seemed interminable, that I
confounded impossible existences with my own identity; that I was a
brick in the house-wall, and yet entreating to be released from the
giddy place where the builders had set me; that I was a steel beam of a
vast engine, clashing and whirling over a gulf, and yet that I implored
in my own person to have the engine stopped, and my part in it hammered
off; that I passed through these phases of disease, I know of my own
remembrance, and did in some sort know at the time. That I sometimes
struggled with real people, in the belief that they were murderers, and
that I would all at once comprehend that they meant to do me good, and
would then sink exhausted in their arms, and suffer them to lay me
down, I also knew at the time. But, above all, I knew that there was a
constant tendency in all these people,--who, when I was very ill, would
present all kinds of extraordinary transformations of the human face,
and would be much dilated in size,--above all, I say, I knew that there
was an extraordinary tendency in all these people, sooner or later, to
settle down into the likeness of Joe.

After I had turned the worst point of my illness, I began to notice that
while all its other features changed, this one consistent feature did
not change. Whoever came about me, still settled down into Joe. I opened
my eyes in the night, and I saw, in the great chair at the bedside, Joe.
I opened my eyes in the day, and, sitting on the window-seat, smoking
his pipe in the shaded open window, still I saw Joe. I asked for cooling
drink, and the dear hand that gave it me was Joe's. I sank back on
my pillow after drinking, and the face that looked so hopefully and
tenderly upon me was the face of Joe.

At last, one day, I took courage, and said, "Is it Joe?"

And the dear old home-voice answered, "Which it air, old chap."

"O Joe, you break my heart! Look angry at me, Joe. Strike me, Joe. Tell
me of my ingratitude. Don't be so good to me!"

For Joe had actually laid his head down on the pillow at my side, and
put his arm round my neck, in his joy that I knew him.

"Which dear old Pip, old chap," said Joe, "you and me was ever friends.
And when you're well enough to go out for a ride--what larks!"

After which, Joe withdrew to the window, and stood with his back towards
me, wiping his eyes. And as my extreme weakness prevented me from
getting up and going to him, I lay there, penitently whispering, "O God
bless him!