feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Lord Jim/section_27_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapter 28
feat_summary_id: chapter 28
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 28", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim37.asp", "summary": "After Sherif Ali fled, Raja Allang also settled down, fearing that Jim would kill him. The responsibility of re-organizing and administering the community fell on Dain Waris and Jim. In truth, Jim became the real ruler of Patusan. Marlow continues his story and acknowledges that he made a great mistake by speaking to Doramin before leaving Patusan. Doramin expressed hope that Jim would not live in Patusan forever and that Dain Waris would ultimately become the ruler of the land. Doramin's wife wanted to know about Jim's family and his past, but Marlow did not know what to answer, causing Doramin to sense that something was wrong. Marlow, in turn, tries to tell them that Jim plans on staying in Patusan forever. Marlow goes on to describe Jim's love affair with Jewel, the step- daughter of Cornelius, the former trading agent, who was a cunning, mean, and cowardly Portuguese man. He had ill-treated his wife before his death and he now mistreats her daughter, Jewel, by screaming and flinging mud at her. Jim, on the other hand, valued Jewel greatly and married her in a native ceremony. He defied Malay tradition and walked hand-in-hand with Jewel, rather than making her walk behind him in respect. Cornelius resented that Jim took both his job and his daughter from him.", "analysis": "Notes Marlow compares Doramin to \"a cunning old elephant.\" Earlier he had compared the fat skipper of the Patna to \"a baby elephant.\" Both comparisons are important, for animal symbols are very rare in Conrad. Conrad is again foreshadowing Jim's future. Just as Jim was rejected by the Patna's skipper, he will also be rejected by Doramin. Hints of this are actually given in the chapter when the chief says he hopes Jim does not stay on Patusan forever, for he wants Dain Waris to become the ruler of the island. He also grows suspicious when Marlow has nothing to say of Jim's family or his past. Marlow tells the story of Jim's love for Jewel. Her name is symbolic, for like a precious gem, Jim treasures her and calls her his own, almost like a possession. Furthermore, Marlow hears the story of Jim giving her an emerald, which Jewel hides. Jewel, like Jim, is always dressed in white, symbolizing purity. She loves him to distraction, and like Jim's servant, she is compared to a shadow that follows him everywhere."}
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.'
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 28
target: After Sherif Ali fled, Raja Allang also settled down, fearing that Jim would kill him. The responsibility of re-organizing and administering the community fell on Dain Waris and Jim. In truth, Jim became the real ruler of Patusan. Marlow continues his story and acknowledges that he made a great mistake by speaking to Doramin before leaving Patusan. Doramin expressed hope that Jim would not live in Patusan forever and that Dain Waris would ultimately become the ruler of the land. Doramin's wife wanted to know about Jim's family and his past, but Marlow did not know what to answer, causing Doramin to sense that something was wrong. Marlow, in turn, tries to tell them that Jim plans on staying in Patusan forever. Marlow goes on to describe Jim's love affair with Jewel, the step- daughter of Cornelius, the former trading agent, who was a cunning, mean, and cowardly Portuguese man. He had ill-treated his wife before his death and he now mistreats her daughter, Jewel, by screaming and flinging mud at her. Jim, on the other hand, valued Jewel greatly and married her in a native ceremony. He defied Malay tradition and walked hand-in-hand with Jewel, rather than making her walk behind him in respect. Cornelius resented that Jim took both his job and his daughter from him.
feat_summary_analysis: Notes Marlow compares Doramin to "a cunning old elephant." Earlier he had compared the fat skipper of the Patna to "a baby elephant." Both comparisons are important, for animal symbols are very rare in Conrad. Conrad is again foreshadowing Jim's future. Just as Jim was rejected by the Patna's skipper, he will also be rejected by Doramin. Hints of this are actually given in the chapter when the chief says he hopes Jim does not stay on Patusan forever, for he wants Dain Waris to become the ruler of the island. He also grows suspicious when Marlow has nothing to say of Jim's family or his past. Marlow tells the story of Jim's love for Jewel. Her name is symbolic, for like a precious gem, Jim treasures her and calls her his own, almost like a possession. Furthermore, Marlow hears the story of Jim giving her an emerald, which Jewel hides. Jewel, like Jim, is always dressed in white, symbolizing purity. She loves him to distraction, and like Jim's servant, she is compared to a shadow that follows him everywhere.