"When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I have been living here like a poor woman — just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and Papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault I have made nothing of my life."
Torvald is forced to admit of some truth — though "strained and exaggerated" — in what she says. It shall be different in the future, he vows, "playtime shall be over and lesson time shall begin." She answers that he is not the man to educate her into being a proper wife. Neither is she ready to bring up her children, Nora continues, for there is another task she must first undertake. "I must try and educate myself," she says, "and I must do that for myself." That is why she is leaving him now. Finding her husband a stranger, Nora chooses to seek lodging with Christine rather than spend another night with him. Torvald points out that she has no right to neglect her most sacred duties — duties to her husband and children:
NORA: I have other duties just as sacred. Duties to myself.
TORVALD: Before all else you are a wife and mother.
NORA: I don't believe that any longer, I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being just as you are — or, at all events, that I must try and become one. I know quiet well, Torvald, that most people would think you right and that views of that kind are to be found in books; but I can no longer content myself with what most people say or with what is found in books. I must think over things for myself and get to understand them.
