THE currency of short stories in our periodicals and the brittleness of so many that are formulamade have developed in American readers an apathy towards short fiction in book form. But at rare intervals a volume appears to show us what the short story can be at its best. I think of Hemingway’s Men without Women; Flowering Judas, by Katherine Anne Porter; and Mostly Canallers, by Walter D. Edmonds. Every bit as exceptional is Thirteen O’ Clock, by Stephen Vincent Benét (Farrar & Rinehart, $2.50). Mr. Benét’s prose is firm and clear-cut. In his stories you look for the touches of a poet — compassion, lhe swift insight, the indignation and power of sympathy, which distinguished his latest poems. Burning City. All these you will find perfectly blended and subordinated to the purpose of telling a story large as life. The stories range from the hard real ity of divorce and dictatorship to the enchanting mysticism of ’The Devil and Daniel Webster.’ They have freshness, originality, and strength.
In these days of perplexity if is tonic to hitch your wagon to a star. A star whose integrity still shines was Madame Marie Curie, discoverer of radium, twice winner of the Nobel Prize — the woman who did as much to change the world’s thinking as Joan of Arc did to change its history.
The biography, Madame Curie (Doubleday, Doran, $3.50), was written in French by her daughter, Eve Curie, and then translated by Vincent Sheean. Thanks to such skillful collaboration, we see this valiant little woman as she was — as she was in the open-hearted intimacy of her family, and as she was in the cold detachment of her laboratory, in both as courageous and unassuming a genius as ever lived. She was born Manya Sklodovska of Warsaw, the youngest member of a poor but very intelligent Polish family. Her father was a school inspector; from him she inherited her hatred of Russia and her devotion to science. To study at the Sorbonne was her childish dream. She and her older sister, Bronya, made a pact. As soon as she graduated from school, Manya would work as a governess for three years to support the elder at her studies in Paris, then the graduate would find work, repay the fund, and Manya would have her chance. But she almost lost heart during those three dreary years as a governess.
No preview should dull the edge of this fine book. These flashbacks inav help to kindle your anticipation. I see Manya — or Marie, as the French call her — arriving at Paris like any immigrant, with her quilt, her wooden trunk, her two hats, and her books. I see her climbing six flights to her attic. I see her living on three francs a day for everything — and fainting from malnutrition. I see a young wife washing her baby and an hour later working at the most important discovery of modern science. I see her handling eight tons of pitchblende to isolate the element she believed in; I see her and her husband toiling for forty-five months to prove to the skeptical that there was such a thing as radium. I see her at thirty-eight, her beloved Pierre dead, her hands ruined with acid, but with half her work still to do. I recognize, as you will, the demon of scruple that drove this great Polish heart and brain. Here is surely a biography greatly to be admired.
