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

Robin took Sanskrit with Professor Chakravarti, who began their first lesson by scolding Robin for having no knowledge of the language to begin with. ‘They should teach Sanskrit to China scholars from the beginning. Sanskrit came to China by way of Buddhist texts, and this caused a veritable explosion of linguistic innovation, as Buddhism introduced dozens of concepts that Chinese had no easy word for. Nun, or bhiksunī in Sanskrit, became ni.^* Nirvana became nièpán.^* Core Chinese concepts like hell, consciousness, and calamity come from Sanskrit. You can’t begin to understand Chinese today without also understanding Buddhism, which means understanding Sanskrit. It’s like trying to understand multiplication before you know how to draw numbers.’

Robin thought it was a bit unfair to accuse him of learning out of order a language he’d spoken from birth, but he played along. ‘Where do we start, then?’

‘The alphabet,’ Professor Chakravarti said cheerfully. ‘Back to basic building blocks. Take out your pen and trace these letters until you’ve developed a muscle memory for them – I expect it’ll take you about half an hour. Go on.’

Latin, translation theory, etymology, focus languages, and a new research language – it was an absurdly heavy class load, especially when each professor assigned coursework as if none of the other courses existed. The faculty was utterly unsympathetic. ‘The Germans have this lovely word, Sitzfleisch,’ Professor Playfair said pleasantly when Ramy protested that they had over forty hours of reading a week. ‘Translated literally, it means “sitting meat”. Which all goes to say, sometimes you need simply to sit on your bottom and get things done.’

Still, they found their moments of joy. Oxford had now begun to feel like a home of sorts, and they carved their own pockets into it, spaces where they were not just tolerated but in which they thrived. They’d learned which coffee houses would serve them without fuss, and which ones would either pretend Ramy did not exist or complain he was too dirty to sit on their chairs. They learned which pubs they could frequent after dark without harassment. They sat in the audience of the United Debating Society and gave themselves stitches trying to contain their laughter as boys like Colin Thornhill and Elton Pendennis shouted about justice, liberty, and equality until they were red in their faces.

Robin took up rowing at Anthony’s insistence. ‘It’s no good for you to stay cooped up in the library all the time,’ he told him. ‘One needs to stretch one’s muscles for the brain to work properly. Get the blood flowing. Try it, it’ll be good for you.’

As it happened, he adored it. He found great pleasure in the rhythmic straining motion of pulling a single oar against the water again and again. His arms grew stronger; his legs, somehow, felt longer. Gradually he lost his hunched-over reediness and acquired a filled-in look, which gave him deep satisfaction every morning when he glanced at the mirror. He started looking forward to chilly mornings on the Isis, when the rest of the town hadn’t woken up yet, when the only sound he could hear for miles around was the birds chirping and the pleasant splash of blades sinking into the water.

The girls tried, but failed, to sneak their way into the boat club. They weren’t nearly tall enough to row, and coxing involved too much shouting for them to pretend they were men. But weeks later, Robin began hearing rumours of two vicious additions to the Univ fencing team, though Victoire and Letty at first claimed innocence upon interrogation.

‘It’s the aggression that’s the attraction,’ Victoire finally confessed. ‘It’s so funny to watch. These boys always come out so strong at the front, and they lose all sight of strategy.’

Letty agreed. ‘Then it’s a simple matter of keeping your head and pricking them where they’re not guarded. That’s all it takes.’

In the winter, the Isis froze over and they went skating, which none of them save Letty had ever done before. They laced their boots on as tight as they could go – ‘Tighter,’ said Letty, ‘they can’t wobble, else you’ll break your ankles’ – and staggered onto the ice, clutching each other for balance as they teetered forth, though usually this only meant that they all fell when one did. Then Ramy realized if he leaned forward and bent his knees, he could drive himself faster and faster, and by the third day he was skating circles around the rest, even Letty, who pretended to be upset when he skidded in her path but who couldn’t stop laughing regardless.