Conrada Azpilicueta

Conrada Azpilicueta is the sanatorium’s dean and one of its most senior figures. Her authority is introduced not through a formal meeting but through an unannounced entrance and a compulsory search: she examines Alice Gould’s belongings, orders her to undress, and directs an intimate bodily inspection. In this encounter, Conrada embodies the institution’s power at its most immediate—expressed through commands, procedure, and control over a resident’s body.

Identity and Authority

Conrada first appears as a stern older woman who enters Alice’s room without knocking. Her gaze moves across the room until she finds what she has come for; she then orders Alice to pick it up. The scene does not identify the object, but it establishes the manner of her authority: she arrives without invitation, searches purposefully, and expects compliance. Alice grows paler as Conrada takes command.

Montserrat Castell soon supplies her name and position, identifying her as the sanatorium’s dean. Montserrat says that she and Conrada have been there longer than the director, the doctors, and the nurses, while making an exception for the patients. This account places Conrada within a hierarchy that is not simply defined by medical office: her seniority rests on her long institutional presence. The narrative does not specify her precise professional duties beyond the title and the search she performs, so her authority is clearest in practice—in the room where she issues orders and carries out the admission procedure.

The Search of Alice Gould

Before the search, Montserrat explains that orders have been received to inspect some residents while they are naked. She warns Alice that the procedure can be humiliating, while noting that some residents laugh and enjoy the tests. Montserrat says she cannot bear them. Her reaction gives the procedure a human counterpoint, but it does not alter its institutional force: Conrada is the person who will conduct it.

Conrada enters the room and inspects the contents of Alice’s suitcase. Finding the clothing unsuitable for the requirements of the procedure, she tells Alice to undress. The examination begins with Alice lying on a sofa and offering her body for inspection. Conrada then orders her to stand and bend her legs, using an instruction that makes the posture resemble urinating outdoors. The sequence moves from the scrutiny of personal belongings to the exposure and positioning of Alice’s body. Its escalating invasiveness makes the admission search more than a check of what Alice has brought with her; it demonstrates how the institution can require physical submission as part of receiving a resident.

Montserrat turns away during this part of the procedure and bites her lips. Her gesture distinguishes her response from Conrada’s brisk enforcement without suggesting that she can stop the search. The contrast is sharp: Conrada gives the instructions, while Montserrat, despite having explained what will happen, visibly struggles to witness it. Alice, meanwhile, is left to undergo a procedure whose terms are set by others.

Procedure and Institutional Power

Conrada’s scene is framed by explanations of rules and orders. Montserrat presents the search as a required practice affecting some residents, and Conrada carries it out as a sequence of practical commands: inspect the suitcase, undress, stand, bend. That matter-of-fact progression is important to the episode’s force. The humiliation does not arise from an explicit threat or a stated personal grievance; it arises from the ordinary operation of a procedure that gives Conrada access to Alice’s belongings and body.

The episode also separates seniority from care. Montserrat offers Alice reassurance and later says she may be able to bend rules for her, while advising her to follow the regulations and avoid standing out. Those remarks belong to Montserrat, not Conrada, and the distinction matters: the two women share long service at the institution, but the narrative presents different responses to its demands. Conrada enforces the search; Montserrat acknowledges its distress and tries to prepare Alice for life under its rules.

Characterization and Narrative Role

Conrada is drawn economically through appearance, movement, and speech. The narration describes her as severe; she enters without knocking, searches until she finds what she seeks, and issues instructions that admit no reply. These details make her memorable without granting access to her private motives. The text does not explain whether she regards the search as routine, necessary, or objectionable. What it does show is her role in making the procedure happen.

Her encounter with Alice introduces the sanatorium’s authority at the scale of a single room. The institution’s hierarchy may include a director, doctors, and nurses, but its rules are experienced through people who enact them face to face. Conrada’s brief appearance therefore carries more weight than its limited amount of dialogue might suggest: she is the agent through whom a general order becomes an intimate demand. At the same time, Montserrat’s discomfort keeps the scene from presenting institutional practice as emotionally uniform. Conrada represents command in action; the response beside her registers the cost of watching it.