Babel

by R.F. Kuang

‘So what – I mean, what are you all going to do? With your degrees, I mean.’ They laughed. Pendennis rested his chin on his hand. ‘Do,’ he drawled, ‘is such a proletarian word. I prefer the life of the mind.’ ‘Don’t listen to him,’ said Woolcombe. ‘He’s going to live off his estate and subject all his guests to grand philosophical observations until he dies. I’ll be a clergyman, Colin a solicitor. Milton’s going to be a doctor, if he can find it in him to go to lectures.’ ‘So you’re not training for any profession here?’ Robin asked Pendennis. ‘I write,’ Pendennis said with very deliberate indifference, the way people who are very conceited throw out morsels of information they hope become objects of fascination. ‘I write poetry. I haven’t produced much so far—’ ‘Show him,’ Colin cried, right on cue. ‘Do show him. Robin, it’s ever so profound, wait until you hear it—’ ‘All right.’ Pendennis leaned forward, still feigning reluctance, and reached for a stack of papers that Robin realized had been set out for display on the coffee table this entire time. ‘Now, this one is a reply to Shelley’s “Ozymandias”,* which is as you know an ode to the unforgiving ravaging of time against all great empires and their legacies. Only I’ve argued that, in the modern era, legacies can be built to last and indeed there are great men of the sort at Oxford capable of such a monumental task.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve opened with the same line as Shelley – I met a traveller from an antique la...