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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 Yes, so he was. MRS. LINDEN How he has changed! NORA I believe his marriage was unhappy. MRS. LINDEN And he is a widower now? NORA With a lot of children. There! Now it will burn up. [She closes the stove, and pushes the rocking-chair a little aside.] MRS. LINDEN His business is not of the most creditable, they say? NORA Isn’t it? I daresay not. I don’t know. But don’t let us think of business-it’s so tiresome. [DR. RANK comes out of HELMER’S room.] RANK[Still in the doorway.] No, no; I’m in your way. I shall go and have a chat with your wife. [Shuts the door and sees MRS.LINDEN.] Oh, I beg your pardon. I’m in the way here too. NORA No, not in the least. [Introduces them.] Doctor Rank-Mrs.Linden. RANK Oh, indeed; I’ve often heard Mrs. Linden’s name; I think I passed you on the stairs as I came up. MRS. LINDEN Yes; I go so very slowly. Stairs try me so much. RANK Ah-you are not very strong? MRS. LINDEN Only overworked. RANK Nothing more? Then no doubt you’ve come to town to find rest in a round of dissipation? MRS. LINDEN I have come to look for employment. RANK Is that an approved remedy for overwork? MRS. LINDEN One must live, Doctor Rank. RANK Yes, that seems to be the general opinion. NORA Come, Doctor Rank-you want to live yourself. RANK To be sure I do. However wretched I may be, I want to drag on as long as possible. All my patients, too, have the same mania. And it’s the same with people whose complaint is moral. At this very moment Helmer is talking to just such a moral incurableMRS. LINDEN [Softly.] Ah! NORA Whom do you mean? RANK Oh, a fellow named Krogstad, a man you know nothing aboutcorrupt to the very core of his character. But even he began by announcing, as a matter of vast importance, that he must live. NORA Indeed? And what did he want with Torvald? RANK I haven’t an idea; I only gathered that it was some bank business. NORA I didn’t know that Krog-that this Mr. Krogstad had anything to do with the Bank? RANK Yes. He has got some sort of place there. [To MRS. LINDEN.] I don’t know whether in your part of the country, you have people who go grubbing and sniffing around in search of moral rottenness-and then, when they have found a “case,” don’t rest till they have got their man into some good position, where they can keep a watch upon him. Men with a clean bill of health they leave out in the cold. |
