Marie wrote about the family’s Easter vacation in April 1906. Everyone frolicked in the countryside, enjoying the signs of spring, both parents watching their girls chasing butterflies, Pierre picking bouquets of marigolds for Marie.But she was not pleased when he returned to Paris early to do some work. Nor did her mood improve when she and the children arrived home. In a rare instance of role reversal, she and Pierre argued because he was anxious for her to join him in the lab right away. Marie, normally the obsessive workaholic, wanted her break to last a little longer.“don’t torment me,” she told her husband on his way out the door—a clue that her life was more a precarious balancing act than she publicly let on. On this crucial day, she chose to be with her children instead of in the lab.The day was chilly and rainy. Pierre went from the lab to a business lunch, then later walked to the library from the Sorbonne. Stepping off a curb into the most crowded intersection in Paris, he walked straight into the path of a horse-drawn wagon.
