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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 You won’t tell my husband that I owe you money? KROGSTAD H’m; suppose I were to? NORA It would be shameful of you. [With tears in her voice.] The secret that is my joy and my pride-that he should learn it in such an ugly, coarse way-and from you. It would involve me in all sorts of unpleasantnessKROGSTAD Only unpleasantness? NORA [Hotly.] But just do it. It’s you that will come off worst, for then my husband will see what a bad man you are, and then you certainly won’t keep your place. KROGSTAD I asked whether it was only domestic unpleasantness you feared? NORA If my husband gets to know about it, he will of course pay you off at once, and then we shall have nothing more to do with you. KROGSTAD[Coming a pace nearer.] Listen, Mrs. Helmer: either your memory is defective, or you don’t know much about business. I must make the position a little clearer to you. NORA How so? KROGSTAD When your husband was ill, you came to me to borrow twelve hundred dollars. NORA I knew of nobody else. KROGSTAD I promised to find you the moneyNORA And you did find it. KROGSTAD I promised to find you the money, on certain conditions. You were so much taken up at the time about your husband’s illness, and so eager to have the wherewithal for your journey, that you probably did not give much thought to the details. Allow me to remind you of them. I promised to find you the amount in exchange for a note of hand, which I drew up. NORA Yes, and I signed it. KROGSTAD Quite right. But then I added a few lines, making your father security for the debt. Your father was to sign this. NORA Was to-? He did sign it! KROGSTAD I had left the date blank. That is to say, your father was himself to date his signature. Do you recollect that? NORA Yes, I believeKROGSTAD Then I gave you the paper to send to your father, by post. Is not that so? NORA Yes. KROGSTAD And of course you did so at once; for within five or six days you brought me back the document with your father’s signature; and I handed you the money. NORA Well? Have I not made my payments punctually? KROGSTAD Fairly-yes. But to return to the point: You were in great trouble at the time, Mrs. Helmer. NORA I was indeed! KROGSTAD Your father was very ill, I believe? NORA He was on his death-bed. KROGSTAD And died soon after? NORA Yes. KROGSTAD Tell me, Mrs. Helmer: do you happen to recollect the day of his death? The day of the month, I mean? NORA Father died on the 29 th of September. KROGSTAD Quite correct. I have made inquiries. And here comes in the remarkable point [Produces a paper.] which I cannot explain. NORA What remarkable point? I don’t knowKROGSTAD The remarkable point, madam, that your father signed this paper three days after his death! |
