Now that he has dismissed his visitor, Torvald emerges from the study and meets Christine for the first time. Recommending that Torvald find a job for Christine, Nora makes up a little story to push her point. Her friend rushed to town, the wife relates, just as soon as she heard of Torvald’s promotion in hopes of finding a place at the bank. “She is frightfully anxious to work under some clever man so as to perfect herself,” concludes Nora despite Christine’s remonstrances. “Very sensible,” approves Torvald, and with a well-favored “we’ll see what we can do” he resumes his visit with Rank in the study. Now that Christine has left to seek lodgings, Nora admits the nurse and loudly greets her three children.
During the noisy romp, Nora crawls under the table to play hide and seek. She emerges growling and the children shriek with laughter. No one has heard Krogstad’s knock on the door. He enters, and when Nora emerges from under the table again, she gives a stifled cry at discovering her villain. Ushering the children out of the room, Nora is alone with Krogstad.
He has come, he says, to ask her to intercede with Torvald on his behalf, for only her influence can protect the job which Christine Linde might take from him. He tells her that, for the sake of his growing sons, he has been working to restore his fallen position in society and is prepared to fight for this small post in the bank as if he were “fighting for his life.” Nora shows little interest until he says he is able to compel her to comply with his request. Krogstad reveals that he can prove she borrowed the 250 pounds from him by forging her father’s signature. Her situation was desperate when she needed the money, Nora explains. Her father, who died soon afterward, was too ill at the time to be consulted about such matters. Surely it is no crime for a woman to do everything possible to save her husband’s life, Nora declares. Forgery is a criminal act, Krogstad reminds her, and the law cares nothing about motivation. He tells her that the one false step in his own life, the one that ruined his reputation and his career “was nothing more nor nothing worse than what you have done.” This is Nora’s first confrontation with the harsh inflexibility of lawful society. For the last time, Krogstad asks Nora to help him keep his post. If necessary, he says, he would produce the forged bond in court. His parting words frighten Nora, and she tries to distract herself by considering her Christmas decorations.
Interrupting her thoughts, Torvald comes to ask what Krogstad wanted. He is angry at Nora’s evasive answer, but she finally admits that the lawyer begged her to say a good word in his behalf. Torvald becomes agreeable after Nora coaxes him to be her supervisor in choosing her costume for the fancy dress party they are to attend the next evening. Then she slowly leads the talk back to Krogstad. He once committed a forgery, Torvald tells her. “Out of necessity?” asks Nora, and he nods. Any man is allowed one false move, Torvald continues, so long as he openly confesses and accepts his punishment. But Krogstad, by his cunning, avoided the consequences of his guilt.
“Just think,” says Torvald, “how a guilty man like that has to lie and play the hypocrite with everyone, how he has to wear a mask in the presence of those near and dear to him, even before his own wife and children. And about the children, that is the most terrible part.”
He goes on to describe how “infection and poison” pollutes the very atmosphere breathed in such a home. While Nora becomes increasingly agitated, Torvald continues his lecture. In his career as a lawyer, her husband affirms, he has discovered that everyone who has “gone bad early in life” had a deceitful mother since it is she whose influence dictates the children’s moral character. He leaves Nora, stunned with horror at his words. When the nurse enters with the children, she refuses to see them. “No, no, no! Don’t let them come in to me,” Nora pleads. It can’t possibly be true, she says to herself, “Deprave my little children? Poison my home?” She is pale with terror at her thoughts while the curtain descends.
