feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Lord Jim/section_6_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapter 7
feat_summary_id: chapter 7
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim15.asp", "summary": "Over dinner, Jim talks about the misery of his present life, which is \"hell\". He is broke and has no hope of obtaining another job on the sea since his papers have been revoked. In addition, he has shamed his father, who is a minister, and feels he will never be able to go home again. It is obvious that Jim is miserable and feels disgraced. He wants just one person to understand his actions, to believe he simply was not prepared to handle the tragedy of the Patna. Hoping to make Marlow understand, Jim asks him what he would have done in the same situation. Jim starts telling his emotional story of the Patna disaster. He speaks soberly with a lot of self-control. When he realized that the ship was sinking, he wanted to alert everyone; but there were eight hundred people sleeping in the ship, and only seven lifeboats to take them out. The task was impossible. If he had alerted the pilgrims, they would have panicked and created a stampede. As a result, he decided to keep quiet. Jim claims he was not afraid of death, but the fact that he could not save eight hundred people troubled him immensely. After Jim is rescued and taken ashore, he learned that the Patna did not sink. He could not believe it, for he had personally inspected the ship and thought it would break in half at any moment. He was sure that nothing could save the pilgrims. Marlow listens to the story intently. He is impressed that Jim makes no excuses; he does not attempt to justify his actions aboard the Patna. As a result, Marlow feels that he is a young man of distinction. Again he thinks that Jim is \"the right sort; he is one of us.\"", "analysis": "Notes This chapter gives a clearer insight into Jim. As he tells his story of the Patna, he does not seem like a coward. He deserted the ship because he felt helpless, because he could not handle a stampede, not because he was afraid of dying. Now Jim, the dreamer, realizes that he passed up a wonderful opportunity. If he had just stayed with the pilgrims on the Patna, he would have become a hero. He moans to Marlow, \"Ah! What a chance missed!\" Marlow believes Jim's story and accepts that the young man is not afraid of death. Once again Marlow emphasizes that Jim is \"one of us.\" Conrad is clearly pointing out, as he will do several times throughout the novel, that Jim is a representative common man, and that most people would have acted no differently than Jim."}
text: 'An outward-bound mail-boat had come in that afternoon, and the
  big dining-room of the hotel was more than half full of people with
  a-hundred-pounds-round-the-world tickets in their pockets. There were
  married couples looking domesticated and bored with each other in the
  midst of their travels; there were small parties and large parties,
  and lone individuals dining solemnly or feasting boisterously, but all
  thinking, conversing, joking, or scowling as was their wont at home;
  and just as intelligently receptive of new impressions as their trunks
  upstairs. Henceforth they would be labelled as having passed through
  this and that place, and so would be their luggage. They would cherish
  this distinction of their persons, and preserve the gummed tickets on
  their portmanteaus as documentary evidence, as the only permanent trace
  of their improving enterprise. The dark-faced servants tripped without
  noise over the vast and polished floor; now and then a girl's laugh
  would be heard, as innocent and empty as her mind, or, in a sudden hush
  of crockery, a few words in an affected drawl from some wit embroidering
  for the benefit of a grinning tableful the last funny story of shipboard
  scandal. Two nomadic old maids, dressed up to kill, worked acrimoniously
  through the bill of fare, whispering to each other with faded lips,
  wooden-faced and bizarre, like two sumptuous scarecrows. A little wine
  opened Jim's heart and loosened his tongue. His appetite was good, too,
  I noticed. He seemed to have buried somewhere the opening episode of
  our acquaintance. It was like a thing of which there would be no more
  question in this world. And all the time I had before me these blue,
  boyish eyes looking straight into mine, this young face, these capable
  shoulders, the open bronzed forehead with a white line under the roots
  of clustering fair hair, this appearance appealing at sight to all
  my sympathies: this frank aspect, the artless smile, the youthful
  seriousness. He was of the right sort; he was one of us. He talked
  soberly, with a sort of composed unreserve, and with a quiet bearing
  that might have been the outcome of manly self-control, of impudence, of
  callousness, of a colossal unconsciousness, of a gigantic deception. Who
  can tell! From our tone we might have been discussing a third person,
  a football match, last year's weather. My mind floated in a sea of
  conjectures till the turn of the conversation enabled me, without being
  offensive, to remark that, upon the whole, this inquiry must have been
  pretty trying to him. He darted his arm across the tablecloth, and
  clutching my hand by the side of my plate, glared fixedly. I was
  startled. "It must be awfully hard," I stammered, confused by this
  display of speechless feeling. "It is--hell," he burst out in a muffled
  voice.
  
  'This movement and these words caused two well-groomed male
  globe-trotters at a neighbouring table to look up in alarm from their
  iced pudding. I rose, and we passed into the front gallery for coffee
  and cigars.
  
  'On little octagon tables candles burned in glass globes; clumps of
  stiff-leaved plants separated sets of cosy wicker chairs; and between
  the pairs of columns, whose reddish shafts caught in a long row the
  sheen from the tall windows, the night, glittering and sombre, seemed
  to hang like a splendid drapery. The riding lights of ships winked afar
  like setting stars, and the hills across the roadstead resembled rounded
  black masses of arrested thunder-clouds.
  
  '"I couldn't clear out," Jim began. "The skipper did--that's all very
  well for him. I couldn't, and I wouldn't. They all got out of it in one
  way or another, but it wouldn't do for me."
  
  'I listened with concentrated attention, not daring to stir in my chair;
  I wanted to know--and to this day I don't know, I can only guess. He
  would be confident and depressed all in the same breath, as if some
  conviction of innate blamelessness had checked the truth writhing within
  him at every turn. He began by saying, in the tone in which a man would
  admit his inability to jump a twenty-foot wall, that he could never
  go home now; and this declaration recalled to my mind what Brierly had
  said, "that the old parson in Essex seemed to fancy his sailor son not a
  little."
  
  'I can't tell you whether Jim knew he was especially "fancied," but the
  tone of his references to "my Dad" was calculated to give me a notion
  that the good old rural dean was about the finest man that ever had been
  worried by the cares of a large family since the beginning of the world.
  This, though never stated, was implied with an anxiety that there should
  be no mistake about it, which was really very true and charming, but
  added a poignant sense of lives far off to the other elements of the
  story. "He has seen it all in the home papers by this time," said Jim.
  "I can never face the poor old chap." I did not dare to lift my eyes
  at this till I heard him add, "I could never explain. He wouldn't
  understand." Then I looked up. He was smoking reflectively, and after
  a moment, rousing himself, began to talk again. He discovered at once
  a desire that I should not confound him with his partners in--in crime,
  let us call it. He was not one of them; he was altogether of another
  sort. I gave no sign of dissent. I had no intention, for the sake of
  barren truth, to rob him of the smallest particle of any saving grace
  that would come in his way. I didn't know how much of it he believed
  himself. I didn't know what he was playing up to--if he was playing up
  to anything at all--and I suspect he did not know either; for it is my
  belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape
  from the grim shadow of self-knowledge. I made no sound all the time
  he was wondering what he had better do after "that stupid inquiry was
  over."
  
  'Apparently he shared Brierly's contemptuous opinion of these
  proceedings ordained by law. He would not know where to turn, he
  confessed, clearly thinking aloud rather than talking to me. Certificate
  gone, career broken, no money to get away, no work that he could obtain
  as far as he could see. At home he could perhaps get something; but it
  meant going to his people for help, and that he would not do. He
  saw nothing for it but ship before the mast--could get perhaps a
  quartermaster's billet in some steamer. Would do for a quartermaster.
  . . . "Do you think you would?" I asked pitilessly. He jumped up, and
  going to the stone balustrade looked out into the night. In a moment he
  was back, towering above my chair with his youthful face clouded yet by
  the pain of a conquered emotion. He had understood very well I did not
  doubt his ability to steer a ship. In a voice that quavered a bit he
  asked me why did I say that? I had been "no end kind" to him. I had not
  even laughed at him when--here he began to mumble--"that mistake, you
  know--made a confounded ass of myself." I broke in by saying rather
  warmly that for me such a mistake was not a matter to laugh at. He sat
  down and drank deliberately some coffee, emptying the small cup to the
  last drop. "That does not mean I admit for a moment the cap fitted,"
  he declared distinctly. "No?" I said. "No," he affirmed with quiet
  decision. "Do you know what _you_ would have done? Do you? And you
  don't think yourself" . . . he gulped something . . . "you don't think
  yourself a--a--cur?"
  
  'And with this--upon my honour!--he looked up at me inquisitively. It
  was a question it appears--a bona fide question! However, he didn't wait
  for an answer. Before I could recover he went on, with his eyes straight
  before him, as if reading off something written on the body of the
  night. "It is all in being ready. I wasn't; not--not then. I don't want
  to excuse myself; but I would like to explain--I would like somebody to
  understand--somebody--one person at least! You! Why not you?"
  
  'It was solemn, and a little ridiculous too, as they always are, those
  struggles of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what
  his moral identity should be, this precious notion of a convention, only
  one of the rules of the game, nothing more, but all the same so terribly
  effective by its assumption of unlimited power over natural instincts,
  by the awful penalties of its failure. He began his story quietly
  enough. On board that Dale Line steamer that had picked up these four
  floating in a boat upon the discreet sunset glow of the sea, they had
  been after the first day looked askance upon. The fat skipper told some
  story, the others had been silent, and at first it had been accepted.
  You don't cross-examine poor castaways you had the good luck to save,
  if not from cruel death, then at least from cruel suffering. Afterwards,
  with time to think it over, it might have struck the officers of the
  Avondale that there was "something fishy" in the affair; but of course
  they would keep their doubts to themselves. They had picked up the
  captain, the mate, and two engineers of the steamer Patna sunk at sea,
  and that, very properly, was enough for them. I did not ask Jim about
  the nature of his feelings during the ten days he spent on board. From
  the way he narrated that part I was at liberty to infer he was partly
  stunned by the discovery he had made--the discovery about himself--and
  no doubt was at work trying to explain it away to the only man who
  was capable of appreciating all its tremendous magnitude. You must
  understand he did not try to minimise its importance. Of that I am sure;
  and therein lies his distinction. As to what sensations he experienced
  when he got ashore and heard the unforeseen conclusion of the tale in
  which he had taken such a pitiful part, he told me nothing of them, and
  it is difficult to imagine.
  
  'I wonder whether he felt the ground cut from under his feet? I wonder?
  But no doubt he managed to get a fresh foothold very soon. He was ashore
  a whole fortnight waiting in the Sailors' Home, and as there were six or
  seven men staying there at the time, I had heard of him a little.
  Their languid opinion seemed to be that, in addition to his other
  shortcomings, he was a sulky brute. He had passed these days on the
  verandah, buried in a long chair, and coming out of his place of
  sepulture only at meal-times or late at night, when he wandered on the
  quays all by himself, detached from his surroundings, irresolute and
  silent, like a ghost without a home to haunt. "I don't think I've spoken
  three words to a living soul in all that time," he said, making me very
  sorry for him; and directly he added, "One of these fellows would have
  been sure to blurt out something I had made up my mind not to put up
  with, and I didn't want a row. No! Not then. I was too--too . . . I
  had no heart for it." "So that bulkhead held out after all," I remarked
  cheerfully. "Yes," he murmured, "it held. And yet I swear to you I felt
  it bulge under my hand." "It's extraordinary what strains old iron will
  stand sometimes," I said. Thrown back in his seat, his legs stiffly out
  and arms hanging down, he nodded slightly several times. You could not
  conceive a sadder spectacle. Suddenly he lifted his head; he sat up;
  he slapped his thigh. "Ah! what a chance missed! My God! what a chance
  missed!" he blazed out, but the ring of the last "missed" resembled a
  cry wrung out by pain.
  
  'He was silent again with a still, far-away look of fierce yearning
  after that missed distinction, with his nostrils for an instant dilated,
  sniffing the intoxicating breath of that wasted opportunity. If you
  think I was either surprised or shocked you do me an injustice in more
  ways than one! Ah, he was an imaginative beggar! He would give himself
  away; he would give himself up. I could see in his glance darted into
  the night all his inner being carried on, projected headlong into the
  fanciful realm of recklessly heroic aspirations. He had no leisure to
  regret what he had lost, he was so wholly and naturally concerned for
  what he had failed to obtain. He was very far away from me who watched
  him across three feet of space. With every instant he was penetrating
  deeper into the impossible world of romantic achievements. He got to
  the heart of it at last! A strange look of beatitude overspread his
  features, his eyes sparkled in the light of the candle burning between
  us; he positively smiled! He had penetrated to the very heart--to
  the very heart. It was an ecstatic smile that your faces--or mine
  either--will never wear, my dear boys. I whisked him back by saying, "If
  you had stuck to the ship, you mean!"
  
  'He turned upon me, his eyes suddenly amazed and full of pain, with a
  bewildered, startled, suffering face, as though he had tumbled down
  from a star. Neither you nor I will ever look like this on any man. He
  shuddered profoundly, as if a cold finger-tip had touched his heart.
  Last of all he sighed.
  
  'I was not in a merciful mood. He provoked one by his contradictory
  indiscretions. "It is unfortunate you didn't know beforehand!" I
  said with every unkind intention; but the perfidious shaft fell
  harmless--dropped at his feet like a spent arrow, as it were, and he did
  not think of picking it up. Perhaps he had not even seen it. Presently,
  lolling at ease, he said, "Dash it all! I tell you it bulged. I was
  holding up my lamp along the angle-iron in the lower deck when a
  flake of rust as big as the palm of my hand fell off the plate, all of
  itself." He passed his hand over his forehead. "The thing stirred and
  jumped off like something alive while I was looking at it." "That made
  you feel pretty bad," I observed casually. "Do you suppose," he said,
  "that I was thinking of myself, with a hundred and sixty people at my
  back, all fast asleep in that fore-'tween-deck alone--and more of them
  aft; more on the deck--sleeping--knowing nothing about it--three times
  as many as there were boats for, even if there had been time? I expected
  to see the iron open out as I stood there and the rush of water going
  over them as they lay. . . . What could I do--what?"
  
  'I can easily picture him to myself in the peopled gloom of the
  cavernous place, with the light of the globe-lamp falling on a small
  portion of the bulkhead that had the weight of the ocean on the other
  side, and the breathing of unconscious sleepers in his ears. I can see
  him glaring at the iron, startled by the falling rust, overburdened by
  the knowledge of an imminent death. This, I gathered, was the second
  time he had been sent forward by that skipper of his, who, I rather
  think, wanted to keep him away from the bridge. He told me that his
  first impulse was to shout and straightway make all those people
  leap out of sleep into terror; but such an overwhelming sense of his
  helplessness came over him that he was not able to produce a sound. This
  is, I suppose, what people mean by the tongue cleaving to the roof of
  the mouth. "Too dry," was the concise expression he used in reference to
  this state. Without a sound, then, he scrambled out on deck through
  the number one hatch. A windsail rigged down there swung against him
  accidentally, and he remembered that the light touch of the canvas on
  his face nearly knocked him off the hatchway ladder.
  
  'He confessed that his knees wobbled a good deal as he stood on the
  foredeck looking at another sleeping crowd. The engines having been
  stopped by that time, the steam was blowing off. Its deep rumble made
  the whole night vibrate like a bass string. The ship trembled to it.
  
  'He saw here and there a head lifted off a mat, a vague form uprise in
  sitting posture, listen sleepily for a moment, sink down again into the
  billowy confusion of boxes, steam-winches, ventilators. He was aware
  all these people did not know enough to take intelligent notice of
  that strange noise. The ship of iron, the men with white faces, all the
  sights, all the sounds, everything on board to that ignorant and pious
  multitude was strange alike, and as trustworthy as it would for ever
  remain incomprehensible. It occurred to him that the fact was fortunate.
  The idea of it was simply terrible.
  
  'You must remember he believed, as any other man would have done in
  his place, that the ship would go down at any moment; the bulging,
  rust-eaten plates that kept back the ocean, fatally must give way, all
  at once like an undermined dam, and let in a sudden and overwhelming
  flood. He stood still looking at these recumbent bodies, a doomed man
  aware of his fate, surveying the silent company of the dead. They _were_
  dead! Nothing could save them! There were boats enough for half of them
  perhaps, but there was no time. No time! No time! It did not seem worth
  while to open his lips, to stir hand or foot. Before he could shout
  three words, or make three steps, he would be floundering in a sea
  whitened awfully by the desperate struggles of human beings, clamorous
  with the distress of cries for help. There was no help. He imagined
  what would happen perfectly; he went through it all motionless by the
  hatchway with the lamp in his hand--he went through it to the very last
  harrowing detail. I think he went through it again while he was telling
  me these things he could not tell the court.
  
  '"I saw as clearly as I see you now that there was nothing I could do.
  It seemed to take all life out of my limbs. I thought I might just as
  well stand where I was and wait. I did not think I had many
  seconds. . . ." Suddenly the steam ceased blowing off. The noise, he
  remarked, had been distracting, but the silence at once became
  intolerably oppressive.
  
  '"I thought I would choke before I got drowned," he said.
  
  'He protested he did not think of saving himself. The only distinct
  thought formed, vanishing, and re-forming in his brain, was: eight
  hundred people and seven boats; eight hundred people and seven boats.
  
  '"Somebody was speaking aloud inside my head," he said a little wildly.
  "Eight hundred people and seven boats--and no time! Just think of it."
  He leaned towards me across the little table, and I tried to avoid his
  stare. "Do you think I was afraid of death?" he asked in a voice very
  fierce and low. He brought down his open hand with a bang that made the
  coffee-cups dance. "I am ready to swear I was not--I was not. . . . By
  God--no!" He hitched himself upright and crossed his arms; his chin fell
  on his breast.
  
  'The soft clashes of crockery reached us faintly through the high
  windows. There was a burst of voices, and several men came out in high
  good-humour into the gallery. They were exchanging jocular reminiscences
  of the donkeys in Cairo. A pale anxious youth stepping softly on long
  legs was being chaffed by a strutting and rubicund globe-trotter about
  his purchases in the bazaar. "No, really--do you think I've been done
  to that extent?" he inquired very earnest and deliberate. The band moved
  away, dropping into chairs as they went; matches flared, illuminating
  for a second faces without the ghost of an expression and the flat glaze
  of white shirt-fronts; the hum of many conversations animated with the
  ardour of feasting sounded to me absurd and infinitely remote.
  
  '"Some of the crew were sleeping on the number one hatch within reach of
  my arm," began Jim again.
  
  'You must know they kept Kalashee watch in that ship, all hands sleeping
  through the night, and only the reliefs of quartermasters and look-out
  men being called. He was tempted to grip and shake the shoulder of the
  nearest lascar, but he didn't. Something held his arms down along his
  sides. He was not afraid--oh no! only he just couldn't--that's all. He
  was not afraid of death perhaps, but I'll tell you what, he was afraid
  of the emergency. His confounded imagination had evoked for him all
  the horrors of panic, the trampling rush, the pitiful screams, boats
  swamped--all the appalling incidents of a disaster at sea he had ever
  heard of. He might have been resigned to die but I suspect he wanted
  to die without added terrors, quietly, in a sort of peaceful trance. A
  certain readiness to perish is not so very rare, but it is seldom
  that you meet men whose souls, steeled in the impenetrable armour of
  resolution, are ready to fight a losing battle to the last; the desire
  of peace waxes stronger as hope declines, till at last it conquers the
  very desire of life. Which of us here has not observed this, or maybe
  experienced something of that feeling in his own person--this extreme
  weariness of emotions, the vanity of effort, the yearning for rest?
  Those striving with unreasonable forces know it well,--the shipwrecked
  castaways in boats, wanderers lost in a desert, men battling against the
  unthinking might of nature, or the stupid brutality of crowds.'
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 7
target: Over dinner, Jim talks about the misery of his present life, which is "hell". He is broke and has no hope of obtaining another job on the sea since his papers have been revoked. In addition, he has shamed his father, who is a minister, and feels he will never be able to go home again. It is obvious that Jim is miserable and feels disgraced. He wants just one person to understand his actions, to believe he simply was not prepared to handle the tragedy of the Patna. Hoping to make Marlow understand, Jim asks him what he would have done in the same situation. Jim starts telling his emotional story of the Patna disaster. He speaks soberly with a lot of self-control. When he realized that the ship was sinking, he wanted to alert everyone; but there were eight hundred people sleeping in the ship, and only seven lifeboats to take them out. The task was impossible. If he had alerted the pilgrims, they would have panicked and created a stampede. As a result, he decided to keep quiet. Jim claims he was not afraid of death, but the fact that he could not save eight hundred people troubled him immensely. After Jim is rescued and taken ashore, he learned that the Patna did not sink. He could not believe it, for he had personally inspected the ship and thought it would break in half at any moment. He was sure that nothing could save the pilgrims. Marlow listens to the story intently. He is impressed that Jim makes no excuses; he does not attempt to justify his actions aboard the Patna. As a result, Marlow feels that he is a young man of distinction. Again he thinks that Jim is "the right sort; he is one of us."
feat_summary_analysis: Notes This chapter gives a clearer insight into Jim. As he tells his story of the Patna, he does not seem like a coward. He deserted the ship because he felt helpless, because he could not handle a stampede, not because he was afraid of dying. Now Jim, the dreamer, realizes that he passed up a wonderful opportunity. If he had just stayed with the pilgrims on the Patna, he would have become a hero. He moans to Marlow, "Ah! What a chance missed!" Marlow believes Jim's story and accepts that the young man is not afraid of death. Once again Marlow emphasizes that Jim is "one of us." Conrad is clearly pointing out, as he will do several times throughout the novel, that Jim is a representative common man, and that most people would have acted no differently than Jim.