Tesla by Vladimir Pistalo Read Free Book Online Page A

you crave is nothing but vanity. Vanity and lusting after the wind! It’s childish to flee from the censer to please your own ego.”
    Nikola’s blood grew cool. He was barely able to protest: “Father, I’m talking but you’re not listening.”
    “I don’t have to,” Milutin crowed. “There’s no law that says that those who speak should be heard.”
An Announcement
    Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed friends:
    When Nikola Tesla refused to become a priest, his father used all the means at his disposal to force him to do so. Under pressure, lacking the will to live, Nikola came down with cholera. One can die from it on the first day. Nikola suffered from vomiting and diarrhea. His nails turned blue. His sunken eyes stared out from deep, black circles. Spasms gave him chills and tore his innards apart. He alternated between burning and freezing. His voice turned hoarse. His heartbeat was barely audible.
Fever Roulette
    The fever turned his room into a maelstrom.
    Nikola was not in this world. He was in a narrow corridor whose walls were hung with the portraits of his ancestors. On the left—the damned priests. On the right—the damned military officers. Both rows stared at him with empty eyes.
    His father sat at his feet.
    The devil sat at the head of his bed.
    “I’ll kill him, you understand?” the devil whispered to the priest.
    “That can’t be,” Milutin growled. “In our family, we’ve all been priests.”
    The devil’s green eyes bored into Milutin’s skull. “You’re not listening,” he said. “He won’t live to see the morning.”
    “All my hopes…” A sob tore out of the depth of Milutin’s bosom.
    “Come to your senses, man, or he’ll die.”
    “He’s my only son.” The priest started to rock back and forth, like a woman. “My Dane died. The rest are girls. Only he can continue the family tradition.”
    “I’ll kill him,” repeated the devil.
    Large drops of sweat beaded on young Tesla’s forehead.
    “Let him go,” cried the priest.
    “I’ll kill him.”
    Nikola jerked his sweaty head on the pillow. His nostrils narrowed.
    “For the grace of God, leave him alone,” the priest wanted to say, but he only sighed. “Let him go.”
    “Kill.”
    “Nikola, my son,” Father Milutin said in such a powerful voice that the apparition on the other side of the bed faded away. “Get well, son. Just get well, and I’ll let you study polytechnics. Go to Graz. Study what you want. Just get well.”
    “Really, Father?” Nikola’s chapped lips barely opened.
    “Don’t you leave me too,” Milutin said gazing at his son’s forehead. “Go where you want. Study what you will.”
    At that moment Nikola opened his eyes.
    The fever roulette stopped spinning.
    And slowly… the things in the room came to a halt in their proper places.

CHAPTER 17

    In the City of Styrian Grand Dukes
    When Nikola ran into the university building, the outside voices became hushed. The atrium whooshed like a seashell. Students playfully skated across the marble floor. They mostly spoke in German, although one could also hear Serbian, Hungarian, and Polish.
    Now I’m in a different world, a castle , the young man from Lika thought.
    Nikola was able to breathe more easily in the City of Styrian Grand Dukes. For the first time in his life, he could choose the subjects he preferred. He even liked the cold room he rented on Attems Street. There was the small problem of his roommate, though. Once, Nikola bought some apples and, on the way home from school, smiled as he imagined their taste. Then he entered the room…
    “Why are you eating my apples?” he shouted from the doorway.
    “Because they’re here,” his roommate, Kosta Kulišić, answered, chewing.
    Nikola gargled warm salt water because of his sore throat.
    “You look like a bird swallowing a snake,” Kulišić told him.
    In the morning, when Nikola was about to wash his face, he stopped short: “Why did you use my towel?”
    “Because it was