finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Lord Jim/section_1_part_0.txt
Lord Jim.chapter 2
chapter 2
{"name": "Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapter-2", "summary": "After two years of naval training, Jim's dreams of romance seemingly became reality. While still a young man, he was assigned to be the chief mate of a fine ship, but it was soon apparent that his new job was both monotonous and barren. Yet, curiously, Jim was addicted, \"enslaved,\" as it were, to life at sea. Jim loved the sea because he felt constantly challenged by its savage capriciousness. He felt that at any time, he could triumph over its untamed power. Ironically, he had never been tested by the sea; only once, in fact, had he glimpsed the sea's \"sinister something,\" that power which reveals that the sea can, if it chooses, smash, destroy, and annihilate everything, including Jim's individual and unique life. During the single time that Jim witnessed the deadly fury of the sea, he was wounded. A heavy spar from the ship's mast fell on him from high up. As he lay on his back, he felt pleased that he didn't have to be on deck during the storm. Then he was swept with guilt. When fine weather returned, Jim was taken to a hospital in Singapore. His recovery was slow, and his ship sailed without him. At first, Jim was wary and disdainful of Singapore's \"bewitching breath\" which seemed to smell of softness and decay. And yet Jim was increasingly fascinated by the white men whom he saw. He realized that unlike the heroic figures of his romantic dreams, these men \"did well\" on a very small allowance of danger and work. Suddenly, he decided not to go home. He accepted the position of chief mate on the Patna, an old, rusty steamer which was owned by a Chinese, chartered by an Arab, and captained by a \"blood-and-iron\" German, steering toward various holy places with 800 ragged, hopeful, and meek Moslem pilgrims crowded into every crevice and cranny.", "analysis": "The actual day-to-day routine of being first mate was \"strangely barren\" and dully monotonous; it contrasted significantly with Jim's romantic dreams and fantasies. Jim's injury served merely to place him in a hospital in an \"Eastern port\"  where he was in danger of \"lounging through the days in easy chairs . . . with eternal serenity.\" Thus, he determined to take the first available passage out and, consequently, he signed on as first mate on the Patna, a rusty, old dilapidated steamer, \"eaten with rust worse than a condemned water-tank.\" It was commanded by an incompetent, disreputable captain and a crew from which Jim stood out; he was too \"perfect.\" Conrad's description of the ship and the captain portends that this ship is unsafe and that an unfortunate incident is imminent. Reading the description of the pilgrims boarding the ship, one is reminded of cattle being blindly herded and crowded into small, unclean quarters. The German captain's view of the pilgrims as \"cattle\" emphasizes his disgust with them and justifies, in his mind, his later desertion of them to seemingly certain death -- a view that completely separates him from Jim, who is deeply and profoundly affected by his actions. Jim's jumping from the Patna controls the rest of his life. Concerning the episode of the Patna and the pilgrims, Conrad is basing this part of Lord Jim upon an actual event. The actual ship was named the Jeddah, and it was loaded with about 1,000 pilgrims. When it almost foundered, the ship was abandoned by the captain and the crew, who were picked up by a steamship and taken to the port of Aden, where they reported the \"loss\" of their ship. The next day, the Jeddah was towed into the port of Aden with all of her pilgrim/passengers still on board. This was a naval scandal, and the disgrace became widely known throughout the nautical world, causing horrendous gossip and a full inquiry. But Conrad's readers will not be informed about the events concerning the Patna until later, and even then, the facts will be only slowly revealed."}
After two years of training he went to sea, and entering the regions so
well known to his imagination, found them strangely barren of adventure.
He made many voyages. He knew the magic monotony of existence between
sky and water: he had to bear the criticism of men, the exactions of the
sea, and the prosaic severity of the daily task that gives bread--but
whose only reward is in the perfect love of the work. This reward eluded
him. Yet he could not go back, because there is nothing more enticing,
disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea. Besides, his
prospects were good. He was gentlemanly, steady, tractable, with a
thorough knowledge of his duties; and in time, when yet very young, he
became chief mate of a fine ship, without ever having been tested by
those events of the sea that show in the light of day the inner worth of
a man, the edge of his temper, and the fibre of his stuff; that reveal
the quality of his resistance and the secret truth of his pretences, not
only to others but also to himself.

Only once in all that time he had again a glimpse of the earnestness in
the anger of the sea. That truth is not so often made apparent as people
might think. There are many shades in the danger of adventures and
gales, and it is only now and then that there appears on the face of
facts a sinister violence of intention--that indefinable something which
forces it upon the mind and the heart of a man, that this complication
of accidents or these elemental furies are coming at him with a purpose
of malice, with a strength beyond control, with an unbridled cruelty
that means to tear out of him his hope and his fear, the pain of his
fatigue and his longing for rest: which means to smash, to destroy, to
annihilate all he has seen, known, loved, enjoyed, or hated; all that is
priceless and necessary--the sunshine, the memories, the future; which
means to sweep the whole precious world utterly away from his sight by
the simple and appalling act of taking his life.

Jim, disabled by a falling spar at the beginning of a week of which his
Scottish captain used to say afterwards, 'Man! it's a pairfect meeracle
to me how she lived through it!' spent many days stretched on his back,
dazed, battered, hopeless, and tormented as if at the bottom of an
abyss of unrest. He did not care what the end would be, and in his lucid
moments overvalued his indifference. The danger, when not seen, has
the imperfect vagueness of human thought. The fear grows shadowy; and
Imagination, the enemy of men, the father of all terrors, unstimulated,
sinks to rest in the dullness of exhausted emotion. Jim saw nothing
but the disorder of his tossed cabin. He lay there battened down in the
midst of a small devastation, and felt secretly glad he had not to go on
deck. But now and again an uncontrollable rush of anguish would grip
him bodily, make him gasp and writhe under the blankets, and then the
unintelligent brutality of an existence liable to the agony of such
sensations filled him with a despairing desire to escape at any cost.
Then fine weather returned, and he thought no more about It.

His lameness, however, persisted, and when the ship arrived at an
Eastern port he had to go to the hospital. His recovery was slow, and he
was left behind.

There were only two other patients in the white men's ward: the purser
of a gunboat, who had broken his leg falling down a hatchway; and a kind
of railway contractor from a neighbouring province, afflicted by
some mysterious tropical disease, who held the doctor for an ass, and
indulged in secret debaucheries of patent medicine which his Tamil
servant used to smuggle in with unwearied devotion. They told each other
the story of their lives, played cards a little, or, yawning and in
pyjamas, lounged through the day in easy-chairs without saying a word.
The hospital stood on a hill, and a gentle breeze entering through the
windows, always flung wide open, brought into the bare room the softness
of the sky, the languor of the earth, the bewitching breath of the
Eastern waters. There were perfumes in it, suggestions of infinite
repose, the gift of endless dreams. Jim looked every day over the
thickets of gardens, beyond the roofs of the town, over the fronds of
palms growing on the shore, at that roadstead which is a thoroughfare
to the East,--at the roadstead dotted by garlanded islets, lighted by
festal sunshine, its ships like toys, its brilliant activity resembling
a holiday pageant, with the eternal serenity of the Eastern sky overhead
and the smiling peace of the Eastern seas possessing the space as far as
the horizon.

Directly he could walk without a stick, he descended into the town to
look for some opportunity to get home. Nothing offered just then, and,
while waiting, he associated naturally with the men of his calling in
the port. These were of two kinds. Some, very few and seen there but
seldom, led mysterious lives, had preserved an undefaced energy with the
temper of buccaneers and the eyes of dreamers. They appeared to live
in a crazy maze of plans, hopes, dangers, enterprises, ahead of
civilisation, in the dark places of the sea; and their death was the
only event of their fantastic existence that seemed to have a reasonable
certitude of achievement. The majority were men who, like himself,
thrown there by some accident, had remained as officers of country
ships. They had now a horror of the home service, with its harder
conditions, severer view of duty, and the hazard of stormy oceans. They
were attuned to the eternal peace of Eastern sky and sea. They
loved short passages, good deck-chairs, large native crews, and the
distinction of being white. They shuddered at the thought of hard work,
and led precariously easy lives, always on the verge of dismissal,
always on the verge of engagement, serving Chinamen, Arabs,
half-castes--would have served the devil himself had he made it easy
enough. They talked everlastingly of turns of luck: how So-and-so got
charge of a boat on the coast of China--a soft thing; how this one had
an easy billet in Japan somewhere, and that one was doing well in the
Siamese navy; and in all they said--in their actions, in their looks, in
their persons--could be detected the soft spot, the place of decay, the
determination to lounge safely through existence.

To Jim that gossiping crowd, viewed as seamen, seemed at first more
unsubstantial than so many shadows. But at length he found a fascination
in the sight of those men, in their appearance of doing so well on
such a small allowance of danger and toil. In time, beside the original
disdain there grew up slowly another sentiment; and suddenly, giving up
the idea of going home, he took a berth as chief mate of the Patna.

The Patna was a local steamer as old as the hills, lean like a
greyhound, and eaten up with rust worse than a condemned water-tank. She
was owned by a Chinaman, chartered by an Arab, and commanded by a sort
of renegade New South Wales German, very anxious to curse publicly
his native country, but who, apparently on the strength of Bismarck's
victorious policy, brutalised all those he was not afraid of, and wore a
'blood-and-iron' air,' combined with a purple nose and a red moustache.
After she had been painted outside and whitewashed inside, eight hundred
pilgrims (more or less) were driven on board of her as she lay with
steam up alongside a wooden jetty.

They streamed aboard over three gangways, they streamed in urged by
faith and the hope of paradise, they streamed in with a continuous tramp
and shuffle of bare feet, without a word, a murmur, or a look back; and
when clear of confining rails spread on all sides over the deck, flowed
forward and aft, overflowed down the yawning hatchways, filled the inner
recesses of the ship--like water filling a cistern, like water flowing
into crevices and crannies, like water rising silently even with the
rim. Eight hundred men and women with faith and hopes, with affections
and memories, they had collected there, coming from north and south
and from the outskirts of the East, after treading the jungle paths,
descending the rivers, coasting in praus along the shallows, crossing in
small canoes from island to island, passing through suffering, meeting
strange sights, beset by strange fears, upheld by one desire. They
came from solitary huts in the wilderness, from populous campongs, from
villages by the sea. At the call of an idea they had left their forests,
their clearings, the protection of their rulers, their prosperity,
their poverty, the surroundings of their youth and the graves of their
fathers. They came covered with dust, with sweat, with grime, with
rags--the strong men at the head of family parties, the lean old men
pressing forward without hope of return; young boys with fearless eyes
glancing curiously, shy little girls with tumbled long hair; the timid
women muffled up and clasping to their breasts, wrapped in loose ends of
soiled head-cloths, their sleeping babies, the unconscious pilgrims of
an exacting belief.

'Look at dese cattle,' said the German skipper to his new chief mate.

An Arab, the leader of that pious voyage, came last. He walked slowly
aboard, handsome and grave in his white gown and large turban. A string
of servants followed, loaded with his luggage; the Patna cast off and
backed away from the wharf.

She was headed between two small islets, crossed obliquely the
anchoring-ground of sailing-ships, swung through half a circle in the
shadow of a hill, then ranged close to a ledge of foaming reefs. The
Arab, standing up aft, recited aloud the prayer of travellers by sea.
He invoked the favour of the Most High upon that journey, implored His
blessing on men's toil and on the secret purposes of their hearts; the
steamer pounded in the dusk the calm water of the Strait; and far astern
of the pilgrim ship a screw-pile lighthouse, planted by unbelievers on
a treacherous shoal, seemed to wink at her its eye of flame, as if in
derision of her errand of faith.

She cleared the Strait, crossed the bay, continued on her way through
the 'One-degree' passage. She held on straight for the Red Sea under a
serene sky, under a sky scorching and unclouded, enveloped in a fulgor
of sunshine that killed all thought, oppressed the heart, withered all
impulses of strength and energy. And under the sinister splendour of
that sky the sea, blue and profound, remained still, without a stir,
without a ripple, without a wrinkle--viscous, stagnant, dead. The
Patna, with a slight hiss, passed over that plain, luminous and smooth,
unrolled a black ribbon of smoke across the sky, left behind her on the
water a white ribbon of foam that vanished at once, like the phantom of
a track drawn upon a lifeless sea by the phantom of a steamer.

Every morning the sun, as if keeping pace in his revolutions with the
progress of the pilgrimage, emerged with a silent burst of light exactly
at the same distance astern of the ship, caught up with her at noon,
pouring the concentrated fire of his rays on the pious purposes of the
men, glided past on his descent, and sank mysteriously into the sea
evening after evening, preserving the same distance ahead of her
advancing bows. The five whites on board lived amidships, isolated from
the human cargo. The awnings covered the deck with a white roof from
stem to stern, and a faint hum, a low murmur of sad voices, alone
revealed the presence of a crowd of people upon the great blaze of the
ocean. Such were the days, still, hot, heavy, disappearing one by one
into the past, as if falling into an abyss for ever open in the wake
of the ship; and the ship, lonely under a wisp of smoke, held on her
steadfast way black and smouldering in a luminous immensity, as if
scorched by a flame flicked at her from a heaven without pity.

The nights descended on her like a benediction.
Chapter 2
After two years of naval training, Jim's dreams of romance seemingly became reality. While still a young man, he was assigned to be the chief mate of a fine ship, but it was soon apparent that his new job was both monotonous and barren. Yet, curiously, Jim was addicted, "enslaved," as it were, to life at sea. Jim loved the sea because he felt constantly challenged by its savage capriciousness. He felt that at any time, he could triumph over its untamed power. Ironically, he had never been tested by the sea; only once, in fact, had he glimpsed the sea's "sinister something," that power which reveals that the sea can, if it chooses, smash, destroy, and annihilate everything, including Jim's individual and unique life. During the single time that Jim witnessed the deadly fury of the sea, he was wounded. A heavy spar from the ship's mast fell on him from high up. As he lay on his back, he felt pleased that he didn't have to be on deck during the storm. Then he was swept with guilt. When fine weather returned, Jim was taken to a hospital in Singapore. His recovery was slow, and his ship sailed without him. At first, Jim was wary and disdainful of Singapore's "bewitching breath" which seemed to smell of softness and decay. And yet Jim was increasingly fascinated by the white men whom he saw. He realized that unlike the heroic figures of his romantic dreams, these men "did well" on a very small allowance of danger and work. Suddenly, he decided not to go home. He accepted the position of chief mate on the Patna, an old, rusty steamer which was owned by a Chinese, chartered by an Arab, and captained by a "blood-and-iron" German, steering toward various holy places with 800 ragged, hopeful, and meek Moslem pilgrims crowded into every crevice and cranny.
The actual day-to-day routine of being first mate was "strangely barren" and dully monotonous; it contrasted significantly with Jim's romantic dreams and fantasies. Jim's injury served merely to place him in a hospital in an "Eastern port"  where he was in danger of "lounging through the days in easy chairs . . . with eternal serenity." Thus, he determined to take the first available passage out and, consequently, he signed on as first mate on the Patna, a rusty, old dilapidated steamer, "eaten with rust worse than a condemned water-tank." It was commanded by an incompetent, disreputable captain and a crew from which Jim stood out; he was too "perfect." Conrad's description of the ship and the captain portends that this ship is unsafe and that an unfortunate incident is imminent. Reading the description of the pilgrims boarding the ship, one is reminded of cattle being blindly herded and crowded into small, unclean quarters. The German captain's view of the pilgrims as "cattle" emphasizes his disgust with them and justifies, in his mind, his later desertion of them to seemingly certain death -- a view that completely separates him from Jim, who is deeply and profoundly affected by his actions. Jim's jumping from the Patna controls the rest of his life. Concerning the episode of the Patna and the pilgrims, Conrad is basing this part of Lord Jim upon an actual event. The actual ship was named the Jeddah, and it was loaded with about 1,000 pilgrims. When it almost foundered, the ship was abandoned by the captain and the crew, who were picked up by a steamship and taken to the port of Aden, where they reported the "loss" of their ship. The next day, the Jeddah was towed into the port of Aden with all of her pilgrim/passengers still on board. This was a naval scandal, and the disgrace became widely known throughout the nautical world, causing horrendous gossip and a full inquiry. But Conrad's readers will not be informed about the events concerning the Patna until later, and even then, the facts will be only slowly revealed.