Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 7).djvu/91

 Helmer.

Forgery, that's all. Don't you know what that means?

Nora.

Mayn't he have been driven to it by need?

Helmer.

Yes; or, like so many others, he may have done it in pure heedlessness. I am not so hard-*hearted as to condemn a man absolutely for a single fault.

Nora.

No, surely not, Torvald!

Helmer.

Many a man can retrieve his character, if he owns his crime and takes the punishment.

Nora.

Punishment?

Helmer.

But Krogstad didn't do that. He evaded the law by means of tricks and subterfuges; and that is what has morally ruined him.

Nora.

Do you think that?

Helmer.

Just think how a man with a thing of that sort on his conscience must be always lying and canting and shamming. Think of the mask he must wear even towards those who stand nearest him—towards his own wife and children. The effect