I did not love a woman when I decided to marry.
Do not misunderstand—that is not to say I was not in love, but the only love I knew at that moment was the love of a creator for his art. I completed my opera that evening, my life's ambition, and the plan to make her erupted in the glorious aftermath of my success. My mind was abuzz with the incomparable high of completion. It seemed that nothing could be beyond my reach, not even a bride.
I tried to make her like other brides at first. It became an endless exercise in frustration, attempting to mimic living features with porcelain and wax. I did not know what my wife should look like. I had never seen her. And all the real womanly faces I could recall were drained of color and screaming.
No, of course she could not be like other brides. None of them could ever endure me. There was only one thing I wished to be with forever, only one thing that truly made me happy.
I made her from music.
Her chest was the flushed red wood of my favorite violin; her hair, the strings. I dismantled the pipes of my organ and made them her beloved arms. I dressed her in blank sheets of parchment, marked with empty staffs without any notes. My vanity demanded I clothe her in my own compositions initially, but the red ink of my work appeared too much like blood and the color ruined her image.