Joseph Campbell’s first point in the Hero with a Thousand Faces is that “it will be always the one, shapeshifting yet marvellously constant story” whatever culture we choose to investigate. On the contrary, Szczeszak-Brewer interprets Jim’s journey as a straight movement in Empire and Pilgrimage in Conrad and Joyce. My aim in this essay is to bring together the circle with the line. Jim’s journey halts twice, once only temporarily, and this stop with a little bit of exaggeration can be put in the Campbellian system; yet, on the second occasion he seems to step out from the circle entirely. My point is that his journey can be read as a double descent to two separate underworlds at the same time. The circle stops and becomes a line.