feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Lord Jim/section_30_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapter 31
feat_summary_id: chapter 31
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 31", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim40.asp", "summary": "Marlow continues his narrative about Jim, returning to the day that Jim went to visit Doramin and told him about his plans for routing Sherif Ali. On the way, Jim saw Sherif Ali's men strutting through the market place and boasting of their master's friendship with Tungku Allang. It appeared that they were planning to join hands against the Bugis, who were terrified about what might happen to them. Jim felt relieved that he was going to beat them to the battle and knew that he could convince the Bugis to come to his assistance. He spent a large portion of the day telling Doramin of his plans and gaining the Bugis' agreement. When Jim returned to Cornelius' house in the evening, he was feeling almost lightheaded. He had been successful in convincing Doramin of his plan and now he knew its success depended totally upon him. He felt sure he would not fail. During the night Jim was awakened by Jewel. She gave him his gun and told him about four of Sherif Ali's men who were waiting to kill him. At first Jim was irritated, feeling this was another false alarm; he was also irritated at Jewel for being so nervous. Jewel, however, was insistent. She led him to an empty store building. At first Jim saw nothing. Then he noticed a pair of glowing eyes coming towards him. A half-dressed native held out a knife to attack Jim, who waited until the appropriate moment to fire his gun. His shot was perfect, and the native fell dead. Jim felt calm, but was proud of his bravery.", "analysis": "Notes This chapter brings out Jim's courage, as well as helplessness. He has the courage to fight danger without \"jumping ship,\" but he is helplessly caught in the love affair with Jewel. She is devoted to him, guarding his life through the night. Her faithfulness, almost a reversal of the theme of white supremacy, sways Jim. He is overpowered by her, just as he is overpowered by Patusan. One night Jewel wakes him and warns him about a plot to kill him. Jim takes up a gun and protects himself, killing one man. Jim's faith in himself is renewed and he shouts, \"Nothing can touch me.\" Jim is beginning to overcome some of his guilt and shame; at the same time, he is beginning to succumb to white supremacy, considering himself superior to others and foreshadowing that he cannot forever remain Tuan Jim."}
text: 
  'You may imagine with what interest I listened. All these details were
  perceived to have some significance twenty-four hours later. In the
  morning Cornelius made no allusion to the events of the night. "I
  suppose you will come back to my poor house," he muttered, surlily,
  slinking up just as Jim was entering the canoe to go over to Doramin's
  campong. Jim only nodded, without looking at him. "You find it good fun,
  no doubt," muttered the other in a sour tone. Jim spent the day with the
  old nakhoda, preaching the necessity of vigorous action to the principal
  men of the Bugis community, who had been summoned for a big talk. He
  remembered with pleasure how very eloquent and persuasive he had been.
  "I managed to put some backbone into them that time, and no mistake," he
  said. Sherif Ali's last raid had swept the outskirts of the settlement,
  and some women belonging to the town had been carried off to the
  stockade. Sherif Ali's emissaries had been seen in the market-place the
  day before, strutting about haughtily in white cloaks, and boasting of
  the Rajah's friendship for their master. One of them stood forward
  in the shade of a tree, and, leaning on the long barrel of a rifle,
  exhorted the people to prayer and repentance, advising them to kill all
  the strangers in their midst, some of whom, he said, were infidels and
  others even worse--children of Satan in the guise of Moslems. It was
  reported that several of the Rajah's people amongst the listeners had
  loudly expressed their approbation. The terror amongst the common people
  was intense. Jim, immensely pleased with his day's work, crossed the
  river again before sunset.
  
  'As he had got the Bugis irretrievably committed to action and had made
  himself responsible for success on his own head, he was so elated that
  in the lightness of his heart he absolutely tried to be civil with
  Cornelius. But Cornelius became wildly jovial in response, and it was
  almost more than he could stand, he says, to hear his little squeaks of
  false laughter, to see him wriggle and blink, and suddenly catch hold of
  his chin and crouch low over the table with a distracted stare. The
  girl did not show herself, and Jim retired early. When he rose to say
  good-night, Cornelius jumped up, knocking his chair over, and ducked out
  of sight as if to pick up something he had dropped. His good-night came
  huskily from under the table. Jim was amazed to see him emerge with a
  dropping jaw, and staring, stupidly frightened eyes. He clutched the
  edge of the table. "What's the matter? Are you unwell?" asked Jim. "Yes,
  yes, yes. A great colic in my stomach," says the other; and it is
  Jim's opinion that it was perfectly true. If so, it was, in view of his
  contemplated action, an abject sign of a still imperfect callousness for
  which he must be given all due credit.
  
  'Be it as it may, Jim's slumbers were disturbed by a dream of heavens
  like brass resounding with a great voice, which called upon him to
  Awake! Awake! so loud that, notwithstanding his desperate determination
  to sleep on, he did wake up in reality. The glare of a red spluttering
  conflagration going on in mid-air fell on his eyes. Coils of black thick
  smoke curved round the head of some apparition, some unearthly being,
  all in white, with a severe, drawn, anxious face. After a second or so
  he recognised the girl. She was holding a dammar torch at arm's-length
  aloft, and in a persistent, urgent monotone she was repeating, "Get up!
  Get up! Get up!"
  
  'Suddenly he leaped to his feet; at once she put into his hand a
  revolver, his own revolver, which had been hanging on a nail, but loaded
  this time. He gripped it in silence, bewildered, blinking in the light.
  He wondered what he could do for her.
  
  'She asked rapidly and very low, "Can you face four men with this?"
  He laughed while narrating this part at the recollection of his polite
  alacrity. It seems he made a great display of it. "Certainly--of
  course--certainly--command me." He was not properly awake, and had a
  notion of being very civil in these extraordinary circumstances, of
  showing his unquestioning, devoted readiness. She left the room, and
  he followed her; in the passage they disturbed an old hag who did the
  casual cooking of the household, though she was so decrepit as to be
  hardly able to understand human speech. She got up and hobbled behind
  them, mumbling toothlessly. On the verandah a hammock of sail-cloth,
  belonging to Cornelius, swayed lightly to the touch of Jim's elbow. It
  was empty.
  
  'The Patusan establishment, like all the posts of Stein's Trading
  Company, had originally consisted of four buildings. Two of them were
  represented by two heaps of sticks, broken bamboos, rotten thatch,
  over which the four corner-posts of hardwood leaned sadly at different
  angles: the principal storeroom, however, stood yet, facing the agent's
  house. It was an oblong hut, built of mud and clay; it had at one end a
  wide door of stout planking, which so far had not come off the hinges,
  and in one of the side walls there was a square aperture, a sort of
  window, with three wooden bars. Before descending the few steps the girl
  turned her face over her shoulder and said quickly, "You were to be set
  upon while you slept." Jim tells me he experienced a sense of deception.
  It was the old story. He was weary of these attempts upon his life. He
  had had his fill of these alarms. He was sick of them. He assured me he
  was angry with the girl for deceiving him. He had followed her under the
  impression that it was she who wanted his help, and now he had half
  a mind to turn on his heel and go back in disgust. "Do you know," he
  commented profoundly, "I rather think I was not quite myself for whole
  weeks on end about that time." "Oh yes. You were though," I couldn't
  help contradicting.
  
  'But she moved on swiftly, and he followed her into the courtyard. All
  its fences had fallen in a long time ago; the neighbours' buffaloes
  would pace in the morning across the open space, snorting profoundly,
  without haste; the very jungle was invading it already. Jim and the girl
  stopped in the rank grass. The light in which they stood made a dense
  blackness all round, and only above their heads there was an opulent
  glitter of stars. He told me it was a beautiful night--quite cool, with
  a little stir of breeze from the river. It seems he noticed its friendly
  beauty. Remember this is a love story I am telling you now. A lovely
  night seemed to breathe on them a soft caress. The flame of the torch
  streamed now and then with a fluttering noise like a flag, and for
  a time this was the only sound. "They are in the storeroom waiting,"
  whispered the girl; "they are waiting for the signal." "Who's to give
  it?" he asked. She shook the torch, which blazed up after a shower of
  sparks. "Only you have been sleeping so restlessly," she continued in
  a murmur; "I watched your sleep, too." "You!" he exclaimed, craning his
  neck to look about him. "You think I watched on this night only!" she
  said, with a sort of despairing indignation.
  
  'He says it was as if he had received a blow on the chest. He gasped.
  He thought he had been an awful brute somehow, and he felt remorseful,
  touched, happy, elated. This, let me remind you again, is a love story;
  you can see it by the imbecility, not a repulsive imbecility, the
  exalted imbecility of these proceedings, this station in torchlight, as
  if they had come there on purpose to have it out for the edification of
  concealed murderers. If Sherif Ali's emissaries had been possessed--as
  Jim remarked--of a pennyworth of spunk, this was the time to make a
  rush. His heart was thumping--not with fear--but he seemed to hear the
  grass rustle, and he stepped smartly out of the light. Something dark,
  imperfectly seen, flitted rapidly out of sight. He called out in a
  strong voice, "Cornelius! O Cornelius!" A profound silence succeeded:
  his voice did not seem to have carried twenty feet. Again the girl was
  by his side. "Fly!" she said. The old woman was coming up; her broken
  figure hovered in crippled little jumps on the edge of the light; they
  heard her mumbling, and a light, moaning sigh. "Fly!" repeated the girl
  excitedly. "They are frightened now--this light--the voices. They know
  you are awake now--they know you are big, strong, fearless . . ." "If
  I am all that," he began; but she interrupted him: "Yes--to-night! But
  what of to-morrow night? Of the next night? Of the night after--of all
  the many, many nights? Can I be always watching?" A sobbing catch of her
  breath affected him beyond the power of words.
  
  'He told me that he had never felt so small, so powerless--and as to
  courage, what was the good of it? he thought. He was so helpless that
  even flight seemed of no use; and though she kept on whispering, "Go to
  Doramin, go to Doramin," with feverish insistence, he realised that for
  him there was no refuge from that loneliness which centupled all his
  dangers except--in her. "I thought," he said to me, "that if I went
  away from her it would be the end of everything somehow." Only as they
  couldn't stop there for ever in the middle of that courtyard, he made
  up his mind to go and look into the storehouse. He let her follow
  him without thinking of any protest, as if they had been indissolubly
  united. "I am fearless--am I?" he muttered through his teeth. She
  restrained his arm. "Wait till you hear my voice," she said, and,
  torch in hand, ran lightly round the corner. He remained alone in the
  darkness, his face to the door: not a sound, not a breath came from
  the other side. The old hag let out a dreary groan somewhere behind his
  back. He heard a high-pitched almost screaming call from the girl. "Now!
  Push!" He pushed violently; the door swung with a creak and a clatter,
  disclosing to his intense astonishment the low dungeon-like interior
  illuminated by a lurid, wavering glare. A turmoil of smoke eddied down
  upon an empty wooden crate in the middle of the floor, a litter of rags
  and straw tried to soar, but only stirred feebly in the draught. She had
  thrust the light through the bars of the window. He saw her bare round
  arm extended and rigid, holding up the torch with the steadiness of
  an iron bracket. A conical ragged heap of old mats cumbered a distant
  corner almost to the ceiling, and that was all.
  
  'He explained to me that he was bitterly disappointed at this. His
  fortitude had been tried by so many warnings, he had been for weeks
  surrounded by so many hints of danger, that he wanted the relief of
  some reality, of something tangible that he could meet. "It would have
  cleared the air for a couple of hours at least, if you know what I
  mean," he said to me. "Jove! I had been living for days with a stone on
  my chest." Now at last he had thought he would get hold of something,
  and--nothing! Not a trace, not a sign of anybody. He had raised his
  weapon as the door flew open, but now his arm fell. "Fire! Defend
  yourself," the girl outside cried in an agonising voice. She, being in
  the dark and with her arm thrust in to the shoulder through the small
  hole, couldn't see what was going on, and she dared not withdraw
  the torch now to run round. "There's nobody here!" yelled Jim
  contemptuously, but his impulse to burst into a resentful exasperated
  laugh died without a sound: he had perceived in the very act of turning
  away that he was exchanging glances with a pair of eyes in the heap of
  mats. He saw a shifting gleam of whites. "Come out!" he cried in a fury,
  a little doubtful, and a dark-faced head, a head without a body, shaped
  itself in the rubbish, a strangely detached head, that looked at him
  with a steady scowl. Next moment the whole mound stirred, and with a
  low grunt a man emerged swiftly, and bounded towards Jim. Behind him the
  mats as it were jumped and flew, his right arm was raised with a crooked
  elbow, and the dull blade of a kriss protruded from his fist held off,
  a little above his head. A cloth wound tight round his loins seemed
  dazzlingly white on his bronze skin; his naked body glistened as if wet.
  
  'Jim noted all this. He told me he was experiencing a feeling of
  unutterable relief, of vengeful elation. He held his shot, he says,
  deliberately. He held it for the tenth part of a second, for three
  strides of the man--an unconscionable time. He held it for the pleasure
  of saying to himself, That's a dead man! He was absolutely positive
  and certain. He let him come on because it did not matter. A dead man,
  anyhow. He noticed the dilated nostrils, the wide eyes, the intent,
  eager stillness of the face, and then he fired.
  
  'The explosion in that confined space was stunning. He stepped back a
  pace. He saw the man jerk his head up, fling his arms forward, and drop
  the kriss. He ascertained afterwards that he had shot him through the
  mouth, a little upwards, the bullet coming out high at the back of the
  skull. With the impetus of his rush the man drove straight on, his face
  suddenly gaping disfigured, with his hands open before him gropingly, as
  though blinded, and landed with terrific violence on his forehead, just
  short of Jim's bare toes. Jim says he didn't lose the smallest detail
  of all this. He found himself calm, appeased, without rancour, without
  uneasiness, as if the death of that man had atoned for everything. The
  place was getting very full of sooty smoke from the torch, in which
  the unswaying flame burned blood-red without a flicker. He walked in
  resolutely, striding over the dead body, and covered with his revolver
  another naked figure outlined vaguely at the other end. As he was about
  to pull the trigger, the man threw away with force a short heavy spear,
  and squatted submissively on his hams, his back to the wall and his
  clasped hands between his legs. "You want your life?" Jim said. The
  other made no sound. "How many more of you?" asked Jim again. "Two more,
  Tuan," said the man very softly, looking with big fascinated eyes into
  the muzzle of the revolver. Accordingly two more crawled from under the
  mats, holding out ostentatiously their empty hands.'
feat_summary_name: Chapter 31
target: Marlow continues his narrative about Jim, returning to the day that Jim went to visit Doramin and told him about his plans for routing Sherif Ali. On the way, Jim saw Sherif Ali's men strutting through the market place and boasting of their master's friendship with Tungku Allang. It appeared that they were planning to join hands against the Bugis, who were terrified about what might happen to them. Jim felt relieved that he was going to beat them to the battle and knew that he could convince the Bugis to come to his assistance. He spent a large portion of the day telling Doramin of his plans and gaining the Bugis' agreement. When Jim returned to Cornelius' house in the evening, he was feeling almost lightheaded. He had been successful in convincing Doramin of his plan and now he knew its success depended totally upon him. He felt sure he would not fail. During the night Jim was awakened by Jewel. She gave him his gun and told him about four of Sherif Ali's men who were waiting to kill him. At first Jim was irritated, feeling this was another false alarm; he was also irritated at Jewel for being so nervous. Jewel, however, was insistent. She led him to an empty store building. At first Jim saw nothing. Then he noticed a pair of glowing eyes coming towards him. A half-dressed native held out a knife to attack Jim, who waited until the appropriate moment to fire his gun. His shot was perfect, and the native fell dead. Jim felt calm, but was proud of his bravery.
feat_summary_analysis: Notes This chapter brings out Jim's courage, as well as helplessness. He has the courage to fight danger without "jumping ship," but he is helplessly caught in the love affair with Jewel. She is devoted to him, guarding his life through the night. Her faithfulness, almost a reversal of the theme of white supremacy, sways Jim. He is overpowered by her, just as he is overpowered by Patusan. One night Jewel wakes him and warns him about a plot to kill him. Jim takes up a gun and protects himself, killing one man. Jim's faith in himself is renewed and he shouts, "Nothing can touch me." Jim is beginning to overcome some of his guilt and shame; at the same time, he is beginning to succumb to white supremacy, considering himself superior to others and foreshadowing that he cannot forever remain Tuan Jim.