My next visit was to a large building which served as a home for the aged poor, and was managed entirely by _Hermanitas de Caridad_, “Little Sisters of Charity.” All was spotlessly clean. A Sister showed us round. Each dormitory contained some twenty beds, with red coverlets and snowy sheets and pillows; one could hardly believe they had ever been slept in. There was a lavatory with six washing-stands attached to each dormitory. The old men lived quite apart from the old women. We found one old lady in a bed that she had never left for seven years; she appeared well cared for, and quite comfortable. The building is modern, having only been completed fifteen years ago. It stands in its own grounds, where it has its own laundry and drying-ground. In the garden there is a pleasant summer-house, where the old people can sit almost every fine day in the year.
As is usual in such institutions, no servants were kept; the Sisters did everything, with the help of the sturdiest of the inmates, who were employed in scrubbing the floors, etc. The linen closets, with their tastefully folded linen, were a sight to see; glass cupboards full of linen reached to the ceiling and covered the walls. The air in all the apartments and corridors was fresh and pure, and the sun shone in at the windows, from which there was a pleasant view of the seashore. On the upper storey were a number of rooms destined for single or widow ladies who had no homes of their own, and were glad to have a cheap and quiet retreat. I saw one of them standing at her door as we passed along the corridor; she was in _negligé_ attire, and was evidently surprised to see visitors. We bowed, and seeing her inclined, entered into conversation with her. She was a woman about fifty-five years of age, with powdered cheeks and grey hair frizzed over her forehead. My charwoman-guide then pulling me aside, informed me in an excited whisper that the lady was the Contessa de P. “I have worked for her as cook,” she added, “and I can assure you she smokes like a man.” The Sister who stood by, a nun, with black hood and white bib, overheard the last words, and said severely, “She does not smoke here.” The wide glass-covered verandah was brilliant with the January sunshine: here the inmates could take the sun, as they say, and can truly say, in Spain. The chapel, which we inspected next, had a gallery for the nuns, with fretwork-covered windows looking down upon the pauper congregation. When there is a great function, all the chairs are taken away, and the people stand. There was also a neat dispensary, and an infirmary. The dining-rooms were cheerful and spacious, with marble-topped tables. The kitchen was a fine, airy room, with a great stove in the centre. In all the public institutions that I visited in Galicia the stove invariably stood in the middle of the room, thus making it possible for a number of persons to stand round it and cook without interfering with one another. The house is in the hands of twenty Sisters, under a Mother Superior. In my conversation with the lady boarder I learned that the poor there are always discontented, and never cease to long for their liberty and for the old life of begging at the street corners--where they had neither shelter nor warm clothing nor food to eat. I really thought, after seeing them huddled together in groups in the great, cheerful, but _monotonous_ rooms, that while I had a spark of vitality and endurance left in me I should feel as they did, and prefer the life of the street with all its risks and privations to that deathly sameness. Monotony is a slow and sure poison; it can undermine even the constitution of a pauper. As for the poor of Coruña, they are chiefly fisher-folk, and the coast being, as I have said, the most dangerous in Spain, cases of drowning occur with painful frequency, so that the industry is a very precarious one, and the number of the destitute is continually increasing. Corpses of fishermen are constantly being washed ashore, and there is nearly always a body lying in the mortuary to be identified.