Yesterday I was able at last to read some of Borden's notebook. As Koenig had predicted, I found it an engrossing read.
I have been showing extracts to Julia, who finds it equally interesting. She reacts more against his self-satisfied tone than I do, and urges me not to burn up any of my precious energy by getting angry with him again.
Anger, in fact, is not being kindled in me, although the way he distorts some of the events of which I have a knowledge is both pitiable and irritating. What is most fascinating to me is that at last I have proof that Alfred Borden was the product of a conspiracy between twins. Nowhere do they admit it, but the notebook is clearly the work of two hands.
They address each other in the first person singular. I found this confusing at first, as perhaps was intended, but when I pointed it out to Julia she observed that the notebook was apparently not intended to be read by anyone else.
It suggests that they call each other "me" by habit, and this in turn implies they have done it for most of their lives. Reading between the lines of the notebook, as I must, I realize that every event or happening in their lives has been subsumed into one collective experience. It is as if they spent their lives from childhood preparing for the illusion where one would secretly take the place of the other. It fooled me, and fooled most of the audiences who saw them in performance, but surely in the end it is Borden who is the fool?
Two lives made into one means a halving of those lives. While one lives in the world, the other hides in a nether world, literally non-existent, a lurking spirit, a doppelgдnger , a prestige.
More tomorrow, if I have the energy.
25th December 1903
The house and grounds are cut off by the heavy falls of snow that have swept through the Pennines for the last two days. We are however warm and provisioned, and not in need of going anywhere. We have taken our Christmas dinner, and now the children are playing with their new possessions, and Julia and I have been relaxing together.
I have not told her yet of a worrying ailment, newly arrived on my poor body. Several purplish sores have broken out on my chest, upper arms and thighs, and although I have spread them with antiseptic ointment they are as yet showing no sign of recession. As soon as the thaw sets in I shall have to summon the physician again.
31st December 1903
The doctor has advised me to continue with the antiseptic medication, which at last shows some indication of being effective. He observed to Julia before he left that these unpleasant and painful eruptions on the skin might be a symptom of a more serious organic or blood-related problem. Julia gently bathes the sores every night before we go to bed. I have been continuing to lose weight, although in recent days the trend has been slowing.
A Happy New Year!
1st January 1904
I mark the turning of the new year with the grim reflection that I doubt if I shall last to the end of it.
I have been distracting myself from my own troubles by reading the Borden notebook. I have read it through to the end, and I confess I have been absorbed by it. I find it impossible not to make notes about his methods, views, omissions, errors, self-deceptions, etc.
Much as I hate and fear Borden (and I cannot forget that he is alive and active somewhere in the world outside), I find his views on magic provocative and stimulating.
I have mentioned this to Julia, who agrees. She does not say as much but I sense she feels, as I am beginning to, that Borden and I might have made better collaborators than adversaries.
26th March 1904
I have been seriously ill, and for at least two weeks believed myself to be on the point of death. The symptoms have been horrific: persistent nausea and vomiting, a further spread of the sores, paralysis of my right leg, a comprehensively ulcerated mouth, and an almost uncontainable pain from my lower back. Needless to say, I have been confined in a nursing home in Sheffield for much of the time.
Now, though, a minor miracle has occurred and I find myself apparently on the mend. The sores and ulcers have cleared up leaving no trace, I am getting some feeling and therefore movement in my leg, and the general sense of pain and malaise is receding. I have been at home for the last week, and although I have been bedridden my spirits have risen a little more every day.
Today I am out of bed and using a reclining chair in the conservatory. I have a view of the grounds, with trees in the distance; beyond those rises the rocky crag of Curbar Edge, where patches of snow still linger. I am in the best of spirits, and I am re-reading Borden's notebook. These last two facts are not unconnected.
6th April 1904
I have read Borden's notes a total of three times, and have annotated and cross-referenced them in detail. Julia is about to prepare a fair copy of my amended and greatly expanded text.
Although the remission from my ailments continues, and for the last few days I have continued to feel better, I must face up to the fact that overall my health is declining. I therefore confess that in these terminal months of my life I am intending to take a last revenge on my enemy. He it was who caused this condition, he it is who must pay. Acquisition of his notebook has given me a way. I am planning to arrange for it to be published.
The literature of magic is not widely available. Many books are written and published, but with the exception of simple books for children, and a few volumes on legerdemain or sleight of hand, these books are not produced by general publishers. They are rarely if ever found in ordinary bookshops. Instead, they are printed by a number of specialist publishers, for distribution only within the magic community. They often appear in editions as short as four or five dozen copies, and are commensurately expensive. Acquiring a collection of such books is difficult and costly, and many magicians can only obtain copies when one of their colleagues dies and his collection is sold off by his family. Over the years I have amassed a small library of my own, and I have referred to these books constantly so that I might use or adapt existing illusions. In this I am no different from other magicians. The readership of such books is small, but it is one of the most concentrated and informed audiences imaginable.
While I was reading Borden's notebook it frequently occurred to me that it deserved to be published for the benefit of his fellow magicians. It contains much sensible comment on the art and technique of magic. Whatever his intentions might once have been (he declares unconvincingly that his words are intended only for his immediate family, and a "posterity" he fondly imagines for himself) he cannot ever publish the notebook himself. How careless of him to have mislaid it!
I see it as my last act to arrange publication on his behalf, and when I have completed my annotated edition I shall see to it.
If he survives me, which is likely, he will discover that my revenge is subtle and many-layered.
For a start Borden will be appalled to discover, as he soon will, that what he sees as his greatest professional secrets have been published without his permission. His chagrin will be the deeper when he realizes that I was responsible. He will be further confounded when he works out that somehow I was able to do this from beyond the grave. (He believes me already dead, a fact I elicited from the notebook itself.) Finally, should he read the annotated text he will discover the true subtlety of my final revenge.
In short, I have improved his text by making it less obscure, by expanding on many of the interesting general topics which he merely adumbrates, by illustrating his absorbing theory of acquiescence with numerous examples, by describing the methods of many of the great illusionists. I have added detailed descriptions of every trick I know him to have invented, as well as those others I know him to be capable of performing, and in each case have seemed to explain each one without actually revealing the central secret.