The Prestige

I began with simple sleight of hand involving coins, some of the first tricks I had learned. Card tricks followed, then handkerchief tricks, hat tricks, billiard ball tricks. Her interest spurred me on. I gradually worked my way through most of my repertoire, even the illusions I had not yet fully mastered.

Sometimes, in her turn, Julia would recite for me; lines from the great poets, the great playwrights, work that was always new to me. It amazed me that she could remember so much, but she said there were techniques that were easily learned. This was Julia — half artiste, half craftsman. Art and technique.

Soon Julia began talking to me about presentation, a subject close to my heart. Our affair began to deepen.

Over the Christmas holiday, while the rest of London celebrated, Julia and I were alone, chastely, in my rented lodgings, teaching each other the disciplines to which we each had become attached. She came to me in the mornings, stayed with me through the short hours of daylight, then soon after nightfall I would walk her back to her own lodgings in Kilburn. I spent the evenings and nights alone, thinking of her, of the excitement she was bringing me, of the matters of the stage to which she was introducing me.

Julia is gradually, inexorably, drawing out of me the true talent I think I have always possessed.

12th January 1878

"Why should we not, between us, devise a magical act of a kind no one before us has ever performed?"

This is what Julia said, the day after I wrote the entry above.

Such simple words! Such havoc on my life, one that had become settled into a cycle of despair and depression, because we are building a mentalist act! Julia has been teaching me her techniques of memory. I am learning the science of mnemonics, the use of memory aids.

Julia's memory has always seemed to me extraordinary. When I first knew her, and had been showing her some of my hard-learned card tricks, she challenged me to call out any two-digit numbers I cared to think of, in any order at all, and to write them down covertly. When I had filled a whole page of my notebook, she calmly recited the numbers to me, without pause or error… and while I was still marvelling, she recited them again, this time in reverse order!

I assumed it was magic, that she had somehow forced me into nominating numbers she had previously memorized, or that she somehow had access to the notes that I thought I was keeping privy. Neither of these was true, she assured me. It was no trick, and there was no subterfuge. In direct reversal of the methods of a magician, the secret of her performance was exactly as it seemed — she was memorizing the numbers!

Now she has revealed to me the secret of mnemonics. I am not yet as adept as her, but already I am capable of apparent feats of memory that once I should always have doubted.

26th January 1878

We are now ready! Imagine that I am seated on a stage, my eyes blindfolded. Volunteers from the audience have supervised the placing of the blindfold, and have satisfied themselves that I cannot see out. Julia moves amongst the audience, taking items of their personal property and holding them aloft for everyone, bar myself, to see.

"What do I hold?" she cries.

"It is a gentleman's wallet," I answer.

The audience gasps.

"Now I have taken—?" says Julia.

"It is a wedding ring made of gold."

"And it belongs to—?"

"A lady," I declare.

(Were she to say, "Which belongs to—? " I should reply, with equal conviction, "A gentleman.")

"Here I am holding?"

"A gentleman's watch."

And so it goes. A litany of pre-arranged questions and answers, but one which presented with sufficient aplomb to an audience unready for the spectacle, will clearly imply mentalist contact between the two performers.

The principle is easy, but the learning is hard. I am still new to mnemonics, and, as in all magic, practice has to make perfect.

While the practice goes on we are able to avoid thinking about the most difficult part — obtaining an engagement.

1st February 1878

Tomorrow night we begin! We have wasted two weeks trying to obtain a firm booking from a theatre or hall, but this afternoon, while we walked disconsolately on Hampstead Heath, Julia suggested we should take matters into our own hands.

Now it is midnight, and I have just returned from an evening of preliminary reconnoitre. Julia and I visited a total of six taverns within a reasonable walking distance, and selected the one which seemed the most likely. It is the Lamb and Child, in Kilburn High Road, on the corner with Mill Lane. The main bar is a large, well-lit room, with a small raised platform at one end (presently bearing a piano, which was not being played while we were there). The tables are set out with sufficient room for Julia to move between them while speaking to members of the audience. We did not make our intentions known to the landlord or his staff.

Julia has returned to her lodgings, and soon I will be abed. We rehearse all day tomorrow, then venture forth in the evening!