Słowa kluczowe: double agents, collaboration, dichotomy, genres transgression, narcissism, image, swimmer, destiny, metaphor, Conrad and Shakespeare, tragedy/comedy, mirroring, Victory, Romeo and Juliet, comparative study, cryptomnesia , game, play, rules, honour, winner, Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, The Shadow-Line, emotions, self-knowledge, self-delusion, imagination., Marlow’s psychology, discrete perspectives, Marlow’s oral and written narratives, aloofness, obfuscation, compunction, Marlow-Jim relationship, limbo, teleology, framing devices, misrepresentation, Karol Ludwik Koniński, Polish reception of Conrad, the concept of loyalty and betrayal, the history of Poland in times of captivity, the deviation from national loyalty, argument about the emigration of talent, the seminal moments in Conrad’s biography, Conrad’s inner feeling vs. the concept of patriotism, Joseph Conrad-Korzeniowski’s Polish background