Free Tesla by Vladimir Pistalo Page B

Austro-Hungarian Empire) and the Ottoman Empire. Among other territories, it incorporated all the regions with the Serbian majority in present-day Croatia, including Tesla’s homeland, Lika. The Military Frontier was abolished in 1881.

CHAPTER 23

    The Duel
    Once, a red-faced student accosted Nikola Tesla in the atrium of the Graz Polytechnic.
    “Run home,” he said. “Study hard so that your professors love you even more.”
    This student was a member of a fraternity and had a rapier scar on his face. And he was jealous. His name was Werner Lundgren, but they called him Tannhäuser, after Wagner’s hero who cried for help from the hell of pleasure.
    “We all know that you’re good at burying your nose in a book,” Lundgren told Tesla. “But can you live life to the fullest, sing a song, or raise hell?” He emphasized the words, staring mockingly into Tesla’s eyes.
    Tesla’s animated face assumed the blank expression of his ancestors, who knew how to respond to a challenge.
    “How about tonight?” he retorted. “In the Botanical Garden?”
    Tannhäuser nodded.
    At this point of the story, I have to gently but firmly take the reader by the arm, as we are about to step into legend.
    There are several disputed points: Did Nikola Tesla and Werner Lundgren, known as Tannhäuser, really meet in the botanical garden that evening? Did the storied drinking duel actually take place? Was the table covered with clinking glasses? Did Austrian and Serbian students shout and cheer for their champion? Did the room start to distort and spin? Did the waitress run her fingers through Nikola’s sweaty hair? Did Tesla’s opponent and cosufferer begin to waver and dissolve in the yellow light? Did Tannhäuser collapse together with his chair, and did his young head bounce off the floor? Did Nikola, deaf to the screams of his supporters, stagger out into the transfigured night?
    Did the duel change Nikola’s life?
    Was the duel the trigger?

CHAPTER 24

    A Different Graz
    The hangover opened Tesla’s eyes to a different Graz. People grinned like foxes and feral cats. Carriages and brewery carts full of barrels clattered over the cobblestones. Billiard balls clacked in ale houses, and students drank to each other’s health.
    “Down with thirst!”
    Tesla also started toasting with the merry students.
    He wrote in his diary: I should have thanked Tannhäuser for opening my eyes. If you want academics to recognize your knowledge, you have to renounce personal insight, because they don’t ask the questions that you ask. Students see only what their professors tell them they will see. An opportunist won’t direct his thoughts to anything that doesn’t bring a reward. Why? Because the right and light of his own existence do not guide his thinking. He thinks what he is allowed to think.
    The city was lively, and so was he. In that different Graz, he turned into a different man. Before he went out for the evening, he would lick his finger and groom his eyebrows and mustache. He swaggered in an overcoat he did not know how to pay for. He borrowed more money from Murko the tailor. It was hard to tell whether a fly flew up Murko’s nose or whether he tried to smile charmingly. Nikola neglected his classes and started to spend more time with Tannhäuser. His friends knew a medical student nicknamed the Doctor, and whenever they called for drinks, they shouted, “That’s what the doctor ordered!” Tannhäuser clapped him on the back: “Niko is a great guy!”
    On the green felt of the billiard table, Tesla envisioned geometrical figures. He deftly walked around the table, while the shots multiplied before his eyes. His back arched like a cat’s. He never made an unnecessary move.
    As he played, he never stopped thinking about the motor without the brushes and commutator. The solution seemed to lurk on the other side of a translucent membrane. Success was like an invisible man whose hand he could shake at any moment. In Tesla’s