Initially, Braille is homesick and overwhelmed at the Institute. He is frustrated by the method of reading which the academy teaches them: feeling large, embossed letters printed into atlas-sized books. The method is time-consuming and difficult. Furthermore, the embossed books are cumbersome and, given how expensive they are to produce, extremely rare. Braille learns to write simple sentences. The boys are sometimes taken on walks around Paris; Braille loves to experience the city’s sounds and smells.

Braille eventually learns his way around the school, begins to enjoy his classes—especially music, where he is skilled at the piano—and makes friends among the sixty other boys; his closest friend, Gabriel Gaunthier, sleeps in the bed next to his.

Braille excels at school, quickly moving from elementary to more advanced classes. His family and prior teachers are impressed with his knowledge and achievements when he visits home.

In Braille’s third year, a retired artillery captain, Charles Barbier, visits the school. Barbier invented and pioneered a code called nightwriting, which allows French commanders to convey messages using simple codes of raised dots and dashes. These can be interpreted in the dark.

Barbier visits Dr Andre Pignier, the director of Braille’s school, to discuss the utility of a similar system for people who are blind.