Neville recounts a vision from his twenties in which he found himself between two figures: above him a supremely beautiful woman, below him a hairy, ape-like monster. He realized both were his own creations — the woman embodying every noble and kind deed he had done, the monster every act of violence and evil — and, with no one else present to swear to, he swore an oath by himself, likening it to God's self-oath to Abraham in Genesis 22. He connects the experience to the healed blind man of Mark 8 who first "saw men as trees, walking."