Source Text: DOLL3.5Helmer: You're out of your mind! You can't do this! I forbid you!
Nora: It's no use trying to forbid me any more. I shall take with me nothing but what is mine. I don't want anything from you, now or ever.
Helmer: What kind of madness is this?
Nora: Tomorrow I shall go home -- I mean, to where I was born. It'll be easiest for me to find some kind of a job there.
Helmer: But you're blind! You've no experience of the world --
Nora: I must try to get some, Torvald.
Helmer: But to leave your home, your husband, your children! Have you thought what people will say?
Nora: I can't help that. I only know that I must do this.
Helmer: But this is monstrous! Can you neglect your most sacred duties?
Nora: What do you call my most sacred duties?
Helmer: Do I have to tell you? Your duties towards your husband, and your children.
Nora: I have another duty which is equally sacred.
Helmer: You have not. What on earth could that be?
Nora: My duty towards myself.
Helmer: First and foremost you are a wife and a mother.
Nora: I don't believe that any longer. I believe that I am first and foremost a human being, like you -- or anyway, that I must try to become one. I know most people think as you do, Torvald, and I know there's something of the sort to be found in books. But I'm no longer prepared to accept what people say and what's written in books. I must think things our for myself, and try to find my own answer.
Helmer: Do you need to ask where your duty lies in your own home? Haven't you an infallible guide in such matter -- your religion?
Nora: Oh, Torvald, I don't really know what religion means.
Helmer: What are you saying?
Nora: I only know what Pastor Hansen told me when I went to confirmation. He explained that religion meant this and that. When I get away from all this and can think things out on my own, that's one of the questions I want to look into. I want to find out whether what Pastor Hansen said was right -- or anyway, whether it is right for me.
Helmer: But it's unheard of for so young a woman to behave like this! If religion cannot guide you, let me at least appeal to your conscience. I presume you have some moral feelings left? Or --perhaps you haven't? Well, answer me.
Nora: Oh, Torvald, that isn't an easy question to answer. I simply don't know. I don't know where I am in these matters. I only know that these things mean something quite different to me from what they do to you. I've learned now that certain laws are different from what I'd imagined them to be; but I can't accept that such laws can be right. Has a woman really not the right to spare her dying father pain, or save her husband's life? I can't believe that.
Helmer: You're talking like a child. You don't understand how society works.
Nora: No, I don't. But now I intend to learn. I must try to satisfy myself which is right, society or I.
Helmer: Nora, you're ill; you're feverish. I almost believe you're out of your mind.
Nora: I've never felt so sane and sure in my life.
Helmer: You feel sure that it is right to leave your husband and your children?
Nora: Yes. I do.
Helmer: Then there is only one possible explanation.
Nora: What?
Helmer: That you don't love me any longer.
Nora: No, that's exactly it.
Helmer: Nora! How can you say this to me?
Nora: Oh, Torvald, it hurts me terribly to have to say it, because you've always been so kind to me. But I can't help it. I don't love you any longer.
Helmer: And you feel quite sure about this too?
Nora: Yes, absolutely sure. That's why I can't go on living here any longer.
Helmer: Can you also explain why I have lost your love?
Nora: Yes, I can. It happened this evening, when the miracle failed to happen. It was then that I realized you weren't the man I'd thought you to be.
Helmer: Explain more clearly. I don't understand you.
Nora: I've waited so patiently, for eight whole years -- well, good heavens, I'm not such a fool as to suppose that miracles occur every day. Then this dreadful thing happened to me, and then I knew: "Now the miracle will take place!" When Krogstad's letter was lying out there, it never occurred to me for a moment that you would let that man trample over you. I knew that you would say to him: "Publish the facts to the world." And when he had done this --
Helmer: Yes, what then? When I'd exposed my wife's name to shame and scandal --
Nora: Then I was certain that you would step forward and take all the blame on yourself, and say: "I am the one who is guilty!"
Helmer: Nora!
Nora: You're thinking I wouldn't have accepted such a sacrifice from you? No, of course I wouldn't! But what would my word have counted for against yours? That was the miracle I was hoping for, and dreading. And it was to prevent it happening that I wanted to end my life.
Helmer: Nora, I would gladly work for you night and day, and endure sorrow and hardship for your sake. But no man can be expected to sacrifice his honour, even for the person he loves.
Nora: Millions of women have done it.
Helmer: Oh, you think and talk like a stupid child.
Nora: That may be. But you neither think nor talk like the man I could share my life with. Once you'd got over your fright -- and you weren't frightened of what might threaten me, but only of what threatened you -- once the danger was past, then as far as you were concerned it was exactly as though nothing has happened. I was your little songbird just as before -- your doll whom henceforth you would take particular care to protect from the world because she was so weak and fragile. Torvald, in that moment I realized that for eight years I have been living here with a complete stranger, and have borne him three children -- ! Oh, I can't bear to think of it! I could tear myself to pieces!
Helmer: I see it, I see it. A gulf has indeed opened between us. Oh, but Nora -- couldn't it be bridged?
Nora: As I am now, I am no wife for you.
Helmer: I have the strength to change.
Nora: Perhaps -- if your doll is taken from you.
Helmer: But to be parted -- to be parted from you! No, no, Nora, I can't conceive of it happening!
Nora: All the more necessary that it should happen.
Helmer: Nora, Nora, not now! Wait till tomorrow!
Nora: I can't spend the night in a strange man's house.
Helmer: But we can't live as brother and sister, then -- ?
Nora: You know quite well it wouldn't last. Goodbye, Torvald. I don't want to see the children. I know they're in better hands than mine. As I am now, I can be nothing to them.
Helmer: But some time, Nora -- some time -- ?
Nora: How can I tell? I've no idea what will happen to me.
Helmer: But you are my wife, both as you are and as you will be.
Nora: Listen, Torvald. When a wife leaves her husband's house, as I'm doing now, I'm told that according to the law he is freed of any obligations towards her. In any case, I release you from any such obligations. You mustn't feel bound to me in any way, however small, just as I shall not feel bound to you. We must both be quite free. Here is your ring back. Give me mine.
Helmer: That too?
Nora: That too.
Helmer: Here it is.
Nora: Good. Well, now it's over. I'll leave the keys here. The servants know about everything to do with the house -- much better than I do. Tomorrow, when I have left town, Christine will come to pack the things I brought here from home. I'll have them sent on after me.
Helmer: This is the end then! Nora, will you never think of me any more?
Nora: Yes, of course. I shall often think of you and the children and this house.
Helmer: May I write to you, Nora?
Nora: No. Never. You mustn't do that.
Helmer: But at least you must let me send you --
Nora: Nothing. Nothing.
Helmer: But if you should need help -- ?
Nora: I tell you, no. I don't accept things from strangers.
Helmer: Nora -- can I never be anything but a stranger to you?
Nora: Oh, Torvald! Then the miracle of miracles would have to happen.
Helmer: The miracle of miracles?
Nora: You and I would have to change so much that -- oh, Torvald, I don't believe in miracles any longer.
Helmer: But I want to believe in them. Tell me. We should have to change so much that -- ?
Nora: That life together between us two could become a marriage. Goodbye.
Helmer: Nora! Nora! Empty! She's gone! The miracle of miracles -- ?