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THE COLLECTED WORKS OF

HENRIK IBSEN

VOLUME VII

A DOLL’S HOUSE

GHOSTS

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF

HENRIK IBSEN

Copyright Edition. Complete in 11 Volumes.

Crown 8vo, price 4s. each.

ENTIRELY REVISED AND EDITED BY

WILLIAM ARCHER

London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN.

21 Bedford Street, W.C.

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF
HENRIK IBSEN

Copyright Edition

VOLUME VII

A DOLL’S HOUSE

GHOSTS

WITH INTRODUCTIONS BY

WILLIAM ARCHER

LONDON

WILLIAM HEINEMANN

1909

Collected Edition first printed 1906

Second Impression 1909

Copyright 1906 by William Heinemann

CONTENTS

A DOLL’S HOUSE.
INTRODUCTION.

On June 27, 1879, Ibsen wrote from Rome to Marcus Grönvold: “It is now rather hot in Rome, so in about a week we are going to Amalfi, which, being close to the sea, is cooler, and offers opportunity for bathing. I intend to complete there a new dramatic work on which I am now engaged.” From Amalfi, on September 20, he wrote to John Paulsen: “A new dramatic work, which I have just completed, has occupied so much of my time during these last months that I have had absolutely none to spare for answering letters.” This “new dramatic work” was Et Dukkehjem, which was published in Copenhagen, December 4, 1879. Dr. George Brandes has given some account of the episode in real life which suggested to Ibsen the plot of this play; but the real Nora, it appears, committed forgery, not to save her husband’s life, but to redecorate her house. The impulse received from this incident must have been trifling. It is much more to the purpose to remember that the character and situation of Nora had been clearly foreshadowed, ten years earlier, in the figure of Selma in The League of Youth.

It is with A Doll’s House that Ibsen enters upon his kingdom as a world-poet. He had done greater work in the past, and he was to do greater work in the future; but this was the play which was destined to carry his name beyond the limits of Scandinavia, and even of Germany, to the remotest regions of civilisation. Here the Fates were not altogether kind to him. The fact that for many years he was known to thousands of people solely as the author of A Doll’s House, and its successor, Ghosts, was largely responsible for the extravagant misconceptions of his genius and character which prevailed during the last decade of the nineteenth century, and are not yet entirely extinct. In these plays he seemed to be delivering a direct assault on marriage, from the standpoint of feminine individualism; wherefore he was taken to be a preacher and pamphleteer rather than a poet. In these plays, and in these only, he made physical disease a considerable factor in the action; whence it was concluded that he had a morbid predilection for “nauseous” subjects. In these plays he laid special and perhaps disproportionate stress on the influence of heredity; whence he was believed to be possessed by a monomania on the point. In these plays, finally, he was trying to act the essentially uncongenial part of the prosaic realist. The effort broke down at many points, and the poet reasserted himself; but these flaws in the prosaic texture were regarded as mere bewildering errors and eccentricities. In short, he was introduced to the world at large through two plays which showed his power, indeed, almost in perfection, but left the higher and subtler qualities of his genius for the most part unrepresented. Hence the grotesquely distorted vision of him which for so long haunted the minds even of intelligent people. Hence, for example, the amazing opinion, given forth as a truism by more than one critic of great ability, that the author of Peer Gynt was devoid of humour.

Within a little more than a fortnight of its publication A Doll’s House was presented at the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen, where Fru Hennings, as Nora, made the great success of her career. The play was soon being acted, as well as read, all over Scandinavia. Nora’s startling “declaration of independence” afforded such an inexhaustible theme for heated discussion, that at last it had to be formally barred at social gatherings, just as, in Paris twenty years later, the Dreyfus Case was proclaimed a prohibited topic. The popularity of Pillars of Society in Germany had paved the way for its successor, which spread far and wide over the German stage in the spring of 1880, and has ever since held its place in the repertory of the leading theatres. As his works were at that time wholly unprotected in Germany, Ibsen could not prevent managers from altering the end of the play to suit their taste and fancy. He was thus driven, under protest, to write an alternative ending, in which, at the last moment, the thought of her children restrained Nora from leaving home. He preferred, as he said, “to commit the outrage himself, rather than leave his work to the tender mercies of adapters.” The patched-up ending soon dropped out of use and out of memory. Ibsen’s own account of the matter will be found in his Correspondence, Letter 142.

It took ten years for the play to pass beyond the limits of Scandinavia and Germany. Madame Modjeska, it is true, presented a version of it in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1883, but it attracted no attention. In the following year Messrs. Henry Arthur Jones and Henry Herman produced at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, London, a play entitled Breaking a Butterfly, which was described as being “founded on Ibsen’s Norah” but bore only a remote resemblance to the original. In this production Mr. Beerbohm Tree took the part of Dunkley, a melodramatic villain who filled the place of Krogstad. In 1885, again, an adventurous amateur club gave a quaint performance of Miss Lord’s translation of the play at a hall in Argyle Street, London. Not until June 7, 1889, was a A Doll’s House competently, and even brilliantly, presented to the English public, by Mr. Charles Charrington and Miss Janet Achurch, at the Novelty Theatre, London, afterwards re-named the Great Queen Street Theatre. It was this production that really made Ibsen known to the English-speaking peoples. In other words, it marked his second great stride towards world-wide, as distinct from merely national, renown—if we reckon as the first stride the success of Pillars of Society in Germany. Mr. and Mrs. Charrington took A Doll’s House with them on a long Australian tour; Miss Beatrice Cameron (Mrs. Richard Mansfield) was encouraged by the success of the London production to present the play in New York, whence it soon spread to other American cities; while in London itself it was frequently revived and vehemently discussed. The Ibsen controversy, indeed, did not break out in its full virulence until 1891, when Ghosts and Hedda Gabler were produced in London; but from the date of the Novelty production onwards, Ibsen was generally recognised as a potent factor in the intellectual and artistic life of the day.

A French adaptation of Et Dukkehjem was produced in Brussels in March 1889, but attracted little attention. Not until 1894 was the play introduced to the Parisian public, at the Gymnase, with Madame Réjane as Nora. This actress has since played the part frequently, not only in Paris but in London and in America. In Italian the play was first produced in 1889, and soon passed into the repertory of Eleonora Duse, who appeared as Nora in London in 1893. Few heroines in modern drama have been played by so many actresses of the first rank. To those already enumerated must be added Hedwig Niemann-Raabe and Agnes Sorma in Germany, and Minnie Maddern-Fiske in America; and, even so, the list is far from complete. There is probably no country in the world, possessing a theatre on the European model, in which A Doll’s House has not been more or less frequently acted.

Undoubtedly the great attraction of the part of Nora to the average actress was the tarantella scene. This was a theatrical effect, of an obvious, unmistakable kind. It might have been—though I am not aware that it ever actually was—made the subject of a picture-poster. But this, as it seems to me, was Ibsen’s last concession to the ideal of technique which he had acquired, in the old Bergen days, from his French masters. I have elsewhere[^[1]] analysed A Doll’s House at some length, from the technical point of view, suggesting that it marks a distinct, and one might almost say a sudden, revolution in the poet’s understanding of the methods and aims of his art. There is pretty good reason to suppose, as it seems to me, that he altered the plan of the play while it was actually in process of composition. He seems originally to have schemed a “happy ending,” like that of The League of Youth or Pillars of Society. No doubt it is convenient, even for the purposes of the play as it stands, that all fear of hostile action on Krogstad’s part should be dissipated before Nora and Helmer settle down to their final explanation; but is the convenience sufficiently great to account for the invention, to that end alone, of Mrs. Linden’s relation to, and influence over, Krogstad? I very much question it. I think the “happy ending” which is actually reached when Krogstad returns the forged document was, in Ibsen’s original conception, intended to be equivalent to the stopping of the Indian Girl, and the return of Olaf, in Pillars of Society—that is to say, it was to be the end of the drama properly so called, and the rest was to be a more or less conventional winding-up, a confession of faults on both sides, accompanied by mutual congratulations on the blowing-over of the threatened storm. This is the end which, as we see, every one expected: the end which adapters, in Germany, England, and elsewhere, insisted on giving to the play. There was just a shade of excuse for these gentlemen, inasmuch as the poet himself seemed to have elaborately prepared the way for them; and I suggest that the fact of his having done so shows that the play, in embryo, passed through the phase of technical development represented by Pillars of Society—the phase to which its amenders would have forced it to return. Ibsen, on the other hand, when he proceeded from planning in outline to creation in detail, found his characters outgrow his plot. When the action, in the theatrical sense, was over, they were only on the threshold of the essential drama; and in that drama, compressed into the final scene of the play, Ibsen found his true power and his true mission.

How impossible, in his subsequent work, would be such figures as Mrs. Linden, the confidant, and Krogstad, the villain! They are not quite the ordinary confidant and villain, for Ibsen is always Ibsen, and his power of vitalisation is extraordinary. Yet we clearly feel them to belong to a different order of art from that of his later plays. How impossible, too, in the poet’s after years, would have been the little tricks of ironic coincidence and picturesque contrast which abound in A Doll’s House! The festal atmosphere of the whole play, the Christmas-tree, the tarantella, the masquerade ball, with its distant sounds of music—all the shimmer and tinsel of the background against which Nora’s soul-torture and Rank’s despair are thrown into relief belong to the system of external, artificial antithesis beloved by romantic playwrights from Lope de Vega onward, and carried to its limit by Victor Hugo. The same artificiality is apparent in minor details. “Oh, what a wonderful thing it is to live to be happy!” cries Nora, and instantly “The hall-door bell rings” and Krogstad’s shadow falls across the threshold. So, too, for his second entrance, an elaborate effect of contrast is arranged, between Nora’s gleeful romp with her children and the sinister figure which stands unannounced in their midst. It would be too much to call these things absolutely unnatural, but the very precision of the coincidence is eloquent of pre-arrangement. At any rate, they belong to an order of effects which in future Ibsen sedulously eschews. The one apparent exception to this rule which I can remember occurs in The Master Builder, where Solness’s remark, “Presently the younger generation will come knocking at my door,” gives the cue for Hilda’s knock and entrance. But here an interesting distinction is to be noted. Throughout The Master Builder the poet subtly indicates the operation of mysterious, unseen agencies—the “helpers and servers” of whom Solness speaks, as well as the Power with which he held converse at the crisis in his life—guiding, or at any rate tampering with, the destinies of the characters. This being so, it is evident that the effect of pre-arrangement produced by Hilda’s appearing exactly on the given cue was deliberately aimed at. Like so many other details in the play, it might be a mere coincidence, or it might be a result of inscrutable design—we were purposely left in doubt. But the suggestion of pre-arrangement which helped to create the atmosphere of the The Master Builder was wholly out of place in A Doll’s House. In the later play it was a subtle stroke of art; in the earlier it was the effect of imperfectly dissembled artifice.

My conjecture of an actual modification of Ibsen’s design during the progress of the play may possibly be mistaken. There can be no doubt, on the other hand, that Ibsen’s full originality first reveals itself in the latter half of the third act. This is proved by the very protests, nay, the actual rebellion, which the last scene called forth. Up to that point he had been doing, approximately, what theatrical orthodoxy demanded of him. But when Nora, having put off her masquerade dress, returned to make up her account with Helmer, and with marriage as Helmer understood it, the poet flew in the face of orthodoxy, and its professors cried out in bewilderment and wrath. But it was just at this point that, in practice, the real grip and thrill of the drama were found to come in. The tarantella scene never, in my experience—and I have seen five or six great actresses in the part—produced an effect in any degree commensurate with the effort involved. But when Nora and Helmer faced each other, one on each side of the table, and set to work to ravel out the skein of their illusions, then one felt oneself face to face with a new thing in drama—an order of experience, at once intellectual and emotional, not hitherto attained in the theatre. This every one felt, I think, who was in any way accessible to that order of experience. For my own part, I shall never forget how surprised I was on first seeing the play, to find this scene, in its naked simplicity, far more exciting and moving than all the artfully-arranged situations of the earlier acts. To the same effect, from another point of view, we have the testimony of Fru Hennings, the first actress who ever played the part of Nora. In an interview published soon after Ibsen’s death, she spoke of the delight it was to her, in her youth, to embody the Nora of the first and second acts, the “lark,” the “squirrel,” the irresponsible, butterfly Nora. “When I now play the part,” she went on, “the first acts leave me indifferent. Not until the third act am I really interested—but then, intensely.” To call the first and second acts positively uninteresting would of course be a gross exaggeration. What one really means is that their workmanship is still a little derivative and immature, and that not until the third act does the poet reveal the full originality and individuality of his genius.

GHOSTS.
INTRODUCTION.

The winter of 1879-80 Ibsen spent in Munich, and the greater part of the summer of 1880 at Berchtesgaden. November 1880 saw him back in Rome, and he passed the summer of 1881 at Sorrento. There, fourteen years earlier, he had written the last acts of Peer Gynt; there he now wrote, or at any rate completed, Gengangere. It was published in December 1881, after he had returned to Rome. On December 22 he wrote to Ludwig Passarge, one of his German translators, “My new play has now appeared, and has occasioned a terrible uproar in the Scandinavian press; every day I receive letters and newspaper articles decrying or praising it.... I consider it utterly impossible that any German theatre will accept the play at present. I hardly believe that they will dare to play it in the Scandinavian countries for some time to come.” How rightly he judged we shall see anon.

In the newspapers there was far more obloquy than praise. Two men, however, stood by him from the first: Björnson, from whom he had been practically estranged ever since The League of Youth, and George Brandes. The latter published an article in which he declared (I quote from memory) that the play might or might not be Ibsen’s greatest work, but that it was certainly his noblest deed. It was, doubtless, in acknowledgment of this article that Ibsen wrote to Brandes on January 3, 1882: “Yesterday I had the great pleasure of receiving your brilliantly clear and so warmly appreciative review of Ghosts.... All who read your article must, it seems to me, have their eyes opened to what I meant by my new book—assuming, that is, that they have any wish to see. For I cannot get rid of the impression that a very large number of the false interpretations which have appeared in the newspapers are the work of people who know better. In Norway, however, I am willing to believe that the stultification has in most cases been unintentional; and the reason is not far to seek. In that country a great many of the critics are theologians, more or less disguised; and these gentlemen are, as a rule, quite unable to write rationally about creative literature. That enfeeblement of judgment which, at least in the case of the average man, is an inevitable consequence of prolonged occupation with theological studies, betrays itself more especially in the judging of human character, human actions, and human motives. Practical business judgment, on the other hand, does not suffer so much from studies of this order. Therefore the reverend gentlemen are very often excellent members of local boards; but they are unquestionably our worst critics.” This passage is interesting as showing clearly the point of view from which Ibsen conceived the character of Manders. In the next paragraph of the same letter he discusses the attitude of “the so-called Liberal press”; but as the paragraph contains the germ of An Enemy of the People, it may most fittingly be quoted in the introduction to that play.

Three days later (January 6) Ibsen wrote to Schandorph, the Danish novelist: “I was quite prepared for the hubbub. If certain of our Scandinavian reviewers have no talent for anything else, they have an unquestionable talent for thoroughly misunderstanding and misinterpreting those authors whose books they undertake to judge.... They endeavour to make me responsible for the opinions which certain of the personages of my drama express. And yet there is not in the whole book a single opinion, a single utterance, which can be laid to the account of the author. I took good care to avoid this. The very method, the order of technique which imposes its form upon the play, forbids the author to appear in the speeches of his characters. My object was to make the reader feel that he was going through a piece of real experience; and nothing could more effectually prevent such an impression than the intrusion of the author’s private opinions into the dialogue. Do they imagine at home that I am so inexpert in the theory of drama as not to know this? Of course I know it, and act accordingly. In no other play that I have written is the author so external to the action, so entirely absent from it, as in this last one.”

“They say,” he continued, “that the book preaches Nihilism. Not at all. It is not concerned to preach anything whatsoever. It merely points to the ferment of Nihilism going on under the surface, at home as elsewhere. A Pastor Manders will always goad one or other Mrs. Alving to revolt. And just because she is a woman, she will, when once she has begun, go to the utmost extremes.”

Towards the end of January Ibsen wrote from Rome to Olaf Skavlan: “These last weeks have brought me a wealth of experiences, lessons, and discoveries. I, of course, foresaw that my new play would call forth a howl from the camp of the stagnationists; and for this I care no more than for the barking of a pack of chained dogs. But the pusillanimity which I have observed among the so-called Liberals has given me cause for reflection. The very day after my play was published the Dagblad rushed out a hurriedly-written article, evidently designed to purge itself of all suspicion of complicity in my work. This was entirely unnecessary. I myself am responsible for what I write, I and no one else. I cannot possibly embarrass any party, for to no party do I belong. I stand like a solitary franc-tireur at the outposts, and fight for my own hand. The only man in Norway who has stood up freely, frankly, and courageously for me is Björnson. It is just like him. He has in truth a great, kingly soul, and I shall never forget his action in this matter.”

One more quotation completes the history of these stirring January days, as written by Ibsen himself. It occurs in a letter to a Danish journalist, Otto Borchsenius. “It may well be,” the poet writes, “that the play is in several respects rather daring. But it seemed to me that the time had come for moving some boundary-posts. And this was an undertaking for which a man of the older generation, like myself, was better fitted than the many younger authors who might desire to do something of the kind. I was prepared for a storm; but such storms one must not shrink from encountering. That would be cowardice.”

It happened that, just in these days, the present writer had frequent opportunities of conversing with Ibsen, and of hearing from his own lips almost all the views expressed in the above extracts. He was especially emphatic, I remember, in protesting against the notion that the opinions expressed by Mrs. Alving or Oswald were to be attributed to himself. He insisted, on the contrary, that Mrs. Alving’s views were merely typical of the moral chaos inevitably produced by re-action from the narrow conventionalism represented by Manders.

With one consent, the leading theatres of the three Scandinavian capitals declined to have anything to do with the play. It was more than eighteen months old before it found its way to the stage at all. In August 1883 it was acted for the first time at Helsingborg, Sweden, by a travelling company under the direction of an eminent Swedish actor, August Lindberg, who himself played Oswald. He took it on tour round the principal cities of Scandinavia, playing it, among the rest, at a minor theatre in Christiania. It happened that the boards of the Christiania Theatre were at the same time occupied by a French farce; and public demonstrations of protest were made against the managerial policy which gave Tête de Linotte the preference over Gengangere. Gradually the prejudice against the play broke down. Already in the autumn of 1883 it was produced at the Royal (Dramatiska) Theatre in Stockholm. When the new National Theatre was opened in Christiania in 1899, Gengangere found an early place in its repertory; and even the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen has since opened its doors to the tragedy.

Not until April 1886 was Gespenster acted in Germany, and then only at a private performance, at the Stadttheater, Augsburg, the poet himself being present. In the following winter it was acted at the famous Court Theatre at Meiningen, again in the presence of the poet. The first (private) performance in Berlin took place on January 9, 1887, at the Residenz Theater; and when the Freie Bühne, founded on the model of the Paris Théâtre Libre, began its operations two years later (September 29, 1889), Gespenster was the first play that it produced. The Freie Bühne gave the initial impulse to the whole modern movement which has given Germany a new dramatic literature; and the leaders of the movement, whether authors or critics, were one and all ardent disciples of Ibsen, who regarded Gespenster as his typical masterpiece. In Germany, then, the play certainly did, in Ibsen’s own words, “move some boundary-posts.” The Prussian censorship, presently withdrew its veto, and on November 27, 1894, the two leading literary theatres of Berlin, the Deutsches Theater and the Lessing Theater, gave simultaneous performances of the tragedy. Everywhere in Germany and Austria it is now freely performed; but it is naturally one of the least popular of Ibsen’s plays.

It was with Les Revenants that Ibsen made his first appearance on the French stage. The play was produced by the Théâtre Libre (at the Théâtre des Menus-Plaisirs) on May 29, 1890. Here, again, it became the watchword of the new school of authors and critics, and aroused a good deal of opposition among the old school. But the most hostile French criticisms were moderation itself compared with the torrents of abuse which were poured upon Ghosts by the journalists of London when, on March 13, 1891, the Independent Theatre, under the direction of Mr. J. T. Grein, gave a private performance of the play at the Royalty Theatre, Soho. I have elsewhere[^[2]] placed upon record some of the amazing feats of vituperation achieved of the critics, and will not here recall them. It is sufficient to say that if the play had been a tenth part as nauseous as the epithets hurled at it and its author, the Censor’s veto would have been amply justified. That veto is still (1906) in force. England enjoys the proud distinction of being the one country in the world where Ghosts may not be publicly acted.

In the United States, the first performance of the play in English took place at the Berkeley Lyceum, New York City, on January 5, 1894. The production was described by Mr. W. D. Howells as “a great theatrical event—the very greatest I have ever known.” Other leading men of letters were equally impressed by it. Five years later, a second production took place at the Carnegie Lyceum; and an adventurous manager has even taken the play on tour in the United States. The Italian version of the tragedy, Gli Spettri, has ever since 1892 taken a prominent place in the repertory of the great actors Zaccone and Novelli, who have acted it, not only throughout Italy, but in Austria, Germany, Russia, Spain, and South America.

In an interview, published immediately after Ibsen’s death, Björnstjerne Björnson, questioned as to what he held to be his brother-poet’s greatest work, replied, without a moment’s hesitation, Gengangere. This dictum can scarcely, I think, be accepted without some qualification. Even confining our attention to the modern plays, and leaving out of comparison The Pretenders, Brand, and Peer Gynt, we can scarcely call Ghosts Ibsen’s richest or most human play, and certainly not his profoundest or most poetical. If some omnipotent Censorship decreed the annihilation of all his works save one, few people, I imagine, would vote that that one should be Ghosts. Even if half a dozen works were to be saved from the wreck, I doubt whether I, for my part, would include Ghosts in the list. It is, in my judgment, a little bare, hard, austere. It is the first work in which Ibsen applies his new technical method—evolved, as I have suggested, during the composition of A Doll’s House—and he applies it with something of fanaticism. He is under the sway of a prosaic ideal—confessed in the phrase, “My object was to make the reader feel that he was going through a piece of real experience”—and he is putting some constraint upon the poet within him. The action moves a little stiffly, and all in one rhythm. It lacks variety and suppleness. Moreover, the play affords some slight excuse for the criticism which persists in regarding Ibsen as a preacher rather than as a creator—an author who cares more for ideas and doctrines than for human beings. Though Mrs. Alving, Engstrand and Regina are rounded and breathing characters, it cannot be denied that Manders strikes one as a clerical type rather than an individual, while even Oswald might not quite unfairly be described as simply and solely his father’s son, an object-lesson in heredity. We cannot be said to know him, individually and intimately, as we know Helmer or Stockmann, Hialmar Ekdal or Gregers Werle. Then, again, there are one or two curious flaws in the play. The question whether Oswald’s “case” is one which actually presents itself in the medical books seems to me of very trifling moment. It is typically true, even if it be not true in detail. The suddenness of the catastrophe may possibly be exaggerated, its premonitions and even its essential nature may be misdescribed. On the other hand, I conceive it probable that the poet had documents to found upon, which may be unknown to his critics. I have never taken any pains to satisfy myself upon the point, which seems to me quite immaterial. There is not the slightest doubt that the life-history of a Captain Alving may, and often does, entail upon posterity consequences quite as tragic as those which ensue in Oswald’s case, and far more wide-spreading. That being so, the artistic justification of the poets presentment of the case is certainly not dependent on its absolute scientific accuracy. The flaws above alluded to are of another nature. One of them is the prominence given to the fact that the Asylum is uninsured. No doubt there is some symbolical purport in the circumstance; but I cannot think that it is either sufficiently clear or sufficiently important to justify the emphasis thrown upon it at the end of the second act. Another dubious point is Oswald’s argument in the first act as to the expensiveness of marriage as compared with free union. Since the parties to free union, as he describes it, accept all the responsibilities of marriage, and only pretermit the ceremony, the difference of expense, one would suppose, must be neither more nor less than the actual marriage fee. I have never seen this remark of Oswald’s adequately explained, either as a matter of economic fact, or as a trait of character. Another blemish, of somewhat greater moment, is the inconceivable facility with which, in the third act, Manders suffers himself to be victimised by Engstrand. All these little things, taken together, detract, as it seems to me, from the artistic completeness of the play, and impair its claim to rank as the poet’s masterpiece. Even in prose drama, his greatest and most consummate achievements were yet to come.

Must we, then, wholly dissent from Björnson’s judgment? I think not. In a historical, if not in an æsthetic, sense, Ghosts may well rank as Ibsen’s greatest work. It was the play which first gave the full measure of his technical and spiritual originality and daring. It has done far more than any other of his plays to “move boundary-posts.” It has advanced the frontiers of dramatic art and implanted new ideals, both technical and intellectual, in the minds of a whole generation of playwrights. It ranks with Hernani and La Dame aux Camélias among the epoch-making plays of the nineteenth century, while in point of essential originality it towers above them. We cannot, I think, get nearer to the truth than George Brandes did in the above-quoted phrase from his first notice of the play, describing it as not, perhaps, the poet’s greatest work, but certainly his noblest deed. In another essay, Brandes has pointed to it, with equal justice, as marking Ibsen’s final breach with his early—one might almost say his hereditary—romanticism. He here becomes, at last, “the most modern of the moderns.” “This, I am convinced,” says the Danish critic, “is his imperishable glory, and will give lasting life to his works.”

W. A.

A DOLL’S HOUSE

CHARACTERS.

• Torvald Helmer.
• Nora, his wife.
• Doctor Rank.
• Mrs. Linden.[^[3]]
• Nils Krogstad.
• The Helmers’ Three Children.
• Anna,[^[4]] their nurse.
• A Maid-servant (Ellen).
• A Porter.

The action passes in Helmer’s house (a flat) in Christiania.

A DOLL’S HOUSE.

ACT FIRST.

A room, comfortably and tastefully, but not expensively, furnished. In the back, on the right, a door leads to the hall; on the left another door leads to Helmer’s study. Between the two doors a pianoforte. In the middle of the left wall a door, and nearer the front a window. Near the window a round table with arm-chairs and a small sofa. In the right wall, somewhat to the back, a door, and against the same wall, further forward, a porcelain stove; in front of it a couple of arm-chairs and a rocking-chair. Between the stove and the side-door a small table. Engravings on the walls. A what-not with china and bric-à-brac. A small bookcase filled with handsomely bound books. Carpet. A fire in the stove. It is a winter day.

A bell rings in the hall outside. Presently the outer door of the flat is heard to open. Then Nora enters, humming gaily. She is in outdoor dress, and carries several parcels, which she lays on the right-hand table. She leaves the door into the hall open, and a Porter is seen outside, carrying a Christmas-tree and a basket, which he gives to the Maid-servant who has opened the door.

Nora.

Hide the Christmas-tree carefully, Ellen; the children must on no account see it before this evening, when it’s lighted up. [To the Porter, taking out her purse.] How much?

Porter.

Fifty öre.[^[5]]

Nora.

There is a crown. No, keep the change.

[The Porter thanks her and goes. Nora shuts the door. She continues smiling in quiet glee as she takes off her outdoor things. Taking from her pocket a bag of macaroons, she eats one or two. Then she goes on tip-toe to her husband’s door and listens.

Nora.

Yes; he is at home.

[She begins humming again, crossing to the table on the right.

Helmer.

[In his room.] Is that my lark twittering there?

Nora.

[Busy opening some of her parcels.] Yes, it is.

Helmer.

Is it the squirrel frisking around?

Nora.

Yes!

Helmer.

When did the squirrel get home?

Nora.

Just this minute. [Hides the bag of macaroons in her pocket and wipes her mouth.] Come here, Torvald, and see what I’ve been buying.

Helmer.

Don’t interrupt me. [A little later he opens the door and looks in, pen in hand.] Buying, did you say? What! All that? Has my little spendthrift been making the money fly again?

Nora.

Why, Torvald, surely we can afford to launch out a little now. It’s the first Christmas we haven’t had to pinch.

Helmer.

Come come; we can’t afford to squander money.

Nora.

Oh yes, Torvald, do let us squander a little, now—just the least little bit! You know you’ll soon be earning heaps of money.

Helmer.

Yes, from New Year’s Day. But there’s a whole quarter before my first salary is due.

Nora.

Never mind; we can borrow in the meantime.

Helmer.

Nora! [He goes up to her and takes her playfully by the ear.] Still my little featherbrain! Supposing I borrowed a thousand crowns to-day, and you made ducks and drakes of them during Christmas week, and then on New Year’s Eve a tile blew off the roof and knocked my brains out——

Nora.

[Laying her hand on his mouth.] Hush! How can you talk so horridly?

Helmer.

But supposing it were to happen—what then?

Nora.

If anything so dreadful happened, it would be all the same to me whether I was in debt or not.

Helmer.

But what about the creditors?

Nora.

They! Who cares for them? They’re only strangers.

Helmer.

Nora, Nora! What a woman you are! But seriously, Nora, you know my principles on these points. No debts! No borrowing! Home life ceases to be free and beautiful as soon as it is founded on borrowing and debt. We two have held out bravely till now, and we are not going to give in at the last.

Nora.

[Going to the fireplace.] Very well—as you please, Torvald.

Helmer.

[Following her.] Come come; my little lark mustn’t droop her wings like that. What? Is my squirrel in the sulks? [Takes out his purse.] Nora, what do you think I have here?

Nora.

[Turning round quickly.] Money!

Helmer.

There! [Gives her some notes.] Of course I know all sorts of things are wanted at Christmas.

Nora.

[Counting.] Ten, twenty, thirty, forty. Oh, thank you, thank you, Torvald! This will go a long way.

Helmer.

I should hope so.

Nora.

Yes, indeed; a long way! But come here, and let me show you all I’ve been buying. And so cheap! Look, here’s a new suit for Ivar, and a little sword. Here are a horse and a trumpet for Bob. And here are a doll and a cradle for Emmy. They’re only common; but they’re good enough for her to pull to pieces. And dress-stuffs and kerchiefs for the servants. I ought to have got something better for old Anna.

Helmer.

And what’s in that other parcel?

Nora.

[Crying out.] No, Torvald, you’re not to see that until this evening!

Helmer.

Oh! Ah! But now tell me, you little spendthrift, have you thought of anything for yourself?

Nora.

For myself! Oh, I don’t want anything.

Helmer.

Nonsense! Just tell me something sensible you would like to have.

Nora.

No, really I don’t know of anything——Well, listen, Torvald——

Helmer.

Well?

Nora.

[Playing with his coat-buttons, without looking him in the face.] If you really want to give me something, you might, you know—you might——

Helmer.

Well? Out with it!

Nora.

[Quickly.] You might give me money, Torvald. Only just what you think you can spare; then I can buy something with it later on.

Helmer.

But, Nora——

Nora.

Oh, please do, dear Torvald, please do! I should hang the money in lovely gilt paper on the Christmas-tree. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Helmer.

What do they call the birds that are always making the money fly?

Nora.

Yes, I know—spendthrifts,[^[6]] of course. But please do as I ask you, Torvald. Then I shall have time to think what I want most. Isn’t that very sensible, now?

Helmer.

[Smiling.] Certainly; that is to say, if you really kept the money I gave you, and really spent it on something for yourself. But it all goes in housekeeping, and for all manner of useless things, and then I have to pay up again.

Nora.

But, Torvald——

Helmer.

Can you deny it, Nora dear? [He puts his arm round her.] It’s a sweet little lark, but it gets through a lot of money. No one would believe how much it costs a man to keep such a little bird as you.

Nora.

For shame! How can you say so? Why, I save as much as ever I can.

Helmer.

[Laughing.] Very true—as much as you can—but that’s precisely nothing.

Nora.

[Hums and smiles with covert glee.] H’m! If you only knew, Torvald, what expenses we larks and squirrels have.

Helmer.

You’re a strange little being! Just like your father—always on the look-out for all the money you can lay your hands on; but the moment you have it, it seems to slip through your fingers; you never know what becomes of it. Well, one must take you as you are. It’s in the blood. Yes, Nora, that sort of thing is hereditary.

Nora.

I wish I had inherited many of papa’s qualities.

Helmer.

And I don’t wish you anything but just what you are—my own, sweet little song-bird. But I say—it strikes me you look so—so—what shall I call it?—so suspicious to-day——

Nora.

Do I?

Helmer.

You do, indeed. Look me full in the face.

Nora.

[Looking at him.] Well?

Helmer.

[Threatening with his finger.] Hasn’t the little sweet-tooth been playing pranks to-day?

Nora.

No; how can you think such a thing!

Helmer.

Didn’t she just look in at the confectioner’s?

Nora.

No, Torvald; really——

Helmer.

Not to sip a little jelly?

Nora.

No; certainly not.

Helmer.

Hasn’t she even nibbled a macaroon or two?

Nora.

No, Torvald, indeed, indeed!

Helmer.

Well, well, well; of course I’m only joking.

Nora.

[Goes to the table on the right.] I shouldn’t think of doing what you disapprove of.

Helmer.

No, I’m sure of that; and, besides, you’ve given me your word——[Going towards her.] Well, keep your little Christmas secrets to yourself, Nora darling. The Christmas-tree will bring them all to light, I daresay.

Nora.

Have you remembered to invite Doctor Rank?

Helmer.

No. But it’s not necessary; he’ll come as a matter of course. Besides, I shall ask him when he looks in to-day. I’ve ordered some capital wine. Nora, you can’t think how I look forward to this evening.

Nora.

And I too. How the children will enjoy themselves, Torvald!

Helmer.

Ah, it’s glorious to feel that one has an assured position and ample means. Isn’t it delightful to think of?

Nora.

Oh, it’s wonderful!

Helmer.

Do you remember last Christmas? For three whole weeks beforehand you shut yourself up every evening till long past midnight to make flowers for the Christmas-tree, and all sorts of other marvels that were to have astonished us. I was never so bored in my life.

Nora.

I didn’t bore myself at all.

Helmer.

[Smiling.] But it came to little enough in the end, Nora.

Nora.

Oh, are you going to tease me about that again? How could I help the cat getting in and pulling it all to pieces?

Helmer.

To be sure you couldn’t, my poor little Nora. You did your best to give us all pleasure, and that’s the main point. But, all the same, it’s a good thing the hard times are over.

Nora.

Oh, isn’t it wonderful?

Helmer.

Now I needn’t sit here boring myself all alone; and you needn’t tire your blessed eyes and your delicate little fingers——

Nora.

[Clapping her hands.] No, I needn’t, need I, Torvald? Oh, how wonderful it is to think of![of!] [Takes his arm.] And now I’ll tell you how I think we ought to manage, Torvald. As soon as Christmas is over—-[The hall-door bell rings.] Oh, there’s a ring! [Arranging the room.] That’s somebody come to call. How tiresome!

Helmer.

I’m “not at home” to callers; remember that.

Ellen.

[In the doorway.] A lady to see you, ma’am.

Nora.

Show her in.

Ellen.

[To Helmer.] And the doctor has just come, sir.

Helmer.

Has he gone into my study?

Ellen.

Yes, sir.

[Helmer goes into his study. Ellen ushers in Mrs. Linden, in travelling costume, and goes out, closing the door.

Mrs. Linden.

[Embarrassed and hesitating.] How do you do, Nora?

Nora.

[Doubtfully.] How do you do?

Mrs. Linden.

I see you don’t recognise me.[me.]

Nora.

No, I don’t think—oh yes!—I believe——[Suddenly brightening.] What, Christina! Is it really you?

Mrs. Linden.

Yes; really I!

Nora.

Christina! And to think I didn’t know you! But how could I——[More softly.] How changed you are, Christina!

Mrs. Linden.

Yes, no doubt. In nine or ten years——

Nora.

Is it really so long since we met? Yes, so it is. Oh, the last eight years have been a happy time, I can tell you. And now you have come to town? All that long journey in mid-winter! How brave of you!

Mrs. Linden.

I arrived by this morning’s steamer.

Nora.

To have a merry Christmas, of course. Oh, how delightful! Yes, we will have a merry Christmas. Do take your things off. Aren’t you frozen? [Helping her.] There; now we’ll sit cosily by the fire. No, you take the arm-chair; I shall sit in this rocking-chair. [Seizes her hands.] Yes, now I can see the dear old face again. It was only at the first glance——But you’re a little paler, Christina—and perhaps a little thinner.

Mrs. Linden.

And much, much older, Nora.

Nora.

Yes, perhaps a little older—not much—ever so little. [She suddenly checks herself; seriously.] Oh, what a thoughtless wretch I am! Here I sit chattering on, and——Dear, dear Christina, can you forgive me!

Mrs. Linden.

What do you mean, Nora?

Nora.

[Softly.] Poor Christina! I forgot: you are a widow.

Mrs. Linden.

Yes; my husband died three years ago.

Nora.

I know, I know; I saw it in the papers. Oh, believe me, Christina, I did mean to write to you; but I kept putting it off, and something always came in the way.

Mrs. Linden.

I can quite understand that, Nora dear.

Nora.

No, Christina; it was horrid of me. Oh, you poor darling! how much you must have gone through!—And he left you nothing?

Mrs. Linden.

Nothing.

Nora.

And no children?

Mrs. Linden.

None.

Nora.

Nothing, nothing at all?

Mrs. Linden.

Not even a sorrow or a longing to dwell upon.

Nora.

[Looking at her incredulously.] My dear Christina, how is that possible?

Mrs. Linden.

[Smiling sadly and stroking her hair.] Oh, it happens so sometimes, Nora.

Nora.

So utterly alone! How dreadful that must be! I have three of the loveliest children. I can’t show them to you just now; they’re out with their nurse. But now you must tell me everything.

Mrs. Linden.

No, no; I want you to tell me——

Nora.

No, you must begin; I won’t be egotistical to-day. To-day I’ll think only of you. Oh! but I must tell you one thing—perhaps you’ve heard of our great stroke of fortune?

Mrs. Linden.

No. What is it?

Nora.

Only think! my husband has been made manager of the Joint Stock Bank.

Mrs. Linden.

Your husband! Oh, how fortunate!

Nora.

Yes; isn’t it? A lawyer’s position is so uncertain, you see, especially when he won’t touch any business that’s the least bit—shady, as of course Torvald never would; and there I quite agree with him. Oh! you can imagine how glad we are. He is to enter on his new position at the New Year, and then he’ll have a large salary, and percentages. In future we shall be able to live quite differently—just as we please, in fact. Oh, Christina, I feel so lighthearted and happy! It’s delightful to have lots of money, and no need to worry about things, isn’t it?

Mrs. Linden.

Yes; at any rate it must be delightful to have what you need.

Nora.

No, not only what you need, but heaps of money—heaps!

Mrs. Linden.

[Smiling.] Nora, Nora, haven’t you learnt reason yet? In our schooldays you were a shocking little spendthrift.

Nora.

[Quietly smiling.] Yes; that’s what Torvald says I am still. [Holding up her forefinger.] But “Nora, Nora” is not so silly as you all think. Oh! I haven’t had the chance to be much of a spendthrift. We have both had to work.

Mrs. Linden.

You too?

Nora.

Yes, light fancy work: crochet, and embroidery, and things of that sort; [Carelessly] and other work too. You know, of course, that Torvald left the Government service when we were married. He had little chance of promotion, and of course he required to make more money. But in the first year after our marriage he overworked himself terribly. He had to undertake all sorts of extra work, you know, and to slave early and late. He couldn’t stand it, and fell dangerously ill. Then the doctors declared he must go to the South.

Mrs. Linden.

You spent a whole year in Italy, didn’t you?

Nora.

Yes, we did. It wasn’t easy to manage, I can tell you. It was just after Ivar’s birth. But of course we had to go. Oh, it was a wonderful, delicious journey! And it saved Torvald’s life. But it cost a frightful lot of money, Christina.

Mrs. Linden.

So I should think.

Nora.

Twelve hundred dollars! Four thousand eight hundred crowns![^[7]] Isn’t that a lot of money?

Mrs. Linden.

How lucky you had the money to spend!

Nora.

We got it from father, you must know.

Mrs. Linden.

Ah, I see. He died just about that time, didn’t he?

Nora.

Yes, Christina, just then. And only think! I couldn’t go and nurse him! I was expecting little Ivar’s birth daily; and then I had my poor sick Torvald to attend to. Dear, kind old father! I never saw him again, Christina. Oh! that’s the hardest thing I have had to bear since my marriage.

Mrs. Linden.

I know how fond you were of him. But then you went to Italy?

Nora.

Yes; you see, we had the money, and the doctors said we must lose no time. We started a month later.

Mrs. Linden.

And your husband came back completely cured.

Nora.

Sound as a bell.

Mrs. Linden.

But—the doctor?

Nora.

What do you mean?

Mrs. Linden.

I thought as I came in your servant announced the doctor——

Nora.

Oh, yes; Doctor Rank. But he doesn’t come professionally. He is our best friend, and never lets a day pass without looking in. No, Torvald hasn’t had an hour’s illness since that time. And the children are so healthy and well, and so am I. [Jumps up and claps her hands.] Oh, Christina, Christina, what a wonderful thing it is to live and to be happy!—Oh, but it’s really too horrid of me! Here am I talking about nothing but my own concerns. [Seats herself upon a footstool close to Christina, and lays her arms on her friend’s lap.] Oh, don’t be angry with me! Now tell me, is it really true that you didn’t love your husband? What made you marry him, then?

Mrs. Linden.

My mother was still alive, you see, bedridden and helpless; and then I had my two younger brothers to think of. I didn’t think it would be right for me to refuse him.

Nora.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have been. I suppose he was rich then?

Mrs. Linden.

Very well off, I believe. But his business was uncertain. It fell to pieces at his death, and there was nothing left.

Nora.

And then——?

Mrs. Linden.

Then I had to fight my way by keeping a shop, a little school, anything I could turn my hand to. The last three years have been one long struggle for me. But now it is over, Nora. My poor mother no longer needs me; she is at rest. And the boys are in business, and can look after themselves.

Nora.

How free your life must feel!

Mrs. Linden.

No, Nora; only inexpressibly empty. No one to live for! [Stands up restlessly.] That’s why I could not bear to stay any longer in that out-of-the way corner. Here it must be easier to find something to take one up—to occupy one’s thoughts. If I could only get some settled employment—some office work.

Nora.

But, Christina, that’s such drudgery, and you look worn out already. It would be ever so much better for you to go to some watering-place and rest.

Mrs. Linden.

[Going to the window.] I have no father to give me the money, Nora.

Nora.

[Rising.] Oh, don’t be vexed with me.

Mrs. Linden.

[Going to her.] My dear Nora, don’t you be vexed with me. The worst of a position like mine is that it makes one so bitter. You have no one to work for, yet you have to be always on the strain. You must live; and so you become selfish. When I heard of the happy change in your fortunes—can you believe it?—I was glad for my own sake more than for yours.

Nora.

How do you mean? Ah, I see! You think Torvald can perhaps do something for you.

Mrs. Linden.

Yes; I thought so.

Nora.

And so he shall, Christina. Just you leave it all to me. I shall lead up to it beautifully!—I shall think of some delightful plan to put him in a good humour! Oh, I should so love to help you.

Mrs. Linden.

How good of you, Nora, to stand by me so warmly! Doubly good in you, who know so little of the troubles and burdens of life.

Nora.

I? I know so little of——?

Mrs. Linden.

[Smiling.] Oh, well—a little fancy-work, and so forth.—You’re a child, Nora.

Nora.

[Tosses her head and paces the room.] Oh, come, you mustn’t be so patronising!

Mrs. Linden.

No?

Nora.

You’re like the rest. You all think I’m fit for nothing really serious——

Mrs. Linden.

Well, well——

Nora.

You think I’ve had no troubles in this weary world.

Mrs. Linden.

My dear Nora, you’ve just told me all your troubles.

Nora.

Pooh—those trifles! [Softly.] I haven’t told you the great thing.

Mrs. Linden.

The great thing? What do you mean?

Nora.

I know you look down upon me, Christina; but you have no right to. You are proud of having worked so hard and so long for your mother.

Mrs. Linden.

I am sure I don’t look down upon any one; but it’s true I am both proud and glad when I remember that I was able to keep my mother’s last days free from care.

Nora.

And you’re proud to think of what you have done for your brothers, too.

Mrs. Linden.

Have I not the right to be?

Nora.

Yes indeed. But now let me tell you, Christina—I, too, have something to be proud and glad of.

Mrs. Linden.

I don’t doubt it. But what do you mean?

Nora.

Hush! Not so loud. Only think, if Torvald were to hear! He mustn’t—not for worlds! No one must know about it, Christina—no one but you.

Mrs. Linden.

Why, what can it be?

Nora.

Come over here. [Draws her down beside her on the sofa.] Yes, Christina—I, too, have something to be proud and glad of. I saved Torvald’s life.

Mrs. Linden.

Saved his life? How?

Nora.

I told you about our going to Italy. Torvald would have died but for that.

Mrs. Linden.

Well—and your father gave you the money.

Nora.

[Smiling.] Yes, so Torvald and every one believes; but——

Mrs. Linden.

But——?

Nora.

Papa didn’t give us one penny. It was I that found the money.

Mrs. Linden.

You? All that money?

Nora.

Twelve hundred dollars. Four thousand eight hundred crowns. What do you say to that?

Mrs. Linden.

My dear Nora, how did you manage it? Did you win it in the lottery?

Nora.

[Contemptuously] In the lottery? Pooh! Any one could have done that!

Mrs. Linden.

Then wherever did you get it from?

Nora.

[Hums and smiles mysteriously.] H’m; tra-la-la-la!

Mrs. Linden.

Of course you couldn’t borrow it.

Nora.

No? Why not?

Mrs. Linden.

Why, a wife can’t borrow without her husband’s consent.

Nora.

[Tossing her head.] Oh! when the wife has some idea of business, and knows how to set about things——

Mrs. Linden.

But, Nora, I don’t understand——

Nora.

Well, you needn’t. I never said I borrowed the money. There are many ways I may have got it.

[Throws herself back on the sofa.] I may have got it from some admirer. When one is so—attractive as I am——

Mrs. Linden.

You’re too silly, Nora.

Nora.

Now I’m sure you’re dying of curiosity, Christina——

Mrs. Linden.

Listen to me, Nora dear: haven’t you been a little rash?

Nora.

[Sitting upright again.] Is it rash to save one’s husband’s life?

Mrs. Linden.

I think it was rash of you, without his knowledge——

Nora.

But it would have been fatal for him to know! Can’t you understand that? He wasn’t even to suspect how ill he was. The doctors came to me privately and told me his life was in danger—that nothing could save him but a winter in the South. Do you think I didn’t try diplomacy first? I told him how I longed to have a trip abroad, like other young wives; I wept and prayed; I said he ought to think of my condition, and not to thwart me; and then I hinted that he could borrow the money. But then, Christina, he got almost angry. He said I was frivolous, and that it was his duty as a husband not to yield to my whims and fancies—so he called them. Very well, thought I, but saved you must be; and then I found the way to do it.

Mrs. Linden.

And did your husband never learn from your father that the money was not from him?

Nora.

No; never. Papa died at that very time. I meant to have told him all about it, and begged him to say nothing. But he was so ill—unhappily, it wasn’t necessary.

Mrs. Linden.

And you have never confessed to your husband?

Nora.

Good heavens! What can you be thinking of? Tell him, when he has such a loathing of debt! And besides—how painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald, with his manly self-respect, to know that he owed anything to me! It would utterly upset the relation between us; our beautiful, happy home would never again be what it is.

Mrs. Linden.

Will you never tell him?

Nora.

[Thoughtfully, half-smiling.] Yes, some time perhaps—many, many years hence, when I’m—not so pretty. You mustn’t laugh at me! Of course I mean when Torvald is not so much in love with me as he is now; when it doesn’t amuse him any longer to see me dancing about, and dressing up and acting. Then it might be well to have something in reserve. [Breaking off.] Nonsense! nonsense! That time will never come. Now, what do you say to my grand secret, Christina? Am I fit for nothing now? You may believe it has cost me a lot of anxiety. It has been no joke to meet my engagements punctually. You must know, Christina, that in business there are things called instalments, and quarterly interest, that are terribly hard to provide for. So I’ve had to pinch a little here and there, wherever I could. I couldn’t save much out of the housekeeping, for of course Torvald had to live well. And I couldn’t let the children go about badly dressed; all I got for them, I spent on them, the blessed darlings!

Mrs. Linden.

Poor Nora! So it had to come out of your own pocket-money.

Nora.

Yes, of course[course]. After all, the whole thing was my doing. When Torvald gave me money for clothes, and so on, I never spent more than half of it; I always bought the simplest and cheapest things. It’s a mercy that everything suits me so well—Torvald never had any suspicions. But it was often very hard, Christina dear. For it’s nice to be beautifully dressed—now, isn’t it?

Mrs. Linden.

Indeed it is.

Nora.

Well, and besides that, I made money in other ways. Last winter I was so lucky—I got a heap of copying to do. I shut myself up every evening and wrote far into the night. Oh, sometimes I was so tired, so tired. And yet it was splendid to work in that way and earn money. I almost felt as if I was a man.

Mrs. Linden.

Then how much have you been able to pay off?

Nora.

Well, I can’t precisely say. It’s difficult to keep that sort of business clear. I only know that I’ve paid everything I could scrape together. Sometimes I really didn’t know where to turn. [Smiles.] Then I used to sit here and pretend that a rich old gentleman was in love with me——

Mrs. Linden.

What! What gentleman?

Nora.

Oh, nobody!—that he was dead now, and that when his will was opened, there stood in large letters: “Pay over at once everything of which I die possessed to that charming person, Mrs. Nora Helmer.”

Mrs. Linden.

But, my dear Nora—what gentleman do you mean?

Nora.

Oh dear, can’t you understand? There wasn’t any old gentleman: it was only what I used to dream and dream when I was at my wits’ end for money. But it doesn’t matter now—the tiresome old creature may stay where he is for me. I care nothing for him or his will; for now my troubles are over. [Springing up.] Oh, Christina, how glorious it is to think of! Free from all anxiety! Free, quite free. To be able to play and romp about with the children; to have things tasteful and pretty in the house, exactly as Torvald likes it! And then the spring will soon be here, with the great blue sky. Perhaps then we shall have a little holiday. Perhaps I shall see the sea again. Oh, what a wonderful thing it is to live and to be happy!

[The hall-door bell rings.

Mrs. Linden.

[Rising.] There’s a ring. Perhaps I had better go.

Nora.

No; do stay. No one will come here. It’s sure to be some one for Torvald.

Ellen.

[In the doorway.] If you please, ma’am, there’s a gentleman to speak to Mr. Helmer.

Nora.

Who is the gentleman?

Krogstad.

[In the doorway.] It is I, Mrs. Helmer.

[Mrs. Linden starts and turns away to the window.

Nora.

[Goes a step towards him, anxiously, speaking low.] You? What is it? What do you want with my husband?

Krogstad.

Bank business—in a way. I hold a small post in the Joint Stock Bank, and your husband is to be our new chief, I hear.

Nora.

Then it is——?

Krogstad.

Only tiresome business, Mrs. Helmer; nothing more.

Nora.

Then will you please go to his study.

[Krogstad goes. She bows indifferently while she closes the door into the hall. Then she goes to the stove and looks to the fire.

Mrs. Linden.

Nora—who was that man?

Nora.

A Mr. Krogstad—a lawyer.

Mrs. Linden.

Then it was really he?

Nora.

Do you know him?

Mrs. Linden.

I used to know him—many years ago. He was in a lawyer’s office in our town.

Nora.

Yes, so he was.

Mrs. Linden.

How he has changed!

Nora.

I believe his marriage was unhappy.

Mrs. Linden.

And he is a widower now?

Nora.

With a lot of children. There! Now it will burn up.

[She closes the stove, and pushes the rocking-chair a little aside.

Mrs. Linden.

His business is not of the most creditable, they say?

Nora.

Isn’t it? I daresay not. I don’t know. But don’t let us think of business—it’s so tiresome.

Dr. Rank comes out of Helmer’s room.

Rank.

[Still in the doorway.] No, no; I’m in your way. I shall go and have a chat with your wife. [Shuts the door and sees Mrs. Linden.] Oh, I beg your pardon. I’m in the way here too.

Nora.

No, not in the least. [Introduces them.] Doctor Rank—Mrs. Linden.

Rank.

Oh, indeed; I’ve often heard Mrs. Linden’s name; I think I passed you on the stairs as I came up.

Mrs. Linden.

Yes; I go so very slowly. Stairs try me so much.

Rank.

Ah—you are not very strong?

Mrs. Linden.

Only overworked.

Rank.

Nothing more? Then no doubt you’ve come to town to find rest in a round of dissipation?

Mrs. Linden.

I have come to look for employment.

Rank.

Is that an approved remedy for overwork?

Mrs. Linden.

One must live, Doctor Rank.

Rank.

Yes, that seems to be the general opinion.

Nora.

Come, Doctor Rank—you want to live yourself.

Rank.

To be sure I do. However wretched I may be, I want to drag on as long as possible. All my patients, too, have the same mania. And it’s the same with people whose complaint is moral. At this very moment Helmer is talking to just such a moral incurable——

Mrs. Linden.

[Softly.] Ah!

Nora.

Whom do you mean?

Rank.

Oh, a fellow named Krogstad, a man you know nothing about—corrupt to the very core of his character. But even he began by announcing, as a matter of vast importance, that he must live.

Nora.

Indeed? And what did he want with Torvald?

Rank.

I haven’t an idea; I only gathered that it was some bank business.

Nora.

I didn’t know that Krog—that this Mr. Krogstad had anything to do with the Bank?

Rank.

Yes. He has got some sort of place there. [To Mrs. Linden.] I don’t know whether, in your part of the country, you have people who go grubbing and sniffing around in search of moral rottenness—and then, when they have found a “case,” don’t rest till they have got their man into some good position, where they can keep a watch upon him. Men with a clean bill of health they leave out in the cold.

Mrs. Linden.

Well, I suppose the—delicate characters require most care.

Rank.

[Shrugs his shoulders.] There we have it! It’s that notion that makes society a hospital.

[Nora, deep in her own thoughts, breaks into half-stifled laughter and claps her hands.

Rank.

Why do you laugh at that? Have you any idea what “society” is?

Nora.

What do I care for your tiresome society? I was laughing at something else—something excessively amusing. Tell me, Doctor Rank, are all the employees at the Bank dependent on Torvald now?

Rank.

Is that what strikes you as excessively amusing?

Nora.

[Smiles and hums.] Never mind, never mind! [Walks about the room.] Yes, it is funny to think that we—that Torvald has such power over so many people. [Takes the bag from her pocket.] Doctor Rank, will you have a macaroon?

Rank.

What!—macaroons! I thought they were contraband here.

Nora.

Yes; but Christina brought me these.

Mrs. Linden.

What! I——?

Nora.

Oh, well! Don’t be frightened. You couldn’t possibly know that Torvald had forbidden them. The fact is, he’s afraid of me spoiling my teeth. But, oh bother, just for once!—That’s for you, Doctor Rank! [Puts a macaroon into his mouth.] And you too, Christina. And I’ll have one while we’re about it—only a tiny one, or at most two. [Walks about again.] Oh dear, I am happy! There’s only one thing in the world I really want.

Rank.

Well; what’s that?

Nora.

There’s something I should so like to say—in Torvald’s hearing.

Rank.

Then why don’t you say it?

Nora.

Because I daren’t, it’s so ugly.

Mrs. Linden.

Ugly?[Ugly?]

Rank.

In that case you’d better not. But to us you might——What is it you would so like to say in Helmer’s hearing?

Nora.

I should so love to say “Damn it all!”[^[8]]

Rank.

Are you out of your mind?

Mrs. Linden.

Good gracious, Nora——!

Rank

Say it—there he is!

Nora.

[Hides the macaroons.] Hush—sh—sh

Helmer comes out of his room, hat in hand, with his overcoat on his arm.

Nora.

[Going to him.] Well, Torvald dear, have you got rid of him?

Helmer.

Yes; he has just gone.

Nora.

Let me introduce you—this is Christina, who has come to town——

Helmer.

Christina? Pardon me, I don’t know——

Nora.

Mrs. Linden, Torvald dear—Christina Linden.

Helmer.

[To Mrs. Linden.] Indeed! A school-friend of my wife’s, no doubt?

Mrs. Linden.

Yes; we knew each other as girls.

Nora.

And only think! she has taken this long journey on purpose to speak to you.

Helmer.

To speak to me!

Mrs. Linden.

Well, not quite——

Nora.

You see, Christina is tremendously clever at office-work, and she’s so anxious to work under a first-rate man of business in order to learn still more——

Helmer.

[To Mrs. Linden.] Very sensible indeed.

Nora.

And when she heard you were appointed manager—it was telegraphed, you know—she started off at once, and——Torvald, dear, for my sake, you must do something for Christina. Now can’t you?

Helmer.

It’s not impossible. I presume Mrs. Linden is a widow?

Mrs. Linden.

Yes.

Helmer.

And you have already had some experience of business?

Mrs. Linden.

A good deal.

Helmer.

Well, then, it’s very likely I may be able to find a place for you.

Nora.

[Clapping her hands.] There now! There now!

Helmer.

You have come at a fortunate moment, Mrs. Linden.

Mrs. Linden.

Oh, how can I thank you——?

Helmer.

[Smiling.] There is no occasion. [Puts on his overcoat.] But for the present you must excuse me——

Rank.

Wait; I am going with you.

[Fetches his fur coat from the hall and warms it at the fire.

Nora.

Don’t be long, Torvald dear.

Helmer.

Only an hour; not more.

Nora.

Are you going too, Christina?

Mrs. Linden.

[Putting on her walking things.] Yes; I must set about looking for lodgings.

Helmer.

Then perhaps we can go together?

Nora.

[Helping her.] What a pity we haven’t a spare room for you; but it’s impossible——

Mrs. Linden.

I shouldn’t think of troubling you. Good-bye, dear Nora, and thank you for all your kindness.

Nora.

Good-bye for the present. Of course you’ll come back this evening. And you, too, Doctor Rank. What! If you’re well enough? Of course you’ll be well enough. Only wrap up warmly. [They go out, talking, into the hall. Outside on the stairs are heard children’s voices.] There they are! There they are! [She runs to the outer door and opens it. The nurse Anna, enters the hall with the children.] Come in! Come in! [Stoops down and kisses the children.] Oh, my sweet darlings! Do you see them, Christina? Aren’t they lovely?

Rank.

Don’t let us stand here chattering in the draught.

Helmer.

Come, Mrs. Linden; only mothers can stand such a temperature.

[Dr. Rank, Helmer, and Mrs. Linden go down the stairs; Anna enters the room with the children; Nora also, shutting the door.

Nora.

How fresh and bright you look! And what red cheeks you’ve got! Like apples and roses. [The children chatter to her during what follows.] Have you had great fun? That’s splendid! Oh, really! You’ve been giving Emmy and Bob a ride on your sledge!—both at once, only think! Why, you’re quite a man, Ivar. Oh, give her to me a little, Anna. My sweet little dolly! [Takes the smallest from the nurse and dances with her.] Yes, yes; mother will dance with Bob too. What! Did you have a game of snowballs? Oh, I wish I’d been there. No; leave them, Anna; I’ll take their things off. Oh, yes, let me do it; it’s such fun. Go to the nursery; you look frozen. You’ll find some hot coffee on the stove.

[The Nurse goes into the room on the left. Nora takes off the children’s things and throws them down anywhere, while the children talk all together.

Really! A big dog ran after you? But he didn’t bite you? No; dogs don’t bite dear little dolly children. Don’t peep into those parcels, Ivar. What is it? Wouldn’t you like to know? Take care—it’ll bite! What? Shall we have a game? What shall we play at? Hide-and-seek? Yes, let’s play hide-and-seek. Bob shall hide first. Am I to? Yes, let me hide first.

[She and the children play, with laughter and shouting, in the room and the adjacent one to the right. At last Nora hides under the table; the children come rushing in, look for her, but cannot find her, hear her half-choked laughter, rush to the table, lift up the cover and see her. Loud shouts. She creeps out, as though to frighten them. Fresh shouts. Meanwhile there has been a knock at the door leading into the hall. No one has heard it. Now the door is half opened and Krogstad appears. He waits a little; the game is renewed.

Krogstad.

I beg your pardon, Mrs. Helmer——

Nora.

[With a suppressed cry, turns round and half jumps up.] Ah! What do you want?

Krogstad.

Excuse me; the outer door was ajar—somebody must have forgotten to shut it——

Nora.

[Standing up.] My husband is not at home, Mr. Krogstad.

Krogstad.

I know it.

Nora.

Then what do you want here?

Krogstad.

To say a few words to you.

Nora.

To me? [To the children, softly.] Go in to Anna. What? No, the strange man won’t hurt mamma. When he’s gone we’ll go on playing. [She leads the children into the left-hand room, and shuts the door behind them. Uneasy, in suspense.] It is to me you wish to speak?

Krogstad.

Yes, to you.

Nora.

To-day? But it’s not the first yet——

Krogstad.

No, to-day is Christmas Eve. It will depend upon yourself whether you have a merry Christmas.

Nora.

What do you want? I’m not ready to-day——

Krogstad.

Never mind that just now. I have come about another matter. You have a minute to spare?

Nora.

Oh, yes, I suppose so; although——

Krogstad.

Good. I was sitting in the restaurant opposite, and I saw your husband go down the street——

Nora.

Well?

Krogstad.

——with a lady

Nora.

What then?

Krogstad.

May I ask if the lady was a Mrs. Linden?

Nora.

Yes.

Krogstad.

Who has just come to town?

Nora.

Yes. To-day.

Krogstad.

I believe she is an intimate friend of yours?

Nora.

Certainly. But I don’t understand——

Krogstad.

I used to know her too.

Nora.

I know you did.

Krogstad.

Ah! You know all about it. I thought as much. Now, frankly, is Mrs. Linden to have a place in the Bank?

Nora.

How dare you catechise me in this way, Mr. Krogstad—you, a subordinate of my husband’s? But since you ask, you shall know. Yes, Mrs. Linden is to be employed. And it is I who recommended her, Mr. Krogstad. Now you know.

Krogstad.

Then my guess was right.

Nora.

[Walking up and down.] You see one has a wee bit of influence, after all. It doesn’t follow because one’s only a woman——When people are in a subordinate position, Mr. Krogstad, they ought really to be careful how they offend anybody who—h’m——

Krogstad.

——who has influence?

Nora.

Exactly.

Krogstad.

[Taking another tone.] Mrs. Helmer, will you have the kindness to employ your influence on my behalf?

Nora.

What? How do you mean?

Krogstad.

Will you be so good as to see that I retain my subordinate position in the Bank?

Nora.

What do you mean? Who wants to take it from you?

Krogstad.

Oh, you needn’t pretend ignorance. I can very well understand that it cannot be pleasant for your friend to meet me; and I can also understand now for whose sake I am to be hounded out.

Nora.

But I assure you——

Krogstad.

Come come now, once for all: there is time yet, and I advise you to use your influence to prevent it.

Nora.

But, Mr. Krogstad, I have no influence—absolutely none.

Krogstad.

None? I thought you said a moment ago——

Nora.

Of course not in that sense. I! How can you imagine that I should have any such influence over my husband?

Krogstad.

Oh, I know your husband from our college days. I don’t think he is any more inflexible than other husbands.

Nora.

If you talk disrespectfully of my husband, I must request you to leave the house.

Krogstad.

You are bold, madam.

Nora.

I am afraid of you no longer. When New Year’s Day is over, I shall soon be out of the whole business.

Krogstad.

[Controlling himself.] Listen to me, Mrs. Helmer. If need be, I shall fight as though for my life to keep my little place in the Bank.

Nora.

Yes, so it seems.

Krogstad.

It’s not only for the salary: that is what I care least about. It’s something else——Well, I had better make a clean breast of it. Of course you know, like every one else, that some years ago I—got into trouble.

Nora.

I think I’ve heard something of the sort.

Krogstad.

The matter never came into court; but from that moment all paths were barred to me. Then I took up the business you know about. I had to turn my hand to something; and I don’t think I’ve been one of the worst. But now I must get clear of it all. My sons are growing up; for their sake I must try to recover my character as well as I can. This place in the Bank was the first step; and now your husband wants to kick me off the ladder, back into the mire.

Nora.

But I assure you, Mr. Krogstad, I haven’t the least power to help you.

Krogstad.

That is because you have not the will; but I can compel you.

Nora.

You won’t tell my husband that I owe you money?

Krogstad.

H’m; suppose I were to?

Nora.

It would be shameful of you. [With tears in her voice.] The secret that is my joy and my pride—that he should learn it in such an ugly, coarse way—and from you. It would involve me in all sorts of unpleasantness——

Krogstad.

Only unpleasantness.[unpleasantness.]

Nora.

[Hotly.] But just do it. It’s you that will come off worst, for then my husband will see what a bad man you are, and then you certainly won’t keep your place.

Krogstad.

I asked whether it was only domestic unpleasantness you feared?

Nora.

If my husband gets to know about it, he will of course pay you off at once, and then we shall have nothing more to do with you.

Krogstad.

[Coming a pace nearer.] Listen, Mrs. Helmer: either your memory is defective, or you don’t know much about business. I must make the position a little clearer to you.

Nora.

How so?

Krogstad.

When your husband was ill, you came to me to borrow twelve hundred dollars.

Nora.

I knew of nobody else.

Krogstad.

I promised to find you the money——

Nora.

And you did find it.

Krogstad.

I promised to find you the money, on certain conditions. You were so much taken up at the time about your husband’s illness, and so eager to have the wherewithal for your journey, that you probably did not give much thought to the details. Allow me to remind you of them. I promised to find you the amount in exchange for a note of hand, which I drew up.

Nora.

Yes, and I signed it.

Krogstad.

Quite right. But then I added a few lines, making your father security for the debt. Your father was to sign this.

Nora.

Was to——? He did sign it!

Krogstad.

I had left the date blank. That is to say, your father was himself to date his signature. Do you recollect that?

Nora.

Yes, I believe——

Krogstad.

Then I gave you the paper to send to your father, by post. Is not that so?

Nora.

Yes.

Krogstad.

And of course you did so at once; for within five or six days you brought me back the document with your father’s signature; and I handed you the money.

Nora.

Well? Have I not made my payments punctually?

Krogstad.

Fairly—yes. But to return to the point: You were in great trouble at the time, Mrs. Helmer.

Nora.

I was indeed!

Krogstad.

Your father was very ill, I believe?

Nora.

He was on his death-bed.

Krogstad.

And died soon after?

Nora.

Yes.

Krogstad.

Tell me, Mrs. Helmer: do you happen to recollect the day of his death? The day of the month, I mean?

Nora.

Father died on the 29th of September.

Krogstad.

Quite correct. I have made inquiries. And here comes in the remarkable point—[Produces a paper] which I cannot explain.

Nora.

What remarkable point? I don’t know——

Krogstad.

The remarkable point, madam, that your father signed this paper three days after his death!

Nora.

What! I don’t understand——

Krogstad.

Your father died on the 29th of September. But look here: he has dated his signature October 2nd! Is not that remarkable, Mrs. Helmer? [Nora is silent.] Can you explain it? [Nora continues silent.] It is noteworthy, too, that the words “October 2nd” and the year are not in your father’s handwriting, but in one which I believe I know. Well, this may be explained; your father may have forgotten to date his signature, and somebody may have added the date at random, before the fact of your father’s death was known. There is nothing wrong in that. Everything depends on the signature. Of course it is genuine, Mrs. Helmer? It was really your father himself who wrote his name here?

Nora.

[After a short silence, throws her head back and looks defiantly at him.] No, it was not. I wrote father’s name.

Krogstad.

Ah!—Are you aware, madam, that that is a dangerous admission?

Nora.

How so? You will soon get your money.

Krogstad.

May I ask you one more question? Why did you not send the paper to your father?[father?]

Nora.

It was impossible. Father was ill. If I had asked him for his signature, I should have had to tell him why I wanted the money; but he was so ill I really could not tell him that my husband’s life was in danger. It was impossible.

Krogstad.

Then it would have been better to have given up your tour.

Nora.

No, I couldn’t do that; my husband’s life depended on that journey. I couldn’t give it up.

Krogstad.

And did it never occur to you that you were playing me false?

Nora.

That was nothing to me. I didn’t care in the least about you. I couldn’t endure you for all the cruel difficulties you made, although you knew how ill my husband was.

Krogstad.

Mrs. Helmer, you evidently do not realise what you have been guilty of. But I can assure you it was nothing more and nothing worse that made me an outcast from society.

Nora.

You! You want me to believe that you did a brave thing to save your wife’s life?

Krogstad.

The law takes no account of motives.

Nora.

Then it must be a very bad law.

Krogstad.

Bad or not, if I produce this document in court, you will be condemned according to law.

Nora.

I don’t believe that. Do you mean to tell me that a daughter has no right to spare her dying father trouble and anxiety?—that a wife has no right to save her husband’s life? I don’t know much about the law, but I’m sure you’ll find, somewhere or another, that that is allowed. And you don’t know that—you, a lawyer! You must be a bad one, Mr. Krogstad.

Krogstad.

Possibly. But business—such business as ours—I do understand. You believe that? Very well; now do as you please. But this I may tell you, that if I am flung into the gutter a second time, you shall keep me company.

[Bows and goes out through hall.

Nora.

[Stands a while thinking, then tosses her head.] Oh nonsense! He wants to frighten me. I’m not so foolish as that. [Begins folding the children’s clothes. Pauses.] But——? No, it’s impossible! Why, I did it for love!

Children.

[At the door, left.] Mamma, the strange man has gone now.

Nora.

Yes, yes, I know. But don’t tell any one about the strange man. Do you hear? Not even papa!

Children.

No, mamma; and now will you play with us again?

Nora.

No, no; not now.

Children.

Oh, do, mamma; you know you promised.

Nora.

Yes, but I can’t just now. Run to the nursery; I have so much to do. Run along, run along, and be good, my darlings! [She pushes them gently into the inner room, and closes the door behind them. Sits on the sofa, embroiders a few stitches, but[but] soon pauses.] No! [Throws down the work, rises, goes to the hall door and calls out.] Ellen, bring in the Christmas-tree! [Goes to table, left, and opens the drawer; again pauses.] No, it’s quite impossible!

Ellen.

[With Christmas-tree.] Where shall I stand it, ma’am?

Nora.

There, in the middle of the room.

Ellen.

Shall I bring in anything else?

Nora.

No, thank you, I have all I want.

[Ellen, having put down the tree, goes out.

Nora.

[Busy dressing the tree.] There must be a candle here—and flowers there.—That horrible man! Nonsense, nonsense! there’s nothing to be afraid of. The Christmas-tree shall be beautiful. I’ll do everything to please you, Torvald; I’ll sing and dance, and——

Enter Helmer by the hall door, with a bundle of documents.

Nora.

Oh! You’re back already?

Helmer.

Yes. Has anybody been here?[here?]

Nora.

Here? No.

Helmer.

That’s odd. I saw Krogstad come out of the house.

Nora.

Did you? Oh, yes, by-the-bye, he was here for a minute.

Helmer.

Nora, I can see by your manner that he has been begging you to put in a good word for him.

Nora.

Yes.

Helmer.

And you were to do it as if of your own accord? You were to say nothing to me of his having been here. Didn’t he suggest that too?

Nora.

Yes, Torvald; but——

Helmer.

Nora, Nora! And you could condescend to that! To speak to such a man, to make him a promise! And then to tell me an untruth about it!

Nora.

An untruth!

Helmer.

Didn’t you say that nobody had been here? [Threatens with his finger.] My little bird must never do that again! A song-bird must sing clear and true; no false notes. [Puts his arm round her.] That’s so, isn’t it? Yes, I was sure of it. [Lets her go.] And now we’ll say no more about it. [Sits down before the fire.] Oh, how cosy and quiet it is here!

[Glances into his documents.

Nora.

[Busy with the tree, after a short silence.] Torvald!

Helmer.

Yes.

Nora.

I’m looking forward so much to the Stenborgs’ fancy ball the day after to-morrow.

Helmer.

And I’m on tenterhooks to see what surprise you have in store for me.

Nora.

Oh, it’s too tiresome!

Helmer.

What is?

Nora.

I can’t think of anything good. Everything seems so foolish and meaningless.

Helmer.

Has little Nora made that discovery?

Nora.

[Behind his chair, with her arms on the back.] Are you very busy, Torvald?

Helmer.

Well——

Nora.

What papers are those?

Helmer.

Bank business.

Nora.

Already!