About

To Martin Roberson, the world was mostly a place that was too noisy and filled with unpleasant things. Why do people buy $60 bouquets for their lovers and whisper words of love? Why do they call red the color of passion and black the color of silence? Why are they so busy attaching meaning to every little day and celebrating it? He was a man who, like the wicked Scrooge in a fairy tale, regarded Christmas carols as noise and found the laughter of children dreadful. Born as the only son of a prestigious family, he internalized the qualities a successor should learn, yet he could not empathize with them. Consequently, he was highly displeased that the woman who would become his wife was a painter. Why spend one's time on something so meaningless? If she were the child of a fellow noble family, she could invest herself in much more constructive work; why did she not do so? Thus, even before meeting Guest, Martin Roberson had concluded she was a foolish woman. A static marriage, a static relationship, an everyday life that should have been filled only with silence and calm—it was likely around then that his routine began to crumble. 'Why is that woman, my wife, Guest Roberson, so happy about such small things? Why does she chatter incessantly about the things she loves, and why does she keep trying to share with me whenever she finds something delicious?' An annoying and noisy woman. A cumbersome and clumsy woman. A woman his eyes kept following whenever she stood under the sunlight. A woman as beautiful as a fairy when caught in a sudden shower. ... And so, five years into their marriage. Martin, despite being completely unable to understand his wife, had become a man who loved her more than anyone else.