I kept this new place for only a year and then went back to my father, who had retired some time before and was living alone. Together we passed an excellent year, he occupying himself with some literary work, while I increased our funds by giving private lessons. Meantime I continued my efforts to educate myself. This was no easy task under the Russian government of Warsaw; yet I found more opportunities than in the country. To my great joy, I was able, for the first time in my life, to find access to a laboratory: a small municipal physical laboratory directed by one of my cousins. I found little time to work there, except in the evenings and on Sundays, and was generally left to myself. I tried out various experiments described in treatises on physics and chemistry, and the results were sometimes unexpected. At times I would be encouraged by a little unhoped-for success, at others I would be in the deepest despair because of accidents and failures resulting from my inexperience. But on the whole, though I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy, this first trial confirmed in me the taste for experimental research in the fields of physics and chemistry.
Other means of instruction came to me through my being one of an enthusiastic group of young men and women of Warsaw, who united in a common desire to study, and whose activities were at the same time social and patriotic. It was one of those groups of Polish youths who believed that the hope of their country lay in a great effort to develop the intellectual and moral strength of the nation, and that such an effort would lead to a better national situation. The nearest purpose was to work at one's own instruction and to provide means of instruction for workmen and peasants. In accordance with this program we agreed among ourselves to give evening courses, each one teaching what he knew best. There is no need to say that this was a secret organization, which made everything extremely difficult. There were in our group very devoted young people who, as I still believe today, could do truly useful work.
I have a bright remembrance of the sympathetic intellectual and social companionship which I enjoyed at that time. Truly the means of action were poor and the results obtained could not be considerable; yet I still believe that the ideas which inspired us then are the only way to real social progress. You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.
All the experiences of this period intensified my longing for further study. And, in his affection for me, my father, in spite of limited resources, helped me to hasten the execution of my early project. My sister had just married at Paris, and it was decided that I should go there to live with her. My father and I hoped that, once my studies were finished, we would again live happily together. Fate was to decide otherwise, since my marriage was to hold me in France. My father, who in his own youth had wished to do scientific work, was consoled in our separation by the progressive success of my work. I keep a tender memory of his kindness and disinterestedness. He lived with the family of my married brother, and, like an excellent grandfather, brought up the children. We had the sorrow of losing him in , when he had just passed seventy.
So it was in November, , at the age of twenty-four, that I was able to realize the dream that had been always present in my mind for several years.
When I arrived in Paris I was affectionately welcomed by my sister and brother-in-law, but I stayed with them only for a few months, for they lived in one of the outside quarters of Paris where my brother-in-law was beginning a medical practice, and I needed to get nearer to the schools. I was finally installed, like many other students of my country, in a modest little room for which I gathered some furniture. I kept to this way of living during the four years of my student life.
It would be impossible to tell of all the good these years brought to me. Undistracted by any outside occupation, I was entirely absorbed in the joy of learning and understanding. Yet, all the while, my living conditions were far from easy, my own funds being small and my family not having the means to aid me as they would have liked to do. However, my situation was not exceptional; it was the familiar experience of many of the Polish students whom I knew. The room I lived in was in a garret, very cold in winter, for it was insufficiently heated by a small stove which often lacked coal. During a particularly rigorous winter, it was not unusual for the water to freeze in the basin in the night; to be able to sleep I was obliged to pile all my clothes on the bedcovers. In the same room I prepared my meals with the aid of an alcohol lamp and a few kitchen utensils. These meals were often reduced to bread with a cup of chocolate, eggs or fruit. I had no help in housekeeping and I myself carried the little coal I used up the six flights.
This life, painful from certain points of view, had, for all that, a real charm for me. It gave me a very precious sense of liberty and independence. Unknown in Paris, I was lost in the great city, but the feeling of living there alone, taking care of myself without any aid, did not at all depress me. If sometimes I felt lonesome, my usual state of mind was one of calm and great moral satisfaction.