Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 8).djvu/44

 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.