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 countryfolk, 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 catcalls 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-andout 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 everyone 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 relics. Ejlif and Morten shall look at them every day, 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.