Eyolf.
[Involuntarily, a little timidly.] Why did they have to?
The Rat-Wife.
What?
Eyolf.
To bite it?
The Rat-Wife.
Why, because they couldn't keep body and soul together on account of the rats and all the little rat-children, you see, young master.
Rita.
Ugh! Poor people! Have they so many of them?
The Rat-Wife.
Yes, it was all alive and swarming with them. [Laughs with quiet glee.] They came creepy-crawly up into the beds all night long. They plumped into the milk-cans, and they went pittering and pattering all over the floor, backwards and forwards, and up and down.
Eyolf.
[Softly, to Asta.] I shall never go there, Auntie.
The Rat-Wife.
But then I came—I, and another along with me. And we took them with us, every one—the sweet little creatures! We made an end of every one of them.
