Maria Szetkiewicz

He saw her in 1879 in Szczawnica for the first time. She was his second Mary. Since her early youth she was interested in physics, chemistry and scince.Her family planed to move to Zurich, because only there was a school for woman, but her disease and marriage changed these plans. For some time nothing has changed in their relationship, Henryk remembered Mr. Keller and was afraid of refusal. In the meantime in summer 1880 doctors sent Maria to Tyrol. Sienkiewicz proposed to her by letter and she answered, also by a rather called letter and she leftthe decision to her parents. Because she was staying all the time abroad, he could persuade her only by letters. He had an ally in Maria's father, because they liked each other. Maria was ill with lungs so for her health sake she staid in Switzerland and some time in Meran (Tyrol's ancient capital city). Finally on the 18th of August 1881 they got married in Canon's Church. Within a year on the 15th of July 1882 was born their first child - son - Henryk Jozef, in December 1883 - daughter - Jadwiga - Dzinka. Since November 1883 Maria was seriously ill. In 1884 she started a big travel from one sanatorium to another: Meran, San Remo, Vienna, Werona, Mediolan, again San Remo, Paris, Reichenhall (Alps)and so on. In that time they had also financial problems and Henryk had to write. In October 1884 he began writing "The Deluge". From these travels there are many letters left and we can be sure that they loved each other very much. Next year was almost the same: San Remo, Italy, Meran, Vienna, Reichenhall and Folkenstein. Near the end of year Maria weighted 43 kilograms and had a fever all the time. She died on the 19th of October 1885.