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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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NORA Well, and besides that, I made money in other ways. Last winter I was so lucky- I got a heap of copying to do. I shut myself up every evening and wrote far into the night. Oh, sometimes I was so tired, so tired. And yet it was splendid to work in that way and earn money. I almost felt as if I was a man. MRS. LINDEN Then how much have you been able to pay off? NORA Well, I can’t precisely say. It’s difficult to keep that sort of business clear. I only know that I’ve paid everything I could scrape together. Sometimes I really didn’t know where to turn. [Smiles.] Then I used to sit here and pretend that a rich old gentleman was in love with meMRS. LINDEN What! gentleman? NORA Oh, nobody!- that he was dead now, and that when his will was opened, there stood in large letters: “Pay over at once everything of which I die possessed to that charming person, Mrs. Nora Helmer.” MRS. LINDEN But, my dear Nora-what gentleman do you mean? NORA Oh dear, can’t you understand? There wasn’t any old gentleman: it was only what I used to dream and dream when I was at my wits’ end for money. But it doesn’t matter now-the tiresome old creature may stay where he is for me. I care nothing for him or his will; for now my troubles are over. [Springing up.] Oh, Christina, how glorious it is to think of! Free from all anxiety! Free, quite free. To be able to play and romp about with the children; to have things tasteful and pretty in the house, exactly as Torvald likes it! And then the spring will soon be here, with the great blue sky. Perhaps then we shall have a little holiday. Perhaps I shall see the sea again. Oh, what a wonderful thing it is to live and to be happy! [The hall-door bell rings. MRS. LINDEN[Rising.] There’s a ring. Perhaps I had better go. NORA No; do stay. No one will come here. It’s sure to be some one for Torvald. ELLEN[In the doorway.] If you please, ma’am, there’s a gentleman to speak to Mr. Helmer. NORA Who is the gentleman? KROGSTAD[In the doorway.] It is I, Mrs. Helmer. [MRS. LINDEN starts and turns away to the window.] NORA [Goes a step towards him, anxiously, speaking low.] You? What is it? What do you want with my husband? KROGSTAD Bank business-in a way. I hold a small post in the Joint Stock Bank, and your husband is to be our new chief, I hear. NORA Then it is-? KROGSTAD Only tiresome business, Mrs. Helmer; nothing more. NORA Then will you please go to his study. [KROGSTAD goes. She bows indifferently while she closes the door into the hall. Then she goes to the stove and looks to the fire.] MRS. LINDEN Nora-who was that man? NORA A Mr. Krogstad-a lawyer. MRS. LINDEN Then it was really he? NORA Do you know him? MRS. LINDEN I used to know him-many years ago. He was in a lawyer’s office in our town. |
