The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire. Doris Lessing
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is nothing stopping you.’
‘Why do you put this terrible burden on us?’
‘Why is this burden placed upon us all?
‘You too, of course. I forgot.’
‘All of us.’
‘Why, it is too much. We are not fit. I am not fit. Oh, no …’ And he shut his eyes, away from a vision in the cool shade above of how a pattern of star octagons shifted from the flat into the three-dimensional, and back, lines and planes of dark grey on light grey, then a slight, fine black on shadow that was white only because a sharper white did not lie close enough to contrast with it and contradict. White upon white, or white that was as if a subtle warmth had been withdrawn, a world of strict and formal shapes lived in the spaces beneath the ceiling, which was itself unbounded, seemed to dissolve into nothing.
‘Oh, yes, we are,’ I said. ‘Everyone of us has felt exactly like you.’
‘You too?’
‘Of course.’
‘And Johor too – and everyone?’
His incredulity echoed mine. For of course I find it hard to believe that you, Johor, were ever so feeble, as Incent does of me.
‘And then?’
‘You’ll learn, Incent. But in the meantime –’
‘You do rather despair of me?’ And his giggle was quite consoling, being full of vitality.
‘Oh, you’ll do all right. But in the meantime –’
‘You’d rather I didn’t go running after Governor Grice?’
‘If that’s what you have to do, it’s what you have to do.’
‘Hmm … I can hear that there is something about him I don’t know. What is it?’
‘If I were to tell you that in some quarters he is regarded as a Sirian agent, what would you say?’
He exploded into laughter, a good coarse crude bray of scornful laughter. I felt an increase of optimism about him.
‘I suppose I can take it that you are planning to bump him off, or get someone else to, and that you have to blacken him first.’
‘Logical thinking,’ I said. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Oh, don’t laugh at me. They used to tell me at school that I always had to worry any proposition through into its own opposite before I could let it go … Well, is he a Sirian agent?’
‘That is one of the things I am here to find out. You, Incent – though I can tell by the sudden change in the set of your shoulders you find the news a disappointment – are not my only responsibility down here. Though I can assure you, there are times when you are quite enough for me … Do you think you can get along for a while by yourself in here, if I go out and do some fact-finding? Johor is waiting for a report.’ He watched me, soberly enough, as I prepared myself to leave. ‘Do you want the ceiling show left switched on?’
‘Yes. It makes me think of Canopus.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you trust me to stay here alone, after having made a fool of myself so often?’
‘I have no alternative, Incent,’ I said.
If you were to pay a visit to Volyen now, Johor, I wonder if you would be struck most by the changes, or the lack of change? You were here when Volyen reached its peak as an Empire, having just conquered PE 70 and PE 71, and before it began falling back in on itself. It was very rich, self-satisfied, proud, complacent. Its public note, or tone, was the liturgic chant of self-praise characteristic of Empires at that stage. New wealth poured in from PE 70 and PE 71; Volyenadna and Volyendesta were already well integrated into the economic whole. The cities of Volyen itself grew and fattened with explosions of population due to an increase of general well-being: Volyen had been poor and backward for a long time, after having been sucked dry during its previous colonial period under Volyenadna. But the cities were horrible contrasts of extreme wealth and extreme poverty, for even at its richest Volyen was not able, was not willing, to keep its labouring classes in decency. These millions came into existence because of an improvement in conditions; but they were not allowed to live any longer than was useful to the privileged classes who employed them.
This was perhaps the most striking part of your Report, Johor, and one which was used in the Colonial Service classes I was teaching that to illustrate an Empire can be described as wealthy; can increase its wealth many times in a century through loot and plunder; can present an image of itself, far and wide through a galaxy, of splendour and prosperity and growth; yet the bulk of its citizens may still be living as meanly and hopelessly as the most neglected of slaves. These, the poorest classes of Volyen, were worse off than slaves.
Your Report came out just at the time I was on leave on Canopus, and had undertaken to teach the course on Comparative Empires: Sirius, whose Empire had lasted almost as long as ours; and Volyen’s, whose Empire in comparison is an affair of moments, provided my material. Your Report made the strongest impression on my students, and on me. I was able to base not only single lectures but also subsidiary courses on a single sentence. For instance:
It can be considered a rule that the probable duration of an Empire may be prognosticated by the degree to which its rulers believe in their own propaganda.
What riches we found in that, Johor!
Well, the complacent rulers of Volyen certainly believed in the image they projected. They saw themselves as kindly, parentally concerned instructors, bringing civilization to the backward populations they were engaged in enslaving and despoiling. And this made them blind to the real feelings that were boiling up under their so tender rule.
I remember how various stages of the Sirian Empire were used as illustration. In the earliest stage of all, they plundered and stole, murdered and destroyed, and this was done in the name only of the good of the Sirian Mother Planet. No pretence about it! (In the very earliest days of Canopus, we too took what we wanted, and blundered, and wondered why it was everything we touched went wrong and at length failed and collapsed, until we discovered the Necessity and were able to do what we should.) But as Sirius developed, not having found the Necessity, that Empire developed Rhetoric. Each new planet, each attractive new morsel of property, was swallowed to the accompaniment of words, words, words, describing theft as a gift, destruction as development, murder as public hygiene. The patterns of words, ideas, changed as Sirius grew a conscience and agonized through its long ages of change, expanding, then contracting, maintaining a sort of stability; then expanding or contracting again, always, always justifying what they did with new patterns of words. These word patterns never were anything like this: We are taking this planet because we need its wealth of minerals or soil, or labour. No, one way or another the conquest was always described in terms of the benefit to the planet itself.
The lying Rhetoric of invaders can therefore from one point of view, be looked upon as a tribute to morality …
I remember that I used Puttiora and its pirate subsidiary, Shammat, as an illustration of the opposite, a frankness about motive that was even attractive compared with this:
The people of (let’s say) Volyenadna, having voluntarily and enthusiastically agreed to our instructing them in the superior ways of our civilization, basely and treacherously rose against us, and had to be taught a salutary lesson by our heroic soldiers.
Shammat’s style is, always has been, more this:
Those dirty rats the Volyenadnans saw us loading up our cargo ships with their new harvest and they tried to set fire to it and murdered our men. So we taught