From 26 October 1977, the day after his mother died, to 15 September 1979, Barthes kept a diary of mourning: three hundred and thirty cards, most of them dated, published here as a set. The place in the room where she had been ill, where she died and where he now lives; the wall her bed-head leaned against, where he put an icon, not out of faith. It is the private ground out of which La Chambre Claire came.