text: The assistant shoemaker is another of Malamud 's weirdly insistent , lonely souls--impelled , who knows why , to devote himself to a hopeless love ; still wincing from the horrors of Europe , which he has not entirely escaped ; inarticulate , yet bursting with passion , if only his boss , the master shoemaker , will deign to listen .
  
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  The assistant to the shoemaker was lonely because he was too busy making shoes to find a wife