The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

In this chapter, Bauby braids the hospital visit of his very loyal friend Vincent with a recollection of a day, ten years ago, that he and Vincent spent at the horse races.

He and Vincent used to work at a small newspaper together. Bauby remembers Vincent as impulsive, remembering that it was part of his job to rein in Vincent’s more ridiculous ideas. This poses a striking contrast against the way that Bauby depicts Vincent’s careful, methodical, and dedicated progress to his hospital room. He imagines Vincent weaving expertly along the minor road that winds through a few townships before leading to Berck.

Bauby recounts that he and Vincent were inseparable while working at the newspaper. A track correspondent gave them a tip about a horse named Mithra-Grandchamp—saying that he was a guaranteed winner because the odds on him were twenty to one—and also gave them the password to Aladdin’s cave of racing. Bauby imagines Vincent on the outskirts of Berck as Vincent wonders what the hell he is doing there.

He and Vincent spent so much time enjoying the dining room at the racetrack that they did not make it in time to bet on Mithra-Grandchamp with the money that had been given to them by their colleagues at the newspaper. All they could do was watch helplessly as the horse won by a landslide. Bauby then pictures Vincent’s car sliding into the hospital parking lot. He imagines that his visitors need a moment to steel themselves there, before entering “the automatic glass doors, elevator number 7, and the horrible little corridor leading to Room 119” (93). He imagines that many of them need to collect themselves before entering his room, and intimates that a few of them have even fled—“their resolve abandoning them on [his] very threshold” (93).

Vincent then enters the hospital room. Bauby intimates, “I have become so inured to the look on people’s faces that I scarcely notice the transient gleam of fear” (93). He attempts to compose his features into what he hopes is a welcoming smile. He sees that Vincent hasn’t changed at all. He remembers that on the day of the race, Vincent had lamented their foolishness and uttered his favorite expression: “When we get back to the office we’ll be history!” (94).

Bauby ends the chapter by confessing that he had forgotten all about their day at the races. He says, “The memory of that event has only just come back to me, now doubly painful: regret for a vanished past and, above all, remorse for lost opportunities” (94). He remarks that his life feels like a string of near misses. To him, Mithra-Grandchamp now feels analogous to the women he failed to love, the chances he failed to take, and the moments of happiness he allowed to slip away. He ends the chapter by recalling that he and Vincent were, after all, able to pay all of their colleagues back for the loss.