NORA.
Isn’t it possible that he was driven to do it by necessity?
HELMER.
Yes; or, as in so many cases, by imprudence. I am not so heartless as to condemn a man altogether because of a single false step of that kind.
NORA.
No, you wouldn’t, would you, Torvald?
HELMER.
Many a man has been able to retrieve his character, if he has openly confessed his fault and taken his punishment.
NORA.
Punishment—?
HELMER.
But Krogstad did nothing of that sort; he got himself out of it by a cunning trick, and that is why he has gone under altogether.
NORA.
But do you think it would—?
HELMER.
Just think how a guilty man like that has to lie and play the hypocrite with every one, how he has to wear a mask in the presence of those near and dear to him, even before his own wife and children. And about the children—that is the most terrible part of it all, Nora.
NORA.
How?
HELMER.
Because such an atmosphere of lies infects and poisons the whole life of a home. Each breath the children take in such a house is full of the germs of evil.