Part 7
[_Applause and cheers._ ASLAKSEN _ascends the platform._
BILLING.
[_Writing._] So—“Mr. Aslaksen was elected by acclamation——”
ASLAKSEN.
And now, as I have been called to the chair, I take the liberty of saying a few brief words. I am a quiet, peace-loving man; I am in favour of discreet moderation, and of—and of moderate discretion. Every one who knows me, knows that.
MANY VOICES.
Yes, yes, Aslaksen!
ASLAKSEN.
I have learnt in the school of life and of experience that moderation is the virtue in which the individual citizen finds his best advantage——
BURGOMASTER.
Hear, hear!
ASLAKSEN.
——and it is discretion and moderation, too, that best serve the community. I could therefore suggest to our respected fellow citizen, who has called this meeting, that he should endeavour to keep within the bounds of moderation.
A MAN.
[_By the door._] Three cheers for the Temperance Society!
A VOICE.
Go to the devil!
VOICES.
Hush! hush!
ASLAKSEN.
No interruptions, gentlemen!—Does any one wish to offer any observations?
BURGOMASTER.
Mr. Chairman!
ASLAKSEN.
Burgomaster Stockmann will address the meeting.
BURGOMASTER.
On account of my close relationship—of which you are probably aware—to the present medical officer of the Baths, I should have preferred not to speak here this evening. But my position as chairman of the Baths, and my care for the vital interests of this town, force me to move a resolution. I may doubtless assume that not a single citizen here present thinks it desirable that untrustworthy and exaggerated statements should get abroad as to the sanitary condition of the Baths and of our town.
MANY VOICES.
No, no, no! Certainly not! We protest!
BURGOMASTER.
I therefore beg to move, “That this meeting declines to hear the proposed lecture or speech on the subject by the medical officer of the Baths.”
DR. STOCKMANN.
[_Flaring up._] Declines to hear——! What do you mean?
MRS. STOCKMANN.
[_Coughing._] H'm! h’m!
DR. STOCKMANN.
[_Controlling himself._] So I am not to be heard?
BURGOMASTER.
In my statement in the _People’s Messenger_ I have made the public acquainted with the essential facts, so that all well-disposed citizens can easily form their own judgment. From that statement it will be seen that the medical officer’s proposal—besides amounting to a vote of censure upon the leading men of the town—at bottom only means saddling the ratepayers with an unnecessary outlay of at least a hundred thousand crowns.
[_Sounds of protest and some hissing._
ASLAKSEN.
[_Ringing the bell._] Order, gentlemen! I must beg leave to support the Burgomaster’s resolution. I quite agree with him that there is something beneath the surface of the Doctor’s agitation. In all his talk about the Baths, it is really a revolution he is aiming at; he wants to effect a redistribution of power. No one doubts the excellence of Dr. Stockmann’s intentions—of course there cannot be two opinions as to that. I, too, am in favour of self-government by the people, if only it doesn’t cost the ratepayers too much. But in this case it would do so; and therefore I'll be hanged if—excuse me—in short, I cannot go with Dr. Stockmann upon this occasion. You can buy even gold too dear; that’s my opinion.
[_Loud applause on all sides._
HOVSTAD.
I, too feel bound to explain my attitude. Dr. Stockmann’s agitation seemed at first to find favour in several quarters, and I supported it as impartially as I could. But it presently appeared that we had been misled by a false representation of the facts——
DR. STOCKMANN.
False——!
HOVSTAD.
Well then, an untrustworthy representation. This the Burgomaster’s report has proved. I trust no one here present doubts my liberal principles; the attitude of the _Messenger_ on all great political questions is well known to you all. But I have learned from men of judgment and experience that in purely local matters a paper must observe a certain amount of caution.
ASLAKSEN.
I entirely agree with the speaker.
HOVSTAD.
And in the matter under discussion it is quite evident that Dr. Stockmann has public opinion against him. But, gentlemen, what is an editor’s clearest and most imperative duty? Is it not to work in harmony with his readers? Has he not in some sort received a tacit mandate to further assiduously and unweariedly the interests of his constituents? Or am I mistaken in this?
MANY VOICES.
No, no, no! Hovstad is right!
HOVSTAD.
It has cost me a bitter struggle to break with a man in whose house I have of late been a frequent guest—with a man who, up to this day, has enjoyed the unqualified goodwill of his fellow citizens—with a man whose only, or, at any rate, whose chief fault is that he consults his heart rather than his head.
A FEW SCATTERED VOICES.
That’s true! Hurrah for Dr. Stockmann!
HOVSTAD.
But my duty towards the community has constrained me to break with him. Then, too, there is another consideration that impels me to oppose him, and, if possible, to block the ill-omened path upon which he is entering: consideration for his family——
DR. STOCKMANN.
Keep to the water-works and sewers!
HOVSTAD.
——consideration for his wife and his unprotected[12] children.
MORTEN.
Is that us, mother?
MRS. STOCKMANN.
Hush!
ASLAKSEN.
I will now put the Burgomaster’s resolution to the vote.
DR. STOCKMANN.
You need not. I have no intention of saying anything this evening of all the filth at the Baths. No! You shall hear something quite different.
BURGOMASTER.
[_Half aloud._] What next, I wonder?
A DRUNKEN MAN.
[_At the main entrance._] I'm a ratepayer, so I've a right to my opinion! And it’s my full, firm, incomprehensible opinion that——
SEVERAL VOICES.
Silence up there!
OTHERS.
He’s drunk! Turn him out!
[_The drunken man is turned out._
DR. STOCKMANN.
Can I speak?
ASLAKSEN.
[_Ringing the bell._] Dr. Stockmann will address the meeting.
DR. STOCKMANN.
A few days ago, I should have liked to see any one venture upon such an attempt to gag me as has been made here to-night! I would have fought like a lion for my sacred rights! But now I care little enough; for now I have more important things to speak of.
[_The people crowd closer round him._ MORTEN KIIL _comes in sight among the bystanders._
DR. STOCKMANN.
[_Continuing._] I have been pondering a great many things during these last days—thinking such a multitude of thoughts, that at last my head was positively in a whirl——
BURGOMASTER.
[_Coughing._] H'm——!
DR. STOCKMANN.
But presently things seemed to straighten themselves out, and I saw them clearly in all their bearings. That is why I stand here this evening. I am about to make great revelations, my fellow citizens! I am going to announce to you a far-reaching discovery, beside which the trifling fact that our water-works are poisoned, and that our health-resort is built on pestilential ground, sinks into insignificance.
MANY VOICES.
[_Shouting._] Don’t speak about the Baths! We won’t listen to that! No more of that!
DR. STOCKMANN.
I have said I would speak of the great discovery I have made within the last few days—the discovery that all our sources of spiritual life are poisoned, and that our whole society rests upon a pestilential basis of falsehood.
SEVERAL VOICES.
[_In astonishment and half aloud._] What’s he saying?
BURGOMASTER.
Such an insinuation——!
ASLAKSEN.
[_With his hand on the bell._] I must call upon the speaker to moderate his expressions.
DR. STOCKMANN.
I have loved my native town as dearly as any man can love the home of his childhood. I was young when I left our town, and distance, home-sickness and memory threw, as it were, a glamour over the place and its people.
[_Some applause and cries of approval._
DR. STOCKMANN.
Then for years I was imprisoned in a horrible hole, far away in the north. As I went about among the people scattered here and there over the stony wilderness, it seemed to me, many a time, that it would have been better for these poor famishing creatures to have had a cattle-doctor to attend them, instead of a man like me.
[_Murmurs in the room._
BILLING.
[_Laying down his pen._] Strike me dead if I've ever heard——!
HOVSTAD.
What an insult to an estimable peasantry!
DR. STOCKMANN.
Wait a moment!—I don’t think any one can reproach me with forgetting my native town up there. I sat brooding like an eider duck, and what I hatched was—the plan of the Baths.
[_Applause and expressions of dissent._
DR. STOCKMANN.
And when, at last, fate ordered things so happily that I could come home again—then, fellow citizens, it seemed to me that I hadn’t another desire in the world. Yes, one desire I had: an eager, constant, burning desire to be of service to my birthplace, and to its people.
BURGOMASTER.
[_Gazing into vacancy._] A strange method to select——!
DR. STOCKMANN.
So I went about revelling in my happy illusions. But yesterday morning—no, it was really two nights ago—my mind’s eyes were opened wide, and the first thing I saw was the colossal stupidity of the authorities——
[_Noise, cries, and laughter._ MRS. STOCKMANN _coughs repeatedly._
BURGOMASTER.
Mr. Chairman!
ASLAKSEN.
[_Ringing his bell._] In virtue of my position——!
DR. STOCKMANN.
It’s petty to catch me up on a word, Mr. Aslaksen! I only mean that I became alive to the extraordinary muddle our leading men had been guilty of, down at the Baths. I cannot for the life of me abide leading men—I've seen enough of them in my time. They are like goats in a young plantation: they do harm at every point; they block the path of a free man wherever he turns—and I should be glad if we could exterminate them like other noxious animals——
[_Uproar in the room._
BURGOMASTER.
Mr. Chairman, are such expressions permissible?
ASLAKSEN.
[_With his hand on the bell._] Dr. Stockmann——
DR. STOCKMANN.
I can’t conceive how it is that I have only now seen through these gentry; for haven’t I had a magnificent example before my eyes here every day—my brother Peter—slow of understanding, tenacious in prejudice——
[_Laughter, noise, and whistling._ MRS. STOCKMANN _coughs._ ASLAKSEN _rings violently._
THE DRUNKEN MAN.
[_Who has come in again._] Is it me you’re alluding to? Sure enough, my name’s Petersen; but devil take me if——
ANGRY VOICES.
Out with that drunken man! Turn him out!
[_The man is again turned out._
BURGOMASTER.
Who is that person?
A BYSTANDER.
I don’t know him, Burgomaster.
ANOTHER.
He doesn’t belong to the town.
A THIRD.
I believe he’s a timber-dealer from——
[_The rest is inaudible._
ASLAKSEN.
The man was evidently intoxicated.—Continue, Dr. Stockmann; but pray endeavour to be moderate.
DR. STOCKMANN.
Well, fellow citizens, I shall say no more about our leading men. If any one imagines, from what I have just said, that it’s these gentlemen I want to make short work of to-night, he is mistaken—altogether mistaken. For I cherish the comfortable conviction that these laggards, these relics of a decaying order of thought, are diligently cutting their own throats. They need no doctor to hasten their end. And it is not people of _that_ sort that constitute the real danger to society; it is not they who are most active in poisoning the sources of our spiritual life and making a plague-spot of the ground beneath our feet; it is not _they_ who are the most dangerous enemies of truth and freedom in our society.
CRIES FROM ALL SIDES.
Who, then? Who is it? Name, name!
DR. STOCKMANN.
Yes, you may be sure I shall name them! For _this_ is the great discovery I made yesterday: [_In a louder tone._] The most dangerous foe to truth and freedom in our midst is the compact majority. Yes, it’s the confounded, compact, liberal majority—that, and nothing else! There, I've told you.
[_Immense disturbance in the room. Most of the audience are shouting, stamping, and whistling. Several elderly gentlemen exchange furtive glances and seem to be enjoying the scene._ MRS. STOCKMANN _rises in alarm._ EILIF _and_ MORTEN _advance threateningly towards the school-boys, who are making noises._ ASLAKSEN _rings the bell and calls for order._ HOVSTAD _and_ BILLING _both speak, but nothing can be heard. At last quiet is restored._
ASLAKSEN.
I must request the speaker to withdraw his ill-considered expressions.
DR. STOCKMANN.
Never, Mr. Aslaksen! For it’s this very majority that robs me of my freedom, and wants to forbid me to speak the truth.
HOVSTAD.
The majority always has right on its side.
BILLING.
Yes, and truth too, strike me dead!
DR. STOCKMANN.
The majority never has right on its side. Never I say! That is one of the social lies that a free, thinking man is bound to rebel against. Who make up the majority in any given country? Is it the wise men or the fools? I think we must agree that the fools are in a terrible, overwhelming majority, all the wide world over. But how in the devil’s name can it ever be right for the fools to rule over the wise men? _Uproar and yells._
DR. STOCKMANN.
Yes, yes, you can shout me down, but you cannot gainsay me. The majority has _might_—unhappily—but _right_ it has not. It is I, and the few, the individuals, that are in the right. The minority is always right. _Renewed uproar._
HOVSTAD.
Ha ha! Dr. Stockmann has turned aristocrat since the day before yesterday!
DR. STOCKMANN.
I have said that I have no words to waste on the little, narrow-chested, short-winded crew that lie in our wake. Pulsating life has nothing more to do with them. I am speaking of the few, the individuals among us, who have made all the new, germinating truths their own. These men stand, as it were, at the outposts, so far in the van that the compact majority has not yet reached them—and _there_ they fight for truths that are too lately born into the world’s consciousness to have won over the majority.
HOVSTAD.
So the Doctor’s a revolutionist now!
DR. STOCKMANN.
Yes, by Heaven, I am, Mr. Hovstad! I am going to revolt against the lie that truth belongs exclusively to the majority. What sort of truths do the majority rally round? Truths so stricken in years that they are sinking into decrepitude. When a truth is so old as that, gentlemen, it’s in a fair way to become a lie.
[_Laughter and jeers._
DR. STOCKMANN.
Yes, yes, you may believe me or not, as you please; but truths are by no means the wiry Methusalehs some people think them. A normally-constituted truth lives—let us say—as a rule, seventeen or eighteen years; at the outside twenty; very seldom more. And truths so patriarchal as that are always shockingly emaciated; yet it’s not till then that the majority takes them up and recommends them to society as wholesome food. I can assure you there’s not much nutriment in that sort of fare; you may take my word as a doctor for that. All these majority-truths are like last year’s salt pork; they’re like rancid, mouldy ham, producing all the moral scurvy that devastates society.
ASLAKSEN.
It seems to me that the honourable speaker is wandering rather far from the subject.
BURGOMASTER.
I beg to endorse the Chairman’s remark.
DR. STOCKMANN.
Why you’re surely mad, Peter! I'm keeping as closely to my text as I possibly can; for my text is precisely this—that the masses, the majority, this devil’s own compact majority—it’s that, I say, that’s poisoning the sources of our spiritual life, and making a plague-spot of the ground beneath our feet.
HOVSTAD.
And you make this charge against the great, independent majority, just because they have the sense to accept only certain and acknowledged truths?
DR. STOCKMANN.
Ah, my dear Mr. Hovstad, don’t talk about certain truths! The truths acknowledged by the masses, the multitude, were certain truths to the vanguard in our grandfathers' days. We, the vanguard of to-day, don’t acknowledge them any longer; and I don’t believe there exists any other certain truth but this—that no society can live a healthy life upon truths so old and and marrowless.
HOVSTAD.
But instead of all this vague talk, suppose you were to give us some specimens of these old marrowless truths that we are living upon.
[_Approval from several quarters._
DR. STOCKMANN.
Oh, I could give you no end of samples from the rubbish-heap; but, for the present, I shall keep to one acknowledged truth, which is a hideous lie at bottom, but which Mr. Hovstad, and the _Messenger_, and all adherents of the _Messenger_, live on all the same.
HOVSTAD.
And that is——?
DR. STOCKMANN.
That is the doctrine you have inherited from your forefathers, and go on thoughtlessly proclaiming far and wide—the doctrine that the multitude, the vulgar herd, the masses, are the pith of the people—that they _are_ the people—that the common man, the ignorant, undeveloped member of society, has the same right to sanction and to condemn, to counsel and to govern, as the intellectually distinguished few.
BILLING.
Well, now, strike me dead——!
HOVSTAD.
[_Shouting at the same time._] Citizens, please note this!
ANGRY VOICES.
Ho-ho! Aren’t we the people? Is it only the grand folks that are to govern?
A WORKING MAN.
Out with the fellow that talks like that!
OTHERS.
Turn him out!
A CITIZEN.
[_Shouting._] Blow your horn, Evensen.
[_The deep notes of a horn are heard; whistling, and terrific noise in the room._
DR. STOCKMANN.
[_When the noise has somewhat subsided._] Now do be reasonable! Can’t you bear even for once in a way to hear the voice of truth? I don’t ask you all to agree with me on the instant. But I certainly should have expected Mr. Hovstad to back me up, as soon as he had collected himself a bit. Mr. Hovstad sets up to be a freethinker——
SEVERAL VOICES.
[_Subdued and wondering._] Freethinker, did he say? What? Mr. Hovstad a freethinker?
HOVSTAD.
[_Shouting._] Prove it, Dr. Stockmann. When have I said so in print?
DR. STOCKMANN.
[_Reflecting._] No, upon my soul, you’re right there; you’ve never had the frankness to do that. Well, well, I won’t put you on the rack, Mr. Hovstad. Let me be the freethinker then. And now I'll make it clear to you all, and on scientific grounds too, that the _Messenger_ is leading you shamefully by the nose, when it tells you that you, the masses, the crowd, are the true pith of the people. I tell you that’s only a newspaper lie. The masses are nothing but the raw material that must be fashioned into a People.
[_Murmurs, laughter, and disturbance in the room._
DR. STOCKMANN.
Is it not so with all other living creatures? What a difference between a cultivated and an uncultivated breed of animals! Just look at a common barn-door hen. What meat do you get from such a skinny carcase? Not much, I can tell you! And what sort of eggs does she lay? A decent crow or raven can lay nearly as good. Then take a cultivated Spanish or Japanese hen, or take a fine pheasant or turkey—ah! then you’ll see the difference! And now look at the dog, our near relation. Think first of an ordinary vulgar cur—I mean one of those wretched, ragged, plebeian mongrels that haunt the gutters, and soil the sidewalks. Then place such a mongrel by the side of a poodle-dog, descended through many generations from an aristocratic stock, who have lived on delicate food, and heard harmonious voices and music. Do you think the brain of the poodle isn’t very differently developed from that of the mongrel? Yes, you may be sure it is! It’s well-bred poodle-pups like this that jugglers train to perform the most marvellous tricks. A common peasant-cur could never learn anything of the sort—not if he tried till doomsday.
[_Noise and laughter are heard all round._
A CITIZEN.
[_Shouting._] Do you want to make dogs of us now?
ANOTHER MAN.
We’re not animals, Doctor!
DR. STOCKMANN.
Yes, on my soul, but we _are_ animals, my good sir! We’re one and all of us animals, whether we like it or not. But truly there are few enough aristocratic animals among us. Oh, there’s a terrible difference between poodle-men and mongrel-men! And the ridiculous part of it is, that Mr. Hovstad quite agrees with me so long as it’s four-legged animals we’re talking of——
HOVSTAD.
Oh, beasts are only beasts.
DR. STOCKMANN.
Well and good—but no sooner do I apply the law to two-legged animals, than Mr. Hovstad stops short; then he daren’t hold his own opinions, or think out his own thoughts; then he turns the whole principle upside down, and proclaims in the _People’s Messenger_ that the barn-door hen and the gutter-mongrel are precisely the finest specimens in the menagerie. But that’s always the way, so long as the commonness still lingers in your system, and you haven’t worked your way up to spiritual distinction.
HOVSTAD.
I make no pretence to any sort of distinction. I come of simple peasant folk, and I am proud that my root should lie deep down among the common people, who are here being insulted.
WORKMEN.
Hurrah for Hovstad. Hurrah! hurrah!
DR. STOCKMANN.
The sort of common people I am speaking of are not found among the lower classes alone; they crawl and swarm all around us—up to the very summits of society. Just look at your own smug, respectable Burgomaster! Why, my brother Peter belongs as clearly to the common people as any man that walks on two legs——
[_Laughter and hisses._
BURGOMASTER.
I protest against such personalities.
DR. STOCKMANN.
[_Imperturbably._]——and that not because, like myself, he’s descended from a good-for-nothing old pirate from Pomerania, or thereabouts—for that’s our ancestry——
BURGOMASTER.
An absurd tradition! Utterly groundless.
DR. STOCKMANN.
——but he is so because he thinks the thoughts and holds the opinions of his official superiors. Men who do that, belong, intellectually-speaking, to the common people; and that is why my distinguished brother Peter is at bottom so undistinguished,—and consequently so illiberal.
BURGOMASTER.
Mr. Chairman——!
HOVSTAD.
So that the distinguished people in this country are the Liberals? That’s quite a new light on the subject. _Laughter._
DR. STOCKMANN.
Yes, that is part of my new discovery. And _this_, too, follows: that liberality of thought is almost precisely the same thing as morality. Therefore I say it’s absolutely unpardonable of the _Messenger_ to proclaim, day out, day in, the false doctrine that it’s the masses, the multitude, the compact majority, that monopolise liberality and morality,—and that vice and corruption and all sorts of spiritual uncleanness ooze out of culture, as all that filth oozes down to the Baths from the Mill Dale tan-works!
[_Noise and interruptions._
DR. STOCKMANN.
[_Goes on imperturbably, smiling in his eagerness._] And yet this same _Messenger_ can preach about elevating the masses and the multitude to a higher level of well-being! Why, deuce take it, if the _Messenger’s_ own doctrine holds good, the elevation of the masses would simply mean hurling them straight to perdition! But, happily, the notion that culture demoralises is nothing but an old traditional lie. No it’s stupidity, poverty, the ugliness of life, that do the devil’s work! In a house that isn’t aired and swept every day—my wife maintains that the floors ought to be scrubbed too, but perhaps that is going too far;—well,—in such a house, I say, within two or three years, people lose the power of thinking or acting morally. Lack of oxygen enervates the conscience. And there seems to be precious little oxygen in many and many a house in this town, since the whole compact majority is unscrupulous enough to want to found its future upon a quagmire of lies and fraud.
ASLAKSEN.
I cannot allow so gross an insult to be levelled against a whole community.
A GENTLEMAN.
I move that the Chairman order the speaker to sit down.
EAGER VOICES.
Yes, yes! That’s right! Sit down! Sit down!
DR. STOCKMANN.