," I shouted. At this he drew back his
  foot, but remained mistrustfully in the very doorway. I lost no time
  in entreating him earnestly not to be absurd; to come in and shut the
  door.'
  
  'He came in at last; but I believe it was mostly the rain that did it;
  it was falling just then with a devastating violence which quieted
  down gradually while we talked. His manner was very sober and set; his
  bearing was that of a naturally taciturn man possessed by an idea. My
  talk was of the material aspect of his position; it had the sole aim of
  saving him from the degradation, ruin, and despair that out there close
  so swiftly upon a friendless, homeless man; I pleaded with him to
  accept my help; I argued reasonably: and every time I looked up at that
  absorbed smooth face, so grave and youthful, I had a disturbing sense of
  being no help but rather an obstacle to some mysterious, inexplicable,
  impalpable striving of his wounded spirit.
  
  '"I suppose you intend to eat and drink and to sleep under shelter in
  the usual way," I remember saying with irritation. "You say you won't
  touch the money that is due to you." . . . He came as near as his sort
  can to making a gesture of horror. (There were three weeks and five
  days' pay owing him as mate of the Patna.) "Well, that's too little to
  matter anyhow; but what will you do to-morrow? Where will you turn? You
  must live . . ." "That isn't the thing," was the comment that escaped
  him under his breath. I ignored it, and went on combating what I assumed
  to be the scruples of an exaggerated delicacy. "On every conceivable
  ground," I concluded, "you must let me help you." "You can't," he said
  very simply and gently, and holding fast to some deep idea which I
  could detect shimmering like a pool of water in the dark, but which
  I despaired of ever approaching near enough to fathom. I surveyed his
  well-proportioned bulk. "At any rate," I said, "I am able to help what
  I can see of you. I don't pretend to do more." He shook his head
  sceptically without looking at me. I got very warm. "But I can," I
  insisted. "I can do even more. I _am_ doing more. I am trusting
  you . . ." "The money . . ." he began. "Upon my word you deserve being
  told to go to the devil," I cried, forcing the note of indignation. He
  was startled, smiled, and I pressed my attack home. "It isn't a question
  of money at all. You are too superficial," I said (and at the same time
  I was thinking to myself: Well, here goes! And perhaps he is, after
  all). "Look at the letter I want you to take. I am writing to a man of
  whom I've never asked a favour, and I am writing about you in terms that
  one only ventures to use when speaking of an intimate friend. I make
  myself unreservedly responsible for you. That's what I am doing. And
  really if you will only reflect a little what that means . . ."
  
  'He lifted his head. The rain had passed away; only the water-pipe went
  on shedding tears with an absurd drip, drip outside the window. It was
  very quiet in the room, whose shadows huddled together in corners, away
  from the still flame of the candle flaring upright in the shape of a
  dagger; his face after a while seemed suffused by a reflection of a soft
  light as if the dawn had broken already.
  
  '"Jove!" he gasped out. "It is noble of you!"
  
  'Had he suddenly put out his tongue at me in derision, I could not have
  felt more humiliated. I thought to myself--Serve me right for a sneaking
  humbug. . . . His eyes shone straight into my face, but I perceived
  it was not a mocking brightness. All at once he sprang into jerky
  agitation, like one of those flat wooden figures that are worked by a
  string. His arms went up, then came down with a slap. He became another
  man altogether. "And I had never seen," he shouted; then suddenly bit
  his lip and frowned. "What a bally ass I've been," he said very slow
  in an awed tone. . . . "You are a brick!" he cried next in a muffled
  voice. He snatched my hand as though he had just then seen it for the
  first time, and dropped it at once. "Why! this is what I--you--I . . ."
  he stammered, and then with a return of his old stolid, I may say
  mulish, manner he began heavily, "I would be a brute now if I . . ." and
  then his voice seemed to break. "That's all right," I said. I was almost
  alarmed by this display of feeling, through which pierced a strange
  elation. I had pulled the string accidentally, as it were; I did not
  fully understand the working of the toy. "I must go now," he said.
  "Jove! You _have_ helped me. Can't sit still. The very thing . . ." He
  looked at me with puzzled admiration. "The very thing . . ."
  
  'Of course it was the thing. It was ten to one that I had saved him from
  starvation--of that peculiar sort that is almost invariably associated
  with drink. This was all. I had not a single illusion on that score, but
  looking at him, I allowed myself to wonder at the nature of the one he
  had, within the last three minutes, so evidently taken into his bosom.
  I had forced into his hand the means to carry on decently the serious
  business of life, to get food, drink, and shelter of the customary kind
  while his wounded spirit, like a bird with a broken wing, might hop and
  flutter into some hole to die quietly of inanition there. This is what
  I had thrust upon him: a definitely small thing; and--behold!--by the
  manner of its reception it loomed in the dim light of the candle like
  a big, indistinct, perhaps a dangerous shadow. "You don't mind me not
  saying anything appropriate," he burst out. "There isn't anything one
  could say. Last night already you had done me no end of good. Listening
  to me--you know. I give you my word I've thought more than once the top
  of my head would fly off. . ." He darted--positively darted--here and
  there, rammed his hands into his pockets, jerked them out again, flung
  his cap on his head. I had no idea it was in him to be so airily
  brisk. I thought of a dry leaf imprisoned in an eddy of wind, while a
  mysterious apprehension, a load of indefinite doubt, weighed me down in
  my chair. He stood stock-still, as if struck motionless by a discovery.
  "You have given me confidence," he declared, soberly. "Oh! for God's
  sake, my dear fellow--don't!" I entreated, as though he had hurt me.
  "All right. I'll shut up now and henceforth. Can't prevent me thinking
  though. . . . Never mind! . . . I'll show yet . . ." He went to the
  door in a hurry, paused with his head down, and came back, stepping
  deliberately. "I always thought that if a fellow could begin with a
  clean slate . . . And now you . . . in a measure . . . yes . . . clean
  slate." I waved my hand, and he marched out without looking back; the
  sound of his footfalls died out gradually behind the closed door--the
  unhesitating tread of a man walking in broad daylight.
  
  'But as to me, left alone with the solitary candle, I remained strangely
  unenlightened. I was no longer young enough to behold at every turn
  the magnificence that besets our insignificant footsteps in good and in
  evil. I smiled to think that, after all, it was yet he, of us two, who
  had the light. And I felt sad. A clean slate, did he say? As if the
  initial word of each our destiny were not graven in imperishable
  characters upon the face of a rock.'
feat_summary_name: Chapters 15-17
target: Marlow finally found Jim gazing emptily off the quay, and he told him to come to his room. Jim followed him, seemingly still in a daze. Marlow led him into his bedroom and began writing letters immediately, so that Jim could feel that he was not totally alone, but that he was sufficiently alone so that he could confront his unhappiness and despair during this darkest moment of his life. Marlow tells us that throughout that afternoon and into the evening, he, Marlow, filled sheet after sheet of fresh paper, stopping only momentarily to notice Jim's convulsive shoulders and his struggling for breath as he stood rooted in front of a glass door. Then, suddenly, Jim opened the glass door and lurched onto the upstairs verandah, as if to throw himself off. Marlow noted his straight, resolute outline. Symbolically, it seemed as though Jim were alone, abandoned on the brink of a dark and hopeless ocean. What would have happened if Marlow had offered Jim the job as Chester's overseer? He felt, at that moment, that he had saved Jim from what would probably have been a living death on the Guano Island. But, at the same time, Marlow felt that "to bury him would have been such an easy kindness." What had he saved Jim for? Marlow was aware of a sense of deep responsibility for Jim, a sense of kinship and responsibility that he could no longer ignore. Marlow breaks the suspense and tells us that eventually Jim became "loved, trusted, admired." He became a "legend of strength and prowess . . . the stuff of a hero." In short, Marlow says, Jim "captured much honour," meaning that Jim became a hero in the eyes of himself and others. This is what Jim desired so desperately and what he thought was denied to him because of his actions aboard the Patna. Jim's future, then, was not as black as he believed it was; eventually, he would perform an act of bravery that would balance and cancel out the enormous guilt that he had carried after jumping from the Patna and leaving 800 Moslems to what he believed was certain death. At that moment, a violent tropical rainstorm suddenly ruptured the stillness, and Jim stepped back into the room. At last, he seemed ready to talk. Desperately, he said that a person was "bound to come upon some sort of a chance to get it all back -- must!" He was determined to convince himself that he would someday have a chance to redeem himself in his own eyes, a chance to do something that would erase the blot of guilt on his character. Marlow tried to force Jim to talk about the future -- how he planned to earn money, and how he planned to pay for food and lodging. But Jim refused to talk about practical matters. "That isn't the thing," he said, and he added that it was useless for Marlow to try and convince him to accept the back pay that was still due him from the Patna. Marlow found Jim's torturous soul-searching to be blindly melodramatic; he couldn't understand why Jim seemed determined to dwell on "some deep idea." He sensed intuitively that he himself could probably never heal the agony in Jim's "wounded spirit." Nevertheless, Marlow told Jim that he had written a letter of recommendation to a man who would give Jim a second chance. He stressed that he, Marlow, had faith in Jim's goodness and promise even if Jim did not; he was making himself "unreservedly responsible" for Jim. After awhile, the rain stopped and Jim leapt up. "It is noble of you!" he shouted. Marlow was so stunned that he wondered if Jim were mocking him. Jim seemed madly exhilarated. But the young man was not mocking Marlow's offer. His eyes were bright, and his voice was a stammer of half-sentences. He was agitated and seemingly wild with newfound confidence. "You have given me a clean slate," he announced to Marlow.
feat_summary_analysis: After showing Jim at his lowest point in the preceding chapter, Marlow tells us that he lived to see Jim "loved, trusted, admired, with a legend of strength and prowess forming round his name as though he had been the stuff of a hero." It is as though Marlow is telling us to wait -- because his evaluation of Jim is correct. That is, Jim is indeed one of us. He also lets us know that had he not interceded between Chester and Jim, then he would never have seen Jim again because he learns later that the men on Chester's guano enterprise disappeared. And yet, Chester, and all that pertains to him, is important because it shows Marlow's development. Marlow still feels that Jim is concerned not so much with his guilt as he is with the humiliating and treacherous "Jump" and its shameful consequences. Jim is seen here writhing in the agonies of romantic melancholy with his "refined sensibilities and his fine feelings, fine longings -- a sort of sublimated, idealized selfishness"; that is, Jim is too "fine a fellow" to throw over to Chester and his kind. These descriptions of Jim prepare us for Stein's firm statement that Jim is a romantic. And certainly in the romantic tradition, Jim's raging emotions within are symbolically reflected in the raging storm outside. Throughout these scenes, Marlow watches Jim writhe and squirm in agony like one of Stein's impaled beetles, but then Marlow is also impaled on the sharp point of his own new affection for Jim and the sense of his responsibility for Jim. Since the trial is now over, Marlow turns to practical matters , and when Marlow volunteers to help, Jim responds by saying, "You can't." Of course, Marlow meant "help with practical matters," but Jim means help in an entirely different sense -- in assuaging his feelings of disgrace and guilt. Thus, when Marlow tells Jim that he is writing to a man in Jim's behalf, Jim's appreciation is immense -- mainly because he now realizes that there is someone who still cares for him, or believes in him, a fact which gives Jim a new confidence in himself. Jim's soaring gratitude and unbounded delight as Marlow unfolds his plan indicate a relief and a deliverance from an alternative so forbidding as to suggest nothing short of death itself.