Page:Emma Goldman - The Social Significance of the Modern Drama - 1914.djvu/30

 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. 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 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.

 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. . . . 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!. . . . I can't spend the night in a strange man's house.

Is there anything more degrading to woman than to live with a stranger, and bear him children? Yet, the lie of the marriage institution decrees