Write a story which ends as follows: It was then that I understood what sort of a man he was

There lived once in Baghdad a very wealthy man, who lost all his substance and became so poor, that he could only earn his living by excessive labor. One night, he lay down to sleep, dejected and sick at heart, and saw in a dream one who said to him, "Thy fortune is at Cairo; go thither and seek it."

So he set out for Cairo; but, when he arrived there, night overtook him and he lay down to sleep in a mosque. Presently, as fate would have it, a company of thieves entered the mosque and made their way thence into an adjoining house; but the people of the house, being aroused by the noise, awoke and cried out; whereupon the chief of the police came to their aid with his officers. The robbers made off; but the police entered the mosque and finding the man from Baghdad asleep there, laid hold of him and beat him with palm-rods, till he was well-nigh dead.

Then they cast him into prison, where he abode three days, after which the chief of the police sent for him and said to him, "Whence art thou?"

"From Baghdad," answered he.

"And what brought thee to Cairo?" asked the magistrate.

Quoth the Baghdadi, "I saw in a dream one who said to me, 'Thy fortune is at Cairo; go thither to it.' But when I came hither, the fortune that he promised me proved to be the beating I had of thee.

The chief of the police laughed, till he showed his jaw teeth, and said, "O man of little wit, thrice have I seen in a dream one who said to me, 'There is in Baghdad a house of such a fashion and situate so-and-so, in the garden whereof is a fountain and thereunder a great sum of money buried. Go thither and take it.' Yet I went not; but thou, of thy little wit, hast journeyed from place to place, on the faith of a dream, which was but an illusion of sleep."

Then he gave him money, saying, "This is to help thee back to thy native land."

Now the house he had described was the man's own house in Baghdad; so the latter returned thither, and digging underneath the fountain in his garden, discovered a great treasure; and [thus] God gave him abundant fortune.

Explanation:

with mrs. linde, nora reveals her insensitivity and lack of shame about the forgery she committed. she implies that mrs. linde has obviously aged since they last met 10 years earlier, which accounts for nora’s inability to recognize her old friend. although nora seems sympathetic to mrs. linde’s plight, she can’t seem to control herself from boasting about her three children, her husband’s recent promotion, and how good she feels to finally have some money to spend. in a way, she seems to be flaunting her good fortune in front of mrs. linde who, deprived of all these benefits, has come to ask nora for . it is also through her interactions with mrs. linde that we realize something deeper lies under nora’s seemingly childish exterior. she reveals the secret of her forgery to mrs. linde and seems to see herself as quite resourceful for having done it.

in the company of dr. rank, nora is freer than she is with her own husband. she openly laughs with joy at knowing that all the other bank employees will be under her husband’s control. she offers dr. rank a macaroon, apparently forgetting that he knows she is forbidden to eat them. she then quickly covers for herself by claiming that mrs. linde brought them. nora seems much more assertive and free with these other characters, as well as unabashedly willing to scheme, lie, and justify her transgressions as altruistic.  

krogstad provides an interesting parallel to nora. like nora, he too is guilty of committing forgery, for which torvald condemns him and decides to fire him. although krogstad is a man and nora a woman, their crimes of forgery unite them. in fact, krogstad might represent what nora would be like if she were a man and were not strictly scrupulous like her husband is. for example, she tells mrs. linde that "a barrister's profession is such an uncertain thing, especially if he won't undertake unsavoury cases; and naturally torvald has never been willing to do that." perhaps nora would have delved into the unsavory, given how opposite she is to her husband. krogstad's is also the only harsh voice of reality that nora is forced to hear, and that is because he blackmails her for her regaining his job at the bank. finally, torvald’s reaction to krogstad’s forgery seems to foreshadow his harsh and cold reaction to nora’s forgery.