Babel

by R.F. Kuang

So it was Ramy, Letty, and Victoire who became such constant interlocutors that Robin started seeing Oxford through their eyes. Ramy would adore that purple scarf hanging in the window of Ede & Ravenscroft; Letty would laugh herself silly at the puppy-eyed young man sitting outside Queen’s Lane Coffeehouse with a book of sonnets; Victoire would be so excited that a new batch of scones had just been put out at Vaults & Garden but because she would be stuck in her French tutorial until noon, Robin absolutely had to buy one, wrap it up in his pocket, and save it for her for when class was let out. Even his course readings became more exciting when he began seeing them as source material for cutting observations, complaining or humorous, to be shared later with the group. They were not without their rifts. They argued endlessly, the way bright young people with well-fed egos and too many opinions do. Robin and Victoire had a long-running debate over the superiority of English versus French literature, wherein both were oddly, fiercely loyal to their adopted countries. Victoire insisted that England’s best theorists could not hold a candle to Voltaire or Diderot, and Robin would have given her the benefit of the doubt if only she didn’t keep scoffing at the translations he took out from the Bodleian on the grounds that ‘They’re nothing compared to the original, you might as well not read it at all.’ Victoire and Letty, though normally quite close, seemed to always get snippy on...