The Farewell Waltz (Czech: Valčík na rozloučenou) is a Czech-language novel by Milan Kundera published in 1972.

This novel mostly deals with love, hate and accidents between eight characters who are drawn together in a small spa town in Czechoslovakia in early 1970s.

Klíma is a trumpeter from a big orchestra, a Don Juan who had a one-night stand with Růžena and completely forgot about her until she informed him that she would be having a baby.

Škréta is a gynecologist at the spa who wants to be adopted by Bertlef so he could become an American citizen, and who has an original method for helping couples that cannot have babies.

He is paying his last visit to his friend Škréta, who once gave him a pill of poison for committing suicide if he felt that all hope was lost.

When he sees her the next day, he meets with Bertlef and Škréta and tells them of his plan, admitting that he wants to have an abortion because he loves his wife, the actress, so much.

Jakub at the same time is visiting his friend Olga, the daughter of an old political rival who he cared for when her father was killed.

In comparing them, he accidentally mixes the two up, and Ruzena returns to find him holding the bottle and grabs it from him before walking away.

Jakub then wonders why he didn't do more to stop Ruzena, knowing that he was sentencing her to death by not taking the tablets from her.

Dr. Škréta reveals to Jakub that his procedure for getting his patients pregnant, and why he is so successful, is that he injects his own semen into the mother using a syringe.

Later that evening, Jakub is frightened by the number of children in the town who seem to unnaturally resemble Škréta: they all have large noses and some talk in a nasally voice.

Bertlef is horrified to hear of Ruzena's death, doesn't believe that she killed herself, claiming that she was happy the night before.