Don's Diary

What day is it?

Grey-bearded, pony-tailed taxi-driver bringing me from Austin airport has trouble with address. "Don't go to that quarter much. Short trips, no tips." Left alone in the street with my misgivings. Refer to instructions, grope in bucket on porch, find note, open door, sign register, crash into bed. Wake indeterminate time later. Cruel, cruel bathroom mirror. Look like taxi-driver.

Ask my own question of young woman with questionnaire: "Where is the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center?" I'm standing in front of it.

Charming, helpful staff at the centre. My hands shake as I reach out to take the manuscript. This is the don's diary: the journal des "Faux-Monnayeurs". In it Andre Gide records the composition of a novel about a novelist writing a novel who keeps a diary as he writes it. Am here to transcribe the manuscript in preparation for a "genetic" edition. Will also need microfilm to show patterns of handwriting and disposition on the page to analyse dynamics of creation. Sit down 9.15-ish. Next time I look it's almost closing time. Amazing manuscript, full of surprises.

Friends take me to dinner and we drive round city. The Capitol building is larger than that in Washington. Well, this is Texas...

Tuesday

Work through again. The text is compelling and I have only a few days to transcribe it all. Teeming with rain. No question of eating out. Consume eight chocolates from souvenir pack.

Wednesday

Rising sense of anxiety: am I going to get through all the material? Am invited to meet other staff and fellows of the centre. Compliment deputy director on wonderful collections. They have generous donors. Best-selling author of blockbuster novels bequeathed manuscripts and 20 per cent of royalties, rising to 100 per cent after the children and grandchildren are gone. But who'll want to work on the manuscripts? Spot curator of French collection and ask about microfilms. She listens sympathetically but I fear difficulties. Rush back upstairs to resume work.

Thursday

Go back over ms and check words I've marked "illisible". Amazed at how many I can now make out clearly. Next: two passages written on a train journey that I've been leaving till last. Luckily texts don't vary greatly from published version, which serves as useful guide to otherwise impossible squiggles. But will need microfilms...

Friday

Finalise checks of diary entry dates. Do catalogue research: spot two items could work on before leaving. One is temporarily untraceable, so I shop for souvenirs while librarian looks for it. On return, item has been found: splendid draft of an early text.

Curator appears, to discuss microfilm of manuscript pages. Am beginning to see patterns in the novel's genesis. Everything wrapped up by 4.30. Walk down to river and back, past Travis County Courthouse, Bell Southwest Telegraph and Telephone building. Sunset over river. Could that really be a prairie moon hanging low in the sky as I turn into Chico's and order a margarita?

David Walker Professor of French at the University of Sheffield, and director of the Andre Gide Editions Project.