The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire - Doris Lessing

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by the absurd –’

      ‘Ormarin,’ I said, ‘you may be ill, our good doctors may have overdone things a bit with you, but I do have to congratulate you on at the very least an increase of overall understanding, a widening of perspective. I look forward very much to working with you when you are a bit better.’

      He nodded sombrely, his eyes fixed on visions of ghostly conquering armies destroying all before them, these armies almost at once being swept away and vanishing, to be replaced by …

      I remember I myself suffered a prolonged and intense attack of this condition, and while it caused those responsible for me – you among them, of course, Johor – a lot of trouble, I can report that it is not without its consolation. There is a proud, locked-in melancholy that accompanies the contemplation of what must appear to the infant-mind as futility, which is really quite pleasurable. Very well, then, remarks this philosophical spectator of cosmic events, immobilized by cosmic perspective, and addressing the Cosmos itself; very well, then, if you are going to be like that, be it on your own head, then! And you fold your arms, lean back in your chair, fix a sardonic smile on your face, and half close your eyes, ready to watch a comet crash into a pleasant enough little planet, or another planet engulfed by – let’s say – a Sirian moment of expansion due to a need for some mineral or commodity, a mistaken need, as it turns out, the whole thing a miscalculation on the part of the economists.

      ‘I’ll see you soon, Ormarin,’ I said. ‘On the whole I’m very pleased with you. You are coming along nicely.’

      But he has brought himself to ask, ‘Very well, then! If you are not Volyen, if you are not Sirius, who are you, with your authoritative ways?’ When I mention Canopus – rarely – his eyes slide: he doesn’t want, finally and definitely, to know.

      I went at once to see poor Incent. It had not been easy to find the right place for his recovery. What he needed was an absence of stimulation. But on present-day Volyen, where even the most secluded rural retreat will at any moment begin to vibrate to the din of machines or of recorded or transmitted noise? One of our friends runs a hotel in the centre of Vatun. Yes, it was in the capital itself that I was able to arrange what I was looking for. A large room in the heart of the building, well insulated, and above all without apertures into the outside world. As you will remember, Vatun is full of parks and gardens, though they are perhaps not as well kept as they were at the height of Volyen’s power, and I wanted above all to protect Incent from the debilitating thoughts inevitably aroused by the processes of nature. The cycles of birth, growth, decay, and death, the transmutation of one element into another, the restlessness of it all – no, these were not for Incent, not in his condition. The slightest stimulation of any unhealthy kind was contraindicated.

      I told our friend the proprietor, in the letter I sent by Incent, that of course no force of any kind was to be used, but that Incent would probably be only too ready to accept bland and unstimulating surroundings.

      And so I found him. Leaving behind the crash and the grind, the shouting and singing and screaming of Vatun’s streets, and the disturbing thoughts inevitably aroused by Vatun’s gardens, I entered – perfect silence. I approached a tall white door at the end of a thickly carpeted corridor, opened it, found a tall white room, and Incent, lolling in a deep chair, gazing at the blank ceiling. In this haven of a room there was not one natural object, not so much as a thread of plant fibre in a carpet or the bed coverings, not a reminder of the animal world in the form of skins or parts of them, not so much as a flower or a leaf. What perfect peace. I myself was much in need of a rest after adjusting my inner balances, which had been, I must confess, disturbed by the philosophical torments of Ormarin, and I sank into a recliner near Incent and gazed with him at the whiteness all around, and listened with him to – nothing.

      ‘I shall never leave here!’ said Incent. ‘Never! I shall live out my life within these four walls, tranquil, alone, and doing no harm to anyone.’

      I did not bother to reply.

      ‘When I think of the horrors I have seen and been part of – when I …’ And tears flooded from his great dark eyes.

      ‘Now, Incent,’ I said, and offered a selection of the soothing and useful phrases I had so recently offered Ormarin.

      ‘No. I’ve learned what I am capable of. I’ve decided I’m going to apply to go home. But first I have two things I must do. One is, I must apologize to Governor Grice.’

      ‘Ah.’

      ‘And second, I want to find Krolgul and … and …

      ‘And what, Incent?’

      ‘I thought – I would like to have a try at reforming him.’

      ‘Ah.’

      A long silence.

      ‘Well, as you know,’ I said, ‘you can do whatever you feel you have to. That is the law. Freedom. Of choice. If you feel it is your destiny to reform Shammat, not to mention Puttiora, then …

      ‘And now you are laughing at me! It isn’t kind!’

      ‘Ah, well,’ I said, ‘perhaps it is too soon. In my view you should stay here a bit longer and have a nice rest. I wish I could do the same. But if you want to leave, then of course you may.’

      I left then myself, noting with relief that Incent stayed where he was. If a reclining position, feet on the same level as the head, can be called heroic, then Incent’s approached the heroic: arms folded defiantly, chin confronting the ceiling, feet at attention.

      After I left the hotel, through a lobby all excitement and noise – a trade delegation from the Sirian HQ on their planet Motz were just leaving, looking pleased with themselves – I walked straight into the park opposite. Some freely wandering gazelles came to greet me. They originate, as it happens, from Shikasta, stolen by Sirius and presented as part of a state gift. They licked my hands and nuzzled them, and I knew my emotional apparatus was nearly at Overload. Plant life in every stage of growth. The songs of birds. In short, the usual assault on one’s stabilizing mechanisms. So hard did I find it to keep my emotional balance that I nearly went back into the hotel to join Incent.

      Oh, the glamour of the natural life! The deceptions of the instinctual! The beguilements of all that pulses and oscillates! How I do yearn for Canopus and for its … but enough of that. Forgive my weakness.

      I was, of course, on my way to Krolgul, and in fact had nearly gone to him first, before Incent.

      Shammat has set up on Volyen a School of Rhetoric. This is along the lines of the very successful School of Rhetoric that flourished for so long under Tafta on Shikasta during its latter days, positioned there to take advantage of the emanations from the Religions and Politics. But when Tafta made his miscalculation and backed the wrong junta on Shammat, the school on Shikasta was neglected and became useless. It was Krolgul who studied the history of that school, and who applied to the new Lords of Shammat to try to make one work on Volyen. It has been in operation since just after your visit here, fattening on the effluvia from the turbulences of Sirius.

      I do not remember your mentioning Tafta’s school on Shikasta. It had two main branches, one disguised as a theological seminary, one as a school of politics. The first building was ornate, grandiose, providing every kind of gratification for the senses; the second was unadorned and functional. In the first, students used robes and accoutrements of great richness and variety; in the second, clothing was austere. But the kinds and types of speech used in the two apparently so different seminaries were almost identical, so that students could, and indeed were encouraged to, translate the religious into the political and vice versa, a process that usually needed no more than the substitution of a few words in a passage of declamation.

      It was not possible to copy this exactly on Volyen, because Volyen’s ‘aspirations for higher things’

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