feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/Lord Jim/section_28_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapter 29
feat_summary_id: chapter 29
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 29", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-29", "summary": "It's time for Marlow to take a breather. He considers Jim's situation on Patusan and expresses some concerns. Marlow notes that Jewel and Tamb' Itam both seem protective of Jim, and he notices that Cornelius seems to be skulking around a lot. As it turns out, Jim goes to stay with Cornelius after he leaves Doramins, which is a bit of a problem because Cornelius hates Jim. And no wonder - Stein sent Jim to take over Cornelius's job. Soon after he moves into Cornelius's, Jim learns that the Rajah is planning to assassinate him. Danger: rough waters ahead.", "analysis": ""}
text: 'This was the theory of Jim's marital evening walks. I made a third on
  more than one occasion, unpleasantly aware every time of Cornelius,
  who nursed the aggrieved sense of his legal paternity, slinking in
  the neighbourhood with that peculiar twist of his mouth as if he were
  perpetually on the point of gnashing his teeth. But do you notice how,
  three hundred miles beyond the end of telegraph cables and mail-boat
  lines, the haggard utilitarian lies of our civilisation wither and die,
  to be replaced by pure exercises of imagination, that have the futility,
  often the charm, and sometimes the deep hidden truthfulness, of works of
  art? Romance had singled Jim for its own--and that was the true part of
  the story, which otherwise was all wrong. He did not hide his jewel. In
  fact, he was extremely proud of it.
  
  'It comes to me now that I had, on the whole, seen very little of her.
  What I remember best is the even, olive pallor of her complexion, and
  the intense blue-black gleams of her hair, flowing abundantly from under
  a small crimson cap she wore far back on her shapely head. Her movements
  were free, assured, and she blushed a dusky red. While Jim and I were
  talking, she would come and go with rapid glances at us, leaving on her
  passage an impression of grace and charm and a distinct suggestion of
  watchfulness. Her manner presented a curious combination of shyness and
  audacity. Every pretty smile was succeeded swiftly by a look of silent,
  repressed anxiety, as if put to flight by the recollection of some
  abiding danger. At times she would sit down with us and, with her soft
  cheek dimpled by the knuckles of her little hand, she would listen
  to our talk; her big clear eyes would remain fastened on our lips, as
  though each pronounced word had a visible shape. Her mother had taught
  her to read and write; she had learned a good bit of English from
  Jim, and she spoke it most amusingly, with his own clipping, boyish
  intonation. Her tenderness hovered over him like a flutter of wings. She
  lived so completely in his contemplation that she had acquired something
  of his outward aspect, something that recalled him in her movements, in
  the way she stretched her arm, turned her head, directed her glances.
  Her vigilant affection had an intensity that made it almost perceptible
  to the senses; it seemed actually to exist in the ambient matter
  of space, to envelop him like a peculiar fragrance, to dwell in the
  sunshine like a tremulous, subdued, and impassioned note. I suppose you
  think that I too am romantic, but it is a mistake. I am relating to you
  the sober impressions of a bit of youth, of a strange uneasy romance
  that had come in my way. I observed with interest the work of
  his--well--good fortune. He was jealously loved, but why she should
  be jealous, and of what, I could not tell. The land, the people, the
  forests were her accomplices, guarding him with vigilant accord, with
  an air of seclusion, of mystery, of invincible possession. There was
  no appeal, as it were; he was imprisoned within the very freedom of his
  power, and she, though ready to make a footstool of her head for his
  feet, guarded her conquest inflexibly--as though he were hard to keep.
  The very Tamb' Itam, marching on our journeys upon the heels of his
  white lord, with his head thrown back, truculent and be-weaponed like a
  janissary, with kriss, chopper, and lance (besides carrying Jim's gun);
  even Tamb' Itam allowed himself to put on the airs of uncompromising
  guardianship, like a surly devoted jailer ready to lay down his life for
  his captive. On the evenings when we sat up late, his silent, indistinct
  form would pass and repass under the verandah, with noiseless footsteps,
  or lifting my head I would unexpectedly make him out standing rigidly
  erect in the shadow. As a general rule he would vanish after a time,
  without a sound; but when we rose he would spring up close to us as if
  from the ground, ready for any orders Jim might wish to give. The girl
  too, I believe, never went to sleep till we had separated for the night.
  More than once I saw her and Jim through the window of my room come out
  together quietly and lean on the rough balustrade--two white forms very
  close, his arm about her waist, her head on his shoulder. Their soft
  murmurs reached me, penetrating, tender, with a calm sad note in the
  stillness of the night, like a self-communion of one being carried on
  in two tones. Later on, tossing on my bed under the mosquito-net, I
  was sure to hear slight creakings, faint breathing, a throat cleared
  cautiously--and I would know that Tamb' Itam was still on the prowl.
  Though he had (by the favour of the white lord) a house in the compound,
  had "taken wife," and had lately been blessed with a child, I believe
  that, during my stay at all events, he slept on the verandah every
  night. It was very difficult to make this faithful and grim retainer
  talk. Even Jim himself was answered in jerky short sentences, under
  protest as it were. Talking, he seemed to imply, was no business of his.
  The longest speech I heard him volunteer was one morning when, suddenly
  extending his hand towards the courtyard, he pointed at Cornelius and
  said, "Here comes the Nazarene." I don't think he was addressing me,
  though I stood at his side; his object seemed rather to awaken the
  indignant attention of the universe. Some muttered allusions, which
  followed, to dogs and the smell of roast-meat, struck me as singularly
  felicitous. The courtyard, a large square space, was one torrid blaze of
  sunshine, and, bathed in intense light, Cornelius was creeping across
  in full view with an inexpressible effect of stealthiness, of dark and
  secret slinking. He reminded one of everything that is unsavoury. His
  slow laborious walk resembled the creeping of a repulsive beetle, the
  legs alone moving with horrid industry while the body glided evenly. I
  suppose he made straight enough for the place where he wanted to get to,
  but his progress with one shoulder carried forward seemed oblique. He
  was often seen circling slowly amongst the sheds, as if following
  a scent; passing before the verandah with upward stealthy glances;
  disappearing without haste round the corner of some hut. That he seemed
  free of the place demonstrated Jim's absurd carelessness or else his
  infinite disdain, for Cornelius had played a very dubious part (to say
  the least of it) in a certain episode which might have ended fatally for
  Jim. As a matter of fact, it had redounded to his glory. But everything
  redounded to his glory; and it was the irony of his good fortune that
  he, who had been too careful of it once, seemed to bear a charmed life.
  
  'You must know he had left Doramin's place very soon after his
  arrival--much too soon, in fact, for his safety, and of course a long
  time before the war. In this he was actuated by a sense of duty; he had
  to look after Stein's business, he said. Hadn't he? To that end, with an
  utter disregard of his personal safety, he crossed the river and took up
  his quarters with Cornelius. How the latter had managed to exist through
  the troubled times I can't say. As Stein's agent, after all, he must
  have had Doramin's protection in a measure; and in one way or another
  he had managed to wriggle through all the deadly complications, while I
  have no doubt that his conduct, whatever line he was forced to take, was
  marked by that abjectness which was like the stamp of the man. That was
  his characteristic; he was fundamentally and outwardly abject, as other
  men are markedly of a generous, distinguished, or venerable appearance.
  It was the element of his nature which permeated all his acts and
  passions and emotions; he raged abjectly, smiled abjectly, was abjectly
  sad; his civilities and his indignations were alike abject. I am sure
  his love would have been the most abject of sentiments--but can one
  imagine a loathsome insect in love? And his loathsomeness, too, was
  abject, so that a simply disgusting person would have appeared noble
  by his side. He has his place neither in the background nor in the
  foreground of the story; he is simply seen skulking on its outskirts,
  enigmatical and unclean, tainting the fragrance of its youth and of its
  naiveness.
  
  'His position in any case could not have been other than extremely
  miserable, yet it may very well be that he found some advantages in it.
  Jim told me he had been received at first with an abject display of
  the most amicable sentiments. "The fellow apparently couldn't contain
  himself for joy," said Jim with disgust. "He flew at me every morning to
  shake both my hands--confound him!--but I could never tell whether there
  would be any breakfast. If I got three meals in two days I considered
  myself jolly lucky, and he made me sign a chit for ten dollars every
  week. Said he was sure Mr. Stein did not mean him to keep me for
  nothing. Well--he kept me on nothing as near as possible. Put it down to
  the unsettled state of the country, and made as if to tear his hair out,
  begging my pardon twenty times a day, so that I had at last to entreat
  him not to worry. It made me sick. Half the roof of his house had
  fallen in, and the whole place had a mangy look, with wisps of dry grass
  sticking out and the corners of broken mats flapping on every wall. He
  did his best to make out that Mr. Stein owed him money on the last three
  years' trading, but his books were all torn, and some were missing. He
  tried to hint it was his late wife's fault. Disgusting scoundrel! At
  last I had to forbid him to mention his late wife at all. It made Jewel
  cry. I couldn't discover what became of all the trade-goods; there was
  nothing in the store but rats, having a high old time amongst a litter
  of brown paper and old sacking. I was assured on every hand that he had
  a lot of money buried somewhere, but of course could get nothing out of
  him. It was the most miserable existence I led there in that wretched
  house. I tried to do my duty by Stein, but I had also other matters to
  think of. When I escaped to Doramin old Tunku Allang got frightened and
  returned all my things. It was done in a roundabout way, and with no end
  of mystery, through a Chinaman who keeps a small shop here; but as soon
  as I left the Bugis quarter and went to live with Cornelius it began
  to be said openly that the Rajah had made up his mind to have me killed
  before long. Pleasant, wasn't it? And I couldn't see what there was to
  prevent him if he really _had_ made up his mind. The worst of it was,
  I couldn't help feeling I wasn't doing any good either for Stein or for
  myself. Oh! it was beastly--the whole six weeks of it."'
feat_summary_name: Chapter 29
target: It's time for Marlow to take a breather. He considers Jim's situation on Patusan and expresses some concerns. Marlow notes that Jewel and Tamb' Itam both seem protective of Jim, and he notices that Cornelius seems to be skulking around a lot. As it turns out, Jim goes to stay with Cornelius after he leaves Doramins, which is a bit of a problem because Cornelius hates Jim. And no wonder - Stein sent Jim to take over Cornelius's job. Soon after he moves into Cornelius's, Jim learns that the Rajah is planning to assassinate him. Danger: rough waters ahead.