"Mother, mother, warm me some soup, for God's sake, for I am starving!"
The kind-hearted and chattering chorus of neighbors swooped down upon Antonia; some busied themselves in preparing the child's dinner; others tried as best they could to instill courage into the mother. She was very foolish to distress herself like this! Holy Virgin! It wasn't as though the brute had nothing to do but just walk in and kill her! There was a government, God be thanked, and the law courts, and the police; she could appeal to the authorities, to the mayor
"The mayor's no good!" she answered, with a gloomy look, in a hopeless tone.
"Or to the governor, or the regent, or the chief of the city council; you ought to go to a lawyer and find out what the law says."
One kind-hearted girl, married to a policeman, offered to send for her husband, "to give the scoundrel a good scare"; another, a swarthy, dauntless sort of woman, insisted on coming every night to sleep at the charwoman's house; in short, so many and so varied were the signs of interest shown by her neighbors that Antonia made up her mind to take a bold step, and without waiting for her counselors to adjourn, decided to consult a lawyer and find out what he advised.
When Antonia returned from the consultation, paler even than usual, from every basement and ground floor disheveled women emerged to hear the news, and exclamations of horror arose. Instead of protecting her, the law required the daughter of the murdered
