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Chapter Eight
We then used to consider it not the least vulgar for a parcel of lads who had been whipped three months previous, and were not allowed more than three glasses of port at home, to sit down to pineapples and ices at each other’s rooms, and fuddle themselves with champagne and claret.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, The Book of Snobs
In the last weeks of November month Robin assisted in three more thefts for the Hermes Society. They all followed the efficient, clockwork routine of the first – a note by his windowsill, a rainy night, a midnight rendezvous, and minimal contact with his accomplices save for a quick glance and nod. He never got a closer look at the other operatives. He didn’t know if they were the same people every time. He never found out what they stole or what they used it for. All he knew was that Griffin had said his contribution aided a vaguely defined fight against empire, and all he could do was trust Griffin’s word.
He kept hoping that Griffin would summon him for another chat outside the Twisted Root, but it seemed his half-brother was too busy leading a global organization of which Robin was only a very small part.
Robin was nearly caught during his fourth theft, when a third year named Cathy O’Nell strode through the front door as he was waiting in the foyer.
Cathy was, unfortunately, one of the chattier upperclassmen; she specialized in Gaelic, and perhaps due to the sheer loneliness of being one of two people in her subfield, she went out of her way to befriend everyone in the department. ‘Robin!’ She beamed at him. ‘What are you doing here so late?’ ‘Forgot my Dryden reading,’ he lied, patting his pocket as if he’d just stashed the book there. ‘Turns out I left it in the lobby.’
‘Oh, Dryden, that’s miserable. I remember Playfair had us discussing him for weeks. Thorough, but dry.’ ‘Awfully dry.’ He hoped badly she’d get on with it; it was already five past twelve. ‘Is he making you compare translations in class?’ Cathy asked. ‘Once he interrogated me for nearly half an hour over my word choice of red instead of apple-like. I’d nearly sweated through my shirt by the end.’ Six minutes past. Robin’s eyes darted to the staircase, then back at Cathy, then back at the staircase until he realized Cathy was watching him expectantly. ‘Oh.’ He blinked. ‘Erm. Speaking of Dryden, I should really get on—’ ‘Oh, I’m sorry, the first year is really so difficult and here I am keeping
you—’ ‘Anyway, nice to see you—’ ‘Let me know if I can be of any assistance,’ she said cheerfully. ‘It’s a lot at first, but the terms do get easier, I promise.’ ‘Sure. I will do – bye.’ He felt awful being so curt. She was so nice, and such offers were particularly generous coming from the upperclassmen. But all he could think of then was his accomplices upstairs, and what might happen if they came down at the same time that Cathy went up. ‘Good luck, then.’ Cathy gave him a little wave and headed into the lobby. Robin backed into the foyer and prayed she did not turn around.
An eternity later, two black-clad figures hurried down the opposite staircase. ‘What’d she say?’ one of them whispered. His voice seemed strangely familiar, though Robin was too distracted to try to place it then. ‘Just being friendly.’ Robin pushed the door open, and the three of them hurried out into the cool night. ‘Are you all right?’ But there was no answer. They’d already taken off, leaving him alone in the dark and the rain.
A more cautious personality would have quit Hermes then, would not have risked his entire future on such razor-thin possibilities. But Robin did go back to do it again. He assisted in a fifth theft, and then a sixth.
Michaelmas term ended, the winter holidays sped by, and Hilary term began.
His heartbeat no longer pounded in his ears when he approached the tower at midnight. The minutes between entrance and exit no longer felt like
purgatory. It all started to feel easy, this simple act of opening a door twice; so easy that by the seventh theft, he had convinced himself he was not doing anything dangerous at all.
‘You’re very efficient,’ said Griffin. ‘They like working with you, you know.
You stick to the instructions and don’t embellish.’ A week into Hilary term, Griffin had finally deigned to meet Robin again in person. Once more they strode briskly around Oxford, this time following the Thames down south towards Kennington. The meeting felt like a midterm progress report with a harsh and rarely available supervisor, and Robin found himself basking in the praise, trying and failing not to come off as a
giddy kid brother. ‘So I’m doing a good job?’ ‘You’re doing very well. I’m quite pleased.’ ‘So you’ll tell me more about Hermes now?’ Robin asked. ‘Or at least tell me where the bars are going? What you’re doing with them?’ Griffin chuckled. ‘Patience.’ They walked in silence for a stretch. There had been a storm just that morning. The Isis flowed fast and loud under a misty, darkening sky. It was the kind of evening when the world seemed drained of colour, a painting in progress, a sketch really, existing in greys and shadows only. ‘I have another question, then,’ said Robin. ‘And I know you won’t tell me much about Hermes now. But at least tell me how this all ends up.’ ‘How what ends up?’ ‘I mean – my situation. This current arrangement feels fine – as long as I’m not caught, I mean – but it seems, I don’t know, rather unsustainable.’ ‘Of course it’s unsustainable,’ said Griffin. ‘You’ll study hard and graduate, and then they’ll ask you to do all kinds of unsavoury things for the Empire. Or they’ll catch you, as you said. It all comes to a head eventually,
like it did for us.’
‘Does everyone at Hermes leave Babel?’ ‘I know very few who have stayed.’ Robin was not sure how to feel about this. He often lulled himself into the fantasy of the post-Babel life – a cushy fellowship, if he wanted it; a guarantee of more fully funded years of study in those gorgeous libraries, living in comfortable college housing and tutoring rich undergraduates in
Latin if he wanted extra pocket money; or an exciting career travelling overseas with the book buyers and simultaneous interpreters. In the Zhuangzi, which he’d just translated with Professor Chakravarti, the phrase * tǎntúliterally meant ‘a flat road’, metaphorically, ‘a tranquil life’. This was what he wanted: a smooth, even path to a future with no surprises.
The only obstacle, of course, was his conscience. ‘You’ll remain at Babel as long as you’re able,’ said Griffin. ‘I mean, you ought to – heavens knows, we need more people on the inside. But it gets harder and harder, you see. You’ll find you can’t reconcile your sense of ethics with what they ask you to do. What happens when they direct you to military research? When they send you to the frontier in New Zealand, or the Cape Colony?’ ‘You can’t just avoid those assignments?’ Griffin laughed. ‘Military contracts compose over half of the work orders. They’re a necessary part of the tenure application. And they pay well too – most of the senior faculty got rich fighting Napoleon. How do you think dear old Dad’s able to maintain three houses? It’s violent work that sustains the fantasy.’ ‘So then what?’ Robin asked. ‘How do I leave?’ ‘Simple. You fake your death, and then you go underground.’ ‘Is that what you did?’ ‘About five years ago, yes. You will too, eventually. And then you’ll become a shadow on the campus you once had the run of, and pray that some other first year will find it in their conscience to grant you access to your old libraries.’ Griffin shot him a sideways look. ‘You’re not happy with this answer, are you?’ Robin hesitated. He wasn’t quite sure how to verbalize his discomfort.
Yes, there was a certain appeal to abandoning the Oxford life for Hermes. He wanted to do what Griffin did; he wanted access to Hermes’s inner workings, wanted to see where the stolen bars went and what was done with them. He wanted to see the hidden world.
But if he went, he knew, he could never come back. ‘It just seems so hard to be cut off,’ he said. ‘From everything.’ ‘Do you know how the Romans fattened up their dormice?’ Griffin asked.
Robin sighed. ‘Griffin.’
‘Your tutors had you read Varro, didn’t they? He describes a glirarium in † the Res Rustica.It’s quite an elegant contraption. You make a jar, only it’s perforated with holes so the dormice can breathe, and the surfaces are polished so smooth that escape is impossible. You put food in the hollows, and you make sure there are some ledges and walkways so the dormice don’t get too bored. Most importantly, you keep it dark, so the dormice always think it’s time to hibernate. All they do is sleep and fatten themselves up.’ ‘All right,’ Robin said impatiently. ‘All right. I get the picture.’ ‘I know it’s difficult,’ said Griffin. ‘It’s hard to give up the trappings of your station. You still love your stipend and scholar’s gowns and wine parties, I’m sure—’ ‘It’s not the wine parties,’ Robin insisted. ‘I don’t – I mean, I don’t go to wine parties. And it’s not about the stipend, or the stupid gowns. It just that – I don’t know, it’s such a leap.’ How could he explain it? Babel represented more than material comforts.
Babel was the reason he belonged in England, why he was not begging on the streets of Canton. Babel was the only place where his talents mattered. Babel was security. And perhaps all that was morally compromised, yes – but was it so wrong to want to survive? ‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ said Griffin. ‘No one’s asking you to leave Oxford. It’s not prudent, strategically speaking. See, I’m free, and I’m happy on the outside, but I also can’t get into the tower. We’re trapped in a symbiotic relationship with the levers of power. We need their silver. We need their tools. And, loath as we are to admit it, we benefit from their research.’ He gave Robin a shove. It was meant as a fraternal gesture, but neither of them was very practised at those, and it came off as more threatening than perhaps Griffin intended. ‘You do your reading and you stay on the inside.
Don’t you worry about the contradiction. Your guilt is assuaged, for now.
Enjoy your glirarium, little dormouse.’ Griffin left him at the corner of Woodstock. Robin watched his narrow frame disappear into the streets, his coat flapping around him like the wings of a giant bird, and wondered at how he could both admire and resent someone so much at the same time.
In Classical Chinese, the characters referred to disloyal or traitorous intentions; literally, they translated as ‘two hearts’. And Robin found himself in the impossible position of loving that which he betrayed, twice.
He did adore Oxford, and his life at Oxford. It was very nice to be among the Babblers, who were in many ways the most privileged group of students there. If they flaunted their Babel affiliation, they were allowed in any of the college libraries, including the absurdly gorgeous Codrington, which didn’t actually hold any reference materials they needed, but which they haunted regardless because its high walls and marble floors made them feel so very grand. All their living expenses were taken care of. Unlike the other servitors, they never had to serve food in hall or clean tutors’ rooms. Their room, board, and tuition were paid directly by Babel, so they never even saw the bill – on top of that, they received their stipend of twenty shillings a month, and were also given access to a discretionary fund they could use to purchase whatever course materials they liked. If they could make even the flimsiest case that a gold-capped fountain pen would aid their studies, then Babel paid for it.
The significance of this never crossed Robin’s mind until one night he stumbled upon Bill Jameson in the common room, scratching numbers onto a sheet of scrap paper with a wretched look on his face. ‘This month’s battels,’ he explained to Robin. ‘I’ve overspent what they sent me from home – I keep coming up short.’ The numbers on the paper astonished Robin; he had never imagined
Oxford tuition could be so expensive. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got a few things I can pawn to make up the difference until next month. Or I’ll pass on a few meals until then.’ Jameson glanced up. He looked desperately uncomfortable. ‘I say, and I do hate to ask, but do you think—’ ‘Of course,’ Robin said hastily. ‘How much do you need?’ ‘I wouldn’t, but the costs this term – they’re charging us to dissect corpses for Anatomy, I really—’ ‘Don’t mention it.’ Robin reached into his pocket, pulled out his purse, and began counting out coins. He felt awfully pretentious as he did this – he’d just retrieved his stipend from the bursar that morning, and he hoped
Jameson did not think he always walked around with such a stuffed purse. ‘Would that cover meals, at least?’ ‘You’re an angel, Swift. I’ll pay you back first thing next month.’ Jameson sighed and shook his head. ‘Babel. They take care of you, don’t they?’ They did. Not only was Babel very rich, it was also respected. Theirs was by far the most prestigious department at Oxford. It was Babel that new undergraduates bragged about when showing their visiting relatives around campus. It was a Babel student who invariably won Oxford’s yearly Chancellor’s Prize, given to the best composition of Latin verse, as well as the Kennicott Hebrew Scholarship. It was Babel undergraduates who were * invited to special receptionswith the politicians, aristocrats, and the unimaginably wealthy who made up the lobby clientele. Once it was rumoured that Princess Victoria herself would be in attendance at the department’s annual garden party; this turned out to be false, but she did give them a new marble fountain which was installed on the green a week later, and which Professor Playfair enchanted to shoot high, glistening arcs of water at all hours of the day.
By the middle of Hilary term, like every Babel cohort before them, Robin, Ramy, Victoire, and Letty had absorbed the insufferable superiority of scholars who knew they had the run of campus. They took much amusement in how visiting scholars, who either condescended to or ignored them in hall, started fawning and shaking their hands when they revealed they studied translation. They dropped mention of how they had access to the Senior Common Room, which was both very nice and inaccessible to other undergraduates, though in truth they rarely spent much time there, as it was difficult to have a plain conversation when an ancient, wrinkled don sat snoring in the corner.
Victoire and Letty, who now understood that the presence of women at Oxford was more of an open secret than an outright taboo, began wearing their hair down outside the department. One day Letty even appeared in hall for dinner wearing a skirt instead of trousers. The Univ boys whispered and pointed, but the staff said nothing, and she was served her three courses and wine without incident.
But there were also significant ways in which they did not belong. No one would serve Ramy at any of their favourite pubs if he was the first to
arrive. Letty and Victoire could not take books out of the library without a male student present to vouch for them. Victoire was assumed by shopkeepers and waiting staff to be Letty or Robin’s maid. Porters regularly asked all four of them if they could please not step on the green for it was off limits, while the other boys trampled over the so-called delicate grass all around them.
What’s more, it took them all several months to learn to speak like Oxfordians. Oxford English was different from London English, and was developed largely by the undergraduate tendency to corrupt and abbreviate just about everything. Magdalene was pronounced maudlin; by the same token, St Aldate’s had become St Old’s. The Magna Vacatio became the Long Vacation became the Long. New College became New; St Edmund’s became Teddy. It took months before Robin was used to uttering ‘Univ’ when he meant ‘University College’. A spread was a party with a sizable number of guests; a pidge was short for pigeonhole, which in turn meant one of the wooden cubbies where their post was sorted.
Fluency also entailed a whole host of social rules and unspoken conventions that Robin feared he might never fully grasp. None of them could quite understand the particular etiquette of calling cards, for instance, or how it was that one wormed oneself into the social ecosystem of the college in the first place, or how the many distinct but overlapping tiers of said ecosystem * worked.They were always hearing rumours of wild parties, nights at the pub spinning out of control, secret society meetings, and teas where so-and- so had been devastatingly rude to his tutor or where so-and-so had insulted someone else’s sister, but they never witnessed these events in person. ‘How is it we don’t get invited to wine parties?’ Ramy asked. ‘We’re delightful.’ ‘You don’t drink wine,’ Victoire pointed out. ‘Well, I’d like to appreciate the ambience—’ ‘It’s because you don’t throw any wine parties yourself,’ said Letty. ‘It’s a give-and-take economy. Have either of you ever delivered a calling card?’ ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a calling card,’ said Robin. ‘Is there an art to it?’ ‘Oh, they’re easy enough,’ said Ramy. ‘To Pendennis, Esq., Infernal beast, I will give you lashings of booze tonight. Confound you, your enemy,
Mirza. No?’ ‘Very civil.’ Letty snorted. ‘Small wonder you aren’t college royalty.’ They were decidedly not college royalty. Not even the white Babblers in the years above them were college royalty, for Babel kept them all too busy with coursework to enjoy a social life. That label could only describe a second year at Univ named Elton Pendennis and his friends. They were all gentlemen-commoners, which meant they’d paid higher fees to the university to avoid entrance examinations and to enjoy the privileges of fellows of the college. They sat at high table in hall, they lodged in apartments far nicer than the Magpie Lane dormitories, and they played snooker in the Senior Common Room whenever they liked. They enjoyed hunting, tennis, and billiards at the weekends and headed to London by coach every month for dinner parties and balls. They never did their shopping on High Street; all the newest fashions and cigars and accessories were brought straight from London to their quarters by salesmen who did not even bother quoting prices.
Letty, who’d grown up around boys like Pendennis, made him and his friends the target of a running stream of vituperation. ‘Rich boys studying on their father’s money. I bet they’ve never cracked open a textbook in their lives. I don’t know why Elton thinks he’s so handsome. Those lips are girlish; he shouldn’t pout so. Those double-breasted purple jackets look ridiculous. And I don’t know why he keeps telling everyone that he has an understanding with Clara Lilly. I know Clara and she’s as good as engaged to the Woolcotts’ oldest boy . . .’ Still, Robin could not help but envy those boys – those born into this world, who uttered its codes as native speakers. When he saw Elton Pendennis and his crowd strolling and laughing across the green, he couldn’t help but imagine, just for a moment, what it might be like to be a part of that circle. He wanted Pendennis’s life, not so much for its material pleasures – the wine, the cigars, the clothes, the dinners – but for what it represented: the assurance that one would always be welcome in England. If he could only attain Pendennis’s fluency, or at least an imitation of it, then he, too, would blend into the tapestry of this idyllic campus life. And he would no longer be the foreigner, second-guessing his pronunciation at every turn, but a native whose belonging could not possibly be questioned or revoked.
It was a great shock when one night Robin found a card made of embossed stationery waiting in his pidge. It read:
Robin Swift— Would appreciate the pleasure of your company for drinks next Friday – seven o’clock if you like to be there at the start or any reasonable time thereafter we are not fussy.
It was signed, in a very impressive calligraphy that took Robin a moment to decipher, Elton Pendennis. ‘I think you’re making a rather big deal of this,’ said Ramy when Robin showed them the card. ‘Don’t tell me you’ll actually go.’ ‘I don’t want to be rude,’ Robin said weakly. ‘Who cares if Pendennis thinks you’re rude? He didn’t invite you for your impeccable manners, he just wants to be friends with someone at Babel.’ ‘Thank you, Ramy.’ Ramy brushed this off. ‘The question is, why you? I’m infinitely more charming.’ ‘You’re not genteel enough,’ Victoire said. ‘Robin is.’ ‘I don’t understand what anyone means by genteel,’ said Ramy. ‘People always throw it around in reference to the high- and well-born. But what’s it actually mean? Does it just mean that you’re very wealthy?’ ‘I mean it in the context of manners,’ said Victoire. ‘Very funny,’ said Ramy. ‘But it’s not manners that’s the issue, I think. It’s that Robin passes as white and we don’t.’ Robin could not believe they were being so rude about this. ‘Is it impossible they might just want my company?’ ‘Not impossible, just unlikely. You’re horrible with people you don’t
know.’ ‘I am not.’ ‘You are too. You always clam up and retreat into the corner like they’re about to shoot you.’ Ramy folded his arms and cocked his head. ‘What do
you want to dine with them for?’ ‘I don’t know. It’s just a wine party.’ ‘A wine party, and then what?’ Ramy persisted. ‘You think they’ll make you one of the lads? Are you hoping they’ll take you to the Bullingdon club?’ The club on Bullingdon Green was an exclusive eating and sporting establishment where young men could while away the afternoon hunting or
playing cricket. Membership was assigned on mysterious grounds that seemed to strongly correlate with wealth and influence. For all of Babel’s prestige, none of the Babel students Robin knew had any expectations they might ever be invited. ‘Perhaps,’ said Robin, just to be contrary. ‘It’d be nice to have a look inside.’ ‘You’re excited,’ Ramy accused. ‘You hope they love you.’ ‘It’s all right to admit you’re jealous.’ ‘Don’t come crying when they pour wine all down your shirt and call you names.’ Robin grinned. ‘You won’t defend my honour?’ Ramy swatted his shoulder. ‘Steal an ashtray for me; I’ll pawn it to pay off Jameson’s battels.’ For some reason it was Letty who most ardently opposed Robin’s accepting Pendennis’s invitation. When they left the coffee shop for the library, long after the conversation had drifted elsewhere, she tugged at his elbow until they fell back several paces behind Ramy and Victoire. ‘Those boys are no good,’ she said. ‘They’re lushes, they’re indolent, they’re bad influences.’ Robin laughed. ‘It’s only a wine party, Letty.’ ‘So why do you want to go?’ she pressed. ‘You hardly even drink.’ He could not understand why she was making such a big deal of this. ‘I’m just curious, that’s all. It’s probably going to be awful.’ ‘So don’t show up,’ she insisted. ‘Just throw the card away.’ ‘Well no, that’s rude. And I really haven’t anything on that night—’ ‘You could spend it with us,’ she said. ‘Ramy wants to cook something.’ ‘Ramy’s always cooking something, and it always tastes awful.’ ‘Oh, then are you hoping they’ll bring you into the ranks?’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘Swift and Pendennis, bosom friends, is that what you want?’ He felt a flare of irritation. ‘Are you really that terrified I’ll make some other friends? Trust me, Letitia, nothing could beat your company.’ ‘I see.’ To his shock, her voice broke. Her eyes, he noticed, had turned very red. Was she about to cry? What was wrong with her? ‘So that’s how it is.’ ‘It’s only a wine party,’ he said, frustrated. ‘What’s the matter, Letty?’
‘Never mind,’ she said, and quickened her pace. ‘Have drinks with whoever you like.’ ‘I will,’ he snapped, but she’d already left him far behind.
At ten to seven the following Friday, Robin put on his one nice jacket, pulled a bottle of port he’d bought at Taylor’s out from under his bed, and walked to the flats on Merton Street. He had no trouble finding Elton Pendennis’s rooms. Even before he’d made his way down the street, he heard loud voices and somewhat arrhythmic piano music floating out of the windows.
He had to knock several times before someone heard him. The door swung open, revealing a tow-haired boy whose name Robin vaguely remembered as St Cloud. ‘Oh,’ he said, looking Robin up and down through lidded eyes. He seemed quite drunk. ‘You came.’ ‘It seemed polite,’ Robin said. ‘As I was invited?’ He hated how his voice crawled up into a question.
St Cloud blinked at him, then turned and gestured vaguely inside. ‘Well, come on.’ Indoors, three other boys were seated on lounge chairs in the sitting room, which was so thick with cigar smoke that Robin coughed upon entering.
The boys were all crowded around Elton Pendennis like leaves around a bloom. Up close, the reports of his good looks seemed not to be exaggerated one bit. He was one of the handsomest men Robin had ever encountered, a Byronic hero incarnate. His hooded eyes were framed by thick, dark lashes; his plump lips would have looked girlish, as Letty had accused, if they weren’t set off by such a strong, square jaw. ‘It’s not the company, it’s the ennui,’ he was saying. ‘London’s fun for a season, but then you start seeing all the same faces again year after year, and the girls don’t ever get any prettier, just older. Once you’ve been to one ball you might have been to them all. You know, one of my father’s friends once promised his closest acquaintances that he could liven up their gatherings. He prepared an elaborate dinner party, then told his servants to go out and extend an invitation to all the beggars and homeless sops they came across. When his friends arrived, they saw those motley stragglers, punch-drunk and dancing on tables – it was hilarious, I wish I’d been invited myself.’
The joke ended here; the audience laughed on cue. Pendennis, his monologue complete, looked up. ‘Oh, hello. Robin Swift, isn’t it?’ By now Robin’s tentative optimism that this would be a good time had evaporated. He felt drained. ‘That’s me.’ ‘Elton Pendennis,’ said Pendennis, extending a hand for Robin to shake. ‘We’re very happy you could make it.’ He pointed around the room with his cigar, wafting smoke about as he made introductions. ‘That’s Vincy Woolcombe.’ A red-headed boy sitting next to Pendennis gave Robin a friendly wave. ‘Milton St Cloud, who’s been providing our musical entertainment.’ The tow-haired, freckled St Cloud, who’d taken his seat in front of the piano, nodded lazily, then resumed plunking out a tuneless sequence. ‘And Colin Thornhill – you know him.’ ‘We’re neighbours on Magpie Lane,’ Colin said eagerly. ‘Robin’s in room seven, and I’m number three—’ ‘So you’ve said,’ Pendennis said. ‘Many times, in fact.’ Colin faltered. Robin wished Ramy were there to see; he’d never met someone capable of eviscerating Colin with a single glance. ‘Thirsty?’ Pendennis asked. Assembled on the table was such a rich collection of liquor it made Robin dizzy to look at it. ‘Help yourself to anything you want. We can never agree on the same drink. Port and sherry’s being decanted over there – oh, I see you’ve brought something, just put it on the table.’ Pendennis did not even look at the bottle. ‘Here’s absinthe, there’s the rum – oh, there’s only a bit of gin left, but feel free to finish the bottle, it isn’t very good. And we’ve ordered a dessert from Sadler’s, so please help yourself, otherwise it’ll go bad sitting out like that.’ ‘Just some wine,’ Robin said. ‘If you have it.’ His cohort rarely drank together, out of deference to Ramy, and he had yet to acquire the detailed knowledge of types and makes of alcohol and what one’s choice of drink said about one’s character. But Professor Lovell always drank wine at dinner, so wine seemed safe. ‘Of course. There’s a claret, or port and Madeira if you want something stronger. Cigar?’ ‘Oh – no, that’s all right, but Madeira’s good, thanks.’ Robin retreated to the one open seat, bearing a very full glass. ‘So you’re a Babbler,’ said Pendennis, leaning back against the chair.
Robin sipped his wine, trying to match Pendennis’s listless affect. How did one make such a relaxed position look so elegant? ‘That’s what they call
us.’ ‘What’s it you do? Chinese?’ ‘Mandarin’s my specialty,’ said Robin. ‘Though I’m also studying comparisons to Japanese and, eventually, Sanskrit—’ ‘So you are a Chinaman, then?’ Pendennis pressed. ‘We weren’t sure – I think you look English, but Colin swore you were an Oriental.’ ‘I was born in Canton,’ Robin said patiently. ‘Though I’d say I’m English as well—’ ‘I know China,’ Woolcombe interjected. ‘Kubla Khan.’ There was a short pause. ‘Yes,’ Robin said, wondering if that utterance was supposed to mean anything. ‘The Coleridge poem,’ Woolcombe clarified. ‘A very Oriental work of literature. Yet somehow, very Romantic as well.’ ‘How interesting,’ Robin said, trying his best to be polite. ‘I’ll have to read it.’ Silence descended again. Robin felt some pressure to sustain the conversation, so he tried turning the question around. ‘So what – I mean, what are you all going to do? With your degrees, I mean.’ They laughed. Pendennis rested his chin on his hand. ‘Do,’ he drawled, ‘is such a proletarian word. I prefer the life of the mind.’ ‘Don’t listen to him,’ said Woolcombe. ‘He’s going to live off his estate and subject all his guests to grand philosophical observations until he dies.
I’ll be a clergyman, Colin a solicitor. Milton’s going to be a doctor, if he can find it in him to go to lectures.’ ‘So you’re not training for any profession here?’ Robin asked Pendennis. ‘I write,’ Pendennis said with very deliberate indifference, the way people who are very conceited throw out morsels of information they hope become objects of fascination. ‘I write poetry. I haven’t produced much so far—’ ‘Show him,’ Colin cried, right on cue. ‘Do show him. Robin, it’s ever so profound, wait until you hear it—’ ‘All right.’ Pendennis leaned forward, still feigning reluctance, and reached for a stack of papers that Robin realized had been set out for display
on the coffee table this entire time. ‘Now, this one is a reply to Shelley’s * “Ozymandias”,which is as you know an ode to the unforgiving ravaging of time against all great empires and their legacies. Only I’ve argued that, in the modern era, legacies can be built to last and indeed there are great men of the sort at Oxford capable of such a monumental task.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve opened with the same line as Shelley – I met a traveller from an antique land . . .’ Robin leaned back and drained the rest of his Madeira. Several seconds passed before he realized that the poem had ended, and his appraisal was required. ‘We have translators working on poetry at Babel,’ he said blandly, for lack of anything better to say. ‘Of course that’s not the same,’ Pendennis said. ‘Translating poetry is for those who haven’t the creative fire themselves. They can only seek residual fame cribbing off the work of others.’ Robin scoffed. ‘I don’t think that’s true.’ ‘You wouldn’t know,’ said Pendennis. ‘You’re not a poet.’ ‘Actually—’ Robin fidgeted with the stem of his glass for a moment, then decided to keep talking. ‘I think translation can be much harder than original composition in many ways. The poet is free to say whatever he likes, you see – he can choose from any number of linguistic tricks in the language he’s composing in. Word choice, word order, sound – they all matter, and without any one of them the whole thing falls apart. That’s why Shelley writes that † translating poetry is about as wise as casting a violet into a crucible.So the translator needs to be translator, literary critic, and poet all at once – he must read the original well enough to understand all the machinery at play, to convey its meaning with as much accuracy as possible, then rearrange the translated meaning into an aesthetically pleasing structure in the target language that, by his judgment, matches the original. The poet runs untrammelled across the meadow. The translator dances in shackles.’ By the end of this spiel Pendennis and his friends were staring at him, slack-jawed and bemused, as if they weren’t sure what to make of him. ‘Dancing in shackles,’ Woolcombe said after a pause. ‘That’s lovely.’ ‘But I’m not a poet,’ Robin said, a bit more viciously than he’d intended. ‘So really what do I know?’
His anxiety had dissipated entirely. He no longer felt concerned about how he presented, about whether his jacket was properly buttoned or he’d left crumbs on the side of his mouth. He didn’t want Pendennis’s approval.
He didn’t care for any of these boys’ approval at all.
The truth of this encounter hit him with such clarity that he nearly laughed out loud. They were not appraising him for membership. They were trying to impress him – and by impressing him, to display their own superiority, to prove that to be a Babbler was not as good as being one of Elton Pendennis’s friends.
But Robin was not impressed. Was this the pinnacle of Oxford society?
This? He felt a profuse pity for them – these boys who considered themselves aesthetes, who thought their lives were as rarefied as the examined life could be. But they would never engrave a word in a silver bar and feel the weight of its meaning reverberate in their fingers. They would never change the fabric of the world by simply wishing it. ‘Is that what they teach you at Babel, then?’ Woolcombe looked slightly awed. No one, it seemed, ever talked back to Elton Pendennis. ‘That and then some,’ Robin said. He felt a heady rush every time he spoke. These boys were nothing; he could decimate them with a word if he so desired. He could jump up on the couch and hurl his wine against the curtains without consequence, because he simply did not care. This rush of heady confidence was wholly foreign to him, but it felt very good. ‘Of course, the real point of Babel is silver-working. All that stuff about poetry is just the underlying theory.’ He was talking off the top of his head here. He had only a very vague idea of the underlying theory behind silver-working, but whatever he’d just said sounded good and played off even better. ‘Have you done silver-working?’ St Cloud pressed. Pendennis shot him an irritated look, but St Cloud persisted. ‘Is it difficult?’ ‘I’m only still learning the fundamentals,’ Robin said. ‘We have two years of coursework, then one year of apprenticeship on one of the floors, and then I’ll be engraving bars on my own.’ ‘Can you show us?’ Pendennis asked. ‘Could I do it?’ ‘It wouldn’t work for you.’ ‘Why not?’ Pendennis asked. ‘I know Latin and Greek.’
‘You don’t know them well enough,’ said Robin. ‘You’ve got to live and breathe a language, not just muddle through a text now and then. Do you
dream in languages other than English?’ ‘Do you?’ Pendennis shot back. ‘Well, of course,’ said Robin. ‘After all, I’m a Chinaman.’ The room lapsed once again into uncertain silence. Robin decided to put them out of their misery. ‘Thank you for the invitation,’ he said, standing up. ‘But I ought to head to the library.’ ‘Of course,’ said Pendennis. ‘I’m sure they keep you very busy.’ No one said anything as Robin retrieved his coat. Pendennis watched him lazily through lidded eyes, slowly sipping his Madeira. Colin was blinking very rapidly; his mouth opened once or twice, but nothing came out. Milton made a desultory gesture at getting up to walk him to the door, but Robin waved him back down. ‘You can find your way out?’ Pendennis asked. ‘I’m sure I’m fine,’ Robin called over his shoulder as he left. ‘This place isn’t that large.’
The next morning, he recounted everything to his cohort to uproarious laughter. ‘Recite his poem again to me,’ Victoire begged. ‘Please.’ ‘I don’t remember it all,’ said Robin. ‘But let me think – wait, yes, there was another line, the blood of a nation ran in his noble cheeks—’ ‘No – oh, God—’ ‘And the spirit of Waterloo in his widow’s peak—’ ‘I don’t know what you’re all talking about,’ said Ramy. ‘The man’s a poetic genius.’ Only Letty did not laugh. ‘I’m sorry you didn’t have a good time,’ she said frostily. ‘You were right,’ Robin said, trying to be generous. ‘They’re fools, all right? I should never have abandoned your side, dear, sweet, sober Letty. You are always right about everything.’ Letty did not respond. She picked up her books, dusted off her trousers, and stormed out of the Buttery. Victoire stood halfway up as if about to chase after her, then sighed, shook her head, and sat down. ‘Let her go,’ Ramy said. ‘Let’s not spoil a good afternoon.’
‘Is she like this always?’ Robin asked. ‘I can’t see how you can stand
living with her.’
‘You rile her up,’ Victoire said. ‘Don’t defend her—’ ‘You do,’ said Victoire. ‘You both do, don’t pretend otherwise; you like making her snap.’ ‘Only because she’s so up her own backside all the time,’ Ramy scoffed. ‘Is she an entirely different person with you, then, or have you merely adapted?’ Victoire glanced back and forth between them. She seemed to be trying to decide something. Then she asked, ‘Did you know she had a brother?’ ‘What, some nabob in Calcutta?’ Ramy asked. ‘He’s dead,’ said Victoire. ‘He died a year ago.’ ‘Oh.’ Ramy blinked. ‘Pity.’ ‘His name was Lincoln. Lincoln and Letty Price. They were so close when they were children that all their family’s friends called them the twins.
He came to Oxford some years before her, but he hadn’t half the mind for books as she does, and every holiday he and their father would fight viciously over how he was squandering his education. He was much more like Pendennis than like any of us, if you know what I mean. One night he went out drinking. The police came to Letty’s house the next morning, told them they’d found Lincoln’s body under a cart. He’d fallen asleep by the road, and the driver hadn’t noticed him under the wheels until hours later. He must have died sometime before dawn.’ Ramy and Robin were quiet; neither could think of anything to say. They felt rather like chastised schoolboys, as if Victoire were their stern governess. ‘She came up to Oxford a few months later,’ said Victoire. ‘Did you know Babel has a general entrance exam for applicants who don’t come specially recommended? She took it and passed. It was the only department at Oxford that would take women. She’d always wanted to come to Babel – she’d studied for it her whole life – but her father kept refusing to let her go to school. It wasn’t until Lincoln died that her father let her come and take his place. Bad to have a daughter at Oxford, but worse to have no children at
Oxford at all. Isn’t that terrible?’ ‘I didn’t know,’ Robin said, ashamed.
‘I don’t think you two quite understand how hard it is to be a woman here,’ said Victoire. ‘They’re liberal on paper, certainly. But they think so very little of us. Our landlady roots through our things when we’re out as if she’s searching for evidence that we’ve taken lovers. Every weakness we display is a testament to the worst theories about us, which is that we’re fragile, we’re hysterical, and we are too naturally weak-minded to handle the kind of work we’re set to do.’ ‘I suppose that means we’re to excuse her constantly walking around like she’s got a rod up her bum,’ Ramy muttered.
Victoire shot him a droll look. ‘She’s unbearable sometimes, yes. But she’s not trying to be cruel. She’s scared she isn’t supposed to be here. She’s scared everyone wishes she were her brother, and she’s scared she’ll be sent home if she steps even slightly out of line. Above all, she’s scared that either of you might go down Lincoln’s path. Go easy on her, you two. You don’t know how much of her behaviour is dictated by fear.’ ‘Her behavior,’ said Ramy, ‘is dictated by self-absorption.’ ‘Be that as it may, I have to live with her.’ Victoire’s face tightened; she looked very annoyed with the both of them. ‘So do pardon me if I try to keep the peace.’
Letty’s sulks never lasted long, and she soon expressed her tacit forgiveness.
When they filed into Professor Playfair’s office the next day, she returned Robin’s tentative smile with her own. Victoire nodded when he glanced her way. They were all on the same page, it seemed; Letty knew that Robin and Ramy knew, she knew they were sorry, and she herself was sorry and more than a bit embarrassed for being so dramatic. There was nothing else to be said.
Meanwhile, there were more exciting debates to be had. In Professor Playfair’s class that term, they were hung up on the idea of fidelity. ‘Translators are always being accused of faithlessness,’ boomed Professor Playfair. ‘So what does that entail, this faithfulness? Fidelity to whom? The text? The audience? The author? Is fidelity separate from style?
From beauty? Let us begin with what Dryden wrote about the Aeneid. I have endeavoured to make Virgil speak such English as he would himself have spoken, if he had been born in England, and in this present age.’ He looked around the classroom. ‘Does anyone here think that is fidelity?’
‘I’ll bite,’ said Ramy. ‘No, I don’t think that can possibly be right. Virgil belonged to a particular time and place. Isn’t it more unfaithful to strip all that away, to make him speak like any Englishman you might run into on the street?’ Professor Playfair shrugged. ‘Is it not also unfaithful to make Virgil sound like a stuffy foreigner, rather than a man you would happily carry on a conversation with? Or, as Guthrie did, to cast Cicero as a member of the English Parliament? But I confess, these methods are questionable. You take things too far, and you get something like Pope’s translation of the Iliad.’ ‘I thought Pope was one of the greatest poets of his time,’ Letty said. ‘Perhaps in his original work,’ said Professor Playfair. ‘But he injects the text with so many Britishisms that he makes Homer sound like an eighteenth-century English aristocrat. Surely this does not accompany our image of the Greeks and Trojans at war.’ ‘Sounds like typical English arrogance,’ said Ramy. ‘It isn’t only the English that do this,’ said Professor Playfair. ‘Recall how Herder attacks the French neoclassicists for making Homer a captive, clad in French clothes, and following French customs, lest he offend. And all the well-known translators in Persia favoured the “spirit” of translation rather than word-for-word accuracy – indeed, they often found it appropriate to change European names into Persian and replace aphorisms in the target languages with Persian verse and proverbs. Was that wrong, do you think?
Unfaithful?’ Ramy had no rejoinder.
Professor Playfair ploughed on. ‘There is no right answer, of course.
None of the theorists before you have solved it either. This is the ongoing debate of our field. Schleiermacher argued that translations should be sufficiently unnatural that they clearly present themselves as foreign texts. He argued there were two options: either the translator leaves the author in peace and moves the reader towards him; or he leaves the reader in peace and moves the author towards him. Schleiermacher chose the former. Yet the dominant strain in England now is the latter – to make translations sound so natural to the English reader that they do not read as translations at all. ‘Which seems right to you? Do we try our hardest, as translators, to render ourselves invisible? Or do we remind our reader that what they are reading was not written in their native language?’
‘That’s an impossible question,’ said Victoire. ‘Either you situate the text in its time and place, or you bring it to where you are, here and now. You’re always giving something up.’ ‘Is faithful translation impossible, then?’ Professor Playfair challenged. ‘Can we never communicate with integrity across time, across space?’ ‘I suppose not,’ Victoire said reluctantly. ‘But what is the opposite of fidelity?’ asked Professor Playfair. He was approaching the end of this dialectic; now he needed only to draw it to a close with a punch. ‘Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?’ He closed this profound statement as he always did, by looking at each of them in turn. And as Robin’s eyes met Professor Playfair’s, he felt a deep, vinegary squirm of guilt in his gut.
