Babel : Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (9780063021440)

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 faculty 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 receptions^* with 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 faculty’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 slowly growing out their hair. 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 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.