Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (224 page)

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.)

1st 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.

2nd 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.

3rd Citizen. I rather think he goes quite off his head sometimes.

1st Citizen. I wonder if there is any madness in his family?

Billing. I shouldn’t wonder if there were.

4th 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.)

ACT
V

(SCENE. — DR. STOCKMANN’S study. Bookcases and cabinets containing specimens, line the walls. At the back is a door leading to the hall; in the foreground on the left, a door leading to the sitting-room. In the righthand wall are two windows, of which all the panes are broken. The DOCTOR’S desk, littered with books and papers, stands in the middle of the room, which is in disorder. It is morning. DR. STOCKMANN in dressing-gown, slippers and a smoking-cap, is bending down and raking with an umbrella under one of the cabinets. After a little while he rakes out a stone.)

Dr. Stockmann
(calling through the open sitting-room door)
. Katherine, I have found another one.

Mrs. Stockmann
(from the sitting-room)
. Oh, you will find a lot more yet, I expect.

Dr. Stockmann
(adding the stone to a heap of others on the table)
. I shall treasure these stones as relies. Ejlif and Morten shall look at them everyday, and when they are grown up they shall inherit them as heirlooms.
(Rakes about under a bookcase.)
Hasn’t — what the deuce is her name? — the girl, you know — hasn’t she been to fetch the glazier yet?

Mrs. Stockmann
(coming in)
. Yes, but he said he didn’t know if he would be able to come today.

Dr. Stockmann. You will see he won’t dare to come.

Mrs. Stockmann. Well, that is just what Randine thought — that he didn’t dare to, on account of the neighbours.
(Calls into the sitting-room.)
What is it you want, Randine? Give it to me.
(Goes in, and comes out again directly.)
Here is a letter for you, Thomas.

Dr. Stockmann. Let me see it.
(Opens and reads it.)
Ah! — of course.

Mrs. Stockmann. Who is it from?

Dr. Stockmann. From the landlord. Notice to quit.

Mrs. Stockmann. Is it possible? Such a nice man

Dr. Stockmann
(looking at the letter)
. Does not dare do otherwise, he says. Doesn’t like doing it, but dare not do otherwise — on account of his fellow-citizens — out of regard for public opinion. Is in a dependent position — dares not offend certain influential men.

Mrs. Stockmann. There, you see, Thomas!

Dr. Stockmann. Yes, yes, I see well enough; the whole lot of them in the town are cowards; not a man among them dares do anything for fear of the others.
(Throws the letter on to the table.)
But it doesn’t matter to us, Katherine. We are going to sail away to the New World, and —

Mrs. Stockmann. But, Thomas, are you sure we are well advised to take this step?

Dr. Stockmann. Are you suggesting that I should stay here, where they have pilloried me as an enemy of the people — branded me — broken my windows! And just look here, Katherine — they have torn a great rent in my black trousers too!

Mrs. Stockmann. Oh, dear! — and they are the best pair you have got!

Dr. Stockmann. You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth. It is not that I care so much about the trousers, you know; you can always sew them up again for me. But that the common herd should dare to make this attack on me, as if they were my equals — that is what I cannot, for the life of me, swallow!

Mrs. Stockmann. There is no doubt they have behaved very ill toward you, Thomas; but is that sufficient reason for our leaving our native country for good and all?

Dr. Stockmann. If we went to another town, do you suppose we should not find the common people just as insolent as they are here? Depend upon it, there is not much to choose between them. Oh, well, let the curs snap — that is not the worst part of it. The worst is that, from one end of this country to the other, every man is the slave of his Party. Although, as far as that goes, I daresay it is not much better in the free West either; the compact majority, and liberal public opinion, and all that infernal old bag of tricks are probably rampant there too. But there things are done on a larger scale, you see. They may kill you, but they won’t put you to death by slow torture. They don’t squeeze a free man’s soul in a vice, as they do here. And, if need be, one can live in solitude.
(Walks up and down.)
If only I knew where there was a virgin forest or a small South Sea island for sale, cheap —

Mrs. Stockmann. But think of the boys, Thomas!

Dr. Stockmann
(standing still)
. What a strange woman you are, Katherine! Would you prefer to have the boys grow up in a society like this? You saw for yourself last night that half the population are out of their minds; and if the other half have not lost their senses, it is because they are mere brutes, with no sense to lose.

Mrs. Stockmann. But, Thomas dear, the imprudent things you said had something to do with it, you know.

Dr. Stockmann. Well, isn’t what I said perfectly true? Don’t they turn every idea topsy-turvy? Don’t they make a regular hotchpotch of right and wrong? Don’t they say that the things I know are true, are lies? The craziest part of it all is the fact of these “liberals,” men of full age, going about in crowds imagining that they are the broad-minded party! Did you ever hear anything like it, Katherine!

Mrs. Stockmann. Yes, yes, it’s mad enough of them, certainly; but —
(PETRA comes in from the silting-room)
. Back from school already?

Petra. Yes. I have been given notice of dismissal.

Mrs. Stockmann. Dismissal?

Dr. Stockmann. You too?

Petra. Mrs. Busk gave me my notice; so I thought it was best to go at once.

Dr. Stockmann. You were perfectly right, too!

Mrs. Stockmann. Who would have thought Mrs. Busk was a woman like that!

Petra. Mrs. Busk isn’t a bit like that, mother; I saw quite plainly how it hurt her to do it. But she didn’t dare do otherwise, she said; and so I got my notice.

Dr. Stockmann
(laughing and rubbing his hands)
. She didn’t dare do otherwise, either! It’s delicious!

Mrs. Stockmann. Well, after the dreadful scenes last night —

Petra. It was not only that. Just listen to this, father!

Dr. Stockmann. Well?

Petra. Mrs. Busk showed me no less than three letters she received this morning —

Dr. Stockmann. Anonymous, I suppose?

Petra. Yes.

Dr. Stockmann. Yes, because they didn’t dare to risk signing their names, Katherine!

Petra. And two of them were to the effect that a man, who has been our guest here, was declaring last night at the Club that my views on various subjects are extremely emancipated —

Dr. Stockmann. You did not deny that, I hope?

Petra. No, you know I wouldn’t. Mrs. Busk’s own views are tolerably emancipated, when we are alone together; but now that this report about me is being spread, she dare not keep me on any longer.

Mrs. Stockmann. And someone who had been a guest of ours! That shows you the return you get for your hospitality, Thomas!

Dr. Stockmann. We won’t live in such a disgusting hole any longer. Pack up as quickly as you can, Katherine; the sooner we can get away, the better.

Mrs. Stockmann. Be quiet — I think I hear someone in the hall. See who it is, Petra.

Petra
(opening the door)
. Oh, it’s you, Captain Horster! Do come in.

Horster
(coming in)
. Good morning. I thought I would just come in and see how you were.

Dr. Stockmann
(shaking his hand)
. Thanks — that is really kind of you.

Mrs. Stockmann. And thank you, too, for helping us through the crowd, Captain Horster.

Petra. How did you manage to get home again?

Horster. Oh, somehow or other. I am fairly strong, and there is more sound than fury about these folk.

Dr. Stockmann. Yes, isn’t their swinish cowardice astonishing? Look here, I will show you something! There are all the stones they have thrown through my windows. Just look at them! I’m hanged if there are more than two decently large bits of hard stone in the whole heap; the rest are nothing but gravel — wretched little things. And yet they stood out there bawling and swearing that they would do me some violence; but as for doing anything — you don’t see much of that in this town.

Horster. Just as well for you this time, doctor!

Dr. Stockmann. True enough. But it makes one angry all the same; because if some day it should be a question of a national fight in real earnest, you will see that public opinion will be in favour of taking to one’s heels, and the compact majority will turn tail like a flock of sheep, Captain Horster. That is what is so mournful to think of; it gives me so much concern, that — . No, devil take it, it is ridiculous to care about it! They have called me an enemy of the people, so an enemy of the people let me be!

Mrs. Stockmann. You will never be that, Thomas.

Dr. Stockmann. Don’t swear to that, Katherine. To be called an ugly name may have the same effect as a pin-scratch in the lung. And that hateful name — I can’t get quit of it. It is sticking here in the pit of my stomach, eating into me like a corrosive acid. And no magnesia will remove it.

Petra. Bah! — you should only laugh at them, father,

Horster. They will change their minds some day, Doctor.

Mrs. Stockmann. Yes, Thomas, as sure as you are standing here.

Dr. Stockmann. Perhaps, when it is too late. Much good may it do them! They may wallow in their filth then and rue the day when they drove a patriot into exile. When do you sail, Captain Horster?

Horster. Hm! — that was just what I had come to speak about —

Dr. Stockmann. Why, has anything gone wrong with the ship?

Horster. No; but what has happened is that I am not to sail in it.

Petra. Do you mean that you have been dismissed from your command?

Horster
(smiling)
. Yes, that’s just it.

Petra. You too.

Mrs. Stockmann. There, you see, Thomas!

Dr. Stockmann. And that for the truth’s sake! Oh, if I had thought such a thing possible —

Horster. You mustn’t take it to heart; I shall be sure to find a job with some ship-owner or other, elsewhere.

Dr. Stockmann. And that is this man Vik — a wealthy man, independent of everyone and everything — ! Shame on him!

Horster. He is quite an excellent fellow otherwise; he told me himself he would willingly have kept me on, if only he had dared —

Dr. Stockmann. But he didn’t dare? No, of course not.

Horster. It is not such an easy matter, he said, for a party man —

Dr. Stockmann. The worthy man spoke the truth. A party is like a sausage machine; it mashes up all sorts of heads together into the same mincemeat — fatheads and blockheads, all in one mash!

Mrs. Stockmann. Come, come, Thomas dear!

Petra
(to HORSTER)
. If only you had not come home with us, things might not have come to this pass.

Horster. I do not regret it.

Petra
(holding out her hand to him)
. Thank you for that!

Horster
(to DR. STOCKMANN)
. And so what I came to say was that if you are determined to go away, I have thought of another plan —

Dr. Stockmann. That’s splendid! — if only we can get away at once.

Mrs. Stockmann. Hush! — wasn’t that some one knocking?

Petra. That is uncle, surely.

Dr. Stockmann. Aha!
(Calls out.)
Come in!

Mrs. Stockmann. Dear Thomas, promise me definitely — .
(PETER STOCKMANN comes in from the hall.)

Peter Stockmann. Oh, you are engaged. In that case, I will —