Lord Jim

With the torch still in Jewel’s hand to light his way, Jim guides the three remaining would-be assassins out the storeroom doorway and instructs them to link arms and march forward. He guides them to the steep riverbank, tells them to give his greetings to Sherif Ali, and forces them to jump in. The men dive deeply out of fear of still being shot. Jim looks at Jewel with a swelling heart, she returns his look, and then she throws the burning torch into the river also. Until that time, Jim tells Marlow, he never suspected Jewel cared about him, but he confides to Marlow that she cares about him and he loves her dearly. Jim tells Marlow that with all he has done in Patusan—and with the belief that the people there have in his bravery, his truth, and his justice—he should have a right to forget why he came there, but he cannot. Marlow says that Jim will always be a mystery to these people. The chapter ends with Jewel grabbing Marlow’s arm in the dark as someone who belongs to an unknown world that she fears might reclaim him from her.

Marlow protests to Jewel that he has no intention of taking Jim away. He tries to explain that he comes only on matters of friendship and business, though she insists she and her people are always left behind. He assures her he could not separate Jim from her. Jewel says that she begged Jim to go away after he killed the would-be assassin, but that Jim refused to leave her alone with Cornelius. Still, Jewel tried to convince him to leave, believing that otherwise he would soon be killed and she would die weeping like her mother. Jewel says that Jim has sworn to her that he will not leave her, but she remains doubtful because other men have sworn similarly and left. She challenges Marlow to reveal the mystery behind Jim, what Jim fears, and why she should believe he will never go away. Marlow attempts to convince Jewel that she owns Jim’s heart and that nothing can take him away from her. Pressed continuously by Jewel, Marlow finally says that Jim’s prior world does not want him because he is not good enough, but that no one is good enough. Footsteps approach, and Marlow slips away from Jewel in the dark.

The approaching footsteps turn out to be Jim’s and he greets Jewel cheerily. He asks what she has done with Marlow, but when Jim calls out to him, Marlow does not answer. In the darkness, Marlow walks away, and his path leads to Jewel’s mother’s grave. He finds peace there, as if the dead still share in the struggles of the human heart. Cornelius breaks in upon Marlow’s reverie. He attempts to explain to Marlow that he would have saved Jim for a mere eighty dollars. Cornelius says he could not have known the outcome of the ensuing contest between Jim and Sherif Ali’s men beforehand, so he should be excused for his betrayal of Jim. He tells Marlow he will be willing to undertake the charge of Jewel once it becomes time for Jim to go home. Cornelius’s hatred of Jim is clear; he views Jim’s presence there as a personal affront with the sole purpose of trampling him and stealing everything that is rightly his.

As Marlow prepares to leave, he feels that he somehow has a more complete knowledge of the characters surrounding Jim in Patusan than he has of Jim himself. Jim guides Marlow through the river and accompanies him back towards the ocean. When he reaches the open sea again, Marlow cannot help but exclaim how glorious it is. Jim looks down as he agrees. At a fishing village near where the river meets the sea, Jim is approached by a fisherman who complains to Jim that the Rajah will not leave them alone. Jim explains that these villagers had been treated as personal slaves by the Rajah for years prior to his arrival, but Marlow replies that Jim has changed all that. Jim asks when he and Marlow will meet again, but Marlow says they will not meet again unless it is Jim who comes out from Patusan for the meeting. Jim acts as if he wants Marlow to deliver a message, but when Marlow asks to whom he would want it delivered Jim tells him to disregard the idea. From a distance, Marlow sees Jim listening to the complaints of the fisherman, and then Jim disappears from Marlow’s sight.

Marlow’s narrative ends here, and the novel’s primary, unnamed narrator resurfaces to describe how Marlow’s listeners drift away, and only one man ever learns the remainder of the story. This man receives the addendum in the form of a package addressed to him in Marlow’s handwriting. Inside the package he finds three things: a group of pages pinned together, a page of greyish paper in handwriting he has not seen before, and a letter from Marlow (from which falls another letter, yellowed and frayed from time). He turns first to Marlow’s letter, in which Marlow says that the addressee was the only one among his original listeners to profess a lasting interest in Jim’s fate, and that the addressee prophesied disaster for Jim in the life he had chosen in Patusan. Marlow describes the addressee as a lifelong traveler and adventurer, one who believes that for a European to spend his life among non-European peoples is a form of self-abandonment that can only lead to ruin.

Marlow’s letter points out that the greyish paper also enclosed is in Jim’s own hand, and that Jim had tried to fortify Patusan as a stronghold against its enemies and even signs his narrative from “The Fort, Patusan.” The paper contains no date nor addressee, and while reporting only that an awful thing has happened, does not give further information. It is obvious to Marlow that Jim gave up on writing whatever he had planned to write. The other letter, yellowed with age, is from Jim’s father to Jim, received by Jim before he joined the crew of the Patna. It is an affectionate letter giving Jim the basic news of his family and the events from home. Marlow indicates he had pieced together the final events of Jim’s life and that those are recorded in the other enclosed document, though Marlow cannot believe that he will never see Jim again or hear his voice.

The final portion of Jim’s story, narrated in Marlow’s letter, begins with the exploit of a man called Brown, who stole a Spanish schooner. Marlow actually interviews Brown, who scorns Jim in particular for not being man enough to simply kill him. Marlow reports that eight months prior to this meeting with Brown, he had gone to see Stein, as was his habit when his travels brought him near Stein’s residence. Marlow recognized at Stein’s door Jim’s former servant Tamb’ Itam. Marlow wondered excitedly if Jim might be visiting Stein, but when he asked Tamb’ Itam if Jim was there, Tamb’ Itam answered that Jim was not and said simply that Jim would not fight. Marlow entered the home, and Stein asked Marlow to talk to Jewel, though Marlow did not yet know what had happened to Jim. She told him that Jim had left her. Marlow tried to take Jewel’s hand, but she did not respond.

The reader of Marlow’s packet here takes up Jim’s final story as Marlow has pieced it together. Marlow describes Brown as a buccaneer, who would do harm to even an unoffending stranger with seemingly no conscience. Brown is captured by a Spanish patrol cutter, perhaps for running guns. When both ships arrive at the same port, Brown sees a Spanish schooner in the same port and, viewing it as a better ship than his own, decides to steal it. Brown fears imprisonment more than death and manages to steal the schooner with the help of a shipmate who stabs the seaman left to guard it. Brown, with a crew of 16, sails away with the ship but with very few provisions. With no money and unable to port for fear of arrest, Brown hopes to make it to Madagascar and perhaps sell the ship—but he and his crew need food and water on the way. They come upon Patusan, and Brown leaves two men to guard the ship while the other 14 take a long boat up the river. The leader of a fishing village manages to send a warning upriver, and Brown is greeted with defenders on both sides of the river who begin shooting and injure two of his men. Brown is forced to abandon the boat, and he and his men set up to defend a knoll near the river. They cut down some trees at its summit to form a breastwork.

Jim is away in the interior when the initial battle with Brown’s men is fought, and Dain Waris directs the fighting for the locals. He wants to finish the battle with Brown, but others prevail upon him to wait when the men gather in Jim’s fort to discuss their options. They decide on a more defensive posture, which Marlow attributes in part to Doramin’s desire to protect his son, Dain Waris, from harm. Kassim, a close associate of the Rajah with his own intrigues in mind, opens up a dialogue with Brown, using Cornelius as his English interpreter. Cornelius makes proposals to Brown, which Brown agrees to consider if his men are brought food, which some of the Rajah’s men bring to Brown’s camp. Kassim reasons that Brown and his men, together with the Rajah’s men, could defeat Doramin’s group before Jim returns and overturn the current order of things. Brown and his men could then be dealt with afterwards. Kassim makes clear that he believes Brown has a large group of men waiting back at the ship, and he urges Brown to bring them upriver to support the Rajah, while Cornelius urges Brown to kill Jim and become king. Kassim offers to send a trusted messenger to the ship to ask the men on the ship to come as support. When the messenger arrives at the ship, it is with a message from Brown to simply detain the man. Thus, the two men Brown left guarding the ship lock the messenger in the hold of the schooner.

Brown believes it is with the white man, Jim, that he will negotiate a sharing of power, working like brothers until the time comes for Brown to simply shoot Jim and take over. Brown in the meantime wants to teach a lesson to those who had shot at his men from the river banks. Brown calls the best rifle shot among his men to his side, and this man shoots and kills one of the inhabitants along the river bank from a great distance. Kassim continues his duplicitous dealings with Doramin’s followers. One of Brown’s men is shot from the opposite riverbank as he tries, under cover of night, to recover tobacco from their boat. Cornelius then reports, based on joyous noise from Doramin’s followers, that Jim has returned. Cornelius again advises Brown to simply shoot and kill Jim, promising that Brown can then do anything he wants.