Chapter Twenty-Six
In the breakfast hall, a narrow room which always seemed dusky because of its small, barred windows, someone had taken the opportunity to inscribe on the walls, with sturdy strokes of light-green paint, Ici c’est l’enfer1. Dr Ferrand, the Director of the asylum, had months ago introduced the idea of letting the medical staff and the patients have breakfast together. Start the day as a unit and gain mutual trust. Lunch and supper were eaten apart: it shouldn’t become too familiar. The line between what worked in a doctor-patient relationship and what didn’t, was thin. So, physicians and patients took breakfast in the same hall but at separate tables. Likewise, there was distance between the doctors and the nursing staff. Their tables, also, were neatly separated.
Denis
