No More Learning

Time : The Present Day. Nora Helmer enters, crossing to table
in every-day dress.
ELMER
H. .
Why, what's this? Not gone to bed ? You have
changed your dress.
Nora — Yes, Torvald; now I have changed my dress.
Helmer — But why now, so late?
Nora - I shall not sleep to-night.
Helmer - But, Nora dear -
Nora [looking at her watch]— It's not so late yet. Sit down,
Torvald: you and I have much to say to each other. [She sits at
one side of the table. ]
Helmer - Nora, what does this mean? Your cold, set face-
Nora — Sit down. It will take some time: I have much to
talk over with you.
Helmer (sitting down at the other side of the table] - You
alarm me; I don't understand you.
Nora — No, that's just it. You don't understand me; and I
have never understood you — till to-night. No, don't interrupt.
Only listen to what I say. We must come to a final settlement,
Torvald!
Helmer How do you mean?
Nora [after a short silence] - Does not one thing strike you
as we sit here?
Helmer - What should strike me ?
Nora — We have been married eight years. Does it not strike
you that this is the first time we two — you and I, man and wife
have talked together seriously?
Helmer - Seriously! Well, what do you call seriously?
?
Nora — During eight whole years and more - ever since the
day we first met - we have never exchanged one serious word
about serious things.
Helmer - Was I always to trouble you with the cares you
could not help me to bear?
Nora — I am not talking of cares. I say that we have never
yet set ourselves seriously to get to the bottom of anything.
Helmer - Why, my dear Nora, what have you to do with
serious things ?


## p. 7853 (#45) ############################################

HENRIK IBSEN
7853
into yours.
-
Nora - There we have it! You have never understood me. I
have had great injustice done me, Torvald: first by my father,
and then by you.
Helmer - What! by your father and me? — by us who have
loved you more than all the world ?
Nora (shaking her head] – You have never loved me. You
only thought it amusing to be in love with me.
Helmer — Why, Nora, what a thing to say!
Nora — Yes, it is so, Torvald. While I was at home with
father he used to tell me all his opinions, and I held the same
opinions. If I had others I concealed them, because he would
not have liked it. He used to call me his doll child, and play
.
with me
as I played with my dolls. Then I came to live in
your house
Helmer — What an expression to use about our marriage!
Nora [undisturbed]-I mean I passed from father's hands
You settled everything according to your taste; and
I got the same tastes as you; or I pretended to—I don't know
which — both ways, perhaps. When I look back on it now,
I
seem to have been living here like a beggar, from hand to mouth.
I lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. But you would
have it so. You and father have done me a great wrong.
It's
your fault that my life has been wasted.
Helmer — Why, Nora, how unreasonable and ungrateful you
are! Haven't you been happy here?
Nora — No, never: I thought I was, but I never was.
Helmer - Not — not happy?
Nora — No, only merry. And you have always been so kind
to me. But our house has been nothing but a play-room. Here
I have been your doll wife, just as at home I used to be papa's
doll child. And the children in their turn have been my dolls.
I thought it was fun when you played with me, just as the
children did when I played with them. That has been our mar-
riage, Torvald,
Helmer — There is some truth in what you say, exaggerated
and overstrained though it be. But henceforth it shall be differ-
ent. Play-time is over; now comes the time for education.
Nora – Whose education ? Mine, or the children's ?
Helmer - Both, my dear Nora.
Nora — 0 Torvald, you can't teach me to be a fit wife for
you.


## p. 7854 (#46) ############################################

7854
HENRIK IBSEN
me.
Helmer And you say that ?
Vora - And I - am I fit to educate the children?
Helmer - Xora!
Nora - Did you not say yourself a few minutes ago you dared
not trust them to me?
Helmer - In the excitement of the moment: why should you
dwell upon that?
Nora - Xo- you are perfectly right. That problem is beyond
There's another to be solved first — I must try to educate
myself. You are not the man to help me in that. I must set
about it alone. And that is why I am now leaving you.
Helmer (jumping up]- What do you mean to say –
Nora-I must stand quite alone to know myself and my sur-
roundings; so I cannot stay with you.
Helmer - Nora! Nora!
Nora — I am going at once.
Christina will take me in for
to-night-
Helmer – You are mad. I shall not allow it. I forbid it.
Nora - It's no use your forbidding me anything now. I shall
take with me what belongs to me. From you I will accept
nothing, either now or afterward.
Helmer - What madness!
Nora - To-morrow I shall go home.
Homer - Home!
Nora — I mean to what was my home. It will be easier for
me to find some opening there.
Helmer -Oh, in your blind inexperience –
Nora -- I must try to gain experience, Torvald.
Helmer — To forsake your home, your husband, and your child-
ren! You don't consider what the world will say.
Nora - I can pay no heed to that! I only know that I must
do it.
Helmer -- It's exasperating! Can you forsake your holiest
duties in this way?
Nora - What do you call my holiest duties ?
Helmer Do you ask me that ? Your duties to your husband
and your children.
Nora — I have other duties equally sacred.
Helmer -— Impossible! What duties do you mean?
Nora — My duties toward myself.
Helmer Before all else you are a wife and a mother.


## p. 7855 (#47) ############################################

HENRIK IBSEN
7855
-
Nora – That I no longer believe. I think that before all else
I am a human being, just as much as you are or at least I will
try to become one. I know that most people agree with you,
Torvald, and that they say so in books. But henceforth I can't
be satisfied with what most people say, and what is in books. I
must think things out for myself, and try to get clear about them.
Helmer Are you not clear about your place in your own
home? Have you not an infallible guide in questions like these?
?
Have you not religion ?
Nora – O Torvald, I don't know properly what religion is.
Helmer What do you mean?
Nora — I know nothing but what our clergyman told me when
I was confirmed. He explained that religion was this and that.
When I get away from here and stand alone, I will look into
that matter too. I will see whether what he taught me is true,
or at any rate whether it is true for me.
Helmer - Oh, this is unheard of! But if religion cannot keep
you right, let me appeal to your conscience — for I suppose you
,
have some moral feeling? Or, answer me: perhaps you have
none ?
Nora - Well, Torvald, it's not easy to say. I really don't know
I am all at sea about these things. I only know that I think
quite differently from you about them. I hear too that the laws
are different from what I thought; but I can't believe that they
are right. It appears that a woman has no right to spare her
dying father, or to save her husband's life. I don't believe that.
Helmer You talk like a child. You don't understand the
society in which you live.
Nora - No, I don't. But I shall try to.
- ,
I must make up my
mind which is right — society or I.
Helmer - Nora, you are ill, you are feverish. I almost think
you are out of your senses.
Nora — I have never felt so much clearness and certainty as
to-night.
Helmer – You are clear and certain enough to forsake hus-
band and children ?
Nora — Yes, I am.
Helmer - Then there is only one explanation possible.
Nora — What is that?
Helmer - You no longer love me.
Nora — No, that is just it.


## p. 7856 (#48) ############################################

7856
HENRIK IBSEN
(
Helmer - Nora! Can you say so?
Nora - Oh, I'm so sorry, Torvald; for you've always been so
kind to me.
But I can't help it. I do not love you any longer.
Helmer [keeping his composure with difficulty]— Are you clear
and certain on this point too?
Nora — Yes, quite. That is why I won't stay here any longer.
Helmer — And can you also make clear to me how I have
forfeited your love ?
Nora — Yes, I can. It was this evening, when the miracle
did not happen; for then I saw you were not the man I had
taken you for.
Helmer - Explain yourself more clearly: I don't understand.
Nora — I have waited so patiently all these eight years; for
of course I saw clearly enough that miracles do not happen every
day. When this crushing blow threatened me, I said to myself
confidently, “Now comes the miracle! ” When Krogstad's letter
lay in the box, it never occurred to me that you would think of
submitting to that man's conditions. I was convinced that you
would say to him, “Make it known to all the world;" and that
then-
Helmer - Well? When I had given my own wife's name up
to disgrace and shame - ?
Nora — Then I firmly believed that you would come forward,
take everything upon yourself, and say, “I am the guilty one. ”
Helmer - Nora!
Nora — You mean I would never have accepted such a sacri-
fice ? No, certainly not. But what would my assertions have
been worth in opposition to yours? That was the miracle that I
hoped for and dreaded. And it was to hinder that that I wanted
to die.
Helmer - I would gladly work for you day and night, Nora, -
bear sorrow and want for your sake,– but no man sacrifices his
honor, even for one he loves.
Nora — Millions of women have done so.
Helmer -Oh, you think and talk like a silly child.
Nora - Very likely. But you neither think nor talk like the
—
man I can share my life with. When your terror was over, —
not for me, but for yourself,— when there was nothing more to
fear, then it was to you as though nothing had happened. I was
your lark again, your doll — whom you would take twice as much
care of in the future, because she was so weak and fragile.


## p. 7857 (#49) ############################################

HENRIK IBSEN
7857
(Stands up. ] Torvald, in that moment it burst upon me that I
had been living here these eight years with a strange man, and
had borne him three children. Oh! I can't bear to think of it -
I could tear myself to pieces!
Helmer (sadly]—I see it, I see it; an abyss has opened
between us. But, Nora, can it never be filled up?
Nora — As I now am, I am no wife for you.
Helmer I have strength to become another man.
Nora - Perhaps - when your doll is taken away from you.
Helmer – To part — to part from you! No, Nora, no; I can't
grasp the thought.
Nora (going into room at the right]— The more reason for the
thing to happen. [She comes back with outdoor things and a small
traveling-bag, which she puts on a chair. ]
Helmer - Nora, Nora, not now!
Wait till to-morrow.
Nora (putting on cloak]-I can't spend the night in a strange
man's house.
Helmer But can't we live here as brother and sister ?
Nora [ fastening her hat]— You know very well that would
not last long. Good-by, Torvald. No, I won't go to the child-
I know they are in better hands than mine. As I now
am, I can be nothing to them.
Helmer But some time, Nora- some time-
Nora — How can I tell ? have no idea what will become
ren.
of me.
Helmer - But you are my wife, now and always ?
Nora - Listen, Torvald: when a wife leaves her husband's
house, as I am doing, I have heard that in the eyes of the law
he is free from all duties toward her. At any rate I release you
from all duties. You must not feel yourself bound any more
than I shall. There must be perfect freedom on both sides.
There, there is your ring back. Give me mine.
Helmer -- That too?
Nora – That too.
Helmer - Here it is.
Nora - Very well. Now it is all over. Here are the keys.
The servants know about everything in the house better than I
do. To-morrow when I have started, Christina will come to pack
up my things. I will have them sent after me.
Helmer - All over! All over! Nora, will you never think of
me again?
XIV–492


## p. 7858 (#50) ############################################

7858
HENRIK IBSEN
Nora - Oh, I shall often think of you, and the children - and
this house.
Helmer — May I write to you, Nora ?
Nora — No, never.
You must not.
Helmer - But I must send you —
Nora - Nothing, nothing.
Helmer - I must help you if you need it.
Nora — No, I say.
I take nothing from strangers.
Helmer Nora, can I never be more than a stranger to you ?
Nora (taking her traveling-bag]-0 Torvald, then the mira-
cle of miracles would have to happen.
Helmer - What is the miracle of miracles ?
Nora — Both of us would have to change so that - O Tor-
0
vald, I no longer believe in miracles.
Helmer -- But I will believe. We must so change that -
-
-
Nora - That communion between us shall be a marriage.
Good-by. [She goes out. ]
Helmer [sinks in a chair by the door with his face in his
hands] - Nora! Nora! [He looks around and stands up. ] Empty.
She's gone! [A hope inspires him. ] Ah! The miracle of mira-
cles -? [From below is heard the reverberation of a heavy door
—
closing ]
FROM PEER GYNT)
Scene: In front of a settler's newly built hut in the forest. A rein-
deer's horns over the door. The snow is lying deep around. It is
dusk. Peer Gynt is standing outside the door, fastening a large
wooden bar to it.
PEER
EER (laughing between whiles) -
Bars I must fix me; bars that can fasten
The door against troll-folk, and men, and women.
Bars I must fix me; bars that can shut out
All the cantankerous little hobgoblins.
They come with the darkness, they knock and they rattle:
Open, Peer Gynt, we're as nimble as thoughts are!
’Neath the bedstead we bustle, we rake in the ashes,
Down the chimney we hustle like fiery-eyed dragons.
Hee-hee! Peer Gynt, think you staples and planks
Can shut out cantankerous hobgoblin thoughts ? ”
(


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HENRIK IBSEN
7859
Solveig comes on snow-shoes over the heath; she has a shawl over her head
and a bundle in her hand
Solveig –
God prosper your labor. You must not reject me.
You sent for me hither, and so you must take me.
Peer - Solveig! It cannot be! - Ay, but it is! -
And you're not afraid to come near to me!
Solveig
One message you sent me by little Helga;
Others came after in storm and in stillness.
All that your mother told bore me a message,
That brought forth others when dreams sank upon me.
Nights full of heaviness, blank empty days,
Brought me the message that now I must come.
It seemed as though life had been quenched down there;
I could not laugh nor weep from the depths of my heart.
I knew not for sure how you might be minded;
I knew but for sure what I should do and must do.
Peer - But your father?
Solteig -
In all of God's wide earth
I have none I can call either father or mother,
I have loosed me from all of them.
Peer -
Solveig, you fair one-
And to come to me?
Solveig -
Ay, to you alone;
You must be all to me, friend and consoler.
[In tears] -
The worst was leaving my little sister;
But parting from father was worse, still worse ;
And worst to leave her at whose breast I was borne ;-
Oh no, God forgive me, the worst I must call
The sorrow of leaving them all, ay, all!
Peer - And you know the doom that was passed in spring ?
It forfeits my farm and my heritage.
Solveig -
Think you for heritage, goods, and gear,
I forsook the paths all my dear ones tread ?
Peer - And know you the compact ? Outside the forest
Whoever may meet me may seize me at will.
Solveig –
I ran upon snow-shoes; I asked my way on;
They said, “Whither go you? ” I answered, “I go home. ”
Peer
Away, away then with nails and planks!
No need now for bars against hobgoblin thoughts.


## p. 7860 (#52) ############################################

7860
HENRIK IBSEN
If you dare dwell with the hunter here,
I know the hut will be blessed from ill.
Solveig! Let me look at you! Not too near!
Only look at you! Oh, but you are bright and pure!
Let me lift you! Oh, but you are fine and light!
Let me carry you, Solveig, and I'll never be tired!
I will not soil you.
With outstretched arms
I will hold you far out from me, lovely and warm one!
Oh, who would have thought I could draw you to me,–
Ah, but I've longed for you, daylong and nightlong.
Here you may see I've been hewing and building;
It must down again, dear: it is ugly and mean.
Solveig -
Be it mean or brave, here is all to my mind,
One so lightly draws breath in the teeth of the wind.
Down below it was airless; one felt as though choked:
That was partly what drove me in fear from the dale.
But here, with the fir branches soughing o'erhead,
What a stillness and song! I am here in my home.
Peer - And know you that surely? For all your days?
Solveig -
The path I have trodden leads back nevermore.
Peer – You are mine then! In! In the room let me see you!
Go in! I must go to fetch fir-roots for fuel.
Warm shall the fire be and bright shall it shine;
You shall sit softly and never be a-cold.
[He opens the door; Solveig goes in. He stands still for a while, then
laughs aloud with joy and leaps into the air. ]
Peer — My king's daughter! Now I have found her and won her!
Hei! Now the palace shall rise, deeply founded!
He seizes his axe and mores away; at the same moment an Old-Looking
Woman, in a tattered green goun, comes out from the wood; an
Ugly Brat, with an ale fragon in his hand, limps after, holding on
to her skirt.
The IVoman -
Good evening, Peer Lightfoot!
Peer -
What is it? Who's there?
The Woman -
Old friends of yours, Peer Gynt! My home is near by.
We are neighbors.
Peer-
Indeed ? That is more than I know.


## p. 7861 (#53) ############################################

HENRIK IBSEN
7861
The Woman -
Even as your hut was builded, mine built itself too.
Peer (going) -
I'm in haste --
The Woman
Yes, that you are always, my lad;
But I'll trudge behind you and catch you at last.
Peer - You're mistaken, good woman!
The Woman -
I was so before;
I was when you promised such mighty fine things.
Peer - I promised — ? What devil's own nonsense is this?
The Woman -
You've forgotten the night when you drank with my sire ?
You've forgot — ?
Peer –
I've forgot what I never have known.
What's this that you prate of? When last did we meet ?
The Woman When last we met was when first we met.
[To the Brat --
Give your father a drink: he is thirsty, I'm sure.
Peer - Father ? You're drunk, woman! Do you call him—?
The Woman
I should think you might well know the pig by its skin!
Why, where are your eyes? Can't you see that he's lame in
His shank, just as you too are lame in your soul ?
Peer Would you have me believe — ?
The Woman
Would you wriggle away?
Peer - This long-legged urchin ?
The Woman -
He's shot up apace.
Peer — Dare you, you troll-snout, father on me - ?
The Woman --
Come now, Peer Gynt, you're as rude as an ox!
[Veeping
Is it my fault if no longer I'm fair,
As I was when you lured me on hillside and lea?
Last fall, in my labor, the Fiend held my back,
And so 'twas no wonder I came out a fright.
But if you would see me as fair as before,
You have only to turn yonder girl out of doors,
Drive her clean out of your sight and your mind;-
Do but this, dear my love, and I'll soon lose my snout!
Peer — Begone from me, troll-witch!
The Woman --
Ay, see if I do!
Peer- I'll split your skull open!
The Woman -
Just try if you dare!
Ho-ho, Peer Gynt, I've no fear of blows!


## p. 7862 (#54) ############################################

7862
HENRIK IBSEN
-
Be sure I'll return every day of the year.
I'll set the door ajar and peep in at you both.
When you're sitting with your girl on the fireside bench,-
When you're tender, Peer Gynt, — when you'd pet and caress
her,
I'll seat myself by you, and ask for my share.
She there and I, we will take you by turns.
Farewell, dear my lad, you can marry to-morrow!
Peer – You nightmare of hell!
The Woman —
By-the-by, I forgot!
You must rear your own youngster, you light-footed scamp!
Little imp, will you go to your father ?
The Brat [spits at him) -
Faugh!
I'll chop you with my hatchet; only wait, only wait!
The Woman [kisses the Brat]-
What a head he has got on his shoulders, the dear!
You'll be father's living image when once you're a man.
Peer [stamping]
Oh, would you were as far -!
The Woman
As we now are near ?
Peer [clinching his hands] -
And all this — !
The Woman
For nothing but thoughts and desires !
It is hard on you, Peer!
Peer-
For nothing but thoughts and desires!
It is hard on you, Peer!
The Woman ---
For nothing but thoughts and desires!
It is hard on you, Peer!
Peer-
It is worst for another! -
Solveig, my fairest, my purest gold!
The Woman -
Oh ay, 'tis the guiltless must smart, said the Devil:
His mother boxed his ears when his father was drunk!
-
(She trudges off into the thicket with the Brat, who throw's the flagon at
Peer Gynt. )
Peer (after a long silence] -
The Boyg said, “Go roundabout! ” so one must here. -
There fell my fine palace, with crash and clatter!