The Prestige

I tried to open the nearer of the two, fumbling along the edge of the lid to find some way to force it open, when to my surprise the top swivelled upwards lightly, balanced within in some way. I knew at once I had found the workings of the electrical apparatus I had seen that night, but because it had been disassembled all menace was gone.

Attached to the inside of the lid were several large sheets of cartridge paper, still uncurled and unyellowed, even in great age, and instructions had been written in a clear but tiny and fastidious hand. I glanced over the first few:

1. Locate, check, and test local ground connection. If insufficient, do not proceed. See (27) below for details of how to install, check, and test a ground connection. Always check wiring colors; see chart attached.

2. [If not used in USA or Great Britain.] Locate, check, and test local electricity supply. Use instrument located in Wallet 4.5.1 to determine nature, voltage, and cycle of current. Refer to (15) below for settings to main transforming unit.

3. Test reliability of local electricity supply while assembling the apparatus. If there is divergence of ±25V do not attempt to operate the apparatus.

4. When handling components, always wear the protective gloves located in Wallet 3.19.1 (spares in 3.19.2).

And so on, an exhaustive checklist of assembly instructions, many of them using technical or scientific words and phrases. (I have since arranged for a copy to be made, which I keep in the house.) The whole list was signed with the initials "F.K.A.".

Inside the lid of the second crate was a similar list of instructions, these dealing with safely disconnecting the apparatus, dismantling it and stowing the components inside the crates in their correct places.

It was at this moment that it began to dawn on me who my great-grandfather had actually been. What I mean by this is the sense of what he had done, what he had been capable of, what he had achieved in his life. Until then he was just an ancestor, Grandpa who had his stuff about the house. It was my first glimpse of the person he might have been. These crates, with their meticulous instructions, had been his and the instructions had been written by or more likely for him. I stood there for a long time, imagining him unpacking the apparatus with his assistants, racing against the clock to get the thing set up in time for the first performance. I still knew almost nothing about him, but at last I had an insight into what he did, and a little of how he did it.

(Later in the year, I sorted through the rest of his stuff and this too helped me sense what he was like. The room that had been his study was full of neatly filed papers: correspondence, bills, magazines, booking forms, travel documents, playbills, theatre programmes. A large part of his life was filed away there, and there was more in the cellar, costumes and paraphernalia from his shows. Most of the costumes had fallen to bits with old age, and I threw them out, but the cabinet illusions were in working or repairable condition, and because I needed the money I sold the best examples to magic collectors. I also disposed of Rupert Angier's collection of magic books. From the people who came to buy, I learnt that much of his material was valuable, but only in cash terms. Little of it had more than curiosity value to modern magicians. Most of the illusions The Great Danton performed were of an everyday variety, and to the expert or collector they contained no surprises. I did not sell the electrical apparatus, and it is still down in the cellar in its crates.)

By some means I had not planned, going down into the cellar put my childish fears of it behind me. Perhaps it was as simple as the fact that in the intervening years I had grown into an adult, or in the absence of the rest of the family had become the effective head of the household. Whatever the reason, when I emerged from the old brown door, locking it behind me, I believed I had thrown off something unwelcome that had dogged my life until then.

It was not enough, though. Nothing could excuse the fact that I had seen a small boy cruelly murdered that night, and by my own father.

This secret has wormed itself into my life, indirectly influencing everything I do, inhibiting me emotionally and immobilizing me socially. I am isolated here. I rarely make friends, I want no lovers, a career does not interest me. Since Rosalie moved out to get married I have lived here alone, as much a victim as my parents were.

I want to distance myself from the madness that the feud has brought to my family in the past, but as I grow older I believe more strongly the only way out is to face up to it. I cannot get on with my life until I understand how and why Nicky Borden died.