Quickly he uncovered the blond lower body of his patient, and began to rub the abdomen with oil, using a slow, rhythmic, circulating motion, a sort of massage.  For a long time he rubbed finely and steadily, then went over the whole of the lower body, mindless, as if in a sort of incantation.  He rubbed every speck of the man’s lower body—­the abdomen, the buttocks, the thighs and knees, down to the feet, rubbed it all warm and glowing with camphorated oil, every bit of it, chafing the toes swiftly, till he was almost exhausted.  Then Aaron was covered up again, and Lilly sat down in fatigue to look at his patient.

He saw a change.  The spark had come back into the sick eyes, and the faint trace of a smile, faintly luminous, into the face.  Aaron was regaining himself.  But Lilly said nothing.  He watched his patient fall into a proper sleep.

And he sat and watched him sleep.  And he thought to himself:  “I wonder why I do it.  I wonder why I bother with him. . . .  Jim ought to have taught me my lesson.  As soon as this man’s really better he’ll punch me in the wind, metaphorically if not actually, for having interfered with him.  And Tanny would say, he was quite right to do it.  She says I want power over them.  What if I do?  They don’t care how much power the mob has over them, the nation, Lloyd George and Northcliffe and the police and money.  They’ll yield themselves up to that sort of power quickly enough, and immolate themselves pro bono publico by the million.  And what’s the bonum publicum but a mob power?  Why can’t they submit to a bit of healthy individual authority?  The fool would die, without me:  just as that fool Jim will die in hysterics one day.  Why does he last so long!

“Tanny’s the same.  She does nothing really but resist me:  my authority, or my influence, or just ME.  At the bottom of her heart she just blindly and persistently opposes me.  God knows what it is she opposes:  just me myself.  She thinks I want her to submit to me.  So I do, in a measure natural to our two selves.  Somewhere, she ought to submit to me.  But they all prefer to kick against the pricks.  Not that THEY get many pricks.  I get them.  Damn them all, why don’t I leave them alone?  They only grin and feel triumphant when they’ve insulted one and punched one in the wind.

“This Aaron will do just the same.  I like him, and he ought to like me.  And he’ll be another Jim:  he WILL like me, if he can knock the wind out of me.  A lot of little Stavrogins coming up to whisper affectionately, and biting one’s ear.

“But anyhow I can soon see the last of this chap:  and him the last of all the rest.  I’ll be damned for ever if I see their Jims and Roberts and Julias and Scotts any more.  Let them dance round their insipid hell-broth.  Thin tack it is.