The Prestige

Next I looked into the possibility of Frederick Borden having brothers of a close age to him, and bearing a strong family resemblance. Frederick was the sixth-born child. He had three older sisters and two older brothers, but of these one brother was eight years his senior, and the other had died at the age of two weeks.

Using the files of the Hastings & Bexhill Announcer , I obtained a description of Frederick's older brother Julius (who according to the newspaper had won a prize at school). At the age of fifteen Julius was said to have straight blond hair. Frederick Borden is dark-haired, but there was a possibility that Julius was the stage double, having coloured his hair. This line of enquiry came to nothing, when I later discovered that Julius had died of consumption in 1870, when Frederick was fourteen.

There was a younger brother too. This was Albert Joseph Borden, seventh-born into the family, on 18th May 1858. (Albert + Frederick = Alfred? Is this how Frederick chose his first nom de thйвtre ?)

Again, the existence of a brother whose age was reasonably close to Frederick's raised the possibility of a double. I dug out and examined Albert's birth records at the hospital, but I found it difficult to ascertain much more about him. However, the enterprising Mr Koenig had suggested a visit to a photogenic portrait artiste called Charles Simpkins, who has his studio in Hastings High Street.

Mr Simpkins greeted me cordially and was pleased to show me a selection of his daguerreotypes. Amongst these, as Mr Koenig had hinted to me, was a studio portrait of Frederick Borden and his younger brother. It had been taken in 1874, when Frederick was eighteen and his brother was sixteen.

The two are clearly unalike in appearance. Frederick is tall, he has the sort of features often referred to as 'noble', and his bearing is arrogant (all of these I have frequently observed for myself), while Albert is much less prepossessing. He has a slack-jawed expression; his features are puffy, and his cheeks are round; his hair is wavier than his brother's and apparently paler in colour; and from his stance I would say he was at least four or five inches shorter than his brother.

This portrait convinced me that Koenig was right: Frederick Borden does not have a close relation he can use as a double.

It remains possible that he has scoured the streets of London to find a man sufficiently like him to pass as a double, with the aid of stage make-up, but no matter what Cutter says I have myself seen Borden's performance. Most illusionists’ doubles are only briefly glimpsed, or they misdirect the perceptions of the audience by wearing identical costumes, so that in the few seconds in which the double is visible he seems to be the original.

Borden, after the transformation, allows himself to be seen, and to be seen clearly. He steps forward to the footlights, he bows, he smiles, he takes the hand of his female assistant, he bows again, he walks to and fro. There is no question but that the man who emerges from the second cabinet is the man who entered the first.

So it is with a certain frustrated equanimity that I am able to prepare myself for my long journey to the New World.

I still do not know how Borden works that damnable illusion, but I do at least know that he works it alone.

I am going to what is fast becoming the centre of the world of magic, and for two months I shall be meeting, and perhaps working with, some of the finest illusionists in the United States of America. There will be many there who can work out how it is done. I go to America to build my reputation, and to amass what must certainly be reckoned as a small fortune in fees, but I now have an extra quest.

I swear that when I return in two months I shall have Borden's secret with me. I also swear that within a month of returning I shall be performing a superior version of the same trick on the London stage.

21st January 1893

On board SS Saturnia

One day out from Southampton, a vile day in the English Channel behind us, and a short stay in Cherbourg, and now we are in the Western Approaches ploughing steadily towards America. The ship is a magnificent vessel, coalfired, triple-stacked, equipped to house and entertain the finest of Europe and America. My cabin is on the second deck, and I share it with an architect from Chichester. I have not told him my own profession, in spite of well-mannered and tentative enquiries. Already I am in pain — the pain of being away from my family.

I see them still in my mind's eye on the rain-swept quay, waving and waving. At times like this I yearn for the magic reality my profession seems to conjure from nowhere: 0! that I could wave my wand, utter some mumbo jumbo, and manifest them here with me!

24th January 1893

Still on board SS Saturnia

I have been suffering mal de mer , but not nearly as badly as my friend from Chichester, who last night spewed disgustingly across our cabin floor. The poor fellow was overcome with contrition and apology, but the deed was done. Partly as a consequence of this unenjoyable experience I have not eaten for two days.

27th January 1893

As I write, the city of New York is clearly visible on the horizon ahead. I have arranged a meeting with Cutter in half an hour, to make sure he has right all the arrangements for disembarkation. No more time for diary writing!

Now the adventure begins!

13th September 1893

I am not surprised to discover that nearly eight months have elapsed since last I came to this diary to record my life. In returning to it I am tempted, as before I have sometimes been tempted, simply to destroy it in its entirety.

Such an act would stand as a summary of my own actions, as I have destroyed, removed or abandoned every aspect of my life that existed when I last wrote here.

One tiny shred remains, however. When I began the diary it was with a childish earnest to write of my entire life, no matter how it might turn out. I can no longer remember what I thought I might actually become, by my thirty-sixth year of life, but I certainly did not imagine this.

Julia and the children are gone. Cutter is gone. Much of my wealth is gone. My career has withered away and gone, through apathy.

I have lost everything.

But I have gained Olivia Svenson.

I shall write little of Olivia here, as in glancing back over the pages I see I depict my love for Julia with such enthusiasm that now I can only recoil in shame. I am old enough, and have travelled far enough in matters of the heart, no longer to trust my emotions in such things.

It is sufficient to say that I have left Julia so that I might be with Olivia, after I met and fell in love with her during my American tour earlier this year. I met Olivia at a reception given in my honour in the fine city of Boston, Massachusetts, where she approached me and made her admiration known, in the way many women have approached me in the past. (I record this without vanity.) Perhaps it was because I was so far from home, and ironically so lonely without my family, that for once the forthright intention was one I could not resist. Olivia, then working as a danseuse , joined my party. When I left Boston she remained with us, and thereafter we travelled together. More than this, within a week or two she was working on stage with me as my assistant, and has returned with me to London.

Cutter did not care for this, and although he saw out the tour we parted immediately on our return.

As, inevitably, did Julia and I. Sometimes, even now, I lie awake at night to marvel at the madness of my sacrifice. Once Julia meant the very world to me, and indeed she helped build the world I inhabit today. My children, my three helpless and innocent children, are nothing less than victims of the same sacrifice. All I can say is that my madness is the madness of love; Olivia blinds me to every other feeling that is not passion for her.

So I cannot bring myself to write down, even in the privacy of this journal, what was said, done and suffered at that time. Much of the saying and doing was mine, while all the suffering was Julia’s.

I now support Julia in a household of her own, where to maintain appearances she lives the life of a widow. She has the children with her, she has her material needs taken care of, and she has never to see me again if that should be what she wants. Indeed, were I to be seen at her house the appearances would be betrayed, so I have perforce become a dead man. I can never meet my children in their own house again, and have to make do with