Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (motivational novels for students TXT) đ
- Author: Joseph Conrad
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Those without did not hear him make a sound. Later, towards the evening, he came to the door and called for Tambâ Itam. âWell?â he asked. âThere is much weeping. Much anger too,â said Tambâ Itam.
Jim looked up at him. âYou know,â he murmured. âYes, Tuan,â said Tambâ Itam. âThy servant does know, and the gates are closed.
We shall have to fight.â âFight! What for?â he asked. âFor our lives.â âI have no life,â he said. Tambâ Itam heard a cry from the girl at the door. âWho knows?â said Tambâ Itam. âBy audacity and cunning we may even escape. There is much fear in menâs hearts too.â
He went out, thinking vaguely of boats and of open sea, leaving Jim and the girl together.
âI havenât the heart to set down here such glimpses as she had given me of the hour or more she passed in there wrestling with him for the possession of her happiness. Whether he had any hopeâ
what he expected, what he imaginedâit is impossible to say. He was inflexible, and with the growing loneliness of his obstinacy his spirit seemed to rise above the ruins of his existence. She cried âFight!â into his ear. She could not understand. There was nothing to fight for. He was going to prove his power in another way and conquer the fatal destiny itself. He came out into the courtyard, and behind him, with streaming hair, wild of face, breathless, she staggered out and leaned on the side of the doorway. âOpen the gates,â he ordered. Afterwards, turning to those of his men who were inside, he gave them leave to depart to their homes. âFor how long, Tuan?â asked one of them timidly. âFor all life,â he said, in a sombre tone.
âA hush had fallen upon the town after the outburst of wailing and lamentation that had swept over the river, like a gust of wind from the opened abode of sorrow. But rumours flew in whispers, filling the hearts with consternation and horrible doubts. The robbers were coming back, bringing many others with them, in a great ship, and there would be no refuge in the land for any one. A sense of utter insecurity as during an earthquake pervaded the minds of men, who whispered their suspicions, looking at each other as if in the presence of some awful portent.
âThe sun was sinking towards the forests when Dain Warisâs body was brought into Doraminâs campong. Four men carried it in, covered decently with a white sheet which the old mother had sent out down to the gate to meet her son on his return. They laid him at Doraminâs feet, and the old man sat still for a long time, one hand on each knee, looking down. The fronds of palms swayed gently, and the foliage of fruit trees stirred above his head. Every single man of his people was there, fully armed, when the old nakhoda at last raised his eyes.
He moved them slowly over the crowd, as if seeking for a missing face.
Again his chin sank on his breast. The whispers of many men mingled with the slight rustling of the leaves.
âThe Malay who had brought Tambâ Itam and the girl to Samarang was there too. âNot so angry as many,â he said to me, but struck with a great awe and wonder at the âsuddenness of menâs fate, which hangs over their heads like a cloud charged with thunder.â He told me that when Dain Warisâs body was uncovered at a sign of Doraminâs, he whom they often called the white lordâs friend was disclosed lying unchanged with his eyelids a little open as if about to wake. Doramin leaned forward a little more, like one looking for something fallen on the ground. His eyes searched the body from its feet to its head, for the wound maybe. It was in the forehead and small; and there was no word spoken while one of the bystanders, stooping, took off the silver ring from the cold stiff hand. In silence he held it up before Doramin.
A murmur of dismay and horror ran through the crowd at the sight of that familiar token. The old nakhoda stared at it, and suddenly let out one great fierce cry, deep from the chest, a roar of pain and fury, as mighty as the bellow of a wounded bull, bringing great fear into menâs hearts, by the magnitude of his anger and his sorrow that could be plainly discerned without words. There was a great stillness afterwards for a space, while the body was being borne aside by four men. They laid it down under a tree, and on the instant, with one long shriek, all the women of the household began to wail together; they mourned with shrill cries; the sun was setting, and in the intervals of screamed lamentations the high sing-song voices of two old men intoning the Koran chanted alone.
âAbout this time Jim, leaning on a gun-carriage, looked at the river, and turned his back on the house; and the girl, in the doorway, panting as if she had run herself to a standstill, was looking at him across the yard. Tambâ Itam stood not far from his master, waiting patiently for what might happen. All at once Jim, who seemed to be lost in quiet thought, turned to him and said, âTime to finish this.â
â âTuan?â said Tambâ Itam, advancing with alacrity. He did not know what his master meant, but as soon as Jim made a movement the girl started too and walked down into the open space. It seems that no one else of the people of the house was in sight. She tottered slightly, and about half-way down called out to Jim, who had apparently resumed his peaceful contemplation of the river. He turned round, setting his back against the gun. âWill you fight?â she cried.
âThere is nothing to fight for,â he said; ânothing is lost.â Saying this he made a step towards her. âWill you fly?â she cried again.
âThere is no escape,â he said, stopping short, and she stood still also, silent, devouring him with her eyes. âAnd you shall go?â she said slowly. He bent his head. âAh!â she exclaimed, peering at him as it were, âyou are mad or false. Do you remember the night I prayed you to leave me, and you said that you could not? That it was impossible! Impossible! Do you remember you said you would never leave me? Why? I asked you for no promise. You promised unaskedâremember.â âEnough, poor girl,â he said. âI should not be worth having.â
âTambâ Itam said that while they were talking she would laugh loud and senselessly like one under the visitation of God. His master put his hands to his head. He was fully dressed as for every day, but without a hat. She stopped laughing suddenly. âFor the last time,â she cried menacingly, âwill you defend yourself?â âNothing can touch me,â he said in a last flicker of superb egoism. Tambâ
Itam saw her lean forward where she stood, open her arms, and run at him swiftly. She flung herself upon his breast and clasped him round the neck.
â âAh! but I shall hold thee thus,â she cried⊠. âThou art mine!â
âShe sobbed on his shoulder. The sky over Patusan was blood-red, immense, streaming like an open vein. An enormous sun nestled crimson amongst the tree-tops, and the forest below had a black and forbidding face.
âTambâ Itam tells me that on that evening the aspect of the heavens was angry and frightful. I may well believe it, for I know that on that very day a cyclone passed within sixty miles of the coast, though there was hardly more than a languid stir of air in the place.
âSuddenly Tambâ Itam saw Jim catch her arms, trying to unclasp her hands. She hung on them with her head fallen back; her hair touched the ground. âCome here!â his master called, and Tambâ Itam helped to ease her down. It was difficult to separate her fingers. Jim, bending over her, looked earnestly upon her face, and all at once ran to the landing-stage. Tambâ Itam followed him, but turning his head, he saw that she had struggled up to her feet. She ran after them a few steps, then fell down heavily on her knees. âTuan! Tuan!â
called Tambâ Itam, âlook back;â but Jim was already in a canoe, standing up paddle in hand. He did not look back. Tambâ Itam had just time to scramble in after him when the canoe floated clear. The girl was then on her knees, with clasped hands, at the water-gate.
She remained thus for a time in a supplicating attitude before she sprang up. âYou are false!â she screamed out after Jim.
âForgive me,â he cried. âNever! Never!â she called back.
âTambâ Itam took the paddle from Jimâs hands, it being unseemly that he should sit while his lord paddled. When they reached the other shore his master forbade him to come any farther; but Tambâ
Itam did follow him at a distance, walking up the slope to Doraminâs campong.
âIt was beginning to grow dark. Torches twinkled here and there.
Those they met seemed awestruck, and stood aside hastily to let Jim pass. The wailing of women came from above. The courtyard was full of armed Bugis with their followers, and of Patusan people.
âI do not know what this gathering really meant. Were these preparations for war, or for vengeance, or to repulse a threatened invasion? Many days elapsed before the people had ceased to look out, quaking, for the return of the white men with long beards and in rags, whose exact relation to their own white man they could never understand. Even for those simple minds poor Jim remains under a cloud.
âDoramin, alone! immense and desolate, sat in his arm-chair with the pair of flintlock pistols on his knees, faced by a armed throng.
When Jim appeared, at somebodyâs exclamation, all the heads turned round together, and then the mass opened right and left, and he walked up a lane of averted glances. Whispers followed him; murmurs: âHe has worked all the evil.â âHe hath a charm.â âŠ
He heard themâperhaps!
âWhen he came up into the light of torches the wailing of the women ceased suddenly. Doramin did not lift his head, and Jim stood silent before him for a time. Then he looked to the left, and moved in that direction with measured steps. Dain Warisâs mother crouched at the head of the body, and the grey dishevelled hair concealed her face. Jim came up slowly, looked at his dead friend, lifting the sheet, than dropped it without a word. Slowly he walked back.
â âHe came! He came!â was running from lip to lip, making a murmur to which he moved. âHe hath taken it upon his own head,â a voice said aloud. He heard this and turned to the crowd. âYes. Upon my head.â
A few people recoiled. Jim waited awhile before Doramin, and then said gently, âI am come in sorrow.â He waited again. âI am come ready and unarmed,â he repeated.
âThe unwieldy old man, lowering his big forehead like an ox under a yoke, made an effort to rise, clutching at the flintlock pistols on his knees. From his throat came gurgling, choking, inhuman sounds, and his two attendants helped him from behind. People remarked that the ring which he had dropped on his
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