The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Bauby observes that the reddish-yellow brickwork of the hospital buildings assumes the exact shade of pink as the Greek grammar book which he used in high school. This color conjures fond memories of “a world of books and study, in which we consorted with Alcibiades’ dog and the heroes of Thermopylae” (99). He contrasts the color, called “antique pink” by hardware stores, against the cotton-candy pink of the hospital corridors and the mauve of the baseboards and window frames, which resemble the wrapping on a cheap perfume.

Bauby tells us that he dreads Sundays, because if there are no visitors, there is never anything to break the monotony that the absence of his physical therapist, speech pathologist, and psychiatrist creates. Even the sponge bath he receives on Sundays are inadequate—and more akin to being drawn and quartered than hydrotherapy—as the nursing staff “is plunged into gloomy lethargy by the delayed effects of Saturday-night drinking, coupled with regret at missing the family picnic, a trip to the fair, or the shrimp fishing on account of the Sunday duty roster” (100).

On Sundays, he must be careful to make the right choice in TV programming, as whatever he chooses is likely to stay on for hours without attendance. He observes by the small and forlorn Health Department calendar on his wall that it has already become August. “Mysterious paradox: time, motionless here, gallops out there” he muses, as he imagines that his friends, along with their wives and children, have “scattered to the summer winds” (101). He imagines himself sneaking into their summer quarters, in order to observe a pack of children returning from the market on bikes, as even the older children rediscover their innocence along the “rhododendron-lined Breton roads” (101). He also imagines them boating around the island—someone stretched out on the bow of the boat, eyes closed, with their arm trailing in the water. He imagines a small cat with a broken leg slinking into shady spots in the priest’s garden, and a group of young bulls skirting over a fragrant marsh in the Camargue delta country.

He muses that, all over the country, mothers everywhere are tired of preparing the “legendary forgotten ritual” of lunch (102). He muses over the small library of books compiled on his windowsill, softly lamenting that no one will arrive to read to him today, before stating that Olympic wrestling is child’s play compared to the labor of waggling his head in an attempt to dislodge black fly that has begun digging into his nose.