The Prestige

First she says the stage is in her blood as much as mine, and that although she now sees the children as her first duty she would wish to participate wholly in all my future stage endeavours. (I presume by this she means I will not be allowed foreign tours without her, so there will be no risk of another Olivia Svenson coming between us.)

At the beginning of this year, she next argues, I was at the peak of my profession, but that by default the wretched Borden is on the brink of taking my laurels. Apparently, he is continuing to perform his version of the switch illusion.

Julia then reminds me that the only reliable way I know of earning money is to perform magic, and that I have a duty to go on supporting her as well as running the family estate she has never seen and had never heard of until last week.

Finally she points out that I will not lose my inheritance by continuing to work in London, and the house and everything that goes with the estate will still be waiting for me when the time comes for retirement. Urgent matters, such as repairs, can be managed from London almost as easily as from the house.

So I have returned to Derbyshire, ostensibly to attend to matters here, but in fact I do need some time alone to think.

I cannot walk away from my responsibilities in Caldlow House. There are the tenant farmers, the household staff, the commitments my family have traditionally made to the rural council, the church, the parishioners, and so on. I find myself taking these matters seriously, so I presume they have always been flowing, unsuspected, in the blood hitherto.

But what practical use can I be in any of these functions if I am to become, as seems likely, bankrupt?

19th November 1900

What I really want is to be with Julia and my family once more, but to do so means accepting Julia's terms. Moving back to London would not be difficult, but I do feel a terrific resistance to the idea of going back on the stage.

I have been away from it for just a few weeks, but I had not realized what a burden it had all become. I remember the day, back in Colorado Springs, when the news of Henry's death belatedly reached me. I thought nothing of Henry and his humiliating but appropriate demise in Paris. What I felt was for myself, a burst of relief, genuine and uplifting relief.

I would be free at last of the mental stresses and strains associated with performing illusions. There would be an end, a thankful end, to the daily hours of practice. No more overnight stays in appalling provincial hotels or seaside lodging houses. No more tiresome train journeys. I would be free of the ceaseless attention to practical matters; making sure the props and costumes would arrive in the same places as me and at the same time, checking the backstage areas of the theatres for the best use of my props, employing and paying the staff, and a hundred other minor chores. All these had suddenly vanished from my life.

And I had also thought about Borden. There was my unshakable foe, lurking out there in the world of magic, ready to resume his campaign of pranks against me.

If I never went back I would miss none of it. I had not realized how the resentment had been growing inside me.

But Julia tempts me.

There is the happy laughter from the audience when I work a surprising effect, the radiance of the lights beaming down upon me, the friendship of the other artistes I meet in the daily round, the applause at the end of my performance. Inevitably also, the fame, the admiring glances in the street, the respectful regard of my contemporaries, the recognition in the highest areas of society. No honest man could say these mean nothing to him.

And the money. How I crave the money!

It is of course no longer a question of what I will decide, but how soon I can convince myself I must do it.

20th November 1900

To London once more by train.

21st November 1900

I am at Idmiston Villas, and I have found here a letter from Alley, the assistant to Nikola Tesla. I now transcribe it:

September 27, 1900

Mr Angier, Sir:

I don't expect you have heard but Nikola Tesla has left Colorado already, and is rumored to have moved his operation to the East, probably to New York or New Jersey. His laboratory here has been seized by his creditors, and it is currently looking for a purchaser. I have been left in the lurch, with more than a month's pay due to me.

You will wish to know, however, that in some matters Mr Tesla is a man of honor, and before our work here was completed your equipment was as instructed shipped to your workshop.