Henrik Ibsen - Doll's House

NORA

( In everyday dress .) Yes, Torvald, I have changed my things now.

HELMER

But what for?—so late as this.

NORA

I shall not sleep tonight.

HELMER

But, my dear Nora—

NORA

( Looking at her watch .) It is not so very late. Sit down here, Torvald. You and I have much to say to one another. ( She sits down at one side of the table .)

HELMER

Nora—what is this?—this cold, set face?

NORA

Sit down. It will take some time; I have a lot to talk over with you.

HELMER

( Sits down at the opposite side of the table .) You alarm me, Nora!—and I don’t understand you.

NORA

No, that is just it. You don’t understand me, and I have never understood you either—before tonight. No, you mustn’t interrupt me. You must simply listen to what I say. Torvald, this is a settling of accounts.

HELMER

What do you mean by that?

NORA

( After a short silence .) Isn’t there one thing that strikes you as strange in our sitting here like this?

HELMER

What is that?

NORA

We have been married now eight years. Does it not occur to you that this is the first time we two, you and I, husband and wife, have had a serious conversation?

HELMER

What do you mean by serious?

NORA

In all these eight years—longer than that—from the very beginning of our acquaintance, we have never exchanged a word on any serious subject.

HELMER

Was it likely that I would be continually and forever telling you about worries that you could not help me to bear?

NORA

I am not speaking about business matters. I say that we have never sat down in earnest together to try and get at the bottom of anything.

HELMER

But, dearest Nora, would it have been any good to you?

NORA

That is just it; you have never understood me. I have been greatly wronged, Torvald—first by papa and then by you.

HELMER

What! By us two—by us two, who have loved you better than anyone else in the world?

NORA

( Shaking her head .) You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me.

HELMER

Nora, what do I hear you saying?

NORA

It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you—

HELMER

What sort of an expression is that to use about our marriage?

NORA

( Undisturbed .) I mean that I was simply transferred from papa’s hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as your else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which—I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman—just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.

HELMER

How unreasonable and how ungrateful you are, Nora! Have you not been happy here?

NORA

No, I have never been happy. I thought I was, but it has never really been so.

HELMER

Not—not happy!

NORA

No, only merry. And you have always been so kind to me. But our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was papa’s doll-child; and here the children have been my dolls. I thought it great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it great fun when I played with them. That is what our marriage has been, Torvald.

HELMER

There is some truth in what you say—exaggerated and strained as your view of it is. But for the future it shall be different. Playtime shall be over, and lesson-time shall begin.

NORA

Whose lessons? Mine, or the children’s?

HELMER

Both yours and the children’s, my darling Nora.

NORA

Alas, Torvald, you are not the man to educate me into being a proper wife for you.

HELMER

And you can say that!

NORA

And I—how am I fitted to bring up the children?

HELMER

Nora!

NORA

Didn’t you say so yourself a little while ago—that you dare not trust me to bring them up?

HELMER

In a moment of anger! Why do you pay any heed to that?

NORA

Indeed, you were perfectly right. I am not fit for the task. There is another task I must undertake first. I must try and educate myself—you are not the man to help me in that. I must do that for myself. And that is why I am going to leave you now.

HELMER

( Springing up .) What do you say?

NORA

I must stand quite alone, if I am to understand myself and everything about me. It is for that reason that I cannot remain with you any longer.

HELMER

Nora, Nora!

NORA

I am going away from here now, at once. I am sure Christine will take me in for the night—

HELMER

You are out of your mind! I won’t allow it! 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.