Helmer.  What sort of an expression is that to use about our marriage?

Nora (undisturbed).  I mean that I was simply transferred from papa’s hands into yours.  You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as your else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which—­I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other.  When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman—­just from hand to mouth.  I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald.  But you would have it so.  You and papa have committed a great sin against me.  It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.

Helmer.  How unreasonable and how ungrateful you are, Nora!  Have you not been happy here?

Nora.  No, I have never been happy.  I thought I was, but it has never really been so.

Helmer.  Not—­not happy!

Nora.  No, only merry.  And you have always been so kind to me.  But our home has been nothing but a playroom.  I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was papa’s doll-child; and here the children have been my dolls.  I thought it great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it great fun when I played with them.  That is what our marriage has been, Torvald.

Helmer.  There is some truth in what you say—­exaggerated and strained as your view of it is.  But for the future it shall be different.  Playtime shall be over, and lesson-time shall begin.

Nora.  Whose lessons?  Mine, or the children’s?

Helmer.  Both yours and the children’s, my darling Nora.

Nora.  Alas, Torvald, you are not the man to educate me into being a proper wife for you.

Helmer.  And you can say that!

Nora.  And I—­how am I fitted to bring up the children?

Helmer.  Nora!

Nora.  Didn’t you say so yourself a little while ago—­that you dare not trust me to bring them up?

Helmer.  In a moment of anger!  Why do you pay any heed to that?

Nora.  Indeed, you were perfectly right.  I am not fit for the task.  There is another task I must undertake first.  I must try and educate myself—­you are not the man to help me in that.  I must do that for myself.  And that is why I am going to leave you now.

Helmer (springing up).  What do you say?

Nora.  I must stand quite alone, if I am to understand myself and everything about me.  It is for that reason that I cannot remain with you any longer.

Helmer.  Nora, Nora!

Nora.  I am going away from here now, at once.  I am sure Christine will take me in for the night—­

Helmer.  You are out of your mind!  I won’t allow it!  I forbid you!

Nora.  It is no use forbidding me anything any longer.  I will take with me what belongs to myself.  I will take nothing from you, either now or later.

Helmer.  What sort of madness is this!