At first he tried to fob me off with talk of idle hands, but I persisted. ‘I want to know how you do it!’ I cried. ‘The Queen is placed in the middle of the three, but you move the cards only twice and she is not where I think she is! What’s the secret?’
So one lunchtime, instead of trying to fleece the other men, he took me to a quiet corner of the shed and showed me how to manipulate the three cards so that the hand deceived the eye. The Queen and another card were gripped lightly between the thumb and middle finger of the left hand, one above the other; the third card was held in the right hand. When the cards were placed he moved his hands crosswise, brushing his fingertips on the surface and pausing briefly, so suggesting the Queen was being put down first. In fact, it was almost invariably one of the other cards that slipped quietly down before her. This is the classic trick whose correct name is THREE CARD MONTE.
When I had grasped the idea of that, Noonan showed me several other techniques. He taught me how to palm a card in the hand, how to shuffle the deck deceptively so that the order remained undisturbed, how to cut the pack to bring a certain chosen card to the top or bottom of the hand, how to offer a fan of cards to someone and force him to choose one card and not any of the others. He went through all this in a casual way, showing off rather than showing, probably not realizing the rapt attention with which I was taking it in. When he had finished his demonstration I tried the false dealing technique with the Queen, but the cards scattered all about. I tried again. Then again. And on and on, long after Noonan himself had lost interest and wandered away. By the evening of the first day, alone in my bedroom, I had mastered THREE CARD MONTE, and was setting to work on the other techniques I had briefly seen.
One day, his painting work completed, Noonan left the yard and went out of my life. I never saw him again. He left behind him an impressionable adolescent boy with a compulsion. I intended to rest at nothing until I had mastered the art that I now knew (from a book I urgently borrowed from the lending library) was called Legerdemain.
Legerdemain, sleight of hand, prestidigitation, became the dominant interest of my life.
5
The next three years saw parallel developments in my life. For one thing I was an adolescent growing rapidly into a man. For another, my father was quick to realise that I had an appreciable skill as a woodworker, and that the comparatively coarse demands of the wheelwright’s work were not making the best use of me. Finally, I was learning how to make magic with my hands.
These three parts of my life wove around each other like strands in a rope. Both my father and I needed to make a living, so much of the work I did in the yard continued to be with the barrels, axles and wheels that made up the main part of the business, but when he was able to, either he or one of his foremen would instruct me in the finer craft of cabinet-making. My father planned a future for me in his business. If I proved as adept as he thought, he would at the end of my apprenticeship set me up with a furniture workshop of my own, allowing me to develop it as I saw fit. He would eventually join me there when he retired from the yard. In this, some of his frustrations in life were laid plain before me. My carpentry skill reawakened memories of his own youthful ambitions.
Meanwhile, my other skill, the one I saw as my real one, was developing apace. Every possible moment of my spare time was devoted to practising the conjurer’s art. In particular, I learnt and tried to master all the known tricks of playing-card manipulation. I saw sleight of hand as the foundation of all magic, just as the tonic scale lies at the foundation of the most complex symphony. It was difficult obtaining reference works on the subject, but books on magic do exist and the diligent researcher can find them. Night after night, in my chilly room above the arch, I stood before a full-length mirror and practised palming and forcing, shuffling cards and spreading them, passing and fanning them, discovering different ways of cutting and feinting. I learnt the art of misdirection, in which the magician trades on the audience’s everyday experience to confound their senses – the metal birdcage that looks too rigid to collapse, the ball that seems too large to be concealed in a sleeve, the sword whose tempered steel blade could never, surely?, be pliant. I quickly amassed a repertoire of such legerdemain skills, applying myself to each one of them until I had it right, then re-applying myself until I had mastered it, then re-applying myself once again until I was perfect at it. I never ceased practising.
The strength and dexterity of my hands was the key to this.
Now, briefly, I break off from the writing of this to consider my hands. I lay down my pen to hold them before me again, turning them in the light from the mantle, trying to see them not in the so familiar way that I see them every day, but as I imagine a stranger might. Eight long and slender fingers, two sturdy thumbs, nails trimmed to an exact length; not an artist’s hands, nor a labourer’s, nor those of a surgeon, but the hands of a carpenter turned prestidigitator. When I turn them so that the palms face me, I see pale, almost transparent skin, with darker roughened patches between the joints of the fingers. The balls of the thumbs are rounded, but when I tense my muscles hard ridges form across the palms. Now I reverse them and see the fine skin again, with a dusting of blond hairs. Women are intrigued by my hands, and a few say they love them.
Every day, even now in my maturity, I exercise my hands. They are strong enough to burst a sealed rubber tennis ball. I can bend steel nails between my fingers, and if I slam the heel of my hand against hardwood, the hardwood splinters. Yet the same hand can lightly suspend a farthing by its edge between my third and fourth fingertips, while the rest of the hand manipulates apparatus, or writes on a blackboard, or holds the arm of a volunteer from the audience, and it can retain the coin there through all this before sliding it dexterously to where it might seem magically to appear.
My left hand bears a small scar, a reminder of the time in my youth when I learnt the true value of my hands. I already knew, from every time that I practised with a pack of cards, or a coin, or a fine silk scarf, or with any one of the conjurer’s props I was slowly amassing, that the human hand was a delicate instrument, fine and strong and sensitive. But carpentry was hard on my hands, an unpleasant fact I discovered one morning in the yard. A moment’s lost attention while shaping a felloe, a careless movement with a chisel, and I cut a deep slash in my left hand. I remember standing there in disbelief, my fingers tensed like the talons of a claw, while dark-red blood welled out of the gash and ran thickly down my wrist and arm. The older men I was working with that day were used to dealing with such injuries, and knew what to do: a tourniquet was rapidly applied, and a cart readied for the dash to hospital. For two weeks afterwards my hand was bandaged. It was not the blood, not the pain, not the inconvenience; it was the dread that when the cut itself healed my hand would be found to have been cut through in some final, devastating way, immobilising it forever. As events turned out no permanent damage was done. After a discouraging period when the hand was stiff and awkward to use, the tendons and muscles gradually eased up, the gash healed and knitted properly, and within two months I was back to normal.
I took it as a warning, though. My legerdemain was then only a hobby. I had never performed for anyone, not even, like Robert Noonan, for the entertainment of the men I worked with. All my magic was practice magic, executed in dumb show before the tall mirror. But it was a consuming hobby, a passion, even, yes, the beginning of an obsession. I could not allow an injury to put it in jeopardy!
That gashed hand was therefore another turning point, because it established the paramountcy of my life. Before it happened I was a trainee wheelwright with an engrossing pastime, but afterwards I was a young magician who would allow nothing to stand in his way. It was more important to me that I should be able to palm a hidden card, or deftly reach for a concealed billiard ball inside a felt-lined bag, or secretly slip a borrowed five-pound note into a prepared orange, trivial though these matters might seem, than that I might one day again hurt one of my hands while making
a wheel for the cart of a publican.
6
I said nothing of this to me! What is it? How far is it to be taken? I must write no more until I know!
7
So, now we have spoken, it is agreed I may continue? Here it is again, on that understanding. I may write what I see fit, while I may add to it as I see fit. I planned nothing to which I would not agree, only to write a great deal more of it before I read it. I apologise if I think I was deceiving me, and meant no harm.
8
I have read it through several times, & I think I understand what I am driving at. It was only the surprise that made me react the way I did. Now I am calmer I find it acceptable so far.
But much is missing! I think I must write about the meeting with John Henry Anderson next, because it was through him I gained my introduction to the Maskelynes.
I assume there is no particular reason why I can’t go straight to this?
Either I must do this now, or leave a note for me to find. Exchange me this more often!
I must not leave out on any account:
1. The way I discovered what Angier was doing, & what I did about him.
2. Olive Wenscombe (not my fault, NB).
3. What about Sarah? The children?
The Pact extends even to this, does it? That’s how I interpret it. If so, either I have to leave a lot out, or I have to put in a great deal more.
I am surprised to discover how much I have already written.
9
When I was sixteen, in 1872, John Henry Anderson brought his Touring Magical Show to Hastings, and took up a week’s residence at the Gaiety Theatre in Queens Road. I attended his show every night, taking seats as close to the front of the auditorium as I could afford. It would have been inconceivable to have missed a single performance of his. At that time not only was he the leading stage illusionist with a touring show, not only was he credited with the invention of numerous baffling new effects, but he had a reputation for helping and encouraging young magicians.
Every night Mr Anderson performed one particular trick known in the world of magic as the MODERN CABINET ILLUSION. During this he would invite on stage a small committee of volunteers from the audience. These men (they were always men) would assist in pulling on to the stage a tall wooden cabinet mounted on wheels, sufficiently raised from the floor to show that no one could enter it via a trap in the base. The committee would then be invited to inspect the cabinet inside and out to satisfy themselves it was empty, turn it around for the audience to see it from all sides, even choose one of their number to step inside for a moment to prove that no other person could be concealed within it. They would then collaborate in locking the door and securing it with heavy padlocks. While the committee remained on the stage Mr Anderson once again rotated the cabinet for the audience to satisfy themselves that it was securely sealed, then with quick motions he dashed away the restraining padlocks, threw open the door . . . and out would step a beautiful young assistant, wearing a voluminous dress and large hat.
Every night when Mr Anderson made his call for volunteers I would stand up eagerly to be selected, and every night he would pass me by. I badly wanted to be chosen! I wanted to find out what it was like to be on the stage under the lights, in front of an audience. I wanted to be near to Mr Anderson when he was performing the illusion. And I positively craved a good close look at the way the cabinet had been built. Of course I knew the secret of the MODERN CABINET, because by this time I had learnt or worked out for myself the mechanism of every illusion then current, but to see a top magician’s cabinet at close quarters would have been a golden opportunity to examine it. The secret of that particular illusion is all in the making of the cabinet. Alas, such a chance was not to be.
After the last show of his short season I plucked up my courage and went to the stage door, intending to waylay Mr Anderson when he left the theatre. Instead, I had been standing outside for no more than a minute when the doorman let himself out of his cubbyhole, and walked out to speak to me, his head slightly to one side, and looking at me curiously.
‘Pardon me, sir,’ he said. ‘But Mr Anderson has left instructions that if you appear at this entrance I am to invite you to join him in his dressing room.’
Needless to say, I was astounded!
‘Are you sure he meant me?’ I said.
‘Yes, sir. I’m positive.’
Still mystified, but extremely pleased and excited, I followed the doorman’s directions along the narrow passages and stairways, and soon found the star’s dressing room. Inside—
Inside, there followed a short, thrilling interview with Mr Anderson. I am loath to report it in detail here, partly because it was so long ago and I have inevitably forgotten details, but also partly because it was not so long ago that I have ceased to be embarrassed by my youthful effusions. My week in the front stalls of his performances had convinced me he was a brilliant performer, skilled in patter and presentation, and flawless in the execution of his illusions. I was rendered almost speechless by meeting him, but when I did unstop my mouth I found a torrent of praise and enthusiasm gushing out of me.
However, in spite of all this, two topics came up that are of some interest.
The first was his explanation of why he had never chosen me from the audience. He said he had almost picked me out at the opening performance because I had been the first to leap to my feet, but something had made him change his mind. Then he said that when he saw me at subsequent performances he realised that I must be a fellow magician (how my heart leapt with joy at such recognition!), and was therefore wary of inviting me to take part. He did not know, could have had no means of knowing, if I might have ulterior motives. Many magicians, particularly rising young ones, are not above trying to steal ideas from their more established colleagues, and therefore I understood Mr Anderson’s caution. Even so, he apologised for distrusting me.
The second matter followed on from this. He had realised I must be starting out in my career. With this in mind he penned me a short letter of introduction, to be presented at St George’s Hall in London, where I would be able to meet Mr Nevil Maskelyne himself.
It was around this time that excitement took over and my youthful effusions become too painful to recall.
Some six months after the exciting meeting with Mr Anderson I did indeed approach Mr Maskelyne in London, and it was after this that my professional career as a magician properly began. That, in its barest outline, is the story of how I met Mr Anderson and, through him, Mr Maskelyne. I do not intend to dwell on all these or other steps I followed as I perfected my craft and developed a successful stage show, except where they have a bearing on the main point of this narrative. There was a long period when I was learning my trade by performing it, and to a large extent not performing it as well as I had planned. This time of my life is not of much interest to me.
There is though a relevant point in the particular matter of my meeting Mr Anderson. He and Mr Maskelyne were the only two major magicians I met before my Pact took its present shape, and therefore they are the only two fellow illusionists who know the secret of my act. Mr Anderson, I am sorry to say, is now dead, but the Maskelyne family, including Mr Nevil Maskelyne, is still active in the world of magic. I know I can trust them to remain silent; indeed, I have to trust them. That my secrets have sometimes been in jeopardy is not a charge I am prepared to lay at Mr Maskelyne’s door. No, indeed, for the culprit is well known to me.
I shall now return to address the main thrust of this narrative, which is what I intended to do before I interrupted.
10
Some years ago, a magician (I believe it was Mr David Devant) was reported as saying: ‘Magicians protect their secrets not because the secrets are large and important, but because they are so small and trivial. The wonderful effects created on stage are often the result of a secret so absurd that the magician would be embarrassed to admit that that was how it was done.’
There, in a nutshell, is
the paradox of the stage magician.
The fact that a trick is ‘spoiled’ if its secret is revealed is widely understood, not only by magicians but by the audiences they entertain. Most people enjoy the sense of mystery created by the performance, and do not want to ruin it, no matter how curious they feel about what they seem to have witnessed.
The magician naturally wishes to preserve his secrets, so that he may go on earning his living from them, and this is widely recognised. He becomes, though, a victim of his own secrecy. The longer a trick is part of his repertoire, and the more often it is successfully performed, and by definition the larger the number of people he has deceived with it, then the more it seems to him essential to preserve its secret.
The effect grows larger. It is seen by many audiences, other magicians copy or adapt it, the magician himself will let it evolve, so that his presentation changes over the years, making the trick seem more elaborate or more impossible to explain. Through all this the secret remains. It also remains small and trivial, and as the effect grows so the triviality seems more threatening to his reputation. Secrecy becomes obsessive.
So to the real subject of this.
I have spent my lifetime guarding my secret by appearing to hobble (I am alluding to Ching Ling Foo, not, of course, writing literally). I am now of an age, and, frankly, of an earned wealth, where performing on stage has lost its golden allure. Am I therefore to limp figuratively for the rest of my natural life so as to preserve a secret few know exists, and even fewer care about? I think not, and so I have set out at last to change the habit of a lifetime and write about THE NEW TRANSPORTED MAN. This is the name of the illusion that has made me famous, said by many to be the greatest piece of magic ever performed on the international stage.
The Prestige Page 5