The Rats is a stage drama in five acts by German dramatist Gerhart Hauptmann, which premiered in 1911, one year before the author received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Mrs Jette John, housekeeper to Harro Hassenreuter, an ex-theatre manager, scolds the pregnant but unmarried Pauline for wanting to return to a worthless lover intending to forget about her.
Childless after having lost Adelbert, her own baby, three years ago, Jette proposes to take care of it herself despite being forced to live under conditions of "mildew an' insec'-powder".
Jette convinces her husband, Paul, that she has given birth while he was out of town at work as a foreman-mason and has taken the baby to his married sister's home in the country.
"They knows at the police station that Bruno was seen in company o' the Polish girl what wanted to claim this here child, first right outside o' the door here an' then at a certain place on Shore street where the tanners sometimes looses their soakin' hides," he reveals.
An' then ... then I got a little bit excited too- an' then, well ... that's how it come ..." Knowing that Erich and Walpurga love each other, Teresa, Harro's wife, tries to intervene on their behalf before her husband.
He reveals to Jette that Sidonie's baby is dead, as well as the news that police officers have discovered that she never went with the boy to her husband's sister, having been seen by the park near the river.
Paul is tired of living in a rat-infested house and decides to bring the baby over to his sister, but Jette reveals that the child is not his.
Sidonie's daughter, Selma, arrives and informs them that the police have concluded that she brought down Pauline's baby from Harro's loft to her.