The Last Days of Night(65)

“Much to your chagrin, the courts have steadfastly upheld my claim on that.”

“We’re working on it.”

“I was first to the light bulb.”

“Were you, though? Surely the ‘problem,’ as you put it, had been around for decades. A thousand engineers had tried to create indoor electrical lamps.”

“But only I succeeded.”

“What about Sawyer and Man?”

“What about them?”

“Their patent on incandescent light—which my client licensed—predates yours by a few years.”

“I suppose so,” said Edison indifferently. “But their device wasn’t complete. It didn’t work. Their patent was quite broad. It was a suggestion of the thing, not the thing itself.”

“For instance,” offered Paul, “the Sawyer and Man patent did not specify a type of filament?”

Edison’s face lit up. “Oh my! That’s very technical coming from you. Yes. The Sawyer and Man patent suggests, among its vagaries, that there should be some sort of carbonized filament. A thin thread in the center, which emits light when it gets hot. But it doesn’t go further on that point, or on many others.”

“And then on your patent claim, you did specify a filament, didn’t you?”

“I most certainly did.”

“And what was that filament?”

Edison gestured to the papers on the table. “You must have the claim among that pile of documents before you.”

“I want you to tell me. For the record.” Paul nodded toward the typist.

“You will be disappointed, then,” said Edison. “I’m not sure I remember.”

“Then I’ll help. Your application says it was a cotton filament.”

“All right.”

Paul selected one of the papers from his neat piles. “Was it?”

“Was it what?”

“Was it a cotton filament that, after decades of trying, finally made the lamp work?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure? Because you told the New York Herald that it was made of platinum.”

“As you said earlier, Mr. Cravath, I give many interviews.”

“Is there cotton in the bulbs that you currently ship to your customers?”

“What are you getting at?”

“It isn’t bamboo?”

Lowrey spoke quickly. “Don’t answer that.”

“I’m happy to,” said Edison.

“Don’t,” insisted Lowrey.

Edison turned his wrath away from Paul and toward his own attorney. “I said that I’ll answer, Grosvenor. Don’t give me that goddamned look.” He turned his attention back to Paul. “It’s all three.”

“All three?”

Edison shook his head. “You have never understood what it is that I do.”

“So tell me.”

Edison leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “I create things, Mr. Cravath. Things that did not exist before. Someone like you will never understand what it is to bring something new into the dull world.”

“Didn’t your staff do that? All the engineers in your lab. The army of technicians who do the actual work of experimentation at EGE.”

“Yes,” said Edison. “That’s my point exactly. I hired those engineers. I set them to their task. I defined the scope of their inquiry and then set the method by which they might inquire. For a century scientists had failed to build an indoor electrical lamp. Until me. How did I do it? That’s what you want to hear? It was this: I surveyed all the designs that had been tried before. I saw what had gotten close; I saw what had fallen short of the mark. I found the cracks and I set my men to paving them. This is what science is, Mr. Cravath. This is what discovery is. It’s not a flash of color. It’s not a moment of divine inspiration. It is not the hand of God reaching down to press the pointed finger. It’s work. It’s drudgery. It is trying ten thousand different shapes of bulb. Then trying ten thousand different air fillings. Then, yes, ten thousand different filaments. It is realizing that those are the three components that matter and then trying ten thousand times ten thousand times ten thousand combinations until one of them works. And then selling it to a public who never thought such a thing was possible. It is this last part that you are really accusing me of. And of that, I will confess. I am guilty as sin. Yes, Mr. Cravath, I sold the light bulb. Americans did not have them. Then they did. Then they bought them by the trainload, and is there any part of you that doubts you owe all of that to me? Is there any part of you that believes that without me Americans would have electrical light inside their homes? Of course not. You want the light but you don’t want to know how I made it. You privilege the effect, but you’re horrified that someone had actually to cause it. I invented the goddamned light bulb. I gestated it in the minds of the public. You whine to me about filaments. Platinum, cotton, bamboo? There were ten thousand more. My patent covers all of them. George Westinghouse can twiddle with his idle details. He so loves his details, doesn’t he? This precise shape of bulb, this precise angle of wiring. That’s all well and good. But knowing the steps is hardly any good if you’ve failed to make it to the dance. I hired the band; I booked the hall. I advertised the show. And you hate me because my name is on the poster. Well, I say this: The light bulb is mine. If the word ‘invention’ is to maintain even a semblance of rational sense, then it must be said that the light bulb was my idea. It was my invention. And it is my patent. Every bulb. Every vacuum. Every one of your piddling filaments. And to the mute ingratitude with which you’ve repaid me, I will say only one last thing.”