ABSTRACT
Leaving the preface and beginning to read the journal itself entails moving from a short, cohesive text in which an easily identifiable je takes on the task of mockingly courting a no less easily identifiable vous, to a body of contiguous, fragmented writing in which at times there is no discernible narrative relationship at all. For me, this shift coincided with a second, more physical, one. Given that when I first began reading Bashkirtseff's journal only three volumes of the unabridged edition of it had appeared, moving to the body of the diary text meant that before long I had exhausted what was available for reading in print. It meant taking up position in the salle des mamiscrits at the Bibliothèque nationale, opening the gilt-edged pages and slowly deciphering the loops and turns of handwriting over a century old. With the close of the previous chapter and the opening of this one, I am not just shifting from one genre of writing to another — I have also shifted from one mode of reading to another. The break between these two chapters also marks a change in the circumstances of my own reading.
