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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 [Laughs and swings her tambourine.] Didn’t I tell you so! RANK Let me play for her. HELMER [Rising.] Yes, do-then I can direct her better. [RANK sits down to the piano and plays; NORA dances more and more wildly. HELMER stands by the stove and addresses frequent corrections to her; she seems not to hear. Her hair breaks loose, and falls over her shoulders. She does not notice it, but goes on dancing. MRS. LINDEN enters and stands spellbound in the doorway. MRS. LINDEN Ah-! NORA [Dancing.] We’re having such fun here, Christina! HELMER Why, Nora dear, you’re dancing as if it were a matter of life and death. NORA So it is. HELMER Rank, stop! This is the merest madness. Stop, I say! [RANK stops playing, and NORA comes to a sudden standstill. HELMER [Going towards her.] I couldn’t have believed it. You’ve positively forgotten all I taught you. NORA[Throws the tambourine away.] You see for yourself. HELMER You really do want teaching. NORA Yes, you see how much I need it. You must practise with me up to the last moment. Will you promise me, Torvald? HELMER Certainly, certainly. NORA Neither to-day nor to-morrow must you think of anything but me. You mustn’t open a single letter-mustn’t look at the letter-box. HELMER Ah, you’re still afraid of that manNORA Oh yes, yes, I am. HELMER Nora, I can see it in your face-there’s a letter from him in the box. NORA I don’t know, I believe so. But you’re not to read anything now; nothing ugly must come between us until all is over. RANK [Softly, to HELMER.] You mustn’t contradict her. HELMER [Putting his arm around her.] The child shall have her own way. But to- morrow night, when the dance is overNORA Then you shall be free. ELLEN appears in the doorway, right. ELLEN Dinner is on the table, ma’am. NORA We’ll have some champagne, Ellen. ELLEN Yes, ma’am. [Goes out. HELMER Dear me! Quite a banquet. NORA Yes, and we’ll keep it up till morning. [Calling out.] And macaroons, Ellen-plenty-just this once. HELMER [Seizing her hand.] Come, come, don’t let us have this wild excitement! Be my own little lark again. NORA Oh yes, I will. But now go into the dining-room; and you too, Doctor Rank. Christina, you must help me to do up my hair. |
