The 80s XIX century A festive table in the office of a wealthy Norwegian businessman Verle. Among the guests are the businessman Gregers, the son of a businessman, called from a factory in the Mountain Valley (he works there as a simple employee) and Gregers old school friend Yalmar Ekdal. Friends have not seen each other for fifteen years. During this time, Yalmar got married, his daughter Hedwig was born (she is now fourteen), he started his own business - a photo studio. And, it would seem, everything is fine with him. The only thing is that Hjalmar did not finish his education due to a lack of family funds - his father, a former companion of Werle, was then sent to prison. True, Werle helped the son of a former friend: he gave Yalmar money for the equipment of a photo studio and advised him to rent an apartment with a friend of the hostess, whose daughter Yalmar married. All this seems to Gregers suspicious: he knows his father. What is the maiden name of Yalmar’s wife? By chance, not Hansen? Having received an affirmative answer, Gregers has almost no doubt: his father’s “good deeds” were dictated by the need to “get away with it” and arrange a former mistress - after all, Gina Hansen served as a housekeeper at Werle and left her house just at that time, shortly before the patient died Gregers mother. The son, apparently, cannot forgive the father for the death of his mother, although he is obviously not to blame for her. As Gregers suspects, his father married, hoping to receive a large dowry, which he nonetheless did not get. Gregers directly asks his father if he was deceiving the deceased mother with Gina, but he answers the question evasively. Then, resolutely rejecting Werle’s offer to become his companion, the son announces that he is breaking with him. He now has a special purpose in life.

Which one, it soon becomes clear. Gregers decided to open Yalmar’s eyes to the “quagmire of lies” into which he was immersed, because Yalmar, the “naive and great soul,” does not suspect anything of this and sincerely believes in the kindness of a businessman. Overcome, in the words of his father, “hot honesty,” Gregers believes that, having opened the truth to Yalmar, he will give impetus to a “great settlement with the past” and help him “build a new solid building on the ruins of the past, start a new life, create a marital union in in the spirit of truth, without lies and hiding. ”

To this end, Gregers also visits the Ekdaley family apartment on the same day, located on the attic floor and serving simultaneously as a pavilion of the shop. The apartment communicates with an attic spacious enough to hold rabbits and chickens in it, which old Ekdal, father of Yalmar, occasionally shoots with a pistol, imagining that he hunts bears and partridges in the same way as in the old days in the Mountain Valley. . The best and worst experiences of the elder Ekdal are connected with the Mountain Valley: after all, he was sent to prison for logging there, in the vicinity of their plant common with Verlet.

Gregers did not immediately lay out bitter truth before Hjalmar. He is eyeing the family - Gina, who is rustic and always burdened with worries (in fact, she does all the work of the shop and does all the work in it), the old man Ekdal, who has lost his mind and is obviously broken by the prison, to the fourteen-year-old Hedwig - an enthusiastic and exalted girl who adores her Hedwig’s doomed father tells Gregers that the doctors are telling her that she’ll soon go blind), and finally to Yalmar himself, who is hiding his parasitism under the guise of relentless work on an invention that, according to him, should restore the welfare and honest name of his family.

Since Gregers had left Mountain Valley, and now also left his father’s house, he needed an apartment. It is precisely such a suitable room with a separate passage that Ekdaly has in the house, and they, however, not without Gina’s resistance, surrender it to the son of their benefactor. The next day, Verlet, worried about the hostile mood of his son, calls in on him, he wants to find out what his son is plotting against him. Having learned Gregers' “goal”, the businessman makes fun of him and warns him that he would not be disappointed in his new idol, Yalmar. The same, albeit in harsher terms, is explained to Gregers by his floor neighbor, drunkard and reveler Dr. Relling, a frequent guest in the Ekdaley family. Truth, according to Relling's theory, is not needed by anyone, and should not be worn with it, as with a written sack. Opening his eyes to Hjalmar, Gregers will achieve nothing but trouble for the Ekdaley family. According to the doctor, "to take the everyday lie from the average person is the same as to take away his happiness." Events confirm the justice of his dictum.

Gregers goes for a walk with Hjalmar and gives him all the ins and outs of his family life as he sees it. Having returned, Yalmar loudly announces to his wife that from now on he will conduct all the atelier's affairs and home accounts himself - he no longer trusts her. Is it true that she was close to businessman Verlet when she worked for him as a housekeeper? Gina does not deny the past connection. True, she was not to blame for Verle's sick wife - in fact, Verle was molesting her, but everything that happened between them happened after the death of his wife, when Gina no longer worked for Verle. However, all this is so old, in the words of Gina, "affair" that she forgot to think about them.

Yalmar calms down somewhat. Present at the conjugal explanation, Dr. Relling wholeheartedly sends Gregers to hell and expresses his sincere wish that he, "this medicine man, this healer of souls, be removed home. Not that he will confuse everyone! ” Suddenly, Fr Sørbyu, Verle's housekeeper, comes to Gina. She came to say goodbye to her because she was getting married to the owner, and they immediately left for her factory in the Mountain Valley. Dr. Relling this news plunges into despondency - once he and Fr. Serby were connected by a serious feeling. Gregers asks if Fru Serby is afraid of what he will report to their father about their past connection. The answer is negative: no, he and Verlet told each other everything about the past - their marriage is based on honesty. Fru Serbiu will not leave her husband under any circumstances, even when he becomes completely helpless. Don't those present know that Werle will soon go blind?

This news, as well as the gift from Verla (according to her, old man Ekdal; handed over by the housekeeper Hedwig; and then after his death Hedwig will receive a monthly allowance of one hundred kroons) take Yalmar Ekdal out of his usual complacent mood. If he vaguely guessed about the connection of Gina’s past with the good deeds of Verlé, then the news of the same eye disease in Verlé and his daughter, as well as the gift, took him by surprise and wounded him in the heart. Is it possible that Hedwig is not his daughter, but Werle? Gina honestly admits that she cannot answer this question. Then maybe she knows how much the accountant Werle pays old man Ekdal for rewriting business papers? About as much as it takes to maintain it, Gina answers. Well, tomorrow morning, Yalmar will leave this house, but first he will go to the accountant and ask him to calculate their debt for all past years. They will give everything back! Hjalmar tears apart a gift in two and, together with Dr. Relling (who has his own sorrows), sets off for the night looking into the spree.

But, having overslept at the neighbor, Yalmar returns the next day. He cannot leave home right now - in night wanderings he lost his hat. Gradually Gina calms him and persuades him to stay. Yalmar even glues a gift of gift broken off by him (one must also think about the old father!). But he stubbornly does not notice his beloved Hedwig. The girl is in despair. The night before, Gregers advised her how to regain her father's love. It is necessary to bring him his “child sacrifice”, to do something so that his father sees how she loves him. Yalmar now really disliked the wild duck, the very one that lives in their drawer in the attic - after all, it went to the Ekdal from Verla. The businessman wounded her while hunting on the lake, and then his servant gave the duck to old Ekdal. Hedwig will prove his love to his father if he sacrifices a wild duck for her, which she also loves. Well, Hedwig agrees, she will persuade her grandfather to shoot the duck, although she does not understand why dad was so angry with her: even if she wasn’t his daughter and she was found somewhere - she read about this - but they also found a wild duck, and it does not stop her, Hedwig, from loving her!

The tragic denouement is approaching. The next day, Hjalmar, not wanting to see his daughter, drives her from everywhere. Hedwig is hiding in the attic. At the time of the conversation, when Hjalmar convinces Gregers that Hedwig can cheat on him, it only takes Werle, perhaps her real father, to entice her with his wealth, in the attic there is a shot. Gregers rejoices - this is the old man Ekdal shot a wild duck at the request of Hedwig. But the grandfather runs into the pavilion from the other side. An accident occurred: Hedwig accidentally discharged a gun. Dr. Relling does not believe this: the girl’s blouse is scorched, she intentionally shot herself. And Gregers is to blame for her death with his "ideal demands" presented by a mere mortal. Were it not for these “ideal requirements”, life on earth could be tolerable.

In that case, says Gregers, he is pleased with his destiny. The doctor asks what is it? Be the thirteenth at the table!