The Prestige

Two hours or more went quickly by while we discussed her idea, and began to lay our plans. We emptied the bottle of gin, while Olivia kept saying, "I'll get the secret for you, Robbie. That's what you want me to do, isn't it?" And I said yes, but that I did not want to lose her.

The spectre of Borden's ruthlessness loomed over us. I was torn between the euphoria of making a definitive strike against him, and the prospect of him taking some even greater revenge should he realize Olivia was mine. I voiced these fears. She replied, "I'll come back to you Robbie, and I'll bring you Borden's secret—" We were soon both of us inebriated, both of us frolicsome and affectionate, and I did not return to my own apartment until after breakfast this morning!

At the moment she is in her own apartment, drafting a letter of application to Alfred Borden. I must go to forge one or two testimonials for her. We are using the address of her maid for poste restante ; as a further subterfuge she is taking her mother's maiden name.

7th August 1898

It is a week since Olivia applied to Borden for a job, and there has been no reply. In some ways this is almost an irrelevance, as since the idea came into being Olivia and I have been as tender and loving to each other as we were during those heady weeks of my American tour. She looks more comely than she has for many months, and she has entirely given up her gin.

14th August 1898

Borden has replied (at least, an assistant called T. Elbourne replied on his behalf), suggesting an interview early next week.

I am suddenly dead against it, having in the last few days found a renewal of happiness with Olivia, and more unwilling than ever to see her fall into Borden's clutches even if it should be for a ruse of our own invention.

Olivia still wants to go through with it. I argue against her. I minimize the importance of his trick, shrug off the earnestness of the feud, try to laugh the whole thing off.

I fear that in the past I gave Olivia too many months and years to think alone, however.

18th August 1898

Olivia has been to the interview and returned from it, and she says the job is hers.

While she was gone I was in a torment of fears and regrets. Such is my suspicion of Borden that the moment she had left me I imagined that he had placed the advertisement in an attempt to snare her, and I had to restrain myself from dashing out after her. I went around to my workshop and tried to distract myself with mirror practice, but at last I came home and paced around my room again.

Olivia was gone far longer than either of us had expected, and I was seriously wondering what I should do when suddenly she arrived back. She was safe and sound, elated and excited.

Yes, the job is hers. Yes, Borden read the references I had written, and he accepted them as genuine. No, there was no apparent suspicion of me, and no, he appeared not to suspect there was any link between us.

She told me about some of the apparatus she had seen in his workshop, but it was all disappointingly ordinary.

"Did he say anything at all about the switch illusion?" I queried her.

"Not a word. But he told me there were several tricks he did alone, and for which he did not need a stage assistant."

Later, saying she was tired, she went to her flat to sleep, and here I am once more, alone. I must try to understand; it is tiring going through an audition, no matter what the circumstances.

19th August 1898

It transpires that Olivia has started work with Borden immediately. When I went to the door of her flat this morning the maid told me Olivia had risen early, and would not be home until this afternoon.

20th August 1898

Olivia came in at 5.00 p.m. yesterday, and although she went straight to her flat she did admit me when I went to her door. She looked tired again. I was eager for news, but all she would say was that Borden had spent the day showing her the illusions in which she would be needed, and she had been rehearsing them intensively.

Later we had dinner together, but she was plainly exhausted and went again to sleep alone in her flat. This morning she departed at an early hour.

21st August 1898

A Sunday, and even Borden does not work. At home with me all day Olivia is being tight lipped about what she is seeing and doing in his workshop, and it puzzles me. I asked her if she felt constrained by professional ethics, that she perhaps felt she must not reveal to me the workings of his magic, but she denied it. For a few seconds I glimpsed Olivia in the mood of two weeks ago. She laughed and said that of course she realized where her loyalties lay.

I know I can trust her, however difficult it is proving, and so I have let the subject rest all day. As a consequence, we have together enjoyed an innocent, ordinary day today, while we went for a long walk in the warm sunshine on Hampstead Heath.

27th August 1898

The end of another week, and still Olivia has no information for me. She seems unwilling to talk to me about it.