The Sirian Experiments by Doris Lessing

Author:Doris Lessing [Lessing, Doris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 978-0-00-738355-9
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 1981-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

THE FIVE

As one will, I formulated in my mind all kinds of approaches to the problem, but soon understood that none was suitable: again and again, bringing to a situation or a person the framework of words, ideas, already formulated in my mind, these as it were fell apart, dissipated like a mist when the sun falls on it. I saw, then, that there was something wrong in my assessment of the situation. I even wondered if my mind had been affected by my excursions into the Rohandan reality; I half believed I had become more Canopean than Sirian. All kinds of doubts and weaknesses assailed me.

Meanwhile, colleagues were referring to my ‘leave’ on the Rohandan moon in a careful nonjudgemental way. I knew it was not possible for them to have any inkling as to what I had really been doing: and could not decide what it was they suspected that made them treat me like a – well, yes: I had to accept it: I was being handled in the way we use for those about to be summoned to a formal court of inquiry, or even arrested. Meanwhile discussions went forward for, again, my long interrupted work on our borders. I concluded at last that something was at work in the situation that I was severely misinterpreting.

Time was passing. I had not raised the subject of Rohanda. Tempted to let the subject slide away from me yet again, I made myself remember undertakings to Klorathy. At last, not knowing what else to do, I summoned a meeting of the Five.

The Five, of whom I am one, run the Colonial Service. This fact everybody in the Empire knows. That we implement policy made by our Legislature is known. That this policy is influenced by us is known. What is not understood is the extent to which we influence policy. I shall simply state here, without softening it, and as a fact, something that contradicts the Sirian view of itself; our view of ourselves. We Five run the Empire, govern everything, except for the details of the lives of our elite class. That does not concern us in the slightest! This elite of ours does as it pleases. Within limits. Our limits. I have already said that there has to be an elite: legislation will not prevent one coming into being, or do away with one when it has. And as little as we, the rulers of Sirius, are interested in the affairs of these darlings and charmers, so are they interested in what we do. There is a law that no formal framework of an organization, or a society, can affect. Or not for long. It is that those who do the work are the real rulers of it, no matter how they are described.

We Five embody the governance of our Empire. That is what we are. And have been since the end of the war between ourselves and Canopus.

I took a risk in summoning only the Five, and not the extended council of the planetary representatives.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.