The Prestige

After the doctor had left I took the simple step of weighing myself, with an astonishing result. I appear to have lost nearly thirty pounds in weight! I have weighed more or less exactly twelve stone, one hundred and sixty-eight pounds, for most of my adult years. It is just one of those things in life that has remained constant. This morning I found that I weigh just over one hundred and thirty-nine pounds, or a fraction under ten stone!

In the mirror I look the same as ever: my face is no thinner, my eyes are not bloodshot, my cheekbones do not jut, my jaw is not angular. I look tired, indeed, and there is a sallow quality to my skin that is not customary, but I do not look like someone who cannot climb a short flight of stairs without gasping for breath halfway up. Nor do I look like someone who has just lost nearly a sixth of his normal weight.

There being no normal or logical reason for this, it must have been caused by the incomplete Tesla transmission. The first shock of it had taken place. Following this, the electrical information was only partially sent. Borden's interruption came before the second shock occurred, preventing full reassembly at either end.

Once again his intervention has taken me to the edge of death!

Later

Julia has declared herself to be on a mission to restore my strength by fattening me up, and lunch today was substantial. However, halfway through I felt tired and nauseated, and was unable to finish. I have just been taking a short nap.

On walking, I was seized by an idea, whose consequences I am still thinking through.

In the confidentiality of these pages let me disclose that whenever I have used the Tesla apparatus, whether it be in performance or rehearsal, I have always made sure to secrete two or three gold coins in my pocket. Why I should do so must be self-evident; my recent acquisition of a financial fortune is not solely attributable to performance fees!

Tesla, I should in all conscience report, warned me against such an act. He is a highly moral man, and he lectured me long on the subject of forgery. He said he also had scientific reasons, that the apparatus was calibrated for my known body-weight (with certain margins of safety), and that the presence about my person of small but massy objects, such as gold coins, could make the projection inaccurate over longer distances.

Because I trust Tesla's scientific knowledge, at first I decided to take only paper money through with me, but in doing so I created the inevitable difficulty of duplicate serial numbers. I still carry a few high denomination notes at every performance, but in most cases I have preferred to carry gold. I have never encountered any of the problems of inaccuracy of which Tesla warned, perhaps because the distances I travel are so short.

This afternoon, after my nap, I searched for the three coins I had been carrying in my pocket on Tuesday evening. As soon as I held them I felt certain they weighed less than they did before, and when I placed them on my office balance, comparing them with otherwise identical coins that had not been through the transmitter, I discovered they were indeed lighter.

I calculate that they too have lost about seventeen per cent of their mass. They look the same, they have the same dimensions as ordinary coins, they even make the same ringing sound when dropped on a stone floor, but somehow or other they have lost some of their weight .

29th May 1903

The week has shown no improvement. I remain debilitated. Although I am well , in that I have no fever, no apparent wounds, no pain, no sickness, in spite of all this as soon as I make any physical effort I am overtaken with fatigue. Julia continues to try to feed me back to health, but I have made only a marginal gain in weight. We both pretend I am improving, but in doing so we are denying what is obvious to us both — I shall never recover the part of me that has gone.

In this enforced physical languor my mind continues to work normally, which adds to the frustration.

Reluctantly, but on the advice of everyone close to me, I have cancelled all future bookings. To distract myself I have been running the Tesla apparatus, and passing through it a quantity of gold. I am not greedy, and I do not wish to draw unwelcome attention to myself by becoming excessively wealthy. I need only enough money to ensure the long term wellbeing of myself and my family. At the end of each session I weigh each coin carefully, but all is well.

Tomorrow, we return to Caldlow House.

18th July 1903

In Derbyshire

The Great Danton is dead. The demise of the illusionist Rupert Angier came as a result of injuries sustained when a trick went wrong during a performance at the Pavilion Theatre in Lowestoft. He died at his home in Highgate, London, and leaves a widow and three children.