" "You will only laugh at me, but this
painter who stops you from seeing me," she meant Vermeer, "I have never
even heard of him; is he alive still? Can I see any of his things in
Paris, so as to have some idea of what is going on behind that great brow
which works so hard, that head which I feel sure is always puzzling away
about things; just to be able to say 'There, that's what he's thinking
about!' What a dream it would be to be able to help you with your work."
He had sought an excuse in his fear of forming new friendships, which he
gallantly described as his fear of a hopeless passion. "You are afraid of
falling in love? How funny that is, when I go about seeking nothing else,
and would give my soul just to find a little love somewhere!" she had said,
so naturally and with such an air of conviction that he had been genuinely
touched. "Some woman must have made you suffer. And you think that the rest
are all like her. She can't have understood you: you are so utterly
different from ordinary men. That's what I liked about you when I first
saw you; I felt at once that you weren't like everybody else.
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