_Nora._ I am not speaking about business matters. I say that we have never sat down in earnest together to try and get at the bottom of anything. _Helmer._ But, dearest Nora, would it have been any good to you? _Nora._ That is just it; you have never understood me. I have been greatly wronged, Torvald--first by papa and then by you. _Helmer._ What! By us two--by us two, who have loved you better than anyone else in in the world? _Nora_ (_shaking her head_). You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me. _Helmer._ Nora, what do I hear you saying? _Nora._ It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you-- _Helmer._ What sort of an expression is that to use about our marriage? _Nora_ (_undisturbed_). I mean that I was simply transferred from papa's hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you--or else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which--I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman--just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life. _Helmer_. How unreasonable and how ungrateful you are, Nora! Have you not been happy here? _Nora_. No, I have never been happy. I thought I was, but it has never really been so. _Helmer_. Not--not happy! _Nora_. No, only merry. And you have always been so kind to me. But our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was papa's doll-child; and here the children have been my dolls. I thought it great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it great fun when I played with them. That is what our marriage has been, Torvald. _Helmer_. There is some truth in what you say--exaggerated and strained as your view of it is. But for the future it shall be different. Playtime shall be over, and lesson-time shall begin. _Nora_. Whose lessons? Mine, or the children's? _Helmer_. Both yours and the children's, my darling Nora. _Nora_. Alas, Torvald, you are not the man to educate me into being a proper wife for you. _Helmer_. And you can say that! _Nora_. And I--how am I fitted to bring up the children? _Helmer_. Nora! _Nora_. Didn't you say so yourself a little while ago--that you dare not trust me to bring them up? _Helmer_. In a moment of anger! Why do you pay any heed to that?