Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of The Oxford Translators' Revolution

Friendships within the cohort unravel even more. Letty convinces Ramy, Robin, and Victoire to go to an Oxford ball despite Victoire’s objection that they will be unwelcome because of prejudice. At the ball, Ramy refuses to dance with Letty because he likely has feelings for Robin and because he doesn’t want to upset the racists by dancing with a white woman. Drunken gentlemen scholars surround Letty and Victoire and demand that the two young women show them their breasts so they can compare their color. Robin distracts the main offender by telling him it would be a shame to let a Chinese person (Robin echoes the slur used by the gentleman scholar) interrupt his fun. The men lose interest, and Robin catches up with the young women and Ramy, who’ve escaped by then.

Ramy blames Letty for the entire episode. Victoire warned her that something like this could happen. Letty says she was attacked as well, so the attack wasn’t really about race. Something about her argument bothers Robin. The cohort finds another party. Robin spends part of the night comforting Letty, who is upset that Ramy doesn’t love her. Robin realizes Letty is the kind of “girl who was used to, and had come to always expect, special attention” (249). He comforts her but feels himself disappearing, “fading into the background of a painting depicting a story that must be as old as history” (249). On the way home, they walk through the Oxford graveyard, where they discover the gravestone of Evie Brooke.

Robin discovers Ramy and Victoire trapped in wards after stealing silver from Babel. He assumes correctly that they are stealing for Hermes. He helps them escape, but he gets trapped by the sticky wards. He forces them to leave so it will look like he was acting alone. Babel’s security detains Robin, but Lovell sweeps the detention under the rug when the officer contacts him first.

Lovell gets Robin to admit Griffin got him involved in Hermes. Lovell admits that Griffin was a failed project. He hands Robin a silver bar inscribed with the Chinese-English match-pair “fire+violence+cruelty+turbulence” in Chinese translated to the English “burst.” The mismatch in intensity between the Chinese and English words gives the bar the potential to explode. Griffin killed Evie Brooke wielding this bar.

Robin agrees to give him information about Hermes and tells him the location of the safehouse Griffin told him about. Lovell believes there is still hope for Robin because he is “less corrupted by [his] heritage” than Griffin (268). Lovell says Robin can pass as white (he uses a slur to describe Robin here). He gives Robin two options: stay at Babel if he is willing to be useful, or return to Canton. Robin chooses Babel and accepts the bar when Lovell insists that he keep it as a reminder.

Kuang uses a third-person perspective from Ramy’s point of view for this chapter. Ramy came from a family that started out wealthy but fell in status because Great Britain meddled in land ownership and taxation in India. Ramy’s father supported the family by working as a footman in Calcutta (modern-day Kolkata), West Bengal, India. Horace Wilson, his boss, was the secretary of an Eastern languages organization. Wilson knew that Ramy’s father was fluent in those languages and that Ramy himself was a quick learner.

Ramy’s father taught him many necessary things to survive as an Indian among the English—how to lie to flatter Wilson and his condescending guests, how to mask his emotions when this treatment pushed him to the brink, and how “seizing control of the story” (272) whites wanted to tell about him would give him some measure of control. Ramy was to keep his faith in secret but always maintain his identity.

When Wilson took Ramy to England to study languages, Ramy had to put these lessons to use. By the time admission to Babel came, Ramy “could have written a thesis on white pride, on white curiosity. He knew how to make of himself an object of fascination while neutralizing himself as a threat” (473). He felt hollow inside until Anthony Ribben recruited him into the Hermes Society in his third year.

Robin, Ramy, Victoire, and Letty receive sudden notice that they will go to Canton on a mission to open trade in China. Such trips usually don’t happen until one’s fourth year at Babel. Ramy and Victoire are angry that Robin didn’t tell them he was in Hermes and that he told Lovell about the safe house. Lovell makes overtures to Robin about the need for a new start between them. During the journey to Canton, Letty notices the tension among Ramy, Victoire, and Robin; the cohort is falling apart because of their secrets. Robin is awake at the end of the six-week trip and gets to see dawn in Canton for the first time in many years. 

After arriving, the expedition meets with Mr. Baylis, liaison with the Jardine, Matheson & Co., the company managing trade in the port of Canton. Mr. Baylis uses racist slurs for Chinese officials and people. He complains that Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu is so scrupulous that he disrupts Great Britain’s importation of Indian opium into China. This is a problem because opium is the only thing China wants from Great Britain. There is a trade imbalance that threatens Great Britain’s hold on silver and the region. Robin grows increasingly angry as Baylis insults China, Chinese food, and Chinese governance.

Baylis and the people around him claim opium is harmless. Baylis waves off Robin’s and Ramy’s objections about the immorality of the opium trade by arguing that “the point is free trade between nations” and that “there should be no restrictions between those who have goods and those who want to purchase them. That’s justice” (298-99). Robin and Ramy leave the residence to find Robin’s old home. It is gone and has been replaced with an opium den. Over Ramy’s objections, Robin enters the den to get high.

The next day, Robin serves as the interpreter for negotiations between Baylis and Commissioner Lin. Robin interprets the words accurately but minimizes the contempt and condescension in Baylis’s tone. Baylis’s prejudice is nevertheless obvious. Lin’s interpreter includes both the Commissioner’s content and tone (also contemptuous). The discussion ends in a stalemate. Lin dismisses his interpreter and Baylis to talk with Robin privately. He asks Robin if there is any hope of constructive talks to resolve the issue of opium smuggling. Robin answers truthfully that there is not because the British do not see Chinese people as human. Later, explosions occur all along the docks as Lin burns all of the opium in the port. Lovell blames Robin and almost attacks him in front of everyone.

The expedition hastily departs on a freighter ship to England. Robin and his father argue at the start of the trip, and Robin realizes that Lovell thinks of him as a tool instead of a person. When Robin questions Lovell again about his mother’s death, Lovell says Robin’s mother was negligible because she was Chinese (he uses a slur when referring to her). Lovell says he thought having children was a kind of translation of his English blood to his sons’ Chinese blood, but now he believes that “there is no raising you from that base, original stock” (320).

The argument between the two reaches a climax when Lovell refuses even to say Robin’s mother’s name. Robin feels explosive anger. When Lovell stands and gestures as if he is going to attack with a silver bar, Robin does the same with the bar that Griffin used to kill Evie. When Robin utters the match-pair, the force of the bar kills Lovell. Ramy, Victoire, and Letty break into the room. Rather than report Robin, they begin planning a cover-up. No matter their conflicts, they are loyal to him.