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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 The lock-? HELMER I’m sure of it. What does it mean? I can’t think that the servants-? Here’s a broken hair-pin. Nora, it’s one of yours. NORA [Quickly.] It must have been the childrenHELMER Then you must break them of such tricks.- There! At last I’ve got it open. [Takes contents out and calls into the kitchen.] Ellen!- Ellen, just put the hall door lamp out. [He returns with letters in his hand, and shuts the inner door. HELMER Just see how they’ve accumulated. [Turning them over.] Why, what’s this? NORA[At the window.] The letter! Oh no, no, Torvald! HELMER Two visiting-cards-from Rank. NORA From Doctor Rank? HELMER [Looking at them.] Doctor Rank. They were on the top. He must just have put them in. NORA Is there anything on them? HELMER There’s a black cross over the name. Look at it. What an unpleasant idea! It looks just as if he were announcing his own death. NORA So he is. HELMER What! Do you know anything? Has he told you anything? NORA Yes. These cards mean that he has taken his last leave of us. He is going to shut himself up and die. HELMER Poor fellow! Of course I knew we couldn’t hope to keep him long. But so soon-! And to go and creep into his lair like a wounded animalNORA When we must go, it is best to go silently. Don’t you think so, Torvald? HELMER [Walking up and down.] He had so grown into our lives, I can’t realise that he is gone. He and his sufferings and his loneliness formed a sort of cloudy background to the sunshine of our happiness. Well, perhaps it’s best as it is-at any rate for him. [Stands still.] And perhaps for us too, Nora. Now we two are thrown entirely upon each other. [Takes her in his arms.] My darling wife! I feel as if I could never hold you close enough. Do you know, Nora, I often wish some danger might threaten you, that I might risk body and soul, and everything, everything, for your dear sake. NORA [Tears herself from him and says firmly.] Now you shall read your letters, Torvald. HELMER No, no; not to-night. I want to be with you, my sweet wife. NORA With the thought of your dying friend-? HELMER You are right. This has shaken us both. Unloveliness has come between us-thoughts of death and decay. We must seek to cast them off. Till then-we will remain apart. |
