The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

This chapter is a vignette of a visit to the beach. Although the day brings stifling heat, Bauby would like to leave the hospital for thetown of Berck. Since the last time he went was during winter, he would like to see the town during summer. Even though the journey across three pot-holed and puddled parking lots is grueling for his body, he makes the journeywith Claude, the young woman to whom he is dictating this book, and his best friend, Brice.

Brice talks at length with Claude about Bauby’s former life, leaving no stone unturned, recounting his “quick temper, [his] love of books, [his] immoderate taste for good food, [his] red convertible” (86). Claude marvels at all the details, telling Bauby that she did not know all of that about him, and Bauby wonders what kind of person all of the new people in his life—the ones who did not know him before the stroke—think of him and his character. He also remarks that the townspeople do not pay him much mind, as they are accustomed to seeing people like him from the hospital.

They stop at a set of stairs that reminds Bauby of the entrance to the Porte d’Auteuil metro station in Paris.