MRS LINDE.
No, a wife cannot borrow without her husband’s consent.
NORA.
[tossing her head]. Oh, if it is a wife who has any head for business—a wife who has the wit to be a little bit clever—
MRS LINDE.
I don’t understand it at all, Nora.
NORA.
There is no need you should. I never said I had borrowed the money. I may have got it some other way. [Lies back on the sofa.] Perhaps I got it from some other admirer. When anyone is as attractive as I am—
MRS LINDE.
You are a mad creature.
NORA.
Now, you know you’re full of curiosity, Christine.
MRS LINDE.
Listen to me, Nora dear. Haven’t you been a little bit imprudent?
NORA.
[sits up straight]. Is it imprudent to save your husband’s life?
MRS LINDE.
It seems to me imprudent, without his knowledge, to—
NORA.
But it was absolutely necessary that he should not know! My goodness, can’t you understand that? It was necessary he should have no idea what a dangerous condition he was in. It was to me that the doctors came and said that his life was in danger, and that the only thing to save him was to live in the south. Do you suppose I didn’t try, first of all, to get what I wanted as if it were for myself? I told him how much I should love to travel abroad like other young wives; I tried tears and entreaties with him; I told him that he ought to remember the condition I was in, and that he ought to be kind and indulgent to me; I even hinted that he might raise a loan. That nearly made him angry, Christine. He said I was thoughtless, and that it was his duty as my husband not to indulge me in my whims and caprices—as I believe he called them. Very well, I thought, you must be saved—and that was how I came to devise a way out of the difficulty—