Free The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire by Doris Lessing Page A

through words. And when all the shouting and the chanting and the speeches and the drunkenness of words is done, nothing has changed. You may “rise” if you like, you may drag Grice or some other puppet to the bar of history or geography or “revolutionary inevitability,” and you can make yourselves and your entire people drunk on shouting, and at the end of it all, nothing will have changed. Grice is about as guilty as a –’
    At that moment I noticed everyone was looking, not at me, but past me. I noticed that the pale blur on the high shining wall had disappeared. I saw Incent’s face change from the exaltation of his
Blood … Death … Liberty …
into a perfectly genuine scowl of hatred. Grice was standing there among us, beside Incent. As exalted as he, as pale, as ennobled, in the same pose of willing suffering, arms raised, palms forward, chin lifted, eyes shining, he said, ‘I’m Grice. I’m Grice the Guilty.’
    â€˜Rubbish,’ I said. ‘You are nothing of the kind. You are aperson who has been doing his job, and not too badly. Don’t get inflated ideas about yourself.’
    There was by now an uncomfortable silence. Even Incent had stopped his chant. The actual physical presence of Grice was a shock. No one had seen him except half invisible behind the various kinds of Volyen uniform, all designed to obliterate the individual. Of course, everyone knew that he was not some corpulent monster stuffed with the blood and flesh of his victims, but what they were actually looking at now was hard to assimilate. Grice is a weedy individual, pale, unhealthy, with a face ravaged by undirected introspection, weakened by unresolved conflict.
    Grice said, with dignity, ‘Subjectively I can say I am not guilty. I do not stuff myself; in fact, I have been on a diet recently. I do not care about clothing. I am not interested in luxury, and power bores me. But objectively, and from a historical perspective, I am guilty. Do with me what you will!’
    And, spreading his arms wide, he stood there before us, waiting for some apotheosis of fate.
    â€˜Just a minute,’ said Calder, disgusted by him, ‘where’s your bodyguard?’
    â€˜They don’t know I’m here. I gave them the slip,’ he said with pride. ‘I’ve been attending your meetings in disguise. Not as often as I’d like – I have so much to learn, don’t you know! But I’m your greatest fan, Calder. I simply love what you do. I’m on your side.’
    Incent had collapsed. He was sitting on his bench, staring at this villain, and I could see he was in a state of clinical shock. I had to do something with him. I got up and pulled him to his feet.
    â€˜Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ I said to Calder, who was conferring with his colleagues. As I left, dragging Incent with me, I heard Calder saying to Grice, in a disgusted irritated voice: ‘Now, you run along back to your palace,Governor. And be quick about it. We don’t want it to be said we’ve been kidnapping you, or something like that.’
    I took Incent back to our lodgings. He was really in a pitiable condition, fevered with Rhetoric, for he had not been able to let loose all the words that were in him.
    I sat him down and said to him, ‘I am sorry, Incent, but I have to do it.’
    â€˜I know I deserve it,’ he said, with satisfaction.
    Total Immersion it had to be, then. ‘I shall cause you actually to live through the horrors of the events I described to Calder in the court,’ I said.
    I made him a metalworker in Paris, not in the depths of poverty, of course, because it is essential for a revolutionary of a certain type to be free from the worst of hunger and cold and the responsibilities of a family. The most energetic revolutionaries are always middle-class, since they can give their full time to the business. He met with others like