Script

Italics were lost, along with other formatting.
Act One: Scene 1
It is evening. Dr. Stockman’s living room is simply but cheerfully furnished. A doorway, upstage right, leads into the entrance hall, which extends from the front door to the dining room, running unseen behind the living room. At the left is another door, which leads to the Doctor’s study and other rooms. In the upstage left corner is a stove. Toward the left foreground is a sofa with a table behind it. In the right foreground are two chairs, a small table between them, on which stand a lamp and a bowl of apples. At the back, to the left, an open doorway leads to the dining room, part of which is seen. The windows are in the right wall, a bench in front of them.
As the curtain rises, Billing and Morten Kiil are eating in the dining room. Billing is junior editor of the People’s Daily Messenger. Kiil is a slovenly old man who is feeding himself in a great hurry. He gulps his last bite and comes into the living room, where he puts on his coat and ratty fur hat. Billing comes in to help him.
Billing: You sure eat fast, Mr. Kiil. Billing is an enthusiast to the point of foolishness.
Kiil: Eating don’t get you anywhere, boy. Tell my daughter I went home.
Kiil starts across to the front door. Billing returns to his food in the dining room. Kiil halts at the bowl of apples; he takes one, tastes it, likes it, takes another and puts it in his pocket, then continues on toward the door. Again he stops, returns and takes another apple for his pocket. Then he sees a tobacco can on the table. He covers his action from Billing’s possible glance, opens the can, smells it, pours some into his side pocket. He is just closing the can when Catherine Stockman enters from the dining room.
Mrs. Stockman: Father! You’re not going, are you?
Kiil: Got business to tend to.
Mrs. Stockman: Oh, you’re only going back to your room and you know it. Stay! Mr. Billing’s here, and Hovstad’s coming. It’ll be interesting for you.
Kiil: Got all kinds of business. The only reason I came over was the butcher told me you bought roast beef today. Very tasty, dear.
Mrs. Stockman: Why don’t you wait for Tom? He only went for a little walk.
Kiil, taking out his pipe: You think he’d mind if I filled my pipe?
Mrs. Stockmann: No, go ahead, and here—take some apples. You should always have some fruit in your room.
Kiil: No, no, wouldn’t think of it.
Doorbell
Mrs. Stockman: That must be Hovstad.
Peter Stockman, the Mayor, enters. He is a bachelor, nearing sixty. He has always been one of those men who make it their life work to stand in the center of the ship to keep it from overturning. He probably envies the family life and warmth of this house, but when he comes he never wants to admit he came and often sits with his coat on.
Mrs. Stockman: Peter! Well, this is a surprise!
Peter: I was just passing by . . .He sees Kiil and smiles, amused. Mr. Kiil!
Kill, sarcastically: Your Honor! He bites into his apple and exits.
Mrs. Stockman: You mustn’t mind him, Peter, he’s getting terribly old. Would you like a bit to eat?
Peter: No, no thanks. He sees Billing now, and Billing nods to him from the dining room.
Mrs. Stockman: He just happened to drop in. Please have something to eat.
Peter: No, thank you very much. I can’t take hot food in the evening. Not with my stomach.
Mrs. Stockman: Can’t I ever get you to eat anything in this house?
Peter: Bless you, I stick to my tea and toast. Much healthier – not to mention cheaper.
Mrs. Stockman, smiling: You sound as though Tom and I throw money out the window.
Peter: Not you, Catherine. He wouldn’t be home, would he?
Mrs. Stockman: He went for a little walk with the boys.
Peter: Do you think that’s good for him, right after dinner? There is a loud knocking on the front door. That sounds like my brother.
Mrs. Stockman: I doubt it, so soon. Come in, please.
Hovstad enters. He is in his early thirties, a graduate of the peasantry struggling with a terrible conflict. For while he hates authority and wealth, he cannot bring himself to cast off a certain desire to partake of them. Perhaps he is dangerous because he wants more than anything to belong, and in a radical that is a withering wish, not easily borne.
Mrs. Stockman: Mr. Hovstad--
Hovstad: Sorry I’m late. I was held up at the printing shop. Surprised: Good evening, Your Honor.
Peter, rather stiffly: Hovstad. I expect you’re here on business, no doubt.
Hovstad: Partly. It’s about an article for the paper—
Peter, sarcastically: Ha! I don’t doubt it. I understand my brother has become a prolific contributor to—what do you call it?—the People’s Daily Liberator?
Hovstad, laughing, but holding his ground: The People’s Daily Messenger, sir. The Doctor sometimes honors us when he feels that something needs saying.
Peter: Really! And what needs--
Mrs. Stockman, nervously to Hovstad: Would you like to . . .she points to the dining room.
Peter: I don’t want you to think I blame the Doctor for using your paper. After all, every performer goes for the audience that applauds him the most. It’s really not your paper I have anything against, Mr. Hovstad.
Hovstad: I really didn’t think so, Your Honor.
Peter: As a matter of fact, I happen to admire the spirit of tolerance in our town. It’s magnificent. Just don’t forget that we have it because we all believe in the same thing: it brings us together.
Hovstad: The Baths, you mean.
Peter: Exactly. Our wonderful new baths. They’ve changed the soul of this town. Mark my words, those baths are going to be put on the map.
Mrs. Stockman: That’s what Tom says too.
Peter: Everything is shooting ahead—property values going up, money changing hands every hour, business humming—
Hovstad: And unemployment is down.
Peter: Right. Give us a really good summer, and sick people will be coming here in carloads. The springs will turn into a regular fad – a resort community. And for once the well-to-do people won’t be the only ones paying taxes in this town.
Hovstad: I hear reservations are really starting to come in?
Peter: Coming in every day. Looks very promising, very promising.
Hovstad: Well then, the Doctor’s article will come in handy.
Peter: He’s written something again?
Hovstad: No, it’s a piece he wrote at the beginning of the winter, recommending the water. But I didn’t want to run it yet.
Peter: Why, some hitch in it?
Hovstad: Oh, no, I just thought it would have a bigger effect in the spring, when people start planning for the summer.
Peter: That’s smart, Mr. Hovstad, very smart.
Mrs. Stockmann: Tom is always so full of ideas about the springs; every day he—
Peter: Well, he ought to be, he gets his salary from the springs, my dear.
Hovstad: Oh, I think it’s more than that, don’t you? After all, Doctor Stockmann created them.
Peter: You don’t say! I’ve been hearing that lately, but I did think I had a certain modest part—
Mrs. Stockmann: Oh, Tom always says—
Hovstad: I only meant the original idea was—
Peter: My good brother is never at a loss for ideas. All sorts of ideas. But when it comes to putting them into action you need another kind of man, and I did think that at least people in this house would—
Mrs. Stockmann: But Peter, dear—we didn’t mean to—
Hovstad: You can’t possibly think—
Mrs. Stockmann: Go get yourself a bit to eat, Mr. Hovstad, my husband will be here any minute.
Hovstad: Thank you, maybe just a little something. He goes into the dining room and joins Billing at the table.
Peter, lowering his voice: Isn’t it remarkable? Why is it that people without background can never learn tact?
Mrs. Stockmann: Why let it bother you? Can’t you and Thomas share the honor like good brothers?
Peter: The trouble is that certain men are never satisfied to share, Catherine.
Mrs. Stockman: Nonsense. You’ve always gotten along beautifully with Tom—That must be him now.
She goes to the front door, opens it. Dr. Stockmann is laughing and talking outside. He is in the prime of his life. He might be called the eternal amateur—a lover of things, of people, of sheer living, a man for whom the days are too short, and the future fabulous with discoverable joys. And for all this most people will not like him—he will not compromise for less than God’s own share of the world while they have settled for less than Man’s.
Dr. Stockmann, in entrance hall: Hey, Catherine! Here’s another guest for you! Go on in boys. You kids must be hungry all over again. I nabbed him in the street and had to twist his arem to make him come up. Come here, Captain Horster, I want you to look at this roast. He pushes Captain Horster along the hallway to the dining room. Ejlif and Morten also go to the dining room.
Mrs. Stockmann: Tom, dear . . .She motions toward Peter in the living room.
Dr. Stockmann, turns around in the doorway to the living room and sees Peter: Oh, Peter . . .He walks across and stretches out his hand. Say now, this is really nice.
Peter: I’ll have to go in a minute.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, nonsense, not with toddy ready. You haven’t forgotten the toddy, have you, Catherine?
Mrs. Stockmann: Of course not, I’ve got the water boiling. She exits.
Peter: Toddy, too?
Dr. Stockmann: Sure, just sit down and make yourself at home.
Peter: No, thanks, I don’t go in for drinking parties.
Dr. Stockmann: But this is no party.
Peter: Looks like one to me. Amazing the amount of food they manage to put away.
Dr. Stockmann: Yes, it’s wonderful watching young people eat, isn’t it? Perpetual appetite, just as it should be. Food! Energy! Peter, those are the fellows who are going to stir up the whole future.
Peter: Is that so! What’s there to stir up?
Dr. Stockmann: Don’t worry, they’ll let us know when the time comes. Old fools like you and me, we’ll be left behind like—
Peter: I’ve never been called that before.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, Peter, don’t jump on me every minute! Peter, I must tell you, I’m genuinely pleased and happy to be surrounded by all this burgeoning, exploding life. You ought to sit up there in that crooked corner of the north for five years, the way I did, and then come back here. It’s like watching the first seven days of creation!
Peter: Here!
Dr. Stockmann: Things to work and fight for, Peter! Without that you’re dead. Catherine, you sure the mailman came today?
Mrs. Stockmann, calling: There wasn’t any mail today.
Dr. Stockmann: And another thing, Peter—a good income; that’s something you learn to value after you’ve lived on a starvation diet.
Peter: Good heavens. . .
Dr. Stockmann: It was pretty tough going a lot of the time up there. And now, to be able to live like a prince! Tonight, for instance, we had roast beef for dinner, and there was enough left for supper too. Wouldn’t you like to taste a bit?
Peter: Oh, no, no—please, certainly not.
Dr. Stockmann: At least let me show it to you! Come in here—we even have a tablecloth.
Peter: I saw it.
Dr. Stockmann: And a new lampshade too, can you see it? They make the room so cozy, don’t they? Now, stand over here. No, no, over here, right here, that’s it. Isn’t that beautiful with the light falling on everything like that? Live to the hilt! That’s my motto. Anyway, Catherine says I’m earning almost as much as we spend.
Peter, refusing an apple: Well, you are improving.
Dr. Stockmann: Peter, that was a joke! You’re supposed to laugh!
Peter: Roast beef twice a day is no joke.
Dr. Stockmann: But I just don’t think I can deny myself the pleasure of seeing people in my house. It’s a necessity for me to see young, lively, happy people, free people burning with a desire to do something. You’ll see. When Hovstad comes in we’ll talk and—
Peter: Oh, yes, Hovstad. That reminds me. He told me he was going to print one of your articles.
Dr. Stockmann: One of my articles?
Peter: Yes, about the springs—an article you wrote during the winter?
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, that one! In the first place, I don’t want that one printed right now.
Peter: No? It sounded to me like it would be precisely the right time.
Dr. Stockmann: Under normal conditions, maybe so.
Peter: Well, what is abnormal about the conditions now?
Dr. Stockmann: I can’t say for the moment, Peter—at least not tonight. There could be a great deal abnormal about conditions; then again, there could be nothing at all.
Peter: Well, you’ve managed to sound mysterious. Is there anything wrong? Something you’re keeping from me? Because I wish once in a while you’d remind yourself that I am chairman of the board for the springs.
Dr. Stockmann: And I would like you to remember that--Look, let’s not go for each other’s jugular, Peter.
Peter: I don’t make a habit of going for the jugular, as you put it But I’d like to underline that everything concerning the baths must be treated in a businesslike manner, through the proper channels, and dealt with by the legally constituted authorities. I can’t allow anything crooked or underhanded.
Dr. Stockmann: When did I ever known me to be connected with anything crooked or underhanded?
Peter: You have an ingrained tendency to go your own way, Thomas, and that simply can’t go on in a well-organized society. The individual really must submit himself to the society, or to the authorities who are in charge of the general welfare.
Dr. Stockmann: Well, that’s probably so. But how does that concern me?
Peter: My dear Thomas, this is exactly what you will never learn. But you had better watch out because someday you pay dearly for it. Now I’ve said it. Good-bye.
Dr. Stockmann: Are you out of your mind? You’re absolutely on the wrong track.
Peter: I am usually not. Anyway, may I be excused? Good-by, Catherine. Good evening, gentlemen. Exits. Catherine Enters
Mrs. Stockmann: He left?
Dr. Stockmann: Yes, and in a filthy temper!
Mrs. Stockmann: What did you do to him now?
Dr. Stockmann: What does he want from me? He can’t expect me to give him an accounting of every move I make, every thought I think, until I am ready to do it.
Mrs. Stockmann: Why? What should you give him an accounting of?
Dr. Stockmann: Just leave that to me, Catherine. Strange the mailman didn’t come today.
Hovstad, Billing, and Captain Horster have gotten up from the table and enter the living room. Ejlif and Morten come in a little later, Catherine exits.
Billing: After a meal like that, I feel like a new man. This house is so—
Hovstad: The Mayor certainly wasn’t in a glowing mood tonight.
Dr. Stockmann: It’s his stomach. He has lousy digestion.
Hovstad: I think two editors from the People’s Daily Messenger didn’t help either.
Dr. Stockmann: No, it’s just that Peter is a lonely man. Poor fellow, all he knows is official business and duties, and then all that weak tea that he pours into himself. Catherine, may we have the toddy?
Mrs. Stockman, calling in: I’m just getting it.
Dr. Stockmann: Sit down here, Captain Horster—we hardly ever see you; sit down, friends.
Horster: This used to be such an ugly house. Suddenly it’s beautiful!
Billing, to Horster: Great man!
Mrs. Stockmann: Here you are. Help yourselves.
Dr. Stockmann: We sure will.
Mrs. Stockmann: Are you sailing soon, Captain Horster?
Horster: I expect to be ready next week.
Mrs. Stockmann: And then to America, Captain?
Horster: Yes, that’s the plan.
Billing: Oh, then you won’t be home for the new election?
Horster: Is there going to be another election?
Billing: Didn’t you know?
Horster: No, I don’t get mixed up in those things.
Billing: But you are interested in public affairs, aren’t you?
Horster: No, I don’t understand a thing about it.
Mrs. Stockmann: Neither do I, Captain. Maybe that’s why I’m always so glad to see you.
Billing: Just the same, you ought to vote, Captain.
Horster: Even if I don’t understand anything about it?
Billing: Understand! What do you mean by that? Society, Captain, is like a ship—every man should do something to help navigate the ship.
Horster: That may be all right on shore, but on board a ship it doesn’t work out so well.
Petra with textbooks and notebooks under her arm comes into the entrance hall.
Petra: Good evening.
Dr. Stockmann: Good evening Petra!
Billing, to Horster: Great young woman!
Petra: And here you are, lying around like lizards while I’m out working.
Dr. Stockmann: Well, you come and be a lizard, too. Come here, Petra, sit with me. I look at her and say to myself, “How did I do it?”
Billing: May I mix toddy for you?
Petra: No, thanks, I better do it myself—you always make it too strong. Oh, Father, I forgot—I have a letter for you.
Dr. Stockmann: Who’s it from?
Petra: I met the mailman on the way to school this morning and he gave me your mail too, and I just didn’t have time to run back.
Dr. Stockmann: And you don’t give it to me until now!
Petra: I really didn’t have time to run back, Father.
Mrs. Stockmann: If she didn’t have time . . .
Dr. Stockmann: Let’s see it—come on, child! Looks at envelope. Yes, indeed.
Mrs. Stockmann: Is that the one you’ve been waiting for?
Dr. Stockmann: I’ll be right back.
Petra: What is it, Mother?
Mrs. Stockmann: No idea; the last couple of days he’s been asking again and again about the mailman.
Billing: Probably an out-of-town patient of his.
Petra: Poor Father, he’s got much too much to do. This ought to taste good.
Hovstad: Teaching night school again?
Petra: Two hours every evening.
Billing: Plus the high school during the day?
Petra: Yes, five hours, and every night a pile of lessons to correct!
Mrs. Stockmann: She never stops going.
Hovstad: Maybe that’s why I always think of you as kind of breathless and—well, breathless.
Petra: I love it. I get so wonderfully tired.
Billing: She looks wonderfully tired.
Morten: You must be a wicked woman, Petra.
Petra: Wicked?
Morten: You work so much. My teacher says that work is a punishment for our sins.
Ejlif: And you believe that?
Mrs. Stockmann: Ejlif? Of course he believes his teacher!
Billing: Don’t stop him . . .
Hovstad: Don’t you like to work, Morten?
Morten: Work? No.
Hovstad: Then what will you ever amount to in this world?
Morten: Me? I’m going to be a Viking.
Ejlif: You can’t! You’d have to be a heathen!
Morten: So I’ll be a heathen.
Mrs. Stockmann: I think it’s getting late, boys.
Billing: I’m on your side, Morten, I think—
Mrs. Stockmann: You certainly don’t, Mr. Billing.
Billing: Yes, I do! I am a real heathen and proud of it. You’ll see, pretty soon we’re all going to be.
Morten: And then we can do anything we want!
Billing: Right! You see, Morten—
Mrs. Stockmann: Don’t you have any homework for tomorrow, boys? Better go in and do it.
Ejlif: Oh, can’t we stay in here a while?
Mrs. Stockmann: No, neither of you. Now run along.
Hovstad: You really think it hurts them to listen to such talk?
Mrs. Stockmann: I don’t know, but I don’t like it.
Petra: Oh, Mother, don’t be so uptight!
Mrs. Stockmann: I don’t care, I don’t like it.
Petra: But that’s just like at school, we have to teach them all sorts of things we don’t believe in. If I had money I’d start my own school—
Horster: If you really mean it, Miss Petra, my father left me the house and you could use that for your school.
Petra: Well, thank you. That’s a very nice offer. (Pause)
Hovstad: By the way, what happened to the English novel you were going to translate for us?
Petra: I started it, but I’ve gotten so busy—
Dr. Stockmann enters from his study , an open letter in his hand. He is like a sleepwalker, astonished, engrossed. He walks toward the front door.
Mrs. Stockmann: Tom?
He turns, suddenly aware of them.
Dr. Stockmann: Boys, there is going to be news in this town!
Billing: News?
Mrs. Stockmann: What kind of news?
Dr. Stockmann: A terrific discovery, Catherine.
Hovstad: Really?
Mrs. Stockmann: That you made?
Dr. Stockmann: That I made. Now let the baboons running this town call me a lunatic! Now they’d better watch out. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!
Petra: What is it, Father?
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, if Peter were only here! Now you’ll see how human being can walk around and make judgments like blind rats.
Hovstad: What do you mean, Doctor?
Dr. Stockmann: It’s the general opinion, isn’t it, that our town is a healthy spot?
Hovstad: Of course.
Mrs. Stockmann: What happened?
Dr. Stockmann: And a rather unusually healthy spot! A place that can even be recommended to sick people!
Mrs. Stockmann: But, Tom, what are you—
Dr. Stockmann: And we certainly have recommended it. I myself have written and written, in the People’s Messenger, pamphlets—
Hovstad: Yes, yes, and—
Dr. Stockmann: The miraculous baths that cost such a fortune to build, the whole Health institute, is a pesthole!
Petra: Father! The baths?
Mrs. Stockmann: Our baths?
Billing: That’s unbelievable
Dr. Stockman: You know that filth up in Windmill Valley? That stuff that has such a stinking smell? It comes down from the tannery up there, and the same damn poisonous mess comes right out into the blessed, miraculous water we’re supposed to cure people with!
Horster: You mean where our beaches are?
Dr. Stockmann: Exactly.
Hovstad: How are you so sure about this, Doctor?
Dr. Stockmann: I had a suspicion about it a long time ago—last year there were too many unusual illnesses among the visitors, typhus and gastric disturbances.
Mrs. Stockmann: That did happen. I remember Mrs. Stevenson’s niece—
Dr. Stockmann: Yes, dear. At the time we thought that the visitors brought the infections, but later this winter I got a new idea and I started investigating the water.
Mrs. Stockmann: So that’s what you’ve been working on!
Dr. Stockmann: I sent samples of the water to the University for an exact chemical analysis.
Hovstad: And that’s what you have just received?
Dr. Stockmann: This is it. It proves the existence of infectious organic matter in the water.
Mrs. Stockmann: What a blessing you discovered it in time.
Dr. Stockmann: I think we can say that, Catherine.
Billing: Isn’t it wonderful!
Hovstad: And what do you intend to do now, Doctor?
Dr. Stockmann: Put the thing right, of course.
Hovstad: Do you think that can be done?
Dr. Stockmann: Maybe. If not, the whole Institute is useless. But there’s nothing to worry about—I am quite clear on what has to be done.
Mrs. Stockmann: But, Tom, why did you keep it so secret?
Dr. Stockmann: What did you want me to do? Go out and shoot my mouth off before I really knew? You don’t realize what this means, Catherine—the whole water system has got to be changed.
Mrs. Stockmann: The whole water system?
Dr. Stockmann: The whole water system. The intake is too low, it’s got to be raised to a much higher spot. The whole construction’s got to be ripped out!
Petra: Well, Father, at last you can prove they should have listened to you!
Dr. Stockmann: Ha, she remembers!
Mrs. Stockmann: That’s right, you did warn them—
Dr. Stockmann: Of course I warned them. When they started the damned thing I told them not to build it down there! But who am I, a mere scientist, to tell politicians where to build a health institute! Well, now they’re going to get it, both barrels!
Billing: This is tremendous! To Horster: He’s a great man!
Dr. Stockmann: It’s bigger than tremendous. Wait’ll the board hears about this! Petra, my report is on my desk. Will you run it over to the Mayor’s house tonight?
Mrs. Stockmann just stands there looking at him.
Dr. Stockmann: What’s the matter, dear?
Mrs. Stockmann: I don’t know . . .
Petra: What’s Uncle Peter going to say about this?
Mrs. Stockmann: That’s what I’m wondering.
Dr. Stockmann: What can he say! He ought to be glad that such an important fact is brought out before we start an epidemic!
Hovstad: I would like to put a brief item about this discovery in the Messenger.
Dr. Stockmann: Go ahead. I’d be really grateful for that now.
Hovstad: Because the public ought to know soon.
Dr. Stockmann: Right away.
Billing: You’ll be the leading man in this town, Doctor.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, there was nothing to it. Every detective gets a lucky break once in his life. But just the same I—
Billing: Hovstad, don’t you think the town ought to pay Dr. Stockmann some tribute?
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, no, no . . .
Hovstad: Sure, let’s all put in a word for—
Billing: I’ll talk to Aslaksen about it!
Dr. Stockmann: No, no fellows, no fooling around! I won’t put up with any commotion. Even if the Board of Directors wants to give me an pay increase I won’t take it—I just won’t take it, Catherine.
Mrs. Stockmann: That’s right, Tom.
Petra: Skol, Father!
Everybody: Skol, Doctor!
Horster: Doctor, I hope this will bring you great honor and pleasure.
Dr. Stockmann: Thanks, friend, thanks. There’s one blessing above all others. To know you’ve been of service to your hometown and neighbors . . . Catherine, I’m going to dance!
He grabs his wife and whirls her around. There are shouts and struggles, general commotion. The boys in nightgowns stick their heads through the doorway at the right, wondering what is going on. Mrs. Stockmann, seeing them, breaks away and chases them upstairs as
The Curain Falls.

ACT ONE: SCENE TWO
Dr. Stockmann’s living room the following morning. Mrs. Stockmann comes in from the dining room, a sealed letter in her hand.
Mrs. Stockmann: Are you back, Tom?
Dr. Stockman: I just got in. What is it?
Mrs. Stockmann: From Peter. It just came.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, let’s see. “I am returning the report you submitted . . .”
Mrs. Stockmann: Well, what does he say? Don’t stand there!
Dr. Stockmann: He just says he’ll come around this afternoon.
Mrs. Stockmann: Oh. Well, you ought to try to remember to be home then.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, I will. I’m through with my morning visits anyway.
Mrs. Stockmann: I’m anxious to see how he’s going to take it.
Dr. Stockmann: Why, is there any doubt? He’ll probably make it look like he made the discovery, not I.
Mrs. Stockmann: But aren’t you a little bit afraid of that?
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, I don’t mind—as long as it makes everybody happy.
Morten Kiil sticks his head through the doorway. He looks around searchingly and chuckles. He will continue until he leaves the house. He is the archetype of the little twinkle-eyed man who sneaks into so much of Ibsen’s work. He will chuckle you right over the precipice. He is the dealer, the man with the rat’s finely tuned brain. But he is sometimes likable because he is without morals and announces the fact by laughing.
Kiil: Is it really true?
Mrs. Stockmann: Father!
Dr. Stockmann: Well, good morning!
Kiil: It better be true or I’m going.
Dr. Stockmann: What had better be true?
Kiil: This crazy story about the water system. Is it true?
Mrs. Stockmann: Of course it’s true! How did you find out about it?
Kiil: Petra came flying by on her way to school this morning.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, she did?
Kiil: Ya. I thought she was trying to make a fool out of me—
Mrs. Stockmann: Now why would she do that?
Kiil: Nothing gives more pleasure to young people than to make fools out of old people. But this is true, eh?
Dr. Stockmann: Of course it’s true. Sit down here. It’s pretty lucky for the town, eh?
Kiil, laughing: Lucky for the town!
Dr. Stockmann: I mean, that I made the discovery before it was too late.
Kiil: Tom, I never thought you had the imagination to pull your own brother’s leg like this.
Dr. Stockmann: Pull his leg?
Mrs. Stockmann: But, Father, he’s not—
Kiil: How does it go now, let me get it straight. There’s some kind of—like cockroaches in the waterpipes—
Dr. Stockmann, laughing: No, not cockroaches.
Kiil: Well, some kind of little animals.
Mrs. Stockmann: Bacteria, Father.
Kiil, laughing harder: Ah, but a whole mess of them, eh?
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, there’d be millions and millions.
Kiil: And nobody can see them but you, is that it?
Dr. Stockmann: Yes, that’s—well, of course anybody with a micro—What are you laughing at?
Mrs. Stockmann: You don’t understand, Father. Nobody can actually see them, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.
Kiil: Good girl, you stick with him! This is the best thing I ever heard in my life!
Dr. Stockmann: What do you mean?
Kiil: But tell me, you think you are actually going to get your brother to believe this?
Dr. Stockmann: Well, we’ll see soon enough!
Kiil: You really think he’s that crazy?
Dr. Stockmann: I hope the whole town will be that crazy, Morten.
Kiil: Ya, they probably are, and it’ll serve them right too—they think they’re so much smarter than us old-timers. Your good brother ordered them to bounce me out of the council, so they chased me out like a dog! Make fools out of all of them, Stockmann!
Dr. Stockmann: Yes, but Morten—
Kiil: Fools! Stockmann, if you can make the Mayor and his elegant friends grab at this bait, I will give a couple of hundred crowns to charity right on the spot.
Dr. Stockmann: Well, that would be very kind of you, but I’m—
Kiil: I haven’t got much to play around with, but if you can pull the rug out from under him with this cockroach business, I’ll give at least fifty crowns to some poor people on Christmas. Next Christmas.
Hovstad: Good morning! Oh, pardon me . . .
Kiil: Oh, this one is in on it, too?
Hovstad: What’s that, sir?
Dr. Stockmann: Of course he’s in on it.
Kiil: Couldn’t I have guessed that! And it’s going to be in the papers, I suppose. You’re sure tying down the corners, aren’t you? Well, lay it on thick. I’ve got to go.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, no, stay a while, let me explain it to you!
Kiil: I get it, don’t worry! Only you can see them, heh? That’s the best idea I’ve ever—
Mrs. Stockmann, laughing, following out: But, Father, you don’t understand about bacteria.
Dr. Stockmann: He doesn’t believe a word of it.
Hovstad: What does he think you’re doing?
Dr. Stockmann: Making an idiot out of my brother—imagine that?
Hovstad: You got a few minutes?
Dr. Stockmann: Sure, as long as you like.
Hovstad: Have you heard from the Mayor?
Dr. Stockmann: Only that he’s coming over later.
Hovstad: I’ve been thinking about this since last night—
Dr. Stockmann: Don’t say?
Hovstad: For you as a medical man, a scientist, this is a really rare opportunity. But I’ve been wondering if you realize that it ties in with a lot of other things.
Dr. Stockmann: How do you mean? Sit down. What are you driving at?
Hovstad: You said last night that the pollution comes from impurities in the ground—
Dr. Stockmann: It comes from the poisonous dump up in Windmill Valley.
Hovstad: Doctor, I think it comes from an entirely different dump.
Dr. Stockmann: Hovstad, what in the world are you talking about?
Hovstad: Everything that matters in this town has fallen into the hands of a few bureaucrats.
Dr. Stockmann: Well, they’re not all bureaucrats—
Hovstad: They’re all rich, all with old reputable names, and they’ve got everything in the palm of their hands.
Dr. Stockmann: Yes, but they happen to have ability and knowledge.
Hovstad: Did they show ability and knowledge when they built the water system where they did?
Dr. Stockmann: No, of course not, but that happened to be a blunder, and we’ll clear it up now.
Hovstad: You really imagine it’s going to be as easy as all that?
Dr. Stockmann: Easy or not, it’s got be done.
Hovstad: Doctor, I’ve made up my mind to give this whole scandal very special treatment.
Dr. Stockmann: Now wait. You can’t call it a scandal yet.
Hovstad: Doctor, when I took over the People’s Messenger I swore I’d blow that smug cabal of old, stubborn, self-satisfied fogies to bits. This is the story that could do it.
Dr. Stockmann: But I still think we owe them a deep debt of gratitude for building the springs.
Hovstad: The Mayor being your brother, I wouldn’t ordinarily want to touch it, but I know you’d never let that kind of thing obstruct the truth.
Dr. Stockman: Of course not, but . . .
Hovstad: I think a newspaperman who turns down any chance to give the underdog a lift is taking on a responsibility that I don’t want. I know perfectly well that in fancy circles they call it agitation, and they can call it anything they like if it makes them happy, but I have my own conscience—
Dr. Stockmann: I agree with you, Hovstad, but this is just the water supply and—knock at door—Come in!
Mr. Aslaksen, the publisher, enters from the hall. He is simply but neatly dressed.
Aslaksen: I beg your pardon, Doctor, for stopping by unannounced . . .
Hovstad: Are you looking for me, Aslaksen?
Aslaksen: No, I didn’t know you were here, I want to see the Doctor.
Dr. Stockmann: What can I do for you?
Aslaksen: Is it true, Doctor, what I hear from Mr. Billing, that you intend to campaign for a better water system?
Dr. Stockman: Yes, for the Institute. But it’s not a campaign.
Aslaksen: I just wanted to tell you that we are behind you a hundred percent.
Hovstad, to Dr. Stockman: There, you see!
Dr. Stockman: Mr. Aslaksen, I thank you with all my heart. But you see—
Aslaksen: We can be important, Doctor. When the little businessman wants to push something through, he turns out to be the majority, you know, and it’s always good to have the majority on your side.
Dr. Stockman: That’s certainly true, but I don’t understand what this is all about. It seems to me it’s a simple, straightforward business. The water—
Aslaksen: Of course we intend to behave with moderation, Doctor. I always try to be a moderate and careful man.
Dr. Stockman: You are known for that, Mr. Aslaksen, but—
Aslaksen: The water system is very important us little businessmen, Doctor. The baths are becoming a gold mine for this town, especially for the property owners, and that is why, in my capacity as chairman of the Property Owners Association—
Dr. Stockmann: Yes.
Aslaksen: As a result, I come into contact with all kinds of people, and since I am known to be a law-abiding and solid citizen, I have a certain influence in this town—you might even call it a little power with the solid majority.
Dr. Stockmann: I know that very well, Mr. Aslaksen.
Aslaksen: That’s why you can see that it would be practically nothing for me to arrange a demonstration.
Hovstad: Right!
Dr. Stockmann: Demonstration! What are you going to demonstrate about?
Aslaksen: The citizens of the town complimenting you for bringing this important matter to everybody’s attention. Obviously it would have to be done with the utmost moderation so as not to hurt the authorities.
Hovstad: This could knock the big-bellies right into the garbage can!
Aslaksen: No indiscretion or extreme aggressiveness toward the authorities, Mr. Hovstad! I’ve had enough of that in my time, and no good ever comes of it. But for a good solid citizen to express his calm, frank, and free opinion is something nobody can deny.
Dr. Stockmann: My dear Aslaksen, I can’t tell you how it heartens me to hear this kind of support. I am happy—I really am—I’m happy. Listen! Wouldn’t you like a glass of sherry?
Aslaksen: No, thank you very much, I never touch spirits. I—
Dr. Stockman: Well, how about a glass of beer?
Aslaksen: I don’t think I can go quite that far, Doctor. I never take anything. Well, good day, and I want you to remember that the small businessman and property owners are behind you like a wall.
Dr. Stockman: Thank you.
Aslaksen: You have the solid majority on your side, because when the little –
Dr. Stockmann: Thanks for that, Mr. Aslaksen, and good day.
Aslaksen: Are you going back to the printing shop, Mr. Hovstad?
Hovstad: I just have a thing or two to attend to here.
Aslaksen: Very well. (He leaves)
Hovstad: We can give fence-sitters like him a little push and they’ll fall right out of power.
Dr. Stockman, surprised: What? I think Aslaksen is a very sincere man.
Hovstad: Isn’t it time we pumped some guts into these well-intentioned men of good will? Under all their liberal talk they still idolize authority, and that’s got to be rooted out of this town. This blunder of the water system has to be made clear to every voter. Let me print your report.
Dr. Stockmann: Not until I talk to my brother.
Hovstad: I’ll write an editorial in the meantime, and if the Mayor won’t go along with us—
Dr. Stockmann: I don’t see how you can imagine such a thing!
Hovstad: Believe me, Doctor, it’s possible, and then—
Dr. Stockmann: Listen, I promise you: he will go along, and then you can print my report, every word of it.
Hovstad: On your word of honor?
Dr. Stockmann: Here it is. Take it. It can’t do any harm for you to read it. Return it to me later.
Hovstad: Good day, Doctor.
Dr. Stockmann: Good day. You’ll see, it’s going to be easier than you think, Hovstad!
Hovstad: I hope so, Doctor; we shall see.
Dr. Stockmann: Catherine! Petra enters the room from interior.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, you’re home already, Petra!
Petra: There are a couple books I needed for my afternoon classes.
Mrs. Stockmann: Hasn’t he been here yet?
Dr. Stockmann: Peter? No, but I just had a long chat with Hovstad. He’s really fascinated with my discovery, and you know, it has more implications that I thought at first. Do you know what I have backing me up?
Mrs. Stockmann: What in heaven’s name have you got backing you up?
Dr. Stockmann: The solid majority.
Mrs. Stockmann: Is that good?
Dr. Stockmann: Good? It’s wonderful. You can’t imagine the feeling, Catherine, to know that your own town feels like a brother to you. I have never felt so at home in this town since I was a boy.
Knock at door.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, it’s Peter then. Come in.
Peter: Good morning!
Dr. Stockmann: It’s nice to see you, Peter.
Mrs. Stockmann: Good morning. How are you today?
Peter: Well, so so. I received your report about the condition of the springs yesterday.
Dr. Stockmann: I got your note. Did you read it?
Peter: I read it.
Dr. Stockmann: Well, what do you have to say?
Peter clears his throat and glances at the others.
Mrs. Stockmann: Come on, Petra. Exits with Petra.
Peter: Thomas, was it really necessary to go into this investigation behind my back?
Dr. Stockmann: Yes. Until I was convinced myself, there was no point in—
Peter: And now you are convinced?
Dr. Stockmann: Well, certainly. Aren’t you too, Peter? The University chemists corroborated . . .
Peter: You intend to present this document to the Board of Directors, officially, as the medical officer of the baths?
Dr. Stockmann: Of course, something’s got to be done, and quick.
Peter: You always use such strong expressions, Thomas. Among other things, in your report you say that we guarantee our guests and visitors a permanent case of poisoning.
Dr. Stockmann: But, Peter, how can you describe it any other way? Imagine! Poisoned internally and externally!
Peter: So you merrily conclude that we must build a sewage plant—and reconstruct a brand-new water system from the bottom-up!
Dr. Stockmann: Well, do you know some other way out? I don’t.
Peter: I took a little walk over to the city engineer this morning and in the course of conversation I sort of jokingly mentioned these changes—as something we might consider for the future, you know.
Dr. Stockmann: The future won’t be soon enough, Peter.
Peter: The engineer kind of smiled at my extravagance and gave me a few facts. I don’t suppose you have taken the trouble to consider what your proposed changes would cost?
Dr. Stockmann: No, I never thought of that.
Peter: Naturally. Your little project would come to at least three hundred thousand crowns.
Dr. Stockmann: That expensive!
Peter: Oh, don’t look so upset—it’s only money. The worst thing is that it would take some two years.
Dr. Stockmann: Two years?
Peter: At the least. And what do you propose we do about the baths in the meantime? Shut them up, no doubt! Because we would have to, you know. As soon as the rumor gets around that the water is dangerous, we won’t have a visitor left. So that’s the picture, Thomas. You have it in your power literally to ruin your own town.
Dr. Stockmann: Now look, Peter! I don’t want to ruin anything.
Peter: The baths are the blood supply of this town, Thomas—the only future we’ve got here.
Dr. Stockmann: Well, what do you think we ought to do?
Peter: Your report has not convinced me that the conditions are as dangerous as you try to make them.
Dr. Stockmann: Now listen: they are even worse than the report makes them out to be. Remember, summer is coming, and the warm weather!
Peter: I think you’re exaggerating. A capable physician ought to know what precautions to take.
Dr. Stockmann: And then?
Peter: The existing water supply for the springs is a fact, Thomas, and has got to be treated as a fact. If you are reasonable and act with discretion, the directors of the Institute will be inclined to take under consideration any means to make possible improvements, reasonably and without financial sacrifices.
Dr. Stockmann: Peter, do you imagine that I would ever agree to such trickery?
Peter: Trickery?
Dr. Stockmann: Yes, a trick, a fraud, a lie! A treachery, a downright crime, against the public and against the whole community!
Peter: I said before that I am not convinced that there is any actual danger.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, you aren’t? Anything else in impossible! My report is an absolute fact. The only trouble is that you and your administration were the ones who insisted that the water supply be built where it is, and now you’re afraid to admit the mistake you committed. Don’t you think I can see through it all?
Peter: All right, let’s suppose that’s true. Maybe I do care a little about my reputation. I still say I do it for the good of the town—without any moral authority there can be no government. And that is why, Thomas, it is my duty to prevent your report from reaching the Board. Some time later I will bring up the matter for discussion. In the meantime, not a single word is to reach the public.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, my dear Peter, do you imagine you can prevent that!
Peter: It will be prevented.
Dr. Stockmann: It can’t be. There are too many people who already know about it.
Peter: Who? It can’t possibly be those people from the Daily Messenger who—
Dr. Stockmann: Exactly. The liberal, free, and independent press will stand up and do its duty!
Peter: You are an unbelievably irresponsible man, Thomas! Can’t you imagine what consequences that is going to have for you?
Dr. Stockmann: For me?
Peter: Yes, for you and your family.
Dr. Stockmann: What are you saying now!
Peter: I believe I have the right to think of myself as a helpful brother, Thomas.
Dr. Stockmann: You have been, and I thank you deeply for it.
Peter: Don’t mention it. I often couldn’t help myself. I had hoped that by improving your finances I would be able to keep you from running completely hog wild.
Dr. Stockmann: You mean it was only for your own sake?
Peter: Partly, yes. What do you imagine people think of an official whose closest relatives get themselves into trouble time and time again?
Dr. Stockmann: And that’s what I have done?
Peter: You do it without knowing it. You’re like a man with an automatic brain—as soon as an idea breaks into your head, no matter how idiotic it may be, you get up like a sleepwalker and start writing a pamphlet about it.
Dr. Stockmann: Peter, don’t you think it’s a citizen’s duty to share a new idea with the public?
Peter: The public doesn’t need new ideas—the public is much better off with old ideas.
Dr. Stockmann: You’re not even embarrassed to say that?
Peter Stockmann: Now look I’m going to lay this out once and for all. You’re always complaining about authority. If a man gives you an order he’s persecuting you. Nothing is important enough to respect once you decide to revolt against your superiors. All right then, I give up. I’m not going to try to change you anymore. I told you the stakes you are playing for here, and now I am going to give you an order. And I warn you, you had better obey it if you value your career.
Dr. Stockmann: What kind of order?
Peter: You are going to deny these rumors officially.
Dr. Stockmann: How?
Peter: You simply say that you went into the examination of the water more thoroughly and you find that you overestimated the danger.
Dr. Stockmann: I see.
Peter: And that you have complete confidence that whatever improvements are needed, the management will certainly take care of them.
Dr. Stockmann: My convictions come from the condition of the water. My convictions will change when the water changes, and for no other reason.
Peter: What are you talking about convictions? You’re an official, you keep your convictions to yourself!
Dr. Stockmann: To myself?
Petra enters on edge, listening.
Peter: As an official, I said. God knows, as a private person that’s something else, but as a subordinate employee of the baths, you have no right to express any convictions or personal opinions about anything connected with policy.
Dr. Stockmann: Now you listen to me. I am a doctor and a scientist—
Peter: This has nothing to do with science!
Dr. Stockmann: Peter, I have a right to express my opinion on anything in the world!
Peter: Not about the baths—that I forbid.
Dr. Stockmann: You forbid!
Peter Stockmann: I forbid you as your superior, and when I give orders you obey.
Dr. Stockmann: Peter, if you weren’t my brother—
Petra: Father! You aren’t going to stand for this!
Mrs. Stockmann, entering: Petra! Petra!
Peter: Ah, listening in, eh?
Mrs. Stockmann: You were talking so loud we couldn’t help . . .
Petra: Yes, I was listening!
Dr. Stockmann: You said something about forbidding—
Peter: You forced me to.
Dr. Stockmann: So you want me to make a statement accusing myself of lying—is that it?
Peter: Exactly.
Dr. Stockmann: And if I don’t obey?
Peter: Then we will publish our own statement, to calm the public.
Dr. Stockmann: Good enough! And I will write against you. I will stick to what I said, and I will prove that I am right and that you are wrong, and what will you do then?
Peter: Then I simply won’t be able to prevent your dismissal.
Dr. Stockmann: What!
Petra: Father!
Peter: Dismissed from the Institute is what I said. If you want to make war on the baths, you have no right to be on the Board of Directors.
Dr. Stockmann: You’d dare to do that?
Peter: Oh, no, you’re the daring man.
Petra: Uncle, this is a rotten way to treat a man like Father!
Mrs. Stockmann: Will you be quiet, Petra!
Peter: So young and you’ve got opinions already—but that’s natural. Catherine dear, you’re probably the only sane person in this house. Make him realize what he’s driving his whole family into.
Dr. Stockmann: My family concerns nobody but myself.
Peter: His family and his own town.
Dr. Stockmann: I’m going to show you who loves his town. The people are going to get the full stink of this corruption, Peter, and then we will see who loves his town!
Peter: You love your town when you blindly, spitefully, stubbornly go ahead trying to cut off our most important income?
Dr. Stockmann: That source is poisoned, man. We are getting fat by peddling filth and corruption to innocent people!
Peter: I think this has gone beyond opinions and convictions, Thomas. A man who can throw that kind of insinuation around is a traitor to society!
Dr. Stockmann: How dare you to—
Mrs. Stockmann: Tom!
Petra: Be careful, Father!
Peter: I won’t expose myself to violence. You have been warned. Consider what you owe yourself and your family! Good day!
Dr. Stockmann: He’s insulted. He’s insulted!
Mrs. Stockmann: It’s shameful, Tom.
Petra: Oh, I would love to give him a piece of my mind!
Dr. Stockmann: He called me a traitor to society. Me! That’s not going to stick!
Mrs. Stockmann: Please, think! He’s got all the power on his side.
Dr. Stockmann: Yes, but I have the truth on mine.
Mrs. Stockmann: Without power, what good is the truth?
Petra: Mother, how can you say such a thing?
Dr. Stockmann: That’s ridiculous, Catherine. I have the liberal press with me, and the solid majority. If that isn’t power, what is?
Mrs. Stockmann: But, for heaven’s sake, Tom you aren’t going to—
Dr. Stockmann: What am I not going to do?
Mrs. Stockmann: You aren’t going to fight it out in public with your brother!
Dr. Stockmann: What else do you want me to do?
Mrs. Stockmann: But it won’t do you any earthly good. If they won’t do it, they won’t. All you’ll get out of it is a notice that you’re fired.
Dr. Stockmann: I am going to do my duty, Catherine. Me, the man he calls a traitor to society!
Mrs. Stockmann: And how about your duty toward your family—the people you’re supposed to provide for?
Petra: Don’t always think of us first, Mother.
Mrs. Stockmann: You can talk! If worst comes to worst, you can manage for yourself. But what about the boys, Tom, and you and me?
Dr. Stockmann: Will you be happy if I can’t face myself the rest of my life?
Mrs. Stockmann: Tom, Tom, there’s so much injustice in the world! You’ve simply got to learn to live with it. If you go on this way, we’ll have no money again. Is it so long since the north that you’ve forgotten what it was to live like we lived? Haven’t we had enough of that for one lifetime? Boys enter.
Mrs. Stockmann: What will happen to them? We’ve got nothing if you’re fired!
Dr. Stockmann: Stop it! Well, boys, did you learn anything in school today?
Morten: We learned what an insect is.
Dr. Stockmann: You don’t say!
Morten: What happened here? Why is everybody—
Dr. Stockmann: Nothing, nothing. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to live so that when my children grow up, I have the right to look them in the face!
Curtain falls.
Act One: Scene Three
The editorial office of the People’s Daily Messenger. At the back of the room, to the left, is a door leading to the printing room. In the middle of the room there is a large table covered with papers, newspapers, and books. Around it are a few chairs. A writing desk stands against the right wall. The room is dingy and cheerless, the furniture shabby. As the curtain rises, Billing is sitting at the desk, reading the manuscript. Hovstad comes in after a moment from the printing room. Billing looks up.
Hovstad: You finish it?
Billing holds up a hand to signal just a moment. He reads on, the last paragraph of the manuscript. Hovstad comes and stands over him, reading with him. Now Billing closes the manuscript, glances up at Hovstad with some trepidation, then looks off. Hovstad, looking at Billing, walks a few steps away.
Hovstad: Well? What do you think of it?
Billing, with some hesitation: The Doctor is a brilliant man. I swear, I myself never really understood how incompetent those fat fellows are on top. He picks up manuscript and waves it a little. I hear the rumble of revolution in this.
Hovstad: Sssh! Aslaksen’s inside.
Billing: Aslaksen’s a coward. With all that moderation talk, all he’s saying is, he’s afraid of change. You’re going to print this, aren’t you?
Hovstad: Sure, I’m just waiting for the Doctor to give the word. If his brother hasn’t given in, we put in on the press anyway.
Billing: That could get pretty rough.
Hovstad: Just let him try to block the reconstruction—the little businessmen and the whole town’ll be screaming for his head. Aslaksen’ll see to that.
Billing: The stockholders’ll have to lay out a fortune of money if this goes through!
Hovstad: My boy, I think it’s going to bust them. And when the springs go busted, the people are finally going to understand the level of genius that’s been running this town. Those five sheets of paper are going to put in a liberal administration once and for all.
Billing: It’s a revolution. You know that? With hope and fear: I mean it, we’re on the edge of a real revolution!
Dr. Stockmann: Start the presses, Mr. Hovstad!
Hovstad: Wonderful! What did the Mayor say?
Dr. Stockmann: The Mayor has declared war, so war it what it’s going to be! Takes manuscript from Billing. And this is only the beginning! You know what he tried to do?
Billing: Mr. Aslaksen, the Doctor’s here!
Dr. Stockmann: He actually tried to blackmail me! He’s got the nerve to tell me that I’m not allowed to speak my mind without his permission! Imagine the shameless effrontery!
Hovstad: He actually said it right out?
Dr. Stockmann: Right to my face! Aslaksen enters.
Dr. Stockmann: The trouble with me was I kept giving them credit for being our kind of people, but they’re dictators! They’re people who’ll try to hold power even if they have to poison the town to do it.
Aslaksen: Now take it easy, Doctor, you-you mustn’t always be throwing accusations. I’m with you, you understand, but moderation—
Dr. Stockmann: What’d you think of the article Hovstad?
Hovstad: It’s a masterpiece. In one blow you’ve managed to prove beyond any doubt what kind of men are running us.
Aslaksen: May we print it now, then?
Dr. Stockmann: I should say so!
Hovstad: We’ll have it ready for tomorrow’s paper.
Dr. Stockmann: And listen, Mr. Aslaksen, do me a favor, will you? You run a fine paper, but supervise the printing personally, eh? I’d hate to see the weather report stuck into the middle of my article.
Aslaksen: Don’t worry, that won’t happen this time!
Dr. Stockmann: Make it perfect, eh? Like you were printing money. You can’t imagine how I’m dying to see it in print. After all the lies in the papers, the half-lies, the quarter-lies—to finally see the absolute, unvarnished truth about something important. And this is only the beginning. We’ll go on to other subjects and blow up every lie we live by!
Aslaksen: But just remember . . .
Billing, Hovstad, with Aslaksen: Moderation!
Billing: Doctor Stockmann is a friend of the people, Aslaksen!
Dr. Stockmann: I have to run along now to see a patient of mine. Don’t let that manuscript out of your sight, Aslaksen. And don’t leave out the exclamation points. If anything, put a few more in! Exits.
Hovstad, to Aslaksen: I hope you realize how useful he could be to us.
Aslaksen: I don’t like that business about “this is only the beginning.” Let him stick to the baths.
Billing: What makes you so scared all the time?
Aslaksen: I have to live here. It’d be different if he were attacking the national government or something, but if he thinks I’m going to start going after the whole town administration—
Billing: What’s the difference? Bad is bad!
Aslaksen: Yes, but there is a difference. You attack the federal government, what’s going to happen? Nothing. They go right on. But a town administration—they’re liable to be overthrown or something! I represent the small property owners in this town—
Billing: Ha! It’s always the same. Give a man a little property and the truth doesn’t matter anymore!
Aslaksen: Mr. Billing, I’m older than you are. I’ve seen fire-eaters before. You know who used to work at that desk before you? Councilman Stensford—Councilman!
Billing: Just because I work at his desk, does that mean—
Aslaksen: You’re a politician. A politician never knows where he’s going to end up. And besides, you applied for a job as secretary to the Judge, didn’t you?
Hovstad: Billing!
Billing: Well, why not? If I get it I’ll have a chance to put across some good things. I could put plenty of big boys on the spot with a job like that!
Aslaksen: All right, I’m just saying. People change. Just remember when you call me a coward—I may not have made the hot speeches, but I never when back on my beliefs either. Unlike some of the big radicals around here, I didn’t change. Of course, I am a little more moderate, but moderation is—
Billing: Ha!
Aslaksen: I don’t see what’s so funny about that! Exits.
Billing: If we could get rid of him we—
Hovstad: Take it easy—he pays the printing bill; someone has to. I’ll get the printer on this.
Billing: Say, Hovstad, how about asking Stockmann to back us? Then we could really put out a paper!
Petra enters.
Petra: Hello.
Hovstad: Well, fancy seeing you here. Sit down. What—
Petra: I want to ask you a question. She starts to open the book.
Billing: What’s that?
Petra: The English novel you wanted translated.
Hovstad: Aren’t you going to do it?
Petra, with deadly seriousness and curiosity: I don’t get this. It contradicts all your own opinions!
Hovstad: Oh, it isn’t that bad.
Petra: But, Mr. Hovstad, it says if you’re good enough there’s a supernatural force that’ll fix it so you end up happy. And if you’re bad you’ll be punished. Since when does the world work that way?
Hovstad: Yes, Petra, but this is a newspaper, people like to read that kind of thing. They buy the paper for that and then we slip in our political stuff. A newspaper can’t buck the public—
Petra, astonished, beginning to be angry: You don’t say! She starts to go.
Hovstad: Now, wait a minute. I don’t want you to go feeling that way. Manuscript to Billing: Here, takes this to the printer, will you?
Billing: Sure.
Hovstad: I just want you to understand something. I never even read that book. It was Billing’s idea.
Petra: I thought he was a radical.
Hovstad: He is. But he’s also a—
Petra, testily: A newspaperman.
Hovstad: Well, that too, but I was going to say that Billing is trying to get the job as secretary to the Judge.
Petra: What?
Hovstad: People are—people, Miss Stockmann.
Petra: But the Judge! He’s been fighting everything progressive in this town for thirty years.
Hovstad: Let’s not argue about it, I just didn’t want you to go out of here with a wrong idea of me. I guess you know that I—I happen to admire women like you. I’ve never had a chance to tell you, but I—well, I want you to know it. Do you mind?
Petra: No, I don’t mind, but—reading that book upset me. I really don’t understand. Will you tell me why you’re supporting my father?
Hovstad: What’s the mystery? It’s a matter of principle.
Petra: But a paper that’ll print a book like this has no principle.
Hovstad: Why do you jump to such extremes? You’re just like . . .
Petra: Like what?
Hovstad: I simply mean that . . .
Petra: Like my father, you mean. You’re just using my father aren’t you?
Hovstad: Now wait a minute!
Petra: Why are you doing this?
Hovstad: I happen to agree with your father, and that’s why I’m printing his stuff.
Petra: You’re trying to put something over, I think. Why are you in this?
Hovstad: Who’re you accusing? Billing gave you that book not me!
Petra: But you don’t mind printing it, do you? What are you trying to do with my father? You have no principles—what are you up to here?
Hovstad: You shouldn’t speak to me so harshly, Miss Petra; especially not now.
Petra: What do you mean, why not now?
Hovstad: Because your father can’t do without my help.
Petra: Shame on you!
Hovstad: Petra, it just slipped out inadvertently, you mustn’t think that. . .
Petra: I know what to think.
Aslaksen horridly enters from the printing shop, manuscript in hand.
Aslaksen: Hovstad! See Petra. Miss Stockmann.
Petra: I don’t think I’ve been so frightened in my life. Exits.
Hovstad: Please, you mustn’t think I—
Aslaksen: Where are you going? The Mayor’s out there.
Hovstad: The Mayor!
Aslaksen: He wants to speak to you. He came in the back door. He doesn’t want to be seen.
Hovstad: What does he want?
Peter Enters.
Hovstad: Come in, Your Honor!
Peter: Thank you. It’s clean! I always imagined this place would look dirty. But it’s clean. Very nice, Mr. Aslaksen. Place hat on desk.
Aslaksen: Not at all, Your Honor—I mean to say, I always . . .
Hovstad: What can I do for you, Your Honor? Sit down?
Peter, sitting, placing can on table: I had a very annoying thing happen today, Mr. Hovstad.
Hovstad: That so?
Peter: It seems my brother has written some sort of—report. About the baths.
Hovstad: You don’t say.
Peter: He mentioned it . . . to you?
Hovstad: Yes. I think he said something about it.
Aslaksen, nervously starts to go out, trying to hide the manuscript: Well, excuse me, gentlemen . . .
Peter: That’s it, isn’t it?
Aslaksen: This? I don’t know, I haven’t had a chance to look at it, the printer just handed it to me . . .
Hovstad: Isn’t that the thing the printer wanted the spelling checked?
Aslaksen: That’s it, it’s only a question of spelling. I’ll be right back.
Peter: I’ve very good at spelling. Maybe I can help you.
Hovstad: No, Your Honor, there’s some Latin in it. You wouldn’t know Latin, would you?
Peter: Oh, yes. I used to help my brother with his Latin all the time. Let me have it. He receives it. You’re going to print this?
Hovstad: I can’t very well refuse a signed article. A signed article is the author’s responsibility.
Peter: Mr. Aslaksen, you’re going to allow this?
Aslaksen: I’m the publisher, not the editor, Your Honor. My policy is freedom for the editor.
Peter: You have a point—I can see that.
Aslaksen: So if you don’t mind . . .
Peter: Not at all. He continues holding onto the script. This reconstruction of the baths—
Aslaksen: I realize, Your Honor—it does mean tremendous sacrifices for the stockholders.
Peter: Don’t upset yourself. The first thing a Mayor learns is that the less wealthy can always be prevailed upon to demand a spirit of sacrifice for the public good.
Aslaksen: I’m glad you see that.
Peter: Oh, yes. Especially when it’s the wealthy who are going to do the sacrificing. What you don’t seem to understand, Mr. Aslaksen, is that so long as I am Mayor, any changes in those springs are going to be paid for by a municipal loan.
Aslaksen: A municipal—you mean you’re going to tax the people for this?
Peter: Exactly.
Hovstad: But the springs are a private corporation!
Peter: The corporation built Kirsten Springs out of its own money. If the people want them changed, the people naturally must pay the bill. But of course, you have a closer knowledge of public opinion than I.
Aslaksen, to Hovstad: The people will never stand for a new tax. To the Mayor: Is this a fact or your opinion?
Peter: It happens to be a fact. Plus another fact—you’ll forgive me for talking about facts in a newspaper office—but don’t forget that the springs will take two years to make over. Two years without income for you small businessmen, Mr. Aslaksen, and a heavy new tax besides. And all because—his private emotions rise—because of this dream, this hallucination, that we live in a pesthole!
Hovstad: That’s based on science.
Peter: This is based on vindictiveness, on his hatred of authority and nothing else. This is the mad dream of a man who is trying to blow up our way of life! It has nothing to do with reform or science or anything else, but pure and simple destruction! And I intend to see to it that the people understand it exactly so!
Aslaksen: Oh my! To Hovstad: Maybe . . .You sure you want to support this thing, Hovstad?
Hovstad: Frankly, I’d never thought of it in quite that way. I mean . . . When you think of it psychologically it’s completely possible, of course, that the man is simply out to—I don’t know what to say, Your Honor. I’d hate to hurt the town in any way. I never imagined we’d have to have a new tax.
Peter: You should have imagined it because you’re going to have to advocate it. Unless, of course, liberal and radical newspaper readers enjoy high taxes. But you’d know that better than I. I happen to have here a brief story of the actual facts. It proves that, with a little care, nobody need be harmed at all by the water. Of course, in time we’d have to make a few minor structural changes and we’d pay for those.
Hovstad: May I see that?
Peter: I want you to study it, Mr. Hovstad, and see if you don’t agree that—Billing enters.
Billing: Are you expecting the Doctor?
Peter: He’s here?
Billing: Just coming across the street.
Peter: I’d rather not run into him here. How can I . . .
Billing: Right this way, sir, hurry up!
Aslaksen: Hurry Up!
Peter: Get him out of here right away!
Hovstad: Do something, do something! They all become very busy.
Dr. Stockman: Here I am again! Any proofs yet? They hardly respond to his presence. I guess not, eh?
Aslaksen: No, you can’t expect them for some time.
Dr. Stockmann: You mind if I wait?
Hovstad: No sense in that, Doctor, it’ll be quite a while yet.
Dr. Stockmann: Bear with me, Hovstad, I just can’t wait to see it in print.
Hovstad: We’re pretty busy, Doctor, so . . .
Dr. Stockmann: Don’t let me hold you up. That’s the way to be, busy, busy. We’ll make this town shine like a jewel! Just one thing, I—
Hovstad: Couldn’t we talk some other time? We’re very—
Dr. Stockmann: Two words. Just walking down the street now, I looked at the people, in the stores, driving the wagons, and suddenly I was—well, touched, you know? By their innocence, I mean. What I’m driving at is, when this exposé breaks they’re liable to start making a saint out of me or something, and I—Aslaksen, I want you to promise me that you’re not going to try to get up any dinner for me or—
Aslaksen: Doctor, there’s no use concealing—
Dr. Stockmann: I knew it. Now look, I will simply not attend a dinner in my honor.
Hovstad: Doctor, I think it’s time we—
Mrs. Stockmann enters.
Mrs. Stockmann: I thought so. Thomas, I want you home. Now come. I want you to talk to Petra.
Dr. Stockmann: What happened? What are you doing here?
Hovstad: Something wrong, Mrs. Stockmann?
Mrs. Stockmann: Doctor Stockmann is the father of three children, Mr. Hovstad.
Dr. Stockmann: Now look, dear, everybody knows that. What’s the—
Mrs. Stockmann: Nobody would believe it from the way you’re dragging us into this disaster!
Dr. Stockmann: What disaster? Just because I’m trying to tell the truth? Am I not allowed to be of service to my home town?
Mrs. Stockmann: Moderation in all things, Thomas!
Aslaksen: That’s what I always say! Moderation in all things.
Mrs. Stockmann, to Hovstad: He treated you like a son, now you make a fool out of him?
Hovstad: I’m not making a—
Dr. Stockmann: Catherine! How can you accuse—
Mrs. Stockmann, to Hovstad: He’ll lose his job at the springs, do you realize that? You print the article, and they’ll grind him up like a piece of flesh!
Dr. Stockmann: Catherine, you’re embarrassing me! I beg your pardon, gentlemen . . .
Mrs. Stockmann: Mr. Hovstad, what are you up to?
Dr. Stockmann: I won’t have you jumping at Hovstad, Catherine!
Mrs. Stockmann: I want you home! This man in is not your friend!
Dr. Stockmann: He is my friend! Any man who shares my risk is my friend! You simply don’t understand that as soon as this breaks everybody in this town is going to come out in the streets and drive that gang of—he picks up the Mayor’s cane from the table, notices what it is, and stops. He looks from it to Hovstad and Aslaksen. What’s this? They don’t reply. Now he notices the hat on the desk and picks it up with the tip of the cane. He looks at them again. He is angry, incredulous. What the devil is he doing here?
Aslaksen: All right, Doctor, now let’s be calm and—
Dr. Stockmann: Where is he? What’d he do, talk you out of it? Hovstad! He won’t get away with it! Where’d you hide him?
Aslaksen: Be careful, Doctor!
Peter Stockmann enters with Billing through the door Dr. Stockmann opened. Peter Stockmann tries to hide his embarrassment.
Peter: What’s the meaning of this?
Dr. Stockmann: Well, Peter, poisoning the water was not enough! You’re working on the press now, eh? Show some respect, I’m in authority here!
Peter: My hat, please. And my stick. Dr. Stockmann puts on the Mayor’s hat. Now what’s this nonsense! Take that off, that’s official insignia!
Dr. Stockmann: I just wanted you to realize, Peter, that anyone may wear this hat in a democracy, and that a free citizen is not afraid to touch it. And as for the baton of command, Your Honor, it can pass from hand to hand. So don’t gloat yet. You have threatened to dismiss me—well now I’m going to dismiss you! Hovstad and Billing will bombard you in the papers and Aslaksen will lead the businessmen into battle! The people haven’t spoken. And I have the people because I have the truth, my friends!
Aslaksen: Doctor, we’re not scientists. We can’t judge whether your article is really true.
Hovstad: I’m not printing it. I’m not going to sacrifice this newspaper. When the whole story gets out the public is not going to stand for any changes in the springs.
Dr. Stockmann: What does this mean? Pause. Then print it under my name. Let me defend it!
Aslaksen: His Honor just told us, Doctor—you see, there will have to be a new tax—
Dr. Stockmann: Ahhhhh! Yes. I see. That’s why you’re not scientists suddenly and can’t decide if I’m telling the truth. Well. So!
Hovstad: Don’t take that attitude. The point is—
Dr. Stockmann: the point, the point, oh the point is going to fly through this town like an arrow, and I am going to fire it! To Aslaksen: Will you print this article as a pamphlet? I’ll pay for it.
Aslaksen: I’m not going to ruin this paper and this town. Doctor, for the sake of your family—
Mrs. Stockmann: You can leave his family out of this, Mr. Aslaksen. God help me, I think you people are horrible!
Peter: My hat and cane. Your term of office came to a sudden end.
Dr. Stockmann: My article, if you don’t mind.
Aslaksen: Doctor, you won’t get it printed in this town.
Peter: Can’t you forget it? Can’t you see now that everybody—
Dr. Stockmann: Your Honor, I can’t forget it, and you will never forget it as long as you live. I am going to call a mass meeting, and I—
Peter: And who is going to rent you a hall?
Dr. Stockmann: Then I will take a drum and go from street to street, proclaiming that the springs are befouled and poison is rotting the body politic!
Peter: And I believe you really are that mad!
Dr. Stockmann: Mad? Oh, my brother, you haven’t even heard me raise my voice yet.
Peter looks regretfully toward the exit, then takes out his manuscript and hands it to Hovstad, who in turn gives is to Billing, who hands it to Aslaksen, who takes it and exits. Peter puts on his hat and moves toward the door. Blackout.
Act Two: Scene One
A room in Captain Horster’s house. The room is bare, as though unused for a long time. A large doorway is at the left, two shuttered windows at the back, and another door at the right. Upstage right, packing cases have been set together, forming a platform, on which are a chair and a small table. There are two chairs next to the platform at the right.
As the curtain rises the room is empty. Captain Horster enters, carrying a pitcher of water, a glass, and a bell. He is putting these on the table when Billing enters. A crowd is heard talking outside in the street.
Billing: Captain Horster?
Horster: Oh, come in. I don’t have enough chairs for a lot of people so I decided not to have chairs at all.
Billing: My name is Billing. Don’t you remember, at the Doctor’s house?
Horster: Oh, yes, sure. I’ve been so busy I didn’t recognize you. Why don’t those people come inside?
Billing: I don’t know, I guess they’re waiting for the Mayor or somebody important so they can be sure it’s respectable in here. I wanted to ask you a question before it begins, Captain. Why are you lending your house for this? I never heard of you connected with anything political.
Horster: I’ll answer that. I travel most of the year and—did you ever travel?
Billing: Not abroad, no.
Horster: Well, I’ve been in a lot of places where people aren’t allowed to say unpopular things. Did you know that?
Billing: Sure, I’ve read about it.
Horster: Well, I don’t like it.
People enter.
Horster: Come in, come in.
First citizen: Try the horn.
Fourth Citizen: What’s going on?
Second Citizen: The Doctor is going to speak against the Mayor.
Fourth Citizen: His brother?
Third Citizen: It makes no difference to him!
Fourth Citizen: Whose side are we supposed to be on?
Third Citizen: See what Aslaksen does first.
First citizen: Try the horn.
Second Citizen: No, let him start to talk first.
Third Citizen: Wait’ll they hear this! I could blow your mustache off with this!
Horster: I don’t want any roughhouse, you hear me?
Mrs. Stockmann and Petra enter.
Horster: Come in. I’ve got chairs just for you.
Mrs. Stockmann: It was kind of you to let Tom use this place.
Horster: Since no one else wanted to. . .
Petra: And it was brave of you too.
Mrs. Stockmann: There’s quite a crowd on the sidewalk.
Horster: I suppose they’re waiting for the Mayor.
Petra: Are all those people on his side?
Horster: Who knows? People are bashful, and it’s strange to come to a meeting like this, I suppose they—
Billing: Good evening ladies. I don’t blame you for not speaking. I just wanted to say I don’t think this is going to be a place for ladies tonight.
Mrs. Stockmann: I don’t remember asking your advice, Mr. Billing.
Billing: I’m not as bad as you think, Mrs. Stockmann.
Mrs. Stockmann: Then why did you print the Mayor’s statement and not a word about my husband’s report? Nobody’s had a chance to find out what he really stands for. Why, everybody on the street is against him already!
Billing: If we printed his report it only would have hurt your husband.
Mrs. Stockmann: Mr. Billing, I’ve never said this to anyone in my life, but I think you’re a liar.
Suddenly the third citizen lets out a blast on his horn. The women jump, Billing and Horster turn around quickly.
Horster: You do that once more and I’ll throw you out of here!
Peter Stockmann enters. Behind him comes the crowd. He pretends to be unconnected with them. He goes straight to Mrs. Stockmann, bows.
Peter: Catherine? Petra?
Petra: Good evening.
Peter: Why so coldly? He wanted a meeting and he’s got it. Isn’t he here?
Horster: The doctor is going around town to be sure there’s a good attendance.
Peter: Fair enough. By the way, Petra, did you paint that poster? The one somebody stuck on the Town Hall?
Petra: If you can call it painting, yes.
Peter: You know I could arrest you? It’s against the law to deface the Town Hall.
Petra: Well, here I am.
Mrs. Stockmann: If you arrest her, Peter, I’ll never speak to you!
Peter: Catherine, you have no sense of humor!
Drunk: Say, Billing, who’s runnin’? Who’s the candidate?
Horster: You’re drunk, Mister, now get out of here!
Drunk: There’s no law says a man who’s drunk can’t vote!
Horster: Get out of here! Get out!
Drunk: I wanna vote! I got a right to vote!
Aslaksen enters.
Aslaksen: Your Honor . . .He’s . . .
Dr. Stockmann: Right this way, gentlemen! In you go, come on, fellows!
Dr. Stockmann: Sorry, not enough chairs, gentlemen, but we couldn’t get a hall, y’know, so just relax. It won’t take long anyway. Glad you’re here, Peter!
Peter: Wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Dr. Stockmann: How do you feel, Catherine?
Mrs. Stockmann: Just promise me, don’t lose your temper . . .
Horster, seeing drunk: Didn’t I tell you to get out of here!
Drunk: Look, if you ain’t voin’, what going on here? Don’t push!
Peter: I order you to get out of here and stay out!
Drunk: I don’t like the tone of your voice! And if you don’t watch your step I’m gonna tell the Mayor, and he’ll throw yiz all in the jug! What’re ou, a revolution here?
Crowd laughs, Drunk laughs, then crowd pushes him out. Dr. Stockmann mounts the platform.
Dr. Stockmann: All right, gentlemen, we might as well begin. Quiet down, please. The issue is very simple—
Aslaksen: We haven’t elected a chairman, Doctor.
Dr. Stockmann: I’m sorry, Mr. Aslaksen, this isn’t a meeting. I advertised a lecture and I—
Citizen: I came to a meeting Doctor. There’s got to be some kind of control here.
Dr. Stockmann: What do you mean, control? What is there to control?
Fourth Citizen: Sure, let him speak, this is no meeting!
Third Citizen: Your Honor, why don’t you take charge of this—
Dr. Stockmann: Just a minute now!
Third Citizen: Somebody respectable has got to take charge. There’s a big difference of opinion here—
Dr. Stockmann: What makes you so sure? You don’t even know yet what I’m going to say.
Third Citizen: I’ve got a pretty good idea what you’re going to say, and I don’t like it! If a man doesn’t like it here, let him go where it suits him better. We don’t want any troublemakers here! Assent from the crowd. Dr. Stockmann looks at them with new surprise.
Dr. Stockmann: Now look friend, you don’t know anything about me—
Fourth citizen: We know plenty about you, Stockmann!
Dr. Stockmann: From what? From the newspapers? How do you know I don’t like this town. I’m here to save the life of this town!
Peter: Now just a minute, doctor, I think the democratic thing to do is to elect a chairman.
Fifth Citizen: I nominate the Mayor!
Seconds are heard.
Peter: No, no, no! That wouldn’t be fair. We want a neutral person. I suggest Mr. Aslaksen—
Second Citizen: I came to a lecture, I didn’t—
Third Citizen: What’re you afraid of, a fair fight? Second Mr. Aslaksen!
Dr. Stockmann: All right, if that’s your pleasure. I just want to remind you that the reason I called this meeting was that I have a very important message for you and I couldn’t get it into the press, and nobody would rent me a hall. I just hope I’ll be given time to speak here. Mr. Aslaksen?
Kiil enters, with Drunk following.
Aslaksen: I just have one word before we start. Whatever is said tonight, please remember, the highest civic virtue is moderation.
Drunk: I’ll drink to that!
Aslaksen: Quiet, please, quiet. Does anybody want the floor?
Peter Stockmann: Mr. Chairman!
Aslaksen: His Honor the Mayor will address the meeting.
Peter: Gentlemen, there’s no reason to take very long to settle this tonight and return to our ordinary, calm, and peaceful life. Here’s the issue: Doctor Stockmann, my brother-and believe me, it is not easy to say this—has decided to destroy the baths—
Dr. Stockmann: Peter!
Aslaksen: Let the Mayor continue, please. There mustn’t be any interruptions.
Peter: He has a long and very involved way of going about it, but that’s the brunt of it, believe me.
Third Citizen: Then what’re we wasting time for? Run him out of town! Others join in the cry.
Peter: Now wait a minute. I want no violence here. I want you to understand his motives. He is a man, always has been, who is never happy unless he is badgering authority, ridiculing authority, destroying authority. He wants to attack the springs so he can prove that the administration blundered in the construction.
Dr. Stockmann: May I speak? I—
Aslaksen: The Mayor’s not finished.
Peter: Thank you. Now there are a number of people here who seem to feel that the Doctor has a right to say anything he pleases. After all, we are a democratic country. In ordinary times I’d agree a hundred per cent with anybody’s right to say anything. But these are not ordinary times. Nations have crises, and so do towns. There are ruins of nations, and there are ruins of towns all over the world, and they were wrecked by people who, in the guise of reform, and pleading for justice, and so on, broke down all authority and left only revolution and chaos.
Dr. Stockmann: What are you talking about!
Aslaksen: I’ll have to insist, Doctor—
Dr. Stockmann: I called a lecture! I didn’t invite him to attack me. He’s got the press and every hall in town to attack me, and I’ve got nothing but this room tonight!
Drunk: I don’t think you’re making a very good impression, Doctor.
Assenting laughter and catcalls. Again Dr. Stockmann is taken aback by this reaction.
Aslaksen: Please continue, Your Honor.
Peter: Now this is our crises. We know what this town was without our baths. We could barely afford to keep the streets in condition. It was a dead, third-rate hamlet. Today we’re just on the verge of becoming internationally known as a resort. I predict that within five years the income of every man in this room will be immensely great. I predict that our schools will be bigger and better. And in time this town will be crowded with fine carriages; great homes will be built here; first class stores will open all along Main Street. I predict that if we are not defamed and maliciously attacked we will someday be one of the richest and most beautiful resort towns in the world. There are your choices. Now all you’ve got to do is ask yourselves a simple question: Has any one of us the right, the “democratic right” as they like to call it, to pick at minor flaws in the springs, and to exaggerate the most picayune faults? Cries of no, no! And to attempt to publish these defamations for the whole world to see? We live or die on what the outside world thinks of us. I believe there is a line that must be drawn, and if a man decides to cross that line, we the people must finally take him by the collar and declare, “you cannot say that!”
Uproar of assent.
Peter: All right then. I think we all understand each other. Mr. Aslaksen, I move that Doctor Stockmann be prohibited from reading his report at this meeting!
Aslaksen: Quiet please. Please now. I think we can proceed to the vote.
Dr. Stockmann: Well, aren’t you going to let me speak at all?
Aslaksen: Doctor, we are just about to vote on that question.
Dr. Stockmann: But I’ve got a right to—
Petra: Point of order, Father!
Dr. Stockmann: Yes, point of order!
Aslaksen: Yes, Doctor.
Petra: You want to discuss the motion.
Dr. Stockmann: That’s right, I want to discuss the motion before the last call
Drunk: Did someone say last call?
Aslaksen: Ah. . .all right Dr. Stockmann, proceed with moderation.
Dr. Stockmann: Now listen. He talks and he talks and he talks, but not a word about the facts!
Third Citizen: We don’t want to hear any more about the water!
Fourth Citizen: You’re just trying to ruin this town!
Dr. Stockmann: Well, judge for yourselves, let me read—
Cries of no, horn is blown, Aslaksen with bell. Astonished by the maddened faces, Dr. Stockmann lowers the hand holding the manuscript and steps back, defeated.
Aslaksen: Please, please now, quiet. We can’t have this uproar! I think, Doctor, that the majority wants to take the vote before you want to speak. If they so will, you can speak. Otherwise, majority rules. You won’t deny that.
Dr. Stockmann: Don’t bother voting. I understand everything now. Can I have a few minutes—
Peter: Mr. Chairman!
Dr. Stockmann: I won’t mention the Institute. I have a new discovery that’s a thousand times more important that all the Institutes in the world. May I have the platform?
Aslaksen: I don’t see how we can deny him that, as long as he confines himself to—
Drunk: I pay my taxes! So I’m entitled to my full. . .firm. . .and unmentionable opinion that. . .
Several voices: Be quiet! Throw him out! He’s a fool!
Aslaksen: Proceed, Doctor, but nothing about--
Dr. Stockmann: The springs are not the subject. Before I go into my subject I want to congratulate the liberals and radicals among us, like Mr. Hovstad—
Hovstad: What do you mean, radical! Where’s your evidence to call me a radical!
Dr. Stockmann: You’ve got me there. There isn’t any evidence. I guess there never really was. I just wanted to congratulate you on your self-control tonight—you who have fought in every parlor for the principle of free speech these many years.
Hovstad: I believe in democracy. When my readers are overwhelmingly against something, I’m not going to impose my will on the majority.
Dr. Stockmann: You have begun my remarks, Mr. Hovstad. Gentlemen, Mrs. Stockmann, Miss Stockmann. Just a moment ago I was struck by a sudden flash of light, a discovery second to none. But before I tell it to you—a little story. I put in a good many years in the north of our country. Up there the rules of the world are the great seal and the gigantic squadrons of duck. Man lives on ice, huddled together in little piles of stones. His whole life consists of grubbing for food. Nothing more. He can barely speak his own language. And it came to me one day that it was romantic and sentimental for a man of my education to be tending these people. They had not yet reached the stage where they needed a doctor. If the truth were to be told, a veterinary would be more in order.
Billing: Is that the way you refer to decent hard-working people!
Dr. Stockmann: I expected that, my friend, but don’t think you can fog up my brain with that magic word—the People! Not anymore! Just because there is a mass of organisms with the human shape, they do not automatically become a People. That honor has to be earned! Nor does one automatically become a Man by having human shape, and living in a house, and feeding one’s face—and agreeing with one’s neighbors. That name also has to be earned. Now, when I came to my conclusions about the springs—
Peter: You have no right to—
Dr. Stockmann: That’s a picayune thing, to catch me on a word, Peter. I am not going into the springs. When I became convinced of my theory about the water, the authorities moved in at once, and I said to myself, I will fight them to the death, because—
Third Citizen: What’re you trying to do, make revolution here? He’s a revolutionist!
Dr. Stockmann: Let me finish. I thought to myself: The majority, I have the majority! And let me tell you, friends, it was a grand feeling. Because that’s the reason I came back to this place of my birth. I wanted to give my education to this town. I loved it so, I spent months without pay or encouragement and dreamed up the whole project of the springs. And why? Not as my brother says, so that fine carriages could crowd our streets, but so that we might cure the sick, so that we might meet people from all over the world and learn from them, and become broader and more civilized. In other words, more like Men, more like a People.
A Citizen: You don’t like anything about this town, do you?
Another Citizen: Admit it, you’re a revolutionist, aren’t you? Admit it!
Dr. Stockmann: I don’t admit it! I proclaim it now! I am a revolutionist! I am in revolt against the age-old lie that the majority is always right!
Hovstad: He’s an elitist all of a sudden!
Dr. Stockmann: And more! I tell you now that the majority is always wrong, and in this way!
Peter: Have you lost your mind! Stop talking before—
Dr. Stockmann: Was the majority right when they stood by while Jesus was crucified? Was the majority right when they refused to believe that the earth moved around the sun and let Galileo be driven to his knees like a dog? It takes fifty years for the majority to be right. The majority is never right until it does right.
Hovstad: I want to state right now, that although I’ve been this man’s friend, and I’ve eaten at his table many times, I now cut myself off from him absolutely.
Dr. Stockmann: Answer me this! Please, one more moment! A platoon of soldiers is walking down a road toward the enemy. Every one of them is convinced he is on the right road, the safe road. But two miles ahead stands one lonely man, the outpost. He sees that this road is dangerous, that his comrades are walking into a trap. He runs back, he finds the platoon. Isn’t it clear that this man must have the right to warn the majority, to argue with the majority, to fight with the majority if he believes he has the truth? Before many can know something, one must know it! It’s always the same. Rights are sacred until it hurts for somebody to use them. I beg you now—I realize the cost is great, the inconvenience is great, the risk is great that other towns will get the jump on us while we’re rebuilding—
Peter: Aslaksen, he’s not allowed to—
Dr. Stockmann: Let me prove it to you! The water is poisoned!
Third Citizen: One more word about poison and I’ll take you outside!
Crowd is roaring, some try to charge. Horn, bell, Peter tries calming, Kiil exits.
Peter: That’s enough. Now stop it! Quiet! There is not going to be any violence here! Doctor, come down and give Mr. Aslaksen the platform.
Dr. Stockmann: I’m not through yet.
Peter: Come down or I will not be responsible for what happens.
Mrs. Stockmann: I’d like to go home. Come on, Tom.
Peter: I move the chairman order the speaker to leave the platform.
Voices: Sit down! Get off that platform!
Dr. Stockmann: All right. Then I’ll take this to out-of-town newspapers until the whole country is warned!
Peter: You wouldn’t dare!
Hovstad: You’re trying to ruin this town—that’s all; trying to ruin it.
Dr. Stockmann: You’re trying to build a town on a morality so rotten that it will infect the country and world! If the only way you can prosper is this murder of freedom and truth, then I say with all my heart, “Let it be destroyed! Let the people perish!”
First Citizen: Arrest him! Arrest him!
Second Citizen: He’s a traitor!
Hovstad: Anyone who wants to destroy a whole society must be an enemy to everyone in it!
Cries of Enemy! Traitor! Revolution!
Aslaksen: I would like to submit the following resolution: The people assembled here tonight, decent and patriotic citizens, in defense of their town and their country, declare that Soctor Stockmann, medical officer of Kirsten Springs, is an enemy of the people and of his community.
Mrs. Stockmann: That’s not true! He loves this town!
Dr. Stockmann: You fools, you ignorant fools!
Aslaksen: Is there anyone against this motion! Anyone against!
Horster: I am.
Aslaksen: One?
Drunk: Me too! You can’t do without a doctor! Anybody’ll . . .tell you . . .
Aslaksen: Anyone else? With all votes against four, this assembly formally declares Doctor Thomas Stockmann to be the people’s enemy. In the future, all dealings with him by decent, patriotic citizens will be on that basis. The meeting is adjourned.
Dr. Stockmann: Captain, do you have room for us on your ship to America?
Horster: Any time you say, Doctor.
Dr. Stockmann: Catherine? Petra?
Third Citizen: You’d better get aboard soon, Doctor!
Mrs. Stockmann: Right this way.
Dr. Stockmann: No, no. No back doors. I don’t want to mislead anybody—the enemy of the people is not finished in this town—not quite yet. And if anybody thinks—
The horn blasts, cutting him off. The crowd starts yelling hysterically: Enemy! Traitor! Throw him in the river! Enemy! Smash his windows! Throw him in the fjord! Enemy of the People! The Stockmanns, erect, move out through the crowd, with Horster. Some follow, still yelling, chanting.
Act Two Scene Two
Dr. Stockmann’s living room the following morning. The windows are broken. There is great disorder. As the curtain rises, Dr. Stockmann enters; he picks up a stone from the floor, lays it on the table.
As Dr. Stockmann bends down to get at another stone under a chair a rock comes through one of the last remaining broken panes. He rushes to the window, looks out. Mrs. Stockmann rushes in.
Mrs. Stockmann: You all right?
Dr. Stockmann: A little boy. Look at him run! How fast the poison spreads—even to the children!
Mrs. Stockmann: It’s hard to believe this is the same town.
Dr. Stockmann: I’m going to keep these like sacred relics. I’ll put them in my will. I want the boys to have them in their homes to look at every day. . .Cold in here. Why hasn’t the glazier gotten here yet? We’ll freeze to death in here.
Mrs. Stockmann: He won’t come here, Tom.
Dr. Stockmann: The glazier’s afraid to fix my windows?
Mrs. Stockmann: You don’t realize—people don’t like to be pointed out. He’s got neighbors, I suppose.
Knock at door. Mrs. Stockmann receives note from messenger.
Mrs. Stockmann: Letter for you.
Dr. Stockmann: What’s this now?
Mrs. Stockmann: Who’s it from?
Dr. Stockmann: Well, what do you know? We’re evicted.
Mrs. Stockmann: Oh, no!
Dr. Stockmann: He hates to do it, but with public opinion what it is . . .
Mrs. Stockmann: Maybe we shouldn’t have let the boys go to school today.
Dr. Stockmann: Now don’t get all worked up again.
Mrs. Stockmann: But the landlord is such a nice man. If he’s got to throw us out, the town must be ready to murder us!
Dr. Stockmann: Just calm down, will you? We’ll go to America, and the whole thing’ll be like a dream.
Mrs. Stockmann: But I don’t want to go to America. How do you know it’ll be any different there?
Dr. Stockmann: I don’t know. It just seems to me, in a big country like that, the spirit must be bigger. Still, I suppose they must have the solid majority there too. You know, Catherine, I don’t think I’m ever going to forget the face of that crowd last night.
Mrs. Stockmann: Don’t think about it.
Dr. Stockmann: Some of them had their teeth bared, like animals in a pack. I bet if I walked down the street now—
Petra Enters.
Mrs. Stockmann: Petra! Why aren’t you in school?
Dr. Stockmann: What’s the matter?
Petra: I’m fired.
Mrs. Stockmann: They wouldn’t!
Petra: As of two weeks from now. But I couldn’t bear to stay there.
Dr. Stockmann: Mrs. Busk fired you?
Mrs. Stockmann: Who’d ever imagine she could do such a thing!
Petra: It hurt her. I could see it, because we’ve always agreed so about things. But she didn’t dare do anything else.
Dr. Stockmann: The glazier doesn’t dare fix the windows, the landlord doesn’t dare let us stay on—
Petra: The landlord!
Dr. Stockmann: Evicted, darling! On the wreckage of all civilization in the world there ought to be a big sign: “They didn’t dare!”
Petra: I really can’t blame her, Father. She showed me three letters she got this morning—
Dr. Stockmann: From whom?
Petra: They weren’t signed.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, naturally. The big patriots with their anonymous indignation, scrawling out the darkness of their minds onto dirty little slips of paper—that’s morality, and I’m the traitor! What did the letters say?
Petra: Well, one of them was from somebody who said that he’d heard at the club that somebody who visits this house said I had radical opinions about certain things.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, wonderful! Somebody heard that somebody heard that she heard, that he heard . . .! Catherine, pack as soon as you can. I feel as though vermin were crawling all over me.
Horster: Good morning!
Dr. Stockmann: Captain! You’re just the man I want to see.
Horster: I thought I’d see how you all were.
Mrs. Stockmann: That’s awfully nice of you, Captain, and I want to thank you for seeing us through the crowd last night.
Petra: Did you get home all right? We hated to leave you alone with that mob.
Horster: Oh, nothing to it. In a storm there’s just one thing to remember: it will pass.
Dr. Stockmann: Unless it kills you.
Horster: You mustn’t let yourself get too bitter.
Dr. Stockmann: I’m trying, I’m trying. But I don’t guarantee how I’ll feel when I try to walk down the street with “Traitor” branded on my forehead.
Mrs. Stockmann: Don’t think about it.
Horster: Ah, what’s a word?
Dr. Stockmann: A word can be like a needle sticking in your heart, Captain. It can dig and corrode like an acid, until you become what they want you to be—really an enemy of the people.
Horster: You mustn’t ever let that happen, Doctor.
Dr. Stockmann: Frankly, I don’t care anymore. Let summer come, let an epidemic break out, then they’ll know whom they drove into exile. When are you sailing?
Petra: You really decided to go, Father?
Dr. Stockmann: Absolutely. When do you sail, Captain?
Horster: That’s really what I came to talk to you about.
Dr. Stockmann: Why? Something happen to the ship?
Horster: No, the ship will sail. But I won’t be aboard.
Dr. Stockmann: No!
Petra: You were fired too? ‘Cause I was this morning.
Mrs. Stockmann: Oh, Captain, you shouldn’t have given us your house.
Horster: Oh, I’ll get another ship. It’s just that the owner happens to belong to the same party as the Mayor, and I suppose when you belong to a party and the party takes a certain position . . .Because the owner himself is a very decent man.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, they’re all decent men!
Horster: No, really, he’s not like the others.
Petra: If you hadn’t let Father use your house, this wouldn’t have happened.
Horster: I have no regrets.
Petra: Thank you for that.
Dr. Stockmann: He doesn’t have to be. A party is like a sausage grinder: it mashes everyone together until only meatheads come out!
Knock at door, Petra answers.
Mrs. Stockmann: Maybe that’s the glazier!
Dr. Stockmann: Imagine, Captain! Refused to come all morning!
Peter Stockmann enters, hat in hand. Silence.
Peter: If you’re busy . . .
Dr. Stockmann: Just picking up broken glass. Come in, Peter. What can I do for you this fine, brisk morning? He pulls robe tighter around his throat.
Mrs. Stockmann: Come inside, won’t you, Captain?
Horster: Yes, I’d like to finish our talk, Doctor.
Dr. Stockmann: Be with you in a minute, Captain.
They leave, Peter surveys the damage.
Dr. Stockmann: Keep your hat on if you like, it’s a little drafty in here today.
Peter Stockmann: Thanks, I believe I will. I think I caught cold last night—that house was freezing.
Dr. Stockmann: I thought it was kind of warm—suffocating, as a matter of fact. What do you want?
Peter: May I sit down?
Dr. Stockmann: Not there. A piece of the solid majority is liable to open your skull. Here.
Dr. Stockmann: Now don’t tell me.
Peter: Yes. Hands over envelope.
Dr. Stockmann: I’m fired.
Peter: The Board met this morning. There was nothing else to do, considering the state of public opinion.
Dr. Stockman, after a pause: You look scared, Peter.
Peter: I—I haven’t completely forgotten that you’re still my brother.
Dr. Stockmann: I doubt that.
Peter: You have no practice left in this town, Thomas.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, people always need a doctor.
Peter: A petition is going from house to house. Everybody is signing it. A pledge not to call you anymore. I don’t think a single family will dare refuse to sign it.
Dr. Stockmann: You started that, didn’t you?
Peter Stockmann: No. As a matter of fact, I think it’s all gone a little too far. I never wanted to see you ruined, Thomas. This will ruin you.
Dr. Stockmann: No, it won’t.
Peter: For once in your life, will you act like a responsible man?
Dr. Stockmann: Why don’t you say it, Peter? You’re afraid I’m going out of town to start publishing about the springs, aren’t you?
Peter Stockmann: I don’t deny that, Thomas, if you really have the good of the town at heart, you can accomplish everything without damaging anybody, including yourself.
Dr. Stockmann: What’s this now?
Peter: Let me have a signed statement saying that in your zeal to help the town you went overboard and exaggerated. Put it any way you like, just so you calm anybody who might feel nervous about the water. If you’ll give me that, you’ve got your job. And I give you my word, you can gradually make all the improvements you feel are necessary. Now, that gives you what you want . . .
Dr. Stockmann: You’re nervous, Peter.
Peter: I am not nervous!
Dr. Stockmann: You expect me to remain in charge while people are being poisoned?
Peter: In time you can make your changes.
Dr. Stockmann: When, five years, ten years? You know your trouble, Peter? You just don’t grasp—even now—that there are certain men you can’t buy.
Peter: I’m quite capable of understanding that. But you don’t happen to be one of those men.
Dr. Stockmann: What do you mean by that now?
Peter: You know what I mean by that. Morten Kiil is what I mean by that.
Dr. Stockmann: Morten Kiil?
Peter: Your father-in-law, Morten Kiil.
Dr. Stockmann: I swear, Peter, one of us is out of his mind! What are you talking about!
Peter: Now don’t try to charm me with that professional innocence!
Dr. Stockmann: What are you talking about?
Peter: You don’t know that your father-in-law has been running around all morning buying up stock in the baths?
Dr. Stockman, perplexed: Buying up stock?
Peter Stockmann: Buying up stock, every share he can lay his hands on!
Dr. Stockmann: Well, I don’t understand, Peter. What’s that go to do with—
Peter: Oh, come now, come now, come now!
Dr Stockmann: I hate you when you do that! Don’t just walk around gabbling “come now, come now!” What are you talking about?
Peter: Very well. A man wages a relentless campaign to destroy confidence in a corporation. He even goes so far as to call a mass meeting against it. The very next morning, when people are still in a state of shock about it all, his father-in-law runs all over town, picking up shares at half their value.
Dr. Stockmann: No!
Peter: And you have the nerve to speak to me about principles!
Dr. Stockmann: You mean you actually believe that I . . .?
Peter: I believe what I see! And what I see is nothing but a man doing a dirty, filthy job for Morten Kiil. And let me tell you—by tonight every man in this town’ll see the same thing!
Dr. Stockmann: Peter, you, you . . .
Peter: Now, go to your desk and write me a statement denying everything you’ve been saying, or . . .
Dr. Stockmann: Peter, you’re a low creature!
Peter: All right, then, you’d better get this one straight, Thomas. If you’re figuring on opening another attack from out of town, keep this in mind: the morning it’s published I’ll send out a subpoena for you and begin a prosecution for conspiracy. Now do we understand each other?
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, we do, Peter! I understand I need to scrub the floors and wash down the walls;a pestilence has been here!
Kiil enters, Peter almost runs into him as Peter exits.
Peter, noticing Kiil: Ha!
Dr. Stockmann: Morten! What have you done? What’s the matter with you? Do you realize what this makes me look like!
Kiil has started taking some papers out of his pocket. Dr. Stockmann breaks off on seeing them. Kiil places them on the table.
Dr. Stockmann: Is that—them?
Kiil: That’s them, yes. Shares in the baths. And very easy to get this morning.
Dr. Stockmann: Morten, don’t play with me—what is this all about?
Kiil: What are you so nervous about? Can’t a man buy some stocks without . . .?
Dr. Stockmann: I want an explanation, Morten.
Kiil: Thomas, they hated you last night—
Dr. Stockmann: You don’t have to tell me that.
Kiil: But they also believed you. They’d love to murder you, but they believe you. Slight Pause. The way they say it, the pollution is coming down the river from Windmill Valley.
Dr. Stockmann: That’s exactly where it’s coming from.
Kiil: Yes. And that’s exactly where my tannery is.
Pause. Dr. Stockmann sits down slowly.
Dr. Stockmann: Well, Morten, I never made a secret to you that the pollution was your factory’s industrial waste.
Kiil: I’m not blaming you. It’s my fault. I didn’t take you seriously. But it’s very serious now. Thomas, I got that tannery from my father; he got it from his father; and his father got it from my great-grandfather. I do not intend to allow my family’s name to stand for the three generations of murdering angels who poisoned this town.
Dr. Stockmann: I’ve waited a long time for this talk, Morten. I don’t think you can stop that from happening.
Kiil: No, but you can.
Dr. Stockmann: I?
Kiil: I bought these shares because—
Dr. Stockmann: Morten, you’ve thrown your money away. The springs are doomed.
Kiil: I never throw my money away, Thomas. These were bought with your money.
Dr. Stockmann: My money? What . . .
Kiil: You’ve probably suspected that I might leave a little something for Catherine and the boys?
Dr. Stockmann: Well, naturally, I’d hoped you’d . . .
Kiil: I decided this morning to invest that money in some stock.
Dr. Stockmann: You bought that junk with Catherine’s money! With the children’s money!
Kiil: I’m going to die clean. You’re going to clean my name for me.
Dr. Stockmann: Morten . . .
Kiil: Now I want to see if you really belong in a strait jacket.
Dr. Stockmann: How could you do such a thing? What’s the matter with you!
Kiil: What’s done is done. Now, if you should make another investigation of the water—
Dr. Stockmann: I don’t need another investigation, I—
Kiil: If you think it over and decide that you ought to change your opinion about the water—
Dr. Stockmann: But the water is poisoned! It is poisoned!
Kiil: If you simply go on insisting the water is poisoned—he holds up the shares—with these in your house, then there’s only one explanation for you—you’re absolutely crazy.
Dr. Stockmann: You’re right! I’m mad! I’m insane!
Kiil: You’re stripping the skin off your family’s back! Only a madman would do a thing like that!
Dr. Stockmann: Morten, Morten, I’m a penniless man! Why didn’t you tell me before you bought this junk?
Kiil: Because you would understand it better if I told you after. And I think you do understand it now, don’t you. Nobody is going to say Morten Kiil wrecked this town. He takes the shares. You retract your convictions—or these go to charity.
Dr. Stockmann: Everything? Nothing left for your own daughter?
Kiil: I want my good name. It’s exceedingly important to me.
Dr. Stockmann: And charity . . .
Kiil: Charity will do it, or you will do it. It’s a serious thing to destroy a town.
Dr. Stockmann: Morten, when I look at you, I swear I see the devil!
The door opens, Aslaksen and Hovstad enter.
Dr. Stockmann: You!
Aslaksen: Now don’t get excited! Please!
Kiil: Too many intellectuals here: I’d better go.
Aslaksen: Doctor, can we have five minutes of—
Dr. Stockmann: I’ve got nothing to say to you.
Kiil: I want an answer right away. You hear? I’m waiting. Exits.
Dr. Stockmann: All right, say it quick, what do you want?
Hovstad: We don’t expect you to forgive our attitude at the meetings, but . . .
Dr. Stockmann: Your attitude was prone . . .prostrated . . .prostituted!
Hovstad: All right, call it whatever you—
Dr. Stockmann: I’ve got a lot on my mind, so get to the point. What do you want?
Aslaksen: Doctor, why didn’t you give us a hint in advance? You could have had the Messenger behind you all the way.
Hovstad: You’d have had public opinion with you now. Why didn’t you tell us?
Dr. Stockmann: Look, I’m very tired, let’s not beat around the bush!
Hovstad: He’s been all over town buying up stock in the springs. It’s no secret any more.
Dr. Stockmann, after slight pause: Well, what about it?
Hovstad: You don’t want me to spell it out, do you?
Dr. Stockmann: I certainly wish you would. I—
Hovstad: All right, let’s lay it on the table. Aslaksen, you want to . . .?
Aslaksen: No, no, go ahead.
Hovstad: Doctor, in the beginning we supported you. But it quickly became clear that if we kept on supporting you in the face of public hysteria—
Dr. Stockmann: Your paper created the hysteria.
Hovstad: One thing at a time, all right? We couldn’t go on supporting you because, in simple language, we didn’t have the money to withstand the loss in circulation. You’re boycotted now. The paper would have been boycotted too, if we’d stuck with you.
Aslaksen: You can see that, Doctor.
Dr. Stockmann: Oh, yes. But what do you want?
Hovstad: The People’s Messenger can put on such a campaign that in two months you will be hailed as a hero in this town.
Aslaksen: We’re ready to go.
Hovstad: We will prove to the public that you had to buy up the stock because the management would not make the changes required for public health. In other words, you did it for absolutely scientific, public-spirited reasons. Now what do you say, Doctor?
Dr. Stockmann: You want money from me, is that it?
Aslaksen: Well, now, Doctor . . .
Hovstad: No, don’t walk around it. If we started to support you again, Doctor, we’d lose circulation for a while. We’d like you—or Mr. Kiil rather—to make up the deficit. Now that’s open and above-board, and I don’t see anything wrong with it. Do you?
Pause. Dr. Stockmann looks at him, then turns and walks to the windows, deep in thought.
Aslaksen: Remember, Doctor, you need the paper, you need it desperately.
Dr. Stockmann: No there’s nothing wrong with it at all. I-I’m not at all averse to cleaning up my name—although for myself it never was dirty. But I don’t enjoy being hated, if know what I mean.
Aslaksen: Exactly.
Dr. Stockmann: So we tinker with the pipes a bit, dig around in the dirt, and after a few days declare it good as new.
Hovstad: Right. Aslaksen, will you show him the budget . . .
Aslaksen reaches into his pocket.
Dr. Stockmann: Just a minute. There is one point. I hate to keep repeating the same thing, but the water is poisoned.
Hovstad: Doctor, with you back in charge in of the baths, I have absolutely no fear that anything can go wrong.
Dr. Stockmann: Then you don’t intend to do anything about the water?
Hovstad: We have faith you won’t let anyone get sick.
Dr. Stockmann: In other words, gentlemen, you are looking for someone to blackmail into paying your printing bill.
Hovstad: We are trying to clear your name, Doctor Stockmann! And if you refuse to cooperate, if that’s going to be your attitude . . .
Dr. Stockmann: Yes? Go on. What will you do?
Hovstad: I think we’d better go.
Dr. Stockmann: What will you do? I would like you to tell me. Me, the man two minutes ago you were going to make into a hero—what will you do now that I won’t pay you?
Aslaksen: Doctor, the public is almost hysterical . . .
Dr. Stockmann: To my face, tell me what you are going to do!
Hovstad: The Mayor will prosecute you for conspiracy to destroy a corporation, and without a paper behind you, you will end up in prison.
Dr. Stockmann: And you’ll support him, won’t you? I want it from your mouth, Hovstad. Say it to me! You will not leave here until I get this from your mouth!
Hovstad: You are a madman. You are insane with egotism. And don’t excuse it with humanitarian slogans, because a man who’ll drag his family through a lifetime of disgrace is a demon in his heart! You deserve everything you’re going to get!
Aslaksen, with budget in hand: Doctor, please consider it. It won’t take much money, and in two months’ time I promise you your whole life will change and . . .
Offstage, Mrs. Stockmann is heard calling in a frightened voice, “What happened? My God, what’s the matter?” Dr. Stockmann, alarmed, goes quickly to the hallway. Ejlif and Morten enter. Morten’s head is bruised. Petra and Captain Horster enter.
Mrs. Stockmann: Something happened! Look at him!
Morten: I’m all right, they just . . .
Dr. Stockmann: What happened here?
Morten: Nothing, Papa, I swear . . .
Dr. Stockmann: What happened? Why aren’t you in school?
Ejlif: The teacher said we better stay home the rest of the week.
Dr. Stockmann: The boys hit him?
Ejlif: They started calling you names, so he got sore and began to fight with one kid, and all of a sudden the whole bunch of them . . .
Mrs. Stockmann: Why didn’t you walk away!
Morten: They called him a traitor! My father is no traitor!
Ejlif: But you didn’t have to respond!
Mrs. Stockmann: You should’ve known they’d all attack you! They could have killed you!
Morten: I don’t care!
Dr. Stockmann: Morten . . .
Morten: I’ll kill them! I’ll take a rock and the next time I see one of them I’ll kill him!
Dr. Stockmann reaches for Morten, who, thinking his father will chastise him, starts to run. Dr. Stockmann catches him and grips him by the arm.
Morten: Let me go! Let me . . .!
Dr. Stockmann: Morten . . .Morten . . .
Morten, crying in his father’s arms: They called you a traitor, an enemy . . .he sobs.
Dr. Stockmann: Sssh. That’s all.
Mrs. Stockmann takes Morten. Dr. Stockmann stands erect, faces Aslaksen and Hovstad.
Dr. Stockmann: Good day, gentlemen.
Hovstad: Let us know what you decide and we’ll—
Dr. Stockmann: I’ve decided. I am an enemy of the people.
Mrs. Stockmann: Tom, what are you . . .?
Dr. Stockmann: To such people, who teach their own children to think with their fists—to them I’m an enemy! And my boys . . .my boys . . .my family . . . I think you can count us all enemies.
Aslaksen: Doctor, you could have anything you want!
Dr. Stockmann: Except the truth. I could have everything but that—that the water is poisoned!
Hovstad: But you’ll be in charge.
Dr. Stockmann: But the children are poisoned, the people are poisoned! If the only way I can be a friend of the people is to take charge of that corruption, then I am an enemy! The water is poisoned, poisoned, poisoned! That’s the beginning of it and that’s the end of it! Now get out of here!
Hovstad: You know where you’re going to end?
Dr. Stockmann: I said get out of here! Dr. Stockmann grabs umbrella and begins chasing them around.
Hovstad: It’s the law of nature – every animal fights for survival.
Dr. Stockmann: Well, let us see which of us is the strongest animal!
Hovstad: You’re not going to attack us?
Aslaksen: Be careful with that umbrella!
Hovstad: Are you crazy?
Aslaksen: Moderation, Doctor! Moderation!
Hovstad: Doctor, you’re out of your mind
Dr. Stockmann: They want me to buy the paper, the public, the pollution of the springs, buy the whole pollution of this town! They’ll make a hero out of me for that! But I’m not a hero, I’m the enemy—and now you’re first going to find out what kind of enemy I am! I will sharpen my pen like a dagger—you, all you friends of the people, are going to bleed before I’m done! Go, tell them to sign the petitions! Warn them not to call me when they’re sick! Beat up my children! And never let her in the school again or she’ll destroy the immaculate purity of the vacuum there! See to all the barricades—the truth is coming! Ring the bells, sound the alarms! The truth, the truth is out, and soon it will be prowling like a lion in the streets!
Mrs. Stockmann: What are you doing?
They exit. Silence.
Dr. Stockmann: I’ve had all the ambassadors of hell today, but there’ll be no more. Now, now listen. Catherine! Children, listen. Now we’re besieged. They’ll call for blood now, they’ll whip the people like oxen—a rock comes through the window—Stay away from there!
Mrs. Stockmann: The Captain knows where we can get a ship.
Dr. Stockmann: No ships.
Petra: We’re staying?
Mrs. Stockmann: But they can’t go back to school! I won’t let them out of the house!
Dr. Stockmann: We’re staying.
Petra: Good!
Dr. Stockmann: We must be careful now. We must live through this. Boys, no more school. Petra and I will teach you. Do you know any kids, street louts, hookey-players—
Ejlif: Oh, sure, we—
Dr. Stockmann: We’ll want about twelve of them to start. But I want them good and ignorant, absolutely uncivilized. Can we use your house, Captain?
Horster: Sure, I’m never there.
Dr. Stockmann: Fine. We’ll begin, Petra, and we’ll turn out not taxpayers and newspaper subscribers, but free and independent people, hungry for the truth. Oh, I forgot! Petra, run to Grandpa and tell him—tell him as follows: NO!
Mrs. Stockmann: What do you mean?
Dr. Stockmann: It means, my dear, that we’re all alone. And there’ll be a long night before it’s day—
A rock through window. Crowd is heard approaching.
Horster: Half the town is out!
Mrs. Stockmann: What’s going to happen? Tom! What’s going to happen?
Dr. Stockmann, holding his hands up to quiet her, and with a trembling mixture of trepidation and courageous insistence: I don’t know. Quiet everyone, I’ve made a discovery!
Mrs. Stockmann: Another one?
Stockmann: You are fighting for the truth, and that’s why you’re alone. And that makes you strong. We’re the strongest people in the world . . .
The crowd is heard angrily calling outside. Another rock comes through the window.
Dr. Stockmann: . . .and the strong must learn to be lonely!
The crowd noise gets louder. He walks upstage toward the windows as a wind rises and the curtains start to billow out toward him as
The Curtain Falls.

Potential ending change without the mob coming to get Stockmann – that was a Miller addition, not in any other Ibsen translation or adaptation.