"This leads to lengthy discussion of his anxiety at leaving his mother at night and his attempts to force her to come and kiss him goodnight, even on nights when the family has company, culminating in a spectacular success, when his father suggests that his mother stay the night with him after he has waylaid her in the hall when she is going to bed.His anxiety leads to manipulation, much like the manipulation employed by his invalid aunt Leonie and all the lovers in the entire book, who use the same methods of petty tyranny to manipulate and possess their loved ones.