The Last Days of Night

Paul leads Westinghouse through Manhattan to Tesla’s demonstration. Reaching Columbia’s campus once again, he reflects on his time spent as a student there and the paradoxical feeling of being old to one’s peers and young to one’s colleagues, a “generational displacement endemic to the young and successful” (50).

Batchelor is among the audience, as Edison is tracking Tesla, as well. They wait a long time, then finally Martin brings a very reluctant Tesla onto the stage. As he introduces the genius Tesla, he seems to claim ownership: “Tesla was his discovery. By extension, whatever it was that Tesla would bring into the world, Martin was laying a claim to as well” (51). Tesla finally greets the audience in his difficult Serbian accent, apologizes for his poor health and lack of preparation for the event. He asks for the audience’s “minor approval” (52), then abruptly leaves the room.

Martin attempts to calm the irate audience, but Tesla returns shortly with a cart holding three mechanical devices. He introduces “a novel system of electrical distribution and power transmission” (53) based in alternating currents. The audience becomes agitated again at this controversial proposal. Tesla writes further explanations on a chalkboard and many copy his equations.

Westinghouse explains to Paul how a generator works. A magnet with a wire coiling around it is spun by a hand crank or steam engine and generates an electrical current. A commutator smooths out the jolts of energy produced. In this closed-loop system, the electricity powers a machine or device then returns through the commutator back to the generator (called D/C). An alternating current system doesn’t have a commutator; the energy comes in rapid bursts clockwise, then counterclockwise (A/C).

Alternating current runs at a higher voltage, is more efficient, is more powerful, and could work at a great distance, thereby solving the distance problem. Somehow, Tesla has made it work. Paul knows this is a decisive turn in the war for power: “A new weapon had just made an appearance on the battlefield. And Paul knew that Westinghouse must have him on his side” (58).

Paul knows Tesla has just become the most sought-after engineer in the country. Batchelor will try to recruit him back to Edison’s team.

Using his knowledge of Columbia’s buildings, Paul abruptly leaves the auditorium through the back-service door. He runs to front of the engineering building and waits by the door. Martin and Tesla appear minutes later. Paul tells them he works for Westinghouse and would like to offer Tesla a partnership and an opportunity for revenge against Edison. Tesla smiles.

The next night, Paul takes Tesla to dinner at Delmonico’s, the most fashionable and luxurious restaurant in Manhattan. A vivid description of their decadently prepared lobsters á la Newburg portends a weighty business arrangement in a cut-throat environment.

Paul’s intent is to make an impression on Tesla, so he will work in Westinghouse’s lab. He hopes Westinghouse’s engineers will learn Tesla’s designs enough to modify their lightbulbs to work on alternating current, gaining “an undeniable technological advantage over Edison. Their lights would not only be powered more efficiently, but they could be powered over far greater distances as well” (63).

Tesla is not impressed by the lobster, as he doesn’t like seafood. He muses on the measurements of his plate then says he can’t eat, as his dinner must be a cubic volume divisible by three. When his veal arrives, he cuts it into impeccable eighths.

Paul tries to entice Tesla into Westinghouse’s laboratory to bring his inventions into reality, but Tesla is not interested. He doesn’t see his inventions as products, through a capitalistic lens. When Paul intimates Edison would love to make his designs into products, Tesla says Edison wouldn’t understand his inventions, calling him a “face for the photographs […] [a]n actor” (64), not a scientist or inventor.

Paul asks about Tesla’s history with Edison. After leaving Serbia, Tesla met Batchelor, Edison’s associate, in Paris. Batchelor told him to look Edison up if Tesla was ever in New York. The scientist did move to New York shortly thereafter and met with an unimpressed and rude Edison. To prove himself, Tesla fixed the engine of a ship in the New York harbor.

He began work in Edison’s New Jersey laboratory the next day, but found the conditions disgusting: dirty, unorganized, and “with an absence of vision” (66). Rather than lauding Edison’s experimentation as innovative, he found it nothing but tedious. After a year, Tesla asked for a raise. Edison refused, saying, “The woods are full of men like you, Tesla” (67), and Tesla quit.

Paul slides a check from Westinghouse for $50,000 across the dinner table, telling Tesla the best revenge is success. 

Paul is disturbed when Tesla forgets his check on the table and then only thanks Paul half-heartedly when Paul retrieves it. Reflecting on the types of people that don’t care about money, Paul decides there are two types: those who were born into privilege and those he calls the “unknowing poor,” (69) who had never had money and never would.

Paul ascribes his father, Erastus Cravath, to the “unknowing poor.” In contrast to Paul, Erastus was never after money or prestige. He only sought justice through religious devotion. Paul envies the simplicity of his father’s philosophy and wishes to share this belief but acknowledges that he can’t force himself to change. Although Tesla has accepted Westinghouse’s offer, his ambivalent relationship to money troubles Paul because, unlike Erastus, Paul can’t conceive of what Tesla does want.

Paul meets with Tesla’s lawyer, Lemuel Serrell. Serrell represented Edison’s first telephone and telegraph patents, but Edison dropped him for a more prestigious firm. Paul expects Serrell to puff up and bully in their negotiations, “an Edisonian strategy” (72). Serrell is moderate and thoughtful, however, even as he gently intimidates Paul.

Westinghouse had approached Serrell for representation before Paul, and Serrell turned him down. Serrell boldly asks Paul why Westinghouse chose him, and Paul responds angrily:

‘If you’re trying to scare me, get on with it. If you’re not, you might want to tell me how much more money you’d like my client to pay your client in exchange for his patents and then we can both find other ways to spend the remainder of our afternoons’ (73).

Serrell warns Paul of the lawyerly code of conduct, with its unspoken threats beneath the cover of pleasantries, and states that Tesla will not sell his patents. Rather, the patents will be licensed through a combination of cash, stock, and per-unit fee. The figures are generous to Tesla, but Paul agrees to negotiation.

After rejecting an offer to join Serrell’s firm, Paul asks why Serrell turned down Westinghouse’s case. Experienced attorneys wouldn’t gain anything from taking on a losing case, Serrell responds, but a young attorney just starting his career would benefit from the exposure.

They reach a deal with Tesla by July: $70,000 up front (some in cash, some in Westinghouse stock) and $2.50 per horsepower on machines using alternating currents. Tesla would also work as a consultant at Westinghouse Electric Company, moving his lab to Pittsburgh.

Paul asks Westinghouse why he hired him. Edison's affiliates are so numerous, tied to so many law firms, that Westinghouse needed someone with no clients, no allegiances, and no experience. Paul sees the irony in Westinghouse’s confession: “Funny, to think that all this time he thought he’d been valued for what he had accomplished—instead, it turned out that his value lay in his very lack of accomplishments” (76). Westinghouse tells Paul not to pout; they will win by rendering most of the lawsuits moot. Changing their designs to Tesla’s A/C system will make them almost entirely different from Edison’s D/C system.

However, to win the biggest suit of all, they still must find a way to modify the light bulb (a task with which Westinghouse has charged Tesla). Westinghouse shows Paul a map of the United States, urging him to think about A/C beyond the frame of winning the lawsuit. He introduces the idea of a network of large generators in the center of each community, powering all the houses and easily adding more: “Here, between the bent and soiled gear bits, lay the framework for the electrification of the United States” (78).

Edison already covers most of the map, especially the major industrial cities, but Westinghouse had marked many townships for his own: “Westinghouse’s electrical revolution would not hail from the steel towers of America’s moneyed metropolises. Instead, his insurgence would come from a thousand sleepy villages” (78). Westinghouse advises Paul to simply keep the courts off his back while he and Tesla rapidly begin installing their systems, trying to beat Edison.

The night Tesla moves into the Westinghouse estate, Westinghouse throws a dinner in his honor, at Paul’s suggestion. When he meets Marguerite Westinghouse, Tesla emits a high-pitched yelp in shock at a hair of hers that has stuck to his sleeve, startling everyone. The dinner is brief, and the occasion is the last time Tesla ever set foot in Westinghouse’s mansion.

Tesla almost never leaves his laboratory, urgently requesting water and saltine crackers at odd hours, and adhering to his OCD requirement for his food’s precise mathematical dimensions. Westinghouse is frustrated with Tesla’s eccentricities, as Tesla never shows up for weekly meetings to discuss progress on his bulb design. As an employer, Westinghouse is uncommonly generous, giving presents for holidays and being the first in the US to shorten his employees’ workweek to six days. The Westinghouse Electric Company is bound by mutual respect as well as by the not so distant rival in New York.