“What would you like to speak to me about?” I asked.
“I’d like to apologize. This marriage talk is something that my father decided on his own. I’ll speak with my father and come up with some excuse. Please allow me some time to do so,” Lady Anastasia said, standing up. She then raised her skirt slightly while lowering her body and her head.
Her bow was so graceful, I couldn’t help but be stricken. Bowing while keeping one’s back straight was a show of respect, but going any farther down and lowering one’s head was etiquette for an apology, and this was a deep show of one.
“Are you referring to ending marriage talks between the two of us...?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I tried my best not to let it show, but I couldn’t tell if I was successfully hiding my disappointment. I guess...I really am not good enough. I was nearing a century’s worth of time without ever having a girlfriend, or any intimate relationships at all with women for that matter. It made sense that after all that time I wouldn’t simply be able to suddenly woo a woman. I guess she may not mind having a surface-level relationship with me, but she’s not interested in choosing me as her life partner. No. Wait. That’s not the only possibility. She’d been forcefully brought here for a political marriage. She might’ve already been interested in someone else.
“Do you already have someone special?” I asked.
“Of course not. I have no one like that.”
She shot that idea down very quickly... “So the fault lies with me... I’m terribly sorry. I’m not very experienced when it comes to women.”
“Not at all. That’s not the case whatsoever.”
“You don’t have to sugarcoat it. I’m well aware that I’m inexperienced with women. For future reference, would you mind telling me my faults? I’d like to know where I fall short.”
I was going to use this failure to make my future attempts a success. That was why I wanted to know what went wrong. I want to get married this time around no matter what.
“You misunderstand. You’ve no faults to speak of. Where would you get that idea from?” she asked.
She’s not able to put her finger on where I could improve? At this rate, my next marriage talks and the ones after that will fall apart every time. Oh no... Am I going to die alone in this life as well? I don’t want that!
“It might be strange for me to be the one saying this, however, my parents love me very much. If we were to get married and you had a mistress, my parents would use everything in their power to destroy you. This is especially true for my mother, who is the younger sister of His Majesty, and he especially dotes on her. My mother wields tremendous power. If you were to have relations with another lady, you’d need to wait until enough time passes for the power dynamic to flip between you and my parents. At the very least, you’d need to wait twenty years for when His Majesty steps down, otherwise my mother will always have power.”
Where is this all coming from? Why would I ever be unfaithful? In my past life, I’d known a good number of people who’d cheated on their spouses, but none of them ever found happiness that way. In the first place, the very idea of deepening your bond with a rotten person who’d lay their hands on someone who was not theirs and sacrifice people’s trust in you to attain happiness was flawed, to say the least. I want to live a quiet life when I’m old. I have absolutely no plan to do anything as foolish as that.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” I said. “I have no intention of being unfaithful.”
“That’s even more reason for you not to marry me. At your young age, you already run a successful business, and even my father says you possess an outstanding talent for managing lands. Meeting you today, I have learned that you are very handsome, skilled at speaking, and a very kind person who’s thoughtful and considerate. Add to that your sincerity to be faithful to your spouse, then there must be many who are interested in you. It would be a tragedy for someone as great as you to be married to a woman like me.”
Hm? A tragedy? Is she burdened by some kind of problem?
“Um, pardon me,” I started. “I understand that this might be a difficult topic to discuss, but are there any problems plaguing you? If it’s okay, I’d like to help resolve any issues you might be facing.”
In response, Lady Anastasia looked surprised. It seemed that we still weren’t on the same page at all.
“I greatly appreciate your offer; however, this is one problem that can’t be solved,” she giggled. “My troubles are with my appearance. You don’t wish to get married to a hideous woman like myself, do you? My parents also possess an incredible amount of power. If we got married, you wouldn’t be able to run to another woman. Wouldn’t that constitute an unhappy marriage for a man?”
I finally understand. This entire time, she’s been concerned about her appearance. I couldn’t have cared less about that. I was much more concerned with whether women would find me physically repulsive than something as trifling as their looks. That was why I hadn’t once considered that she’d be worried about her appearance until this moment.
“I believe it’d be best for my parents to adopt an heir. I know they haven’t given up on me marrying, but I’m sure they will in about ten years and begin looking for an heir. There’s no need for you to lend our family your gifts. Time solves everything.”
No, what does that really solve? Sure, it might fix the problem of inheritance. However, what would it do for Lady Anastasia? How did she plan to find happiness in that situation? All that awaited her down that path was a life of solitude when she reached old age.
Oh. Maybe she’s the type of person who doesn’t look for happiness in marriage. But I really can’t recommend that way of thinking. Japan had the highest population of single individuals in the world. There’d been plenty of people around me who never got married, but none of them had lived happily in their later years.
I had a friend who didn’t get married and instead found meaning through his work, but he lost his purpose for living when he reached the mandatory retirement age. The amount of time between retirement and death was around the same as it took for an infant to become an adult. Losing his reason to live and spending such a long time alone destroyed him.
I had another friend who’d shifted his reason for living toward volunteering around the area he lived in. But the older and more debilitated he became, the less he was able to do volunteer work. His new purpose fell apart when he became the very person that people would volunteer to help. As a result, he’d also had a tough time living out his old age alone.
Two of my friends who’d been close to each other had come up with the idea of living together and livening up their days that way, but even then they couldn’t find happiness. People at that age weren’t very flexible in their thinking, so there’d been no chance of them getting along living together. They’d fight over the smallest, most trivial things like leaving the toilet seat up. Ultimately, they sold the place and lived separately.