Jouhandeau strongly emphasizes the difference between this intimacy and a real human fraternity, writing: lise is my wife and it is probable that none of my friends, none of the members of my family, not a single one of my own limbs is more intimate with me than she; but however close to me is the place that she has made for herself and that I have made for her in my own most private universe; however deeply rooted she has become in the inextricable web of my body and soul (and there lies the whole mystery and the whole drama of our indissoluble union), the unknown person, whoever he may be, who happens to pass in the street at this particular moment and whom I can barely see from my window is less of a stranger to me than she is.