The Wonderful Thing

Then there is only one possible explanation.

What is that?

You do not love me anymore.

No, that is just it.

Nora!—and you can say that?

It gives me great pain, Torvald, for you have always been so kind to me, but I cannot help it. I do not love you any more.

Is that a clear and certain conviction too?

Yes, absolutely clear and certain. That is the reason why I will not stay here any longer.

And can you tell me what I have done to forfeit your love?

Yes, indeed I can. It was tonight, when the wonderful thing did not happen; then I saw you were not the man I had thought you were.

Explain yourself better. I don’t understand you.

I have waited so patiently for eight years; for, goodness knows, I knew very well that wonderful things don’t happen every day. Then this horrible misfortune came upon me; and then I felt quite certain that the wonderful thing was going to happen at last. When Krogstad’s letter was lying out there, never for a moment did I imagine that you would consent to accept this man’s conditions. I was so absolutely certain that you would say to him: Publish the thing to the whole world. And when that was done—

Yes, what then?—when I had exposed my wife to shame and disgrace?

When that was done, I was so absolutely certain, you would come forward and take everything upon yourself, and say: I am the guilty one.

Nora—!

You mean that I would never have accepted such a sacrifice on your part? No, of course not. But what would my assurances have been worth against yours? That was the wonderful thing which I hoped for and feared; and it was to prevent that, that I wanted to kill myself.

I would gladly work night and day for you, Nora—bear sorrow and want for your sake. But no man would sacrifice his honour for the one he loves.

It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.

Oh, you think and talk like a heedless child.

Maybe. But you neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over—and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you—when the whole thing was past, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened. Exactly as before, I was your little skylark, your doll, which you would in future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile.

Torvald—it was then it dawned upon me that for eight years I had been living here with a strange man, and had borne him three children—. Oh, I can’t bear to think of it! I could tear myself into little bits!

I see, I see. An abyss has opened between us—there is no denying it. But, Nora, would it not be possible to fill it up?

As I am now, I am no wife for you.

I have it in me to become a different man.

Perhaps—if your doll is taken away from you.

But to part!—to part from you! No, no, Nora, I can’t understand that idea.

That makes it all the more certain that it must be done.

Nora, Nora, not now! Wait until tomorrow.

I cannot spend the night in a strange man’s room.

But can’t we live here like brother and sister—?

You know very well that would not last long.