Chapter 2 2

At night I went to where my wife slept, but she wouldn't let me in. "Well, come on, if that's the case, why did they let us get married?" I said.So she said, "I've got my period." "But yesterday they took you to the pre-wedding bath ceremony, so that's when your period came, isn't that true?" "Today isn't yesterday," she said, "and neither was yesterday. Today. If you're not happy, you can go." All in all, I'm waiting. In less than four months, she was going to have a baby.Everyone in the town covered their mouths and sniggered.But what should I do?She was in unbearable pain and scratched at the wall. "Gimpel," she cried, "I'm dying, forgive me!" The room was full of women, and there were pots of boiling water.The screams went straight to Xiaohan.

All that needs to be done is go to the synagogue and recite the hymns, and that's what I'm going to do. The townspeople like me doing it, and that's fine.I stood in a corner saying hymns and prayers and they shook their heads at me. "Pray, pray!" they told me. "Prayers will never impregnate any woman." A priest put a straw in my mouth and said, "Hay is for cows." Others like things, God testifies! She raised a boy.In the synagogue on Friday, the deacon stood in front of the bookcase, tapped the lectern, and announced, "The rich Mr. Gimpel invites the whole church to a feast in celebration of the birth of a son." The whole church resounded. Laughter, my face felt like a fever.But there was nothing I could do.In the final analysis, I am responsible for the circumcision ceremony of the child.

People from half the town came running.It's so crowded that you don't want to insert another person.The woman brought the peppered chickpeas and the keg of beer from the tavern.I ate and drank like anyone and they all congratulated me.Then the circumcision took place and I named the child after my father, may my father rest in peace.After everyone left, only my wife and I were left.She stuck her head out from the tent and called me over. "Gimpel," she said, "why are you silent? You lost your money?" "What else can I do?" I replied. "What a good thing you did to me! If my mother knew about it, she would die again."

She said, "Are you crazy, or something?" I said, "How can you fool the head of the family like this?" "What's the matter with you?" she said. "What's going on in your head?" I figured I'd have to say it openly and directly. "You think that's the way to treat an orphan?" I said. "You raised a bastard child." She replied, "Get this stupid idea out of your head. The baby is yours." "How could he be mine?" I argued, "He was raised just 17 weeks after we got married." She told me the baby was born prematurely.I said, "Did he give birth too early?" She said that she once had a grandmother who was pregnant for the same amount of time, and she was like her grandmother, as one drop of water is like that.She swore on it, and if a farmer did it at the market, you'd believe her too.To be frank and honest, I don't trust her.But the next day I mentioned it to the principal, and he told me that exactly the same thing happened to Adam and Eve.The two of them went to bed.By the time they got out of bed, there were already four of them.

"There is no woman in the world who is not a granddaughter of Eve," he said. That's the way things are.They prove me stupid.But who really knows why these things happen? I start to forget my troubles.I love this kid obsessively, and he loves me too.As soon as he saw me, he waved his little hand, asking me to pick him up.If he has a stomachache, I'm the only one who can calm him down.I bought him a little bone ring and a little gold-painted hat.He is always under the poisonous eyes of someone, so I have to hurry to get a talisman for him and give him evil spirits.I work like a cow.You know how much it adds to the expenses of having a baby in the family.I'm not going to lie about this baby.I didn't loathe Elka for that either.She swears and curses at me, and I'm not tired of her.What strength she has!She can take away your ability to speak, and her speech, just by looking at you!Glib, hurtful, and somehow charming.I like every word of her, even if her words hurt me all over.

In the evening I brought her a white loaf I baked myself, and a brown loaf, and poppy rolls.For her, I would steal and pick up everything I could get my hands on: macaroons, raisins, almonds, cakes.I wish I could be forgiven for stealing Sabbath food out of the jars that the women bring to warm in the baker's oven.I also stole slices of meat, a hunk of pudding, a drumstick or head, a slice of tripe, whatever I could pick up quickly.She ate and became fat and beautiful. I have to live away from home in a bakery all week.Every Friday night, when I came home, she always made an early excuse, either because of stomach pain, or rib pain, or hiccups, or headache.You also know what the hell is going on with these women's excuses.I have had a painful experience.It was unbearable.Besides, her little brother, the illegitimate child, was growing up.He slapped me so swollen, and when I was about to hit him back, she spoke, cursing so hard that all I could think of was a green mist floating before my eyes.A dozen times a day, she threatened me with divorce.If someone else was in my position, I would leave without saying goodbye and never go home.But I am the one who endures the situation without saying a word.What is one going to do?Shoulders are made by God, and burdens are given by God.

One night there was a disaster at the bakery.The stove blew up and almost caught fire in our shop.Everyone had nothing to do, so they had to go home.So I went home too.I thought, let me have a taste of not lying in bed on Shabbat Eve.I didn't want to wake up the sleeping little thing, so I tiptoed into the house.Once inside, what I heard seemed to be not one snoring, but what seemed to be two snorings, one was a rather faint snoring, and the other seemed to be the snoring of a bull about to be slaughtered.Alas, I hate this snore!I hate it.I went to the bed and things suddenly went wrong.Beside Elka lay a manly figure.Another man in my place would start shouting enough to wake the whole town.But I thought about it, that would wake the child up.Well, then, I'll go back to the bakery and lie down on a bag of bread.I didn't close my eyes until morning.I shivered as if I had dysentery. "It's enough of me being an ass," I said to myself, "that Gimpel won't be a fool all his life. Even a fool like Gimpel has a limit to his stupidity."

In the morning I went to the rabbi for advice.This caused great commotion in the town.Immediately they sent the deacon to Elka.Here she comes, with the baby, and what do you think of her?She didn't admit it, she didn't admit anything, her tone was as hard as bones and stones! "He's out of his mind," she said, "I don't understand dreams, I don't understand ghosts." They shouted at her, warned her, beat the table, but she fired her cannon: "This It's a false accusation," she said. Butchers and horse dealers were on her side.The guy from the slaughterhouse came up to me and said, "We've been watching you, you're a suspicious person." That's when the kid took shit on him.There was the ark at the rabbi's altar, which was not to be desecrated, so they sent Elka away.

I asked the rabbi, "What should I do?" "You must divorce her immediately," he said. "What if she doesn't say yes?" I asked. "You have to divorce her, that's all you have to do," he said. I said, "Well, well, Rabbi, let me think about it." "There's nothing to think about," he said. "You can't share a room with her anymore." "What if I'm going to see the kids?" I asked. "Leave her alone, the whore," he said, "Leave that litter of bastards with her." It was his decision that I would not even cross her threshold--never in my lifetime.

I don't feel much trouble during the day.I thought what had to happen had to happen, the sores had to ooze pus.But at night, when I lay on the flour-sack, I thought it was all so sad.I longed for her uncontrollably, for the baby.What I needed was anger, but that was just my misfortune, and I couldn't make this matter produce real anger in me.First of all—and that's how I think about it—we all make mistakes sometimes.It is impossible to be without mistakes in your life.Presumably the lad she was with seduced her, gave her gifts, and so on.And women have long hair but short knowledge, so he coaxed her to agree.But since she denied it later, maybe what she saw were just some hallucinations?There are illusions.You can clearly see a figure, or a dwarf, or something, but when you get closer, there is nothing, nothing.If so, I have been very unfair to her.When I think about this, I start to cry.I sobbed, my tears wet my sleeping flour sack.In the morning I went to the rabbi and told him I was wrong.The rabbi wrote it in quill, saying that if this was the case, he would have to reopen the whole case.I can't get close to my wife until he's done, but I can have bread and money delivered to her.