The Day I Stole a Loaf of Bread

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Salutations, fiction-lovers.

Today, I’m very excited to bring you

Chen Rafaeli

.

Chen writes

Alias April

, where she explores the contradictions and experiences of travel, writes translations, fiction, and generally falls down rabbit holes.

Here, Chen shares with us a lovely essay on the book that made her — Les Misérable.

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When I was eight years old, I read Les Misérables for the first time.

Before that, of course, I read short adaptations, excerpts - “Cosette”, “Gavroche”. They published such thin books for children, in the Soviet Union. 

I really liked them, so I decided to read the whole story at once.

Well, what I could really understand there, of course, given the bunch of long digressions about everything, from the Battle of Waterloo to the way of life of the monasteries to the Parisian argot to… (long, very long list follows).

But I understood enough to go off my chump, decisively so.

I was inspired most of all by the image of Jean Valjean. I meandered and wandered like a “pale youth, with a burning gaze.”

First thing first, I laboriously drew a couple of candlesticks on a piece of paper.  I folded it and put it in my pocket and carried it with me everywhere. Which was certainly easier and more rational than dragging a couple of real candlesticks around, even if I had them.

Secondly, and perhaps because I chose the easy path of a piece of paper, I felt it was not enough. Something was amiss. Something strong pushed me to get into the character more deeply.

“I’ll have to steal bread,” I thought, melancholically and with horror. 

We lived right next to the city’s main bakery, and my family always sent me there for bread, as the youngest and therefore capable of it. Bread is not heavy, and it’s hard to get confused, and you don’t have to select edible potatoes from the rest of potatoes, as you had to in the stores that sold groceries.

So, I went to that bakery almost every day.

All that remained was to carry out the operation.

I chose the smallest, lightest, cheapest bun that cost three kopecks. For my lofty purpose.

It’s easier to hide it. Also, it’s cheaper than even a bagel; bagels cost five, as far as I remember.

(Memory is such a strange thing, isn’t it?  White loaf cost 22 kopecks. Ukrainian rye, round one, was 20. But ask me now how much something costs...)

In short. It seemed to me that the small size and very low cost would balance the severity of the offense...

And you know, I somehow, writhing inside, alternately turning white, red, and green, managed to steal this bun…

I don’t remember if I managed to eat it.

I could hardly look at it…

I fell even more deeply in love with Jean Valjean.

Since stealing proved to be so hard, and he didn’t even have a choice.

I never stole anything again. That bun experience was quite enough.

And why did I remember it now? I sat and felt like some “misérable” myself. But not like Jean Valjean, this time.

I suddenly thought, why have I never associated myself with Fantine, for example?

The story is actually as old as time itself.

At first everything is fine, some things are bad, and some are wonderful, and you yourself are kinda fine too, although you don’t know it yet.

Then you meet an unspeakable asshole. Or rather, he spots you.

And then it begins.

No matter how hard you try, you will be branded. You will cut off your hair, figuratively speaking, pull out your teeth, give everything away, in the name of great love, and, in general, to stay alive somehow.

 And few mind it, the opposite is true- they’ll jump on the opportunity, they will take your hair and teeth, and whatever else you have to offer, and soon, you're already squeezed like a-once-plump-orange, done, with your cropped hair, and the cropped rest of you, and most folks by that time need you like a fish needs an umbrella.

And at some point, you honestly think you deserve it, whatever.

But your great love moves you to keep going on, despite everything.

And then-maybe years after-then you meet a person who is interested in you, and your great love, and in all related to you.  A person who sees you, who deeply understands this love, this fire, that keeps you alive, and gives you a promise to guard it, and a light of hope.

Like in a fairy tale, right? A miracle...

Only, I said joyfully, it’s too late now, and you are dying.

Not knowing whether he will keep his promise.

When you die, it must be hard to collect your thoughts...

Have you ever been in mortal physical danger?

Maybe you were. I was, several times. Well, of course, I can speak for myself only. Maybe you have had or will have a lot of insights, I added respectfully.

Ouch. I digress from the bun, though.

So, back to that bun-I think, maybe everything would be simpler in my life?  If only it’d be easier for me to steal it. If I had a little fun, some pleasure felt.

At least from the success of that idiotic endeavor, if not from the bun itself.

For example, I know some people who really like to steal all sorts of buns.  They can be incredibly honest people at the same time, and even very scrupulous, but stores or some such places are fair game to them. I have had quite a few friends who stole in stores. Believe me, they weren’t hungrier than me. Let’s say we were equally hungry those days.

I love them, nevertheless.

It’s just as if we are invisibly drawn to each other, or something.  As if it is some strange connection of souls.

And their lives are not simpler either.

They have their own cut off hair, their own pulled out teeth, their own great loves, and maybe their own “too late”.

I wish for them, as well as for myself, that no matter what the future brings, we’ll continue to feel that wondrous warmth of somebody, accepting us as we are, maybe faulty, maybe ugly, maybe branded.  Accepting us-and even with joy, like we’re their miracle too, in some inexplicable way.

Even if we -probably for the better--won’t get to see or learn about just how many teeth and hair will have to be cut off, pulled out, and lost by those who will do everything, everything humanly possible, to keep their great promise to us.

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Decades went by-and I re-read Les Misérables many times since, all digressions appreciated and pondered anew.

I still know by heart a lullaby that dying Fantine sings -and when I recall it, I cry, for then I’m a mother, eternally loving, eternally anguished, eternally hopeful.

And I hum whatever Eponine was humming, looking at herself in the mirror in a handsome stranger’s room-and I know I sometimes am Eponine too.

I hope that my moral compass does resemble that of Jean Valjean’s, after all-even if vaguely. At least, I try.

But when memory takes me to that fateful day of stealing bread in our bakery-I smile, even though it was a bad experience, and I become a bit like young Gavroche. Philosophically inclined, yet very passionate, determined, and generally accepting fate, - but always not quite.

And since I’ve been trying to learn French, on and off, for ages already, with results less than lustrous-his song, I sing it to myself in my broken French. It’s a good pick-me-up…

“Je suis tombé par terre, c'est la faute à Voltaire
Le nez dans le ruisseau, c'est la faute à Rousseau
Je ne suis pas notaire, c'est la faute à Voltaire
Je suis petit oiseau, c'est la faute à Rousseau”

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