ADOLPH. [Shrinking] No!

GUSTAV. It's on the table here.

ADOLPH. [Reaching for the paper without daring to take hold of it]
Do they speak of it there?

GUSTAV. Read it--or do you want me to read it to you?

ADOLPH. No!

GUSTAV. I'll leave you, if you want me to.

ADOLPH. No, no, no!--I don't know--it seems as if I were beginning
to hate you, and yet I cannot let you go.--You drag me out of the
hole into which I have fallen, but no sooner do you get me on firm
ice, than you knock me on the head and shove me into the water
again. As long as my secrets were my own, I had still something
left within me, but now I am quite empty. There is a canvas by an
Italian master, showing a scene of torture--a saint whose
intestines are being torn out of him and rolled on the axle of a
windlass. The martyr is watching himself grow thinner and thinner,
while the roll on the axle grows thicker.--Now it seems to me as
if you had swelled out since you began to dig in me; and when you
leave, you'll carry away my vitals with you, and leave nothing but
an empty shell behind.

GUSTAV. How you do let your fancy run away with you!--And
besides, your wife is bringing back your heart.