"Barker, Clive - Books of Blood 06" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive)

CONTENTS
THE LAST ILLUSION
page 1

THE LIFE OF DEATH
page 74

HOW SPOILERS BLEED
page 122

TWILIGHT AT THE TOWERS
page 165

THE BOOK OF BLOOD
(a postscript)
ON JERUSALEM STREET
page 209
THE LAST ILLUSION
WHAT HAPPENED THEN - when the magician,
having mesmerised the caged tiger, pulled the
tasselled cord that released a dozen swords upon its
head - was the subject of heated argument both in the
bar of the theatre and later, when Swann's performance
was over, on the sidewalk of 51st Street. Some claimed to
have glimpsed the bottom of the cage opening in the split
second that all other eyes were on the descending blades,
and seen the tiger swiftly spirited away as the woman in
the red dress took its place behind the lacquered bars.
Others were just as adamant that the animal had never
been in the cage to begin with, its presence merely a
projection which had been extinguished as a mechanism
propelled the woman from beneath the stage; this, of
course, at such a speed that it deceived the eye of all but
those swift and suspicious enough to catch it. And the
swords? The nature of the trick which had transformed
them in the mere seconds of their gleaming descent from
1
steel to rose-petals was yet further fuel for debate. The
explanations ranged from the prosaic to the elaborate,
but few of the throng that left the theatre lacked some
theory. Nor did the arguments finish there, on the
sidewalk. They raged on, no doubt, in the apartments
and restaurants of New York.
The pleasure to be had from Swann's illusions was,
it seemed, twofold. First: the spectacle of the trick
itself - in the breathless moment when disbelief
was, if not suspended, at least taken on tip-toe.
And second, when the moment was over and logic
restored, in the debate as to how the trick had been
achieved.