The Garden
A Play
Cast
The Instructor · André Le Nôtre · Napoleon
The First Student · The New Student · The Other Students
(The formal garden at the rear of the Institute for the Advancement of Dictatorships. Geometric beds of clipped box hedge, gravel paths. It is a bright morning. The students stand with tools — rakes, shears, trowels. The Instructor consults a plan. Le Nôtre walks slowly through the garden. He stops and looks at a section of hedge. He takes the shears from the nearest student and clips it with three precise movements. He hands the shears back.)
The Other Students
We see it.
The New Student
I'm not sure I do.
Le Nôtre
You will. Begin with the gravel. Rake it back to the edge. Precisely to the edge.
(The students begin to work. The New Student rakes, but keeps glancing toward the wilder edges of the property.)
The New Student
Monsieur Le Nôtre. Have you seen the grounds at Blenheim?
The New Student
Capability Brown landscaped them. The lake, the trees — everything looks completely natural. As if it had always been there.
The New Student
The effect is extraordinary. People find it —
Le Nôtre
A garden is not for finding. It is for understanding.
The New Student
Understanding what?
Le Nôtre
Who is here. Who has arrived. Who has set the terms.
(He moves to another bed and crouches to examine it.)
The New Student
Brown's landscapes feel generous. Open. As if the land belongs to everyone who walks through it.
The First Student
(without looking up from his raking)
And who did it belong to?
The New Student
Blenheim belonged to the Duke of Marlborough.
The First Student
The land was always his?
The First Student
He took it. One day he said, I hereby declare this my property.
(The New Student is silent. Le Nôtre stands and looks at the First Student for a moment. He says nothing but the approval is visible.)
Le Nôtre
At Versailles, no one was under any illusion. The King's power was written in every line. Every axis led to his window. The garden did not pretend. It demonstrated.
The New Student
And you consider that preferable?
Le Nôtre
I consider it honest.
(The New Student looks back at the wild edges of the property. He rakes.)
(Napoleon enters from the far end of the garden. He moves slowly, hands behind his back. He stops at a rose bush and looks at it for a long moment.)
Napoleon
Joséphine grew these. The striped ones. She knew every one by name.
(Silence.)
(Napoleon moves slowly along the path until he reaches the far corner of a bed. He crouches. Among the stones at the edge of the gravel, a small cluster of wild flowers, pale yellow, slight, self-seeded.)
(Le Nôtre walks over. He looks at them briefly. Then he pulls them out, roots and all, in one swift movement, and drops them on the gravel.)
(Napoleon looks at the discarded flowers. He says nothing. He straightens and walks slowly back toward the villa.)
The New Student
(quietly)
He liked them.
The First Student
He likes things that grow without permission.
(The students work on. The sun has moved. The garden is immaculate. Le Nôtre walks the central path one final time.)
(He gestures at where the wild flowers had been.)
Le Nôtre
If one weeds, order returns.
(The students gather their tools. Some of them look at their hands with undisguised distaste. A few examine their nails.)
The Other Students
Disgusting.
The New Student
(looking at his own hands)
I have never had my hands this dirty.
The First Student
Wait for what's to come.
(They pick up their tools and walk inside.)