Act IV
Scene.—A big old-fashioned room in Captain Horster’s house. At the back folding-doors, which are standing open, lead to an ante-room. Three windows in the left-hand wall. In the middle of the opposite wall a platform has been erected. On this is a small table with two candles, a water-bottle and glass, and a bell. The room is lit by lamps placed between the windows. In the foreground on the left there is a table with candles and a chair. To the right is a door and some chairs standing near it. The room is nearly filled with a crowd of townspeople of all sorts, a few women and schoolboys being amongst them. People are still streaming in from the back, and the room is soon filled.
First Citizen
Meeting another
Hullo, Lamstad! You here too?
Second Citizen
I go to every public meeting, I do.
Third Citizen
Brought your whistle too, I expect!
Second Citizen
I should think so. Haven’t you?
Third Citizen
Rather! And old Evensen said he was going to bring a cow-horn, he did.
Second Citizen
Good old Evensen!
Laughter among the crowd.
Fourth Citizen
Coming up to them
I say, tell me what is going on here tonight?
Second Citizen
Dr. Stockmann is going to deliver an address attacking the Mayor.
Fourth Citizen
But the Mayor is his brother.
First Citizen
That doesn’t matter; Dr. Stockmann’s not the chap to be afraid.
Third Citizen
But he is in the wrong; it said so in the “People’s Messenger.”
Second Citizen
Yes, I expect he must be in the wrong this time, because neither the Householders’ Association nor the Citizens’ Club would lend him their hall for his meeting.
First Citizen
He couldn’t even get the loan of the hall at the Baths.
Second Citizen
No, I should think not.
A Man in another part of the crowd
I say—who are we to back up in this?
Another Man, beside him
Watch Aslaksen, and do as he does.
Billing
Pushing his way through the crowd, with a writing-case under his arm
Excuse me, gentlemen—do you mind letting me through? I am reporting for the “People’s Messenger.” Thank you very much!
He sits down at the table on the left.
A Workman
Who was that?
Second Workman
Don’t you know him? It’s Billing, who writes for Aslaksen’s paper.
Captain Horster brings in Mrs. Stockmann and Petra through the door on the right. Ejlif and Morten follow them in.
Horster
I thought you might all sit here; you can slip out easily from here, if things get too lively.
Mrs. Stockmann
Do you think there will be a disturbance?
Horster
One can never tell—with such a crowd. But sit down, and don’t be uneasy.
Mrs. Stockmann
Sitting down
It was extremely kind of you to offer my husband the room.
Horster
Well, if nobody else would—
Petra
Who has sat down beside her mother
And it was a plucky thing to do, Captain Horster.
Horster
Oh, it is not such a great matter as all that.
Hovstad and Aslaksen make their way through the crowd.
Aslaksen
Going up to Horster
Has the Doctor not come yet?
Horster
He is waiting in the next room.
Movement in the crowd by the door at the back.
Hovstad
Look—here comes the Mayor!
Billing
Yes, I’m damned if he hasn’t come after all!
Peter Stockmann makes his way gradually through the crowd, bows courteously, and takes up a position by the wall on the left. Shortly afterwards Dr. Stockmann comes in by the right-hand door. He is dressed in a black frock-coat, with a white tie. There is a little feeble applause, which is hushed down. Silence is obtained.
Dr. Stockmann
In an undertone
How do you feel, Katherine?
Mrs. Stockmann
All right, thank you.
Lowering her voice.
Be sure not to lose your temper, Thomas.
Dr. Stockmann
Oh, I know how to control myself.
Looks at his watch, steps on to the platform, and bows.
It is a quarter past—so I will begin.
Takes his Ms. out of his pocket.
Aslaksen
I think we ought to elect a chairman first.
Dr. Stockmann
No, it is quite unnecessary.
Some of the Crowd
Yes—yes!
Peter Stockmann
I certainly think too that we ought to have a chairman.
Dr. Stockmann
But I have called this meeting to deliver a lecture, Peter.
Peter Stockmann
Dr. Stockmann’s lecture may possibly lead to a considerable conflict of opinion.
Voices in the Crowd
A chairman! A chairman!
Hovstad
The general wish of the meeting seems to be that a chairman should be elected.
Dr. Stockmann
Restraining himself
Very well—let the meeting have its way.
Aslaksen
Will the Mayor be good enough to undertake the task?
Three Men
Clapping their hands
Bravo! Bravo!
Peter Stockmann
For various reasons, which you will easily understand, I must beg to be excused. But fortunately we have amongst us a man who I think will be acceptable to you all. I refer to the President of the Householders’ Association, Mr. Aslaksen.
Several voices
Yes—Aslaksen! Bravo Aslaksen!
Dr. Stockmann takes up his Ms. and walks up and down the platform.
Aslaksen
Since my fellow-citizens choose to entrust me with this duty, I cannot refuse.
Loud applause. Aslaksen mounts the platform.
Billing
Writing
“Mr. Aslaksen was elected with enthusiasm.”
Aslaksen
And now, as I am in this position, I should like to say a few brief words. I am a quiet and peaceable man, who believes in discreet moderation, and—and—in moderate discretion. All my friends can bear witness to that.
Several Voices
That’s right! That’s right, Aslaksen!
Aslaksen
I have learned in the school of life and experience that moderation is the most valuable virtue a citizen can possess—
Peter Stockmann
Hear, hear!
Aslaksen
—And moreover, that discretion and moderation are what enable a man to be of most service to the community. I would therefore suggest to our esteemed fellow-citizen, who has called this meeting, that he should strive to keep strictly within the bounds of moderation.
A Man by the door
Three cheers for the Moderation Society!
A Voice
Shame!
Several Voices
Sh!-Sh!
Aslaksen
No interruptions, gentlemen, please! Does anyone wish to make any remarks?
Peter Stockmann
Mr. Chairman.
Aslaksen
The Mayor will address the meeting.
Peter Stockmann
In consideration of the close relationship in which, as you all know, I stand to the present Medical Officer of the Baths, I should have preferred not to speak this evening. But my official position with regard to the Baths and my solicitude for the vital interests of the town compel me to bring forward a motion. I venture to presume that there is not a single one of our citizens present who considers it desirable that unreliable and exaggerated accounts of the sanitary condition of the Baths and the town should be spread abroad.
Several Voices
No, no! Certainly not! We protest against it!
Peter Stockmann
Therefore, I should like to propose that the meeting should not permit the Medical Officer either to read or to comment on his proposed lecture.
Dr. Stockmann
Impatiently
Not permit—! What the devil—!
Mrs. Stockmann
Coughing
Ahem!-ahem!
Dr. Stockmann
Collecting himself
Very well, Go ahead!
Peter Stockmann
In my communication to the “People’s Messenger,” I have put the essential facts before the public in such a way that every fair-minded citizen can easily form his own opinion. From it you will see that the main result of the Medical Officer’s proposals—apart from their constituting a vote of censure on the leading men of the town—would be to saddle the ratepayers with an unnecessary expenditure of at least some thousands of pounds.
Sounds of disapproval among the audience, and some cat-calls.
Aslaksen
Ringing his bell
Silence, please, gentlemen! I beg to support the Mayor’s motion. I quite agree with him that there is something behind this agitation started by the Doctor. He talks about the Baths; but it is a revolution he is aiming at—he wants to get the administration of the town put into new hands. No one doubts the honesty of the Doctor’s intentions—no one will suggest that there can be any two opinions as to that, I myself am a believer in self-government for the people, provided it does not fall too heavily on the ratepayers. But that would be the case here; and that is why I will see Dr. Stockmann damned—I beg your pardon—before I go with him in the matter. You can pay too dearly for a thing sometimes; that is my opinion.
Loud applause on all sides.
Hovstad
I, too, feel called upon to explain my position. Dr. Stockmann’s agitation appeared to be gaining a certain amount of sympathy at first, so I supported it as impartially as I could. But presently we had reason to suspect that we had allowed ourselves to be misled by misrepresentation of the state of affairs—
Dr. Stockmann
Misrepresentation—!
Hovstad
Well, let us say a not entirely trustworthy representation. The Mayor’s statement has proved that. I hope no one here has any doubt as to my liberal principles; the attitude of the “People’s Messenger” towards important political questions is well known to everyone. But the advice of experienced and thoughtful men has convinced me that in purely local matters a newspaper ought to proceed with a certain caution.
Aslaksen
I entirely agree with the speaker.
Hovstad
And, in the matter before us, it is now an undoubted fact that Dr. Stockmann has public opinion against him. Now, what is an editor’s first and most obvious duty, gentlemen? Is it not to work in harmony with his readers? Has he not received a sort of tacit mandate to work persistently and assiduously for the welfare of those whose opinions he represents? Or is it possible I am mistaken in that?
Voices from the crowd
No, no! You are quite right!
Hovstad
It has cost me a severe struggle to break with a man in whose house I have been lately a frequent guest—a man who till today has been able to pride himself on the undivided goodwill of his fellow-citizens—a man whose only, or at all events whose essential, failing is that he is swayed by his heart rather than his head.
A few scattered voices
That is true! Bravo, Stockmann!
Hovstad
But my duty to the community obliged me to break with him. And there is another consideration that impels me to oppose him, and, as far as possible, to arrest him on the perilous course he has adopted; that is, consideration for his family—
Dr. Stockmann
Please stick to the water-supply and drainage!
Hovstad
—consideration, I repeat, for his wife and his children for whom he has made no provision.
Morten
Is that us, mother?
Mrs. Stockmann
Hush!
Aslaksen
I will now put the Mayor’s proposition to the vote.
Dr. Stockmann
There is no necessity! Tonight I have no intention of dealing with all that filth down at the Baths. No; I have something quite different to say to you.
Peter Stockmann
Aside
What is coming now?
A Drunken Man
By the entrance door
I am a ratepayer! And therefore, I have a right to speak too! And my entire—firm—inconceivable opinion is—
A number of voices
Be quiet, at the back there!
Others
He is drunk! Turn him out!
They turn him out.
Dr. Stockmann
Am I allowed to speak?
Aslaksen
Ringing his bell
Dr. Stockmann will address the meeting.
Dr. Stockmann
I should like to have seen anyone, a few days ago, dare to attempt to silence me as has been done tonight! I would have defended my sacred rights as a man, like a lion! But now it is all one to me; I have something of even weightier importance to say to you.
The crowd presses nearer to him, Morten Kiil conspicuous among them.
Dr. Stockmann
Continuing
I have thought and pondered a great deal, these last few days—pondered over such a variety of things that in the end my head seemed too full to hold them—
Peter Stockmann
With a cough
Ahem!
Dr. Stockmann
—but I got them clear in my mind at last, and then I saw the whole situation lucidly. And that is why I am standing here to-night. I have a great revelation to make to you, my fellow-citizens! I will impart to you a discovery of a far wider scope than the trifling matter that our water supply is poisoned and our medicinal Baths are standing on pestiferous soil.
A number of voices
Shouting
Don’t talk about the Baths! We won’t hear you! None of that!
Dr. Stockmann
I have already told you that what I want to speak about is the great discovery I have made lately—the discovery that all the sources of our moral life are poisoned and that the whole fabric of our civic community is founded on the pestiferous soil of falsehood.
Voices of disconcerted Citizens
What is that he says?
Peter Stockmann
Such an insinuation—!
Aslaksen
With his hand on his bell
I call upon the speaker to moderate his language.
Dr. Stockmann
I have always loved my native town as a man only can love the home of his youthful days. I was not old when I went away from here; and exile, longing and memories cast as it were an additional halo over both the town and its inhabitants.
Some clapping and applause.
And there I stayed, for many years, in a horrible hole far away up north. When I came into contact with some of the people that lived scattered about among the rocks, I often thought it would of been more service to the poor half-starved creatures if a veterinary doctor had been sent up there, instead of a man like me.
Murmurs among the crowd.
Billing
Laying down his pen
I’m damned if I have ever heard—!
Hovstad
It is an insult to a respectable population!
Dr. Stockmann
Wait a bit! I do not think anyone will charge me with having forgotten my native town up there. I was like one of the eider-ducks brooding on its nest, and what I hatched was the plans for these Baths.
Applause and protests.
And then when fate at last decreed for me the great happiness of coming home again—I assure you, gentlemen, I thought I had nothing more in the world to wish for. Or rather, there was one thing I wished for—eagerly, untiringly, ardently—and that was to be able to be of service to my native town and the good of the community.
Peter Stockmann
Looking at the ceiling
You chose a strange way of doing it—ahem!
Dr. Stockmann
And so, with my eyes blinded to the real facts, I revelled in happiness. But yesterday morning—no, to be precise, it was yesterday afternoon—the eyes of my mind were opened wide, and the first thing I realised was the colossal stupidity of the authorities—.
Uproar, shouts and laughter, Mrs. Stockmann coughs persistently.
Peter Stockmann
Mr. Chairman!
Aslaksen
Ringing his bell
By virtue of my authority—!
Dr. Stockmann
It is a petty thing to catch me up on a word, Mr. Aslaksen. What I mean is only that I got scent of the unbelievable piggishness our leading men had been responsible for down at the Baths. I can’t stand leading men at any price!—I have had enough of such people in my time. They are like billy-goats on a young plantation; they do mischief everywhere. They stand in a free man’s way, whichever way he turns, and what I should like best would be to see them exterminated like any other vermin—.
Uproar.
Peter Stockmann
Mr. Chairman, can we allow such expressions to pass?
Aslaksen
With his hand on his bell
Doctor—!
Dr. Stockmann
I cannot understand how it is that I have only now acquired a clear conception of what these gentry are, when I had almost daily before my eyes in this town such an excellent specimen of them—my brother Peter—slow-witted and hide-bound in prejudice—.
Laughter, uproar and hisses. Mrs. Stockmann Sits coughing assiduously. Aslaksen rings his bell violently.
The Drunken Man
Who has got in again
Is it me he is talking about? My name’s Petersen, all right—but devil take me if I—
Angry Voices
Turn out that drunken man! Turn him out.
He is turned out again.
Peter Stockmann
Who was that person?
First Citizen
I don’t know who he is, Mr. Mayor.
Second Citizen
He doesn’t belong here.
Third Citizen
I expect he is a navvy from over at—
The rest is inaudible.
Aslaksen
He had obviously had too much beer. Proceed, Doctor; but please strive to be moderate in your language.
Dr. Stockmann
Very well, gentlemen, I will say no more about our leading men. And if anyone imagines, from what I have just said, that my object is to attack these people this evening, he is wrong—absolutely wide of the mark. For I cherish the comforting conviction that these parasites—all these venerable relics of a dying school of thought—are most admirably paving the way for their own extinction; they need no doctor’s help to hasten their end. Nor is it folk of that kind who constitute the most pressing danger to the community. It is not they who are most instrumental in poisoning the sources of our moral life and infecting the ground on which we stand. It is not they who are the most dangerous enemies of truth and freedom amongst us.
Shouts from all sides
Who then? Who is it? Name! Name!
Dr. Stockmann
You may depend upon it—I shall name them! That is precisely the great discovery I made yesterday.
Raises his voice.
The most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom amongst us is the compact majority—yes, the damned compact Liberal majority—that is it! Now you know!
Tremendous uproar. Most of the crowd are shouting, stamping and hissing. Some of the older men among them exchange stolen glances and seem to be enjoying themselves. Mrs. Stockmann gets up, looking anxious. Ejlif and Morten advance threateningly upon some schoolboys who are playing pranks. Aslaksen rings his bell and begs for silence. Hovstad and Billing both talk at once, but are inaudible. At last quiet is restored.
Aslaksen
As Chairman, I call upon the speaker to withdraw the ill-considered expressions he has just used.
Dr. Stockmann
Never, Mr. Aslaksen! It is the majority in our community that denies me my freedom and seeks to prevent my speaking the truth.
Hovstad
The majority always has right on its side.
Billing
And truth too, by God!
Dr. Stockmann
The majority never has right on its side. Never, I say! That is one of these social lies against which an independent, intelligent man must wage war. Who is it that constitute the majority of the population in a country? Is it the clever folk, or the stupid? I don’t imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over. But, good Lord!—you can never pretend that it is right that the stupid folk should govern the clever ones!
Uproar and cries.
Oh, yes—you can shout me down, I know! But you cannot answer me. The majority has might on its side—unfortunately; but right it has not. I am in the right—I and a few other scattered individuals. The minority is always in the right.
Renewed uproar.
Hovstad
Aha!—so Dr. Stockmann has become an aristocrat since the day before yesterday!
Dr. Stockmann
I have already said that I don’t intend to waste a word on the puny, narrow-chested, short-winded crew whom we are leaving astern. Pulsating life no longer concerns itself with them. I am thinking of the few, the scattered few amongst us, who have absorbed new and vigorous truths. Such men stand, as it were, at the outposts, so far ahead that the compact majority has not yet been able to come up with them; and there they are fighting for truths that are too newly-born into the world of consciousness to have any considerable number of people on their side as yet.
Hovstad
So the Doctor is a revolutionary now!
Dr. Stockmann
Good heavens—of course I am, Mr. Hovstad! I propose to raise a revolution against the lie that the majority has the monopoly of the truth. What sort of truths are they that the majority usually supports? They are truths that are of such advanced age that they are beginning to break up. And if a truth is as old as that, it is also in a fair way to become a lie, gentlemen.
Laughter and mocking cries.
Yes, believe me or not, as you like; but truths are by no means as long-lived at Methuselah—as some folk imagine. A normally constituted truth lives, let us say, as a rule seventeen or eighteen, or at most twenty years—seldom longer. But truths as aged as that are always worn frightfully thin, and nevertheless it is only then that the majority recognises them and recommends them to the community as wholesome moral nourishment. There is no great nutritive value in that sort of fare, I can assure you; and, as a doctor, I ought to know. These “majority truths” are like last year’s cured meat—like rancid, tainted ham; and they are the origin of the moral scurvy that is rampant in our communities.
Aslaksen
It appears to me that the speaker is wandering a long way from his subject.
Peter Stockmann
I quite agree with the Chairman.
Dr. Stockmann
Have you gone clean out of your senses, Peter? I am sticking as closely to my subject as I can; for my subject is precisely this, that it is the masses, the majority—this infernal compact majority—that poisons the sources of our moral life and infects the ground we stand on.
Hovstad
And all this because the great, broadminded majority of the people is prudent enough to show deference only to well-ascertained and well-approved truths?
Dr. Stockmann
Ah, my good Mr. Hovstad, don’t talk nonsense about well-ascertained truths! The truths of which the masses now approve are the very truths that the fighters at the outposts held to in the days of our grandfathers. We fighters at the outposts nowadays no longer approve of them; and I do not believe there is any other well-ascertained truth except this, that no community can live a healthy life if it is nourished only on such old marrowless truths.
Hovstad
But, instead of standing there using vague generalities, it would be interesting if you would tell us what these old marrowless truths are, that we are nourished on.
Applause from many quarters.
Dr. Stockmann
Oh, I could give you a whole string of such abominations; but to begin with I will confine myself to one well-approved truth, which at bottom is a foul lie, but upon which nevertheless Mr. Hovstad and the “People’s Messenger” and all the “Messenger’s” supporters are nourished.
Hovstad
And that is—?
Dr. Stockmann
That is, the doctrine you have inherited from your forefathers and proclaim thoughtlessly far and wide—the doctrine that the public, the crowd, the masses, are the essential part of the population—that they constitute the People—that the common folk, the ignorant and incomplete element in the community, have the same right to pronounce judgment and to approve, to direct and to govern, as the isolated, intellectually superior personalities in it.
Billing
Well, damn me if ever I—
Hovstad
At the same time, shouting out
Fellow-citizens, take good note of that!
A number of voices
Angrily
Oho!—we are not the People! Only the superior folk are to govern, are they!
A Workman
Turn the fellow out for talking such rubbish!
Another
Out with him!
Another
Calling out
Blow your horn, Evensen!
A horn is blown loudly, amidst hisses and an angry uproar.
Dr. Stockmann
When the noise has somewhat abated
Be reasonable! Can’t you stand hearing the voice of truth for once? I don’t in the least expect you to agree with me all at once; but I must say I did expect Mr. Hovstad to admit I was right, when he had recovered his composure a little. He claims to be a freethinker—
Voices
In murmurs of astonishment
Freethinker, did he say? Is Hovstad a freethinker?
Hovstad
Shouting
Prove it, Dr. Stockmann! When have I said so in print?
Dr. Stockmann
Reflecting
No, confound it, you are right!—you have never had the courage to. Well, I won’t put you in a hole, Mr. Hovstad. Let us say it is I that am the freethinker, then. I am going to prove to you, scientifically, that the “People’s Messenger” leads you by the nose in a shameful manner when it tells you that you—that the common people, the crowd, the masses, are the real essence of the People. That is only a newspaper lie, I tell you! The common people are nothing more than the raw material of which a People is made.
Groans, laughter and uproar.
Well, isn’t that the case? Isn’t there an enormous difference between a well-bred and an ill-bred strain of animals? Take, for instance, a common barn-door hen. What sort of eating do you get from a shrivelled up old scrag of a fowl like that? Not much, do you! And what sort of eggs does it lay? A fairly good crow or a raven can lay pretty nearly as good an egg. But take a well-bred Spanish or Japanese hen, or a good pheasant or a turkey—then you will see the difference. Or take the case of dogs, with whom we humans are on such intimate terms. Think first of an ordinary common cur—I mean one of the horrible, coarse-haired, low-bred curs that do nothing but run about the streets and befoul the walls of the houses. Compare one of these curs with a poodle whose sires for many generations have been bred in a gentleman’s house, where they have had the best of food and had the opportunity of hearing soft voices and music. Do you not think that the poodle’s brain is developed to quite a different degree from that of the cur? Of course it is. It is puppies of well-bred poodles like that, that showmen train to do incredibly clever tricks—things that a common cur could never learn to do even if it stood on its head.
Uproar and mocking cries.
A Citizen
Calls out
Are you going to make out we are dogs, now?
Another Citizen
We are not animals, Doctor!
Dr. Stockmann
Yes but, bless my soul, we are, my friend! It is true we are the finest animals anyone could wish for; but, even among us, exceptionally fine animals are rare. There is a tremendous difference between poodle-men and cur-men. And the amusing part of it is, that Mr. Hovstad quite agrees with me as long as it is a question of four-footed animals—
Hovstad
Yes, it is true enough as far as they are concerned.
Dr. Stockmann
Very well. But as soon as I extend the principle and apply it to two-legged animals, Mr. Hovstad stops short. He no longer dares to think independently, or to pursue his ideas to their logical conclusion; so, he turns the whole theory upside down and proclaims in the “People’s Messenger” that it is the barn-door hens and street curs that are the finest specimens in the menagerie. But that is always the way, as long as a man retains the traces of common origin and has not worked his way up to intellectual distinction.
Hovstad
I lay no claim to any sort of distinction, I am the son of humble country-folk, and I am proud that the stock I come from is rooted deep among the common people he insults.
Voices
Bravo, Hovstad! Bravo! Bravo!
Dr. Stockmann
The kind of common people I mean are not only to be found low down in the social scale; they crawl and swarm all around us—even in the highest social positions. You have only to look at your own fine, distinguished Mayor! My brother Peter is every bit as plebeian as anyone that walks in two shoes—
Laughter and hisses
Peter Stockmann
I protest against personal allusions of this kind.
Dr. Stockmann
Imperturbably
—and that, not because he is like myself, descended from some old rascal of a pirate from Pomerania or thereabouts—because that is who we are descended from—
Peter Stockmann
An absurd legend. I deny it!
Dr. Stockmann
—but because he thinks what his superiors think, and holds the same opinions as they, People who do that are, intellectually speaking, common people; and, that is why my magnificent brother Peter is in reality so very far from any distinction—and consequently also so far from being liberal-minded.
Peter Stockmann
Mr. Chairman—!
Hovstad
So it is only the distinguished men that are liberal-minded in this country? We are learning something quite new!
Laughter.
Dr. Stockmann
Yes, that is part of my new discovery too. And another part of it is that broad-mindedness is almost precisely the same thing as morality. That is why I maintain that it is absolutely inexcusable in the “People’s Messenger” to proclaim, day in and day out, the false doctrine that it is the masses, the crowd, the compact majority, that have the monopoly of broad-mindedness and morality—and that vice and corruption and every kind of intellectual depravity are the result of culture, just as all the filth that is draining into our Baths is the result of the tanneries up at Molledal!
Uproar and interruptions. Dr. Stockmann is undisturbed, and goes on, carried away by his ardour, with a smile.
And yet this same “People’s Messenger” can go on preaching that the masses ought to be elevated to higher conditions of life! But, bless my soul, if the “Messenger’s” teaching is to be depended upon, this very raising up the masses would mean nothing more or less than setting them straightway upon the paths of depravity! Happily the theory that culture demoralises is only an old falsehood that our forefathers believed in and we have inherited. No, it is ignorance, poverty, ugly conditions of life, that do the devil’s work! In a house which does not get aired and swept every day—my wife Katherine maintains that the floor ought to be scrubbed as well, but that is a debatable question—in such a house, let me tell you, people will lose within two or three years the power of thinking or acting in a moral manner. Lack of oxygen weakens the conscience. And there must be a plentiful lack of oxygen in very many houses in this town, I should think, judging from the fact that the whole compact majority can be unconscientious enough to wish to build the town’s prosperity on a quagmire of falsehood and deceit.
Aslaksen
We cannot allow such a grave accusation to be flung at a citizen community.
A Citizen
I move that the Chairman direct the speaker to sit down.
Voices
Angrily
Hear, hear! Quite right! Make him sit down!
Dr. Stockmann
Losing his self-control
Then I will go and shout the truth at every street corner! I will write it in other towns’ newspapers! The whole country shall know what is going on here!
Hovstad
It almost seems as if Dr. Stockmann’s intention were to ruin the town.
Dr. Stockmann
Yes, my native town is so dear to me that I would rather ruin it than see it flourishing upon a lie.
Aslaksen
This is really serious.
Uproar and cat-calls Mrs. Stockmann coughs, but to no purpose; her husband does not listen to her any longer.
Hovstad
Shouting above the din
A man must be a public enemy to wish to ruin a whole community!
Dr. Stockmann
With growing fervor
What does the destruction of a community matter, if it lives on lies? It ought to be razed to the ground. I tell you—All who live by lies ought to be exterminated like vermin! You will end by infecting the whole country; you will bring about such a state of things that the whole country will deserve to be ruined. And if things come to that pass, I shall say from the bottom of my heart: Let the whole country perish, let all these people be exterminated!
Voices from the crowd
That is talking like an out-and-out enemy of the people!
Billing
There sounded the voice of the people, by all that’s holy!
The whole crowd
Shouting
Yes, yes! He is an enemy of the people! He hates his country! He hates his own people!
Aslaksen
Both as a citizen and as an individual, I am profoundly disturbed by what we have had to listen to. Dr. Stockmann has shown himself in a light I should never have dreamed of. I am unhappily obliged to subscribe to the opinion which I have just heard my estimable fellow-citizens utter; and I propose that we should give expression to that opinion in a resolution. I propose a resolution as follows: “This meeting declares that it considers Dr. Thomas Stockmann, Medical Officer of the Baths, to be an enemy of the people.”
A storm of cheers and applause. A number of men surround the Doctor and hiss him. Mrs. Stockmann and Petra have got up from their seats. Morten and Ejlif are fighting the other schoolboys for hissing; some of their elders separate them.
Dr. Stockmann
To the men who are hissing him
Oh, you fools! I tell you that—
Aslaksen
Ringing his bell
We cannot hear you now, Doctor. A formal vote is about to be taken; but, out of regard for personal feelings, it shall be by ballot and not verbal. Have you any clean paper, Mr. Billing?
Billing
I have both blue and white here.
Aslaksen
Going to him
That will do nicely; we shall get on more quickly that way. Cut it up into small strips—yes, that’s it.
To the meeting.
Blue means no; white means yes. I will come round myself and collect votes.
Peter Stockmann leaves the hall. Aslaksen and one or two others go round the room with the slips of paper in their hats.
First Citizen
To Hovstad
I say, what has come to the Doctor? What are we to think of it?
Hovstad
Oh, you know how headstrong he is.
Second Citizen
To Billing
Billing, you go to their house—have you ever noticed if the fellow drinks?
Billing
Well I’m hanged if I know what to say. There are always spirits on the table when you go.
Third Citizen
I rather think he goes quite off his head sometimes.
First Citizen
I wonder if there is any madness in his family?
Billing
I shouldn’t wonder if there were.
Fourth Citizen
No, it is nothing more than sheer malice; he wants to get even with somebody for something or other.
Billing
Well certainly he suggested a rise in his salary on one occasion lately, and did not get it.
The Citizens
Together
Ah!—then it is easy to understand how it is!
The Drunken Man
Who has got among the audience again
I want a blue one, I do! And I want a white one too!
Voices
It’s that drunken chap again! Turn him out!
Morten Kiil
Going up to Dr. Stockmann.
Well, Stockmann, do you see what these monkey tricks of yours lead to?
Dr. Stockmann
I have done my duty.
Morten Kiil
What was that you said about the tanneries at Molledal?
Dr. Stockmann
You heard well enough. I said they were the source of all the filth.
Morten Kiil
My tannery too?
Dr. Stockmann
Unfortunately your tannery is by far the worst.
Morten Kiil
Are you going to put that in the papers?
Dr. Stockmann
I shall conceal nothing.
Morten Kiil
That may cost you dearly, Stockmann.
Goes out.
A Stout Man
Going Up to Captain Horster, Without taking any notice of the ladies
Well, Captain, so you lend your house to enemies of the people?
Horster
I imagine I can do what I like with my own possessions, Mr. Vik.
The Stout Man
Then you can have no objection to my doing the same with mine.
Horster
What do you mean, sir?
The Stout Man
You shall hear from me in the morning.
Turns his back on him and moves off.
Petra
Was that not your owner, Captain Horster?
Horster
Yes, that was Mr. Vik the shipowner.
Aslaksen
With the voting-papers in his hands, gets up on to the platform and rings his bell
Gentlemen, allow me to announce the result. By the votes of every one here except one person—
A Young Man
That is the drunk chap!
Aslaksen
By the votes of everyone here except a tipsy man, this meeting of citizens declares Dr. Thomas Stockmann to be an enemy of the people.
Shouts and applause.
Three cheers for our ancient and honourable citizen community!
Renewed applause.
Three cheers for our able and energetic Mayor, who has so loyally suppressed the promptings of family feeling!
Cheers.
The meeting is dissolved.
Gets down.
Billing
Three cheers for the Chairman!
The whole crowd
Three cheers for Aslaksen! Hurrah!
Dr. Stockmann
My hat and coat, Petra! Captain, have you room on your ship for passengers to the New World?
Horster
For you and yours we will make room, Doctor.
Dr. Stockmann
As Petra helps him into his coat
Good. Come, Katherine! Come, boys!
Mrs. Stockmann
In an undertone
Thomas, dear, let us go out by the back way.
Dr. Stockmann
No back ways for me, Katherine,
Raising his voice.
You will hear more of this enemy of the people, before he shakes the dust off his shoes upon you! I am not so forgiving as a certain Person; I do not say: “I forgive you, for ye know not what ye do.”
Aslaksen
Shouting
That is a blasphemous comparison, Dr. Stockmann!
Billing
It is, by God! It’s dreadful for an earnest man to listen to.
A Coarse Voice
Threatens us now, does he!
Other Voices
Excitedly
Let’s go and break his windows! Duck him in the fjord!
Another Voice
Blow your horn, Evensen! Pip, pip!
Horn-blowing, hisses, and wild cries. Dr. Stockmann goes out through the hall with his family, Horster elbowing a way for them.
The Whole Crowd
Howling after them as they go
Enemy of the People! Enemy of the People!
Billing
As he puts his papers together
Well, I’m damned if I go and drink toddy with the Stockmanns tonight!
The crowd press towards the exit. The uproar continues outside; shouts of “Enemy of the People!” are heard from without.