“So then we sweep them out of our world,” she went on, “and that leaves the decks cleared for real action. I should say,” she went on with a change of manner, including in one wide humorous glance her own dirty hands, the tangled hair of the others, and the grease and grime of the room, “that the next thing is to organize ourselves to get clean! It’s plain only a few of us can do it at a time; let’s draw lots to see who begins, and the others can lie down while they wait. Is there anybody here who speaks German enough to ask for soap and water? I see the broom here at hand.” A good many of the women proved to have studied German at school, and three of them spoke it. But this did not carry them far. The guards laughed at the idea of soap--nobody in Germany had had soap for months--prisoners were not given such luxuries as towels, and as for water, the tap was down the hall, and the pail was there, and they could carry it for themselves. Besides there was water in the kettle on the stove. There and then they began their campaign. Lots were drawn, a certain number of tired women collapsed into the bunks to wait, while Octavie organized the others into squads, some to carry water; some to arrange a bathing-place in a corner of the room by hanging up their cloaks on strings stretched from nails; some to sweep out the worst of the dusty litter on the floor. There was order and purpose in the air. The first woman who emerged from behind the curtain of cloaks, bathed, fresh linen next her clean skin (for they had been allowed to bring one change of linen in their little packages), her hair in order, was like a being from another world, the world they had left. Self-respect came back to the others, as they looked at her.