雙語·居里夫人的故事 第七章　變化

Chapter VII　Change

MANYA had desired change and she was to get change. She was to travel. She heard of another pupil who lived in Warsaw, but who was on holiday in far away Belgium and Manya was to join her there. Manya became suddenly doubtful whether she liked so much change as that. She would have to travel alone and have five changes of train. She would surely get lost; or thieves might come into her compartment at night while she slept. But none of these things happened. She found herself safely met by her new employers and introduced to an entirely new world—a world of great wealth which she was expected to share and to enjoy. Her pupil's mother was beautiful and charming. For the first time in her life Manya was close to lovely dresses made by Worth's; she was expected to finger and admire soft furs and brilliant jewels; she saw people who were becoming her friends looking at her from the walls where their portraits hung painted by the greatest painters. She moved among all the loveliest things that wealth can give and looked on at all the charm of parties and balls, gaiety and music. Moreover these rich people were human and kind. Mrs. F— liked her, took her everywhere, called her to her friends “The exquisite Miss Sklodovska.”

We have not heard what Manya thought of it all, because something far more exciting was about to happen to her. On the hall table lay a letter with the Paris post mark addressed to Miss Sklodovska in Bronia's handwriting—a letter written on squared exercise book paper, written hurriedly between two lectures. What news! Bronia was going to be married! Bronia was inviting Manya to share her home in Paris as soon as she had it! Paris! ... A

University… All her hopes fulfilled?

It was not as simple as that. Manya had known for some time that Bronia was engaged to the cleverest, handsomest, most delightful Polish student in Paris. His name, like that of Manya'sown lover, was Casimir, Casimir Dluski. He had been obliged to flee from Poland because he was suspected of having been connected with a plot. In Paris he was watched by request of the Czar's police and had all kinds of odd information entered against him in the books of the Paris Gendarmerie. But, in spite of that, he was a gay young doctor and he was going to marry Bronia. So Bronia would never be able to return to Warsaw to take care of her father. That would be Manya's part, for Hela was not muda use for taking care of anybody.

How lovely, how wonderful, how ideal shone the future according to Bronia! But Manya wrote back: “I have been a fool, I am a fool, I shall always be a fool my whole life through, or rather to translate into more fashionable language: I never had any luck! I haven't any luck! I never shall have any luck!” Thereupon the unlucky may take heart as they consider what was to happen to Manya. She went on: “I have dreamed of Paris as one dreams of salvation, but hope of getting there fled a long time ago and now that the possibility of getting there has come to me, I don't know what to do. I can't talk to father about it, because I think his heart is set on our plan of living together next year and I would like to give him a little happiness in his old age. On the other hand, my heart breaks when I think of how my gifts are being wasted and yet gifts ought to be used.” It was that feeling that gifts ought to be used that made her urge Bronia in the same letter to put pride in her pocket and beg, with all her most ingratiating skill, a rich friend to help Joseph to use his gifts. Manya argued that it would not be only Joseph who would be helped, but the world which would profit by his skill. All through her life Manya was to keep the opinion that one of the noblest works is to help the greatly gifted to use their gifts for the world. She ended her letter: “My heart is so black, so sad that I feel how wrong I am to talk to you of all this and poison your happiness.”

So Manya went home to live for at least a year with her father in a little home of their own. To some people it would have seemed dull, but Manya had a brain and found more sensible talk in her father's house than in any other. She also returned to the strange “winged” secret society and talked and studied.

But Chance had a trick up her sleeve. No one would have suspected, if he walked in May down the quiet tree-planted avenue of Cracow and smelt the purple lilacs in the grass-grown court of No. 66, that there was anything surprising or world-shaking there. In the court, beside the lilacs, there was a little one-storied building with tiny windows. Museum of Industry and Agricul-ture was written in large letters over its doors. Were old ploughshares or prehistoric spades kept there? Not a bit of it! Russia allowed museums to exist. They are always such properly dead places. But any intelligent person can teach in a museum. Manya's cousin was the Director of this one and, secretly, he taught science in it. He had a laboratory where the students could actually touch apparatus.

For the first time in her life Manya Sklodovska entered a laboratory! And that was to make a remarkable difference to the great world. She couldn't go there much, only in the evenings and on Sunday. There was no one to teach her when she got there. She worked all alone trying to reproduce experiments described in text books. Her results were sometimes unexpected, but sometimes a tiny success filled her with hope and sometimes a striking failure filled her with despair. But always, she found discovery, or even trying to discover, a wild delight.

When late at night she got home and rolled into bed, something seized her, something grabbed her mind, something spoke to her in the dark. She couldn't sleep. It was as if another someone in herself was talking to her, hammering at her thoughts, telling her what she must get up and do. Her work had found her and was insisting that she must do it. Those test tubes and retorts of the museum were friends and allies of her father's old physical apparatus which she had once loved. Manya Sklodovska had found herself—that self whose clever hands must for ever handle tubes and flames, elements and metals, while her clever brain drew conclusions from what her hands did and looked into the future.

But what should she do? Hands and brain said go! Love said stay with her father and brother and sister, with her lover Casimir Z—, who was still trying to win his parents' consent to his marriage. Manya met him in the holidays. They walked the mountains together, he told her in long talks of his difficulties and asked her advice.

“If you can't find a way out yourself,” exclaimed Manya, at the end of her patience, “don't ask me.” She at least knew her own mind at last. She wrote hurriedly to Bronia: “Give me a definite answer. I won't be any trouble to you. You can put me to sleep anywhere. But, I implore you, answer frankly.

Bronia answered frankly; she would have telegraphed if telegrams had not been too dear. Manya would have caught the next train if she had not had so many arrangements to make. She put all her savings on the table and counted them with her father. He added what he could to them. There, before their eyes, lay the round roubles that made Paris possible, only just possible.

Manya could not afford to travel third all the way. In Poland and France third was the cheapest, but Germany had a fourth. It did not matter that the fourth was like a succession of luggage vans. They had no separate compartments and they were bare, except for a bench round the four sides, and thoughtful people took their own stools and sat in the middle. Manya would do that. She would have to take a lot of luggage to save buying in France, but the bulkiest she could send in advance by luggage train—her own mattress, her blankets, her sheets, her table napkins. The only thing she had to buy was a cheap, strong, wooden trunk which she marked proudly M.S. Into it she put her strong, durable clothes, her shoes, her two hats. Then she did up the packages she would take with her in the truck for the journey: food and drink for three days in the train, the stool, her books, a bag of caramels and a rug.

Manya was off to Paris. She was twenty-four and her eyes literally shone with eagerness and joy. The long-hoped-for adventure had begun.