Excerpt from Some Prefer Nettles by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki.

From

Chapter 5.

They had not been entirely happy perhaps, but they had after all lived together as husband and wife, gone to bed together and got up together, for more than ten years, had even had a child together. Was there a law requiring that once they parted they must be to each other as strangers passing in the street, that if the worst came they might not even meet at one or the other's deathbed? If as time went by they acquired new mates and new children, the desire to see each other might fade, but at least for the present the reservation with which they would part was the best comfort they had.