KARIN. Do you think they'll eat me? [She goes up to the gateway and putts a string; a bell is heard ringing inside] Listen! That's the old vesper bell! I know it! Bing-bong! Bing-bong!
AGDA. Stop it! Somebody might come.
KARIN. Isn't that what we want? But no one does come, my dear.—It's a gruesome place. And I shall leave it alone now.—Do you know Prince Eric, Agda?
AGDA. Yes, it was on his account they closed up the Blue Dove. Now I am working over there, at the Golden Apple.
KARIN. They say that he used to be very polite to you.
AGDA. No, he was most impolite, not to say nasty.
KARIN. He had been drinking then. Otherwise he is merely miserable, they say.
AGDA. Do you know him?
KARIN. No, I have only seen him, but I cannot forget his sad eyes and his long face. He looks so much like a doll I had once—I called it Blinkie Bloodless.... I suppose they are not kind to him at home, either.
AGDA. Probably not, but a man has no right to act like a brute because he is unhappy.