The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

This chapter recounts Bauby’s experience of being bathed. It begins at 8:30 in the morning, when a physical therapist named Brigitte arrives. She exercises his arms and legs. He reveals that he has lost 66 pounds in twenty weeks, and then muses with playful sarcasm that when he began a diet a week before his stroke, he did not dream of such a dramatic result.

Bauby recounts that he can now move his head 90 degrees, which he does in order to include the slate roof of the building next door and his son Théophile’s drawing of Mickey Mouse in his line of vision. His time with Brigitte ends with a facial massage. He reveals that there is a numb zone in his face, as well as areas in which he still has feeling and movement. The line that demarcates one zone from the other runs across his mouth, rendering him only capable of a half-smile. He muses that this physical condition faithfully mirrors his internal state, and that the commonplace event of bathing has become one that invokes subtle and intricate emotions.

On one day, he might find it amusing to be 45 years old and have his bottom wiped and diapered like a newborn.