Nikola Tesla Books
he nearly met with disaster. An even worse accident happened to him later in Karlovac, from which he barely escaped with his life.
Tesla was soon seized by a passion for reading, so much so that they had to forbid him to read, hide and lock away books, and take away his candle. Even so, he always found ways to secretly satisfy this passion. After completing the lower secondary school, he fell ill and spent several months confined to bed, and then spent his convalescence at his uncle's home in Tomingaj near Grachac, where he went during school holidays and later as well.
In the autumn of 1870 he went to Karlovac, and on that occasion he saw a railway for the first time. He lived with one of his aunts, who was married to the retired Major Brankovic. In Karlovac he was more often hungry than full. Nikola's uncle tried to interest him in art and art history, but apparently with little success. He had no sense for music, although he possessed a very keen ear. Once he said that he could hear the ticking of a clock even from the fourth room away.
On one occasion, when he was traveling by carriage from Gospic to Karlovac, his younger companion was with him, on his way to study in Sremski Karlovci. Tesla hummed the entire journey, from dawn until dusk: "The Montenegrins are cutting down the Turks, stretching out their hands to their brothers." This constant repetition of one and the same aria does not seem to be a sign of any special musicality. His traveling companion could not at all understand why he kept repeating these verses. Along the way Tesla told him that he was working on an invention by means of which speech would be able to be transmitted from America to Europe, without there being any connection whatsoever between the one who would speak and the one who would listen. That traveling companion later became my father-in-law.
