She rose, bathed, and came down to breakfast to find that her reputation was in ruins. Clara didn’t care. She could not imagine marrying some ordinary merchant’s son or choosing to live in one gray world for the rest of her life. She considered her options and decided there was nothing for it but to become a writer. She sold her pearl earrings and moved to Ketterdam, where she took a small apartment with a window facing the harbor so that she could watch the ships come and go. There, she wrote fantastical tales that charmed children, and under another name, she penned rather more lurid works
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