Odette’s appearance, to one who knew her real age and anticipated seeing a very old woman, seemed to oppose the laws of chronology even more miraculously than the persistence of radium defies the laws of nature. If I failed to recognize her at first, it was not because she had changed but because she had not.
—Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
No, no army follows at your heels,
No saintly voices call your name,
But your heart’s earnest, burning zeal
Rivals every pyre’s flame.
—“Ode to Madame Curie,” by Maurice Rostand, recited by Sarah Bernhardt at the Paris Opéra, April 28, 1921