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Summary: Chapters 9 & 10

Chapter 9

As their first year at Babel comes to a close, the cohort each studies abroad—Ramy in Spain, Letty in Germany, Victoire in France, and Robin in Malaysia. They are thrilled to be reunited as a new term begins. This year, they will study Etymology with Lovell as well as another course with Playfair, whose introductory lecture explores the intricacies of silver-working (though students will not start their own engravings until their fourth year). On their first day of term, Playfair warns Letty away from a desk labeled "Evie" and lectures that the need for silver-working ties back to the issue of untranslatability. When translating a word from one language to another, some meaning is always lost. But silver bars can capture the essence of what is lost during the process of translation. Playfair is careful to mention that it would be disastrous to engrave a bar with the word "translation," as the bar would try to create a perfect translation which is an impossibility. This paradox would cause the bar to implode and the silver could never be reused. Playfair demonstrates, and the bar shatters.

Robin feels uncomfortable when Playfair explains that cheaper bars, which aren’t made of pure silver, require more frequent touch-up and customers are charged heavily for this service. However, the expense is entirely fabricated for profit. Playfair admits, “We hold the secrets, and we can set whatever terms we like.” Robin thinks back to Mrs. Piper's comment about how the poor couldn't afford the silver needed for a cure when cholera began to spread.

Robin's cohort goes to lunch with Anthony, who has been working on finding match-pairs, of which there are a limited quantity in England. Anthony explains that, as Lovell stated previously to Robin, Romance languages have grown too similar so match-pairs between those languages are weakening. Instead, valuable words now come from countries like China and India. 

In Lovell's Etymology class, the cohort learns how languages evolve over time. Each member of the cohort also begins to learn a new language. Robin studies Sanskrit. The cohort continues to carve out spaces for themselves and Robin is happier than ever, living in a bubble in Oxford that Robin hopes, despite Griffin's warning, he never has to lose.

Meanwhile the French chemist Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre comes to Babel for help with his camera obscura, struggling to make it work. The silver-workers compete to solve the problem, and Anthony wins, earning a share of the profits from the invention. Robin and his friends have their photo taken, and while Robin, Ramy, and Victoire find the image unsettling, Letty likes it.

Chapter 10

Griffin begins to call on Robin more, though he still refuses to share details about Hermes. Griffin explains that because England is importing more from China (which they pay for with silver) than China is from England, silver is readily flowing into China without returning. This imbalance will eventually shift the wealth distribution between the two countries and England's empire will collapse, its downfall being its own greed. Griffin argues that silver will accumulate in other countries and silver-workers will go where the raw materials are. The Hermes Society aims to speed up England's decline toward its inevitable breaking point, at which point the future can be remolded into something fairer and more equitable. Robin longs to introduce Griffin to his friends but knows that he has to keep his worlds separate. 

Read an analysis of the Hermes Society’s efforts to weaken the Empire.

One day, a thief is caught trying to break into Babel and is shot by Babel's wards, the tower's automatic security system. Robin expresses concern over the increased security to Griffin, but Griffin just gives him a bar engraved with the word wúxíng, or “invisible,” telling him to use it if he gets into trouble. The brothers have a heart-to-heart, as Griffin explains that he struggles with silver-working because he is not truly fluent in Chinese. He says he is a failed experiment since Lovell took him from China too early, prompting him to lose his mother tongue. Robin reflects that Griffin's hatred for Oxford makes sense; he will never belong there and the only thing that could have made him valuable—fluency in Mandarin—was robbed from him at an early age.

Read more about Griffin’s character development throughout the novel.

Later, Robin receives another job from Griffin and heads for Babel. However, this time the wards are set off and Robin is grazed by a bullet as he tries to flee, though the two Hermes Society members manage to escape unscathed. Playfair arrives and believes Robin's fabricated story about only coming to the tower to work on a paper. Back home, Robin stitches his wound back together. Afterwards Griffin seems to disappear, and Robin has no one to turn to, increasing Robin's resentment toward his brother.

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