A Doll’s House

I forbid you! Nora It is no use forbidding me anything any longer. I will take with me what belongs to myself. I will take nothing from you, either now or later. Helmer What sort of madness is this! Nora Tomorrow I shall go home⁠—I mean, to my old home. It will be easiest for me to find something to do there. Helmer You blind, foolish woman! Nora I must try and get some sense, Torvald. Helmer To desert your home, your husband and your children! And you don’t consider what people will say! Nora I cannot consider that at all. I only know that it is necessary for me. Helmer It’s shocking. This is how you would neglect your most sacred duties. Nora What do you consider my most sacred duties? Helmer Do I need to tell you that? Are they not your duties to your husband and your children? Nora I have other duties just as sacred. Helmer That you have not. What duties could those be? Nora Duties to myself. Helmer Before all else, you are a wife and a mother. Nora I don’t believe that any longer. I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are⁠—or, at all events, that I must try and become one. I know quite well, Torvald, that most people would think you right, and that views of that kind are to be found in books; but I can no longer content myself with what most people say, or with what is found in books. I must think over things for myself and get to understand them. Helmer Can you not understand your place in your own home? Have you not a reliable guide in such matters as that?⁠—have you no religion? Nora I am afraid, Torvald, I do not exactly know what religion is. Helmer What are you saying? Nora I know nothing but what the clergyman said, when I went to be confirmed. He told us that religion was this, and that, and the other. When I am away from all this, and am alone, I will look into that matter too. I will see if what the clergyman said is true, or at all events if it is true for me. Helmer This is unheard of in a girl of your age! But if religion cannot lead you aright, let me try and awaken your conscience. I suppose you have some moral sense? Or⁠—answer me⁠—am I to think you have none? Nora I assure you, Torvald, that is not an easy question to answer. I really don’t know. The thing perplexes me altogether. I only know that you and I look at it in quite a different light. I am learning, too, that the law is quite another thing from what I supposed; but I find it impossible to convince myself that the law is right. According to it a woman has no right to spare her old dying father, or to save her husband’s life. I can’t believe that. Helmer You talk like a child. You don’t understand the conditions of the world in which you live. Nora No, I don’t. But now I am going to try. I am going to see if I can make out who is right, the world or I. Helmer You are ill, Nora; you are delirious; I almost think you are out of your mind. Nora I have never felt my mind so clear and certain as tonight. Helmer And is it with a clear and certain mind that you forsake your husband and your children? Nora Yes, it is. Helmer Then there is only one possible explanation. Nora What is that? Helmer You do not love me anymore. Nora No, that is just it. Helmer Nora!⁠—and you can say that? Nora It gives me great pain, Torvald, for you have always been so kind to me, but I cannot help it. I do not love you any more. Helmer Regaining his composure. Is that a clear and certain conviction too? Nora Yes, absolutely clear and certain. That is the reason why I will not stay here any longer. Helmer And can you tell me what I have done to forfeit your love? Nora Yes, indeed I can. It was tonight, when the wonderful thing did not happen; then I saw you were not the man I had thought you were. Helmer Explain yourself better. I don’t understand you. Nora I have waited so patiently for eight years; for, goodness knows, I knew very well that wonderful things don’t happen every day. Then this horrible misfortune came upon me; and then I felt quite certain that the wonderful thing was going to happen at last. When Krogstad’s letter was lying out there, never for a moment did I imagine that you would consent to accept this man’s conditions. I was so absolutely certain that you would say to him: Publish the thing to the whole world. And when that was done⁠— Helmer Yes, what then?⁠—when I had exposed my wife to shame and disgrace? Nora When that was done, I was so absolutely certain, you would come forward and take everything upon yourself, and say: I am the guilty one. Helmer Nora⁠—! Nora You mean that I would never have accepted such a sacrifice on your part? No, of course not. But what would my assurances have been worth against yours? That was the wonderful thing which I hoped for and feared; and it was to prevent that, that I wanted to kill myself. Helmer I would gladly work night and day for you, Nora⁠—bear sorrow and want for your sake. But no man would sacrifice his honour for the one he loves. Nora It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done. Helmer Oh, you think and talk like a heedless child. Nora Maybe. But you neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over⁠—and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you⁠—when the whole thing was past, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened. Exactly as before, I was your