A very large old-fashioned room in Captain Horster’s house. An open set of folding doors in the background lead to an ante-room. In the left-hand wall are three windows; a platform has been placed in the middle of the opposite wall; on this is a small table with two candles, a bell, and a water carafe and glass. The rest of the room is lit by lamps between the windows. In the foreground to the left, there is a table with a candle on it, and a chair. On the right-hand side, to the front, is a door, and next to it some chairs.
A large crowd of TOWNSPEOPLE of every status.49 A FEW WOMEN and SCHOOLBOYS can be seen among them. More and more people are gradually streaming in from the back, filling the hall.
FIRST CITIZEN [to ANOTHER MAN he bumps into]: So you’re here again tonight, Lamstad?
THE MAN SPOKEN TO [SECOND CITIZEN]: I’m at all the public meetings, I am.
A MAN NEXT TO HIM [THIRD CITIZEN]: You’ve brought your whistle, yes?
SECOND CITIZEN: ’Course I have. Haven’t you?
THIRD CITIZEN: ’Course! And Skipper Evensen said he’d bring a whacking great big horn, he did.
SECOND CITIZEN: He’s great, Evensen!
Laughter among the group.
FOURTH CITIZEN [joining them]: Here, tell me, what’s going on here tonight?
SECOND CITIZEN: It’s Dr Stockmann; wants to deliver a speech against the mayor.
FOURTH CITIZEN: But the mayor’s his brother.
FIRST CITIZEN: Makes no difference; Dr Stockmann’s not one to be scared.
THIRD CITIZEN: But he’s in the wrong, of course; it was in The Messenger.
SECOND CITIZEN: Yes, he must be in the wrong this time; seeing as they didn’t want to lend him a hall down at the Homeowners’ Association or the Club.50
FIRST CITIZEN: Wasn’t even given use of the Spa hall.
SECOND CITIZEN: Well, you can understand why.
A MAN [in a different group]: Whose side should we take in this business, eh?
ANOTHER MAN [also in this group]: Just watch Aslaksen, and do whatever he does.
BILLING [with a folder under his arm, pushes his way through the crowd]: Excuse me, gentlemen! Can I come through perhaps? I’m reporting for The People’s Messenger. Thank you very much!
He sits down at the table to the left.
A WORKER: Who’s that there?
ANOTHER WORKER: You must know him surely? It’s that Billing chap who works on Aslaksen’s paper.
HORSTER guides MRS STOCKMANN and PETRA in through the door on the right in the foreground. EILIF and MORTEN follow them.
HORSTER: This is where I thought the family could sit; it’s easy to slip out from here, if anything happens.
MRS STOCKMANN: Do you think there’ll be a disturbance then?
HORSTER: You never can tell – with so many people –. But sit yourself down and don’t worry.
MRS STOCKMANN [sits down]: It was so kind of you to offer Stockmann the hall.
HORSTER: Well, when nobody else would, then –
PETRA [who has sat down too]: And it was courageous too, Horster.
HORSTER: Oh, I wouldn’t say it took that much courage.
MR HOVSTAD and MR ASLAKSEN arrive simultaneously but make their way through the crowd separately.
ASLAKSEN [goes over to HORSTER]: Hasn’t the doctor arrived yet?
HORSTER: He’s waiting in there.
Activity by the door in the background.
HOVSTAD [to BILLING]: There’s the mayor. You see!
BILLING: Yes, God strike me dead if he hasn’t turned up after all!
The MAYOR manoeuvres his way carefully through the crowd, greets people politely and positions himself by the wall to the left. Shortly afterwards DR STOCKMANN comes in through the door to the right in the background. He is dressed in black, with a formal jacket and white neckerchief. A few people clap uncertainly, are gently shushed. It goes quiet.
DR STOCKMANN [in a lowered voice]: How are you, Katrine?
MRS STOCKMANN: I’m fine, thank you. [More quietly] Don’t get worked-up now, Tomas.
DR STOCKMANN: Oh, I know how to handle myself, dear. [Looks at his watch, climbs up on to the platform and bows.] It’s a quarter past now – so I’d like to start – [Takes his manuscript out.]
ASLAKSEN: A chairman should surely be elected first.
DR STOCKMANN: No, that’s really not necessary.
SOME GENTLEMEN [shouting]: Oh, yes it is!
THE MAYOR: I’d assume too that a moderator should be elected.
DR STOCKMANN: But I’ve summoned this meeting to give a speech, Peter!
THE MAYOR: The medical officer’s speech may lead to some divergence of opinion.
MORE VOICES [from the crowd]: A chairman! A moderator!
HOVSTAD: The general citizens’ will seems to demand a chairman.
DR STOCKMANN [controlled]: Very well; let the citizens’ will have its way.
ASLAKSEN: Wouldn’t the mayor perhaps be willing to assume that duty?
THREE GENTLEMEN [clapping]: Bravo! Bravo!
THE MAYOR: For various reasons that are easy to comprehend, I must decline. But fortunately we have in our midst a man I think everybody can accept. I refer to the head of the Homeowners’ Association, Mr Aslaksen.
MANY VOICES: Yes, yes! Long live Aslaksen! Hurrah for Aslaksen!
DR STOCKMANN takes his manuscript and walks down from the platform.
ASLAKSEN: When my fellow citizens’ trust calls upon me, I’ll not be unwilling –
Applause and cheering. ASLAKSEN mounts the platform.
BILLING [writing]: Right, so – ‘Mr Aslaksen, book printer, elected by acclamation.’
ASLAKSEN: And now that I stand here, may I be permitted to say a few concise words? I am a modest and peaceable man, who holds by prudent temperance, and by – by temperate prudence; as is recognized by all who know me.
SEVERAL VOICES: Yes! Yes, Aslaksen!
ASLAKSEN: I have learned, in the school of life and experience, that temperance is a virtue that best befits a citizen –
THE MAYOR: Hear, hear!
ASLAKSEN: – and prudence and temperance are also that by which society is best served. I would therefore entreat the honourable citizen who has called this meeting that he strive to remain within the bounds of temperance.
A MAN [up by the door]: To the Temperance Society! A toast!
A VOICE: What the heck!
SEVERAL VOICES: Shh, Shh!
ASLAKSEN: No interruptions, gentlemen! – Does anybody wish to take the floor?
THE MAYOR: Mr Moderator.
ASLAKSEN: Mayor Stockmann has the floor.
THE MAYOR: In view of the close family ties that I have, as you doubtless know, with the current medical officer, I would have preferred not to speak tonight. But my relationship to the Spa Institute and my concern for the town’s most vital interests compel me to propose a motion. I assume that not a single citizen here in this room would find it desirable that untrustworthy and exaggerated accounts about the sanitary conditions of our Spa and town be spread wider afield.
SEVERAL VOICES: No, no, no! Not at all! We protest!
THE MAYOR: I would therefore propose that this assembly ought not to permit the medical officer to read or to present his views on this matter.
DR STOCKMANN [aggravated]: Not permit –! What –!
MRS STOCKMANN [coughing]: Ahem! – ahem!
DR STOCKMANN [collecting himself]: I see, yes; not permit.
THE MAYOR: In my statement in The People’s Messenger, I have informed the public of the principal facts, so that every fair-minded citizen may, with ease, reach his own verdict. From it, you will see that the medical officer’s suggestion – apart from being a vote of no confidence against the town’s leading men – ultimately means burdening the taxpaying residents of this town with the unnecessary expenditure of at least one hundred thousand kroner.
Hostility and blowing of whistles.
ASLAKSEN [ringing his bell]: Silence,51 gentlemen! I beg to support the mayor’s proposal. It is also my opinion that there’s a hidden motive for the doctor’s agitation. He talks about the Spa; but it’s a revolution he’s aiming at – he wants to put the leadership into other hands. Nobody doubts the doctor’s honourable intentions; Lord no, there can be no two opinions about that. I am also a friend of people’s self-governance, as long as it doesn’t come at too high a price to the taxpayers. But that would be the outcome here; which is why – no, God dammit – beg pardon – but I cannot go along with Dr Stockmann this time. One can pay too high a price even for gold; that’s my opinion.
Lively approval from all sides.
HOVSTAD: I too feel called upon to account for my position. Dr Stockmann’s agitation seemed to win considerable approval to begin with, and I supported it as impartially as I could. But then it became apparent that we’d allowed ourselves to be misled by a false representation of –
DR STOCKMANN: False –!
HOVSTAD: A less than reliable representation of the facts, then. The mayor’s statement has proved that. I hope nobody in this town doubts my liberal principles; The Messenger’s stance on the larger political questions is well known to each of you. But I have learned from experienced and prudent men that in purely local matters a paper must proceed with a certain caution.
ASLAKSEN: In full agreement with the speaker.
HOVSTAD: And in this particular matter, it is now beyond doubt that Dr Stockmann has the general will against him. But, gentlemen, what is an editor’s first and noblest obligation? Is it not to operate in accordance with his readers? Hasn’t he received a kind of unspoken mandate to promote the welfare of his like-minded fellows, vigorously and tirelessly? Or am I perhaps mistaken in this?
MANY VOICES: No, no! The editor’s right!
HOVSTAD: It has been a most painful struggle for me to break with a man in whose house I have lately been a frequent guest – a man who until this very day enjoyed the undivided goodwill of his fellow citizens – a man whose only – or at least major – flaw is that he consults his heart more than his head.
SOME SCATTERED VOICES: That’s true! Hurrah for Dr Stockmann!
HOVSTAD: But my duty to this community demanded I break with him. And there is another concern that drives me to confront him, and, if possible, stop him on the perilous path he has embarked upon; and that is my concern for his family –
DR STOCKMANN: Keep to the water supply and sewage!
HOVSTAD: – concern for his spouse and his poor needy children.
MORTEN: Is that us, Mother?
MRS STOCKMANN: Hush!
ASLAKSEN: So, I shall put the mayor’s proposal to the vote.
DR STOCKMANN: There’s no need! Tonight I don’t intend to speak about the swinish filth down there at the Spa House. No; you shall hear quite a different story.
THE MAYOR [under his breath]: What is it this time?
A DRUNKEN MAN [up by the entrance door]: I am a taxpayer!52 And so I have a right to an opinion too! And I am of the complete – firmly incomprehendible opinion –
A NUMBER OF VOICES: Be quiet over there!
OTHERS: He’s drunk! Chuck him out!
The DRUNKEN MAN is turned out.
DR STOCKMANN: Do I have the floor?
ASLAKSEN [ringing his bell]: Dr Stockmann has the floor!
DR STOCKMANN: If anybody, even a few days ago, had dared make any such attempt at gagging me, as they have tonight – I would have defended my sacred human rights like a lion! But that doesn’t matter to me now; because now I have more important things to talk about.
The crowd presses closer to him. MORTEN KIIL comes into view among them.
DR STOCKMANN [continuing]: I’ve thought and I’ve pondered a great deal these last few days – pondered over so many things that in the end they turned into an utter jumble in my head –
THE MAYOR [coughs]: Hm –!
DR STOCKMANN: – but then I worked it out; I saw precisely how everything connects. And that is why I’m standing here tonight. I have some great revelations to make to you, my fellow citizens! I want to report a discovery of a very different scope than the trifling matter of our water supply being poisoned and our Health Spa built on a plague-infested ground.
MANY VOICES [shouting]: Don’t talk about the Spa! We don’t want to hear it! Not that!
DR STOCKMANN: I’ve said I want to talk about the important discovery I’ve made over the last few days – the discovery that our spiritual wells are poisoned, and that our entire civic community rests on a plague-infested ground of lies.
ASTONISHED VOICES [hushed]: What’s that he’s saying?
THE MAYOR: Such an insinuation –!
ASLAKSEN [with his hand on the bell]: The speaker is urged to be temperate.
DR STOCKMANN: I have loved my native town as much as any man can love the home of his younger years. I wasn’t old when I left here, and distance, longing and memories somehow cast an increased glow over the town and its people.
Some clapping and shouts of support are heard.
DR STOCKMANN: There I sat for many years in that frightful backwater far in the north. When I met some of the people who live dotted here and there among the screes, I often thought that those poor, decrepit creatures might have been better served if they’d got a vet up there rather than a man like me.
Murmuring in the hall.
BILLING [puts his pen down]: Well, God strike me dead if I’ve ever heard –!
HOVSTAD: This is an insult to decent common folk!53
DR STOCKMANN: Just wait a bit! – I don’t think anyone can say of me that I forgot my native town up there. I sat rather like an eider54 on its eggs; and what I hatched, well – that was the plan for the Spa Institute here.
Applause and objections.
DR STOCKMANN: And when fate at long, long last smiled down upon me and granted me the chance to come back home – yes, my fellow citizens, then I knew I had no other desire in this world. Well, yes, I had this desire, to work eagerly, untiringly and passionately for the welfare of my hometown and of the public.
THE MAYOR [looking up in the air]: Your method is somewhat peculiar – hm!
DR STOCKMANN: So here I was, blindly enjoying life. But yesterday morning – no, it was actually on the evening before – my spiritual eyes were opened, and the first thing I saw was the unbelievable idiocy of the authorities –
Commotion, shouts and laughter. MRS STOCKMANN coughs energetically.
THE MAYOR: Mr Moderator!
ASLAKSEN [ringing]: By the power vested in me, I –!
DR STOCKMANN: It’s petty to get hung up on a word, Mr Aslaksen! I just mean that I suddenly realized what unbelievably swinish behaviour our leading men were guilty of down there at the Spa. I can’t abide leading men at any price! – I’ve had enough of those people in my time. They’re like billy-goats in a field of saplings; they wreak havoc in every direction; they block a free man’s path no matter which way he turns – and I’d like nothing better than for us to have them eradicated like any other vermin –.
Unease in the room.
THE MAYOR: Mr Moderator, can such remarks be allowed to pass?
ASLAKSEN [with his hand on his bell]: Doctor –!
DR STOCKMANN: I can’t comprehend how it has taken me until now to see these gentlemen in their true light; particularly since I’ve had such a splendid specimen before my eyes virtually every day here in town – my brother Peter – slow off the mark and a bumbling bigot.
Laughter, commotion, blowing of whistles. MRS STOCKMANN sits coughing.
ASLAKSEN rings his bell forcefully.
THE DRUNKEN MAN [who has come back in again]: You talking about me? Yeah, ’cos my name’s Peter Sloe, all right, but I’m bloody well not –
ANGRY VOICES: Get that drunkard out! Show him the door!
The MAN is thrown out again.
THE MAYOR: Who was that man?
FIRST CITIZEN: Didn’t recognize him, Mr Mayor, sir.
SECOND CITIZEN: He’s not from this town.
THIRD CITIZEN: He’s probably a timberman55 from over at – [The rest is inaudible.]
ASLAKSEN: The man was clearly intoxicated on stout. Carry on, doctor; but do conduct yourself with temperance.
DR STOCKMANN: Very well, my fellow citizens; I shall make no further pronouncements on our leaders. And if anyone imagines, from what I’ve just said, that I’d like to kill these gentlemen off tonight, then he’s mistaken – seriously mistaken. I cherish the comforting conviction that these laggards, these old men with their world of dying ideas, are taking excellent care of their own demise; there’s no need for any doctor’s help to hasten their mortal departure. Besides, they aren’t the sort of people who pose the greatest danger to society; they aren’t the most active in poisoning our spiritual wells and contaminating the ground beneath us; they aren’t the most dangerous enemies of truth and freedom in our society.
SHOUTS FROM ALL SIDES: Who then? Who? Name them!
DR STOCKMANN: Yes, rest assured, I shall name them! Because that is in fact the great discovery I made yesterday. [Raises his voice] The most dangerous enemies to truth and freedom among us are the solid majority. Yes, that damned solid, liberal majority: there! Now you know it!
Tremendous uproar. Most people are shouting, stamping and blowing their whistles. Some of the OLDER GENTLEMEN among them exchange stolen glances and seem to gloat. MRS STOCKMANN gets up nervously. EILIF and MORTEN walk threateningly towards some SCHOOLBOYS who are making a commotion. ASLAKSEN rings his bell and pleads for calm. HOVSTAD and BILLING both speak but are inaudible. Finally there is silence.
ASLAKSEN: The chairman expects the speaker to withdraw his imprudent remarks.
DR STOCKMANN: Never, Mr Aslaksen! It’s the majority here in our community who are robbing me of my freedom and who want to prohibit me from telling the truth.
HOVSTAD: The majority always have right on their side.
BILLING: And so does the truth; God strike me dead!
DR STOCKMANN: The majority never have right on their side, never I tell you! That’s one of those lies in society against which any independent, thinking man must wage war. Who is it that constitutes the greater part of the population in a country? The intelligent people, or the stupid ones? I think we’d have to agree that stupid people make up a quite terrifying, overwhelming majority the world over. But never in all eternity, damn it all, can it be right for the stupid people to rule over the intelligent ones!
Uproar and cries.
DR STOCKMANN: Oh, yes; you can shout me down all right; but you can’t argue against me. The might is with the many – unfortunately – but not the right. The right is with myself and a few other solitary individuals. The minority is always in the right.
Huge uproar again.
HOVSTAD: Haha; so Dr Stockmann’s turned aristocrat since the day before yesterday!
DR STOCKMANN: I’ve said already that I can’t be bothered to waste words on that puny, narrow-chested, short-winded bunch who lag astern. Life’s beating pulse has no business with them. Rather, I am thinking of the few, those individuals among us who have embraced all the new, vigorous truths. Such men stand at the outposts, as it were, so far ahead that the solid majority has yet to catch up with them – and there they fight for truths that are still too newly born into the world of consciousness to have gained any majority support.
HOVSTAD: Oh right, so now the doctor’s turned into a revolutionary leader!
DR STOCKMANN: Yes, I bloody well have, Mr Hovstad! I intend to start a revolution against the lie that the majority has a monopoly on the truth. What kinds of truths do the majority habitually flock around? They are truths so advanced in years, that they’re on the way to being decrepit. But when a truth is that old, it’s also well on the way to becoming a lie, gentlemen.
Laughter and derision.
DR STOCKMANN: Yes, all right, you don’t have to believe me; but not all truths are the long-lived Methuselahs56 people imagine. An averagely built truth lives – let’s say – as a rule seventeen or eighteen, at most twenty years; rarely longer. But truths of such advanced years are always dreadfully scrawny. And yet it is only then that the majority adopts them and recommends them to society as wholesome spiritual food. But there’s not much nutritional value in such a diet, I can assure you; and as a doctor, I should know. All these truths of the majority can be likened to last year’s cured meats; they’re like rancid, furry, green-salted hams. And from these comes all the moral scurvy that runs so rampant in our communities.
ASLAKSEN: It occurs to me that the honourable speaker is drifting somewhat off script.
THE MAYOR: I must concur with the moderator’s opinion.
DR STOCKMANN: No, but I think you’re quite mad, Peter! I’m sticking as closely to the script as I can! Since what I want to talk about here is precisely that the masses, the many, this damned solid majority – that it’s these, I tell you, who are poisoning our spiritual wells and infecting the ground beneath us.
HOVSTAD: And this because our great liberal majority are prudent enough to defer to truths that are certain and approved?
DR STOCKMANN: My dearest Mr Hovstad, don’t talk of certain truths! The truths that the masses, that the public, approve are the truths that the fighters at the outposts held to be certain in our grandfathers’ day. Those of us fighting at the outposts today no longer recognize them; and I do not believe there is any other certain truth apart from this: that no society can live a healthy life on such old, marrowless truths.
HOVSTAD: Instead of standing there, talking up-in-the-air like that, it would be amusing to hear what these marrowless old truths are that we all live on.
Sounds of agreement from many quarters.
DR STOCKMANN: Oh, I could reel off a multitude of such abominations; but for now I’ll stick to one approved truth, which is actually a foul lie, but which Mr Hovstad and The Messenger and all The Messenger’s supporters live by nevertheless.
HOVSTAD: And that is –?
DR STOCKMANN: It’s the doctrine you’ve inherited from your forefathers, that you preach mindlessly far and wide – the doctrine that the common folk, the hordes, the masses, are the nation’s core – that it is the very people itself – that the common man, the ignorant and uncultivated member of society, has as much right to condemn or approve, to govern and control, as the few spiritually noble individuals.
BILLING: God strike me dead, I’ve never –
HOVSTAD [shouting at the same time]: Citizens, take note of this!
ANGRY VOICES: Oho! Aren’t we the people? Is it only noble folk who should govern?
A WORKER: Out with that man – talking like that!
ANOTHER: Chuck him out the door!
ANOTHER [calling out]: Toot your horn, Evensen!
A horn blasts out, whistles are blown, and there is a raging uproar in the room.
DR STOCKMANN [when the noise has quietened a little]: But be reasonable now! Can’t you bear to hear the voice of truth for once? I certainly don’t expect you all to agree with me right away; but I’d certainly have expected Mr Hovstad to admit I was right, when he’d gathered himself a little. Mr Hovstad does after all claim to be a freethinker –57
PERPLEXED VOICES [hushed]: Freethinker, did he say? Is the editor a freethinker?
HOVSTAD [shouting]: Prove it, Dr Stockmann! When have I ever said that in print?
DR STOCKMANN [chewing it over]: No, damn it all, you’re quite right – that free-spoken you’ve never been. But I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble, Mr Hovstad. Let’s assume I’m the freethinker then. Because now I shall turn to natural science to make it clear to each and every one of you, that The People’s Messenger is leading you shamefully by the nose, when it declares that you – the common folk, the masses, the crowd – make up the nation’s true core. That’s just a newspaper lie! The common people are merely the base material from which the nation must fashion true people.
Snarls, laughter and unease in the room.
DR STOCKMANN: Yes, because isn’t that the way of things in the rest of the living world? There’s a great difference, surely, between a cultivated and uncultivated species of animal? Just look at an ordinary farm hen. What meat value has a stunted chicken carcase of that sort? Not a great deal! And what kind of eggs does it lay? Any half respectable crow or raven can lay almost as decent an egg. But take a well-bred Spanish or Japanese hen, or a noble pheasant or turkey – yes, then you’ll see the difference all right. And now let me turn to dogs, to whom we humans are so closely related. First, imagine a simple common dog – I mean, the kind of vile, ragged, badly behaved mongrel that runs around in the streets fouling the house walls. And put one of these mongrels next to a poodle whose pedigree goes back several generations, and who comes from a noble house where it’s been fed with good food and had the chance to hear harmonious voices and music. Don’t you think that the poodle’s cranium has developed quite differently from that of the mongrel?58 Yes, you can be sure. It is these cultivated poodle puppies that showmen train to do the most amazing tricks. Things an ordinary peasant mongrel could never learn if it stood on its head.
Scattered commotion and joking.
A CITIZEN [shouts]: Are you turning us into dogs now, too?
ANOTHER CITIZEN: We’re not animals, doctor!
DR STOCKMANN: Ah, but by God, we are animals, old chap! We are, all of us, the finest animals anyone could wish. But there certainly aren’t many noble animals among us. Oh, there’s a quite terrifying distance between poodle-humans and mongrel-humans. And the hilarious thing is that our editor, Mr Hovstad, agrees with me entirely, so long as we’re talking about four-legged animals –
HOVSTAD: Well, they are what they are.
DR STOCKMANN: Quite; but as soon as I extend this law to those on two legs, Mr Hovstad stops short; then he no longer dares to believe his own beliefs, to think his own thoughts to their conclusion; then he turns the whole doctrine on its head, proclaiming in The Messenger that the peasant cockerel and street mongrel – that these are the truly splendid specimens in the menagerie. But that’s the way of it, always, so long as the mentality of the common man remains inside you, and so long as you haven’t worked your way out to spiritual nobility.
HOVSTAD: I lay no claim to any such nobility. I descend from simple farming stock; and I’m proud that I have my roots deep among the common folk who are being insulted here.
MANY WORKERS: Hurrah for Hovstad! Hurrah! Hurrah!
DR STOCKMANN: The kind of common folk I’m talking about are not just found in the lower depths; they are creeping and crawling all around us – right up to the highest echelons of society. Just look at your own fine, dapper mayor! My brother Peter is as good a commoner as anyone who wears two shoes –
Laughter and shushing.
THE MAYOR: I object to such personal remarks.
DR STOCKMANN [unperturbed]: – and he’s not that way because he’s descended, just as I am, from some nasty old pirate from Pomerania or thereabouts – yes, because we are –
THE MAYOR: Absurd hearsay. I deny it!
DR STOCKMANN: – but he’s like that because he thinks the thoughts of his superiors, and believes what his superiors believe. People who do that are spiritual commoners; and that’s why at bottom my magnificent brother Peter is so terribly far from being noble – and consequently so far from being liberal-minded too.
THE MAYOR: Mr Moderator –!
HOVSTAD: So it’s the noble folk who are the liberal people here in this country? That’s interesting news!
Laughter in the crowd.
DR STOCKMANN: Indeed, that comes with my new discovery. And, what also comes with it is this: that liberal-mindedness and morality are practically the same thing. I say, therefore, that it’s inexcusable when The Messenger promotes, day after day, the false doctrine that it’s the masses, the crowd, the solid majority who can lay claim to liberal-mindedness and morality – and that vice, swinishness and spiritual depravity ooze out of high culture, like the foul sludge that’s oozing into the Spa from the tanneries up there in Mølledalen!
Commotion and interruptions.
DR STOCKMANN [unperturbed, laughs in his excitement]: And yet this same People’s Messenger can go on preaching that the masses should be lifted to more elevated living conditions! But, damn it all – if The Messenger’s teachings were right, then to elevate the masses would be tantamount to toppling them straight into depravity! But fortunately, the idea that culture corrupts is nothing more than an old, inherited lie.59 No, it is ignorance, poverty, ugly living conditions that do that devil’s work! In a house which isn’t aired and swept each day – my wife Katrine maintains that the floor ought to be washed too; although that’s open to debate – anyway – within two or three years in such a house, I tell you, people lose the capacity to think or act morally. Lack of oxygen debilitates the conscience. And there must, it seems, be a huge dearth of oxygen in many, many houses here in town, since the entire solid majority have so little conscience that they want to build the town’s progress on a quagmire of lies and deceit.
ASLAKSEN: Such grave accusations shouldn’t be hurled at an entire community.
A GENTLEMAN: I suggest the moderator order the speaker to stand down.
EAGER VOICES: Yes, yes! That’s right! Make him stand down!
DR STOCKMANN [flaring up]: Then I shall shout the truth from every street corner! I shall write it in the out-of-town newspapers! The whole country will learn what’s going on here!
HOVSTAD: The doctor seems almost intent on destroying this town.
DR STOCKMANN: Yes, I hold my native town so dear that I’d rather destroy it than see it flourish on a lie.
ASLAKSEN: These are strong words.
Commotion and whistles being blown. MRS STOCKMANN coughs to no avail; The DOCTOR no longer hears her.
HOVSTAD [shouting over the din]: A man who wishes to destroy an entire community must be an enemy of its citizens.
DR STOCKMANN [with growing passion]: It’s of no consequence if a lie-ridden community is destroyed. It should be razed to the ground, I say! All those who live a lie should be eradicated like vermin! You’ll bring a plague upon the entire country in the end; you’ll make it so the entire country deserves to be laid waste. And if it comes to that, then I say from the depths of my heart: let the entire country be laid waste, let this entire people be eradicated!
ONE MAN [in the crowd]: That’s the talk of an enemy of the people!60
BILLING: There sounded, God strike me dead, the voice of the people!
THE WHOLE CROWD [shouting]: Yes, yes, yes! He’s an enemy of the people! He hates his country! He hates our whole people!
ASLAKSEN: I am, both as a citizen of this country and as a human being, deeply shaken by what I’ve had to listen to here. Dr Stockmann has betrayed himself in ways I’d never have dreamed possible. I must sadly concur with the opinion expressed here by our most worthy citizens; and I hold that we ought to give that opinion expression in a resolution. I propose the following: ‘This meeting declares that it considers the medical officer, Dr Tomas Stockmann, an Enemy of the People.’
A storm of cheers and applause. Many people encircle the DOCTOR, blowing their whistles at him. MRS STOCKMANN and PETRA have got up. MORTEN and EILIF are fighting the other SCHOOLBOYS who have also been whistling. Some adults separate them.
DR STOCKMANN [to the men who are whistling]: Oh, what fools ye be – I tell you this –
ASLAKSEN [ringing his bell]: The doctor no longer has the floor. A formal vote needs to be taken; but, to spare any personal feelings, this should be done in writing and anonymously. Have you got some clean paper, Mr Billing?
BILLING: I’ve got blue paper and white here –
ASLAKSEN [steps down]: Excellent; that’ll be quicker. Cut it into pieces – that’s it, yes. [To the assembly] Blue means no; white means yes. I’ll come round to collect the votes myself.
PETER STOCKMANN leaves the room. ASLAKSEN and a couple of other citizens go round the hall with the slips of paper in their hats.
A GENTLEMAN [to HOVSTAD]: What’s come over the doctor, eh? What are we to make of all this?
HOVSTAD: Well, you know how hot-headed he is.
SECOND GENTLEMAN [to BILLING]: Listen, Billing, you visit the house. Have you noticed if the man drinks?
BILLING: God strike me dead if I know what to say. The toddy’s always on the table when anybody comes.
THIRD GENTLEMAN: No, I just think he’s a bit unhinged at times.
FIRST GENTLEMAN: Yes, I wonder if there’s any hereditary madness in the family?
BILLING: Could well be, yes.
FOURTH GENTLEMAN: No, it’s pure malice, that’s what; revenge for something or other.
BILLING: Well, he mentioned a pay rise a day or so ago; but he didn’t get it.
ALL THE GENTLEMEN [together]: Aha; that explains it!
THE DRUNKEN MAN [who is in the crowd]: I want a blue one! And a white one too!
SHOUTS: It’s that drunkard again! Get him out!
MORTEN KIIL [approaching the DOCTOR]: So, Stockmann, do you see now what comes of such monkey tricks?
DR STOCKMANN: I’ve done my duty.
MORTEN KIIL: What was it you said about the tanneries in Mølledalen?
DR STOCKMANN: You heard; I said they were where all the muck came from.
MORTEN KIIL: From my tannery too?
DR STOCKMANN: Unfortunately, your tannery’s probably the worst.
MORTEN KIIL: Are you going to get that printed in the newspapers?
DR STOCKMANN: I shan’t brush anything under the carpet.
MORTEN KIIL: That may cost you dear, Stockmann. [Goes out.]
MR VIK61 [walks over to
CAPTAIN HORSTER without greeting the LADIES]: So, captain, you lend out your house to enemies of the people, eh?
HORSTER: I think I can do what I want with my own property, Mr Vik.
MR VIK: So, you’d have nothing against my doing the same with mine.
HORSTER: What do you mean, sir?
MR VIK: You’ll hear from me tomorrow. [Turns his back on him and goes.]
PETRA: Wasn’t that your shipowner, Captain Horster?
HORSTER: Yes, it was Mr Vik.
ASLAKSEN [with the voting papers in his hands, climbs up on to the platform and rings the bell]: Gentlemen, allow me to inform you of the result. By all votes to one –
A YOUNG GENTLEMAN: That was the drunkard’s!
ASLAKSEN: By all votes to one intoxicated man’s, this citizens’ assembly declares the medical officer, Dr Tomas Stockmann, an enemy of the people. [Shouts and noises of approval] Long live our old and honourable community of citizens! [More approval] Long live our accomplished and capable mayor, who has so loyally ignored the ties of blood! [Cheering] The meeting is closed. [Climbs down.]
BILLING: Long live the moderator!
THE WHOLE CROWD: Hurrah for Aslaksen!
DR STOCKMANN: My hat and jacket, Petra! Captain, have you any room on your ship for passengers to the New World?
HORSTER: For you and yours, doctor, room will be found.
DR STOCKMANN [as PETRA helps him get his jacket on]: Good. Come on, Katrine! Come on, boys!
He takes his wife by the arm.
MRS STOCKMANN [quietly]: Tomas, my sweet, let’s go by the back door.
DR STOCKMANN: No back doors, Katrine. [With raised voice] You’ll hear more from this enemy of the people before he shakes the dust from his feet!62 I’m not as meek and mild as a certain man was; I shall not say: ‘I forgive you, for you know not what you do.’63
ASLAKSEN [shouts]: That is a blasphemous comparison, Dr Stockmann!
BILLING: That is, God strike – That’s a shocking thing for a serious-minded man to hear.
A GRUFF VOICE: And he’s threatening us too!
AGITATED VOICES: Let’s break his windows! Duck him in the fjord!
A MAN IN THE CROWD: Blow your horn, Evensen! Toot, toot!
Blowing of horn and whistles, wild screaming. The DOCTOR goes with his family towards the exit, HORSTER clearing the way for them.
THE WHOLE CROWD [yelling after them as they leave]: Enemy of the People! Enemy of the People!
BILLING [as he tidies his notes]: Well, God strike me dead, I wouldn’t want to be over at the Stockmanns’ drinking toddy tonight!
The crowd presses towards the exit. The noise continues outside; shouts of ‘Enemy of the People!’ are heard from the street.