Hannah Coulter

by Wendell Berry

The pleasures that came then had a way of reminding you that they had been pleasures once upon a time, when it seemed that you had a right to them. Happiness had a way of coming to you and making you sad. You would think, "There seems to have been a time when I deserved such a happiness and needed it, like a day's pay, and now I have no use for it at all." How can you be happy, how can you live, when all the things that make you happy grieve you nearly to death? A sort of heartbreaking kindness grew then between me and Mr. and Mrs. Feltner. It grew among us all. It was a kindness of doing whatever we could think of that might help or comfort one another. But it was a kindness too of forbearance, of not speaking, of not reminding. And that care of not reminding reminded us, every day, always, of what we felt we could not mention without being overpowered and destroyed. That kindness kept us alive, I think, but it was a hardship too. Sometimes I would have to go to be by myself, in my room or outdoors somewhere, just to get away from it. Kindness kept us alive. It made us think of each other. I could think of myself, of course, with no trouble at all. Justly enough, I could feel sorry for myself. I was a young wife who had been married going on four years, and I had not yet lived a full year with my husband. And now perhaps, possibly, very likely, almost certainly, my husband was dead. Perhaps, possibly, very likely, almost certainly, I was a widow with child by a man now de...