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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 What! I don’t understandKROGSTAD Your father died on the 29 th of September. But look here: he has dated his signature October 2 nd ! Is not that remarkable, Mrs. Helmer? [NORA is silent.] Can you explain it? [NORA continues silent.] It is noteworthy, too, that the words “October 2 nd ” and the year are not in your father’s handwriting, but in one which I believe I know. Well, this may be explained; your father may have forgotten to date his signature, and somebody may have added the date at random, before the fact of your father’s death was known. There is nothing wrong in that. Everything depends on the signature. Of course it is genuine, Mrs. Helmer? It was really your father himself who wrote his name here? NORA [After a short silence, throws her head back and looks defiantly at him.] No, it was not. I wrote father’s name. KROGSTAD Ah!- Are you aware, madam, that that is a dangerous admission? NORA How so? You will soon get your money. KROGSTAD May I ask you one more question? Why did you not send the paper to your father? NORA It was impossible. Father was ill. If I had asked him for his signature, I should have had to tell him why I wanted the money; but he was so ill I really could not tell him that my husband’s life was in danger. It was impossible. KROGSTAD Then it would have been better to have given up your tour. NORA No, I couldn’t do that; my husband’s life depended on that journey. I couldn’t give it up. KROGSTAD And did it never occur to you that you were playing me false? NORA That was nothing to me. I didn’t care in the least about you. I couldn’t endure you for all the cruel difficulties you made, although you knew how ill my husband was. KROGSTAD Mrs. Helmer, you evidently do not realise what you have been guilty of. But I can assure you it was nothing more and nothing worse that made me an outcast from society. NORA You! You want me to believe that you did a brave thing to save your wife’s life? KROGSTAD The law takes no account of motives. NORA Then it must be a very bad law. KROGSTAD Bad or not, if I produce this document in court, you will be condemned according to law. NORA I don’t believe that. Do you mean to tell me that a daughter has no right to spare her dying father trouble and anxiety?- that a wife has no right to save her husband’s life? I don’t know much about the law, but I’m sure you’ll find, somewhere or another, that that is allowed. And you don’t know that-you, a lawyer! You must be a bad one, Mr. Krogstad. KROGSTAD Possibly. But business-such business as ours-I do understand. You believe that? Very well; now do as you please. But this I may tell you, that if I am flung into the gutter a second time, you shall keep me company. |
