Summary

Chapter IX takes place in Rue Gazan, Paris, in 1908. The chapter is told in the first person from the perspective of an unnamed woman who is addressing her recently deceased husband Eugene. The narrator recalls meeting Pierre and Marie Curie. She recalls Pierre’s attitudes to scientific investigations that were conducted into seances performed by a woman named Madama Palladino, which failed to explain how she was doing what she was doing and failed to prove that the seances were a hoax. Afterwards, Pierre stressed that it was important that science did not foreclose what it does not understand. The narrator recalls hearing about this at a party where she later met her husband Eugene. She recalls childhood memories with their children, Sandor and Marcus.

Chapter X takes place in Highcliffe, Dorset in 1912. The renowned scientist Marie Curie was staying with...