It may be a sign that two people have stopped loving one another (or at least stopped wishing to make the effort that constitutes 90 percent of love) when they are no longer able to spin differences into jokes. Humor lined the walls of irritation between our ideals and the reality: behind each joke there was a warning of difference, of disappointment even, but it was a difference that had been defused—and could therefore be passed over without the need for a pogrom.
