Thousand: Six Hundred Eighty-Five

wearing layers of diaphanous blue sweeps in, a basket half as large as she balanced on the crown of her head. She kneels and, as she is lifting the basket off, her arms tremble. The girl jumps up to help and is amazed to see the basket, lined with some kind of cured animal skin, ripples with clear water. The woman unwinds from the top of her head the two towels on which the basket rested. Then she loosens a sash, which turns out to be another towel and, twisted inside that, a globe of soap. The woman bends to