Summary

Marie Curie settles in a house on the Ile Saint-Louis with her daughters where she continues to work and teach well into her sixties. Irene, working as Marie's laboratory assistant, finds time to marry Frederic Joliot and have a child. Marie is an undemonstrative but attentive grandmother. Eve continues to live with her mother when Irene moves out of the house. Marie teaches students of every nationality at the Radium Institute and she and Eve sometimes speak of frivolous things such as dresses and love.

At the Institute of Radium, Marie actively plays a role in her students' development, being hailed as "the greatest laboratory director I have ever known" by her friend Jean Perrin. She conducts "laboratory tea" whenever there is cause to celebrate one of her students' successes. They gather in the...