“Courtesy” is a word that has lost its meaning, especially as the daily currency of love, but for the Vanaukens it meant that whatever one person asked of the other, the other would do. “Thus one might wake the other in the night and ask for a cup of water; and the other would peacefully (and sleepily) fetch it.4 We, in fact, defined courtesy as ‘a cup of water in the night.’ And we considered it a very great courtesy to ask for the cup as well as to fetch it.”
