There was also a wall vase with artificial flowers in it. The flowers were made of crepe paper dipped in wax. They did not resemble any actual flowers and there had been no attempt to convey a general truth, such as what a flower is or why there are such things as flowers, but merely to make one more disconcerting object. There were no magazines on the mission table. It was not part of the hospital's intention to offer entertainment or to make the time pass more quickly for visitors who, more often than not, stayed too long and ran the patients' fever up and were a nuisance all around.