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It chanced that Chopin and Slovaki, whose works showed most startling similarity, were also much alike in looks, in slenderness, dreaminess of feature, and even in expression of countenance. Their very fates were like: both left their country never to return.
He improvised in Paris on themes she composed, and then she repeated his inspirations to keep Slovaki hovering at her piano. When Chopin met the Wodzinskis in Dresden, he composed for Maria his F-minor Étude which he called "the soul-portrait" of the comtesse. A year later he passed a month with the family at Marienbad, where he proposed for her hand and was accepted.
In 1830 Chopin toured the continent. As in his later relation to George Sand, the passion of a poet, Alfred Musset, rivalled his, so at this time he found a rival in the Polish poet, Julius Slovaki. The pretty, vivacious, and perhaps somewhat flirtatious girl, Comtesse Maria Wodzinska, was the bone of contention, or, rather, the "rag and the bone and the hank of hair" of contention.
In his bridegroom mood he composed the graceful F-minor Waltz, and later the C-sharp minor Nocturne. In the meantime, Slovaki travelled on in blissful ignorance, glorifying Chopin's fiancée in poetic songs full of passionate admiration. The distant Slovaki finally learned that Chopin had won his muse, and he wrote to his mother: "They say that Chopin and 'my Maria' are to be a pair.
She travelled through Europe with her mother and brothers, and found an opportunity to meet Chopin in one, and Slovaki in another town, and to pass several weeks with each. It was Slovaki's turn to meet her in Geneva. Here she inspired him to much verse, especially his "In der Schweiz." But all this while the little vixen corresponded with Chopin.
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