“You’ve only to sign this,” said Westinghouse quietly. He did not meet Tesla’s eyes.
Agnes’s face curdled with disgust. “Nikola,” she said, “do not make this deal. I know that it seems like only money to you right now, but what source of income will you have if you give away your royalties? You will watch in penury as your peers grow rich.”
Tesla smiled at her sympathetically. “My ideas for the alternating current are old. If in the future I want for money, I shall have so many more ideas from which to farm fortune.” He came toward the table that bore the contract and took the pen in his hand.
Agnes gave Paul a look of such violence as he had never seen before. He had known this was coming. He’d even reasoned that her anger would be a relief. What would it matter, he’d thought, if she blamed him for doing what needed to be done? She would never have to love him as if he were her fiancé. Wouldn’t they both be better off if she didn’t? She was soon to be married, and with any luck her hatred would only help them to forget each other.
And yet now that he was confronted with her withering gaze, the sting was so much worse than he’d imagined.
She turned her glare to Westinghouse. “You’re a co-conspirator in this villainy?”
Westinghouse said nothing. He did not appear to feel a need to justify his actions to some singer.
“Goddamn you both,” said Agnes. She marched angrily from the lab. She slammed the door behind her.
Paul wanted to follow. He had to explain. Surely she could understand the occasional need for well-intentioned deception. But he couldn’t leave until the job was finished.
In a few moments, Tesla scribbled his name at the bottom of the page. He had given over his patents freely and without compensation. They were now George Westinghouse’s to do with as he chose.
“Go forth,” said Tesla as he set down the pen. “And create my future.”
Paul took a deep breath. It was done.
He ran to the door.
In those days when the comparatively recent discovery of electricity and other kindred mysteries of Nature seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy.
—NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
PAUL CAUGHT UP with Agnes at the corner of South Fifth Avenue and Houston Street. She had her hand in the air to hail a passing cab. He’d thought he could bear the deathly chill of her anger, but now that he’d felt it, he was overwhelmed. He had to fix this. To argue his case.
“You are despicable,” she cried as she caught sight of him.
“Agnes,” pleaded Paul. “Come back inside. Just talk with me for a moment.”
“You thought me cheap because I chose a kind man who happens to be rich. Well, let me tell you: Henry Jayne is a better man than you in every way.”
She was trying to hurt him, and she was succeeding.
Paul attempted to take her arm. She batted away his advances.
“You just stole crumbs from the pockets of an innocent man who is too confused to know what you’ve done. That is fraud. You are a criminal.” Her hot words puffed into the winter air.
“Please let me explain.”
“What happened to you?”
She searched his face as if she was trying to read his soul but found nothing there.
“You were the one who told me to do whatever it took to win. And you were the one who believed, more than anyone else, that I could.”
“Not this, Paul.”
“Tesla will be fine,” he said. “Look at what I’ve done for him.” He gestured to the building behind them.
“You manipulated him.”
“I told him the truth!”
“You’ve been planning this the entire time, haven’t you?” she said. “Since Bell’s?”
“Yes.”
“And then you lied to me about it.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“You did not do this for me. You didn’t do this for Westinghouse, or anyone else. Your need to beat Edison is so great, your own ego so consuming and cancerous, that it has devoured whatever was good in you to begin with. You are no better than Edison; you are worse.”
Comparing him to Edison was too much. He had no way of explaining to her that in a way, he’d done this all out of love for her. To show her that he was worthy of receiving her love in return. She would never get to witness his daily adorations. At least she could witness the unimaginable success that his adoration had inspired.
“I had imagined,” suggested Paul, “that you of all people would be more forgiving about the occasional need to craft the truth in the service of a greater good.”
“What I told you in confidence you now fling back at me to conceal your own immorality? Is nothing sacred to you?”
“I only mean that we have all done things of which we aren’t proud.”
She slapped him cleanly across the cheek. Pedestrians turned to stare. Paul’s face flushed.
And yet he felt the hot flush of indignation as well. Could she really not see this from his side? Could she not see how his actions were so much like her own? He had acted in the best interests of everyone involved. He was undeserving of her rebuke.
“You’re behaving like a child,” he said. The words sounded, when they came out, even more condescending than he’d intended. “You cannot have spent as many evenings as you have champagne-drunk in high-society parlors and still be this ignorant about how the world really works.”
Tears swelled in Agnes’s eyes. She let them spill and refused to brush them with her coat sleeve. She kept her pained face pointing directly at Paul’s, forcing him to feel her hurt.
“Do you know,” she said through her tears, “that I once considered breaking off my engagement for you? Because I thought you understood me. I thought you just might be the only person who did. I almost fell for it. But I’ve come across your type before. The cynical young social climber who infects the metropolises on either side of the ocean. Your kind mistakes cleverness for wisdom. Your kind mistakes high-class trappings for genuine class. You take such pride in being so very smart, and do you know what the saddest part is? You’re actually not stupid, Mr. Cravath. You’re just not nearly as smart as you think you are. Good luck. You’ll need it. I sincerely hope that you win this, I really do. Because I know something you don’t. I know that winning will not make you a great man. It will reveal that you’re not much of a man at all.”
And with that, she turned and walked away, leaving Paul alone on Fifth Avenue.
We are called to be the architects of the future, not its victims.
—BUCKMINSTER FULLER
PAUL FORCED HIMSELF to put Agnes’s condemnation out of his mind. He spent the evening with his associates, proofreading again and again the documents that would conclude the coming deal. The coup had been arranged, and the licensing arrangement had been negotiated. All that remained was the paperwork.
He was exhausted. He had barely slept since New Year’s. His associates had gotten even less sleep than he had. From their warren on Greenwich Street, they marked up the ever-changing contracts relentlessly. No one trusted Morgan, and no one had any confidence that what he’d verbally agreed to would be reflected in the contracts delivered by his attorneys. It took constant vigilance to see that nothing devious had been snuck into a stray subparagraph. To everyone’s surprise, nothing had. Either Morgan had been uncharacteristically honest, or else he’d simply decided the deal was beneficial enough as it was. Whether he’d been restrained by honesty or moderation, Paul would never know.