That conclusion was her first sign of yielding, and it was not much of a
sign. But when in December she came to think about polonium, her
determination was almost shaken. Polonium was the discovery of a woman
and a mother. Madame Curie was not afraid of life.
Such a woman had a right to be born, even though as a child she ran the
risk of being torn in pieces by the claws of the Russian bear. If one
could only hope for such a daughter as Marie Curie! It was not the death
of descendants that Jean objected to, or even their tragic death, but
their death for no demonstrable purpose.
Though debarred from seeing polonium, she knew enough to be awed by the
accounts of it. It was utterly different from anything she had studied.
Whereas bismuth apparently lasts forever, polonium—hardly separable from
bismuth—lives less than five months! It slowly and steadily explodes
from within while seemingly peaceful without! The flying fragments of
its atom can be made visible—can be made to appear like fireworks in a
fog.
Marvin would have been overjoyed to show her the performance, could she
have visited his laboratory. He would have let her bend carefully over a
highly charged little engine which was revealing the luminous tracks
twice each second. In that little glass-topped chamber the eighty-fourth
element was fiercely giving up the ghost to become the eighty-second.
Out flamed the unbalanced helium atoms like a sheaf of spreading
sunbeams, and often a ray was deflected by hitting some invisible atom.
Admiration for Madame Curie made her dream for a while of motherhood,
but January dispelled the dream. Though Congress had voted twenty
million dollars’ worth of food for the starving Russians, there was
every prospect that millions would perish. Jean longed to do something,
and spent what was left of her double-eagle for Canadian cheese and sent
it to the Red Cross to forward. And such is the natural desire of the
illogical human mind for heroic action that she would gladly have died
for any one of those Russian children—who ought never to have been born.
But, although Marvin had from time to time sent to Asher Ferry some
brief printed article, neither Marvin nor Jean knew of a certain
exchange of telegrams which took place on the thirtieth of January,
1922.
Chase Mahan, being then in San Francisco, received from Asher this
message:
Please inspect that laboratory which was dedicated night before
last in Pasadena.
Chase wired back:
Inspected it several days ago. Do you want Marvin to see it?
To this query he received a most satisfactory reply:
Our director should by all means see it, and on his way back
should consult with my architect.