snorted.
“The mysterious East!” he whispered contemptuously to Sophie.
She kicked him to keep him quiet.
“On my own journey of spiritual inquiry—”
Mikael was groaning, but Sophie did not bother trying to shut him up this time—she was thoroughly enjoying the magician’s implausible but vivid recycling of the clichés of Eastern enlightenment.
“—I found myself on the doorstep of the lamasery. I presented myself as a searcher and a seeker, a man of some spiritual acuity who little dreamed of the secrets to which I would become privy within those walls. . . .”
He proceeded to describe the monastery routine: rising before dawn for hours of prayer, participating in a series of physical and mental exercises of exceptional stringency whose particulars he was forbidden to disclose on pain of death. (It was not clear how the sentence would be executed, but as an enthusiastic sometime reader of the popular fiction of the late nineteenth century, virtually the only light reading to be found on the shelves of the library in Heriot Row, Sophie had a vaguely Orientalist notion of opium-smoking thug assassins dispatched to do the bidding of villainous potentates.)
The upshot, the mentalist continued, was that he had learned—there was no occult component, just the sustained practice of spiritual discipline and the repetition of mental exercises, and in fact anyone who aspired to acquire such skills could purchase his small pamphlet setting forth a program for transforming a mental weakling into a veritable Hercules of the mind—how to transmit a vivid mental picture of anything he saw to another person.
“No trickery,” he said solemnly. “The feat I am about to perform is nothing more or less than a testament to the amazing powers of the human mind!”
“When is he going to start the actual trick?” Mikael muttered under his breath.
“I believe he’s about to,” Sophie whispered. “He has to build up the suspense first, I think, or else there won’t seem to be nearly enough to it. That’s what the blindfold business is all about—this way he’s giving people their money’s worth.”
“Lilly!” the mentalist called out.
“Yes?” she responded.
Her voice could be heard quite clearly despite the layers of cloth covering her face.
“Lilly, on your oath, can you see the slightest thing?” he asked.
“Not the slightest thing,” she said.
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing!”
“Not the least little peep of light?”
“Not the least little peep!”
“So that when I ask this lady”—he reached out his hand to a thoroughly respectable-looking middle-aged Danish lady, who let him raise her to her feet; she looked flustered but flattered, hitching her handbag up under her arm for fortitude—“when I ask her to hold up some object she has about her person, so that I can see it and the members of the audience can also see what it is, will you swear by the mysteries of the Egyptian pyramids and the sacred temple at Eleusis—”
Mikael snickered, and Sophie could feel, forming in her cheek, the dimple that preceded laughter.
“—that you can see nothing whatsoever?”
“Nothing whatsoever,” said Lilly the assistant.
“Madam,” the magician said to the lady next to him, “pray choose something you have about you and reveal it to us.”
The lady unclasped a bracelet from her wrist and gave it to the magician, who held it up and placed his finger on his lips. He gave it back to the lady, then called out, “Lilly!”
Lilly’s voice assumed a strange tranquillity as she began speaking.
“A silver bracelet, very pretty, with a band of red-and-blue enamelwork around it—is it birds or flowers? I can’t quite see—flowers, I think, though. . . .”
Of course, the bracelet was too small and too far away for Sophie and Mikael to be able to discern all of its particulars, but it was clear from the response of those in the immediate vicinity of the bracelet’s owner that Lilly
“The mysterious East!” he whispered contemptuously to Sophie.
She kicked him to keep him quiet.
“On my own journey of spiritual inquiry—”
Mikael was groaning, but Sophie did not bother trying to shut him up this time—she was thoroughly enjoying the magician’s implausible but vivid recycling of the clichés of Eastern enlightenment.
“—I found myself on the doorstep of the lamasery. I presented myself as a searcher and a seeker, a man of some spiritual acuity who little dreamed of the secrets to which I would become privy within those walls. . . .”
He proceeded to describe the monastery routine: rising before dawn for hours of prayer, participating in a series of physical and mental exercises of exceptional stringency whose particulars he was forbidden to disclose on pain of death. (It was not clear how the sentence would be executed, but as an enthusiastic sometime reader of the popular fiction of the late nineteenth century, virtually the only light reading to be found on the shelves of the library in Heriot Row, Sophie had a vaguely Orientalist notion of opium-smoking thug assassins dispatched to do the bidding of villainous potentates.)
The upshot, the mentalist continued, was that he had learned—there was no occult component, just the sustained practice of spiritual discipline and the repetition of mental exercises, and in fact anyone who aspired to acquire such skills could purchase his small pamphlet setting forth a program for transforming a mental weakling into a veritable Hercules of the mind—how to transmit a vivid mental picture of anything he saw to another person.
“No trickery,” he said solemnly. “The feat I am about to perform is nothing more or less than a testament to the amazing powers of the human mind!”
“When is he going to start the actual trick?” Mikael muttered under his breath.
“I believe he’s about to,” Sophie whispered. “He has to build up the suspense first, I think, or else there won’t seem to be nearly enough to it. That’s what the blindfold business is all about—this way he’s giving people their money’s worth.”
“Lilly!” the mentalist called out.
“Yes?” she responded.
Her voice could be heard quite clearly despite the layers of cloth covering her face.
“Lilly, on your oath, can you see the slightest thing?” he asked.
“Not the slightest thing,” she said.
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing!”
“Not the least little peep of light?”
“Not the least little peep!”
“So that when I ask this lady”—he reached out his hand to a thoroughly respectable-looking middle-aged Danish lady, who let him raise her to her feet; she looked flustered but flattered, hitching her handbag up under her arm for fortitude—“when I ask her to hold up some object she has about her person, so that I can see it and the members of the audience can also see what it is, will you swear by the mysteries of the Egyptian pyramids and the sacred temple at Eleusis—”
Mikael snickered, and Sophie could feel, forming in her cheek, the dimple that preceded laughter.
“—that you can see nothing whatsoever?”
“Nothing whatsoever,” said Lilly the assistant.
“Madam,” the magician said to the lady next to him, “pray choose something you have about you and reveal it to us.”
The lady unclasped a bracelet from her wrist and gave it to the magician, who held it up and placed his finger on his lips. He gave it back to the lady, then called out, “Lilly!”
Lilly’s voice assumed a strange tranquillity as she began speaking.
“A silver bracelet, very pretty, with a band of red-and-blue enamelwork around it—is it birds or flowers? I can’t quite see—flowers, I think, though. . . .”
Of course, the bracelet was too small and too far away for Sophie and Mikael to be able to discern all of its particulars, but it was clear from the response of those in the immediate vicinity of the bracelet’s owner that Lilly
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