We get along because we’re strangers at heart. What would become of so many happy couples if they could see into one another’s soul, if they could truly understand one another, as romantics say, without knowing the danger (albeit ultimately inconsequential) of what they’re saying? All marriages are flawed, because each partner holds inside, in a secret corner where the soul belongs to the Devil, the wispy image of the desired man who is nothing like the husband, the hazy figure of the sublime woman whom the wife doesn’t live up to.
