As for Vermeer of Delft, she asked whether he
had been made to suffer by a woman, if it was
a woman who had inspired him, and once Swann
had told her that no one knew, she had lost
all interest in that painter. She would often
say: "Poetry, you know— well, of course, there'd
be nothing like it if it was all true, if the poets
believed everything they say. But as often as not
you'll find there's no one so calculating as those
fellows. I know something about it: I had
a friend, once, who was in love with a poet of sorts.
In his verses he never spoke of anything but love
and the sky and the stars. 0h! she was properly
taken in! He did her out of more than three
hundred thousand francs.
