Authors: Christopher Priest
Tonight, at the conclusion of the trick, as I beamed towards the audience in anticipation
of the applause, I heard the fellow say, “Here, this isn't my card!”
I turned towards him. The fool was standing there with the remains of the cage dangling
from one hand, and the playing card in the other. He was trying to read it.
“Let me take it, sir!” I boomed theatrically, sensing that my forcing of the card might
have gone wrong, and preparing to cover the mistake with a sudden production of a
multitude of coloured streamers which I keep on hand for just such an eventuality.
I tried to snatch the card from him, but calamity piled on disaster.
He swung away from me, shouting in a triumphant voice, “Look, it's got summat else written
on it!”
The man was playing to the audience, making the most of the fact that he had, somehow,
beaten the magician at his own game. To save the moment I had to take possession of the
card, and I did, wrenching it out of his hand. I showered him with coloured streamers,
cued the bandmaster, and waved the audience to applaud, to waft the appalling fellow back
towards his seat.
In the swelling music, and the paltry applause, I stood transfixed, reading the words that
had been written there.
They said, “I know the address you go to with Sheila Macpherson — Abracadabra! — Alfred
Borden.”
The card was the trey of clubs, the one I had forced on the volunteer for the trick.
I simply do not know how I managed to get through the rest of the performance, but somehow
I must have done so.
18th February 1896
Last night I travelled alone to the Empire Theatre in Cambridge where Borden was
performing. As he went through the rigmarole of setting up a conventional illusion with a
cabinet, I stood up in my seat in the auditorium and denounced him. As loudly as I could I
informed the audience that an assistant was already concealed inside the cabinet. I
immediately left the theatre, glancing back only as I exited the auditorium, to be
rewarded by the sight of the tabs coming down prematurely.
Then, unexpectedly, I found I had to pay a price for what I had done. Conscience struck me
as I took my long, cold and solitary train journey back to London. In that dark night I
had abundant opportunity to reflect on my actions. I bitterly regretted what I had done.
The ease with which I destroyed his magic appalled me. Magic is illusion, a temporary
suspension of reality for the benefit and amusement of an audience. What right had I (or
he, when he took his turn) to destroy that illusion?
Once, long ago, after Julia lost our first baby, Borden wrote to me and apologized for
what he had done. Foolishly, O how foolishly!, I spurned him. Now the time has come when I
anxiously desire a surcease of the feud between us. How much longer do two grown men have
to keep sniping at each other in public, to settle some score that no one but they even
know about, and one that even they barely comprehend? Yes, once, when Julia was hurt by
the buffoon's intervention, I had a valid case against him, but so much has happened since.
All through that cold journey back to Liverpool Street Station, I wondered how it might be
achieved. Now, twenty-four hours later, I still think about it. I shall brace myself,
write to him, call an end to it, and suggest a private meeting to thrash out any remaining
scores that he feels have to be settled.
20th February 1896
Today, after she had opened her letters, Olivia came to me and said, “So what Gerry Root
informed me of is true!”
I asked what she could possibly mean.
“You're still seeing Sheila Macpherson, right?”
Later, she showed me the note she had received, in an envelope addressed to "Occupant,
Flat B, 45 Idmiston Villas’. It was from Borden!
27th February 1896
I have made peace with myself, with Olivia, even with Borden!
Let me simply record that I have promised Olivia I shall never see Miss Macpherson again
(nor shall I), and that my love for her is undying.
And I have decided that never again shall I conduct a feud with Alfred Borden, no matter
how provoked I feel. I still expect a public reprisal from him for my ill-advised outburst
in Cambridge, but I shall ignore him.
5th March 1896
Sooner even than I had expected, Borden tried successfully to humiliate me while I was
performing a well-known but popular illusion called Trilby. (It is the one where the
assistant lies on a board balanced between two chair backs, then is seen to hover
apparently unaided in the air when the chairs are removed.) Borden had somehow secreted
himself backstage.
As I removed the second chair from beneath Gertrude's board, the concealing backdrop
lifted quickly to reveal Adam Wilson crouched behind, operating the mechanism.
I brought down the main curtains, and discontinued my act.
I shall not retaliate.
31st March 1896
Another Borden incident. So soon after the last!
17th May 1896
Another Borden incident.
This one puzzles me, for I had already established he was also performing this same
evening, but somehow he got across London to the Great Western Hotel to sabotage my
performance.
Again, I shall not retaliate.
16th July 1896
I shall not even record any more Borden incidents here, such is my disdain for him.
(Another one this evening, yes, but I plan no retaliation.)
4th August 1896
Last night I was performing an illusion comparatively new to my act, which involves a
revolving blackboard on which I chalk simple messages called out to me by members of the
audience. When a certain number have been written for all to see, I suddenly spin the
blackboard over… to reveal that by some apparent miracle the same messages are already
written there too!
Tonight when I rotated the blackboard I found that my prepared messages had been erased.
In their place was the message:
I SEE YOU HAVE GIVEN UP TRYING
TO TRANSPORT YOURSELF
DOES THIS MEAN YOU STILL DON'T
KNOW THE SECRET?
COME AND WATCH AN EXPERT!
Still I shall not retaliate. Olivia, who perforce knows every fact relating to our feud,
agrees that a dignified disdain is the only response I should make.
3rd February 1897
Another Borden incident. How tiresome it is to open this journal only to report this!
He is becoming more daring. Although Adam and I carefully check our apparatus before and
after every performance, and scour through the backstage parts of the theatre immediately
before going on, somehow tonight Borden gained access to the mezzanine floor, beneath the
stage.
I was performing a trick known simply as The Disappearing Lady. This is an attractive
illusion both to perform and see, as the apparatus is extremely straightforward. My
assistant sits on a plain wooden chair in the centre of the stage, and I throw over her a
large cotton sheet. I spread it out smoothly around her. Her figure can be plainly seen
still sitting on the chair, thinly veiled by the sheet. Her head and shoulders, in
particular, may easily be made out as proof of her presence.
Suddenly, I whip away the sheet in a continuous movement… and the chair is empty! All that
remains on the bare stage is the chair, the sheet and myself.
Tonight, when I pulled away the sheet, I discovered to my amazement that Gertrude was
still in the chair, her face a torment of confusion and terror. I stood there, aghast.
Then, compounding the moment, one of the stage trapdoors snapped open, and a man came
rising into view from below. He was wearing full evening dress, with silk hat, scarf and
cape. As calmly as the devil, Borden (for it was he) doffed his hat to the audience, then
strode calmly towards the wings, a drift of tobacco smoke swirling in his wake. I dashed
after him, determined at last to confront him, when my attention was drawn by an immense
discharge of brilliant light, from over my head!
An electrified sign was being lowered from the flies! In bright blue lettering, picked out
in some electrical device, it said:
LE PROFESSEUR DE LA MAGIE
AT THIS THEATRE — ALL NEXT WEEK!
A ghastly cyanic pallor imbued the stage. I signalled to the stage manager in the wings
and at last the curtain came down, concealing my despair, my humiliation, my rage.
When I arrived home and told her what had happened, Olivia said, “You got to take revenge,
Robbie. And you better make it good!”
At last I agree with her.
18th April 1897
Tonight, for the first time in public, Adam and I performed the switch illusion. We have
been rehearsing it for more than a week, and technically the performance was faultless.
Yet the applause at the end was polite rather than enthusiastic.
13th May 1897
After many long hours of work and rehearsal, Adam and I have developed our cabinet
switching routine to a standard which I know cannot be bettered. Adam, after eighteen
months working closely with me, can imitate my movements and mannerisms with uncanny
accuracy. Given an identical suit of clothes, a few touches of greasepaint and a (most
expensive) hairpiece, he is my double to the last detail.
Yet each time we perform it, we bring the show to what we imagine will be a devastating
climax, and our audiences declare themselves, by their lukewarm ripples of applause, to be
unimpressed.
I do not know what I have to do to better the illusion. Two years ago the mere suggestion
that I might be prevailed upon to include it in my act was enough to double my fee. These
days, it is almost an irrelevance. I am brooding long.
1st June 1897
I have been hearing rumours for some time that Borden has “improved” his switch illusion,
but without further information I have taken no notice. It is years since I saw him
performing it, and so yesterday evening I betook myself and Adam Wilson to a theatre in
Nottingham, where Borden has been in residence for the last week. (I have a show tonight
in Sheffield, but I left London a day early so that I might visit Borden at work
en route
.)
I disguised myself with greyed hair, cheek pads, untidy clothes, a pair of unnecessary
eye-glasses, and took a seat only two rows from the front. I was just a few feet away from
Borden as he performed all his tricks.
Everything is suddenly explained! Borden has substantially advanced his version of the
illusion. He no longer conceals himself inside cabinets. There is no more
stuff-and-nonsense with some object tossed across the stage (which I have been continuing
to work with until this week). And he does not use a double.
I say with certainty:
Borden does not use a double
. I know everything there is to know about doubles. I can spot one as easily as I can spot
a cloud in the sky. I am as sure as I can be that Borden works alone.
The first part of his act was performed before a half-drop, which only allowed the full
stage set to be seen when he came to the climactic illusion. At this, the half-drop was
raised and the audience saw an array of jars fuming with chemicals, cabinets adorned with
coiling cables, glass tubes and pipettes, and above all a host of gleaming electrical
wires. It was a glimpse into the laboratory of a scientific fiend.
Borden, in his embarrassing persona of a French academic, strolled around the equipment,
lecturing the audience on the perils of working with electrical power. At certain moments
he touched one wire against another, or to a flask of gas, and there came an alarming
flash of light, or a loud bang. Sparks flew around him, and a mist of blue smoke began to
hover about his head.
When he was ready to perform, he indicated that a roll of drums be played from the
orchestra pit. He seized two heavy wires, brought them dramatically together and made an
electrical connection.
In the brilliant flash that followed, the switch took place. Before our very eyes, Borden
vanished from where he was standing (the two thick wires fell snaking to the stage floor,
emitting a trail of dangerous fizzing sparks), and he instantly reappeared on the other
side of the stage — at least twenty feet away from where he had been!
It was impossible for him to have moved across that distance by normal means. The switch
was too quick, too perfect. He arrived with his hands still flexed as if gripping the
wires, the ones that even at that moment were zigzagging spectacularly across the stage.
Borden stepped forward in tumultuous applause to take his bow. Behind him the scientific
apparatus still frothed and fumed, a deadly backdrop that seemed, perversely, to heighten
his ordinariness.
As the applause continued to thunder, he reached into his breast pocket as if to produce
something. He smiled modestly, inviting the audience to urge him to one final magical
production. The applause accordingly lifted, and with his smile broadening into a full
beam Borden thrust his hand into the pocket and produced… a paper rose, brilliant pink in
colour.
This production was a reference back to an earlier trick. In this he had allowed a lady
from the audience to select one flower from a whole bunch, before wonderfully making it
vanish. To see the rose reappear utterly charmed his audience. He held the little flower
aloft — it was most definitely the one the lady had chosen. When he had displayed it long
enough he turned it in his fingers, to reveal that part of it had been charred black, is
if by some infernal force! With a significant glance towards his apparatus behind him,
Borden made one more sweeping bow, then departed the stage.
The applause continued for long afterwards, and I report that my hands were clapping as
loudly as anyone’s.
Why should this fellow-magician, so gifted, so endowed with skill and professionalism,
pursue a sordid feud against me?
5th March 1898
I have been working hard, with little time for the diary. Once more, several months have
passed between my last entry and this. Today (a weekend) I have no bookings, so I may make
a brief entry.