The Lords of Discipline Read Online Free PDF Page A

should have a frontal lobotomy. Then I should become a hopeless alcoholic, chain a maiden aunt in an attic, engage in deviant sexual behavior with polo ponies, and talk like I was part British and part Negro.”
    “I had no idea that you’ve met that many of my relatives, spectacle,” she said. “But please don’t forget that I happen to be one of those awful people.”
    “I don’t mean you, Abigail. You know that. I’d love to be chained in your attic.”
    “Hush, Will,” she demanded. “I want to show you some roses.”
    It was in her garden that whatever physical grace Abigail St. Croix possessed asserted itself. She moved among her flowers with consummate natural fluidity, enjoying the incommunicable pleasures of growing things with the patience and concentration of a watchmaker. In this, her small, green country, surrounded by an embrasure of old Charleston brick, there were camellias of distinction, eight discrete varieties of azaleas, and a host of other flowers, but she directed her prime attention to the growing of roses. She had taught me to love flowers since I had known her; I had learned that each variety had its own special personality, its own distinctive and individual way of presenting itself to the world. She told me of the shyness of columbine, the aggression of ivy, and the diseases that affected gardenias. Some flowers were arrogant invaders and would overrun the entire garden if allowed too much freedom. Some were so diffident and fearful that in their fragile reticence often lived the truest, most infinitely prized beauty. She spoke to her flowers unconsciously as we made our way to the roses in the rear of the garden.
    “You can learn a lot from raising roses, Will. I’ve always told you that.”
    “I’ve never raised a good weed, Abigail. I could kill kudzu.”
    “Then one part of your life is empty,” she declared. “There’s a part of the spirit that’s not being fed.”
    “I feed the spirit with other things.”
    “Such as?”
    “Basketball for me.”
    “Basketball?” she said, unable to purge the disdain from her voice. “You substitute basketball for roses? That’s so dull and common, spectacle. There’s too much sameness in the world, and sometimes there’s too much sameness in you. That’s what I love about flowers in general and roses in particular. Each one is different. Every rose that comes to this garden has its own inherent surprise, its own built-in miracle. And the world needs more roses far more than it needs more basketball players.”
    “Abigail, basketball is like that for me. I know you think I’m an idiot for saying that, and I know it sounds common to you. I understand what you’re saying about roses. I really do. I’ll probably never grow a black-eyed Susan in my life, much less a rose, but I think I understand how someone could become completely attached to flowers. When I play basketball, every shot is different, complicated; and each game is beautiful or ugly in its own special way. I think I look at basketball the way you look at roses or Tradd looks at Mozart or Commerce looks at his ships. All of us have been lucky. We’re all passionate about something. I feel sorry for people who haven’t found their passions. But, you know, Abigail, I don’t think I’ve ever found sameness in anything in the world. Not if I looked hard enough. I used to think that the Corps represented sameness. We all dress the same, we look the same, we live by the same rules, everything. But each one of us is different. When I walk into this garden each rose looks about the same to me, and you go to a parade at the Institute and all two thousand cadets look exactly the same to you. But if you look at them carefully, Abigail, the same thing happens to those cadets as to your roses. Each one is different, with his own surprise, his own miracle.”
    “There’s hope for my favorite jock,” Abigail said.
    “But there’s something I want to ask you, Will,” she