A man and a woman who in relation to their spouses are incapable of ever penetrating the wall of separateness, are moved to tears when they participate in the happy or unhappy love story of the couple on the screen. For many couples, seeing these stories on the screen is the only occasion on which they experience love—not for each other, but together, as spectators of other people’s “love.” As long as love is a daydream, they can participate; as soon as it comes down to the reality of the relationship between two real people—they are frozen.
