It's there if you read the period novels, including the trashy ones, or even read the comic books of today. No, because I was an Victorianist once upon a time. I don't know whether imagining yourself is quite the way of putting it. No, it is all over the Victorian period. In an odd way, he imagines himself as both victimizer and rescuer.
People are strange.
They are people. I don't think it is necessarily sadism. Or how would I behave if suddenly there were two dead people in the cellar and this guy who doesn't seem very well pulled-together is stronger than me, is the only one left in the house. Also, some of it is just using your own imagination. And the washboard.