The Prestige

Yesterday, here in London, in the electrical brightness and familiarity of my workshop, with the Tesla equipment reassembled, I felt I should undergo two more rehearsals. I am a performer, a professional. I must give an appearance to what I do, give it a sheen and a glamour. I must project myself about the theatre in a flash, and at the moment of arrival I must appear to be a magician who has successfully performed the impossible.

To sink to my knees, as if poleaxed, would be out of the question. To reveal even a glimpse of the millionth-second of agony I have endured would also be unconscionable.

The point is that I have a double level of subterfuge to convey. A magician ordinarily reveals an effect that is "impossible": a piano seems to disappear, a billiard ball magically reproduces itself, a lady is made to pass through a sheet of mirror glass. The audience of course knows that the impossible has not been made possible.

In a Flash, by scientific method, in fact achieves the hitherto impossible. What the audience sees is actually what has happened! But I cannot allow this ever to be known, for science has in this case replaced magic.

I must, by careful art, make my miracle less miraculous. I must emerge from the elemental transmitter as if I have not been slammed apart, and slammed together again.

So I have been trying to learn how to prepare for and brace myself against the pain, how to react to it without keeling over, how to step forward with my arms raised and with a flashing smile to bow and acknowledge applause. To mystify sufficiently, but not too much.

I write of what happened yesterday, because last night, when I returned home, I was in too great a despair even to think of recording what had happened. Now it is the afternoon and I am more or less myself again, but already the prospect of two more rehearsals tomorrow is daunting and depressing me.

16th February 1901

I am full of trepidation about tonight's performance at the Trocadero. I have spent the morning at the theatre, setting up the apparatus, testing it, dismantling it, then locking it away again safely in its crates.

After that, as anticipated, came the protracted negotiations with the scene-shifters, actively hostile to my intentions of boxing the stage. In the end, a straightforward cash transaction settled the matter and my wishes prevailed, but it has meant a huge dent in my income for the show. This illusion is clearly only performable if I can demand fees greatly in excess of anything I have earned before. A lot depends on the show tonight.

Now I have an hour or two of free time, before I must go back to Holloway Road. I plan to spend part of it with Julia and the children, and try to take a short nap in whatever is left. I am so keyed up, however, that sleep seems only remotely possible.

17th February 1901

Last night I safely crossed the aether from the stage of the Trocadero to the royal box. The equipment worked perfectly.

But the audience did not applaud because it did not see what was happening! When finally the applause came it was more bemused than enthusiastic.

The trick needs a stronger build-up, a greater sense of danger. And the point of arrival must be picked out with a spotlight, to draw attention to my position as I materialize. I have talked to Adam about it, and he suggests, ingeniously, that I might be able to rig up an electrical spur from the apparatus so that turning on the light is not left to a stagehand but is commanded by me from the stage. Magic always improves.

We perform again on Tuesday at the same theatre.

I have left the best to last — I was able to disguise completely the shock of the impact on me. Both Julia, who saw the show from the auditorium, and Adam, who was watching from the rear of the stage through a small flap in the box screen, say my recovery was almost flawless. In this case it works to my advantage that the audience was not fully attentive, because only these two noticed the single weakness that occurred (I took one inadvertent step backwards).

For myself, I can say that practice with the apparatus has meant the terrible shock is not nearly as terrible as before, and that it has been getting slightly better each time I try it. I can foresee that in a month or so I will be able to bear the effect with outward indifference.

I also note that the consequent gloom I suffer is much less than after my first attempts.

23rd February 1901

In Derbyshire