by Henrik Ibsen
NORA: Yes, nobody’s to admire me in my full glory before tomorrow.
HELMER: But, Nora dear, you look quite exhausted. Have you been practising too hard?
NORA: No, I’ve not practised at all yet.
HELMER: Well, it’ll be necessary –
NORA: Yes, it’ll be absolutely necessary, Torvald. But I can’t get anywhere without your help; I’ve completely forgotten it all.
HELMER: Oh, we’ll soon brush it up.
NORA: Yes, do take me in hand, Torvald. Will you promise? Oh, I’m so nervous. All those people –. You must sacrifice yourself to me totally this evening. Not a scrap of work; no pen in hand. Hmm? You agree, Torvald dear?
HELMER: I promise you; this evening I shall be totally and utterly at your service – you helpless little thing. – Hmm, but that’s true, there’s just one thing I have to do first – [Goes towards the door to the hall.]
NORA: What are you looking for out there?
HELMER: Just looking to see if any letters have come.
NORA: No, no, don’t do that, Torvald!
HELMER: What now?
NORA: Torvald, I beg you; there aren’t any.
HELMER: Just let me look. [Wanting to go.]
NORA at the piano, plays the first few bars of the tarantella.
HELMER [at the door, stops]: Aha!
NORA: I can’t dance tomorrow if I don’t practise with you.
HELMER [goes over to her]: Are you really that anxious, Nora dear?
NORA: Yes, extremely anxious. Let me practise immediately; there’s still time before we have dinner. Oh, sit down and play for me, dear Torvald; correct me, instruct me as you always do.
HELMER: With pleasure, the greatest pleasure, since that’s your wish.
He sits down at the piano.
NORA [grabs the tambourine from the box as well as a long, multi-coloured shawl, which she drapes round herself hurriedly; then she leaps into the middle of the room, stands waiting and calls out]: Now play for me! I want to dance now!
HELMER plays and NORA dances; DR RANK stands at the piano behind HELMER and looks on.
HELMER [playing]: Slower – slower.
NORA: Can’t do it differently.
HELMER: Not so fiercely, Nora!
NORA: It has to be this way.
HELMER [stops]: No, no, this really won’t do.
NORA [laughs and swings the tambourine]: Wasn’t that what I told you?
RANK: Let me play for her.
HELMER [gets up]: Yes do; then I can instruct her better.
RANK sits down at the piano and plays. NORA dances increasingly wildly. HELMER has placed himself by the stove and issues her with corrections regularly throughout the dance; she seems not to hear; her hair comes down and falls over her shoulders; she takes no notice, but goes on dancing.
MRS LINDE comes in.
MRS LINDE [stands by the door, dumbstruck]: Ah –!
NORA [dancing]: See what fun this is, Kristine!
HELMER: But, my dear sweet Nora, you’re dancing as if your life depended on it.
NORA: And so it does.
HELMER: Rank, stop; this is sheer madness. Stop, I say.
RANK stops playing, and NORA suddenly stands still.
HELMER [goes over to her]: I’d never have believed this. You really have forgotten everything I taught you.
NORA [throws down the tambourine]: There now, you see for yourself.
HELMER: Well, there’s certainly need for instruction here.
NORA: Yes, you can see how necessary it is. You must instruct me right to the very last moment. Promise me that, Torvald?
HELMER: You can depend on it.
NORA: You’re not to think, either today or tomorrow, about anything but me; you’re not to open any letters – not open the letterbox –
HELMER: Aha, it’s still the fear of that man –
NORA: Well yes, yes, that too.
HELMER: Nora, I see it in your face, there’s a letter from him already.
NORA: I don’t know; I think so; but you’re not to read anything of that sort now; nothing ugly must come between us before it’s all over.
RANK [quietly to HELMER]: You’d better not contradict her.
HELMER [throws his arm around her]: The child shall have her way. But tomorrow night, when you’ve danced –
NORA: Then you’re free.
MAID [in the doorway to the right]: Madam, dinner is served.
NORA: We’ll have champagne, Helene.
MAID: Very good, madam. [Goes out.]
HELMER: I say – a great feast, eh?
NORA: A champagne feast until dawn. [Calls out] And a few macaroons, Helene, lots – for once.
HELMER [takes her hands]: Now, now, now; let’s have none of this wild fluttering. Be my own little lark now as usual.
NORA: Oh yes, I will of course. But go in ahead, and you too, Dr Rank. Kristine, you must help me put my hair up.
RANK [quietly, as they go]: I don’t suppose there’s – well, you know – something on the way?
HELMER: Oh, not at all, my friend, it really is nothing but this childlike anxiety I was telling you about.
They go in, to the right.
NORA: Well?!
MRS LINDE: Gone to the country.
NORA: I could see by your face.
MRS LINDE: He’s coming home tomorrow evening. I wrote him a note.
NORA: You shouldn’t have. You’re to prevent nothing. Actually it’s a deep joy, to be sitting here and waiting for the miraculous to happen.
MRS LINDE: What is it you’re waiting for?
NORA: Oh, you wouldn’t understand. Go in to them; I’ll come right away.
MRS LINDE goes into the dining room.
NORA [stands for a moment as if to collect herself; then looks at her watch]: Five. Seven hours until midnight. Then twenty-four hours until the next midnight. Then the tarantella’s over. Twenty-four plus seven? Thirty-one hours left to live.
HELMER [in the doorway to the right]: But where’s my little song-lark?
NORA [going towards him with open arms]: Here is your song-lark!
Act Three
The same room. The sofa table with chairs around it has been moved into the middle of the room. A lamp is burning on the table. The door to the hall is open. Dance music can be heard from the floor above.
MRS LINDE is sitting at the table, leafing distractedly through a book; she tries to read but seems unable to keep her thoughts gathered; a couple of times she listens anxiously, in the direction of the front door.
MRS LINDE [looks at her watch]: Still not here. And time really is running out. I just hope he hasn’t – [Listens again.] Ah, there he is. [Goes out into the hall and carefully opens the front door; quiet footsteps can be heard on the stairs; she whispers] Come in. There’s no one here.
KROGSTAD [in the doorway]: Mrs Linde, I found a note from you at home. What’s all this supposed to mean?
MRS LINDE: I have to talk to you.
KROGSTAD: Oh? And that has to take place here in this house?
MRS LINDE: It was impossible over at my place; my room doesn’t have its own entrance. Come in; we’re quite alone; the maid’s asleep, and the Helmers are at the ball upstairs.
KROGSTAD [entering the room]: Well, well. So the Helmers are dancing tonight? Really?
MRS LINDE: Yes, why not?
KROGSTAD: No, true enough.
MRS LINDE: Well, Krogstad, let’s talk.
KROGSTAD: Do the two of us have anything more to talk about?
MRS LINDE: We have a great deal to talk about.
KROGSTAD: I didn’t think we did.
MRS LINDE: No, because you’ve never understood me properly.
KROGSTAD: Was there more to understand, apart from what’s entirely commonplace in this world? A heartless woman gives a man his marching orders as soon as something more advantageous presents itself.
MRS LINDE: Do you think I’m so utterly heartless? And do you think I broke it of
f with a light heart?
KROGSTAD: Didn’t you?
MRS LINDE: Oh Krogstad, did you really think that?
KROGSTAD: If it wasn’t like that, why did you write to me as you did at the time?
MRS LINDE: I couldn’t do otherwise. When I had to break with you, it was also my duty to erase everything you felt for me.
KROGSTAD [clenches his fists]: So that was it. And this – this just for the sake of the money!
MRS LINDE: You mustn’t forget that I had a helpless mother and two little brothers. We couldn’t wait for you, Krogstad; your prospects were so far off back then.
KROGSTAD: That may be; but you had no right to reject me for somebody else.
MRS LINDE: Perhaps, I don’t know. I’ve often asked myself if I had the right.
KROGSTAD [more quietly]: When I lost you, it was as though all solid ground slid from under my feet. Look at me now; I’m a man shipwrecked on a broken vessel.
MRS LINDE: Rescue could be close.
KROGSTAD: It was close; but then you came along and got in the way.
MRS LINDE: Without knowing it, Krogstad. I only found out today that it’s you I’m taking over from at the Bank.
KROGSTAD: I believe you when I hear you say it. But now that you know, won’t you step aside?
MRS LINDE: No; because that wouldn’t benefit you in the least.
KROGSTAD: Oh, benefit, benefit – I’d do it even so.
MRS LINDE: I have learned to act sensibly. Life and hard, bitter necessity have taught me that.
KROGSTAD: And life has taught me not to believe in fine words.
MRS LINDE: Then life has taught you a very sensible thing. But actions, you must believe in those?
KROGSTAD: What do you mean?
MRS LINDE: You said you were like a man shipwrecked on a broken vessel.
KROGSTAD: I had good reason to say it, I think.
MRS LINDE: I too am sitting like a woman shipwrecked on a broken vessel. Nobody to grieve for, nobody to provide for.
KROGSTAD: It was your own choice.
MRS LINDE: There was no other choice, then.
KROGSTAD: Right, and so?
MRS LINDE: Krogstad, what if we two shipwrecked people were to reach across to each other –
KROGSTAD: What are you saying?
MRS LINDE: Two on one wreck are, after all, better off than if they each keep to their own.
KROGSTAD: Kristine!
MRS LINDE: Why do you think I came here to town?
KROGSTAD: Did you really give a thought to me?
MRS LINDE: I have to work if I’m to endure this life. Every waking day, as far back as I can remember, I’ve worked, and it’s been my greatest and only joy. But now I am entirely alone in the world, so dreadfully empty and abandoned. There’s no joy, after all, in working for oneself. Krogstad, provide me with someone and something to work for.
KROGSTAD: I can’t believe this. It’s nothing but overexcited female high-mindedness, driven to self-sacrifice.
MRS LINDE: Have you ever known me to be overexcitable?
KROGSTAD: You could really do this? Tell me – are you fully aware of my past?
MRS LINDE: Yes.
KROGSTAD: And do you know how I’m regarded here now?
MRS LINDE: A moment ago you seemed to think that with me you could have been another person.
KROGSTAD: I’m absolutely certain of it.
MRS LINDE: Couldn’t that still happen?
KROGSTAD: Kristine – you’re saying this in all seriousness, aren’t you! Yes, you are. I see it in your face. Do you really have the courage –?
MRS LINDE: I need someone to be a mother to, and your children need a mother. The two of us need each other. Krogstad, I have faith in you, in what is fundamental in you; together with you, I would dare anything.
KROGSTAD [clasping her hands]: Thank you, thank you, Kristine – and now I’ll find a way to raise myself up in the eyes of others too. – Oh, but I forgot –
MRS LINDE [listening]: Ssh! The tarantella! Go, go!
KROGSTAD: Why? What is it?
MRS LINDE: You hear that dance up there? When it’s over, we can expect them.
KROGSTAD: Ah yes, I shall go. This is all futile anyway. You’ve no idea, of course, what steps I’ve taken against the Helmers.
MRS LINDE: Yes, Krogstad, I do know.
KROGSTAD: And you’d still have the courage to –?
MRS LINDE: I understand very well what desperation can drive a man like you to.
KROGSTAD: Oh, if I could undo what’s done!
MRS LINDE: You could; your letter’s still in the box.
KROGSTAD: Are you sure about that?
MRS LINDE: Quite sure; but –
KROGSTAD [looks searchingly at her]: So is that what this is about? You want to save your friend at any cost. Just say it straight. Is that it?
MRS LINDE: Krogstad, somebody who has sold themselves once for the sake of others, does not do it again.
KROGSTAD: I shall demand my letter back.
MRS LINDE: No, no.
KROGSTAD: But of course; I’ll stay here until Helmer comes down; I’ll tell him that he’s got to give me my letter back – that it’s just about my dismissal – that he’s not to read it –
MRS LINDE: No, Krogstad, you’re not to call your letter back.
KROGSTAD: But, tell me, wasn’t that really why you set up this meeting with me?
MRS LINDE: Yes, in the initial panic; but a whole day has passed now, and the things I’ve witnessed in that time, here in this house, have been unbelievable. Helmer must know everything; this disastrous secret must come to light; there needs to be absolute openness between them; it’s impossible to carry on with all these concealments and excuses.
KROGSTAD: Well; if you’ll take the risk –. But one thing I can do at least, and it’ll be done immediately –
MRS LINDE [listening]: Hurry up! Go, go! The dance is finished; we’re not safe a moment longer.
KROGSTAD: I’ll wait for you downstairs.
MRS LINDE: Yes, do. You must walk me to my door.
KROGSTAD: I’ve never been so unbelievably happy.
He goes out through the front door; the door between the room and the hall remains open.
MRS LINDE [tidies up a little and prepares her outdoor clothes]: What a turnaround! Yes, what a turnaround! People to work for – to live for; a home to bring comfort into. Right, there’s a task to be done –. I wish they’d come soon – [Listens.] Aha, there they are. Coat on. [Takes her hat and coat.]
The voices of HELMER and NORA are heard outside; a key is turned, and HELMER almost uses force to get NORA into the hall. She is dressed in her Italian costume with a large black shawl over her shoulders; he is in evening dress with an open black cloak43 on top.
NORA [still in the doorway, resisting him]: No, no, no; I don’t want to go in yet! I want to go up again. I don’t want to leave so early.
HELMER: But, my dearest Nora –
NORA: I’m asking, begging you, Torvald; I’m asking you in such earnest – just one more hour.
HELMER: Not a single minute, my sweet Nora. We agreed, you know that. Come on, now, into the living room; you’ll catch a chill standing here.
He guides her, despite her opposition, gently into the room.
MRS LINDE: Good evening.
NORA: Kristine!
HELMER: Oh, Mrs Linde, are you here so late?
MRS LINDE: Yes, I do apologize, but I so wanted to see Nora in her finery.
NORA: Have you been sitting here waiting for me?
MRS LINDE: Yes, unfortunately I didn’t get here on time; you were already upstairs; and then I thought I couldn’t go again without seeing you.
HELMER [taking NORA’s shawl off]: Well, take a good look at her. I do rather think she’s worth looking at. Isn’t she lovely, Mrs Linde?
MRS LINDE: Yes, I must say –
HELMER: Isn’t she remarkably lovely? That was the general consensus at the party
too. But frightfully obstinate, she is – this sweet little thing. What shall we do about it? Can you believe, I almost had to use force to get her away.
NORA: Oh, Torvald, you’ll come to regret not letting me stay, if only for a half hour more.
HELMER: You hear that, Mrs Linde! She dances her tarantella – has a storming success – which was well deserved – although there was something a little over-natural about her rendition; I mean – a little more than was strictly speaking apposite to artistic requirements. But never mind! The main thing is – she had a success – she had a storming success. Should I have let her stay after that? Weaken the impact? No thank you; I took my lovely little Capri girl – capricious little Capri girl, I could say – by the arm; a swift tour round the room; bows on all sides, and then – as it says in romantic novels – the beautiful apparition vanishes. A finale ought always to be effective, Mrs Linde; but that is, it seems, quite impossible for me to get Nora to grasp. Phew, it’s hot here. [Throws his cloak on to a chair and opens the door to his room.] What? It’s dark in there. Oh yes, of course. Excuse me –
He goes inside and lights a couple of candles.
NORA [whispers hastily and breathlessly]: Well?
MRS LINDE [softly]: I’ve spoken to him.
NORA: And –?
MRS LINDE: Nora – you must tell your husband everything.
NORA [in a dull tone]: I knew it.
MRS LINDE: You have nothing to fear from Krogstad’s side; but you must talk.
NORA: I shan’t talk.
MRS LINDE: Then the letter will.
NORA: Thank you, Kristine; I know now what must be done. Shh –!
HELMER [coming back in]: Well, Mrs Linde, have you admired her?
MRS LINDE: Yes; and now I’ll say good night.
HELMER: Oh really, already? Is that yours, the knitting?
MRS LINDE [takes it]: Yes; thank you; I almost forgot it.
HELMER: So you knit, do you?
MRS LINDE: Yes.
HELMER: You know what – you should embroider instead.
MRS LINDE: Oh? Why?
HELMER: Well, because it’s much prettier. Look: you hold the embroidery like this, with the left hand, and then with the right you guide the needle – like this – out in a delicate, extended arc; isn’t that so –?
MRS LINDE: Yes, very possibly –
HELMER: Whereas knitting – that can never be anything but unlovely; look here: the cramped arms – the knitting needles that go up and down – it’s got something Chinese about it. – Ah, that really was a splendid champagne at dinner.
