The Penguin Arthur Miller

by Arthur Miller

  DR. STOCKMANN: Peter, do you imagine that I would ever agree to such trickery?

  PETER STOCKMANN: Trickery?

  DR. STOCKMANN: Yes, a trick, a fraud, a lie! A treachery, a downright crime, against the public and against the whole community!

  PETER STOCKMANN: I said before that I am not convinced that there is any actual danger.

  DR. STOCKMANN: Oh, you aren’t? Anything else is impossible! My report is an absolute fact. The only trouble is that you and your administration were the ones who insisted that the water supply be built where it is, and now you’re afraid to admit the blunder you committed. Damn it! Don’t you think I can see through it all?

  PETER STOCKMANN: All right, let’s suppose that’s true. Maybe I do care a little about my reputation. I still say I do it for the good of the town—without moral authority there can be no government. And that is why, Thomas, it is my duty to prevent your report from reaching the Board. Some time later I will bring up the matter for discussion. In the meantime, not a single word is to reach the public.

  DR. STOCKMANN: Oh, my dear Peter, do you imagine you can prevent that!

  PETER STOCKMANN: It will be prevented.

  DR. STOCKMANN: It can’t be. There are too many people who already know about it.

  PETER STOCKMANN, angered: Who? It can’t possibly be those people from the Daily Messenger who—

  DR. STOCKMANN: Exactly. The liberal, free, and independent press will stand up and do its duty!

  PETER STOCKMANN: You are an unbelievably irresponsible man, Thomas! Can’t you imagine what consequences that is going to have for you?

  DR. STOCKMANN: For me?

  PETER STOCKMANN: Yes, for you and your family.

  DR. STOCKMANN: What the hell are you saying now!

  PETER STOCKMANN: I believe I have the right to think of myself as a helpful brother, Thomas.

  DR. STOCKMANN: You have been, and I thank you deeply for it.

  PETER STOCKMANN: Don’t mention it. I often couldn’t help myself. I had hoped that by improving your finances I would be able to keep you from running completely hog wild.

  DR. STOCKMANN: You mean it was only for your own sake?

  PETER STOCKMANN: Partly, yes. What do you imagine people think of an official whose closest relatives get themselves into trouble time and time again?

  DR. STOCKMANN: And that’s what I have done?

  PETER STOCKMANN: You do it without knowing it. You’re like a man with an automatic brain—as soon as an idea breaks into your head, no matter how idiotic it may be, you get up like a sleepwalker and start writing a pamphlet about it.

  DR. STOCKMANN: Peter, don’t you think it’s a citizen’s duty to share a new idea with the public?

  PETER STOCKMANN: The public doesn’t need new ideas—the public is much better off with old ideas.

  DR. STOCKMANN: You’re not even embarrassed to say that?

  PETER STOCKMANN: Now look, I’m going to lay this out once and for all. You’re always barking about authority. If a man gives you an order he’s persecuting you. Nothing is important enough to respect once you decide to revolt against your superiors. All right then, I give up. I’m not going to try to change you any more. I told you the stakes you are playing for here, and now I am going to give you an order. And I warn you, you had better obey it if you value your career.

  DR. STOCKMANN: What kind of an order?

  PETER STOCKMANN: You are going to deny these rumors officially.

  DR. STOCKMANN: How?

  PETER STOCKMANN: You simply say that you went into the examination of the water more thoroughly and you find that you overestimated the danger.

  DR. STOCKMANN: I see.

  PETER STOCKMANN: And that you have complete confidence that whatever improvements are needed, the management will certainly take care of them.

  DR. STOCKMANN, after a pause: My convictions come from the condition of the water. My convictions will change when the water changes, and for no other reason.

  PETER STOCKMANN: What are you talking about convictions? You’re an official, you keep your convictions to yourself!

  DR. STOCKMANN: To myself?

  PETER STOCKMANN: As an official, I said. God knows, as a private person that’s something else, but as a subordinate employee of the Institute, you have no right to express any convictions or personal opinions about anything connected with policy.

  DR. STOCKMANN: Now you listen to me. I am a doctor and a scientist—

  PETER STOCKMANN: This has nothing to do with science!

  DR. STOCKMANN: Peter, I have the right to express my opinion on anything in the world!

  PETER STOCKMANN: Not about the Institute—that I forbid.

  DR. STOCKMANN: You forbid!

  PETER STOCKMANN: I forbid you as your superior, and when I give orders you obey.

  DR. STOCKMANN: Peter, if you weren’t my brother—

  PETRA, throwing the door at the left open: Father! You aren’t going to stand for this! She enters.

  MRS. STOCKMANN, coming in after her: Petra, Petra!

  PETER STOCKMANN: What have you two been doing, eavesdropping?

  MRS. STOCKMANN: You were talking so loud we couldn’t help . . .

  PETRA: Yes, I was eavesdropping!

  PETER STOCKMANN: That makes me very happy.

  DR. STOCKMANN, approaching his brother: You said something to me about forbidding—

  PETER STOCKMANN: You forced me to.

  DR. STOCKMANN: So you want me to spit in my own face officially—is that it?

  PETER STOCKMANN: Why must you always be so colorful?

  DR. STOCKMANN: And if I don’t obey?

  PETER STOCKMANN: Then we will publish our own statement, to calm the public.

  DR. STOCKMANN: Good enough! And I will write against you. I will stick to what I said, and I will prove that I am right and that you are wrong, and what will you do then?

  PETER STOCKMANN: Then I simply won’t be able to prevent your dismissal.

  DR. STOCKMANN: What!

  PETRA: Father!

  PETER STOCKMANN: Dismissed from the Institute is what I said. If you want to make war on Kirsten Springs, you have no right to be on the Board of Directors.

  DR. STOCKMANN, after a pause: You’d dare to do that?

  PETER STOCKMANN: Oh, no, you’re the daring man.

  PETRA: Uncle, this is a rotten way to treat a man like Father!

  MRS. STOCKMANN: Will you be quiet, Petra!

  PETER STOCKMANN: So young and you’ve got opinions already—but that’s natural. To Mrs. Stockmann: Catherine dear, you’re probably the only sane person in this house. Knock some sense into his head, will you? Make him realize what he’s driving his whole family into.

  DR. STOCKMANN: My family concerns nobody but myself.

  PETER STOCKMANN: His family and his own town.

  DR. STOCKMANN: I’m going to show you who loves his town. The people are going to get the full stink of this corruption, Peter, and then we will see who loves his town!

  PETER STOCKMANN: You love your town when you blindly, spitefully, stubbornly go ahead trying to cut off our most important industry?

  DR. STOCKMANN: That source is poisoned, man. We are getting fat by peddling filth and corruption to innocent people!

  PETER STOCKMANN: I think this has gone beyond opinions and convictions, Thomas. A man who can throw that kind of insinuation around is nothing but a traitor to society!

  DR. STOCKMANN, starting toward his brother in a fury: How dare you to—

  MRS. STOCKMANN, stepping between them: Tom!

  PETRA, grabbing her father’s arm: Be careful, Father!

  PETER STOCKMANN, with dignity: I won’t expose myself to violence. You have been warned. Consider what you owe yourself and your family! Good day! He exits.
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  DR. STOCKMANN, walking up and down: He’s insulted. He’s insulted!

  MRS. STOCKMANN: It’s shameful, Tom.

  PETRA: Oh, I would love to give him a piece of my mind!

  DR. STOCKMANN: It was my own fault! I should have shown my teeth right from the beginning. He called me a traitor to society. Me! Damn it all, that’s not going to stick!

  MRS. STOCKMANN: Please, think! He’s got all the power on his side.

  DR. STOCKMANN: Yes, but I have the truth on mine.

  MRS. STOCKMANN: Without power, what good is the truth?

  PETRA: Mother, how can you say such a thing?

  DR. STOCKMANN: That’s ridiculous, Catherine. I have the liberal press with me, and the majority. If that isn’t power, what is?

  MRS. STOCKMANN: But, for heaven’s sake, Tom, you aren’t going to—

  DR. STOCKMANN: What am I not going to do?

  MRS. STOCKMANN: You aren’t going to fight it out in public with your brother!

  DR. STOCKMANN: What the hell else do you want me to do?

  MRS. STOCKMANN: But it won’t do you any earthly good. If they won’t do it, they won’t. All you’ll get out of it is a notice that you’re fired.

  DR. STOCKMANN: I am going to do my duty, Catherine. Me, the man he calls a traitor to society!

  MRS. STOCKMANN: And how about your duty toward your family—the people you’re supposed to provide for?

  PETRA: Don’t always think of us first, Mother.

  MRS. STOCKMANN, to Petra: You can talk! If worst comes to worst, you can manage for yourself. But what about the boys, Tom, and you and me?

  DR. STOCKMANN: What about you? You want me to be the miserable animal who’d crawl up the boots of that damn gang? Will you be happy if I can’t face myself the rest of my life?

  MRS. STOCKMANN: Tom, Tom, there’s so much injustice in the world! You’ve simply got to learn to live with it. If you go on this way, God help us, we’ll have no money again. Is it so long since the north that you’ve forgotten what it was to live like we lived? Haven’t we had enough of that for one lifetime? The boys enter. What will happen to them? We’ve got nothing if you’re fired!

  DR. STOCKMANN: Stop it! He looks at the boys. Well, boys, did you learn anything in school today?

  MORTEN, looking at them, puzzled: We learned what an insect is.

  DR. STOCKMANN: You don’t say!

  MORTEN: What happened here? Why is everybody—

  DR. STOCKMANN: Nothing, nothing. You know what I’m going to do, boys? From now on I’m going to teach you what a man is. He looks at Mrs. Stockmann. She cries as

  THE CURTAIN FALLS.

  ACT TWO

  SCENE I

  The editorial office of the People’s Daily Messenger. At the back of the room, to the left, is a door leading to the printing room. Near it, in the left wall, is another door. At the right of the stage is the entrance door. In the middle of the room there is a large table covered with papers, newspapers, and books. Around it are a few chairs. A writing desk stands against the right wall. The room is dingy and cheerless, the furniture shabby.

  As the curtain rises, Billing is sitting at the desk, reading the manuscript. Hovstad comes in after a moment from the printing room. Billing looks up.

  BILLING: The Doctor not come yet?

  HOVSTAD: No, not yet. You finish it?

  Billing holds up a hand to signal “just a moment.” He reads on, the last paragraph of the manuscript. Hovstad comes and stands over him, reading with him. Now Billing closes the manuscript, glances up at Hovstad with some trepidation, then looks off. Hovstad, looking at Billing, walks a few steps away.

  HOVSTAD: Well? What do you think of it?

  BILLING, with some hesitation: It’s devastating. The Doctor is a brilliant man. I swear, I myself never really understood how incompetent those fat fellows are, on top. He picks up the manuscript and waves it a little. I hear the rumble of revolution in this.

  HOVSTAD, looking toward the door: Sssh! Aslaksen’s inside.

  BILLING: Aslaksen’s a coward. With all that moderation talk, all he’s saying is, he’s yellow. You’re going to print this, aren’t you?

  HOVSTAD: Sure, I’m just waiting for the Doctor to give the word. If his brother hasn’t given in, we put it on the press anyway.

  BILLING: Yes, but if the Mayor’s against this it’s going to get pretty rough. You know that, don’t you?

  HOVSTAD: Just let him try to block the reconstruction—the little businessmen and the whole town’ll be screaming for his head. Aslaksen’ll see to that.

  BILLING, ecstatically: The stockholders’ll have to lay out’a fortune of money if this goes through!

  HOVSTAD: My boy, I think it’s going to bust them. And when the springs go busted, the people are finally going to understand the level of genius that’s been running this town. Those five sheets of paper are going to put in a liberal administration once and for all.

  BILLING: It’s a revolution. You know that? With hope and fear: I mean it, we’re on the edge of a real revolution!

  DR. STOCKMANN, entering: Put it on the press!

  HOVSTAD, excited: Wonderful! What did the Mayor say?

  DR. STOCKMANN: The Mayor has declared war, so war is what it’s going to be! He takes the manuscript from Billing. And this is only the beginning! You know what he tried to do?

  BILLING, calling into the printing room: Mr. Aslaksen, the Doctor’s here!

  DR. STOCKMANN, continuing: He actually tried to blackmail me! He’s got the nerve to tell me that I’m not allowed to speak my mind without his permission! Imagine the shameless effrontery!

  HOVSTAD: He actually said it right out?

  DR. STOCKMANN: Right to my face! The trouble with me was I kept giving them credit for being our kind of people, but they’re dictators! They’re people who’ll try to hold power even if they have to poison the town to do it.

  Toward the last part of Dr. Stockmann’s speech Aslaksen enters.

  ASLAKSEN: Now take it easy, Doctor, you—you mustn’t always be throwing accusations. I’m with you, you understand, but moderation—

  DR. STOCKMANN, cutting him off: What’d you think of the article, Hovstad?

  HOVSTAD: It’s a masterpiece. In one blow you’ve managed to prove beyond any doubt what kind of men are running us.

  ASLAKSEN: May we print it now, then?

  DR. STOCKMANN: I should say so!

  HOVSTAD: We’ll have it ready for tomorrow’s paper.

  DR. STOCKMANN: And listen, Mr. Aslaksen, do me a favor, will you? You run a fine paper, but supervise the printing personally, eh? I’d hate to see the weather report stuck into the middle of my article.

  ASLAKSEN, laughing: Don’t worry, that won’t happen this time!

  DR. STOCKMANN: Make it perfect, eh? Like you were printing money. You can’t imagine how I’m dying to see it in print. After all the lies in the papers, the half-lies, the quarter-lies—to finally see the absolute, unvarnished truth about something important. And this is only the beginning. We’ll go on to other subjects and blow up every lie we live by! What do you say, Aslaksen?

  ASLAKSEN, nodding in agreement: But just remember . . .

  BILLING and hovstad together with aslaksen: Moderation!

  ASLAKSEN, to Billing and Hovstad: I don’t know what’s so funny about that!

  BILLING, enthralled: Doctor Stockmann, I feel as though I were standing in some historic painting. Goddammit, this is a historic day! Someday this scene’ll be in a museum, entitled, “The Day the Truth Was Born.”

  DR. STOCKMANN, suddenly: Oh! I’ve got a patient half-bandaged down the street. He leaves.

  HOVSTAD, to Aslaksen: I hope you realize how useful he could be to us.

  ASLAKSEN: I don’t like that business about “this is only the beginning.” Let him st
ick to the springs.

  BILLING: What makes you so scared all the time?

  ASLAKSEN: I have to live here. It’d be different if he were attacking the national government or something, but if he thinks I’m going to start going after the whole town administration—

  BILLING: What’s the difference? Bad is bad!

  ASLAKSEN: Yes, but there is a difference. You attack the national government, what’s going to happen? Nothing. They go right on. But a town administration—they’re liable to be overthrown or something! I represent the small property owners in this town—

  BILLING: Ha! It’s always the same. Give a man a little property and the truth can go to hell!

  ASLAKSEN: Mr. Billing, I’m older than you are. I’ve seen fire-eaters before. You know who used to work at that desk before you? Councilman Stensford—councilman!

  BILLING: Just because I work at a renegade’s desk, does that mean—

  ASLAKSEN: You’re a politician. A politician never knows where he’s going to end up. And besides you applied for a job as secretary to the Magistrate, didn’t you?

  HOVSTAD, surprised, laughs: Billing!

  BILLING, to Hovstad: Well, why not? If I get it I’ll have a chance to put across some good things. I could put plenty of big boys on the spot with a job like that!

  ASLAKSEN: All right, I’m just saying. He goes to the printing-room door. People change. Just remember when you call me a coward—I may not have made the hot speeches, but I never went back on my beliefs either. Unlike some of the big radicals around here, I didn’t change. Of course, I am a little more moderate, but moderation is—

  HOVSTAD: Oh, God!

  ASLAKSEN: I don’t see what’s so funny about that! He glares at Hovstad and goes out.

  BILLING: If we could get rid of him we—

  HOVSTAD: Take it easy—he pays the printing bill, he’s not that bad. He picks up the manuscript. I’ll get the printer on this. He starts out.

  BILLING: Say, Hovstad, how about asking Stockmann to back us? Then we could really put out a paper!

  HOVSTAD: What would he do for money?