_Nora_ had borrowed the money from _Nils Krogstad_, a man with a shady past in the eyes of the community and of the righteous moralist, _Torvald Helmer_. So long as _Krogstad_ is allowed the little breathing space a Christian people grants to him who has once broken its laws, he is reasonably human. He does not molest _Nora_. But when _Helmer_ becomes director of the bank in which _Krogstad_ is employed, and threatens the man with dismissal, _Krogstad_ naturally fights back. For as he says to _Nora_: "If need be, I shall fight as though for my life to keep my little place in the bank.... It's not only for the money: that matters least to me. It's something else. Well, I'd better make a clean breast of it. Of course you know, like every one else, that some years ago I--got into trouble.... 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 was obliged to grasp at something; and I don't think I've been one of the worst. But now I must clear out of it all. My sons are growing up; for their sake I must try to win back as much respectability 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. Mrs. Helmer, you evidently have no clear idea what you have really done. But I can assure you that it was nothing more and nothing worse that made me an outcast from society.... But this I may tell you, that If I'm flung into the gutter a second time, you shall keep me company." Even when _Nora_ is confronted with this awful threat, she does not fear for herself, only for _Torvald_,--so good, so true, who has such an aversion to debts, but who loves her so devotedly that for her sake he would take the blame upon himself. But this must never be. _Nora_, too, begins a fight for life, for her husband's life and that of her children. Did not _Helmer_ tell her that the very presence of a criminal like _Krogstad_ poisons the children? And is she not a criminal? _Torvald Helmer_ assures her, in his male conceit, that "early corruption generally comes from the mother's side, but of course the father's influence may act in the same way. And this Krogstad has been poisoning his own children for years past by a life of lies and hypocrisy--that's why I call him morally ruined."