ADOLF. Yes, yes--she's coming. [_Pause._] Strange, isn't it? I long for her and yet I'm frightened of her. She caresses me, she is tender, but her kisses have something in them which smothers one, something which sucks, something which stupefies. It is as though I were the child at the circus whose face the clown is making up in the dressing-room, so that it can appear red-cheeked before the public. GUSTAV [_leaning on the arm of Adolf's chair_]. I'm sorry for you, old man. Although I'm not a doctor I am in a position to tell you that you are a dying man. One only has to look at your last pictures to be quite clear on the point. ADOLF. What do you say--what do you mean? GUSTAV. Your coloring is so watery, so consumptive and thin, that the yellow of the canvas shines through. It is just as though your hollow ashen white cheeks were looking out at me. ADOLF. Ah! GUSTAV. Yes, and that's not only my view. Haven't you read to-day's paper? ADOLF [_he starts_]. No. GUSTAV. It's before you on the table. ADOLF [_he gropes after the paper without having the courage to take it_]. Is it in here? GUSTAV. Read it, or shall I read it to you? ADOLF. No. GUSTAV [_turns to leave_]. If you prefer it, I'll go. ADOLF. NO, no, no! I don't know how it is--I think I am beginning to hate you, but all the same I can't do without your being near me. You have helped to drag me out of the slough which I was in, and, as luck would have it, I just managed to work my way clear and then you knocked me on the head and plunged me in again. As long as I kept my secrets to myself I still had some guts--now I'm empty. There's a picture by an Italian master that describes a torture scene. The entrails are dragged out of a saint by means of a windlass. The martyr lies there and sees himself getting continually thinner and thinner, but the roll on the windless always gets perpetually fatter, and so it seems to me that you get stronger since you've taken me up and that you're taking away now with you, as you go, my innermost essence, the core of my character, and there's nothing left of me but an empty husk. GUSTAV. Oh, what fantastic notions; besides, your wife is coming back with your heart. ADOLF. No; no longer, after you have burnt it for me. You have passed through me, changing everything in your track to ashes--my art, my love, my hope, my faith. GUSTAV [_comes near to him again_]. Were you so splendidly off before? ADOLF. No, I wasn't, but the situation might have been saved; now it's too late. Murderer! GUSTAV. We've wasted a little time. Now we'll do some sowing in the ashes. ADOLF. I hate you! I curse you! GUSTAV. A healthy symptom. You've still got some strength, and now I'll screw up your machinery again. I say. [_He goes behind the square table on the left and comes in front of the sofa._] Will you listen to me and obey me? ADOLF. Do what you will with me, I'll obey. GUSTAV. Look at me.