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THE COLLECTED WORKS OF

HENRIK IBSEN

VOLUME VIII

AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

THE WILD DUCK

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF

HENRIK IBSEN

Copyright Edition. Complete in 11 Volumes.

Crown 8vo, price 4s. each.

ENTIRELY REVISED AND EDITED BY

WILLIAM ARCHER

London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN.

21 Bedford Street, W.C.

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF
HENRIK IBSEN

Copyright Edition

VOLUME VIII

AN ENEMY OF THE

PEOPLE

THE WILD DUCK

WITH INTRODUCTIONS BY

WILLIAM ARCHER

LONDON

WILLIAM HEINEMANN

1910

Copyright Edition

First printed March 1907

Second Impression June 1910

Copyright 1907 by William Heinemann

CONTENTS

AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.
INTRODUCTION.

From Pillars of Society to John Gabriel Borkman, all Ibsen’s plays, with one exception, succeeded each other at intervals of two years. The single exception was An Enemy of the People. The storm of obloquy which greeted Ghosts stirred him to unwonted rapidity of production. Ghosts had appeared in December 1881; already, in the spring of 1882, Ibsen, then living in Rome, was at work upon its successor; and he finished it at Gossensass, in the Tyrol, in the early autumn. It appeared in Copenhagen at the end of November.

John Paulsen[^[1]] relates an anecdote of the poet’s extreme secretiveness during the process of composition, which may find a place here: “One summer he was travelling by rail with his wife and son. He was engaged upon a new play at the time; but neither Fru Ibsen nor Sigurd had any idea as to what it was about. Of course they were both very curious. It happened that, at a station, Ibsen left the carriage for a few moments. As he did so he dropped a scrap of paper. His wife picked it up, and read on it only the words, ‘The doctor says....’ Nothing more. Fru Ibsen showed it laughingly to Sigurd, and said, ‘Now we will tease your father a little when he comes back. He will be horrified to find that we know anything of his play.’ When Ibsen entered the carriage his wife looked at him roguishly, and said, ‘What doctor is it that figures in your new piece? I am sure he must have many interesting things to say.’ But if she could have foreseen the effect of her innocent jest, Fru Ibsen would certainly have held her tongue. For Ibsen was speechless with surprise and rage. When at last he recovered his speech, it was to utter a torrent of reproaches. What did this mean? Was he not safe in his own house? Was he surrounded with spies? Had his locks been tampered with, his desk rifled? And so forth, and so forth. His wife, who had listened with a quiet smile to the rising tempest of his wrath, at last handed him the scrap of paper. ‘We know nothing more than what is written upon this slip which you let fall. Allow me to return it to you.’ There stood Ibsen crestfallen. All his suspicions had vanished into thin air. The play on which he was occupied proved to be An Enemy of the People, and the doctor was none other than our old friend Stockmann, the good-hearted and muddleheaded reformer, for whom Jonas Lie partly served as a model.”

The indignation which glows in An Enemy of the People was kindled, in the main, by the attitude adopted towards Ghosts by the Norwegian Liberal press and the “compact majority” it represented. But the image on which the play rings the changes was present to the poet’s long before Ghosts was written. On December 19, 1879—a fortnight after the publication of A Doll’s House—Ibsen wrote to Professor Dietrichson: “It appears to me doubtful whether better artistic conditions can be attained in Norway before the intellectual soil has been thoroughly turned up and cleansed, and all the swamps drained off.” Here we have clearly the germ of An Enemy of the People. The image so took hold of Ibsen that after applying it to social life in this play, he recurred to it in The Wild Duck, in relation to the individual life.

The mood to which we definitely owe An Enemy of the People appears very clearly in a letter to George Brandes, dated January 3, 1882, in which Ibsen thanks him for his criticism of Ghosts. “What are we to say,” he proceeds, “of the attitude taken up by the so-called Liberal press—by those leaders who speak and write about freedom of action and thought, and at the same time make themselves the slaves of the supposed opinions of their subscribers? I am more and more confirmed in my belief that there is something demoralising in engaging in politics and joining parties. I, at any rate, shall never be able to join a party which has the majority on its side. Björnson says, ‘The majority is always right’; and as a practical politician he is bound, I suppose, to say so. I, on the contrary, of necessity say, ‘The minority is always right.’ Naturally I am not thinking of that minority of stagnationists who are left behind by the great middle party, which with us is called Liberal; I mean that minority which leads the van, and pushes on to points which the majority has not yet reached. I hold that that man is in the right who is most closely in league with the future.”

The same letter closes with a passage which foreshadows not only An Enemy of the People, but Rosmersholm: “When I think how slow and heavy and dull the general intelligence is at home, when I notice the low standard by which everything is judged, a deep despondency comes over me, and it often seems to me that I might just as well end my literary activity at once. They really do not need poetry at home; they get along so well with the Parliamentary News and the Lutheran Weekly. And then they have their party papers. I have not the gifts that go to make a good citizen, nor yet the gift of orthodoxy; and what I possess no gift for I keep out of. Liberty is the first and highest condition for me. At home they do not trouble much about liberty, but only about liberties: a few more or a few less, according to the standpoint of their party. I feel, too, most painfully affected by the crudity, the plebeian element, in all our public discussion. The very praiseworthy attempt to make of our people a democratic community has inadvertently gone a good way towards making us a plebeian community. Distinction of soul seems to be on the decline at home.”

So early as March 16, 1882, Ibsen announces to his publisher that he is “fully occupied with preparations for a new play.” “This time,” he says, “it will be a peaceable production which can be read by Ministers of State and wholesale merchants and their ladies, and from which the theatres will not be obliged to recoil. Its execution will come very easy to me, and I shall do my best to have it ready pretty early in the autumn.” In this he was successful. From Gossensass, on September 9, he wrote to Hegel: “I have the pleasure of sending you herewith the remainder of the manuscript of my new play. I have enjoyed writing this piece, and I feel quite lost and lonely now that it is out of hand. Dr. Stockmann and I got on excellently together; we agree on so many subjects. But the Doctor is a more muddleheaded person than I am, and he has, moreover, several other characteristics because of which people will stand hearing a good many things from him which they might perhaps not have taken in such very good part had they been said by me.”

A letter to Brandes, written six months after the appearance of the play (June 12, 1883), answers some objection which the critic seems to have made—of what nature we can only guess: “As to An Enemy of the People, if we had a chance to discuss it I think we should come to a tolerable agreement. You are, of course right in urging that we must all work for the spread of our opinions. But I maintain that a fighter at the intellectual outposts can never gather a majority around him. In ten years, perhaps, the majority may occupy the standpoint which Dr. Stockmann held at the public meeting. But during these ten years the Doctor will not have been standing still; he will still be at least ten years ahead of the majority. The majority, the mass, the multitude, can never overtake him; he can never have the majority with him. As for myself, at all events, I am conscious of this incessant progression. At the point where I stood when I wrote each of my books, there now stands a fairly compact multitude; but I myself am there no longer; I am elsewhere, and, I hope, further ahead.” This is a fine saying, and as just as it is fine, with respect to the series of social plays, down to, and including, Rosmersholm. To the psychological series, which begins with The Lady from the Sea, this law of progression scarcely applies. The standpoint in each is different; but the movement is not so much one of intellectual advance as of deepening spiritual insight.

As Ibsen predicted, the Scandinavian theatres seized with avidity upon An Enemy of the People. Between January and March 1883 it was produced in Christiania, Bergen, Stockholm, and Copenhagen. It has always been very popular on the stage, and was the play chosen to represent Ibsen in the series of festival performances which inaugurated the National Theatre at Christiania. The first evening, September 1, 1899, was devoted to Holberg, the great founder of Norwegian-Danish drama; An Enemy of the People followed on September 2; and on September 3 Björnson held the stage, with Sigurd Jorsalfar. Oddly enough, Ein Volksfeind was four years old[years old] before it found its way to the German stage. It was first produced in Berlin, March 5, 1887, and has since then been very popular throughout Germany. It has even been presented at the Court Theatres of Berlin and Vienna—a fact which seems remarkable when we note that in France and Spain it has been pressed into the service of anarchism, as a revolutionary manifesto. When first produced in Paris in 1895, and again in 1899, it was made the occasion of anarchist demonstrations. It was the play chosen for representation in Paris on Ibsen’s seventieth birthday, March 29, 1898. In England it was first produced by Mr. Beerbohm Tree at the Haymarket Theatre on the afternoon of June 14, 1893. Mr. Tree has repeated his performance of Stockmann a good many times in London, the provinces, and America. He revived the play at His Majesty’s Theatre in 1905. Mr. Louis Calvert played Stockmann at the Gentleman’s Concert Hall in Manchester, January 27, 1894. I can find no record of any performances of the play in America, save German performances and those given by Mr. Tree; but it seems incredible that no American actor should have been attracted by the part of Stockmann. Een Vijand des Volks was produced in Holland in 1884, before it had even been seen in Germany; and in Italy, Un Nemico del Popolo holds a place in the repertory of the distinguished actor Ermete Novelli.

Of all Ibsen’s plays, An Enemy of the People is the least poetical, the least imaginative, the one which makes least appeal to our sensibilities. Even in The League of Youth there is a touch of poetic fancy in the character of Selma; while Pillars of Society is sentimentally conceived throughout, and possesses in Martha a figure of great, though somewhat conventional, pathos. In this play, on the other hand, there is no appeal either to the imagination or to the tender emotions. It is a straightforward satiric comedy, dealing exclusively with the everyday prose of life. We have only to compare it with its immediate predecessor, Ghosts, and its immediate successor, The Wild Duck, to feel how absolutely different is the imaginative effort involved in it. Realising this, we no longer wonder that the poet should have thrown it off in half the time he usually required to mature and execute one of his creations.

Yet An Enemy of the People takes a high place in the second rank of the Ibsen works, in virtue of its buoyant vitality, its great technical excellence, and the geniality of its humour. It seems odd, at first sight, that a distinctly polemical play, which took its rise in a mood of exasperation, should be perhaps the most amiable of all the poet’s productions. But the reason is fairly obvious. Ibsen’s nature was far too complex, and far too specifically dramatic, to permit of his giving anything like direct expression to a personal mood. The very fact that Dr. Stockmann was to utter much of his own indignation and many of his own ideas forced him to make the worthy Doctor in temperament and manner as unlike himself as possible. Now boisterous geniality, loquacity, irrepressible rashness of utterance, and a total absence of self-criticism and self-irony were the very contradiction of the poet’s own characteristics—at any rate, after he had entered upon middle life. He doubtless looked round for models who should be his own antipodes in these respects. John Paulsen, as we have seen, thinks that he took many traits from Jonas Lie; others say[^[2]] that one of his chief models was an old friend named Harald Thaulow, the father of the great painter. Be this as it may, the very effort to disguise himself naturally led him to attribute to his protagonist and mouthpiece a great superficial amiability. I am far from implying that Ibsen’s own character was essentially unamiable; it would ill become one whom he always treated with the utmost kindness to say or think anything of the kind. But his amiability was not superficial, effusive, exuberant; it seldom reached that boiling-point which we call geniality; and for that very reason Thomas Stockmann became the most genial of his characters. He may be called Ibsen’s Colonel Newcome. We have seen from the letter to Hegel (p. x.) that the poet regarded him with much the same ironic affection which Thackeray must have felt for that other Thomas who, amid many differences, had the same simple-minded, large-hearted, child-like nature.

In technical quality, An Enemy of the People is wholly admirable. We have only to compare it with Pillars of Society, the last play in which Ibsen had painted a broad satiric picture of the life of a Norwegian town, to feel how great an advance he had made in the intervening five years. In naturalness of exposition, suppleness of development, and what may be called general untheatricality of treatment, the later play has every possible advantage over the earlier. In one point only can it be said that Ibsen has allowed a touch of artificiality to creep in. In order to render the peripety of the third act more striking, he has made Hovstad, Billing, and Aslaksen, in the earlier scenes, unnaturally inapprehensive of the sacrifices implied in Stockmann’s scheme of reform. It is scarcely credible that they should be so free and emphatic in their offers of support to the Doctor’s agitation, before they have made the smallest inquiry as to what it is likely to cost the town. They think, it may be said, that the shareholders of the Baths will have to bear the whole expense; but surely some misgivings could not but cross their minds as to whether the shareholders would be prepared to do so.

THE WILD DUCK.
INTRODUCTION.

The first mention of The Wild Duck (as yet unnamed) occurs in a letter from Ibsen to George Brandes, dated Rome, June 12, 1883, some six months after the appearance of An Enemy of the People. “I am revolving in my mind just now,” he says, “the plan of a new dramatic work in four acts. From time to time a variety of whimsies gathers in one’s mind, and one wants to find an outlet for them. But as the play will neither deal with the Supreme Court nor with the Absolute Veto, nor even with the Pure Flag, it can hardly count upon attracting much attention in Norway. Let us hope, however, that it may find a hearing elsewhere.” The allusion in this passage is to the great constitutional struggle of 1880-84, of which some account will have to be given in the Introduction to Rosmersholm. The “Pure Flag” agitation aimed at, and obtained, the exclusion from the Norwegian flag of the mark of union with Sweden, and was thus a preliminary step towards the severance of the two kingdoms. The word which I have translated “whimsies” is in the original galskaber, which might be literally rendered “mad fancies” or “crazy notions.” This word, or galskab in the singular, was Ibsen’s favourite term for his conceptions as they grew up in his mind. I well remember his saying to me, while he was engaged on The Lady from the Sea, “I hope to have some tomfoolery [galskab] ready for next year.” Sometimes he would vary the expression and say djœvelskab, or “devilry.”

Of this particular “tomfoolery” we hear no more for a full year. Then, at the end of June 1884, he writes in almost identical terms to Brandes and to Theodor Caspari, announcing its completion in the rough. His letter to Caspari is dated Rome, June 27. “All last winter,” he says, “I have been pondering over some new whimsies, and have wrestled with them till at last they took dramatic form in a five-act play which I have just completed. That is to say, I have completed the rough draft of it. Now comes the more delicate elaboration, the more energetic individualisation of the characters and their methods of expression. In order to find the requisite quiet and solitude for this work, I am going in a few days to Gossensass, in the Tyrol.” This little glimpse into his workshop is particularly interesting.

From Gossensass he wrote to Hegel on September 2: “Herewith I send you the manuscript of my new play, The Wild Duck, which has occupied me daily for the past four months, and from which I cannot part without a sense of regret. The characters in this play, despite their many frailties, have, in the course of our long daily association, endeared themselves to me. However, I hope they will also find good and kind friends among the great reading public, and not least among the player-folk, to whom they all, without exception, offer problems worth the solving. But the study and presentation of these personages will not be easy.... This new play in some ways occupies a place apart among my dramatic productions; its method of development [literally, of advance] is in many respects divergent from that of its predecessors. But for the present I shall say no more on this subject. The critics will no doubt discover the points in question; at all events, they will find a good deal to wrangle about, a good deal to interpret. Moreover, I think The Wild Duck may perhaps lure some of our younger dramatists into new paths, and this I hold to be desirable.”

The play was published on November 11, 1884, and was acted at all the leading theatres of Scandinavia in January or February 1885. Ibsen’s estimate of its acting value was fully justified. It everywhere proved itself immensely effective on the stage, and Hialmar, Gina, and Hedvig have made, or greatly enhanced, the reputation of many an actor and actress. Hialmar was one of the chief successes of Emil Poulsen, the leading Danish actor of his day, who placed the second act of The Wild Duck in the programme of his farewell performance. It took more than three years for the play to reach the German stage. It was first acted in Berlin in March 1888; but thereafter it rapidly spread throughout Germany and Austria, and everywhere took firm hold. It was on several occasions, and in various cities, selected for performance in Ibsen’s presence, as representing the best that the local theatre could do. In Paris it was produced at the Théâtre Libre in 1891, and was pronounced by Francisque Sarcey to be “obscure, incoherent, insupportable,” but nevertheless to leave “a profound impression.” In London it was first produced by the Independent Theatre Society on May 4, 1894, Mr. W. L. Abingdon playing Hialmar, and Miss Winifred Fraser giving a delightful performance of Hedvig. The late Clement Scott’s pronouncement on it was that “to make a fuss about so feeble a production was to insult dramatic literature and to outrage common sense.” It was repeated at the Globe Theatre in May 1897, with Mr. Laurence Irving as Hialmar and Miss Fraser again as Hedvig. In October 1905 it was revived at the Court Theatre, with Mr. Granville Barker as Hialmar and Miss Dorothy Minto as Hedvig. Of American performances I find no record. It has been acted in Italy and in Greece, I know not with what success. The fact that it has no part for a “leading lady” has rendered it less of an international stock-piece than A Doll’s House, Hedda Gabler, or even Rosmersholm.

There can be no doubt that The Wild Duck marks a reaction in the poet’s mood, following upon the eager vivacity wherewith, in An Enemy of the People, he had flung his defiance at the “compact Liberal majority,” which, as the reception of Ghosts had proved, could not endure to be told the truth. Having said his say and liberated his soul, he now began to ask himself whether human nature was, after all, capable of assimilating the strong meat of truth—whether illusion might not be, for the average man, the only thing that could make life livable. It would be too much to say that the play gives a generally affirmative answer to this question. On the contrary, its last lines express pretty clearly the poet’s firm conviction that if life cannot reconcile itself with truth, then life may as well go to the wall. Nevertheless his very devotion to truth forces him to realise and admit that it is an antitoxin which, rashly injected at wrong times or in wrong doses, may produce disastrous results. It ought not to be indiscriminately administered by “quacksalvers.”

Gregers Werle is unquestionably a piece of ironic self-portraiture. In his habit of “pestering people, in their poverty, with the claim of the ideal,” the poet adumbrates his own conduct from Brand onwards, but especially in Ghosts and An Enemy of the People. Relling, again, is an embodiment of the mood which was dominant during the conception of the play—the mood of pitying contempt for that poor thing human nature, as embodied in Hialmar. An actor who, in playing the part of Relling, made up as Ibsen himself, has been blamed for having committed a fault not only of taste, but of interpretation, since Gregers (it is maintained) is the true Ibsen. But the fact is that both characters represent the poet. They embody the struggle in his mind between idealism and cynical despondency. There can be no doubt, however, that in some measure he consciously identified himself with Gregers. In a letter to Mr. Gosse, written in 1872, he had employed in his own person the very phrase, den ideale fordring—“the claim of the ideal”—which is Gregers' watchword. The use of this sufficiently obvious phrase, however, does not mean much. Far stronger evidence of identification is afforded by John Paulsen[^[3]] in some anecdotes he relates of Ibsen’s habits of “self-help”—evidence which we may all the more safely accept, as Herr Paulsen seems to have been unconscious of its bearing upon the character of Gregers. “Ibsen,” he says, “was always bent upon doing things himself, so as not to give trouble to servants. His ideal was ‘the self-made man.’[^[4]] Thus, if a button came off one of his garments he would retire to his own room, lock the door, and, after many comical and unnecessary preliminaries, proceed to sew on the button himself, with the same care with which he wrote the fair copy of a new play. Such an important task he could not possibly entrust to any one else, not even to his wife. One of his paradoxes was that ‘a woman never knew how to sew on a button so that it would hold.’ But if he himself sewed it on, it held to all eternity. Fru Ibsen smiled roguishly and subtly when the creator of Nora came out with such anti-feminist sentiments. Afterwards she told me in confidence, 'It is true that Ibsen himself sews on his vagrant buttons; but the fact that they hold so well is my doing, for, without his knowledge, I always ‘finish them off,’ which he forgets to do. But don’t disturb his conviction: it makes him so happy.'”

“One winter day in Munich,” Herr Paulsen continues, “Ibsen asked me with a serious and even anxious countenance, ‘Tell me one thing, Paulsen—do you black your own boots every morning?’ I was taken aback, and doubtless looked quite guilty as I answered, ‘No.’ I had a vaguely uncomfortable sense that I had failed in a duty to myself and to society. ‘But[‘But] you really ought to do so. It will make you feel a different man. One should never let others do what one can do oneself. If you begin with blacking your boots, you will get on to putting your room in order, laying the fire, etc. In this way you will at last find yourself an emancipated man, independent of Tom, Dick, or Harry.’ I promised to follow his advice, but have unfortunately not kept my word.” It is evident that Ibsen purposely transferred to Gregers this characteristic of his own; and the sentiments with which Gina regards it are probably not unlike those which Fru Ibsen may from time to time have manifested. We could scarcely demand clearer proof that in Gregers the poet was laughing at himself.

To Hedvig, Ibsen gave the name of his only sister,[sister,] and in many respects she seems to have served as a model for the character. She was the poet’s favourite among all his relatives. “You are certainly the best of us,” he wrote to her in 1869. Björnstjerne Björnson said, after making her acquaintance, that he now understood what a large element of heredity there was in Ibsen’s bent towards mysticism. We may be sure that Hedvig’s researches among the books left by the old sea-captain, and her dislike for the frontispiece of Harrison’s History of London, are remembered traits from the home-life of the poet’s childhood. It does not seem to be known who had the honour of “sitting for” the character of Hialmar. Probably he is a composite of many originals. Moreover, he is obviously a younger brother of Peer Gynt. Deprive Peer Gynt of his sense of humour, and clip the wings of his imagination, and you have Hialmar Ekdal.

I confess I do not know quite definitely what Ibsen had in mind when he spoke of The Wild Duck holding “a place apart” among his productions and exemplifying a technique (for he is evidently thinking of its technical development) “divergent” from that of its predecessors. I should rather say that it marked the continuation and consummation of the technical method which he had been elaborating from Pillars of Society onward. It is the first example of what we may term his retrospective method, in its full complexity. Pillars of Society and A Doll’s House may be called semi-retrospective; something like half of the essential action takes place before the eyes of the audience. Ghosts is almost wholly retrospective; as soon as the past has been fully unravelled, the action is over, and only the catastrophe remains; but in this case the past to be unravelled is comparatively simple and easy of disentanglement. An Enemy of the People is scarcely retrospective at all; almost the whole of its action falls within the frame of the picture. In The Wild Duck, on the other hand, the unravelling of the past is a task of infinite subtlety and elaborate art. The execution of this task shows a marvellous and hitherto unexampled grasp of mind. Never before, certainly, had the poet displayed such an amazing power of fascinating and absorbing us by the gradual withdrawal of veil after veil from the past; and as every event was also a trait of character, it followed that never before had his dialogue been so saturated, as it were, with character-revelation. The development of the drama reminds one of the practice (in itself a very bad practice) of certain modern stage-managers, who are fond of raising their curtain on a dark scene, and then gradually lighting it up by a series of touches on the electric switchboard. First there comes a glimmer from the right, then a flash from the left; then the background is suffused with light, so that we see objects standing out against it in profile, but cannot as yet discern their details. Then comes a ray from this batten, a gleam from that; here a penetrating shaft of light, there a lambent glow; until at last the footlights are turned on at full, and every nook and cranny of the scene stands revealed in a blaze of luminosity. But Ibsen’s switchboard is far more subtly subdivided than that of even the most modern theatre. At every touch upon it, some single, cunningly-placed, ingeniously-dissembled burner kindles, almost unnoticed save by the most watchful eye; so that the full light spreads over the scene as imperceptibly as dawn grows into day.

It seems to me, then, that The Wild Duck is a consummation rather than a new departure. Assuredly it marks the summit of the poet’s achievement (in modern prose) up to that date. Its only possible rival is Ghosts; and who does not feel the greater richness, depth, suppleness, and variety of the later play? It gives us, in a word, a larger segment of life.

AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE
(1882)

CHARACTERS.

• Doctor Thomas Stockmann, medical officer of the Baths.
• Mrs. Stockmann, his wife.
• Petra, their daughter, a teacher.
• Eilif
  Petra }their sons, thirteen and ten years old respectively
• Peter Stockmann, the doctor’s elder brother, Burgomaster[^[5]] and chief of police, chairman of the Baths Committee, etc.
• Morten Kiil,[^[6]] master tanner, Mrs. Stockmann’s adoptive-father.
• Hovstad, editor of the “People’s Messenger.”
• Billing, on the staff of the paper.
• Horster, a ship’s captain.
• Aslaksen, a printer.

Participants in a meeting of citizens: all sorts and conditions of men, some women, and a band of schoolboys.

The action passes in a town on the South Coast of Norway.

AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.
PLAY IN FIVE ACTS.

ACT FIRST.

Evening. Dr. Stockmann’s sitting-room; simply but neatly decorated and furnished. In the wall to the right are two doors, the further one leading to the hall, the nearer one to the Doctor’s study. In the opposite wall, facing the hall door, a door leading to the other rooms of the house. Against the middle of this wall stands the stove; further forward a sofa with a mirror above it, and in front of it an oval table with a cover. On the table a lighted lamp, with a shade. In the back wall an open door leading to the dining-room, in which is seen a supper-table, with a lamp on it.

Billing is seated at the supper-table, with a napkin under his chin. Mrs. Stockmann is standing by the table and placing before him a dish with a large joint of roast beef. The other seats round the table are empty; the table is in disorder, as after a meal.

Mrs. Stockmann.

If you come an hour late, Mr. Billing, you must put up with a cold supper.

Billing.

[Eating.] It is excellent—really first rate.

Mrs. Stockmann.

You know how Stockmann insists on regular meal-hours——

Billing.

Oh, I don’t mind at all. I almost think I enjoy my supper more when I can sit down to it like this, alone and undisturbed.

Mrs. Stockmann.

Oh, well, if you enjoy it—— [Listening in the direction of the hall.] I believe this is Mr. Hovstad coming too.

Billing.

Very likely.

Burgomaster Stockmann enters, wearing an overcoat and an official gold-laced cap, and carrying a stick.

Burgomaster.

Good evening, sister-in-law.

Mrs. Stockmann.

[Coming forward into the sitting-room.] Oh, good evening; is it you? It is good of you to look in.

Burgomaster.

I was just passing, and so—— [Looks towards the drawing-room.] Ah, I see you have company.

Mrs. Stockmann.

[Rather embarrassed.] Oh no, not at all; it’s the merest chance. [Hurriedly.] Won’t you sit down and have a little supper?

Burgomaster.

I? No, thank you. Good gracious! hot meat in the evening! That wouldn’t suit my digestion.

Mrs. Stockmann.

Oh, for once in a way——

Burgomaster.

No, no,—much obliged to you. I stick to tea and bread and butter. It’s more wholesome in the long run—and rather more economical, too.

Mrs. Stockmann.

[Smiling.] You mustn’t think Thomas and I are mere spendthrifts, either.

Burgomaster.

You are not, sister-in-law; far be it from me to say that. [Pointing to the Doctor’s study.] Is he not at home?

Mrs. Stockmann.

No, he has gone for a little turn after supper—with the boys.

Burgomaster.

I wonder if that is a good thing to do? [Listening.] There he is, no doubt.

Mrs. Stockmann.

No, that is not he. [A knock.] Come in!

Hovstad enters from the hall.

Mrs. Stockmann.

Ah, it’s Mr. Hovstad——

Hovstad.

You must excuse me; I was detained at the printer’s. Good evening, Burgomaster.

Burgomaster.

[Bowing rather stiffly.] Mr. Hovstad? You come on business, I presume?

Hovstad.

Partly. About an article for the paper.

Burgomaster.

So I supposed. I hear my brother is an extremely prolific contributor to the People’s Messenger.

Hovstad.

Yes, when he wants to unburden his mind on one thing or another, he gives the Messenger the benefit.

Mrs. Stockmann.

[To Hovstad.] But will you not——? [Points to the dining-room.]

Burgomaster.

Well, well, I am far from blaming him for writing for the class of readers he finds most in sympathy with him. And, personally, I have no reason to bear your paper any ill-will, Mr. Hovstad.

Hovstad.

No, I should think not.

Burgomaster.

One may say, on the whole, that a fine spirit of mutual tolerance prevails in our town—an excellent public spirit. And that is because we have a great common interest to hold us together—an interest in which all right-minded citizens are equally concerned——

Hovstad.

Yes—the Baths.

Burgomaster.

Just so. We have our magnificent new Baths. Mark my words! The whole life of the town will centre around the Baths, Mr. Hovstad. There can be no doubt of it!

Mrs. Stockmann.

That is just what Thomas says.

Burgomaster.

How marvellously the place has developed, even in this couple of years! Money has come into circulation, and brought life and movement with it. Houses and ground-rents rise in value every day.

Hovstad.

And there are fewer people out of work.

Burgomaster.

That is true. There is a gratifying diminution in the burden imposed on the well-to-do classes by the poor-rates; and they will be still further lightened if only we have a really good summer this year—a rush of visitors—plenty of invalids, to give the Baths a reputation.

Hovstad.

I hear there is every prospect of that.

Burgomaster.

Things look most promising. Inquiries about apartments and so forth keep on pouring in.

Hovstad.

Then the Doctor’s paper will come in very opportunely.

Burgomaster.

Has he been writing again?

Hovstad.

This is a thing he wrote in the winter; enlarging on the virtues of the Baths, and on the excellent sanitary conditions of the town. But at that time I held it over.

Burgomaster.

Ah—I suppose there was something not quite judicious about it?

Hovstad.

Not at all. But I thought it better to keep it till the spring, when people are beginning to look about them, and think of their summer quarters——

Burgomaster.

You were right, quite right, Mr. Hovstad.

Mrs. Stockmann.

Yes, Thomas is really indefatigable where the Baths are concerned.

Burgomaster.

It is his duty as one of the staff.

Hovstad.

And of course he was really their creator.

Burgomaster.

Was he? Indeed! I gather that certain persons are of that opinion. But I should have thought that I, too, had a modest share in that undertaking.

Mrs. Stockmann.

Yes, that is what Thomas is always saying.

Hovstad.

No one dreams of denying it, Burgomaster. You set the thing going, and put it on a practical basis; everybody knows that. I only meant that the original idea was the doctor’s.

Burgomaster.

Yes, my brother has certainly had ideas enough in his time—worse luck! But when it comes to realising them, Mr. Hovstad, we want men of another stamp. I should have thought that in this house at any rate——

Mrs. Stockmann.

Why, my dear brother-in-law——

Hovstad.

Burgomaster, how can you——?

Mrs. Stockmann.

Do go in and have some supper, Mr. Hovstad; my husband is sure to be home directly.

Hovstad.

Thanks; just a mouthful, perhaps.

[He goes into the dining-room.

Burgomaster.

[Speaking in a low voice.] It is extraordinary how people who spring direct from the peasant class never can get over their want of tact.

Mrs. Stockmann.

But why should you care? Surely you and Thomas can share the honour, like brothers.

Burgomaster.

Yes, one would suppose so; but it seems a share of the honour is not enough for some persons.

Mrs. Stockmann.

What nonsense! You and Thomas always get on so well together. [Listening.] There, I think I hear him.

Goes and opens the door to the hall.

Dr. Stockmann.

[Laughing and talking loudly, without.] Here’s another visitor for you, Katrina. Isn’t it capital, eh? Come in, Captain Horster. Hang your coat on that peg. What! you don’t wear an overcoat? Fancy, Katrina, I caught him in the street, and I could hardly get him to come in.

Captain Horster.

Enters and bows to Mrs. Stockmann.

Dr. Stockmann.

[In the doorway.] In with you, boys. They’re famishing again! Come along, Captain Horster; you must try our roast beef——

[He forces Horster into the dining-room. Eilif and Morten follow them.

Mrs. Stockmann.

But, Thomas, don’t you see——

Dr. Stockmann.

[Turning round in the doorway.] Oh, is that you, Peter! [Goes up to him and holds out his hand.] Now this is really capital.

Burgomaster.

Unfortunately, I have only a moment to spare——

Dr. Stockmann.

Nonsense! We shall have some toddy in a minute. You’re not forgetting the toddy, Katrina?

Mrs. Stockmann.

Of course not; the water’s boiling.

[She goes into the dining-room.

Burgomaster.

Toddy too——!

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes; sit down, and let’s make ourselves comfortable.

Burgomaster.

Thanks; I never join in drinking parties.

Dr. Stockmann.

But this isn’t a party.

Burgomaster.

I don’t know what else—— [Looks towards the dining-room.] It’s extraordinary how they can get through all that food.

Dr. Stockmann.

[Rubbing his hands.] Yes, doesn’t it do one good to see young people eat? Always hungry! That’s as it should be. They need good, solid meat to put stamina into them! It is they that have got to whip up the ferment of the future, Peter.

Burgomaster.

May I ask what there is to be “whipped up,” as you call it?

Dr. Stockmann.

You’ll have to ask the young people that—when the time comes. We shan’t see it, of course. Two old fogies like you and me——

Burgomaster.

Come, come! Surely that is a very extraordinary expression to use——

Dr. Stockmann.

Oh, you mustn’t mind my nonsense, Peter. I'm in such glorious spirits, you see. I feel so unspeakably happy in the midst of all this growing, germinating life. Isn’t it a marvellous time we live in! It seems as though a whole new world were springing up around us.

Burgomaster.

Do you really think so?

Dr. Stockmann.

Of course, you can’t see it as clearly as I do. You have passed your life in the midst of it all; and that deadens the impression. But I who had to vegetate all those years in that little hole in the north, hardly ever seeing a soul that could speak a stimulating word to me—all this affects me as if I had suddenly dropped into the heart of some teeming metropolis.

Burgomaster.

Well, metropolis——

Dr. Stockmann.

Oh, I know well enough that things are on a small scale here, compared with many other places. But there’s life here—there’s promise—there’s an infinity of things to work and strive for; and that is the main point. [Calling.] Katrina, haven’t there been any letters?

Mrs. Stockmann.

[In the dining-room.] No, none at all.

Dr. Stockmann.

And then a good income, Peter! That’s a thing one learns to appreciate when one has lived on starvation wages——

Burgomaster.

Good heavens——!

Dr. Stockmann.

Oh yes, I can tell you we often had hard times of it up there. And now we can live like princes! To-day, for example, we had roast beef for dinner; and we’ve had some of it for supper too. Won’t you have some? Come along—just look at it, at any rate——

Burgomaster.

No, no; certainly not——

Dr. Stockmann.

Well then, look here—do you see we’ve bought a table-cover?

Burgomaster.

Yes, so I observed.

Dr. Stockmann.

And a lamp-shade, too. Do you see? Katrina has been saving up for them. They make the room look comfortable, don’t they? Come over here. No, no, no, not there. So—yes! Now you see how it concentrates the light——. I really think it has quite an artistic effect. Eh?

Burgomaster.

Yes, when one can afford such luxuries——

Dr. Stockmann.

Oh, I can afford it now. Katrina says I make almost as much as we spend.

Burgomaster.

Ah—almost!

Dr. Stockmann.

Besides, a man of science must live in some style. Why, I believe a mere sheriff[^[7]] spends much more a year than I do.

Burgomaster.

Yes, I should think so! A member of the superior magistracy——

Dr. Stockmann.

Well then, even a common shipowner! A man of that sort will get through many times as much——

Burgomaster.

That is natural, in your relative positions.

Dr. Stockmann.

And after all, Peter, I really don’t squander any money. But I can’t deny myself the delight of having people about me. I must have them. After living so long out of the world, I find it a necessity of life to have bright, cheerful, freedom-loving, hard-working young fellows around me—and that’s what they are, all of them, that are sitting there eating so heartily. I wish you knew more of Hovstad——

Burgomaster.

Ah, that reminds me—Hovstad was telling me that he is going to publish another article of yours.

Dr. Stockmann.

An article of mine?

Burgomaster.

Yes, about the Baths. An article you wrote last winter.

Dr. Stockmann.

Oh, that one! But I don’t want that to appear for the present.

Burgomaster.

Why not? It seems to me this is the very time for it.

Dr. Stockmann.

Very likely—under ordinary circumstances——

[Crosses the room.

Burgomaster.

[Following him with his eyes.] And what is unusual in the circumstances now?

Dr. Stockmann.

[Standing still.] The fact is, Peter, I really cannot tell you just now; not this evening, at all events. There may prove to be a great deal that is unusual in the circumstances. On the other hand, there may be nothing at all. Very likely it’s only my fancy.

Burgomaster.

Upon my word, you are very enigmatical. Is there anything in the wind? Anything I am to be kept in the dark about? I should think, as Chairman of the Bath Committee——

Dr. Stockmann.

And I should think that I——Well, well, don’t let us get our backs up, Peter.

Burgomaster.

God forbid! I am not in the habit of “getting my back up,” as you express it. But I must absolutely insist that all arrangements shall be made and carried out in a businesslike manner, and through the properly constituted authorities. I cannot be a party to crooked or underhand courses.

Dr. Stockmann.

Have I ever been given to crooked or underhand courses?

Burgomaster.

At any rate you have an ingrained propensity to taking your own course. And that, in a well-ordered community, is almost as inadmissible. The individual must subordinate himself to society, or, more precisely, to the authorities whose business it is to watch over the welfare of society.

Dr. Stockmann.

Maybe. But what the devil has that to do with me?

Burgomaster.

Why this is the very thing, my dear Thomas, that it seems you will never learn. But take care; you will have to pay for it—sooner or later. Now I have warned you. Good-bye.

Dr. Stockmann.

Are you stark mad? You’re on a totally wrong track——

Burgomaster.

I am not often on the wrong track. Moreover, I must protest against——[Bowing towards dining-room.] Good-bye, sister-in-law; good-day to you, gentlemen.

[He goes.

Mrs. Stockmann.

[Entering the sitting-room.] Has he gone?

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, and in a fine temper, too.

Mrs. Stockmann.

Why, my dear Thomas, what have you been doing to him now?

Dr. Stockmann.

Nothing at all. He can’t possibly expect me to account to him for everything—before the time comes.

Mrs. Stockmann.

What have you to account to him for?

Dr. Stockmann.

H'm;—never mind about that, Katrina.—It’s very odd the postman doesn’t come.

[Hovstad, Billing and Horster have risen from table and come forward into the sitting-room. Eilif and Morten presently follow.

Billing.

[Stretching himself.] Ah! Strike me dead if one doesn’t feel a new man after such a meal.

Hovstad.

The Burgomaster didn’t seem in the best of tempers this evening.

Dr. Stockmann.

That’s his stomach. He has a very poor digestion.

Hovstad.

I fancy it’s the staff of the Messenger he finds it hardest to stomach.

Mrs. Stockmann.

I thought you got on well enough with him.

Hovstad.

Oh, yes; but it’s only a sort of armistice between us.

Billing.

That’s it. That word sums up the situation.

Dr. Stockmann.

We must remember that Peter is a lonely bachelor, poor devil! He has no home to be happy in; only business, business. And then all that cursëd weak tea he goes and pours down his throat! Now then, chairs round the table, boys! Katrina, shan’t we have the toddy now?

Mrs. Stockmann.

[Going towards the dining-room.] I am just getting it.

Dr. Stockmann.

And you, Captain Horster, sit beside me on the sofa. So rare a guest as you——. Sit down, gentlemen, sit down.

[The men sit round the table; Mrs. Stockmann brings in a tray with kettle, glasses, decanters, etc.

Mrs. Stockmann.

Here you have it: here’s arrak, and this is rum, and this cognac. Now, help yourselves.

Dr. Stockmann.

[Taking a glass.] So we will. [While the toddy is being mixed.] And now out with the cigars. Eilif, I think you know where the box is. And Morten, you may fetch my pipe. [The boys go into the room on the right.] I have a suspicion that Eilif sneaks a cigar now and then, but I pretend not to notice. [Calls.] And my smoking-cap, Morten! Katrina, can’t you tell him where I left it. Ah, he’s got it. [The boys bring in the things.] Now, friends, help yourselves. I stick to my pipe, you know;—this one has been on many a stormy journey with me, up there in the north. [They clink glasses.] Your health! Ah, I can tell you it’s better fun to sit cosily here, safe from wind and weather.

Mrs. Stockmann.

[Who sits knitting.] Do you sail soon, Captain Horster?

Horster.

I hope to be ready for a start by next week.

Mrs. Stockmann.

And you’re going to America?

Horster.

Yes, that’s the intention.

Billing.

But then you’ll miss the election of the new Town Council.

Horster.

Is there to be an election again?

Billing.

Didn’t you know?

Horster.

No, I don’t trouble myself about those things.

Billing.

But I suppose you take an interest in public affairs?

Horster.

No, I don’t understand anything about them.

Billing.

All the same, one ought at least to vote.[vote.]

Horster.

Even those who don’t understand anything about it?

Billing.

Understand? Why, what do you mean by that? Society is like a ship: every man must put his hand to the helm.

Horster.

That may be all right on shore; but at sea it wouldn’t do at all.

Hovstad.

It’s remarkable how little sailors care about public affairs as a rule.

Billing.

Most extraordinary.

Dr. Stockmann.

Sailors are like birds of passage; they are at home both in the south and in the north. So it behoves the rest of us to be all the more energetic, Mr. Hovstad. Will there be anything of public interest in the People’s Messenger to-morrow?

Hovstad.

Nothing of local interest. But the day after to-morrow I think of printing your article——

Dr. Stockmann.

Oh confound it, that article! No, you’ll have to hold it over.

Hovstad.

Really? We happen to have plenty of space, and I should say this was the very time for it——

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, yes, you may be right; but you must hold it over all the same. I shall explain to you by-and-by.

Petra, wearing a hat and cloak, and with a number of exercise-books under her arm, enters from the hall.

Petra.

Good evening.

Dr. Stockmann.

Good evening, Petra. Is that you?

[General greetings. Petra puts her cloak, hat, and books on a chair by the door.

Petra.

Here you all are, enjoying yourselves, while I've been out slaving.

Dr. Stockmann.

Well then, you come and enjoy yourself too.

Billing.

May I mix you a little——?

Petra.

[Coming towards the table.] Thank you, I'd rather help myself—you always make it too strong. By the way, father, I have a letter for you.

[Goes to the chair where her things are lying.

Dr. Stockmann.

A letter! From whom?

Petra.

[Searching in the pocket of her cloak.] I got it from the postman just as I was going out——

Dr. Stockmann.

[Rising and going towards her.] And you only bring it me now?

Petra.

I really hadn’t time to run up again. Here it is.

Dr. Stockmann.

[Seizing the letter.] Let me see, let me see, child. [Reads the address.] Yes; this is it——!

Mrs. Stockmann.

Is it the one you have been so anxious about, Thomas?

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes it is. I must go at once. Where shall I find a light, Katrina? Is there no lamp in my study again!

Mrs. Stockmann.

Yes—the lamp is lighted. It’s on the writing-table.

Dr. Stockmann.

Good, good. Excuse me one moment——

[He goes into the room on the right.

Petra.

What can it be, mother?

Mrs. Stockmann.

I don’t know. For the last few days he has been continually on the look-out for the postman.

Billing.

Probably a country patient——

Petra.

Poor father! He’ll soon have far too much to do. [Mixes her toddy.] Ah, this will taste good!

Hovstad.

Have you been teaching in the night school as well to-day?

Petra.

[Sipping from her glass.] Two hours.

Billing.

And four hours in the morning at the institute——

Petra.

[Sitting down by the table.] Five hours.

Mrs. Stockmann.

And I see you have exercises to correct this evening.

Petra.

Yes, a heap of them.

Horster.

It seems to me you have plenty to do, too.

Petra.

Yes; but I like it. You feel so delightfully tired after it.

Billing.

Do you like that?

Petra.

Yes, for then you sleep so well.

Morten.

I say, Petra, you must be a great sinner.

Petra.

A sinner?

Morten.

Yes, if you work so hard. Mr. Rörlund[^[8]] says work is a punishment for our sins.

Eilif.

[Contemptuously.] Bosh! What a silly you are, to believe such stuff as that.

Mrs. Stockmann.

Come come, Eilif.

Billing.

[Laughing.] Capital, capital!

Hovstad.

Should you not like to work so hard, Morten?

Morten.

No, I shouldn’t.

Hovstad.

Then what will you do with yourself in the world?

Morten.

I should like to be a Viking.

Eilif.

But then you’d have to be a heathen.

Morten.

Well, so I would.

Billing.

There I agree with you, Morten! I say just the same thing.

Mrs. Stockmann.

[Making a sign to him.] No, no, Mr. Billing, I'm sure you don’t.

Billing.

Strike me dead but I do, though. I am a heathen, and I'm proud of it. You’ll see we shall all be heathens soon.

Morten.

And shall we be able to do anything we like then?

Billing.

Well, you see, Morten——

Mrs. Stockmann.

Now run away, boys; I'm sure you have lessons to prepare for to-morrow.

Eilif.

You might let me stay just a little longer——

Mrs. Stockmann.

No, you must go too. Be off, both of you.

[The boys say good-night and go into the room on the left.

Hovstad.

Do you really think it can hurt the boys to hear these things?

Mrs. Stockmann.

Well, I don’t know; I don’t like it.

Petra.

Really, mother, I think you are quite wrong there.

Mrs. Stockmann.

Perhaps. But I don’t like it—not here, at home.

Petra.

There’s no end of hypocrisy both at home and at school. At home you must hold your tongue, and at school you have to stand up and tell lies to the children.

Horster.

Have you to tell lies?

Petra.

Yes; do you think we don’t have to tell them many and many a thing we don’t believe ourselves?

Billing.

Ah, that’s too true.

Petra.

If only I could afford it, I should start a school myself, and things should be very different there.

Billing.

Oh, afford it——!

Horster.

If you really think of doing that, Miss Stockmann, I shall be delighted to let you have a room at my place. You know my father’s old house is nearly empty; there’s a great big dining-room on the ground floor——

Petra.

[Laughing.] Oh, thank you very much—but I'm afraid it won’t come to anything.

Hovstad.

No, I fancy Miss Petra is more likely to go over to journalism. By the way, have you had time to look into the English novel you promised to translate for us?

Petra.

Not yet. But you shall have it in good time.

Dr. Stockmann enters from his room, with the letter open in his hand.

Dr. Stockmann.

[Flourishing the letter.] Here’s news, I can tell you, that will waken up the town!

Billing.

News?

Mrs. Stockmann.

What news?

Dr. Stockmann.

A great discovery, Katrina!

Hovstad.

Indeed?

Mrs. Stockmann.

Made by you?

Dr. Stockmann.

Precisely—by me! [Walks up and down.] Now let them go on accusing me of fads and crack-brained notions. But they won’t dare to! Ha-ha! I tell you they won’t dare!

Petra.

Do tell us what it is, father.

Dr. Stockmann.

Well, well, give me time, and you shall hear all about it. If only I had Peter here now! This just shows how we men can go about forming judgments like the blindest moles——

Hovstad.

What do you mean, doctor?

Dr. Stockmann.

[Stopping beside the table.] Isn’t it the general opinion that our town is a healthy place?

Hovstad.

Of course.

Dr. Stockmann.

A quite exceptionally healthy place, indeed—a place to be warmly recommended, both to invalids and people in health——

Mrs. Stockmann.

My dear Thomas——

Dr. Stockmann.

And assuredly we haven’t failed to recommend and belaud it. I've sung its praises again and again, both in the Messenger and in pamphlets——

Hovstad.

Well, what then?

Dr. Stockmann.

These Baths, that we have called the pulse of the town, its vital nerve, and—and the devil knows what else——

Billing.

“Our city’s palpitating heart,” I once ventured to call them in a convivial moment——

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, I daresay. Well—do you know what they really are, these mighty, magnificent, belauded Baths, that have cost so much money—do you know what they are?

Hovstad.

No, what are they?

Mrs. Stockmann.

Do tell us.

Dr. Stockmann.

Simply a pestiferous hole.

Petra.

The Baths, father?

Mrs. Stockmann.

[At the same time.] Our Baths!

Hovstad.

[Also at the same time.] But, Doctor——!

Billing.

Oh, it’s incredible!

Dr. Stockmann.

I tell you the whole place is a poisonous whited-sepulchre; noxious in the highest degree! All that filth up there in the Mill Dale—the stuff that smells so horribly—taints the water in the feed-pipes of the Pump-Room; and the same accursëd poisonous refuse oozes out by the beach——

Hovstad.

Where the sea-baths are?

Dr. Stockmann.

Exactly.

Hovstad.

But how are you so sure of all this, Doctor?

Dr. Stockmann.

I've investigated the whole thing as conscientiously as possible. I've long had my suspicions about it. Last year we had some extraordinary cases of illness among the patients—both typhoid and gastric attacks——

Mrs. Stockmann.

Yes, I remember.

Dr. Stockmann.

We thought at the time that the visitors had brought the infection with them; but afterwards—last winter—I began to question that. So I set about testing the water as well as I could.

Mrs. Stockmann.

It was that you were working so hard at!

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, you may well say I've worked, Katrina. But here, you know, I hadn’t the necessary scientific appliances; so I sent samples both of our drinking-water and of our sea-water to the University, for exact analysis by a chemist.

Hovstad.

And you have received his report?

Dr. Stockmann.

[Showing letter.] Here it is! And it proves beyond dispute the presence of putrefying organic matter in the water—millions of infusoria. It’s absolutely pernicious to health, whether used internally or externally.

Mrs. Stockmann.

What a blessing you found it out in time.

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, you may well say that.

Hovstad.

And what do you intend to do now, Doctor?

Dr. Stockmann.

Why, to set things right, of course.

Hovstad.

You think it can be done, then?

Dr. Stockmann.

It must be done. Else the whole Baths are useless, ruined. But there’s no fear. I am quite clear as to what is required.

Mrs. Stockmann.

But, my dear Thomas, why should you have made such a secret of all this?

Dr. Stockmann.

Would you have had me rush all over the town and chatter about it, before I was quite certain? No, thank you; I'm not so mad as that.

Petra.

But to us at home——

Dr. Stockmann.

I couldn’t say a word to a living soul. But to-morrow you may look in at the Badger’s——

Mrs. Stockmann.

Oh, Thomas!

Dr. Stockmann.

Well well, at your grandfather’s. The old fellow will be astonished! He thinks I'm not quite right in my head—yes, and plenty of others think the same, I've noticed. But now these good people shall see—yes, they shall see now! [Walks up and down rubbing his hands.] What a stir there will be in the town, Katrina! Just think of it! All the water-pipes will have to be relaid.

Hovstad.

[Rising.] All the water-pipes——?

Dr. Stockmann.

Why, of course. The intake is too low down; it must be moved much higher up.

Petra.

So you were right, after all.

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, do you remember, Petra? I wrote against it when they were beginning the works. But no one would listen to me then. Now, you may be sure, I shall give them my full broadside—for of course I've prepared a statement for the Directors; it has been lying ready a whole week; I've only been waiting for this report. [Points to letter.] But now they shall have it at once. [Goes into his room and returns with a MS. in his hand.] See! Four closely-written sheets! And I'll enclose the report. A newspaper, Katrina! Get me something to wrap them up in. There—that’s it. Give it to—to—[Stamps.]—what the devil’s her name? Give it to the girl, I mean, and tell her to take it at once to the Burgomaster.

[Mrs. Stockmann goes out with the packet through the dining-room.

Petra.

What do you think Uncle Peter will say, father?

Dr. Stockmann.

What should he say? He can’t possibly be otherwise than pleased that so important a fact has been brought to light.

Hovstad.

I suppose you will let me put a short announcement of your discovery in the Messenger.

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, I shall be much obliged if you will.

Hovstad.

It is highly desirable that the public should know about it as soon as possible.

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, certainly.

Mrs. Stockmann.

[Returning.] She’s gone with it.

Billing.

Strike me dead if you won’t be the first man in the town, Doctor!

Dr. Stockmann.

[Walks up and down in high glee.] Oh, nonsense! After all, I have done no more than my duty. I've been a lucky treasure-hunter, that’s all. But all the same——

Billing.

Hovstad, don’t you think the town ought to get up a torchlight procession in honour of Dr. Stockmann?

Hovstad.

I shall certainly propose it.

Billing.

And I'll talk it over with Aslaksen.

Dr. Stockmann.

No, my dear friends; let all such claptrap alone. I won’t hear of anything of the sort. And if the Directors should want to raise my salary, I won’t accept it. I tell you, Katrina, I will not accept it.

Mrs. Stockmann.

You are quite right, Thomas.

Petra.

[Raising her glass.] Your health, father!

Hovstad and Billing.

Your health, your health, Doctor!

Horster.

[Clinking glasses with the Doctor.] I hope you may have nothing but joy of your discovery.

Dr. Stockmann.

Thanks, thanks, my dear friends! I can’t tell you how happy I am—! Oh, what a blessing it is to feel that you have deserved well of your native town and your fellow citizens. Hurrah, Katrina!

[He puts both his arms round her neck, and whirls her round with him. Mrs. Stockmann screams and struggles. A burst of laughter, applause, and cheers for the Doctor. The boys thrust their heads in at the door.

ACT SECOND.

The Doctor’s sitting-room. The dining-room door is closed. Morning.

Mrs. Stockmann.

[Enters from the dining-room with a sealed letter in her hand, goes to the foremost door on the right, and peeps in.] Are you there, Thomas?

Dr. Stockmann.

[Within.] Yes, I have just come in. [Enters.] What is it?

Mrs. Stockmann.

A letter from your brother. [Hands it to him.

Dr. Stockmann.

Aha, let us see. [Opens the envelope and reads.] “The MS. sent me is returned herewith——” [Reads on, mumbling to himself.] H'm—

Mrs. Stockmann.

Well, what does he say?

Dr. Stockmann.

[Putting the paper in his pocket.] Nothing; only that he’ll come up himself about midday.

Mrs. Stockmann.

Then be sure you remember to stay at home.

Dr. Stockmann.

Oh, I can easily manage that; I've finished my morning’s visits.

Mrs. Stockmann.

I am very curious to know how he takes it.

Dr. Stockmann.

You’ll see he won’t be over-pleased that it is I that have made the discovery, and not he himself.

Mrs. Stockmann.

Ah, that’s just what I'm afraid of.

Dr. Stockmann.

Of course at bottom he’ll be glad. But still—Peter is damnably unwilling that any one but himself should do anything for the good of the town.

Mrs. Stockmann.

Do you know, Thomas, I think you might stretch a point, and share the honour with him. Couldn’t it appear that it was he that put you on the track——?

Dr. Stockmann.

By all means, for aught I care. If only I can get things put straight——

Old Morten Kiil puts his head in at the hall door, and asks slyly:

Morten Kiil.

Is it—is it true?

Mrs. Stockmann.

[Going towards him.] Father—is that you?

Dr. Stockmann.

Hallo, father-in-law! Good morning, good morning.

Mrs. Stockmann.

Do come in.

Morten Kiil.

Yes, if it’s true; if not, I'm off again.

Dr. Stockmann.

If what is true?

Morten Kiil.

This crazy business about the water-works. Now, is it true?

Dr. Stockmann.

Why, of course it is. But how came you to hear of it?

Morten Kiil.

[Coming in.] Petra looked in on her way to the school——

Dr. Stockmann.

Oh, did she?

Morten Kiil.

Ay ay—and she told me—. I thought she was only making game of me; but that’s not like Petra either.

Dr. Stockmann.

No, indeed; how could you think so?

Morten Kiil.

Oh, you can never be sure of anybody. You may be made a fool of before you know where you are. So it is true, after all?

Dr. Stockmann.

Most certainly it is. Do sit down, father-in-law. [Forces him down on the sofa.] Now isn’t it a real blessing for the town——?

Morten Kiil.

[Suppressing his laughter.] A blessing for the town?

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, that I made this discovery in time——

Morten Kiil.

[As before.] Ay, ay, ay!—Well, I could never have believed that you would play monkey-tricks with your very own brother.

Dr. Stockmann.

Monkey-tricks!

Mrs. Stockmann.

Why, father dear——

Morten Kiil.

[Resting his hands and chin on the top of his stick and blinking slyly at the Doctor.] What was it again? Wasn’t it that some animals had got into the water-pipes?

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes; infusorial animals.

Morten Kiil.

And any number of these animals had got in, Petra said—whole swarms of them.

Dr. Stockmann.

Certainly; hundreds of thousands.

Morten Kiil.

But no one can see them—isn’t that it?

Dr. Stockmann.

Quite right; no one can see them.

Morten Kiil.

[With a quiet, chuckling laugh.] I'll be damned if that isn’t the best thing I've heard of you yet.

Dr. Stockmann[Stockmann].

What do you mean?

Morten Kiil.

But you’ll never in this world make the Burgomaster take in anything of the sort.

Dr. Stockmann.

Well, that we shall see.

Morten Kiil.

Do you really think he’ll be so crazy?

Dr. Stockmann.

I hope the whole town will be so crazy.

Morten Kiil.

The whole town! Well, I don’t say but it may. But it serves them right; it’ll teach them a lesson. They wanted to be so much cleverer than we old fellows. They hounded me out of the Town Council. Yes; I tell you they hounded me out like a dog, that they did. But now it’s their turn. Just you keep up the game with them, Stockmann.

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, but, father-in-law——

Morten Kiil.

Keep it up, I say. [Rising.] If you can make the Burgomaster and his gang eat humble pie, I'll give a hundred crowns straight away to the poor.

Dr. Stockmann.

Come, that’s good of you.

Morten Kiil.

Of course I've little enough to throw away; but if you can manage that, I shall certainly remember the poor at Christmas-time, to the tune of fifty crowns.

Hovstad enters from hall.

Hovstad.

Good morning! [Pausing.] Oh! I beg your pardon——

Dr. Stockmann.

Not at all. Come in, come in.

Morten Kiil.

[Chuckling again.] He! Is he in it too?

Hovstad.

What do you mean?

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, of course he is.

Morten Kiil.

I might have known it! It’s to go into the papers. Ah, you’re the one, Stockmann! Do you two lay your heads together; I'm off.

Dr. Stockmann.

Oh no; don’t go yet, father-in-law.

Morten Kiil.

No, I'm off now. Play them all the monkey-tricks you can think of. Deuce take me but you shan’t lose by it.

[He goes, Mrs. Stockmann accompanying him.

Dr. Stockmann.

[Laughing.] What do you think—? The old fellow doesn’t believe a word of all this about the water-works.

Hovstad.

Was that what he——?

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes; that was what we were talking about. And I daresay you have come on the same business?

Hovstad.

Yes. Have you a moment to spare, Doctor?

Dr. Stockmann.

As many as you like, my dear fellow.

Hovstad.

Have you heard anything from the Burgomaster?

Dr. Stockmann.

Not yet. He’ll be here presently.

Hovstad.

I have been thinking the matter over since last evening.

Dr. Stockmann.

Well?

Hovstad.

To you, as a doctor and a man of science, this business of the water-works appears an isolated affair. I daresay it hasn’t occurred to you that a good many other things are bound up with it?

Dr. Stockmann.

Indeed! In what way? Let us sit down, my dear fellow.—No; there, on the sofa.

[Hovstad sits on sofa; the Doctor in an easy-chair on the other side of the table.

Dr. Stockmann.

Well, so you think——?

Hovstad.

You said yesterday that the water is polluted by impurities in the soil.

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, undoubtedly; the mischief comes from that poisonous swamp up in the Mill Dale.

Hovstad.

Excuse me, Doctor, but I think it comes from a very different swamp.

Dr. Stockmann.

What swamp may that be?

Hovstad.

The swamp in which our whole municipal life is rotting.

Dr. Stockmann.

The devil, Mr. Hovstad! What notion is this you’ve got hold of?

Hovstad.

All the affairs of the town have gradually drifted into the hands of a pack of bureaucrats——

Dr. Stockmann.

Come now, they’re not all bureaucrats.

Hovstad.

No; but those who are not are the friends and adherents of those who are. We are entirely under the thumb of a ring of wealthy men, men of old family and position in the town.

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, but they are also men of ability and insight.

Hovstad.

Did they show ability and insight when they laid the water-pipes where they are?

Dr. Stockmann.

No; that, of course, was a piece of stupidity. But that will be set right now.

Hovstad.

Do you think it will go so smoothly?

Dr. Stockmann.

Well, smoothly or not, it will have to be done.

Hovstad.

Yes, if the press exerts its influence.

Dr. Stockmann.

Not at all necessary, my dear fellow; I am sure my brother——

Hovstad.

Excuse me, Doctor, but I must tell you that I think of taking the matter up.

Dr. Stockmann.

In the paper?

Hovstad.

Yes. When I took over the People’s Messenger, I was determined to break up the ring of obstinate old blockheads who held everything in their hands.

Dr. Stockmann.

But you told me yourself what came of it. You nearly ruined the paper.

Hovstad.

Yes, at that time we had to draw in our horns, that’s true enough. The whole Bath scheme might have fallen through if these men had been sent about their business. But now the Baths are an accomplished fact, and we can get on without these august personages.

Dr. Stockmann.

Get on without them, yes; but still we owe them a great deal.

Hovstad.

The debt shall be duly acknowledged. But a journalist of my democratic tendencies cannot let such an opportunity slip through his fingers. We must explode the tradition of official infallibility. That rubbish must be got rid of, like every other superstition.

Dr. Stockmann.

There I am with you with all my heart, Mr. Hovstad. If it’s a superstition, away with it!

Hovstad.

I should be sorry to attack the Burgomaster, as he is your brother. But I know you think with me—the truth before all other considerations.

Dr. Stockmann.

Why, of course. [Vehemently.] But still—! but still——!

Hovstad.

You mustn’t think ill of me. I am neither more self-interested nor more ambitious than other men.

Dr. Stockmann.

Why, my dear fellow—who says you are?

Hovstad.

I come of humble folk, as you know; and I have had ample opportunities of seeing what the lower classes really require. And that is to have a share in the direction of public affairs, Doctor. That is what develops ability and knowledge and self-respect——

Dr. Stockmann.

I understand that perfectly.

Hovstad.

Yes; and I think a journalist incurs a heavy responsibility if he lets slip a chance of helping to emancipate the downtrodden masses. I know well enough that our oligarchy will denounce me as an agitator, and so forth; but what do I care? If only my conscience is clear, I——

Dr. Stockmann.

Just so, just so, my dear Mr. Hovstad. But still—deuce take it——! [A knock at the door.] Come in!

Aslaksen, the printer, appears at the door leading to the hall. He is humbly but respectably dressed in black, wears a white necktie, slightly crumpled, and has a silk hat and gloves in his hand.

Aslaksen.

[Bowing.] I beg pardon, Doctor, for making so bold——

Dr. Stockmann.

[Rising.] Hallo! If it isn’t Mr. Aslaksen!

Aslaksen.

Yes, it’s me, Doctor.

Hovstad.

[Rising.] Is it me you want, Aslaksen?

Aslaksen.

No, not at all. I didn’t know you were here. No, it’s the Doctor himself——

Dr. Stockmann.

Well, what can I do for you?

Aslaksen.

Is it true, what Mr. Billing tells me, that you’re going to get us a better set of water-works?

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, for the Baths.

Aslaksen.

Of course, of course. Then I just looked in to say that I'll back up the movement with all my might.

Hovstad.

[To the Doctor.] You see!

Dr. Stockmann.

I'm sure I thank you heartily; but——

Aslaksen.

You may find it no such bad thing to have us small middle-class men at your back. We form what you may call a compact majority in the town—when we really make up our minds, that’s to say. And it’s always well to have the majority with you, Doctor.

Dr. Stockmann.

No doubt, no doubt; but I can’t conceive that any special measures will be necessary in this case. I should think in so clear and straightforward a matter——

Aslaksen.

Yes, but all the same, it can do no harm. I know the local authorities very well—the powers that be are not over ready to adopt suggestions from outsiders. So I think it wouldn’t be amiss if we made some sort of a demonstration.

Hovstad.

Precisely my opinion.

Dr. Stockmann.

A demonstration, you say? But in what way would you demonstrate?

Aslaksen.

Of course with great moderation, Doctor. I always insist upon moderation; for moderation is a citizen’s first virtue—at least that’s my way of thinking.

Dr. Stockmann.

We all know that, Mr. Aslaksen.

Aslaksen.

Yes, I think my moderation is generally recognised. And this affair of the water-works is very important for us small middle-class men. The Baths bid fair to become, as you might say, a little gold-mine for the town. We shall all have to live by the Baths, especially we house-owners. So we want to support the Baths all we can; and as I am Chairman of the House-owners' Association——

Dr. Stockmann.

Well——?

Aslaksen.

And as I'm an active worker for the Temperance[^[9]] Society—of course you know, Doctor, that I'm a temperance man?

Dr. Stockmann.

To be sure, to be sure.

Aslaksen.

Well, you’ll understand that I come in contact with a great many people. And as I'm known to be a prudent and law-abiding citizen, as you yourself remarked, Doctor, I have a certain influence in the town, and hold some power in my hands—though I say it that shouldn’t.

Dr. Stockmann.

I know that very well, Mr. Aslaksen.

Aslaksen.

Well then, you see—it would be easy for me to get up an address, if it came to a pinch.

Dr. Stockmann.

An address?

Aslaksen.

Yes, a kind of vote of thanks to you, from the citizens of the town, for your action in a matter of such general concern. Of course it will have to be drawn up with all fitting moderation, so as to give no offence to the authorities and parties in power. But so long as we’re careful about that, no one can take it ill, I should think.

Hovstad.

Well, even if they didn’t particularly like it——

Aslaksen.

No no no; no offence to the powers that be, Mr. Hovstad. No opposition to people that can take it out of us again so easily. I've had enough of that in my time; no good ever comes of it. But no one can object to the free but temperate expression of a citizen’s opinion.

Dr. Stockmann.

[Shaking his hand.] I can’t tell you, my dear Mr. Aslaksen, how heartily it delights me to find so much support among my fellow townsmen. I'm so happy—so happy! Come, you’ll have a glass of sherry? Eh?

Aslaksen.

No, thank you; I never touch spirituous liquors.

Dr. Stockmann.

Well, then, a glass of beer—what do you say to that?

Aslaksen.

Thanks, not that either, Doctor. I never take anything so early in the day. And now I'll be off round the town, and talk to some of the house-owners, and prepare public opinion.

Dr. Stockmann.

It’s extremely kind of you, Mr. Aslaksen; but I really cannot get it into my head that all these preparations are necessary. The affair seems to me so simple and self-evident.

Aslaksen.

The authorities always move slowly, Doctor—God forbid I should blame them for it——

Hovstad.

We’ll stir them up in the paper to-morrow, Aslaksen.

Aslaksen.

No violence, Mr. Hovstad. Proceed with moderation, or you’ll do nothing with them. Take my advice; I've picked up experience in the school of life.—And now I'll say good morning, Doctor. You know now that at least you have us small middle-class men behind you, solid as a wall. You have the compact majority on your side, Doctor.

Dr. Stockmann.

Many thanks, my dear Mr. Aslaksen. [Holds out his hand.] Good-bye, good-bye.

Aslaksen.

Are you coming to the office, Mr. Hovstad?

Hovstad.

I shall come on presently. I have still one or two things to arrange.

Aslaksen.

Very well.

[Bows and goes. Dr. Stockmann accompanies him into the hall.

Hovstad.

[As the Doctor re-enters.] Well, what do you say to that, Doctor? Don’t you think it is high time we should give all this weak-kneed, half-hearted cowardice a good shaking up?

Dr. Stockmann.

Are you speaking of Aslaksen?

Hovstad.

Yes, I am. He’s a decent enough fellow, but he’s one of those who are sunk in the swamp. And most people here are just like him; they are for ever wavering and wobbling from side to side; what with scruples and misgivings, they never dare advance a step.

Dr. Stockmann.

Yes, but Aslaksen seems to me thoroughly well-intentioned.

Hovstad.

There is one thing I value more than good intentions, and that is an attitude of manly self-reliance.

Dr. Stockmann.

There I am quite with you.

Hovstad.

So I am going to seize this opportunity, and try whether I can’t for once put a little grit into their good intentions. The worship of authority must be rooted up in this town. This gross, inexcusable blunder of the waterworks must be brought home clearly to every voter.

Dr. Stockmann.

Very well. If you think it’s for the good of the community, so be it; but not till I have spoken to my brother.

Hovstad.

At all events, I shall be writing my leader in the meantime. And if the Burgomaster won’t take the matter up——

Dr. Stockmann.

But how can you conceive his refusing?

Hovstad.

Oh, it’s not inconceivable. And then——

Dr. Stockmann.

Well then, I promise you—; look here—in that case you may print my paper—put it in just as it is.

Hovstad.

May I? Is that a promise?

Dr. Stockmann.

[Handing him the manuscript.] There it is; take it with you. You may as well read it in any case; you can return it to me afterwards.

Hovstad.

Very good; I shall do so. And now, good-bye, Doctor.

Dr. Stockmann.

Good-bye, good-bye. You’ll see it will all go smoothly, Mr. Hovstad—as smoothly as possible.

Hovstad.

H'm—we shall see.

[Bows and goes out through the hall.

*/

Dr. Stockmann.

[Going to the dining-room door and looking in.] Katrina! Hallo! are you back, Petra?

Petra.

[Entering.] Yes, I've just got back from school.

Mrs. Stockmann.

[Entering.] Hasn’t he been here yet?

Dr. Stockmann.

Peter? No; but I have been having a long talk with Hovstad. He’s quite enthusiastic about my discovery. It turns out to be of much wider import than I thought at first. So he has placed his paper at my disposal, if I should require it.

Mrs. Stockmann.