Great Expectations

He lay in prison very ill, during the whole interval between his

committal for trial and the coming round of the Sessions. He had broken

two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great

pain and difficulty, which increased daily. It was a consequence of his

hurt that he spoke so low as to be scarcely audible; therefore he spoke

very little. But he was ever ready to listen to me; and it became the

first duty of my life to say to him, and read to him, what I knew he

ought to hear.

Being far too ill to remain in the common prison, he was removed, after

the first day or so, into the infirmary. This gave me opportunities

of being with him that I could not otherwise have had. And but for

his illness he would have been put in irons, for he was regarded as a

determined prison-breaker, and I know not what else.

Although I saw him every day, it was for only a short time; hence, the

regularly recurring spaces of our separation were long enough to record

on his face any slight changes that occurred in his physical state. I

do not recollect that I once saw any change in it for the better; he

wasted, and became slowly weaker and worse, day by day, from the day

when the prison door closed upon him.

The kind of submission or resignation that he showed was that of a man

who was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner

or from a whispered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered

over the question whether he might have been a better man under better

circumstances. But he never justified himself by a hint tending that

way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape.

It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his desperate

reputation was alluded to by one or other of the people in attendance on

him. A smile crossed his face then, and he turned his eyes on me with

a trustful look, as if he were confident that I had seen some small

redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when I was a little child.

As to all the rest, he was humble and contrite, and I never knew him

complain.

When the Sessions came round, Mr. Jaggers caused an application to be

made for the postponement of his trial until the following Sessions. It

was obviously made with the assurance that he could not live so long,

and was refused. The trial came on at once, and, when he was put to the

bar, he was seated in a chair. No objection was made to my getting

close to the dock, on the outside of it, and holding the hand that he

stretched forth to me.