Henrik Ibsen

“ Mrs. Alving. Do not let us talk in such general terms. Let us ask: Ought Oswald to love and honour Chamberlain Alving?
Manders. Is there no voice in your mother’s heart that forbids you to destroy your son’s ideals?
Mrs. Alving. But what about the truth?
Manders. But what about the ideals?
Mrs. Alving. Oh—ideals, ideals! If only I were not such a coward!
Manders. Do not despise ideals, Mrs. Alving; they will avenge themselves cruelly. Take Oswald’s case: he, unfortunately, seems to have few enough ideals as it is; but I can see that his father stands before him as an ideal. ”

“ I was your lark again, your doll, just as before—whom you would take twice as much care of in future, because she was so weak and fragile. [Stands up.] Torvald—in that moment it burst upon me that I had been living here these eight years with a strange man, and had borne him three children.—Oh, I can’t bear to think of it! I could tear myself to pieces!
Helmer. [Sadly.] I see it, I see it; an abyss has opened between us.—But, Nora, can it never be filled up?
Nora. As I now am, I am no wife for you.
Helmer. I have strength to become another man. ”

“ Nora. Then I firmly believed that you would come forward, take everything upon yourself, and say, “I am the guilty one.”
Helmer. Nora——!
Nora. You mean I would never have accepted such a sacrifice? No, certainly not. But what would my assertions have been worth in opposition to yours?—That was the miracle that I hoped for and dreaded. And it was to hinder that that I wanted to die.
Helmer. I would gladly work for you day and night, Nora—bear sorrow and want for your sake. But no man sacrifices his honour, even for one he loves.
Nora. Millions of women have done so. ”

“ Unloveliness has come between us—thoughts of death and decay. We must seek to cast them off. Till then—we will remain apart.
Nora. [Her arms round his neck.] Torvald! Goodnight! good-night!
Helmer. [Kissing her forehead!] Good-night, my little song-bird. Sleep well, Nora. Now I shall go and read my letters.
[He goes with the letters in his hand into his room and shuts the door.
Nora. [With wild eyes, gropes about her, seizes Helmer’s domino, throws it round her, and whispers quickly, hoarsely, and brokenly.] Never to see him again. Never, never, never. [Throws her shawl over her head.] ”

“ Nora. No, indeed you mustn’t. Of course you must come and go as you’ve always done. You know very well that Torvald can’t do without you.
Rank. Yes, but you?
Nora. Oh, you know I always like to have you here.
Rank. That is just what led me astray. You are a riddle to me. It has often seemed to me as if you liked being with me almost as much as being with Helmer.
Nora. Yes; don’t you see? There are people one loves, and others one likes to talk to. ”

“ Nora. Nobody has such perfect taste as you; and I should so love to look well at the fancy ball. Torvald, dear, couldn’t you take me in hand, and settle what I’m to be, and arrange my costume for me?
Helmer. Aha! So my wilful little woman is at a loss, and making signals of distress.
Nora. Yes, please, Torvald. I can’t get on without your help.
Helmer. Well, well, I’ll think it over, and we’ll soon hit upon something.
Nora. Oh, how good that is of you! [Goes to the tree again; pause.] How well the red flowers show.—Tell me, was it anything so very dreadful this Krogstad got into trouble about? ”

“ The tarantella scene never, in my experience—and I have seen five or six great actresses in the part—produced an effect in any degree commensurate with the effort involved. But when Nora and Helmer faced each other, one on each side of the table, and set to work to ravel out the skein of their illusions, then one felt oneself face to face with a new thing in drama—an order of experience, at once intellectual and emotional, not hitherto attained in the theatre. ”

“ Can you deny it, Nora dear? [He puts his arm round her.] It’s a sweet little lark, but it gets through a lot of money. No one would believe how much it costs a man to keep such a little bird as you.
Nora. For shame! How can you say so? Why, I save as much as ever I can.
Helmer. [Laughing.] Very true—as much as you can—but that’s precisely nothing.
Nora. [Hums and smiles with covert glee.] H’m! If you only knew, Torvald, what expenses we larks and squirrels have. ”

“ To forsake your home, your husband, and your children! And you don’t consider what the world will say.
Nora. I can pay no heed to that. I only know that I must do it.
Helmer. This is monstrous! Can you forsake your holiest duties in this way?
Nora. What do you consider my holiest duties?
Helmer. Do I need to tell you that? Your duties to your husband and your children.
Nora. I have other duties equally sacred.
Helmer. Impossible! What duties do you mean?
Nora. My duties towards myself.
Helmer. Before all else you are a wife and a mother.
Nora. That I no longer believe. ”

“ Helmer. Seriously! What do you call seriously?
Nora. During eight whole years, and more—ever since the day we first met—we have never exchanged one serious word about serious things.
Helmer. Was I always to trouble you with the cares you could not help me to bear?
143Nora. I am not talking of cares. I say that we have never yet set ourselves seriously to get to the bottom of anything.
Helmer. Why, my dearest Nora, what have you to do with serious things?
Nora. There we have it! You have never understood me.—I have had great injustice done me, Torvald; first by father, and then by you. ”

“ Manders. Lives with—his children’s mother!
Oswald. Yes. Would you have him turn his children’s mother out of doors?
Manders. Then it is illicit relations you are talking of! Irregular marriages, as people call them!
Oswald. I have never noticed anything particularly irregular about the life these people lead.
Manders. But how is it possible that a—a young man or young woman with any decency of feeling can endure to live in that way?—in the eyes of all the world!
Oswald. What are they to do? A poor young artist—a poor girl—marriage costs a great deal. What are they to do? ”

“ Nora. I can tell you nothing now.
Rank. Yes, yes! You mustn’t punish me in that way. Let me do for you whatever a man can.
Nora. You can do nothing for me now.—Besides, I really want no help. You shall see it was only my fancy. Yes, it must be so. Of course! [Sits in the rocking-chair, looks at him and smiles.] You are a nice person, Doctor Rank! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, now that the lamp is on the table? ”

“ Linden. Nils, how if we two shipwrecked people could join hands?
Krogstad. What!
Mrs. Linden. Two on a raft have a better chance than if each clings to a separate spar.
Krogstad. Christina!
115Mrs. Linden. What do you think brought me to town?
Krogstad. Had you any thought of me?
Mrs. Linden. I must have work or I can’t bear to live. All my life, as long as I can remember, I have worked; work has been my one great joy. Now I stand quite alone in the world, aimless and forlorn. There is no happiness in working for one’s self. Nils, give me somebody and something to work for. ”

“ Nora. Yes, yes; for my sake, you must let Krogstad keep his place in the Bank.
Helmer. My dear Nora, it’s his place I intend for Mrs. Linden.
Nora. Yes, that’s so good of you. But instead of Krogstad, you could dismiss some other clerk.
Helmer. Why, this is incredible obstinacy! Because you have thoughtlessly promised to put in a word for him, I am to——!
Nora. It’s not that, Torvald. It’s for your own sake. This man writes for the most scurrilous newspapers; you said so yourself. He can do you no end of harm. I’m so terribly afraid of him——
Helmer. ”

“ Alving. You know very well what sort of life Alving was leading—what excesses he was guilty of.
Manders. I know very well what rumours there were about him; and I am the last to approve the life he led in his young days, if report did not wrong him. But a wife is not appointed to be her husband’s judge. It was your duty to bear with humility the cross which a Higher Power had, in its wisdom, laid upon you. ”

“ Nora. Well, Torvald, it’s not easy to say. I really don’t know—I am all at sea about these things. I only know that I think quite differently from 149you about them. I hear, too, that the laws are different from what I thought; but I can’t believe that they can be right. It appears that a woman has no right to spare her dying father, or to save her husband’s life! I don’t believe that.
Helmer. You talk like a child. You don’t understand the society in which you live.
Nora. No, I do not. But now I shall try to learn. I must make up my mind which is right—society or I.
Helmer. ”

“ Oh, Christina, I feel so lighthearted and happy! It’s delightful to have lots of money, and no need to worry about things, isn’t it?
Mrs. Linden. Yes; at any rate it must be delightful to have what you need.
Nora. No, not only what you need, but heaps of money—heaps!
Mrs. Linden. [Smiling.] Nora, Nora, haven’t you learnt reason yet? In our schooldays you were a shocking little spendthrift.
Nora. [Quietly smiling.] Yes; that’s what Torvald says I am still. [Holding up her forefinger.] But “Nora, Nora” is not so silly as you all think. Oh! I haven’t had the chance to be much of a spendthrift. ”

“ Mrs. Linden. When you introduced us yesterday he said he had often heard my name; but I noticed afterwards that your husband had no notion who I was. How could Doctor Rank——?
Nora. He was quite right, Christina. You see, Torvald loves me so indescribably, he wants to have me all to himself, as he says. When we were first married he was almost jealous if I even mentioned any of my old friends at home; so naturally I gave up doing it. But I often talk of the old times to Doctor Rank, for he likes to hear about them.
Mrs. Linden. Listen to me, Nora! You are still a child in many ways. ”

“ Every breath the children draw contains some germ of evil.
Nora. [Closer behind him.] Are you sure of that?
Helmer. As a lawyer, my dear, I have seen it often enough. Nearly all cases of early corruption may be traced to lying mothers.
Nora. Why—mothers?
Helmer. It generally comes from the mother’s side; but of course the father’s influence may act in the same way. Every lawyer knows it too well. And here has this Krogstad been poisoning his own children for years past by a life of lies and hypocrisy—that is why I call him morally ruined. ”

“ Krogstad. Nor you me. People don’t do that sort of thing, Mrs. Helmer. And, after all, what would be the use of it? I have your husband in my pocket, all the same.
Nora. Afterwards? When I am no longer——?
Krogstad. You forget, your reputation remains in my hands! [Nora stands speechless and looks at him.] Well, now you are prepared. Do nothing foolish. As soon as Helmer has received my letter, I shall expect to hear from him. And remember that it is your husband himself who has forced me back again into such paths. That I will never forgive him. Good-bye, Mrs. Helmer. ”

“ Helmer. Nora, Nora! What a woman you are! But seriously, Nora, you know my principles on these points. No debts! No borrowing! Home life ceases to be free and beautiful as soon as it is founded on borrowing and debt. We two have held out bravely till now, and we are not going to give in at the last.
Nora. [Going to the fireplace.] Very well—as you please, Torvald.
Helmer. [Following her.] Come come; my little lark mustn’t droop her wings like that. What? Is my squirrel in the sulks? [Takes out his purse.] Nora, what do you think I have here?
7Nora. [Turning round quickly.] Money! ”

“ Krogstad. Only to see how you are getting on, Mrs. Helmer. I’ve been thinking about you all day. Even a mere money-lender, a gutter-journalist, a—in short, a creature like me—has a little bit of what people call feeling.
Nora. Then show it; think of my little children.
Krogstad. Did you and your husband think of mine? But enough of that. ”

“ The action moves a little stiffly, and all in one rhythm. It lacks variety and suppleness. Moreover, the play affords some slight excuse for the criticism which persists in regarding Ibsen as a preacher rather than as a creator—an author who cares more for ideas and doctrines than for human beings. Though Mrs. Alving, Engstrand and Regina are rounded and breathing characters, it cannot be denied that Manders strikes one as a clerical type rather than an individual, while even Oswald might not quite unfairly be described as simply and solely his father’s son, an object-lesson in heredity. ”

“ And I couldn’t let the children go about badly dressed; all I got for them, I spent on them, the blessed darlings!
Mrs. Linden. Poor Nora! So it had to come out of your own pocket-money.
Nora. Yes, of coursecourse. After all, the whole thing was my doing. When Torvald gave me money for clothes, and so on, I never spent more than half of it; I always bought the simplest and cheapest things. It’s a mercy that everything suits me so well—Torvald never had any suspicions. But it was often very hard, Christina dear. For it’s nice to be beautifully dressed—now, isn’t it? ”

“ Alving. Ah——!
Manders. You have been all your life under the dominion of a pestilent spirit of self-will. The whole bias of your mind has been towards insubordination 204and lawlessness. You have never known how to endure any bond. Everything that has weighed upon you in life you have cast away without care or conscience, like a burden you were free to throw off at will. It did not please you to be a wife any longer, and you left your husband. You found it troublesome to be a mother, and you sent your child forth among strangers. ”

“ Nora. Mayn’t he have been driven to it by need?
Helmer. Yes; or, like so many others, he may have done it in pure heedlessness. I am not so hard-hearted as to condemn a man absolutely for a single fault. ”