In 1903, in London, officially invited to the Royal Institution, the Curies had to attend receptions and banquets organized in their honor.


 Always dressed in dark clothes and without a single jewel, Marie nevertheless enjoyed looking at the precious stones that the other ladies were showing off; and one evening she noticed with amazement that even her husband, Pierre, usually always distracted, was carefully studying the necklaces, tiaras, earrings and bracelets of the ladies.


"I would never have believed," said Marie, as she was getting ready for bed, "that there were so many jewels in the world and so beautiful. Have you seen how splendid they were?".

Pierre then burst into a loud laugh.

"Imagine that, during dinner, not knowing how to pass the time, I had invented this little game: to calculate how many chemical laboratories could be built by selling the jewels that those ladies were wearing.

The moment of the toast in our honor came to interrupt my fun: well, the number of laboratories had reached astronomical figures!".

An American journalist once cleverly managed to track the two scientists, reaching them in a remote cottage in the northwest of Brittany, in Le Pouldu, where they were on vacation.

His newspaper had sent him to interview Marie Curie, the illustrious scientist.

When he reached a fisherman's house, he found himself in front of a rather slovenly woman, sitting barefoot on the steps of the door and busy shaking out her sand-filled espadrilles.

The woman raised her head timidly, fixed her ash-colored eyes on the intruder.

At first the latter did not recognize her, but on closer inspection, suddenly, he noticed that she resembled a hundred, a thousand photographs that had appeared in newspapers and magazines.

It was her!

The journalist was shocked for a moment, then he let himself fall next to Marie and took out his notebook.


Seeing that escape was impossible, Marie resigned herself, and began to answer her interlocutor's questions with short sentences.

Yes, she and Pierre Curie discovered radium. Yes, they continue their work...

But the journalist is not satisfied, this is a magnificent opportunity to gain some confidences about Marie's youth, her working methods, the psychology of a woman who has devoted herself to scientific research!

"Could you tell me something confidential about your life?".

Immediately that surprising face closed.


With a few words that she will often repeat and that illustrate her character, her vocation, her existence very well, Marie ended the conversation:


"In science, we must be interested in things, not people. You journalists should be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.

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