Maria Keller

She was his first Mary - Maria Jadwiga Gryff - Keller, he called her - Mila. They met each other on 26th of March 1874, she was 19 years old, he - 28. Sienkiewicz had proposed to her in summer and was accepted. In August they went together with aunt to Strzalkow village, afterwards he went abroad for two months.Today we may read their correspondence which is the correspondence of two enamoured persons. After the return he went to her to the country and... lost his betrothal ring. That's how started to happen worse. Next were Tuesdays at Modrzejewska's and unsatisfactory Sienkiewicz's articles. In the end of October her father - Adam Keller - broke off. He reproached him with coolness, frigidity and recklessness and Marie has been told that it was for their best, that she would encumber him and he need money.

She never got married, in 1905 she published her book "Learning of reading and writing" ("Nauka pisania i czytania"). She died in 1919.