tches her in bed with other men twice, but both times he is convinced and/or convinces himself that he has imagined what he actually saw. His need for Elka and for "his" children overcomes his knowledge of the truth of her adultery. His love overcomes his shame.
I lived twenty years with my wife. She bore me six children, four daughters and two sons. All kinds of things happened, but I neither saw nor heard. I believed, and that's all. The rabbi recently aid to me, "Belief in itself is beneficial. It is written that a good man lives by his faith (106).
If the latter statement is true, then Gimpel is certainly a good man, for, as he himself says, he turned his back on what he heard and saw, and chose instead to live according to his faith that what Elka told him was true. Clearly, his statement that "all kinds of things happened" means that over and over he was aware on some level of his wife's transgr
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