Adolph monologue (Act 3) — Plays by August Strindberg, Second series

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.