Waiting room

“ A fair-haired young woman in a white uniform and cap admitted the newcomer and pointed him to the one chair left unoccupied in the large and crowded waiting-room. It was a pleasant room, in a well-worn sort of way, and the blazing wood fire in a sturdy fireplace, the rows of dull-toned books cramming a solid phalanx of bookcases, and a number of interesting old prints on the walls gave it, as the stranger, lifting critical eyes, was obliged to admit to himself, a curious air of dignity in spite of the mingled atmosphere of drugs and patients which assailed his fastidious nostrils. ”

“ Tired out, she laid her head on her bundle and fell asleep on a seat in the women's waiting-room. Long after light she was awakened by the roar and rattle of trains. She washed, rearranged her hair and clothing, and went into the general waiting-room to find her way to the street. ”

“ If you had to wait there you would be compelled to sit with your legs right across the down platform; the only use of that waiting-room would be to keep your hat dry.
There is not a refreshment room, there is not even a book-stall. I cannot even cheer myself with an ancient bath bun, a glass of cloudy beer, or two penny-worth of acidulated drops. ”

“ Comfort has been sacrificed to magnificence. The platform arrangements for departing and arriving trains are good, simple, and comprehensive; but the waiting-rooms, refreshment stand, and other conveniences are as ill-contrived as possible; while a vast hall with magnificent roof and scagliola pillars, appears to have swallowed up all the money and all the light of the establishment.
The first-class waiting-room is dull to a fearful degree, and furnished in the dowdiest style of economy. The second-class room is a dark cavern, with nothing better than a borrowed light. ”

“ Through the windows the station-master might be seen fast asleep in his huge leather chair. Clerks and porters all were asleep, stretched out on the benches of the waiting-room. But people are accustomed to such delays at Sauveterre; they are prepared for being kept waiting: and the doctor and M. de Chandore were walking up and down the platform, being neither astonished nor impatient at the irregularity. ”

“ There is a slow dribble of wayfarers, who seldom spend their time in the dismal and dingy waiting-room unless in very cold weather or to stand guard over their parcels which they have piled upon the seats. ”

“ There is the ladies' waiting-room, into which gentlemen may not go, and the gentlemen's waiting-room, in which the porters generally smoke, and the refreshment room, with its dirty counter covered with dirtier cakes. ”

“ Even more important than the contents of the waiting room is the equipment of your private office. It is in this room that your work is done. There your patients confide to you their weaknesses; there they determine finally whether to trust themselves to your knowledge and skill ”

“ MAN WITH THE FLOWER: No—no. . . . I meant, have you ever noticed, in a doctor's office, the waiting-room where the patients sit until their turn comes?
THE CUSTOMER: Ah, yes. . . . I once took my daughter to see a doctor. . . . Something wrong with her nerves—
MAN WITH THE FLOWER: Well—I wasn't prying, you know. I meant that those waiting-rooms. . . . (A pause.) Did you ever notice?—a black horse-hair sofa in some old-fashioned style . . . upholstered chairs, that hardly ever match . . . an arm-chair or two—huh—second-hand stuff—picked up where they can find it. Put there for the patients. ”

“ And yet, oftentimes some of them sit there, looking so carefully at one of their fingers, which is going round and round, making letters and numbers that have no meaning, on the varnished arm of the chair where they are sitting. They're thinking. They don't really see. (A pause.) But what a strange impression it makes on you, when, as you go through the waiting-room again, after you are through with the doctor, you catch a glimpse of that chair where you were sitting just a few moments before—anxious to have some opinion on your mysterious disease. ”

“ One must have at least a waiting room and a private office even if a single rented room must be cheaply partitioned to make the division. A larger suite is a better investment when possible. In the waiting-room should be found easy chairs, library table, hall-rack, mirror, and an easy divan or couch. ”

“ After waiting nearly an hour, my Lawyer and I came to the conclusion that we must have been forgotten, and determined to go upon a voyage of discovery on our own account. Leaving the waiting-room, we glided up a broad stone staircase and entered through a green-baize door a large apartment apparently filled with books. Seated at a desk was an amiable-looking, middle-aged gentleman surrounded with plans, papers, packets, and the usual paraphernalia of a Government Office. Between this room and another was a second green-baize door dividing the two apartments the one from the other. ”

“ They pass through a kind of turnstile and take their seats in the order of their arrival on rows of benches in a large waiting-room, provided with a stove, a lavatory, and a drinking-fountain, with an attendant nurse and a woman to sell cheap, wholesome buns baked in the Hospital; for they may have to wait all the morning before their turn arrives to go in to the doctor, who sits from nine to twelve seeing and prescribing for child after child; and, if the matter is very serious, sending the poor thing on into the Hospital to occupy one of the cosy cots. ”

“ An attendant met and ushered him down a long, cool, white corridor to the section of the building devoted to the duplication of living matter. Another attendant took him from the first and whisked him up in an elevator to the floor where, as the somber sign stated, "Duplication of the Human Being" was carried on. He was directed to a pneumatic chair in the waiting room and he sat down. ”

“ At times, arriving at our destination in the middle of the night, we rested, exhausted, in the ladies’ waiting-room at the railway station, where there were cane-seated settees, on which we spread our travelling rugs and remained until the morning. A native woman was always in charge, and good refreshment-rooms were at hand, so that we saved much time and avoided publicity in this way. ”

“ The door leading from the reception room into the waiting parlor should always be kept closed. There is no necessity of letting the people who are waiting to see the doctor hear what is going on in the outer room. ”

“ I had just gotten inside the telephone booth and was ringing up the number when there was a commotion in the upper end of the waiting room and a large party of people entered, men and women and soldiers and young girls, laughing and shrieking and pelting somebody with rice and old shoes. ”

“ Lounging idly in the deserted little waiting-room was the usual shabby, bored, lonely ticket-seller, prodigiously indifferent to the grave beauty of the scene before him and to the throng of ancient memories jostling him where he stood. ”

“ It becomes more difficult than ever to get the guest out of the guest chamber. As for magazines, they are desirable—but not too many of them, or the first glimpse of your guest chamber may unhappily remind the newcomer of the waiting room at his doctor's or dentist's. ”

“ The waiting-rooms literally overflow with soldiers—some stretched out on the benches, some on the floor; certain lying on their faces, others on their backs, and still others pillowing their heads on their knapsacks.
One feels their overpowering weariness, their leaden sleep after so many nights of vigil; their absolute relaxation after so many consecutive days in which all the vital forces have been stretched to the breaking point.
From time to time an employé opens the door and shouts the departure of a train. ”

“ Above all, leave the sick room quickly and come into it quickly, not suddenly, not with a rush. But don't let the patient be wearily waiting for when you will be out of the room or when you will be in it. Conciseness and decision in your movements, as well as your words, are necessary in the sick room, as necessary as absence of hurry and bustle. To possess yourself entirely will ensure you from either failing—either loitering or hurrying. ”

“ It is enough. I’ll turn and go;
Yes, nettles grow where lone lies he,
Who spurned me for seeing what he could not see.
p. 185IN A WAITING-ROOM On a morning sick as the day of doom
With the drizzling gray
Of an English May,
There were few in the railway waiting-room. ”

“ Cards, roulette, ping-pong and chess greatly assisted in passing the time. We also had quite a good camp library, the books mostly having been received from home. I often heard it remarked that life there was one long queue, and it was not far [57] wrong. Often one passed the morning waiting one’s turn for the “tin room,” or newly arrived parcels, while soon after lunch it was customary to see the more patient individuals already lining up chairs and settling down to their books, to wait for hot water which was sold at tea time. ”

“ And in the South Station, furthermore, there are people from the wide world around. Actors and authors and artists are to be seen coming in and going out and sitting waiting in the waiting-rooms. Some mightily fine and curious persons have sat waiting in those waiting-rooms, as well as dingy Italians with strings of beads around their necks. ”

“ It is needless to say that the Receiving Room is not always tragical, not always the scene of alarms and disorders, not always filled with wild-eyed folk nor echoing the scuffle of heavy feet and the moans of the suffering. It may be as quiet as a room in a convent. I have seen it so many a time, and particularly on a Sunday morning in the heyday of summer. Then the sun, streaming through the windows, may illumine the figure of the nurse as she sits on the awful sofa. She has her spectacles on, and is busy with some white needlework. ”

“ I speak of a hospital not as it is now, but as it was some fifty years ago. The Receiving Room is a bare hall, painted stone colour. It contains as furniture rows of deal benches and as wall decoration a printed notice, framed and glazed, detailing vivid measures for restoring the apparently drowned. Below this helpful document is fixed an iron-bound money-box. There is, moreover, a long desk in the hall where entries are made and certificates and other papers issued. As a room for the reception of the sick and suffering it is a cold, harsh place, with about it an air of cynical indifference. ”

“ Since the physician had passed from the apartment, whispering an attendant that he would return no more, the furniture of the room had been readjusted as if in obedience to the crisis in the affairs of its owners; that portion of the attendants who lingered had left their seats, and stood with folded arms and reclined heads, and the entire surroundings wore that abstracted and melancholy air which the reader cannot fail to have associated in fancy with such scenes. ”

“ Those are sad hours when one has passed from our doors never to return, and we go back to set the place in order. There the room, so familiar, the homely belongings of their daily life, each one seems to say to us in its turn, "Neither shall their place know them any more." Clear the shelf now of vials and cups, and prescriptions; open the windows; step no more carefully; there is no one now to be cared for—no one to be nursed—no one to be awakened. ”

“ His mother came three days before he died, and being minus hoops and finery, the ward surgeon was anxious she should remain with her son, and we arranged that she should sleep in my room. There was just space between the cot and wall for the breadth of a mattress, and when the door was shut, that space was long enough, for me to lie between the door and the stand. I have never entertained a guest more cheerfully, or one by whose presence I felt more honored ”

“ All patients do not need to go to bed at the same time, and while some are able to care for themselves, most [Pg 42] need care, attention, and watching. The helpless should be dressed and undressed, and put to bed first: the violent and homicidal need to be watched, and should be put to bed early, while the suicidal should be kept under supervision, and put to bed at the most convenient time. After a patient is in bed, an attendant should go into the room, with a lantern, so as to see that every thing is in order and safe, and, with a cheerful “good-night” close the door. ”

“ It's so customary to find strangers in the living room, talking or using the telephone, that when I am ready for bed at night I don't dart out of the bathroom and leap into bed as I did at first. First I press my ear against the door, so that I can hear the rumble of voices if anyone is in the living room. ”

“ A great advantage is gained when the invalid can be wheeled or supported into another room, and have a completely changed air and scene in which to take her meal. But when this is impracticable the room should be well aired before the patient is taken out of bed, and as soon as she is established on her couch or in her chair, and this placed as far as possible from the bed, the covers of this should be stripped off and carried from the room. ”

“ I did not wait to see."
"Do you lock the doors when leaving your office, Doctor?"
"Only those opening into the laboratory and the front room. Except at night—after I have finally departed—the reception-room door is never fastened. It is scarcely ever closed."
"On the afternoon of November fourth, then, when you left your office at one o'clock, was the door open as usual?—the door opening from the hall into your reception-room?" ”