Samuel Johnson Is Indignant by Lydia Davis

word, due to her association with a certain married man, Langevin, Mme Curie has for a time ceased to be an honorable woman.
    Conflict with the Workers in the Laboratory
    Nor at work are things always smooth. There is a day, for instance, when the laboratory’s head of works is raining blows on the woman’s door and yelling:
    â€œCamel! Camel!”
    No doubt she can be.
    She is capable of everything.
    The Entr’acte
    Thanks to Marthe Klein who has taken her there, she discovers the South of France, its splendor, its August nights in which one sleeps on the terrace, the warmth of the Mediterranean where she begins to swim again. Tourists are rare. Only, on the beach, a few English…
    The passion for stones is the only one she is known to have where ownership is concerned, but this passion is lively: she will also buy a house in Brittany.
    She is still slight, slender, supple, walks with bare legs, in espadrilles, with the manner of a young girl. According to the days, she carries ten years more or ten years less than her age.
    For some time she has needed glasses, but what could be more natural?
    In Quest of a Gram of Radium
    The courage, the determination, the assurance that made her the twice-crowned queen of radioactivity are powerless before the evidence: Paris is a festival, but French science is anemic. Toward whom, toward what, should she turn?
    Those who are most dynamic among the scientists will try to sound the alarm, everywhere, with voice and with pen: whether it be prestige, industrial competition, or social progress, a nation that does not invest in research is a nation that declines.
    This, everyone knows more or less—rather less than more—today.
    Missy
    And so, one May morning in 1920, Marie welcomes at her office at the Curie Pavillion Henri-Pierre Roché who accompanies a very little graying person with large black eyes, slightly limping: Mrs. Meloney Mattingley, whom her friends call Missy. The minuscule Missy is editor of a feminine magazine of good reputation.
    And the unforeseeable is going to happen. One of those mysterious consonances, as frank as a C Major chord. A friendship, whose consequences will be infinite.
    Marie is charming, though who knows why, with this bizarre little creature.
    In Quest of a Gram of Radium
    Mme Curie is, in a word, poor. In a poor country.
    Stupefying! Something to surprise the cottages lining 5th Avenue, certainly.
    Missy has a good nature. She loves to admire, and Marie seems to her admirable. This excellent disposition being accompanied by a vigorous practical sense, Missy, who compares herself to a locomotive, moves a series of railway cars if not mountains.
    How much does a gram of radium cost? One million francs, or one hundred thousand dollars. One hundred thousand dollars for a noble cause attached to a grand name—this can be found. Missy believes she can collect it from several very rich compatriots.
    She mobilizes the wife of the king of petrol, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, that of the Vice and future President, Mrs. Calvin Coolidge, and several other ladies of the same caliber.
    She takes each bull by the horns—that is, each editor of each New York newspaper by his sentiments.
    A Trip to the United States
    Evidently, when Missy will have succeeded, Marie will have to come in person to get her gram of radium. In a parallel way, a well-launched autobiography can bring her substantial authors’ rights. What benefit will Missy draw personally from the operation? Purely moral.
    Correct? Unquestionably.
    Friendship
    What remains of their correspondence, which is, at times, almost daily, attests to the permanence of the affection that binds these two warriors, equally lame, equally intrepid.
    If anyone esteems herself at her true price, it is Marie. If anyone is prepared to pay it, it is Missy. But take care: on both sides, one must be “regular.”
    Marie has promised to come get her gram of radium herself. Does she