feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Lord Jim/section_40_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapter 42
feat_summary_id: chapter 42
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 42", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim51.asp", "summary": "Directly after the meeting, Jim goes to Doramin to say Brown has made a mistake in coming to the island and should be forgiven. He tries to persuade Doramin and the Bugis to allow Brown to safely leave Patusan. Doramin, however, thinks the invaders must be killed and refuses Jim's request. Jim says he will sacrifice his own life if Brown is spared and then harms any of the Bugis. He reminds Doramin that he loves the people of Patusan and would never betray them. Doramin still does not agree. Jim then says that he will call Dain Waris to slaughter Brown and his men; he claims, \"I shall not lead\" this disaster. Brown begins to make his plans for destroying Jim and overtaking Patusan. He will burn out the natives and shoot the enemies.", "analysis": "Notes The vulnerability of Jim is clearly evident in this chapter. Brown has masterfully played with Jim's guilty conscience, which is the one thing that Jim cannot handle in the book. When he arrives to meet with Brown, Jim is a picture of self-confidence and power. After their talk, Jim appears as a defeated man. Jim goes to Doramin and tries to persuade him not to slaughter Brown, whom he totally misjudges. By refusing to side with the Bugis about Brown, Jim, in essence, sides with the invaders. Conrad believed that much of life was controlled by fate, and at this point in the story, he seems to turn Jim's fate over to destiny. The second part of the chapter is seen through Tamb'Itam. The narrator changes here. Jim does not know what fate has in store for him. In persuading Doramin to send Dain Waris he is making another mistake, perhaps the first mistake of his life. The assent of the Malays shows the trust and love they have for him. The darkness that covers the end of the chapter is symbolic of the darkness that is covering Jim's life."}
text: 'I don't think he could do more than perhaps look upon that straight
  path. He seemed to have been puzzled by what he saw, for he interrupted
  himself in his narrative more than once to exclaim, "He nearly slipped
  from me there. I could not make him out. Who was he?" And after
  glaring at me wildly he would go on, jubilating and sneering. To me the
  conversation of these two across the creek appears now as the deadliest
  kind of duel on which Fate looked on with her cold-eyed knowledge of the
  end. No, he didn't turn Jim's soul inside out, but I am much mistaken if
  the spirit so utterly out of his reach had not been made to taste to the
  full the bitterness of that contest. These were the emissaries with whom
  the world he had renounced was pursuing him in his retreat--white men
  from "out there" where he did not think himself good enough to live.
  This was all that came to him--a menace, a shock, a danger to his
  work. I suppose it is this sad, half-resentful, half-resigned feeling,
  piercing through the few words Jim said now and then, that puzzled Brown
  so much in the reading of his character. Some great men owe most of
  their greatness to the ability of detecting in those they destine for
  their tools the exact quality of strength that matters for their work;
  and Brown, as though he had been really great, had a satanic gift of
  finding out the best and the weakest spot in his victims. He admitted
  to me that Jim wasn't of the sort that can be got over by truckling, and
  accordingly he took care to show himself as a man confronting without
  dismay ill-luck, censure, and disaster. The smuggling of a few guns was
  no great crime, he pointed out. As to coming to Patusan, who had the
  right to say he hadn't come to beg? The infernal people here let loose
  at him from both banks without staying to ask questions. He made
  the point brazenly, for, in truth, Dain Waris's energetic action had
  prevented the greatest calamities; because Brown told me distinctly
  that, perceiving the size of the place, he had resolved instantly in his
  mind that as soon as he had gained a footing he would set fire right and
  left, and begin by shooting down everything living in sight, in order to
  cow and terrify the population. The disproportion of forces was so great
  that this was the only way giving him the slightest chance of attaining
  his ends--he argued in a fit of coughing. But he didn't tell Jim this.
  As to the hardships and starvation they had gone through, these had been
  very real; it was enough to look at his band. He made, at the sound of a
  shrill whistle, all his men appear standing in a row on the logs in full
  view, so that Jim could see them. For the killing of the man, it had
  been done--well, it had--but was not this war, bloody war--in a corner?
  and the fellow had been killed cleanly, shot through the chest, not like
  that poor devil of his lying now in the creek. They had to listen to him
  dying for six hours, with his entrails torn with slugs. At any rate this
  was a life for a life. . . . And all this was said with the weariness,
  with the recklessness of a man spurred on and on by ill-luck till he
  cares not where he runs. When he asked Jim, with a sort of brusque
  despairing frankness, whether he himself--straight now--didn't
  understand that when "it came to saving one's life in the dark, one
  didn't care who else went--three, thirty, three hundred people"--it was
  as if a demon had been whispering advice in his ear. "I made him wince,"
  boasted Brown to me. "He very soon left off coming the righteous over
  me. He just stood there with nothing to say, and looking as black as
  thunder--not at me--on the ground." He asked Jim whether he had nothing
  fishy in his life to remember that he was so damnedly hard upon a man
  trying to get out of a deadly hole by the first means that came to
  hand--and so on, and so on. And there ran through the rough talk a
  vein of subtle reference to their common blood, an assumption of common
  experience; a sickening suggestion of common guilt, of secret knowledge
  that was like a bond of their minds and of their hearts.
  
  'At last Brown threw himself down full length and watched Jim out of
  the corners of his eyes. Jim on his side of the creek stood thinking and
  switching his leg. The houses in view were silent, as if a pestilence
  had swept them clean of every breath of life; but many invisible eyes
  were turned, from within, upon the two men with the creek between them,
  a stranded white boat, and the body of the third man half sunk in the
  mud. On the river canoes were moving again, for Patusan was recovering
  its belief in the stability of earthly institutions since the return of
  the white lord. The right bank, the platforms of the houses, the rafts
  moored along the shores, even the roofs of bathing-huts, were covered
  with people that, far away out of earshot and almost out of sight, were
  straining their eyes towards the knoll beyond the Rajah's stockade.
  Within the wide irregular ring of forests, broken in two places by the
  sheen of the river, there was a silence. "Will you promise to leave the
  coast?" Jim asked. Brown lifted and let fall his hand, giving everything
  up as it were--accepting the inevitable. "And surrender your arms?" Jim
  went on. Brown sat up and glared across. "Surrender our arms! Not till
  you come to take them out of our stiff hands. You think I am gone crazy
  with funk? Oh no! That and the rags I stand in is all I have got in the
  world, besides a few more breechloaders on board; and I expect to sell
  the lot in Madagascar, if I ever get so far--begging my way from ship to
  ship."
  
  'Jim said nothing to this. At last, throwing away the switch he held in
  his hand, he said, as if speaking to himself, "I don't know whether I
  have the power." . . . "You don't know! And you wanted me just now to
  give up my arms! That's good, too," cried Brown; "Suppose they say one
  thing to you, and do the other thing to me." He calmed down markedly. "I
  dare say you have the power, or what's the meaning of all this talk?" he
  continued. "What did you come down here for? To pass the time of day?"
  
  '"Very well," said Jim, lifting his head suddenly after a long silence.
  "You shall have a clear road or else a clear fight." He turned on his
  heel and walked away.
  
  'Brown got up at once, but he did not go up the hill till he had seen
  Jim disappear between the first houses. He never set his eyes on him
  again. On his way back he met Cornelius slouching down with his head
  between his shoulders. He stopped before Brown. "Why didn't you kill
  him?" he demanded in a sour, discontented voice. "Because I could do
  better than that," Brown said with an amused smile. "Never! never!"
  protested Cornelius with energy. "Couldn't. I have lived here for many
  years." Brown looked up at him curiously. There were many sides to the
  life of that place in arms against him; things he would never find out.
  Cornelius slunk past dejectedly in the direction of the river. He was
  now leaving his new friends; he accepted the disappointing course of
  events with a sulky obstinacy which seemed to draw more together his
  little yellow old face; and as he went down he glanced askant here and
  there, never giving up his fixed idea.
  
  'Henceforth events move fast without a check, flowing from the very
  hearts of men like a stream from a dark source, and we see Jim amongst
  them, mostly through Tamb' Itam's eyes. The girl's eyes had watched him
  too, but her life is too much entwined with his: there is her passion,
  her wonder, her anger, and, above all, her fear and her unforgiving
  love. Of the faithful servant, uncomprehending as the rest of them, it
  is the fidelity alone that comes into play; a fidelity and a belief in
  his lord so strong that even amazement is subdued to a sort of saddened
  acceptance of a mysterious failure. He has eyes only for one figure,
  and through all the mazes of bewilderment he preserves his air of
  guardianship, of obedience, of care.
  
  'His master came back from his talk with the white men, walking slowly
  towards the stockade in the street. Everybody was rejoiced to see him
  return, for while he was away every man had been afraid not only of him
  being killed, but also of what would come after. Jim went into one of
  the houses, where old Doramin had retired, and remained alone for a
  long time with the head of the Bugis settlers. No doubt he discussed
  the course to follow with him then, but no man was present at the
  conversation. Only Tamb' Itam, keeping as close to the door as he could,
  heard his master say, "Yes. I shall let all the people know that such
  is my wish; but I spoke to you, O Doramin, before all the others, and
  alone; for you know my heart as well as I know yours and its greatest
  desire. And you know well also that I have no thought but for the
  people's good." Then his master, lifting the sheeting in the doorway,
  went out, and he, Tamb' Itam, had a glimpse of old Doramin within,
  sitting in the chair with his hands on his knees, and looking between
  his feet. Afterwards he followed his master to the fort, where all the
  principal Bugis and Patusan inhabitants had been summoned for a talk.
  Tamb' Itam himself hoped there would be some fighting. "What was it but
  the taking of another hill?" he exclaimed regretfully. However, in the
  town many hoped that the rapacious strangers would be induced, by the
  sight of so many brave men making ready to fight, to go away. It would
  be a good thing if they went away. Since Jim's arrival had been made
  known before daylight by the gun fired from the fort and the beating of
  the big drum there, the fear that had hung over Patusan had broken and
  subsided like a wave on a rock, leaving the seething foam of excitement,
  curiosity, and endless speculation. Half of the population had been
  ousted out of their homes for purposes of defence, and were living in
  the street on the left side of the river, crowding round the fort, and
  in momentary expectation of seeing their abandoned dwellings on the
  threatened bank burst into flames. The general anxiety was to see the
  matter settled quickly. Food, through Jewel's care, had been served
  out to the refugees. Nobody knew what their white man would do. Some
  remarked that it was worse than in Sherif Ali's war. Then many people
  did not care; now everybody had something to lose. The movements of
  canoes passing to and fro between the two parts of the town were watched
  with interest. A couple of Bugis war-boats lay anchored in the middle of
  the stream to protect the river, and a thread of smoke stood at the bow
  of each; the men in them were cooking their midday rice when Jim, after
  his interviews with Brown and Doramin, crossed the river and entered by
  the water-gate of his fort. The people inside crowded round him, so that
  he could hardly make his way to the house. They had not seen him before,
  because on his arrival during the night he had only exchanged a few
  words with the girl, who had come down to the landing-stage for the
  purpose, and had then gone on at once to join the chiefs and the
  fighting men on the other bank. People shouted greetings after him.
  One old woman raised a laugh by pushing her way to the front madly and
  enjoining him in a scolding voice to see to it that her two sons, who
  were with Doramin, did not come to harm at the hands of the robbers.
  Several of the bystanders tried to pull her away, but she struggled and
  cried, "Let me go. What is this, O Muslims? This laughter is unseemly.
  Are they not cruel, bloodthirsty robbers bent on killing?" "Let her be,"
  said Jim, and as a silence fell suddenly, he said slowly, "Everybody
  shall be safe." He entered the house before the great sigh, and the loud
  murmurs of satisfaction, had died out.
  
  'There's no doubt his mind was made up that Brown should have his way
  clear back to the sea. His fate, revolted, was forcing his hand. He
  had for the first time to affirm his will in the face of outspoken
  opposition. "There was much talk, and at first my master was silent,"
  Tamb' Itam said. "Darkness came, and then I lit the candles on the long
  table. The chiefs sat on each side, and the lady remained by my master's
  right hand."
  
  'When he began to speak, the unaccustomed difficulty seemed only to
  fix his resolve more immovably. The white men were now waiting for his
  answer on the hill. Their chief had spoken to him in the language of his
  own people, making clear many things difficult to explain in any other
  speech. They were erring men whom suffering had made blind to right and
  wrong. It is true that lives had been lost already, but why lose more?
  He declared to his hearers, the assembled heads of the people, that
  their welfare was his welfare, their losses his losses, their mourning
  his mourning. He looked round at the grave listening faces and told them
  to remember that they had fought and worked side by side. They knew his
  courage . . . Here a murmur interrupted him . . . And that he had never
  deceived them. For many years they had dwelt together. He loved the
  land and the people living in it with a very great love. He was ready to
  answer with his life for any harm that should come to them if the white
  men with beards were allowed to retire. They were evil-doers, but their
  destiny had been evil, too. Had he ever advised them ill? Had his words
  ever brought suffering to the people? he asked. He believed that it
  would be best to let these whites and their followers go with their
  lives. It would be a small gift. "I whom you have tried and found always
  true ask you to let them go." He turned to Doramin. The old nakhoda made
  no movement. "Then," said Jim, "call in Dain Waris, your son, my friend,
  for in this business I shall not lead."'
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 42
target: Directly after the meeting, Jim goes to Doramin to say Brown has made a mistake in coming to the island and should be forgiven. He tries to persuade Doramin and the Bugis to allow Brown to safely leave Patusan. Doramin, however, thinks the invaders must be killed and refuses Jim's request. Jim says he will sacrifice his own life if Brown is spared and then harms any of the Bugis. He reminds Doramin that he loves the people of Patusan and would never betray them. Doramin still does not agree. Jim then says that he will call Dain Waris to slaughter Brown and his men; he claims, "I shall not lead" this disaster. Brown begins to make his plans for destroying Jim and overtaking Patusan. He will burn out the natives and shoot the enemies.
feat_summary_analysis: Notes The vulnerability of Jim is clearly evident in this chapter. Brown has masterfully played with Jim's guilty conscience, which is the one thing that Jim cannot handle in the book. When he arrives to meet with Brown, Jim is a picture of self-confidence and power. After their talk, Jim appears as a defeated man. Jim goes to Doramin and tries to persuade him not to slaughter Brown, whom he totally misjudges. By refusing to side with the Bugis about Brown, Jim, in essence, sides with the invaders. Conrad believed that much of life was controlled by fate, and at this point in the story, he seems to turn Jim's fate over to destiny. The second part of the chapter is seen through Tamb'Itam. The narrator changes here. Jim does not know what fate has in store for him. In persuading Doramin to send Dain Waris he is making another mistake, perhaps the first mistake of his life. The assent of the Malays shows the trust and love they have for him. The darkness that covers the end of the chapter is symbolic of the darkness that is covering Jim's life.