HELMER. Both, my dear Nora. NORA. Oh, Torvald, you are not the man to teach me to be a fit wife for you. HELMER. And you can say that? NORA. And I—how have I prepared myself to educate the children? HELMER. Nora! 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. No—you were perfectly right. That problem is beyond me. There is 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 leaving you. HELMER. [_Jumping up._] What—do you mean to say——? NORA. I must stand quite alone if I am ever to know myself and my surroundings; so I cannot stay with you. HELMER. Nora! Nora! NORA. I am going at once. I daresay Christina will take me in for to-night—— HELMER. You are mad! I shall not allow it! I forbid it! NORA. It is of 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 afterwards. HELMER. What madness this is! NORA. To-morrow I shall go home—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 children! And 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. This is monstrous! Can you forsake your holiest duties in this way? NORA. What do you consider my holiest duties? HELMER. Do I need to tell you 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 towards myself. HELMER. Before all else you are a wife and a mother. NORA.