madame curie

by Eve Curie


It is commonplace to say that a sudden catastrophe may
transform a human being forever.  Neverthless, the decisive
influence of these minutes upon the character of my mother,
upon her destiny and that of her children, cannot be passed
over in silence.  Marie Curie did not change from a happy
young wife to an inconsolable widow.  The metamorphosis
was less simple and more serioius.  The interior tumult
that lacerated Marie, the nameless horror of her wandering
ideas, were too virulent to be expressed in complaints or in
confidences.  From the moment when those three words,
'Pierre is dead,' reached her consciousness, a cope of solitude
and secrecy fell upon her shoulders forever.  Mme Curie, on
that day in April, became not only  a widow, but at the same
a pitiful and incurably lonely woman.