feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Lord Jim/section_18_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapters 28-30
feat_summary_id: chapters 28-30
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapters 28-30", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapters-2830", "summary": "After Sherif Ali was routed, there was no further trouble from Rajah Allang. He immediately flung himself face down on his bamboo floor and moaned in fear for hours on end. Meanwhile, Jim conferred with Dain Waris, and they appointed new head -- men for the villages; Jim had taken control of the area. Old Doramin took great pride in the peace that Jim brought to Patusan, and he dreamed of someday seeing his son, Dain Waris, as the ultimate ruler of Patusan. This was his secret ambition, his single most secret obsession, in fact, and he had unbounded confidence in Jim's role, regarding Dain Waris' fate. Marlow tried to assure Doramin and his wife that Jim would stay on in Patusan, but they could not believe that he would do so. They wanted to know why Jim would want to stay; no other white man had ever done so. Surely, said Doramin's wife, Jim had a home and kinsmen -- a mother, perhaps? Marlow was unsuccessful in trying to convince them of Jim's decision to stay at Patusan forever. Marlow then turns to the story of Jim's beloved Jewel, a young woman who is three-quarters white. Jewel had lived all her life at Patusan. Her stepfather was a white man, a Portuguese named Cornelius, and he was Jim's predecessor in the trading post. He was the most slinking, slimy, amoral man in the entire settlement. He was without any honor or character. Jim placed great value on Jewel; he married her in a native ceremony, and we hear how they walked \"side by side, openly, he holding her arm under his -- pressed to his side -- thus -- in a most extraordinary way.\" Cornelius was not happy that Jim had come to Patusan. He began to creep around, continually \"slinking in the neighbourhood with that peculiar twist of his mouth as if he were perpetually on the point of gnashing his teeth.\" To Cornelius, Jim had not come to merely take Patusan from him, but already he had begun to also take Jewel from him. Marlow says that what he remembers most clearly about Jewel was the \"even, olive pallor\" of her skin and the \"intense blue-black gleams of her hair.\" Also, she wore a small crimson cap far back on her head. She was a curious mixture of charm and shyness and audacity, and she was obviously devoted to Jim; \"her tenderness hovered over him like a flutter of wings.\" It seemed, Marlow says, as if she were always \"ready to make a footstool of her head for his feet.\" Cornelius' house was in a shambles when Jim came to live there. Half the roof had fallen in, and all of Stein's account books were torn, and there was nothing in the storehouse but rats. It was unpleasant, Jim said, and what made it worse was the fact that, during his first six weeks there, he kept hearing rumors that Rajah Allang planned to kill him, which of course, was very possible, for, as Jim said, \"I couldn't see what there was to prevent him if he really had made up his mind to have me killed.\" Jim tried to explain to Marlow why he had decided to remain at Patusan. Of course, he said, there was Jewel, and she was treated horribly by her stepfather. Cornelius would scream at her, curse her dead mother, and finally he would chase Jewel around the house, flinging mud at her. Such cruelty, Jim said, was \"a strange thing to come upon in a wilderness.\" Jim was finally so exasperated by Jewel's stepfather's behavior that he told her that he was willing to kill Cornelius. Then Jewel told him a curious thing: she herself could easily kill Cornelius \"with her own hands,\" but she knew how \"intensely wretched\" Cornelius was with himself. Lying on his back one night, on a thin mat, Jim saw an omen: \"a star suddenly twinkled through a hole in the roof.\" Instantly, Jim knew the real reason for his staying on at Patusan. He would rid Patusan of the evil Sherif Ali. Jim knew that he had to make solid plans for overcoming Sherif Ali in his hilltop stockade \"roost\" above Patusan. He would destroy this Arab \"who lurked above the town like a hawk above a chicken yard.\" Jim envisioned cannons mounted on the top of the hill opposite Sherif Ali's stockade. He became so excited and possessed by the idea that he told Jewel about it. She listened reverently to Jim, clapping her hands softly and whispering her admiration for his vision.", "analysis": "Even though Jim becomes the most respected person in Patusan, being called \"Tuan Jim,\" or Lord Jim, Doramin shows no sense of jealousy even though Doramin's most secret desire is to have his son Dain Waris become the chief ruler of Patusan. Part of Doramin's lack of jealousy, of course, stems from the fact that both he and his wife know that no white man has ever stayed in Patusan for longer than a few years, unless they were evil, vicious, spiteful, and cruel -- such as the wicked and unprincipled Cornelius. Jim, however, basking in the glory of his recent triumphs, cannot tell the people of Patusan that he is, in the eyes of the outside world, a disgrace who can never be accepted, and thus, he can never return to that society. In addition to Doramin's wife, then, who cannot believe that Jim has no mother, no one at all to return to, later Jewel, Jim's wife, will also have difficulty believing that Jim will not leave her someday. This brings Marlow to the subject of the romantic love that developed between Jim and Cornelius' stepdaughter. Their love, from the start, was imbued with \"a romantic conscience,\" and Jim even translated her Malay name into the English name \"Jewel,\" meaning any gem of precious quality. Not only was their marriage performed in the native style, but their union was highly successful. It was also highly unique because Jim and Jewel would walk publicly hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm; normally, a Malay woman was supposed to walk behind her lord and master and was considered to be inferior to her husband. Furthermore, we later learn that when Jim had to be away from the village, Jewel was placed in charge of valuable property, such as the ammunition room. Chapter 29 presents more of Jewel's background and reinforces what we have already been told about her total and complete devotion to Lord Jim -- a devotion that is equaled only by Tamb' Itam's loyalty to Jim. The depth of the devotion of these two people to Jim will later account for their inability to understand Jim's decision not to flee after the terrible tragedy at the end of the novel. In contrast to the purity and beauty of Jewel's and Tamb' Itam's characters is the vileness of Cornelius, Jewel's stepfather. \"His slow, laborious walk resembled the creeping of a repulsive beetle, the legs alone moving with horrid industry while the body glided evenly. . . .  loathsome, abject and disgusting\" that Marlow could not stand to even be around him. Conrad's graphic description of Cornelius prepares the reader for his vicious and cowardly behavior at the end of the novel. Chapter 30 continues to present Cornelius' atrocious behavior, especially his disgraceful treatment of Jewel. Yet, ironically, it is in the midst of the horror of Cornelius' presence that Jim suddenly conceives of a plan to free Patusan of the wicked Sherif Ali -- a plan which we have already seen was successful."}
text: 'The defeated Sherif Ali fled the country without making another stand,
  and when the miserable hunted villagers began to crawl out of the jungle
  back to their rotting houses, it was Jim who, in consultation with Dain
  Waris, appointed the headmen. Thus he became the virtual ruler of the
  land. As to old Tunku Allang, his fears at first had known no bounds. It
  is said that at the intelligence of the successful storming of the hill
  he flung himself, face down, on the bamboo floor of his audience-hall,
  and lay motionless for a whole night and a whole day, uttering stifled
  sounds of such an appalling nature that no man dared approach his
  prostrate form nearer than a spear's length. Already he could see
  himself driven ignominiously out of Patusan, wandering abandoned,
  stripped, without opium, without his women, without followers, a fair
  game for the first comer to kill. After Sherif Ali his turn would come,
  and who could resist an attack led by such a devil? And indeed he owed
  his life and such authority as he still possessed at the time of my
  visit to Jim's idea of what was fair alone. The Bugis had been extremely
  anxious to pay off old scores, and the impassive old Doramin cherished
  the hope of yet seeing his son ruler of Patusan. During one of our
  interviews he deliberately allowed me to get a glimpse of this secret
  ambition. Nothing could be finer in its way than the dignified wariness
  of his approaches. He himself--he began by declaring--had used his
  strength in his young days, but now he had grown old and tired. . . .
  With his imposing bulk and haughty little eyes darting sagacious,
  inquisitive glances, he reminded one irresistibly of a cunning old
  elephant; the slow rise and fall of his vast breast went on powerful and
  regular, like the heave of a calm sea. He too, as he protested, had an
  unbounded confidence in Tuan Jim's wisdom. If he could only obtain a
  promise! One word would be enough! . . . His breathing silences, the
  low rumblings of his voice, recalled the last efforts of a spent
  thunderstorm.
  
  'I tried to put the subject aside. It was difficult, for there could be
  no question that Jim had the power; in his new sphere there did not seem
  to be anything that was not his to hold or to give. But that, I repeat,
  was nothing in comparison with the notion, which occurred to me, while I
  listened with a show of attention, that he seemed to have come very near
  at last to mastering his fate. Doramin was anxious about the future of
  the country, and I was struck by the turn he gave to the argument. The
  land remains where God had put it; but white men--he said--they come to
  us and in a little while they go. They go away. Those they leave behind
  do not know when to look for their return. They go to their own land, to
  their people, and so this white man too would. . . . I don't know what
  induced me to commit myself at this point by a vigorous "No, no." The
  whole extent of this indiscretion became apparent when Doramin, turning
  full upon me his face, whose expression, fixed in rugged deep folds,
  remained unalterable, like a huge brown mask, said that this was good
  news indeed, reflectively; and then wanted to know why.
  
  'His little, motherly witch of a wife sat on my other hand, with
  her head covered and her feet tucked up, gazing through the great
  shutter-hole. I could only see a straying lock of grey hair, a high
  cheek-bone, the slight masticating motion of the sharp chin. Without
  removing her eyes from the vast prospect of forests stretching as far as
  the hills, she asked me in a pitying voice why was it that he so young
  had wandered from his home, coming so far, through so many dangers?
  Had he no household there, no kinsmen in his own country? Had he no old
  mother, who would always remember his face? . . .
  
  'I was completely unprepared for this. I could only mutter and shake my
  head vaguely. Afterwards I am perfectly aware I cut a very poor figure
  trying to extricate myself out of this difficulty. From that moment,
  however, the old nakhoda became taciturn. He was not very pleased, I
  fear, and evidently I had given him food for thought. Strangely enough,
  on the evening of that very day (which was my last in Patusan) I was
  once more confronted with the same question, with the unanswerable why
  of Jim's fate. And this brings me to the story of his love.
  
  'I suppose you think it is a story that you can imagine for yourselves.
  We have heard so many such stories, and the majority of us don't believe
  them to be stories of love at all. For the most part we look upon them
  as stories of opportunities: episodes of passion at best, or perhaps
  only of youth and temptation, doomed to forgetfulness in the end, even
  if they pass through the reality of tenderness and regret. This view
  mostly is right, and perhaps in this case too. . . . Yet I don't know.
  To tell this story is by no means so easy as it should be--were the
  ordinary standpoint adequate. Apparently it is a story very much like
  the others: for me, however, there is visible in its background the
  melancholy figure of a woman, the shadow of a cruel wisdom buried in a
  lonely grave, looking on wistfully, helplessly, with sealed lips. The
  grave itself, as I came upon it during an early morning stroll, was a
  rather shapeless brown mound, with an inlaid neat border of white lumps
  of coral at the base, and enclosed within a circular fence made of split
  saplings, with the bark left on. A garland of leaves and flowers was
  woven about the heads of the slender posts--and the flowers were fresh.
  
  'Thus, whether the shadow is of my imagination or not, I can at all
  events point out the significant fact of an unforgotten grave. When I
  tell you besides that Jim with his own hands had worked at the rustic
  fence, you will perceive directly the difference, the individual side of
  the story. There is in his espousal of memory and affection belonging to
  another human being something characteristic of his seriousness. He had
  a conscience, and it was a romantic conscience. Through her whole life
  the wife of the unspeakable Cornelius had no other companion, confidant,
  and friend but her daughter. How the poor woman had come to marry the
  awful little Malacca Portuguese--after the separation from the father
  of her girl--and how that separation had been brought about, whether by
  death, which can be sometimes merciful, or by the merciless pressure of
  conventions, is a mystery to me. From the little which Stein (who knew
  so many stories) had let drop in my hearing, I am convinced that she was
  no ordinary woman. Her own father had been a white; a high official;
  one of the brilliantly endowed men who are not dull enough to nurse a
  success, and whose careers so often end under a cloud. I suppose she too
  must have lacked the saving dullness--and her career ended in Patusan.
  Our common fate . . . for where is the man--I mean a real sentient
  man--who does not remember vaguely having been deserted in the fullness
  of possession by some one or something more precious than life? . . .
  our common fate fastens upon the women with a peculiar cruelty. It
  does not punish like a master, but inflicts lingering torment, as if to
  gratify a secret, unappeasable spite. One would think that, appointed
  to rule on earth, it seeks to revenge itself upon the beings that come
  nearest to rising above the trammels of earthly caution; for it is
  only women who manage to put at times into their love an element just
  palpable enough to give one a fright--an extra-terrestrial touch. I ask
  myself with wonder--how the world can look to them--whether it has the
  shape and substance _we_ know, the air _we_ breathe! Sometimes I fancy
  it must be a region of unreasonable sublimities seething with the
  excitement of their adventurous souls, lighted by the glory of all
  possible risks and renunciations. However, I suspect there are very few
  women in the world, though of course I am aware of the multitudes of
  mankind and of the equality of sexes--in point of numbers, that is. But
  I am sure that the mother was as much of a woman as the daughter seemed
  to be. I cannot help picturing to myself these two, at first the young
  woman and the child, then the old woman and the young girl, the awful
  sameness and the swift passage of time, the barrier of forest, the
  solitude and the turmoil round these two lonely lives, and every word
  spoken between them penetrated with sad meaning. There must have
  been confidences, not so much of fact, I suppose, as of innermost
  feelings--regrets--fears--warnings, no doubt: warnings that the younger
  did not fully understand till the elder was dead--and Jim came along.
  Then I am sure she understood much--not everything--the fear mostly, it
  seems. Jim called her by a word that means precious, in the sense of a
  precious gem--jewel. Pretty, isn't it? But he was capable of anything.
  He was equal to his fortune, as he--after all--must have been equal to
  his misfortune. Jewel he called her; and he would say this as he might
  have said "Jane," don't you know--with a marital, homelike, peaceful
  effect. I heard the name for the first time ten minutes after I had
  landed in his courtyard, when, after nearly shaking my arm off, he
  darted up the steps and began to make a joyous, boyish disturbance at
  the door under the heavy eaves. "Jewel! O Jewel! Quick! Here's a friend
  come," . . . and suddenly peering at me in the dim verandah, he mumbled
  earnestly, "You know--this--no confounded nonsense about it--can't tell
  you how much I owe to her--and so--you understand--I--exactly as
  if . . ." His hurried, anxious whispers were cut short by the flitting of
  a white form within the house, a faint exclamation, and a child-like but
  energetic little face with delicate features and a profound, attentive
  glance peeped out of the inner gloom, like a bird out of the recess of a
  nest. I was struck by the name, of course; but it was not till later
  on that I connected it with an astonishing rumour that had met me on my
  journey, at a little place on the coast about 230 miles south of Patusan
  River. Stein's schooner, in which I had my passage, put in there, to
  collect some produce, and, going ashore, I found to my great surprise
  that the wretched locality could boast of a third-class deputy-assistant
  resident, a big, fat, greasy, blinking fellow of mixed descent, with
  turned-out, shiny lips. I found him lying extended on his back in a cane
  chair, odiously unbuttoned, with a large green leaf of some sort on the
  top of his steaming head, and another in his hand which he used lazily
  as a fan . . . Going to Patusan? Oh yes. Stein's Trading Company. He
  knew. Had a permission? No business of his. It was not so bad there now,
  he remarked negligently, and, he went on drawling, "There's some sort of
  white vagabond has got in there, I hear. . . . Eh? What you say?
  Friend of yours? So! . . . Then it was true there was one of these
  verdammte--What was he up to? Found his way in, the rascal. Eh? I had
  not been sure. Patusan--they cut throats there--no business of ours." He
  interrupted himself to groan. "Phoo! Almighty! The heat! The heat! Well,
  then, there might be something in the story too, after all, and . . ."
  He shut one of his beastly glassy eyes (the eyelid went on quivering)
  while he leered at me atrociously with the other. "Look here," says
  he mysteriously, "if--do you understand?--if he has really got hold of
  something fairly good--none of your bits of green glass--understand?--I
  am a Government official--you tell the rascal . . . Eh? What? Friend of
  yours?" . . . He continued wallowing calmly in the chair . . . "You said
  so; that's just it; and I am pleased to give you the hint. I suppose
  you too would like to get something out of it? Don't interrupt. You
  just tell him I've heard the tale, but to my Government I have made no
  report. Not yet. See? Why make a report? Eh? Tell him to come to me if
  they let him get alive out of the country. He had better look out
  for himself. Eh? I promise to ask no questions. On the quiet--you
  understand? You too--you shall get something from me. Small commission
  for the trouble. Don't interrupt. I am a Government official, and make
  no report. That's business. Understand? I know some good people that
  will buy anything worth having, and can give him more money than
  the scoundrel ever saw in his life. I know his sort." He fixed me
  steadfastly with both his eyes open, while I stood over him utterly
  amazed, and asking myself whether he was mad or drunk. He perspired,
  puffed, moaning feebly, and scratching himself with such horrible
  composure that I could not bear the sight long enough to find out. Next
  day, talking casually with the people of the little native court of the
  place, I discovered that a story was travelling slowly down the
  coast about a mysterious white man in Patusan who had got hold of
  an extraordinary gem--namely, an emerald of an enormous size, and
  altogether priceless. The emerald seems to appeal more to the Eastern
  imagination than any other precious stone. The white man had obtained
  it, I was told, partly by the exercise of his wonderful strength and
  partly by cunning, from the ruler of a distant country, whence he had
  fled instantly, arriving in Patusan in utmost distress, but frightening
  the people by his extreme ferocity, which nothing seemed able to subdue.
  Most of my informants were of the opinion that the stone was probably
  unlucky,--like the famous stone of the Sultan of Succadana, which in
  the old times had brought wars and untold calamities upon that country.
  Perhaps it was the same stone--one couldn't say. Indeed the story of a
  fabulously large emerald is as old as the arrival of the first white men
  in the Archipelago; and the belief in it is so persistent that less than
  forty years ago there had been an official Dutch inquiry into the truth
  of it. Such a jewel--it was explained to me by the old fellow from whom
  I heard most of this amazing Jim-myth--a sort of scribe to the wretched
  little Rajah of the place;--such a jewel, he said, cocking his poor
  purblind eyes up at me (he was sitting on the cabin floor out of
  respect), is best preserved by being concealed about the person of a
  woman. Yet it is not every woman that would do. She must be young--he
  sighed deeply--and insensible to the seductions of love. He shook his
  head sceptically. But such a woman seemed to be actually in existence.
  He had been told of a tall girl, whom the white man treated with great
  respect and care, and who never went forth from the house unattended.
  People said the white man could be seen with her almost any day; they
  walked side by side, openly, he holding her arm under his--pressed to
  his side--thus--in a most extraordinary way. This might be a lie, he
  conceded, for it was indeed a strange thing for any one to do: on the
  other hand, there could be no doubt she wore the white man's jewel
  concealed upon her bosom.'
  '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."'
  'He told me further that he didn't know what made him hang on--but of
  course we may guess. He sympathised deeply with the defenceless girl, at
  the mercy of that "mean, cowardly scoundrel." It appears Cornelius led
  her an awful life, stopping only short of actual ill-usage, for which
  he had not the pluck, I suppose. He insisted upon her calling him
  father--"and with respect, too--with respect," he would scream, shaking
  a little yellow fist in her face. "I am a respectable man, and what are
  you? Tell me--what are you? You think I am going to bring up somebody
  else's child and not be treated with respect? You ought to be glad I let
  you. Come--say Yes, father. . . . No? . . . You wait a bit." Thereupon
  he would begin to abuse the dead woman, till the girl would run off with
  her hands to her head. He pursued her, dashing in and out and round the
  house and amongst the sheds, would drive her into some corner, where she
  would fall on her knees stopping her ears, and then he would stand at a
  distance and declaim filthy denunciations at her back for half an hour
  at a stretch. "Your mother was a devil, a deceitful devil--and you too
  are a devil," he would shriek in a final outburst, pick up a bit of dry
  earth or a handful of mud (there was plenty of mud around the house),
  and fling it into her hair. Sometimes, though, she would hold out full
  of scorn, confronting him in silence, her face sombre and contracted,
  and only now and then uttering a word or two that would make the other
  jump and writhe with the sting. Jim told me these scenes were terrible.
  It was indeed a strange thing to come upon in a wilderness. The
  endlessness of such a subtly cruel situation was appalling--if you think
  of it. The respectable Cornelius (Inchi 'Nelyus the Malays called him,
  with a grimace that meant many things) was a much-disappointed man. I
  don't know what he had expected would be done for him in consideration
  of his marriage; but evidently the liberty to steal, and embezzle, and
  appropriate to himself for many years and in any way that suited him
  best, the goods of Stein's Trading Company (Stein kept the supply up
  unfalteringly as long as he could get his skippers to take it there) did
  not seem to him a fair equivalent for the sacrifice of his honourable
  name. Jim would have enjoyed exceedingly thrashing Cornelius within an
  inch of his life; on the other hand, the scenes were of so painful
  a character, so abominable, that his impulse would be to get out of
  earshot, in order to spare the girl's feelings. They left her agitated,
  speechless, clutching her bosom now and then with a stony,
  desperate face, and then Jim would lounge up and say unhappily,
  "Now--come--really--what's the use--you must try to eat a bit," or give
  some such mark of sympathy. Cornelius would keep on slinking through
  the doorways, across the verandah and back again, as mute as a fish, and
  with malevolent, mistrustful, underhand glances. "I can stop his game,"
  Jim said to her once. "Just say the word." And do you know what she
  answered? She said--Jim told me impressively--that if she had not been
  sure he was intensely wretched himself, she would have found the courage
  to kill him with her own hands. "Just fancy that! The poor devil of a
  girl, almost a child, being driven to talk like that," he exclaimed in
  horror. It seemed impossible to save her not only from that mean
  rascal but even from herself! It wasn't that he pitied her so much, he
  affirmed; it was more than pity; it was as if he had something on his
  conscience, while that life went on. To leave the house would have
  appeared a base desertion. He had understood at last that there was
  nothing to expect from a longer stay, neither accounts nor money, nor
  truth of any sort, but he stayed on, exasperating Cornelius to the
  verge, I won't say of insanity, but almost of courage. Meantime he felt
  all sorts of dangers gathering obscurely about him. Doramin had sent
  over twice a trusty servant to tell him seriously that he could do
  nothing for his safety unless he would recross the river again and live
  amongst the Bugis as at first. People of every condition used to call,
  often in the dead of night, in order to disclose to him plots for
  his assassination. He was to be poisoned. He was to be stabbed in the
  bath-house. Arrangements were being made to have him shot from a boat
  on the river. Each of these informants professed himself to be his very
  good friend. It was enough--he told me--to spoil a fellow's rest for
  ever. Something of the kind was extremely possible--nay, probable--but
  the lying warnings gave him only the sense of deadly scheming going on
  all around him, on all sides, in the dark. Nothing more calculated to
  shake the best of nerve. Finally, one night, Cornelius himself, with a
  great apparatus of alarm and secrecy, unfolded in solemn wheedling tones
  a little plan wherein for one hundred dollars--or even for eighty; let's
  say eighty--he, Cornelius, would procure a trustworthy man to smuggle
  Jim out of the river, all safe. There was nothing else for it now--if
  Jim cared a pin for his life. What's eighty dollars? A trifle. An
  insignificant sum. While he, Cornelius, who had to remain behind, was
  absolutely courting death by this proof of devotion to Mr. Stein's young
  friend. The sight of his abject grimacing was--Jim told me--very hard
  to bear: he clutched at his hair, beat his breast, rocked himself to
  and fro with his hands pressed to his stomach, and actually pretended to
  shed tears. "Your blood be on your own head," he squeaked at last, and
  rushed out. It is a curious question how far Cornelius was sincere in
  that performance. Jim confessed to me that he did not sleep a wink after
  the fellow had gone. He lay on his back on a thin mat spread over the
  bamboo flooring, trying idly to make out the bare rafters, and listening
  to the rustlings in the torn thatch. A star suddenly twinkled through a
  hole in the roof. His brain was in a whirl; but, nevertheless, it was on
  that very night that he matured his plan for overcoming Sherif Ali. It
  had been the thought of all the moments he could spare from the hopeless
  investigation into Stein's affairs, but the notion--he says--came to him
  then all at once. He could see, as it were, the guns mounted on the top
  of the hill. He got very hot and excited lying there; sleep was out of
  the question more than ever. He jumped up, and went out barefooted
  on the verandah. Walking silently, he came upon the girl, motionless
  against the wall, as if on the watch. In his then state of mind it did
  not surprise him to see her up, nor yet to hear her ask in an anxious
  whisper where Cornelius could be. He simply said he did not know. She
  moaned a little, and peered into the campong. Everything was very quiet.
  He was possessed by his new idea, and so full of it that he could not
  help telling the girl all about it at once. She listened, clapped her
  hands lightly, whispered softly her admiration, but was evidently on the
  alert all the time. It seems he had been used to make a confidant of
  her all along--and that she on her part could and did give him a lot of
  useful hints as to Patusan affairs there is no doubt. He assured me more
  than once that he had never found himself the worse for her advice. At
  any rate, he was proceeding to explain his plan fully to her there and
  then, when she pressed his arm once, and vanished from his side. Then
  Cornelius appeared from somewhere, and, perceiving Jim, ducked sideways,
  as though he had been shot at, and afterwards stood very still in the
  dusk. At last he came forward prudently, like a suspicious cat. "There
  were some fishermen there--with fish," he said in a shaky voice. "To
  sell fish--you understand." . . . It must have been then two o'clock in
  the morning--a likely time for anybody to hawk fish about!
  
  'Jim, however, let the statement pass, and did not give it a single
  thought. Other matters occupied his mind, and besides he had neither
  seen nor heard anything. He contented himself by saying, "Oh!" absently,
  got a drink of water out of a pitcher standing there, and leaving
  Cornelius a prey to some inexplicable emotion--that made him embrace
  with both arms the worm-eaten rail of the verandah as if his legs had
  failed--went in again and lay down on his mat to think. By-and-by he
  heard stealthy footsteps. They stopped. A voice whispered tremulously
  through the wall, "Are you asleep?" "No! What is it?" he answered
  briskly, and there was an abrupt movement outside, and then all was
  still, as if the whisperer had been startled. Extremely annoyed at this,
  Jim came out impetuously, and Cornelius with a faint shriek fled
  along the verandah as far as the steps, where he hung on to the broken
  banister. Very puzzled, Jim called out to him from the distance to know
  what the devil he meant. "Have you given your consideration to what
  I spoke to you about?" asked Cornelius, pronouncing the words with
  difficulty, like a man in the cold fit of a fever. "No!" shouted Jim in
  a passion. "I have not, and I don't intend to. I am going to live here,
  in Patusan." "You shall d-d-die h-h-here," answered Cornelius,
  still shaking violently, and in a sort of expiring voice. The whole
  performance was so absurd and provoking that Jim didn't know whether he
  ought to be amused or angry. "Not till I have seen you tucked away,
  you bet," he called out, exasperated yet ready to laugh. Half seriously
  (being excited with his own thoughts, you know) he went on shouting,
  "Nothing can touch me! You can do your damnedest." Somehow the shadowy
  Cornelius far off there seemed to be the hateful embodiment of all the
  annoyances and difficulties he had found in his path. He let himself
  go--his nerves had been over-wrought for days--and called him many
  pretty names,--swindler, liar, sorry rascal: in fact, carried on in an
  extraordinary way. He admits he passed all bounds, that he was quite
  beside himself--defied all Patusan to scare him away--declared he would
  make them all dance to his own tune yet, and so on, in a menacing,
  boasting strain. Perfectly bombastic and ridiculous, he said. His ears
  burned at the bare recollection. Must have been off his chump in some
  way. . . . The girl, who was sitting with us, nodded her little head at
  me quickly, frowned faintly, and said, "I heard him," with child-like
  solemnity. He laughed and blushed. What stopped him at last, he said,
  was the silence, the complete deathlike silence, of the indistinct
  figure far over there, that seemed to hang collapsed, doubled over the
  rail in a weird immobility. He came to his senses, and ceasing suddenly,
  wondered greatly at himself. He watched for a while. Not a stir, not a
  sound. "Exactly as if the chap had died while I had been making all that
  noise," he said. He was so ashamed of himself that he went indoors in a
  hurry without another word, and flung himself down again. The row seemed
  to have done him good though, because he went to sleep for the rest of
  the night like a baby. Hadn't slept like that for weeks. "But _I_ didn't
  sleep," struck in the girl, one elbow on the table and nursing her
  cheek. "I watched." Her big eyes flashed, rolling a little, and then she
  fixed them on my face intently.'
feat_summary_name: Chapters 28-30
target: After Sherif Ali was routed, there was no further trouble from Rajah Allang. He immediately flung himself face down on his bamboo floor and moaned in fear for hours on end. Meanwhile, Jim conferred with Dain Waris, and they appointed new head -- men for the villages; Jim had taken control of the area. Old Doramin took great pride in the peace that Jim brought to Patusan, and he dreamed of someday seeing his son, Dain Waris, as the ultimate ruler of Patusan. This was his secret ambition, his single most secret obsession, in fact, and he had unbounded confidence in Jim's role, regarding Dain Waris' fate. Marlow tried to assure Doramin and his wife that Jim would stay on in Patusan, but they could not believe that he would do so. They wanted to know why Jim would want to stay; no other white man had ever done so. Surely, said Doramin's wife, Jim had a home and kinsmen -- a mother, perhaps? Marlow was unsuccessful in trying to convince them of Jim's decision to stay at Patusan forever. Marlow then turns to the story of Jim's beloved Jewel, a young woman who is three-quarters white. Jewel had lived all her life at Patusan. Her stepfather was a white man, a Portuguese named Cornelius, and he was Jim's predecessor in the trading post. He was the most slinking, slimy, amoral man in the entire settlement. He was without any honor or character. Jim placed great value on Jewel; he married her in a native ceremony, and we hear how they walked "side by side, openly, he holding her arm under his -- pressed to his side -- thus -- in a most extraordinary way." Cornelius was not happy that Jim had come to Patusan. He began to creep around, continually "slinking in the neighbourhood with that peculiar twist of his mouth as if he were perpetually on the point of gnashing his teeth." To Cornelius, Jim had not come to merely take Patusan from him, but already he had begun to also take Jewel from him. Marlow says that what he remembers most clearly about Jewel was the "even, olive pallor" of her skin and the "intense blue-black gleams of her hair." Also, she wore a small crimson cap far back on her head. She was a curious mixture of charm and shyness and audacity, and she was obviously devoted to Jim; "her tenderness hovered over him like a flutter of wings." It seemed, Marlow says, as if she were always "ready to make a footstool of her head for his feet." Cornelius' house was in a shambles when Jim came to live there. Half the roof had fallen in, and all of Stein's account books were torn, and there was nothing in the storehouse but rats. It was unpleasant, Jim said, and what made it worse was the fact that, during his first six weeks there, he kept hearing rumors that Rajah Allang planned to kill him, which of course, was very possible, for, as Jim said, "I couldn't see what there was to prevent him if he really had made up his mind to have me killed." Jim tried to explain to Marlow why he had decided to remain at Patusan. Of course, he said, there was Jewel, and she was treated horribly by her stepfather. Cornelius would scream at her, curse her dead mother, and finally he would chase Jewel around the house, flinging mud at her. Such cruelty, Jim said, was "a strange thing to come upon in a wilderness." Jim was finally so exasperated by Jewel's stepfather's behavior that he told her that he was willing to kill Cornelius. Then Jewel told him a curious thing: she herself could easily kill Cornelius "with her own hands," but she knew how "intensely wretched" Cornelius was with himself. Lying on his back one night, on a thin mat, Jim saw an omen: "a star suddenly twinkled through a hole in the roof." Instantly, Jim knew the real reason for his staying on at Patusan. He would rid Patusan of the evil Sherif Ali. Jim knew that he had to make solid plans for overcoming Sherif Ali in his hilltop stockade "roost" above Patusan. He would destroy this Arab "who lurked above the town like a hawk above a chicken yard." Jim envisioned cannons mounted on the top of the hill opposite Sherif Ali's stockade. He became so excited and possessed by the idea that he told Jewel about it. She listened reverently to Jim, clapping her hands softly and whispering her admiration for his vision.
feat_summary_analysis: Even though Jim becomes the most respected person in Patusan, being called "Tuan Jim," or Lord Jim, Doramin shows no sense of jealousy even though Doramin's most secret desire is to have his son Dain Waris become the chief ruler of Patusan. Part of Doramin's lack of jealousy, of course, stems from the fact that both he and his wife know that no white man has ever stayed in Patusan for longer than a few years, unless they were evil, vicious, spiteful, and cruel -- such as the wicked and unprincipled Cornelius. Jim, however, basking in the glory of his recent triumphs, cannot tell the people of Patusan that he is, in the eyes of the outside world, a disgrace who can never be accepted, and thus, he can never return to that society. In addition to Doramin's wife, then, who cannot believe that Jim has no mother, no one at all to return to, later Jewel, Jim's wife, will also have difficulty believing that Jim will not leave her someday. This brings Marlow to the subject of the romantic love that developed between Jim and Cornelius' stepdaughter. Their love, from the start, was imbued with "a romantic conscience," and Jim even translated her Malay name into the English name "Jewel," meaning any gem of precious quality. Not only was their marriage performed in the native style, but their union was highly successful. It was also highly unique because Jim and Jewel would walk publicly hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm; normally, a Malay woman was supposed to walk behind her lord and master and was considered to be inferior to her husband. Furthermore, we later learn that when Jim had to be away from the village, Jewel was placed in charge of valuable property, such as the ammunition room. Chapter 29 presents more of Jewel's background and reinforces what we have already been told about her total and complete devotion to Lord Jim -- a devotion that is equaled only by Tamb' Itam's loyalty to Jim. The depth of the devotion of these two people to Jim will later account for their inability to understand Jim's decision not to flee after the terrible tragedy at the end of the novel. In contrast to the purity and beauty of Jewel's and Tamb' Itam's characters is the vileness of Cornelius, Jewel's stepfather. "His slow, laborious walk resembled the creeping of a repulsive beetle, the legs alone moving with horrid industry while the body glided evenly. . . .  loathsome, abject and disgusting" that Marlow could not stand to even be around him. Conrad's graphic description of Cornelius prepares the reader for his vicious and cowardly behavior at the end of the novel. Chapter 30 continues to present Cornelius' atrocious behavior, especially his disgraceful treatment of Jewel. Yet, ironically, it is in the midst of the horror of Cornelius' presence that Jim suddenly conceives of a plan to free Patusan of the wicked Sherif Ali -- a plan which we have already seen was successful.