The Last Days of Night

Paul’s father comes to stay with him in New York, as he is planning to meet with Fisk College donors. Erastus’s perspective of the city is in stark contrast to Paul’s. Erastus observes the social injustice of the city’s minorities living in slums and finds the culture decadent and dirty.

Paul gives Erastus his own bed and offers to take him out to dinner, but his father doesn’t want to waste money. He lectures Paul about his bachelorhood. Paul insists he does want a family of his own, after he’s made a name for himself. His father’s reply is sentimental: “‘But you cannot,’ his father said as he boiled onions in the kitchen, ‘be after the love of a woman who loves you for your name. You want one who loves you for the man behind it’” (91).

Paul reflects on the compassion and love within his parents’ marriage, hoping to find it for himself someday. Meeting Agnes has brought up memories of Paul’s past with women. He remembers each woman he’s kissed with fond detail. One of them, Molly Thompson, had asked him to come back to her family with her after Oberlin, but he moved on to New York. She is married with a child now, and although Paul wonders how his life could have taken a different path, he stands by his career decisions without regret.

Paul knows Erastus will never change and will never understand him, so he resolves to keep the peace by not pushing things: “Nothing would be gained by exposing to his father the fraying nerves of his heart” (93). Paul falls asleep fitfully on his floor and dreams of Agnes.

The next morning, something in the newspaper sends Paul flying out the door to Pittsburgh, neglecting to hug Erastus goodbye. When he tries to remedy this, to give his father a proper farewell, he finds the door locked, and Erastus doesn’t hear his knock.

The article of Paul’s alarm is an editorial about the perils of electricity, specifically alternating current, written by Harold P. Brown:

The paper went on to suggest, in language of unvarying vehemence, that alternating current was likely to fry the bones of any child within a hundred feet of its use. Because it ran at twice the voltage of direct current, it was, so Harold P. Brown argued, twice as deadly (96).

It goes on to name George Westinghouse as a money-grubbing villain preying on the naive. To prevent loss of human life, legislature must ban Westinghouse’s alternative current, Brown concludes. The editorial appears in four other East Coast newspapers, only a few weeks from Westinghouse’s first commercial A/C system installation at a Buffalo department store.

Paul comes to Pittsburgh to inform a distressed Westinghouse that the owner of the Evening Post recently acquired a large amount of Edison General Electric stock. They will never be able to prove Edison bribed him to print the editorial, however. Edison has also convinced a New York state senator to submit a bill banning the use of alternating current. Edison is attempting to use the power of the law to make Westinghouse’s superior product illegal. Westinghouse insists that alternating current is safer than direct current.

Fessenden assists in a demonstration to show that A/C is safer because it runs with a variable amplitude. Paul is instructed to grab the two leads (exposed strips of cable) at the ends of a generator. He only receives a mild shock. He is able to let go instantly because of the minute gap in the alternating current’s pattern, the moment when the current switches direction. This gap enables the brain to release the muscles, explains Westinghouse. A direct current would have seized the muscles in the body without pause.

Paul knows he must convince the public of A/C’s safety. Edison, however, is a step ahead in crafting the narrative, thus controlling the public’s perception. Westinghouse admonishes Paul for not doing his job well enough and for underestimating Edison’s villainy.

Leaving together, Fessenden reassures Paul that Westinghouse’s disappointment will blow over. When Paul asks how Tesla is doing, Fessenden is hesitant to reply.

Tesla has locked himself in his room after Westinghouse suggested a few alterations to his light bulb design. Paul tries to visit him, but Tesla refuses to open the door. Instead, he slips Paul a note that says he must quit the Westinghouse Electric Company immediately and return to New York, as Westinghouse “is not of an inventing person” (102).

Later in New York, Tesla surprisingly chooses Delmonico’s as the meeting place where Paul and Westinghouse join him for dinner. Westinghouse is fed up with Tesla’s eccentricities, calling him an ass. Tesla insists that Westinghouse is merely a signer of checks. The inventions he has cultivated, such as the air brake, are outdated, Tesla contends.

Paul tries to mediate without much success. They do agree that A/C can power entire cities. They have a common enemy in Edison. Even Tesla concedes that Westinghouse’s company manufactures many important, useful, and quality machines.

The future of alternating current, however, is much vaster than Westinghouse can envision. Tesla observes that Westinghouse only wants a new lightbulb for his legal troubles, “not for scientific discovery. You are wanting a new product. I am wanting a new invention” (104).

Westinghouse asks what Tesla makes, to which he replies, “I have thoughts. And my imaginings, they will last longer and drive deeper into the next centuries than shall your fragile toys” (104). Tesla resigns.

Paul observes these creatives, Westinghouse, Tesla and Edison, from a distance. He knows he is not a creative man like they are, wondering what it must feel like in the moment of inspiration. Paul can see them more clearly than they see each other, “because he was not of them, he could peer at them remotely, three great giants in the misty distance. Three entirely incompatible ways of approaching science, industry, and business” (105).

Carter and Hughes come to Paul’s office to reveal his large error in the patent contract negotiated with Tesla’s lawyer, Serrell. The contract agreed to a generous royalty structure with a flat fee that covered not only the patents, but all future work connected to them. Tesla will be paid in full for the duration of the six-year patents, even though he isn’t working for Westinghouse anymore. This will cost the Westinghouse Electric Company hundreds of thousands of dollars, certainly sinking the company’s profits, as well as the lawsuit. That is, unless Tesla returns to work for Westinghouse again.

Hughes explains that what Paul thought was a patent deal was in reality, “a labor contract” (107). Serrell took advantage of Paul’s inexperience, letting him overlook a common clause that would have prevented this. Offering him a position in Serrell’s own firm played to Paul’s ego and drove a wedge between Paul and his own partners, who would have offered useful guidance in the negotiations had Paul included them.

Paul is ashamed and regretful, saying he didn’t know about the clause. “‘You did not know,’ said Carter, ‘because you are twenty-seven years old. You are buried over your head in dirt and you are too stupid to realize it’s quicksand’” (108). To prevent them from telling Westinghouse about this huge error, Paul lets Carter and Hughes finally share his only client. They tell him it’s firm policy for a large and important lawsuit such as this. As they leave, Paul “did not turn away from the slight smiles on their faces. He wanted to remember their looks. If ever again he was tempted into overconfidence, he would have those smiles to chasten him” (110).

The chapter ends with Paul filing away this experience into his mental vault of narrative structure (a beginning, a middle, an end). He resolves to win Tesla back, as it is the only way to win the case. 

Paul visits Fannie and Agnes Huntington at their fashionable but humble (comparatively) brownstone in Gramercy Park. The neighborhood impresses him, as it houses many famous artists, writers, architects, etc.

Once more, Paul seeks to impress, but he is uncomfortable and intimidated. He has bought a new hat which is comically left hanging in the hall, and he is too large for the dainty couch in their sitting area. When Fannie and Agnes finally join him, he says he’s changed his mind and would like to represent them in their case, at a heavily discounted rate. As they haven’t found representation, Fannie accepts Paul’s offer. He silently wonders if it was difficult for them to find a discreet lawyer.

His initial strategy, he explains, is to cool tempers without threats. Foster, the manager of the Ideals, would simply receive a letter of introduction from Carter, Hughes & Cravath, stating they now represent Agnes. Paul asks for a favor for Westinghouse: For Agnes to take him to a party.

The famous (and infamous) architect, Stanford White, is the host of the part that Paul wants to attend at the extremely exclusive Players’ Club. Founded by the brother of John Wilkes Booth, in attempt to clear the family name, the club’s guest list is a highly sought prize in New York’s high society. The Players’ Club also has a somewhat sundry reputation. Women are prohibited from membership, but Agnes’s fame has granted her an invite. Paul reveals that Tesla is the guest of honor at the next party. It would help him tremendously to speak to Tesla.

A week later, to her mother’s worry, Agnes accompanies Paul to the party. The moment they’re alone, Agnes displays a completely different side to her normally composed personality. She is excited to get drunk and has already been to White’s parties, sometimes coming home after dawn. Paul is surprised and uneasy to learn she is “friendly” with White, as White is a pedophile. Agnes tells Paul that in White’s most recent scandal, he impregnated a 14-year-old girl. Agnes notes the irony: “Sort of ironic, don’t you think? He gets caught swelling the belly of the one girl he consorts with who’s old enough to swell” (117).

At the party, Agnes is a lively entertainer who knows everyone. They drink champagne and Agnes introduces Paul around. Paul makes a point to remember everyone’s names. They find Tesla upstairs, gleefully explaining how electricity works to a group of rapt partygoers, including White. White asks Agnes to sing, so she takes him to another room, and Paul pulls Tesla aside to talk. Tesla invites him to his new laboratory, where he says he’s invented a wireless telephone. The telephone is a relatively new invention and, a wireless one is beyond Paul’s comprehension.

Agnes begins to sing, enrapturing everyone in the room. Tesla is so entranced that he brushes Paul without noticing, something that would usually upset him. Paul ponders the fleetingness of high society’s interest in novelties like Tesla and feels a kinship to him (even as he is using Tesla for his own purposes). He sees Agnes deep in conversation with another man and turns to depart, “leaving her to frolic in the gardens into which at least one of them had been planted” (122).

Agnes follows him outside, however, noticing he disliked the party and its attendees. Agnes bluntly asks if Paul got what he wanted from Tesla, then reflects on the cycle of people using each other for each own’s purposes, including Paul using Agnes to get into the party: “You can play their game and you can beat them at it. Or you can let them banish you from New York in tatters” (123). She warns him that there is no leaving early from this