MARRIAGE AND ORGANIZATION OF THE FAMILY
LIFE. PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER
I met Pierre Curie for the first time in the spring of the year 1894. I
was then living in Paris where for three years I[6] had been studying at
the Sorbonne. I had passed the examinations for the licentiate in
physics, and was preparing for those in mathematics. At the same time I
had begun to work in the research laboratory of Professor Lippmann. A
Polish physicist whom I knew, and who was a great admirer of Pierre
Curie, one day invited us together to spend the evening with himself and
his wife.
As I entered the room, Pierre Curie was standing in the recess of a
French window opening on a balcony. He seemed to me very young, though
he was at that time thirty-five years old. I was struck by the open
expression of his face and by the slight suggestion of detachment in his
whole attitude. His speech, rather slow and deliberate, his simplicity,
and his smile, at once grave and youthful, inspired confidence. We began
a conversation which soon became friendly. It first concerned certain
scientific matters about which I was very glad to be able to ask his
opinion. Then we discussed certain social and humanitarian subjects
which interested us both. There was, between his conceptions and mine,
despite the difference between our native countries, a surprising
kinship, no doubt attributable to a certain likeness in the moral
atmosphere in which we were both raised by our families.
We met again at the Physics Society and in the laboratory. Then he asked
if he might call upon me. I lived at that time in a room on the sixth
floor of a house situated near the schools. It was a poor little room,
for my resources were extremely limited. I was, nevertheless, very happy
in it for I was now first realizing, although already twenty-five years
old, the ardent desire I had so long cherished of carrying on advanced
studies in science.
Pierre Curie came to see me, and showed a simple and sincere sympathy
with my student life. Soon he caught the habit of speaking to me of his
dream of an existence consecrated entirely to scientific research, and
he asked me to share that life. It was not, however, easy for me to make
such a decision, for it meant separation from my country and my family,
and the renouncement of certain social projects that were dear to me.
Having grown up in an atmosphere of patriotism kept alive by the
oppression of Poland, I wished, like many other young people of my
country, to contribute my effort toward the conservation of our national
spirit.
So matters stood, when at the beginning of my vacation I left Paris to
go to my father in Poland. Our correspondence during this separation
helped to strengthen the bond of affection between us.
During the year 1894 Pierre Curie wrote me letters that seem to me
admirable in their form. No one of them was very long, for he had the
habit of concise expression, but all were written in a spirit of
sincerity and with an evident anxiety to make the one he desired as a
companion know him as he was. The very quality of the expression has
always seemed to me remarkable. No other one could describe in a few
lines, as he could, a state of mind, or a situation, and by the simplest
means make that description evoke a seizing image of truth. Because of
this gift, he might, I believe, have been a great writer. I have already
cited a few fragments of his letters, and others will follow. It is
appropriate to quote here a few lines which express how he looked on the
possibility of our marriage:
"We have promised each other (is it not true?) to have, the one for the
other, at least a great affection. Provided that you do not change your
mind! For there are no promises which hold; these are things that do not
admit of compulsion.
"It would, nevertheless, be a beautiful thing in which I hardly dare
believe, to pass through life together hypnotized in our dreams: your
dream for your country; our dream for humanity; our dream for science.
Of all these dreams, I believe the last, alone, is legitimate. I mean to
say by this that we are powerless to change the social order. Even if
this were not true we should not know what to do. And in working without
understanding we should never be sure that we were not doing more harm
than good, by retarding some inevitable evolution. From the point of
view of science, on the contrary, we can pretend to accomplish
something. The territory here is more solid and obvious, and however
small it is, it is truly in our possession.
"I strongly advise you to return to Paris in October. I shall be very
unhappy if you do not come this year, but it is not my friend's
selfishness that makes me ask you to return. I ask it because I believe
you will work better here and that you can accomplish here something
more substantial and more useful."
One can understand, from this letter, that for Pierre Curie there was
only one way of looking at the future. He had dedicated his life to his
dream of science: he felt the need of a companion who could live his
dream with him. He told me many times that the reason he had not married
until he was thirty-six was because he did not believe in the
possibility of a marriage which would meet this, his absolute necessity.
When he was twenty-two years old he wrote in his diary:
"Women, much more than men, love life for life's sake. Women of genius
are rare. And when, pushed by some mystic love, we wish to enter into a
life opposed to nature, when we give all our thoughts to some work which
removes us from those immediately about us, it is with women that we
have to struggle, and the struggle is nearly always an unequal one. For
in the name of life and of nature they seek to lead us back."
We can see, however, in the letters I have quoted earlier, the
unshakeable faith that Pierre Curie had in science and in its power to
further the general good of humanity. It seems appropriate to apply to
him the sentiment expressed by Pasteur in words so well known: "I
believe invincibly that science and peace will triumph over ignorance
and war."
This confidence in the solutions of science made Pierre Curie little
inclined to take an active part in politics. He was attached, by
education and by conviction, to democratic and socialistic ideas, but he
was not dominated by any party doctrine. However, he always fulfilled,
as his father did, his obligations as a voter. In public life, as in
private life, he was opposed to the use of violence.
"What would you think," he wrote me, "of a person who would knock his
head against a stone wall with the intention of overthrowing it? Such an
idea might be the result of very beautiful feelings, but in realization
it would be ridiculous and stupid. I believe that certain questions
demand a general solution, and do not admit, today, of specific
solutions, and that one who begins a course that has no issue, may do
much harm. I believe, further, that justice is not of this world, and
that the strongest system or rather the one best developed from the
economic point of view will be that which will stand. A man may exhaust
himself by work, and yet live, at best, miserably. This is a revolting
fact, but it will not, because of that, cease. It will disappear
probably because man is a kind of machine, and it is of economic
advantage to make every machine work in its normal manner, without
forcing it."
He felt the same necessity for clarity and understanding in considering
his own inner life as in examining a general problem. A great necessity
of loyalty to himself and toward others made him suffer from the
compromises imposed by life, even though he reduced them to a minimum.
"We are all the slaves of our affections," he wrote, "slaves of the
prejudices of those we love. Besides, we must make a living, and this
forces us to become a wheel in the machine. The most painful are the
concessions we are forced to make to the prejudices of the society in
which we live. We must make more or fewer compromises according as we
feel ourselves feebler or stronger. If one does not make enough
concessions he is crushed; if he makes too many he is ignoble and
despises himself. I find myself far from the principles I held ten years
ago. At that time I believed it necessary to be excessive in everything,
and to make no concessions whatsoever to one's environment. I believed
it necessary to exaggerate one's faults as well as one's virtues."
This was the _credo_ of the man who, without fortune himself, desired to
share his life with that of a student also without fortune, whom he had
met by chance.
After my return from my vacation our friendship grew more and more
precious to us; each realized that he or she could find no better life
companion. We decided, therefore, to marry, and the ceremony took place
in July, 1895. In conformity with our mutual wish it was the simplest
service possible,--a civil ceremony, for Pierre Curie professed no
religion, and I myself did not practice any. My husband's parents
received me with great cordiality, and reciprocally my father and my
sisters, who were present at our marriage, were happy in knowing the
family to which I was to belong.
Our first home, an extremely simple one, consisted of a little apartment
of three rooms in the rue de la Glacière, not far from the School of
Physics. Its chief attraction was its view of a large garden. It was
furnished very simply with objects that had belonged to our families.
Our means did not permit our having servants, so that I had to assume
practically all the household duties, as I had been in the habit of
doing during my student days.
Professor Curie's salary was 6000 francs a year, and we held that he
should not undertake any supplementary work, at least in the beginning.
As for myself, I was preparing to take the examination for the
_agregation_ of young women, in view of obtaining a teaching post. These
I passed in 1896. We ordered our life to suit our scientific work and
our days were passed in the laboratory, where Schützenberger permitted
that I might work with my husband.
He was then engaged in a research on the growth of crystals, which
interested him keenly. He wished to know if certain faces of a crystal
had a preferential development chiefly because they have a different
rapidity of growth or because their solubility is different. He quickly
obtained interesting results (not published) but he had to interrupt his
investigations to undertake others on radioactivity. And he often
regretted that he was never able to return to them. I was occupied at
this time with the study of the magnetization of tempered steel.
The preparation of his class lectures was for Pierre Curie a genuine
care. The Chair was a new one, and carried no prescribed course of
study. He divided his lectures, at first, between crystallography and
electricity. Then, as he recognized more and more the utility of a
serious theoretical course in electricity for future engineers, he
devoted himself entirely to this subject, and succeeded in establishing
a course (of about 120 lectures) that was the most complete and modern
then to be had in Paris. This cost him a considerable effort, of which I
was the daily witness; for he was always anxious to give a complete
picture of the phenomena and of the evolution of theories, and of ideas.
He was always anxious, too, that his mode of exposition should be clear
and precise. He thought of publishing a treatise summing up this course,
but unfortunately the many preoccupations of the following years
prevented him from putting this plan into execution.
We lived a very single life, interested in common, as we were, in our
laboratory experiments and in the preparation of lectures and
examinations. During eleven years we were scarcely ever separated, which
means that there are very few lines of existing correspondence between
us, representing that period. We spent our rest days and our vacations
walking or bicycling either in the country near Paris, or along the sea,
or in the mountains. My husband was so engrossed in his researches,
however, that it was very difficult for him to remain for any length of
time in a place where he lacked facilities for work. After a few days he
would say: "It seems to me a very long time since we have accomplished
anything." And yet he liked the excursions which covered successive
days, and enjoyed to the full our walks together, just as he had
formerly enjoyed those with his brother. But his joy in seeing beautiful
things never drew his thoughts away from the scientific questions that
absorbed him. In these free times, we traversed the region of the
Cevennes and of the Monts d'Auvergne, as well as the coast of France,
and some of its great forests.
These days in the open, filled with beautiful sights, made a deep
impression on us, and we loved to recall them. One of our radiant
memories was of a sunny day, when after a long and wearying climb, we
reached the fresh, green meadow of the Aubrac, in the pure air of the
high plateaus. Another vivid memory was that of an evening, when,
lingering until twilight in the gorge of the Truyère, we were enchanted
to hear a popular air dying away in the distance, carried to us from a
little boat that descended the stream. We had taken so little notice of
the time that we did not regain our lodging before dawn. At one point we
had an encounter with carts whose horses were frightened by our
bicycles, and we were obliged to cut across ploughed fields. At length
we regained our route on the high plateau, bathed in the unreal light of
the moon. And cows that were passing the night in enclosures came
gravely to contemplate us with their large, tranquil eyes.
The forest of Compiegne charmed us in the spring, with its mass of green
foliage stretching far as the eye could see, and its periwinkles and
anemones. On the border of the forest of Fontainebleau, the banks of the
Loing, covered with water buttercups, were an object of delight for
Pierre Curie. We loved the melancholy coasts of Brittany and the reaches
of heather and gorse, stretching to the very points of Finistère, which
seemed like claws or teeth burying themselves in the water which forever
rages at them.
Later, when we had our baby with us, we passed our vacations in some one
locality, without traveling about. We lived then as simply as possible
in retired villages where we could scarcely be distinguished from the
villagers themselves. I remember the stupefaction of an American
journalist when he found us one day at Pouldu, at a moment when I was
sitting on one of the stone steps of our house in the act of shaking the
sand from my sandals. However, his embarrassment was short-lived and,
adapting himself to the situation, he sat down beside me and began
jotting down in his notebook my answers to his questions.
The most affectionate relations existed between my husband's parents and
myself. We often went to Sceaux, where the room my husband used to have
before our marriage was always reserved for us. I had also a very tender
affection for Jacques Curie and his family (he was married and had two
children); for Pierre's brother became mine, and has always remained so.
Our eldest daughter, Irene, was born in September, 1897, and only a few
days afterwards my husband suffered a great loss in the death of his
mother. Doctor Curie came to live with us in a house which had a garden
and was situated on the old fortifications of Paris (108 Boulevard
Kellermann) near the park of Montsouris. Pierre Curie lived in this
house until the end of his life.
With the birth of our child, the difficulties of carrying on our work
were augmented: for I had to give more time to the household. Very
fortunately for us I could leave my little girl with her grandfather,
who much enjoyed taking care of her. But we had to think also of
increasing our resources to meet the needs of our larger family and to
enable us to secure someone to help me in the house, a necessity from
now on. However, our situation remained as it was during the following
two years, which we consecrated to intensive laboratory research on
radioactivity. It was, indeed, not relieved until 1900, to the
detriment, it is true, of the amount of time we could give to our
investigations.
All formal social obligations were excluded from our life. Pierre Curie
had for such things an unconquerable repugnance. Neither in his earlier
nor his later life would he pay visits or undertake to involve himself
in relations without special interest. By nature grave and silent, he
preferred to abandon himself to his own reflections, rather than to
engage in an exchange of banal words. On the other hand, he valued
greatly his boyhood friends, and those to whom he was bound by a common
interest in science.
Among the latter, E. Gouy, professor of the faculty of sciences at Lyon,
should be named. His friendly relations with Pierre Curie dated from the
time when they were both preparators at the Sorbonne. They carried on
regularly a scientific correspondence, and took great pleasure in seeing
each other again during the various brief visits of E. Gouy to Paris, on
which occasions they were inseparable. There existed also a friendship
of long standing between my husband and Ch. Ed. Guillaume, now director
of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures of Sèvres. They met
at the Physics Society and occasionally on Sundays at Sèvres or Sceaux.
Later a group of younger men formed themselves about Pierre Curie. They
were investigators engaged, as he was, in physical and chemical research
in the newest fields of these sciences. Among these men were André
Debierne, my husband's intimate friend and collaborator in the work on
radioactivity; George Sagnac, his collaborator in a study of the X-rays;
Paul Langevin, who became a professor in the Collège de France; Jean
Perrin, at present professor of physical chemistry in the Sorbonne; and
Georges Urbain, student of the School of Physics and later professor in
the Sorbonne. Often one or the other came to see us in our quiet house
in the Boulevard Kellermann. Then we engaged in discussions of recent or
future experiments, or of new ideas and theories, and never tired of
rejoicing over the marvelous development of modern physics.
There were not many large reunions in our house, for my husband did not
feel the need of them. He was more at his ease in a conversation with
some one or few persons, and rarely attended any meetings except those
of the scientific societies. If by chance he found himself in a
gathering where the general conversation did not interest him, he took
refuge in a tranquil corner where he could forget the company as he
pursued his own thoughts.
Our relations with our families were very restricted on his side as on
mine; for he had few relatives and mine were far away. He was, however,
very devoted to those of my family who could come to visit me in Paris,
or during our vacations.
In 1899, Pierre Curie made a journey with me to the Carpathians of
Austrian Poland, where one of my sisters, married to Doctor Dluski and
herself a physician, directed, with him, a large sanatorium. Through a
touching desire to know all that was dear to me, my husband, though he
knew little of foreign languages, wished to learn Polish, something
which I had not thought of suggesting because I did not believe it could
prove sufficiently useful to him. He felt a sincere sympathy for my
country and believed in the future Establishment of a free Poland.
In our life together it was given to me to know him as he had hoped I
might, and to penetrate each day further into his thought. He was as
much and much more than all I had dreamed at the time of our union. My
admiration of his unusual qualities grew continually; he lived on a
plane so rare and so elevated that he sometimes seemed to me a being
unique in his freedom from all vanity and from the littlenesses that one
discovers in oneself and in others, and which one judges with indulgence
although aspiring to a more perfect ideal.
In this lay, without doubt, the secret of that infinite charm of his to
which one could not long rest insensible. His thoughtful expression and
the directness of his look were strongly attractive and this attraction
was increased by his kindliness and gentleness of character. He
sometimes said that he never felt combative, and this was entirely true.
One could not enter into a dispute with him because he could not become
angry. "Getting angry is not one of my strong points," he would say,
smiling. If he had few friends, he had no enemies; for he could not
injure anyone, even by inadvertence. But at the same time no one could
force him to deviate from his line of action, something which led his
father to nickname him the "gentle stubborn one."
When he expressed his opinion he did so frankly, for he was convinced
that diplomatic methods are puerile, and that directness is at once
easiest and best. Because of this practice, he acquired a certain
reputation for naïveté; in reality he was acting on a well-considered
decision, rather than by instinct. It was perhaps because he was able to
judge himself and to retire within himself, that he was so capable of
clearly appreciating the springs of action, the intention, and the
thoughts of others. And if he sometimes neglected details, he was rarely
deceived in the essentials. Usually he kept his sure judgments to
himself; but once he had made up his mind he sometimes expressed them
without reticence, in the assurance that he was doing something useful.
In his scientific relations he showed no sharpness, and did not permit
himself to be influenced by considerations of personal credit or by
personal sentiments. Every beautiful success gave him pleasure, even if
achieved in a domain where he felt himself to have priority. He said:
"What does it matter if I have not published such and such
investigations, if another has published them?" For he held that in
science we should be interested in things and not in persons. He was so
genuinely against every form of emulation that he opposed even the
competitions and gradings of the lycées, as well as all forms of
honorary distinction. He never failed to give counsel and encouragement
to any of those who showed an aptitude for science, and certain among
them still remain profoundly grateful to him.
If his attitude was that of one of the élite who have attained the
highest summit of civilization, his acts were those of a truly good man
endowed with the sentiment of human solidarity intimately bound to his
intellectual conceptions, and full of understanding and indulgence. He
was always ready to aid, as far as his means allowed, any person in a
difficult situation, even if helping meant giving some of his time,
which was always the greatest sacrifice he could make. His generosity
was so spontaneous that one scarcely noticed it. He believed that the
only advantage of material means, beyond that of providing the
necessities of a simple life, was in the opportunity they offered of
aiding others, and of pursuing the work of one's preference.
What shall I say, finally, of his love for his own, and of his qualities
as friend? His friendship, which he gave rarely, was sure and faithful,
for it rested on a community of ideas and opinions. And still more
rarely did he give affection; but how complete was his gift to his
brother and to me! He could forsake his customary reserve for an
unconstraint which established harmony and confidence. His tenderness
was the most exquisite of blessings, sure and helpful, full of
gentleness and solicitude. It was good to be surrounded by this
tenderness; it was cruel to lose it after having lived in an atmosphere
completely permeated by it. But I will let his own words tell how
completely he gave himself:
"I think of you who fill my life, and I long for new powers. It seems to
me that in concentrating my mind exclusively upon you, as I am doing,
that I should succeed in seeing you, and in following what you are
doing; and that I should be able to make you feel that I am altogether
yours at this moment,--but the image does not come."
We were not warranted in having great confidence in our health, nor in
our strength so often put to severe tests. And from time to time, as
happens to those who know the value of sharing a common life, the fear
of the irreparable touched our minds. In such moments his simple courage
led him always to the same inevitable conclusion: "Whatever happens,
even if one should become like a body without a soul, still one must
always work."
[Footnote 6: The following are a few brief biographical details:
My name is Marie Sklodowska. My father and mother belonged to Catholic
Polish families. Both were teachers in secondary schools in Warsaw (at
that time under Russia). I was born in Warsaw and attended a lycée
there. Following the lycée, I taught several years. Then in 1892 I came
to Paris in order to study science.]