The Abyss by Lara Blunte

sat, moped, and refused rich men.
    Juliana knew the reason for her actions too well, and had hissed at Clara more than once, "He must be dead by now of some fever, or married to someone else!"
    It was like a knife twisting in her gut for Clara to hear such things. She was waiting for Gabriel, who had disappeared without a trace after the morning when he had asked her to leave with him, over four years before. To hear that he might have died alone in some terrible place broke her heart; to hear that he might be married, and have children with another woman made her want to die.
    Having been partially educated in a convent, Clara would resort to a host of protectors when she begged like a child, "Please, God, please Holy Virgin, please Saint Anthony, please Saint Claire! Please let him be alive and well, please, bring him back. I will do anything, but please!"
    All she wanted was to see Gabriel again and, if he were angry, to explain that she had never meant what she had said, that she had been dying inside, and that she had since wished every day, all day long, that she had left with him.
    She could still see his hand extended, waiting for hers, his blue eyes clouding, his whole face hardening when he had understood that she was not going to accept his offer.
    Since he had left, her life had been hell, with her mother shrieking at her to accept man after man, and she disliking them all. None of them could compare to Gabriel. None of them inspired the slightest affection in her, while Gabriel still occupied her thoughts every day.
    Was there a worse thing, she wondered, than to be near a man one didn't love? Would a man not want to kiss her, if she were his wife, and do other things that she still didn't know enough about ─ intimate things? Would she not have to spend a lifetime looking at a man she did not love, listening to him, taking care of his household, giving birth to his children?
    How could she bear such things?
    Because every woman bore them, Juliana would say. "Do you think I was in love with your father?" she asked. "It was the right thing to do!"
    Clara had the result of "the right thing to do" in front of her eyes every day: parents who did not know the first thing about each other, who avoided meeting unless it was, in Juliana's case, to browbeat her husband.
    She knew that there could not have been passion between them, as there had been between Gabriel and her ─ but there was not even affection and understanding, as one might hope after twenty-five years together.
    Why would such a terrible existence, devoid of any beautiful feeling, be worth leading? Juliana had never trusted her own prosperity and still thought in terms of surviving and thriving. To materially thrive meant that Clara must say yes to a man as soon as possible. And Juliana's standards had fallen, because Europe was at war and Clara was getting older; now her husband could be any man with enough money.
    She did not forget that Clara's intransigence had brought about the end of her dreams. The foolish girl did not understand anything, still less the fact that love was a story for fools, that it didn't exist, that even if a pale shadow of it appeared, it would soon dissipate in the face of reality.
    Reality was that one must have a good roof over one's head and things, one must eat well, have servants, be able to afford good doctors and medicine.  One must matter , one must not be swallowed up in the middle of the crowd of people who were expendable.
    Why had Clara been born so beautiful, if not to  matter ?
    On that October morning Juliana still refused to think of the French and insisted that Clara should go to the park with her and ride a little. "You need some air!" she told her daughter. "You need to put color on your cheeks."
    Clara decided not to resist, but it was clear to her when they arrived at the park and the Baron of Ramos met them, that this had been somehow arranged.
    She stood scowling in her riding habit, holding her horse