and his people of Chopin’s.  Thus it came about that they met at Dresden in September, 1835, whither the composer went after his meeting with his parents at Carlsbad, mentioned in the preceding chapter (p. 288).  Count Wodzinski says in his Les trois Romans de Frederic Chopin that Chopin had spoken to his father about his project of marrying Maria Wodzinska, and that this idea had sprung up in his soul by the mere force of recollections.  The young lady was then nineteen years of age, and, according to the writer just mentioned, tall and slender in figure, and light and graceful in gait.  The features, he tells us, were distinguished neither by regularity nor classical beauty, but had an indefinable charm.  Her black eyes were full of sweetness, reverie, and restrained fire; a smile of ineffable voluptuousness played around her lips; and her magnificent hair was as dark as ebony and long enough to serve her as a mantle.  Chopin and Maria saw each other every evening at the house of her uncle, the Palatine Wodzinski.  The latter concluded from their frequent tete-a-tete at the piano and in corners that some love-making was going on between them.  When he found that his monitory coughs and looks produced no effect on his niece, he warned his sister-in-law.  She, however, took the matter lightly, saying that it was an amitie d’enfance, that Maria was fond of music, and that, moreover, there would soon be an end to all this—­their ways lying in opposite directions, hers eastward to Poland, his westward to France.  And thus things were allowed to go on as they had begun, Chopin passing all his evenings with the Wodzinskis and joining them in all their walks.  At last the time of parting came, the clock of the Frauenkirche struck the hour of ten, the carriage was waiting at the door, Maria gave Chopin a rose from a bouquet on the table, and he improvised a waltz which he afterwards sent her from Paris, and which she called L’Adieu.  Whatever we may think of the details of this scene of parting, the waltz composed for Maria at Dresden is an undeniable fact.  Facsimiles may be seen in Szulc’s Fryderyk Chopin and Count Wodziriski’s Les trois Romans de Frederic Chopin.  The manuscript bears the superscription:  “Tempo de Valse” on the left, and “pour Mile.  Marie” on the right; and the subscription:  “F.  Chopin, Drezno [Dresden], September, 1835.” [Footnote:  It is Op. 69, No. 1, one of the posthumous works published by Julius Fontana.]

The two met again in the following summer, this time at Marienbad, where he knew she and her mother were going.  They resumed their walks, music, and conversations.  She drew also his portrait.  And then one day Chopin proposed.  Her answer was that she could not run counter to her parents’ wishes, nor could she hope to be able to bend their will; but she would always preserve for him in her heart a grateful remembrance.[Footnote:  Count Wodzinski relates on p. 255 of his book that at a subsequent period of her life the lady confided