Chapter Eight
Contains spoilersOverview
Robin deepens his work for Hermes, narrowly avoids discovery, and learns from Griffin that a Babel career likely ends in military complicity or faked exile. Torn between security and conscience, he confronts Oxford’s privilege and prejudice, rejects Pendennis’s idle elite, and gains empathy for Letty after learning of her brother’s death. Playfair’s lesson that translation is betrayal sharpens Robin’s guilt.
Summary
Through late Michaelmas and into Hilary, Robin assists three more Hermes thefts, then a fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh, growing confident as the routine becomes easy. He is nearly caught when Cathy O’Nell arrives during a job, but he bluffs and his masked accomplices slip past. Despite the scare, he continues.
A week into Hilary term, Griffin meets Robin by the Thames, praises his efficiency, and withholds details about Hermes. Griffin warns their arrangement is unsustainable: Babel careers funnel into military contracts, wealth built on war, or else require faked deaths and life underground. He urges Robin to remain inside—Hermes needs access to Babel’s silver—and likens Oxford to a glirarium fattening dormice. Robin, attached to Babel’s security yet uneasy, feels split between love and betrayal.
Life at Oxford underscores both privilege and exclusion. Robin sees Babel’s wealth when he lends Bill Jameson money, and he enjoys prestige and access, yet Ramy faces racial barbs and women are restricted and misread. As the cohort learns Oxford slang and social codes, they remain outside the college elite dominated by gentleman-commoners like Elton Pendennis. When Pendennis invites Robin to drinks, Ramy mocks the idea and Letty, distressed, urges him not to go, sparking friction.
Robin attends the party and meets Pendennis, Vincy Woolcombe, Milton St Cloud, and Colin Thornhill. He finds them shallow—Pendennis flaunts a derivative poem and tests Robin’s deference. Robin counters with a defense of translation’s difficulty, “dancing in shackles,” and hints at silver-working’s power, then leaves early, unimpressed and disengaged.
The next day, Ramy and Victoire laugh over the poem, but Letty stays frosty until Victoire reveals Letty’s grief: her brother Lincoln died after a drunken night, and Letty came to Babel in his place, fearful of failure in a hostile environment. The cohort tacitly reconciles. In Playfair’s class, a debate on fidelity ends with the claim that translation is always betrayal; the conclusion pierces Robin, who feels his duplicity anew.
Who Appears
- Robin Swift
Protagonist; continues Hermes thefts, narrowly avoids Cathy, meets Griffin, rejects Pendennis’s clique, and feels guilty after Playfair’s lesson.
- Griffin
Robin’s half-brother and Hermes leader; praises Robin, withholds details, urges staying inside the ‘glirarium,’ predicts military complicity or faked death.
- Letty Price
Opposes Robin attending Pendennis’s party; upset and fearful. Her brother’s death explains her rigidity; reconciles silently.
- Victoire Desgraves
Mediator who reveals Letty’s history and the pressures on women; urges compassion; contributes to class debate.
- Ramy Mirza
Sardonic friend; challenges Robin’s motives, mocks Pendennis, debates fidelity in class, and keeps the group’s humor.
- Professor Playfair
Tutor leading a seminar on fidelity; concludes translation is betrayal, intensifying Robin’s sense of duplicity.
- Elton Pendennis
Gentleman-commoner host; vain, postures as a poet, tests Robin’s deference; becomes a foil Robin rejects.
- Milton St Cloud
Drunken pianist in Pendennis’s circle; presses about silver-working; part of the shallow party scene.
- Vincy Woolcombe
Pendennis ally; offers shallow Orientalist remarks and deference; awed by Robin’s talk of Babel.
- Colin Thornhill
Robin’s Magpie Lane neighbor; sycophantic and awkward at the party, overshadowed by Pendennis.
- Cathy O’Nell
Chatty Gaelic upperclassman who nearly discovers Robin during a theft; her arrival heightens the risk.
- Bill Jameson
Cash-strapped student; Robin lends him money, highlighting Babel’s unusual wealth and privilege.
- Lincoln Price
Letty’s deceased brother; his death precipitated her admission to Babel and fuels her fear and severity.