While I was still at the hospital, a distinguished gentleman came to examine my eyes and talk to me. He was Professor Georges Feduzzi of the University of Avignon. It was he who suggested I make these recordings.
He told me, in his warm, clever voice, that it would be a great service to his scientific researches, to the understanding of blindness, and of Charles Bonnet syndrome in particular. When I agreed, he took my hand and squeezed it softly.
It may seem strange, but I actually felt proud.
As you have heard, the stories tumble out of me. Perhaps I could have written it myself, once, with great effort of will. But, for once, I admitted I needed help. I can no longer see the words on the page.
As I have made these recordings, I have become less afraid. As I accustom myself to the idea of blindness, of what will happen to me, of the loss of my reading, I find I miss the prospect of Marthe appearing. With every day, I feel her within me, like the house is around me. You cannot be here, among these stone walls and rocks and paths and gnarled, wind-twisted trees, without being aware of the passage of time and the spirits of the past. I’d felt so alone with only the cloudiness and the scents, first of lavender, then of heliotrope and milky almond woodiness; the scents of Christmas and baking; on warm, stormy nights, the sharp hints of gin from the junipers that grow wild on the scrubby slopes below.
Understanding is all. The visitors come more and more rarely. That is consistent with the syndrome, too. There is a period of intense activity within the brain, and then it subsides. The doctors predicted that, and they have been proved right. The family and all the forgotten strangers only appear regularly in my dreams now. If one of them does come home during the day, I try not to worry. Instead, I make mental notes of what I think I see, and I speak them into these tapes.
And I am happy, in a way, because I know that at last I am fulfilling my ambition. I am passing on learning. My account will be studied and used by doctors and students at the university. I have become a teacher.