Back from the Brink

`Where am I, and what is the time?' he said aloud to the ceiling. 'In the House of Elrond, and it is ten o'clock in the morning.' said a voice. `It is the morning of October the twenty-fourth, if you want to know.'
     `Gandalf!' cried Frodo, sitting up. There was the old wizard, sitting in a chair by the open window.
     `Yes,' he said, `I am here. And you are lucky to be here, too, after all the absurd things you have done since you left home.' (...) While [Frodo] was thinking of all these things and trying in vain to bring his memory down to his arriving in Rivendell, there was a long silence, broken only by the soft puffs of Gandalf's pipe, as he blew white smoke-rings out of the window.
(...)
`What happened at the Ford?' said Frodo. `It all seemed so dim somehow; and it still does.'
     'Yes, it would. You were beginning to fade,' answered Gandalf. 'The wound was overcoming you at last. A few more hours and you would have been beyond our aid. But you have some strength in you, my dear hobbit! (...)'
J.R.R. Tolkien Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring