Diary of Clara de Loren”

Dated: July 7, 1789

Paris

I don’t know why I felt the urge this morning to write, as if something inside me demanded to be put on paper.

Today was comfortably warm. The air was filled with the scent of fresh bread and a little dust, but it was soft dust that did not bother me. I walked to the market with Madeline—she never stopped talking as usual—and Paris looked ordinary… beautiful in its familiar way. The same vendors, the same children’s cries, the same men sitting at the edges of cafés, smoking and reading newspapers, arguing about the king and taxes as if they had no intention to do anything about it.

Madeline, my loyal friend, with her wavy blonde hair that sparkles under the sunlight, and her brown eyes that reflect an irresistible warmth, walked beside me with vitality and passion. She works for a noblewoman’s dressmaker in the nearby neighborhood, and through her stories about her work, I have learned much about the lives and worries of the nobles, although I feel she dreams of a simpler life away from the luxurious fabrics.

We passed by the Seine River. The water was calm, the reflection of the trees on its surface looked to me like a dream, or an old painting in my grandmother’s house. Sometimes I think how much I love this city despite everything said about it.

The upper-class children still dress elegantly, filling the streets with their heavy perfumes and light laughter. A lady held up her dress so it wouldn’t touch the ground as she passed by a barefoot child selling withered flowers. She did not look at him. No one looks at them.

But I looked.

And as I watched him, I felt something in my chest I could not name… like worry, or waiting. Not fear, nor pain. Just a strange, heavy feeling unlike anything I had known before.

I returned home, and I saw nothing from my father but some money he left me as usual.

I almost forget his face, as if his absence becomes more present than his existence.

I lost my mother when I was six years old, and that loss was very heavy on my small heart.

And now, with each passing day, and my father busy with his heavy work and responsibilities, I feel like an orphan of a father as well, alone in this vast world.

I know he works for us, to secure a decent life, but the loneliness he leaves behind in my heart does not lessen my pain.

I long for the sound of his embrace, for his reassuring voice, and for the presence that makes me feel I am not alone.

But silence fills the house, and emptiness occupies the corners of my soul.

Sometimes I wonder if he truly sees me, or if his absence has made us strangers who no longer understand each other.

This growing loneliness makes me afraid of the future, and I wish someday to find the family safety I have dreamed of since childhood.

But I am sure tomorrow will be like today. And perhaps the day after as well. This is life here, since I became aware of it.

Paris does not change.

Does it?