Lolita

file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt Vladimir Nabokov. Lolita Spellchecked by M. Avrekh, 21 Dec 1999 FOREWORD "Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male," such were the two titles under which the writer of the present note received the strangepages it preambulates. "Humbert Humbert," their author, had died in legalcaptivity, of coronary thrombosis, on November 16, 1952, a few days beforehis trial was scheduled to start. His lawyer, my good friend and relation,Clarence Choate Clark, Esq., now of the District of Columbia bar, in askingme to edit the manuscript, based his request on a clause in his client'swill which empowered my eminent cousin to use the discretion in all matterspertaining to the preparation of "Lolita" for print. Mr. Clark's decisionmay have been influenced by the fact that the editor of his choice had justbeen awarded the Poling Prize for a modest work ("Do the Senses makeSense?") wherein certain morbid states and perversions had been discussed. My task proved simpler than either of us had anticipated. Save for thecorrection of obvious solecisms and a careful suppression of a few tenaciousdetails that despite "H.H."'s own efforts still subsisted in his text assignposts and tombstones (indicative of places or persons that taste wouldconceal and compassion spare), this remarkable memoir is presented intact.Its author's bizarre cognomen is his own invention; and, of course, thismask--through which two hypnotic eyes seem to glow--had to remain unliftedin accordance with its wearer's wish. While "Haze" only rhymes with theheroine's real surname, her first name is too closely interwound with theinmost fiber of the book to allow one to alter it; nor (as the reader willperceive for himself) is there any practical necessity to do so. Referencesto "H.H."'s crime may be looked up by the inquisitive in the daily papersfor September-October 1952; its cause and purpose would have continued tocome under my reading lamp. For the benefit of old-fashioned readers who wish to follow thedestinies of the "real" people beyond the "true" story, a few details may begiven as received from Mr. "Windmuller," or "Ramsdale," who desires hisidentity suppressed so that "the long shadow of this sorry and sordid file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (1 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt business" should not reach the community to which he is proud to belong. His daughter, "Louise," is by now a college sophomore, "Mona Dahl" is a studentin Paris. "Rita" has recently married the proprietor of a hotel in Florida.Mrs. "Richard F. Schiller" died in childbed, giving birth to a stillborngirl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlemen in the remotestNorthwest. "Vivian Darkbloom" has written a biography, "My Cue," to bepublshed shortly, and critics who have perused the manuscript call it herbest book. The caretakers of the various cemeteries involved report that noghosts walk. Viewed simply as a novel, "Lolita" deals with situations and emotionsthat would remain exasperatingly vague to the reader had their expressionbeen etiolated by means of platitudinous evasions. True, not a singleobscene term is to be found in the whole work; indeed, the robust philistinewho is conditioned by modern conventions into accepting without qualms alavish array of four-letter words in a banal novel, will be quite shocked bytheir absence here. If, however, for this paradoxical prude's comfort, aneditor attempted to dilute or omit scenes that a certain type of mind mightcall "aphrodisiac" (see in this respect the monumental decision renderedDecember 6, 1933, by Hon. John M.

a singleobscene term is to be found in the whole work; indeed, the robust philistinewho is conditioned by modern conventions into accepting without qualms alavish array of four-letter words in a banal novel, will be quite shocked bytheir absence here. If, however, for this paradoxical prude's comfort, aneditor attempted to dilute or omit scenes that a certain type of mind mightcall "aphrodisiac" (see in this respect the monumental decision renderedDecember 6, 1933, by Hon. John M. Woolsey in regard to another, considerablymore outspoken, book), one would have to forego the publication of "Lolita"altogether, since those very scenes that one might ineptly accuse ofsensuous existence of their own, are the most strictly functional ones inthe development of a tragic tale tending unswervingly to nothing less thana moral apotheosis. The cynic may say that commercial pornography makes thesame claim; the learned may counter by asserting that "H.H."'s impassionedconfession is a tempest in a test tube; that at least 12% of American adultmales--a "conservative" estimate according to Dr. Blanche Schwarzmann(verbal communication)--enjoy yearly, in one way or another, the specialexperience "H.H." describes with such despare; that had our demented diaristgone, in the fatal summer of 1947, to a competent psycho-pathologist, therewould have been no disaster; but then, neither would there have been thisbook. This commentator may be excused for repeating what he has stressed inhis own books and lectures, namely that "offensive" is frequently but asynonym for "unusual;" and a great work of art is of course always original,and thus by its very nature should come as a more or less shocking surprise.I have no intention to glorify "H.H." No doubt, he is horrible, is isabject, he is a shining example of moral leprosy, a mixture of ferocity andjocularity that betrays supreme misery perhaps, but is not conducive toattractiveness. He is ponderously capricious. Many of his casual opinions onthe people and scenery of this country are ludicrous. A desperate honestythat throbs through his confession does not absolve him from sins ofdiabolical cunning. He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman. But how magically file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (2 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt his singing violin can conjure up a tendresse, a compassion for Lolita that makes us entranced with the book while abhorring its author! As a case history, "Lolita" will become, no doubt, a classic inpsychiatric circles. As a work of art, it transcends its expiatory aspects;and still more important to us than scientific significance and literaryworth, is the ethical impact the book should have on the serious reader; forin this poignant personal study there lurks a general lesson; the waywardchild, the egotistic mother, the panting maniac--these are not only vividcharacters in a unique story: they warn us of dangerous trends; they pointout potent evils. "Lolita" should make all of us--parents, social workers,educators--apply ourselves with still greater vigilance and vision to thetask of bringing up a better generation in a safer world. John Ray, Jr., Ph.D. Widworth, Mass * PART ONE * 1 Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap,at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in onesock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores onthe dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact,there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, acertain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About asman

eps down the palate to tap,at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in onesock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores onthe dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact,there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, acertain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About asmany years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can alwayscount on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what theseraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at thistangle of thorns. 2 I was born in 1910, in Paris. My father was a gentle, easy-going file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (3 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt person, a salad of racial genes: a Swiss citizen, of mixed French and Austrian descent, with a dash of the Danube in his veins. I am going to passaround in a minute some lovely, glossy-blue picture-postcards. He owned aluxurious hotel on the Riviera. His father and two grandfathers had soldwine, jewels and silk, respectively. At thirty he married an English girl,daughter of Jerome Dunn, the alpinist, and granddaughter of two Dorsetparsons, experts in obscure subjects--paleopedology and Aeolian harps,respectively. My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic,lightning) when I was three, and, save for a pocket of warmth in the darkestpast, nothing of her subsists within the hollows and dells of memory, overwhich, if you can still stand my style (I am writing under observation), thesun of my infancy had set: surely, you all know those redolent remnants ofday suspended, with the midges, about some hedge in bloom or suddenlyentered and traversed by the rambler, at the bottom of a hill, in the summerdusk; a furry warmth, golden midges. My mother's elder sister, Sybil, whom a cousin of my father's hadmarried and then neglected, served in my immediate family as a kind ofunpaid governess and housekeeper. Somebody told me later that she had beenin love with my father, and that he had lightheartedly taken advantage of itone rainy day and forgotten it by the time the weather cleared. I wasextremely fond of her, despite the rigidity--the fatal rigidity--of some ofher rules. Perhaps she wanted to make of me, in the fullness of time, abetter widower than my father. Aunt Sybil had pink-rimmed azure eyes and awaxen complexion. She wrote poetry. She was poetically superstitious. Shesaid she knew she would die soon after my sixteenth birthday, and did. Herhusband, a great traveler in perfumes, spent most of his time in America,where eventually he founded a firm and acquired a bit of real estate. I grew, a happy, healthy child in a bright would of illustrated books,clean sand, orange trees, friendly dogs, sea vistas and smiling faces.Around me the splendid Hotel Mirana revolved as a kind of private universe,a whitewashed cosmos within the blue greater one that blazed outside. Fromthe aproned pot-scrubber to the flanneled potentate, everybody liked me,everybody petted me. Elderly American ladies leaning on their canes listedtowards me like towers of Pisa. Ruined Russian princesses who could not paymy father, bought me expensive bonbons. He, mon cher petit papa, tookme out boating and biking, taught me to swim and dive and water-ski, read tome Don Quixote and Les Miserables, and I adored and respectedhim and felt glad for him whenever I overheard the servants discuss hisvarious lady-friends, beautiful and kind beings who made much of me andcooed and shed precious tears over my cheerful motherlessness. I attended an English day school a fe

Russian princesses who could not paymy father, bought me expensive bonbons. He, mon cher petit papa, tookme out boating and biking, taught me to swim and dive and water-ski, read tome Don Quixote and Les Miserables, and I adored and respectedhim and felt glad for him whenever I overheard the servants discuss hisvarious lady-friends, beautiful and kind beings who made much of me andcooed and shed precious tears over my cheerful motherlessness. I attended an English day school a few miles from home, and there Iplayed rackets and fives, and got excellent marks, and was on perfect termswith schoolmates and teachers alike. The only definite sexual events that I file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (4 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt can remember as having occurred before my thirteenth birthday (that is, before I first saw my little Annabel) were: a solemn, decorous and purelytheoretical talk about pubertal surprises in the rose garden of the schoolwith an American kid, the son of a then celebrated motion-picture actresswhom he seldom saw in the three-dimensional world; and some interestingreactions on the part of my organism to certain photographs, pearl andumbra, with infinitely soft partings, in Pichon's sumptuous La BeautèHumaine that that I had filched from under a mountain of marble-boundGraphics in the hotel library. Later, in his delightful debonairmanner, my father gave me all the information he thought I needed about sex;this was just before sending me, in the autumn of 1923, to a lycèe inLyon (where we were to spend three winters); but alas, in the summer of thatyear, he was touring Italy with Mme de R. and her daughter, and I had nobodyto complain to, nobody to consult. 3 Annabel was, like the writer, of mixed parentage: half-English, half-Dutch, in her case. I remember her features far less distinctly todaythan I did a few years ago, before I knew Lolita. There are two kinds ofvisual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratoryof your mind, with your eyes open (and then I see Annabel in such generalterms as: "honey-colored skin," "think arms," "brown bobbed hair," "longlashes," "big bright mouth"); and the other when you instantly evoke, withshut eyes, on the dark inner side of your eyelids, the objective, absolutelyoptical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors (andthis is how I see Lolita). Let me therefore primly limit myself, in describing Annabel, to sayingshe was a lovely child a few months my junior. Her parents were old friendsof my aunt's, and as stuffy as she. They had rented a villa not far fromHotel Mirana. Bald brown Mr. Leigh and fat, powdered Mrs. Leigh (bornVanessa van Ness). How I loathed them! At first, Annabel and I talked ofperipheral affairs. She kept lifting handfuls of fine sand and letting itpour through her fingers. Our brains were turned the way those ofintelligent European preadolescents were in our day and set, and I doubt ifmuch individual genius should be assigned to our interest in the pluralityof inhabited worlds, competitive tennis, infinity, solipsism and so on. Thesoftness and fragility of baby animals caused us the same intense pain. Shewanted to be a nurse in some famished Asiatic country; I wanted to be afamous spy. All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in lovewith each other; hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (5 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other's soul and flesh; but there wewere, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found anopportunity to do. After one

shamelessly, agonizingly in lovewith each other; hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (5 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other's soul and flesh; but there wewere, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found anopportunity to do. After one wild attempt we made to meet at night in hergarden (of which more later), the only privacy we were allowed was to be outof earshot but not out of sight on the populous part of the plage.There, on the soft sand, a few feet away from our elders, we would sprawlall morning, in a petrified paroxysm of desire, and take advantage of everyblessed quirk in space and time to touch each other: her hand, half-hiddenin the sand, would creep toward me, its slender brown fingers sleepwalkingnearer and nearer; then, her opalescent knee would start on a long cautiousjourney; sometimes a chance rampart built by younger children granted ussufficient concealment to graze each other's salty lips; these incompletecontacts drove our healthy and inexperienced young bodies to such a state ofexasperation that not even the cold blue water, under which we still clawedat each other, could bring relief. Among some treasures I lost during the wanderings of my adult years,there was a snapshot taken by my aunt which showed Annabel, her parents andthe staid, elderly, lame gentleman, a Dr. Cooper, who that same summercourted my aunt, grouped around a table in a sidewalk cafe. Annabel did notcome out well, caught as she was in the act of bending over her chocolatglacè, and her thin bare shoulders and the parting in her hair wereabout all that could be identified (as I remember that picture) amid thesunny blur into which her lost loveliness graded; but I, sitting somewhatapart from the rest, came out with a kind of dramatic conspicuousness: amoody, beetle-browed boy in a dark sport shirt and well-tailored whiteshorts, his legs crossed, sitting in profile, looking away. That photographwas taken on the last day of our fatal summer and just a few minutes beforewe made our second and final attempt to thwart fate. Under the flimsiest ofpretexts (this was our very last chance, and nothing really mattered) weescaped from the cafe to the beach, and found a desolate stretch of sand,and there, in the violet shadow of some red rocks forming a kind of cave,had a brief session of avid caresses, with somebody's lost pair ofsunglasses for only witness. I was on my knees, and on the point ofpossessing my darling, when two bearded bathers, the old man of the sea andhis brother, came out of the sea with exclamations of ribald encouragement,and four months later she died of typhus in Corfu. 4 I leaf again and again through these miserable memories, and keep asking myself, was it then, in the glitter of that remote summer, that the file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (6 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt rift in my life began; or was my excessive desire for that child only the first evidence of an inherent singularity? When I try to analyze my owncravings, motives, actions and so forth, I surrender to a sort ofretrospective imagination which feeds the analytic faculty with boundlessalternatives and which causes each visualized route to fork and re-forkwithout end in the maddeningly complex prospect of my past. I am convinced,however, that in a certain magic and fateful way Lolita began with Annabel. I also know that the shock of Annabel's death consolidated thefrustration of that nightmare summer, made of it a permanent obstacle to anyfurther romance throughout the cold years of my youth. T

ve imagination which feeds the analytic faculty with boundlessalternatives and which causes each visualized route to fork and re-forkwithout end in the maddeningly complex prospect of my past. I am convinced,however, that in a certain magic and fateful way Lolita began with Annabel. I also know that the shock of Annabel's death consolidated thefrustration of that nightmare summer, made of it a permanent obstacle to anyfurther romance throughout the cold years of my youth. The spiritual and thephysical had been blended in us with a perfection that must remainincomprehensible to the matter-of-fact, crude, standard-brained youngstersof today. Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating through mine.Long before we met we had had the same dreams. We compared notes. We foundstrange affinities. The same June of the same year (1919) a stray canary hadfluttered into her house and mine, in two widely separated countries. Oh,Lolita, had you loved me thus! I have reserved for the conclusion of my "Annabel" phase the account ofour unsuccessful first tryst. One night, she managed to deceive the viciousvigilance of her family. In a nervous and slender-leaved mimosa grove at theback of their villa we found a perch on the ruins of a low stone wall.Through the darkness and the tender trees we could see the arabesques oflighted windows which, touched up by the colored inks of sensitive memory,appear to me now like playing cards--presumably because a bridge game waskeeping the enemy busy. She trembled and twitched as I kissed the corner ofher parted lips and the hot lobe of her ear. A cluster of stars palelyglowed above us, between the silhouettes of long thin leaves; that vibrantsky seemed as naked as she was under her light frock. I saw her face in thesky, strangely distinct, as if it emitted a faint radiance of its own. Herlegs, her lovely live legs, were not too close together, and when my handlocated what it sought, a dreamy and eerie expression, half-pleasure,half-pain, came over those childish features. She sat a little higher thanI, and whenever in her solitary ecstasy she was led to kiss me, her headwould bend with a sleepy, soft, drooping movement that was almost woeful,and her bare knees caught and compressed my wrist, and slackened again; andher quivering mouth, distorted by the acridity of some mysterious potion,with a sibilant intake of breath came near to my face. She would try torelieve the pain of love by first roughly rubbing her dry lips against mine;then my darling would draw away with a nervous toss of her hair, and thenagain come darkly near and let me feed on her open mouth, while with agenerosity that was ready to offer her everything, my heart, my throat, myentrails, I have her to hold in her awkward fist the scepter of my passion. I recall the scent of some kind of toilet powder--I believe she stole file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (7 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt it from her mother's Spanish maid--a sweetish, lowly, musky perfume. It mingled with her own biscuity odor, and my senses were suddenly filled tothe brim; a sudden commotion in a nearby bush prevented them fromoverflowing--and as we drew away from each other, and with aching veinsattended to what was probably a prowling cat, there came from the house hermother's voice calling her, with a rising frantic note--and Dr. Cooperponderously limped out into the garden. But that mimosa grove--the haze ofstars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me,and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted meever since--until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell byincarnating her in another. 5 The days of my youth, as I look back on them, seem to fly away from me in a flurry of pa

voice calling her, with a rising frantic note--and Dr. Cooperponderously limped out into the garden. But that mimosa grove--the haze ofstars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me,and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted meever since--until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell byincarnating her in another. 5 The days of my youth, as I look back on them, seem to fly away from me in a flurry of pale repetitive scraps like those morning snow storms of usedtissue paper that a train passenger sees whirling in the wake of theobservation car. In my sanitary relations with women I was practical,ironical and brisk. While a college student, in London and Paris, paidladies sufficed me. My studies were meticulous and intense, although notparticularly fruitful. At first, I planned to take a degree in psychiatryand many manquè talents do; but I was even more manquè thanthat; a peculiar exhaustion, I am so oppressed, doctor, set in; and Iswitched to English literature, where so many frustrated poets end aspipe-smoking teachers in tweeds. Paris suited me. I discussed Soviet movieswith expatriates. I sat with uranists in the Deux Magots. I publishedtortuous essays in obscure journals. I composed pastiches: ...Fräulen von Kulp may turn, her hand upon the door; I will not follow her. Nor Fresca. Nor that Gull. A paper of mine entitled "The Proustian theme in a letter from Keats to Benjamin Bailey" was chuckled over by the six or seven scholars who read it.I launched upon an "Histoire abregèe de la poèsie anglaise" for aprominent publishing firm, and then started to compile that manual of Frenchliterature for English-speaking students (with comparisons drawn fromEnglish writers) which was to occupy me throughout the forties--and the lastvolume of which was almost ready for press by the time of my arrest. I found a job--teaching English to a group of adults in Auteuil. Then aschool for boys employed me for a couple of winters. Now and then I took file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (8 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt advantage of the acquaintances I had formed among social workers and psychotherapists to visit in their company various institutions, such asorphanages and reform schools, where pale pubescent girls with mattedeyelashes could be stared at in perfect impunity remindful of that grantedone in dreams. Now I wish to introduce the following idea. Between the age limits ofnine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers,twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is nothuman, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I proposeto designate as "nymphets." It will be marked that I substitute time terms for spatial ones. Infact, I would have the reader see "nine" and "fourteen" as theboundaries--the mirrory beaches and rosy rocks--of an enchanted islandhaunted by those nymphets of mine and surrounded by a vast, misty sea.Between those age limits, are all girl-children nymphets? Of course not.Otherwise, we who are in the know, we lone voyagers, we nympholepts, wouldhave long gone insane. Neither are good looks any criterion; and vulgarity,or at least what a given community terms so, does not necessarily impaircertain mysterious characteristics, the fey grace, the elusive, shifty,soul-shattering, insidious charm that separates the nymphet from suchcoevals of hers as are incomparably more dependent on the spatial world ofsynchronous phenomena than on that intangible island of entranced time whereLolita plays with her likes. Within the same age limits the number of truenymphets is trickingly inferior to that of provisionally plain, or justn

unity terms so, does not necessarily impaircertain mysterious characteristics, the fey grace, the elusive, shifty,soul-shattering, insidious charm that separates the nymphet from suchcoevals of hers as are incomparably more dependent on the spatial world ofsynchronous phenomena than on that intangible island of entranced time whereLolita plays with her likes. Within the same age limits the number of truenymphets is trickingly inferior to that of provisionally plain, or justnice, or "cute," or even "sweet" and "attractive," ordinary, plumpish,formless, cold-skinned, essentially human little girls, with tummies andpigtails, who may or may not turn into adults of great beauty (look at theugly dumplings in black stockings and white hats that are metamorphosed intostunning stars of the screen). A normal man given a group photograph ofschool girls or Girl Scouts and asked to point out the comeliest one willnot necessarily choose the nymphet among them. You have to be an artist anda madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison inyour loins and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtlespine (oh, how you have to cringe and hide!), in order to discern at once,by ineffable signs--the slightly feline outline of a cheekbone, theslenderness of a downy limb, and other indices which despair and shame andtears of tenderness forbid me to tabulate--the little deadly demon among thewholesome children; she stands unrecognized by them and unconsciousherself of her fantastic power. Furthermore, since the idea of time plays such a magic part in thematter, the student should not be surprised to learn that there must be agap of several years, never less than ten I should say, generally thirty orforty, and as many as ninety in a few known cases, between maiden and man to file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (9 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt enable the latter to come under a nymphet's spell. It is a question of focal adjustment, of a certain distance that the inner eye thrills to surmount,and a certain contrast that the mind perceives with a gasp of perversedelight. When I was a child and she was a child, my little Annabel was nonymphet to me; I was her equal, a faunlet in my own right, on that sameenchanted island of time; but today, in September 1952, after twenty-nineyears have elapsed, I think I can distinguish in her the initial fateful elfin my life. We loved each other with a premature love, marked by afierceness that so often destroys adult lives. I was a strong lad andsurvived; but the poison was in the wound, and the wound remained ever open,and soon I found myself maturing amid a civilization which allows a man oftwenty-five to court a girl of sixteen but not a girl of twelve. No wonder, then, that my adult life during the European period of myexistence proved monstrously twofold. Overtly, I had so-called normalrelationships with a number of terrestrial women having pumpkins or pearsfor breasts; inly, I was consumed by a hell furnace of localized lust forevery passing nymphet whom as a law-abiding poltroon I never dared approach.The human females I was allowed to wield were but palliative agents. I amready to believe that the sensations I derived from natural fornication weremuch the same as those known to normal big males consorting with theirnormal big mates in that routine rhythm which shakes the world. The troublewas that those gentlemen had not, and I had, caught glimpses of anincomparably more poignant bliss. The dimmest of my pollutive dreams was athousand times more dazzling than all the adultery the most virile writer ofgenius or the most talented impotent might imagine. My world was split. Iwas aware of not one but two sexes, neither of which was mine; both would betermed female by the a

g males consorting with theirnormal big mates in that routine rhythm which shakes the world. The troublewas that those gentlemen had not, and I had, caught glimpses of anincomparably more poignant bliss. The dimmest of my pollutive dreams was athousand times more dazzling than all the adultery the most virile writer ofgenius or the most talented impotent might imagine. My world was split. Iwas aware of not one but two sexes, neither of which was mine; both would betermed female by the anatomist. But to me, through the prism of my senses,"they were as different as mist and mast." All this I rationalize now. In mytwenties and early thirties, I did not understand my throes quite soclearly. While my body knew what it craved for, my mind rejected my body'severy plea. One moment I was ashamed and frightened, another recklesslyoptimistic. Taboos strangulated me. Psychoanalysts wooed me withpseudoliberations of pseudolibidoes. The fact that to me the only object ofamorous tremor were sisters of Annabel's, her handmaids and girl-pages,appeared to me at times as a forerunner of insanity. At other times I wouldtell myself that it was all a question of attitude, that there was reallynothing wrong in being moved to distraction by girl-children. Let me remindmy reader that in England, with the passage of the Children and Young PersonAct in 1933, the term "girl-child" is defined as "a girl who is over eightbut under fourteen years" (after that, from fourteen to seventeen, thestatutory definition is "young person"). In Massachusetts, U.S., on theother hand, a "wayward child" is, technically, one "between seven andseventeen years of age" (who, moreover, habitually associates with vicious file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (10 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt or immoral persons). Hugh Broughton, a writer of controversy in the reign of James the First, has proved that Rahab was a harlot at ten years of age.This is all very interesting, and I daresay you see me already frothing atthe mouth in a fit; but no, I am not; I am just winking happy thoughts intoa little tiddle cup. Here are some more pictures. Here is Virgil who couldthe nymphet sing in a single tone, but probably preferred a lad's perineum.Here are two of King Akhnaten's and Queen Nefertiti's pre-nubile Niledaughters (that royal couple had a litter of six), wearing nothing but manynecklaces of bright beads, relaxed on cushions, intact after three thousandyears, with their soft brown puppybodies, cropped hair and long ebony eyes.Here are some brides of ten compelled to seat themselves on the fascinum,the virile ivory in the temples of classical scholarship. Marriage andcohabitation before the age of puberty are still not uncommon in certainEast Indian provinces. Lepcha old men of eighty copulate with girls ofeight, and nobody minds. After all, Dante fell madly in love with Beatricewhen she was nine, a sparkling girleen, painted and lovely, and bejeweled,in a crimson frock, and this was in 1274, in Florence, at a private feast inthe merry month of May. And when Petrarch fell madly in love with hisLaureen, she was a fair-haired nymphet of twelve running in the wind, in thepollen and dust, a flower in flight, in the beautiful plain as descried fromthe hills of Vaucluse. But let us be prim and civilized. Humbert Humbert tried hard to begood. Really and truly, he id. He had the utmost respect for ordinarychildren, with their purity and vulnerability, and under no circumstanceswould he have interfered with the innocence of a child, if there was theleast risk of a row. But how his heart beat when, among the innocent throng,he espied a demon child, "enfant charmante et fourbe," dim eyes,bright lips, ten years in jail if you only show her you are looking at her.So life went. Humbert was perfe

rt tried hard to begood. Really and truly, he id. He had the utmost respect for ordinarychildren, with their purity and vulnerability, and under no circumstanceswould he have interfered with the innocence of a child, if there was theleast risk of a row. But how his heart beat when, among the innocent throng,he espied a demon child, "enfant charmante et fourbe," dim eyes,bright lips, ten years in jail if you only show her you are looking at her.So life went. Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but itwas Lilith he longed for. The bud-stage of breast development appears early(10.7 years) in the sequence of somatic changes accompanying pubescence. Andthe next maturational item available is the first appearance of pigmentedpubic hair (11.2 years). My little cup brims with tiddles. A shipwreck. An atoll. Alone with a drowned passenger's shiveringchild. Darling, this is only a game! How marvelous were my fanciedadventures as I sat on a hard park bench pretending to be immersed in atrembling book. Around the quiet scholar, nymphets played freely, as if hewere a familiar statue or part of an old tree's shadow and sheen. Once aperfect little beauty in a tartan frock, with a clatter put her heavilyarmed foot near me upon the bench to dip her slim bare arms into me andrighten the strap of her roller skate, and I dissolved in the sun, with mybook for fig leaf, as her auburn ringlets fell all over her skinned knee,and the shadow of leaves I shared pulsated and melted on her radiant limb file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (11 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt next to my chameleonic cheek. Another time a red-haired school girl hung over me in the metro, and a revelation of axillary russet I obtainedremained in my blood for weeks. I could list a great number of theseone-sided diminutive romances. Some of them ended in a rich flavor of hell.It happened for instance that from my balcony I would notice a lightedwindow across the street and what looked like a nymphet in the act ofundressing before a co-operative mirror. Thus isolated, thus removed, thevision acquired an especially keen charm that made me race with all speedtoward my lone gratification. But abruptly, fiendishly, the tender patternof nudity I had adored would be transformed into the disgusting lamp-litbare arm of a man in his underclothes reading his paper by the open windowin the hot, damp, hopeless summer night. Rope-skipping, hopscotch. That old woman in black who sat down next tome on my bench, on my rack of joy (a nymphet was groping under me for a lostmarble), and asked if I had stomachache, the insolent hag. Ah, leave mealone in my pubescent park, in my mossy garden. Let them play around meforever. Never grow up. 6 A propos: I have often wondered what became of those nymphets later? In this wrought-iron would of criss-cross cause and effect, could it be thatthe hidden throb I stole from them did not affect their future? I hadpossessed her--and she never knew it. All right. But would it not tellsometime later? Had I not somehow tampered with her fate by involving herimage in my voluptas? Oh, it was, and remains, a source of great andterrible wonder. I learned, however, what they looked like, those lovely, maddening,thin-armed nymphets, when they grew up. I remember walking along an animatedstreet on a gray spring afternoon somewhere near the Madeleine. A short slimgirl passed me at a rapid, high-heeled, tripping step, we glanced back atthe same moment, she stopped and I accosted her. She came hardly up to mychest hair and had the kind of dimpled round little face French girls sooften have, and I liked her long lashes and tight-fitting tailored dresssheathing in pearl-gray her young body which still retained--and that wast

ew up. I remember walking along an animatedstreet on a gray spring afternoon somewhere near the Madeleine. A short slimgirl passed me at a rapid, high-heeled, tripping step, we glanced back atthe same moment, she stopped and I accosted her. She came hardly up to mychest hair and had the kind of dimpled round little face French girls sooften have, and I liked her long lashes and tight-fitting tailored dresssheathing in pearl-gray her young body which still retained--and that wasthe nymphic echo, the chill of delight, the leap in my loins--a childishsomething mingling with the professional fretillement of her smallagile rump. I asked her price, and she promptly replied with melodioussilvery precision (a bird, a very bird!) "Cent." I tried to hagglebut she saw the awful lone longing in my lowered eyes, directed so far downat her round forehead and rudimentary hat (a band, a posy); and with onebeat of her lashes: "Tant pis," she said, and made as if to move file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (12 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt away. Perhaps only three years earlier I might have seen her coming home from school! That evocation settled the matter. She led me up the usualsteep stairs, with the usual bell clearing the way for the monsieurwho might not care to meet another monsieur, on the mournful climb tothe abject room, all bed and bidet. As usual, she asked at once forher petit cadeau, and as usual I asked her name (Monique) and her age(eighteen). I was pretty well acquainted with the banal way ofstreetwalkers. They all answer "dix-huit"--a trim twitter, a note offinality and wistful deceit which they emit up to ten times per day, thepoor little creatures. But in Monique's case there could be no doubt shewas, if anything, adding one or two years to her age. This I deduced frommany details of her compact, neat, curiously immature body. Having shed herclothes with fascinating rapidity, she stood for a moment partly wrapped inthe dingy gauze of the window curtain listening with infantile pleasure, aspat as pat could be, to an organ-grinder in the dust-brimming courtyardbelow. When I examined her small hands and drew her attention to theirgrubby fingernails, she said with a naive frown "Oui, ce n'est pasbien," and went to the wash-basin, but I said it did not matter, did notmatter at all. With her brown bobbed hair, luminous gray eyes and pale skin,she looked perfectly charming. Her hips were no bigger than those of asquatting lad; in fact, I do not hesitate to say (and indeed this is thereason why I linger gratefully in that gauze-gray room of memory with littleMonique) that among the eighty or so grues I had had operate upon me,she was the only one that gave me a pang of genuine pleasure. "Il ètaitmalin, celui qui a inventè ce truc-la," she commented amiably, and gotback into her clothes with the same high-style speed. I asked for another, more elaborate, assignment later the same evening,and she said she would meet me at the corner cafe at nine, and swore she hadnever pose un lapin in all her young life. We returned to the sameroom, and I could not help saying how very pretty she was to which sheanswered demurely: "Tu es bien gentil de dire ca" and then, noticingwhat I noticed too in the mirror reflecting our small Eden--the dreadfulgrimace of clenched-teeth tenderness that distorted my mouth--dutiful littleMonique (oh, she had been a nymphet, all right!) wanted to know if sheshould remove the layer of red from her lips avant qu'on se couche incase I planned to kiss her. Of course, I planned it. I let myself go withher more completely than I had with any young lady before, and my lastvision that night of long-lashed Monique is touched up with a gaiety that Ifind seldom associated with any event in my humiliating, sordid, taci

eeth tenderness that distorted my mouth--dutiful littleMonique (oh, she had been a nymphet, all right!) wanted to know if sheshould remove the layer of red from her lips avant qu'on se couche incase I planned to kiss her. Of course, I planned it. I let myself go withher more completely than I had with any young lady before, and my lastvision that night of long-lashed Monique is touched up with a gaiety that Ifind seldom associated with any event in my humiliating, sordid, taciturnlove life. She looked tremendously pleased with the bonus of fifty I gaveher as she trotted out into the April night drizzle with Humbert Humbertlumbering in her narrow wake. Stopping before a window display she said withgreat gusto: "Je vais m'acheter des bas!" and never may I forget the file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (13 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt way her Parisian childish lips exploded on "bas," pronouncing it with an appetite that all but changed the "a" into a brief buoyant bursting "o"as in "bot". I had a date with her next day at 2.15 P.M. in my own rooms, but it wasless successful, she seemed to have grown less juvenile, more of a womanovernight. A cold I caught from her led me to cancel a fourth assignment,nor was I sorry to break an emotional series that threatened to burden mewith heart-rending fantasies and peter out in dull disappointment. So lether remain, sleek, slender Monique, as she was for a minute or two: adelinquent nymphet shining through the matter-of-fact young whore. My brief acquaintance with her started a train of thought that may seempretty obvious to the reader who knows the ropes. An advertisement in a lewdmagazine landed me, one brave day, in the office of a Mlle Edith who beganby offering me to choose a kindred soul from a collection of rather formalphotographs in a rather soiled album ("Regardez-moi cette bellebrune!". When I pushed the album away and somehow managed to blurt outmy criminal craving, she looked as if about to show me the door; however,after asking me what price I was prepared to disburse, she condescended toput me in touch with a person qui pourrait arranger la chose. Nextday, an asthmatic woman, coarsely painted, garrulous, garlicky, with analmost farcical Provenãal accent and a black mustache above a purple lip,took me to what was apparently her own domicile, and there, afterexplosively kissing the bunched tips of her fat fingers to signify thedelectable rosebud quality of her merchandise, she theatrically drew aside acurtain to reveal what I judged was that part of the room where a large andunfastidious family usually slept. It was now empty save for a monstrouslyplump, sallow, repulsively plain girl of at least fifteen with red-ribbonedthick black braids who sat on a chair perfunctorily nursing a bald doll.When I shook my head and tried to shuffle out of the trap, the woman,talking fast, began removing the dingy woolen jersey from the younggiantess' torso; then, seeing my determination to leave, she demanded sonargent. A door at the end of the room was opened, and two men who hadbeen dining in the kitchen joined in the squabble. They were misshapen,bare-necked, very swarthy and one of them wore dark glasses. A small boy anda begrimed, bowlegged toddler lurked behind them. With the insolent logic ofa nightmare, the enraged procuress, indicating the man in glasses, said hehad served in the police, lui, so that I had better do as I was told.I went up to Marie--for that was her stellar name--who by then had quietlytransferred her heavy haunches to a stool at the kitchen table and resumedher interrupted soup while the toddler picked up the doll. With a surge ofpity dramatizing my idiotic gesture, I thrust a banknote into herindifferent hand. She surrendered my gift to the ex-detective

re, the enraged procuress, indicating the man in glasses, said hehad served in the police, lui, so that I had better do as I was told.I went up to Marie--for that was her stellar name--who by then had quietlytransferred her heavy haunches to a stool at the kitchen table and resumedher interrupted soup while the toddler picked up the doll. With a surge ofpity dramatizing my idiotic gesture, I thrust a banknote into herindifferent hand. She surrendered my gift to the ex-detective, whereupon Iwas suffered to leave. file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (14 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt 7 I do not know if the pimp's album may not have been another link in the daisy-chain; but soon after, for my own safety, I decided to marry. Itoccurred to me that regular hours, home-cooked meals, all the conventions ofmarriage, the prophylactic routine of its bedroom activities and, who knows,the eventual flowering of certain moral values, of certain spiritualsubstitutes, might help me, if not to purge myself of my degrading anddangerous desires, at least to keep them under pacific control. A littlemoney that had come my way after my father's death (nothing very grand--theMirana had been sold long before), in addition to my striking if somewhatbrutal good looks, allowed me to enter upon my quest with equanimity. Afterconsiderable deliberation, my choice fell on the daughter of a Polishdoctor: the good man happened to be treating me for spells of dizziness andtachycardia. We played chess; his daughter watched me from behind her easel,and inserted eyes or knuckles borrowed from me into the cubistic trash thataccomplished misses then painted instead of lilacs and lambs. Let me repeatwith quiet force: I was, and still am, despite mes malheurs, anexceptionally handsome male; slow-moving, tall, with soft dark hair and agloomy but all the more seductive cast of demeanor. Exceptional virilityoften reflects in the subject's displayable features a sullen and congestedsomething that pertains to what he has to conceal. And this was my case.Well did I know, alas, that I could obtain at the snap of my fingers anyadult female I chose; in fact, it had become quite a habit with me of notbeing too attentive to women lest they come toppling, bloodripe, into mycold lap. Had I been a franãais moyen with a taste for flashy ladies,I might have easily found, among the many crazed beauties that lashed mygrim rock, creatures far more fascinating than Valeria. My choice, however,was prompted by considerations whose essence was, as I realized too late, apiteous compromise. All of which goes to show how dreadfully stupid poorHumbert always was in matters of sex. 8 Although I told myself I was looking merely for a soothing presence, a glorified pot-au-feu, an animated merkin, what really attracted me toValeria was the imitation she gave of a little girl. She gave it not becauseshe had divined something about me; it was just her style--and I fell forit. Actually, she was at least in her late twenties (I never established her file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (15 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt exact age for even her passport lied) and had mislaid her virginity under circumstances that changed with her reminiscent moods. I, on my part, was asnaive as only a pervert can be. She looked fluffy and frolicsome, dresseda la gamine, showed a generous amount of smooth leg, knew how tostress the white of a bare instep by the black of a velvet slipper, andpouted, and dimpled, and romped, and dirndled, and shook her short curlyblond hair in the cutest and tritest fashion imaginable. After a brief ceremony at the mairie, I tool her to the newapartment I had rented and, somewhat to her surprise, had her wear, before Itouched her

nly a pervert can be. She looked fluffy and frolicsome, dresseda la gamine, showed a generous amount of smooth leg, knew how tostress the white of a bare instep by the black of a velvet slipper, andpouted, and dimpled, and romped, and dirndled, and shook her short curlyblond hair in the cutest and tritest fashion imaginable. After a brief ceremony at the mairie, I tool her to the newapartment I had rented and, somewhat to her surprise, had her wear, before Itouched her, a girl's plain nightshirt that I had managed to filch from thelinen closet of an orphanage. I derived some fun from that nuptial night andhad the idiot in hysterics by sunrise. But reality soon asserted itself. Thebleached curl revealed its melanic root; the down turned to prickles on ashaved shin; the mobile moist mouth, no matter how I stuffed it with love,disclosed ignominiously its resemblance to the corresponding part in atreasured portrait of her toadlike dead mama; and presently, instead of apale little gutter girl, Humbert Humbert had on his hands a large, puffy,short-legged, big-breasted and practically brainless baba. This state of affairs lasted from 1935 to 1939. Her only asset was amuted nature which did help to produce an odd sense of comfort in our smallsqualid flat: two rooms, a hazy view in one window, a brick wall in theother, a tiny kitchen, a shoe-shaped bath tub, within which I felt likeMarat but with no white-necked maiden to stab me. We had quite a few cozyevenings together, she deep in her Paris-Soir, I working at a ricketytable. We went to movies, bicycle races and boxing matches. I appealed toher stale flesh very seldom, only in cases of great urgency and despair. Thegrocer opposite had a little daughter whose shadow drove me mad; but withValeria's help I did find after all some legal outlets to my fantasticpredicament. As to cooking, we tacitly dismissed the pot-au-feu andhad most of our meals at a crowded place in rue Bonaparte where there werewine stains on the table cloth and a good deal of foreign babble. And nextdoor, an art dealer displayed in his cluttered window a splendid,flamboyant, green, red, golden and inky blue, ancient American estampe--alocomotive with a gigantic smokestack, great baroque lamps and a tremendouscowcatcher, hauling its mauve coaches through the stormy prairie night andmixing a lot of spark-studded black smoke with the furry thunder clouds. These burst. In the summer of 1939 mon oncle d'Amèrique diedbequeathing me an annual income of a few thousand dollars on condition Icame to live in the States and showed some interest in his business. Thisprospect was most welcome to me. I felt my life needed a shake-up. There wasanother thing, too: moth holes had appeared in the plush of matrimonialcomfort. During the last weeks I had kept noticing that my fat Valeria wasnot her usual self; had acquired a queer restlessness; even showed something file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (16 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt like irritation at times, which was quite out of keeping with the stock character she was supposed to impersonate. When I informed her we wereshortly to sail for New York, she looked distressed and bewildered. Therewere some tedious difficulties with her papers. She had a Nansen, or bettersay Nonsense, passport which for some reason a share in her husband's solidSwiss citizenship could not easily transcend; and I decided it was thenecessity of queuing in the prèfecture, and other formalities, thathad made her so listless, despite my patiently describing to her America,the country of rosy children and great trees, where life would be such animprovement on dull dingy Paris. We were coming out of some office building one morning, with her papersalmost in order, when Valeria, as she waddled by my sid

me reason a share in her husband's solidSwiss citizenship could not easily transcend; and I decided it was thenecessity of queuing in the prèfecture, and other formalities, thathad made her so listless, despite my patiently describing to her America,the country of rosy children and great trees, where life would be such animprovement on dull dingy Paris. We were coming out of some office building one morning, with her papersalmost in order, when Valeria, as she waddled by my side, began to shake herpoodle head vigorously without saying a word. I let her go on for a whileand then asked if she thought she had something inside. She answered (Itranslate from her French which was, I imagine, a translation in its turn ofsome Slavic platitude): "There is another man in my life." Now, these are ugly words for a husband to hear. They dazed me, Iconfess. To beat her up in the street, there and then, as an honestvulgarian might have done, was not feasible. Years of secret sufferings hadtaught me superhuman self-control. So I ushered her into a taxi which hadbeen invitingly creeping along the curb for some time, and in thiscomparative privacy I quietly suggested she comment her wild talk. Amounting fury was suffocating me--not because I had any particular fondnessfor that figure of fun, Mme Humbert, but because matters of legal andillegal conjunction were for me alone to decide, and here she was, Valeria,the comedy wife, brazenly preparing to dispose in her own way of my comfortand fate. I demanded her lover's name. I repeated my question; but she keptup a burlesque babble, discoursing on her unhappiness with me and announcingplans for an immediate divorce. "Mais qui est-ce?" I shouted at last,striking her on the knee with my fist; and she, without even wincing, staredat me as if the answer were too simple for words, then gave a quick shrugand pointed at the thick neck of the taxi driver. He pulled up at a smallcafè and introduced himself. I do not remember his ridiculous name but afterall those years I still see him quite clearly--a stocky White Russianex-colonel with a bushy mustache and a crew cut; there were thousands ofthem plying that fool's trade in Paris. We sat down at a table; the Tsaristordered wine, and Valeria, after applying a wet napkin to her knee, went ontalking--into me rather than to me; she poured words into thisdignified receptacle with a volubility I had never suspected she had in her.And every now and then she would volley a burst of Slavic at her stolidlover. The situation was preposterous and became even more so when thetaxi-colonel, stopping Valeria with a possessive smile, began to unfoldhis views and plans. With an atrocious accent to his careful French, file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (17 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt he delineated the world of love and work into which he proposed to enter hand in hand with his child-wife Valeria. She by now was preening herself,between him and me, rouging her pursed lips, tripling her chin to pick ather blouse-bosom and so forth, and he spoke of her as if she were absent,and also as if she were a kind of little ward that was in the act of beingtransferred, for her own good, from one wise guardian to another even wiserone; and although my helpless wrath may have exaggerated and disfiguredcertain impressions, I can swear that he actually consulted me on suchthings as her diet, her periods, her wardrobe and the books she had read orshould read. "I think," - he said, "She will like Jean Christophe?"Oh, he was quite a scholar, Mr. Taxovich. I put an end to this gibberish by suggesting Valeria pack up her fewbelongings immediately, upon which the platitudinous colonel gallantlyoffered to carry them into the car. Reverting to his professional state, hedrove the Humber

n impressions, I can swear that he actually consulted me on suchthings as her diet, her periods, her wardrobe and the books she had read orshould read. "I think," - he said, "She will like Jean Christophe?"Oh, he was quite a scholar, Mr. Taxovich. I put an end to this gibberish by suggesting Valeria pack up her fewbelongings immediately, upon which the platitudinous colonel gallantlyoffered to carry them into the car. Reverting to his professional state, hedrove the Humberts to their residence and all the way Valeria talked, andHumbert the Terrible deliberated with Humbert the Small whether HumbertHumbert should kill her or her lover, or both, or neither. I remember oncehandling an automatic belonging to a fellow student, in the days (I have notspoken of them, I think, but never mind) when I toyed with the idea ofenjoying his little sister, a most diaphanous nymphet with a black hair bow,and then shooting myself. I now wondered if Valechka (as the colonel calledher) was really worth shooting, or strangling, or drowning. She had veryvulnerable legs, and I decided I would limit myself to hurting her veryhorribly as soon as we were alone. But we never were. Valechka--by now shedding torrents of tears tingedwith the mess of her rainbow make-up,--started to fill anyhow a trunk, andtwo suitcases, and a bursting carton, and visions of putting on my mountainboots and taking a running kick at her rump were of course impossible to putinto execution with the cursed colonel hovering around all the time. Icannot say he behaved insolently or anything like that; on the contrary, hedisplayed, as a small sideshow in the theatricals I had been inveigled in, adiscreet old-world civility, punctuating his movements with all sorts ofmispronounced apologies (j'ai demande pardonne--excuse me--est-ceque j'ai puis--may I--and so forth), and turning away tactfully whenValechka took down with a flourish her pink panties from the clotheslineabove the tub; but he seemed to be all over the place at once, legredin, agreeing his frame with the anatomy of the flat, reading in mychair my newspaper, untying a knotted string, rolling a cigarette, countingthe teaspoons, visiting the bathroom, helping his moll to wrap up theelectric fan her father had given her, and carrying streetward her luggage.I sat with arms folded, one hip on the window sill, dying of hate andboredom. At last both were out of the quivering apartment--the vibration ofthe door I had slammed after them still rang in my every nerve, a poor file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (18 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt substitute for the backhand slap with which I ought to have hit her across the cheekbone according to the rules of the movies. Clumsily playing mypart, I stomped to the bathroom to check if they had taken my English toiletwater; they had not; but I noticed with a spasm of fierce disgust that theformer Counselor of the Tsar, after thoroughly easing his bladder, had notflushed the toilet. That solemn pool of alien urine with a soggy, tawnycigarette butt disintegrating in it struck me as a crowning insult, and Iwildly looked around for a weapon. Actually I daresay it was nothing butmiddle-class Russian courtesy (with an oriental tang, perhaps) that hadprompted the good colonel (Maximovich! his name suddenly taxies back to me),a very formal person as they all are, to muffle his private need in decoroussilence so as not to underscore the small size of his host's domicile withthe rush of a gross cascade on top of his own hushed trickle. But this didnot enter my mind at the moment, as groaning with rage I ransacked thekitchen for something better than a broom. Then, canceling my search, Idashed out of the house with the heroic decision of attacking himbarefisted; despite my natu

ies back to me),a very formal person as they all are, to muffle his private need in decoroussilence so as not to underscore the small size of his host's domicile withthe rush of a gross cascade on top of his own hushed trickle. But this didnot enter my mind at the moment, as groaning with rage I ransacked thekitchen for something better than a broom. Then, canceling my search, Idashed out of the house with the heroic decision of attacking himbarefisted; despite my natural vigor, I am no pugilist, while the short butbroad-shouldered Maximovich seemed made of pig iron. The void of the street,revealing nothing of my wife's departure except a rhinestone button that shehad dropped in the mud after preserving it for three unnecessary years in abroken box, may have spared me a bloody nose. But no matter. I had my littlerevenge in due time. A man from Pasadena told me one day that Mrs.Maximovich nèe Zborovski had died in childbirth around 1945; the couple hadsomehow got over to California and had been used there, for an excellentsalary, in a year-long experiment conducted by a distinguished Americanethnologist. The experiment dealt with human and racial reactions to a dietof bananas and dates in a constant position on all fours. My informant, adoctor, swore he had seen with his own eyes obese Valechka and her colonel,by then gray-haired and also quite corpulent, diligently crawling about thewell-swept floors of a brightly lit set of rooms (fruit in one, water inanother, mats in a third and so on) in the company of several other hiredquadrupeds, selected from indigent and helpless groups. I tried to find theresults of these tests in the Review of Anthropology; but they appearnot to have been published yet. These scientific products take of coursesome time to fructuate. I hope they will be illustrated with photographswhen they do get printed, although it is not very likely that a prisonlibrary will harbor such erudite works. The one to which I am restrictedthese days, despite my lawyer's favors, is a good example of the inaneeclecticism governing the selection of books in prison libraries. They havethe Bible, of course, and Dickens (an ancient set, N.Y., G.W. Dillingham,Publisher, MDCCCLXXXVII); and the Children's Encyclopedia (with somenice photographs of sunshine-haired Girl Scouts in shorts), and A MurderIs Announced by Agatha Christie; but they also have such coruscating file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (19 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt trifles as A vagabond in Italy by Percy Elphinstone, author of Venice Revisited, Boston, 1868, and a comparatively recent (1946)Who's Who in the Limelight--actors, producers, playwrights, and shotsof static scenes. In looking through the latter volume, I was treated lastnight to one of those dazzling coincidences that logicians loathe and poetslove. I transcribe most of the page: Pym, Roland. Born in Lundy, Mass., 1922. Received stage training at Elsinore Playhouse, Derby, N.Y. Made debut in Sunburst. Among hismany appearances are Two Blocks from Here, The Girl in Green, ScrambledHusbands, The Strange Mushroom, Touch and Go, John Lovely, I Was Dreaming ofYou. Quilty, Clare, American dramatist. Born in Ocean City, N.J., 1911.Educated at Columbia University. Started on a commercial career but turnedto playwriting. Author of The Little Nymph, The Lady Who LovedLightning (in collaboration with Vivian Darkbloom), Dark Age, Thestrange Mushroom, Fatherly Love, and others. His many plays for childrenare notable. Little Nymph (1940) traveled 14,000 miles and played 280performances on the road during the winter before ending in New York.Hobbies: fast cars, photography, pets. Quine, Dolores. Born in 1882, in Dayton, Ohio. Studied for stage atAmerican Academy. First played in Ottawa i

Author of The Little Nymph, The Lady Who LovedLightning (in collaboration with Vivian Darkbloom), Dark Age, Thestrange Mushroom, Fatherly Love, and others. His many plays for childrenare notable. Little Nymph (1940) traveled 14,000 miles and played 280performances on the road during the winter before ending in New York.Hobbies: fast cars, photography, pets. Quine, Dolores. Born in 1882, in Dayton, Ohio. Studied for stage atAmerican Academy. First played in Ottawa in 1900. Made New York debut in1904 in Never Talk to Strangers. Has disappeared since in [a list ofsome thirty plays follows]. How the look of my dear love's name even affixed to some old hag of an actress, still makes me rock with helpless pain! Perhaps, she might havebeen an actress too. Born 1935. Appeared (I notice the slip of my pen in thepreceding paragraph, but please do not correct it, Clarence) in TheMurdered Playwright. Quine the Swine. Guilty of killing Quilty. Oh, myLolita, I have only words to play with! 9 Divorce proceedings delayed my voyage, and the gloom of yet another World War had settled upon the globe when, after a winter of ennui andpneumonia in Portugal, I at last reached the States. In New York I eagerlyaccepted the soft job fate offered me: it consisted mainly of thinking upand editing perfume ads. I welcomed its desultory character andpseudoliterary aspects, attending to it whenever I had nothing better to do.On the other hand, I was urged by a war-time university in New York tocomplete my comparative history of French literature for English-speaking file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (20 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt students. The first volume took me a couple of years during which I put in seldom less than fifteen hours of work daily. As I look back on those days,I see them divided tidily into ample light and narrow shade: the lightpertaining to the solace of research in palatial libraries, the shade to myexcruciating desires and insomnias of which enough has been said. Knowing meby now, the reader can easily imagine how dusty and hot I got, trying tocatch a glimpse of nymphets (alas, always remote) playing in Central Park,and how repulsed I was by the glitter of deodorized career girls that a gaydog in one of the offices kept unloading upon me. Let us skip all that. Adreadful breakdown sent me to a sanatorium for more than a year; I went backto my work--only to be hospitalized again. Robust outdoor life seemed to promise me some relief. One of myfavorite doctors, a charming cynical chap with a little brown beard, had abrother, and this brother was about to lead an expedition into arcticCanada. I was attached to it as a "recorder of psychic reactions." With twoyoung botanists and an old carpenter I shared now and then (never verysuccessfully) the favors of one of our nutritionists, a Dr. AnitaJohnson--who was soon flown back, I am glad to say. I had little notion ofwhat object the expedition was pursuing. Judging by the number ofmeteorologists upon it, we may have been tracking to its lair (somewhere onPrince of Wales' Island, I understand) the wandering and wobbly northmagnetic pole. One group, jointly with the Canadians, established a weatherstation on Pierre Point in Melville Sound. Another group, equally misguided,collected plankton. A third studied tuberculosis in the tundra. Bert, a filmphotographer--an insecure fellow with whom at one time I was made to partakein a good deal of menial work (he, too, had some psychictroubles)--maintained that the big men on our team, the real leaders wenever saw, were mainly engaged in checking the influence of climaticamelioration on the coats of the arctic fox. We lived in prefabricated timber cabins amid a Pre-Cambrian world

d,collected plankton. A third studied tuberculosis in the tundra. Bert, a filmphotographer--an insecure fellow with whom at one time I was made to partakein a good deal of menial work (he, too, had some psychictroubles)--maintained that the big men on our team, the real leaders wenever saw, were mainly engaged in checking the influence of climaticamelioration on the coats of the arctic fox. We lived in prefabricated timber cabins amid a Pre-Cambrian world ofgranite. We had heaps of supplies--the Reader's Digest, an ice creammixer, chemical toilets, paper caps for Christmas. My health improvedwonderfully in spite or because of all the fantastic blankness and boredom.Surrounded by such dejected vegetation as willow scrub and lichens;permeated, and, I suppose, cleansed by a whistling gale; seated on a boulderunder a completely translucent sky (through which, however, nothing ofimportance showed), I felt curiously aloof from my own self. No temptationsmaddened me. The plump, glossy little Eskimo girls with their fish smell,hideous raven hair and guinea pig faces, evoked even less desire in me thanDr. Johnson had. Nymphets do not occur in polar regions. I left my betters the task of analyzing glacial drifts, drumlins, andgremlins, and kremlins, and for a time tried to jot down what I fondlythought were "reactions" (I noticed, for instance, that dreams under the file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (21 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt midnight sun tended to be highly colored, and this my friend the photographer confirmed). I was also supposed to quiz my various companionson a number of important matters, such as nostalgia, fear of unknownanimals, food-fantasies, nocturnal emissions, hobbies, choice of radioprograms, changes in outlook and so forth. Everybody got so fed up with thisthat I soon dropped the project completely, and only toward the end of mytwenty months of cold labor (as one of the botanists jocosely put it)concocted a perfectly spurious and very racy report that the reader willfind published in he Annals of Adult Psychophysics for 1945 or 1946,as well as in the issue of Arctic Explorations devoted to thatparticular expedition; which, in conclusion, was not really concerned withVictoria Island copper or anything like that, as I learned later from mygenial doctor; for the nature of its real purpose was what is termed"hush-hush," and so let me add merely that whatever it was, that purpose wasadmirably achieved. The reader will regret to learn that soon after my return tocivilization I had another bout with insanity (if to melancholia and a senseof insufferable oppression that cruel term must be applied). I owe mycomplete restoration to a discovery I made while being treated at thatparticular very expensive sanatorium. I discovered there was an endlesssource of robust enjoyment in trifling with psychiatrists: cunningly leadingthem on; never letting them see that you know all the tricks of the trade;inventing for them elaborate dreams, pure classics in style (which makethem, the dream-extortionists, dream and wake up shrieking); teasingthem with fake "primal scenes"; and never allowing them the slightestglimpse of one's real sexual predicament. By bribing a nurse I won access tosome files and discovered, with glee, cards calling me "potentiallyhomosexual" and "totally impotent." The sport was so excellent, itsresults--in my case--so ruddy that I stayed on for a whole monthafter I was quite well (sleeping admirably and eating like a schoolgirl).And then I added another week just for the pleasure of taking on a powerfulnewcomer, a displaced (and, surely, deranged) celebrity, known for his knackof making patients believe they had witnessed their own con

les and discovered, with glee, cards calling me "potentiallyhomosexual" and "totally impotent." The sport was so excellent, itsresults--in my case--so ruddy that I stayed on for a whole monthafter I was quite well (sleeping admirably and eating like a schoolgirl).And then I added another week just for the pleasure of taking on a powerfulnewcomer, a displaced (and, surely, deranged) celebrity, known for his knackof making patients believe they had witnessed their own conception. 10 Upon signing out, I cast around for some place in the New England countryside or sleepy small town (elms, white church) where I could spend astudious summer subsisting on a compact boxful of notes I had accumulatedand bathing in some nearby lake. My work had begun to interest me again--Imean my scholarly exertions; the other thing, my active participation in myuncle's posthumous perfumes, had by then been cut down to a minimum. file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (22 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt One of his former employees, the scion of a distinguished family, suggested I spend a few months in the residence of his impoverished cousins,a Mr. McCoo, retired, and his wife, who wanted to let their upper storywhere a late aunt had delicately dwelt. He said they had two littledaughters, one a baby, the other a girl of twelve, and a beautiful garden,not far from a beautiful lake, and I said it sounded perfectly perfect. I exchanged letters with these people, satisfying them I washousebroken, and spent a fantastic night on the train, imagining in allpossible detail the enigmatic nymphet I would coach in French and fondle inHumbertish. Nobody met me at the toy station where I alighted with my newexpensive bag, and nobody answered the telephone; eventually, however, adistraught McCoo in wet clothes turned up at the only hotel ofgreen-and-pink Ramsdale with the news that his house had just burneddown--possibly, owing to the synchronous conflagration that had been ragingall night in my veins. His family, he said, had fled to a farm he owned, andhad taken the car, but a friend of his wife's, a grand person, Mrs. Haze of342 Lawn Street, offered to accommodate me. A lady who lived opposite Mrs.Haze's had lent McCoo her limousine, a marvelously old-fashioned,square-topped affair, manned by a cheerful Negro. Now, since the only reasonfor my coming at all had vanished, the aforesaid arrangement seemedpreposterous. All right, his house would have to be completely rebuilt, sowhat? Had he not insured it sufficiently? I was angry, disappointed andbored, but being a polite European, could not refuse to be sent off to LawnStreet in that funeral car, feeling that otherwise McCoo would devise aneven more elaborate means of getting rid of me. I saw him scamper away, andmy chauffeur shook his head with a soft chuckle. En route, I swore to myselfI would not dream of staying in Ramsdale under any circumstance but wouldfly that very day to the Bermudas or the Bahamas or the Blazes.Possibilities of sweetness on technicolor beaches had been trickling throughmy spine for some time before, and McCoo's cousin had, in fact, sharplydiverted that train of thought with his well-meaning but as it transpirednow absolutely inane suggestion. Speaking of sharp turns: we almost ran over a meddlesome suburban dog(one of those who like in wait for cars) as we swerved into Lawn Street. Alittle further, the Haze house, a white-frame horror, appeared, lookingdingy and old, more gray than white--the kind of place you know will have arubber tube affixable to the tub faucet in lieu of shower. I tipped thechauffeur and hoped he would immediately drive away so that I might doubleback unnoticed to my hotel and bag; but the man merely crossed

harp turns: we almost ran over a meddlesome suburban dog(one of those who like in wait for cars) as we swerved into Lawn Street. Alittle further, the Haze house, a white-frame horror, appeared, lookingdingy and old, more gray than white--the kind of place you know will have arubber tube affixable to the tub faucet in lieu of shower. I tipped thechauffeur and hoped he would immediately drive away so that I might doubleback unnoticed to my hotel and bag; but the man merely crossed to the otherside of the street where an old lady was calling to him from her porch. Whatcould I do? I pressed the bell button. A colored maid let me in--and left me standing on the mat while sherushed back to the kitchen where something was burning that ought not to file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (23 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt burn. The front hall was graced with door chimes, a white-eyed woodenthingamabob of commercial Mexican origin, and that banal darling of the artymiddle class, van Gogh's "Arlèsienne." A door ajar to the right afforded aglimpse of a living room, with some more Mexican trash in a corner cabinetand a striped sofa along the wall. There was a staircase at the end of thehallway, and as I stood mopping my brow (only now did I realize how hot ithad been out-of-doors) and staring, to stare at something, at an old graytennis ball that lay on an oak chest, there came from the upper landing thecontralto voice of Mrs. Haze, who leaning over the banisters inquiredmelodiously, "Is that Monsieur Humbert?" A bit of cigarette ash dropped fromthere in addition. Presently, the lady herself--sandals, maroon slacks,yellow silk blouse, squarish face, in that order--came down the steps, herindex finger still tapping upon her cigarette. I think I had better describe her right away, to get it over with. Thepoor lady was in her middle thirties, she had a shiny forehead, pluckedeyebrows and quite simple but not unattractive features of a type that maybe defined as a weak solution of Marlene Dietrich. Patting her bronze-brownbun, she led me into the parlor and we talked for a minute about the McCoofire and the privilege of living in Ramsdale. Her very wide-set sea-greeneyes had a funny way of traveling all over you, carefully avoiding your owneyes. Her smile was but a quizzical jerk of one eyebrow; and uncoilingherself from the sofa as she talked, she kept making spasmodic dashes atthree ashtrays and the near fender (where lay the brown core of an apple);whereupon she would sink back again, one leg folded under her. She was,obviously, one of those women whose polished words may reflect a book clubor bridge club, or any other deadly conventionality, but never her soul;women who are completely devoid of humor; women utterly indifferent at heartto the dozen or so possible subjects of a parlor conversation, but veryparticular about the rules of such conversations, through the sunnycellophane of which not very appetizing frustrations can be readilydistinguished. I was perfectly aware that if by any wild chance I became herlodger, she would methodically proceed to do in regard to me what taking alodger probably meant to her all along, and I would again be enmeshed in oneof those tedious affairs I knew so well. But there was no question of my settling there. I could not be happy inthat type of household with bedraggled magazines on every chair and a kindof horrible hybridization between the comedy of so-called "functional modernfurniture" and the tragedy of decrepit rockers and rickety lamp tables withdead lamps. I was led upstairs, and to the left--into "my" room. I inspectedit through the mist of my utter rejection of it; but I did discern above"my" bed Renè Prinet's "Kreutzer Sonata." And she called that servant maid'sroom a "semi-studio"! Let's get out

happy inthat type of household with bedraggled magazines on every chair and a kindof horrible hybridization between the comedy of so-called "functional modernfurniture" and the tragedy of decrepit rockers and rickety lamp tables withdead lamps. I was led upstairs, and to the left--into "my" room. I inspectedit through the mist of my utter rejection of it; but I did discern above"my" bed Renè Prinet's "Kreutzer Sonata." And she called that servant maid'sroom a "semi-studio"! Let's get out of here at once, I firmly said to myself file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (24 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt as I pretended to deliberate over the absurdly, and ominously, low price that my wistful hostess was asking for board and bed. Old-world politeness, however, obliged me to go on with the ordeal. Wecrossed the landing to the right side of the house (where "I and Lo have ourrooms"--Lo being presumably the maid), and the lodger-lover could hardlyconceal a shudder when he, a very fastidious male, was granted a preview ofthe only bathroom, a tiny oblong between the landing and "Lo's" room, withlimp wet things overhanging the dubious tub (the question mark of a hairinside); and there were the expected coils of the rubber snake, and itscomplement--a pinkish cozy, coyly covering the toilet lid. "I see you are not too favorably impressed," said the lady letting herhand rest for a moment upon my sleeve: she combined a cool forwardness--theoverflow of what I think is called "poise"--with a shyness and sadness thatcaused her detached way of selecting her words to seem as unnatural as theintonation of a professor of "speech." "This is not a neat household, Iconfess," the doomed ear continued, "but I assure you [she looked at mylips], you will be very comfortable, very comfortable, indeed. Let me showyou the garden" (the last more brightly, with a kind of winsome toss of thevoice). Reluctantly I followed her downstairs again; then through the kitchenat the end of the hall, on the right side of the house--the side where alsothe dining room and the parlor were (under "my" room, on the left, there wasnothing but a garage). In the kitchen, the Negro maid, a plump youngishwoman, said, as she took her large glossy black purse from the knob of thedoor leading to the back porch: "I'll go now, Mrs. Haze." "Yes, Louise,"answered Mrs. Haze with a sigh. "I'll settle with you Friday." We passed onto a small pantry and entered the dining room, parallel to the parlor we hadalready admired. I noticed a white sock on the floor. With a deprecatorygrunt, Mrs. Haze stooped without stopping and threw it into a closet next tothe pantry. We cursorily inspected a mahogany table with a fruit vase in themiddle, containing nothing but the still glistening stone of one plum. Igroped for the timetable I had in my pocket and surreptitiously fished itout to look as soon as possible for a train. I was still walking behind Mrs.Haze though the dining room when, beyond it, there came a sudden burst ofgreenery--"the piazza," sang out my leader, and then, without the leastwarning, a blue sea-wave swelled under my heart and, from a mat in a pool ofsun, half-naked, kneeling, turning about on her knees, there was my Rivieralove peering at me over dark glasses. It was the same child--the same frail, honey-hued shoulders, the samesilky supple bare back, the same chestnut head of hair. A polka-dotted blackkerchief tied around her chest hid from my aging ape eyes, but not from thegaze of young memory, the juvenile breasts I had fondled one immortal day.And, as if I were the fairy-tale nurse of some little princess (lost, file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (25 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt kidnapped, discovered in gypsy rags through which her nakedness smiled at the ki

are back, the same chestnut head of hair. A polka-dotted blackkerchief tied around her chest hid from my aging ape eyes, but not from thegaze of young memory, the juvenile breasts I had fondled one immortal day.And, as if I were the fairy-tale nurse of some little princess (lost, file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (25 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt kidnapped, discovered in gypsy rags through which her nakedness smiled at the king and his hounds), I recognized the tiny dark-brown mole on her side.With awe and delight (the king crying for joy, the trumpets blaring, thenurse drunk) I saw again her lovely indrawn abdomen where my southboundmouth had briefly paused; and those puerile hips on which I had kissed thecrenulated imprint left by the band of her shorts--that last mad immortalday behind the "Roches Roses." The twenty-five years I had lived since then,tapered to a palpitating point, and vanished. I find it most difficult to express with adequate force that flash,that shiver, that impact of passionate recognition. In the course of thesun-shot moment that my glance slithered over the kneeling child (her eyesblinking over those stern dark spectacles--the little Herr Doktor who was tocure me of all my aches) while I passed by her in my adult disguise (a greatbig handsome hunk of movieland manhood), the vacuum of my soul managed tosuck in every detail of her bright beauty, and these I checked against thefeatures of my dead bride. A little later, of course, she, this nouvelle, this Lolita, my Lolita, was to eclipse completely herprototype. All I want to stress is that my discovery of her was a fatalconsequence of that "princedom by the sea" in my tortured past. Everythingbetween the two events was but a series of gropings and blunders, and falserudiments of joy. Everything they shared made one of them. I have no illusions, however. My judges will regard all this as a pieceof mummery on the part of a madman with a gross liking for the fruitvert. Au fond, ãa m'est bien ègal. All I know is that while theHaze woman and I went down the steps into the breathless garden, my kneeswere like reflections of knees in rippling water, and my lips were likesand, and-- "That was my Lo," she said, "and these are my lilies." "Yes," I said, "yes. They are beautiful, beautiful, beautiful." 11 Exhibit number two is a pocket diary bound in black imitation leather, with a golden year, 1947, en escalier, in its upper left-hand corner.I speak of this neat product of the Blank Blank Co., Blankton, Mass., as ifit were really before me. Actually, it was destroyed five years go and whatwe examine now (by courtesy of a photographic memory) is but its briefmaterialization, a puny unfledged phoenix. I remember the thing so exactly because I wrote it really twice. FirstI jotted down each entry in pencil (with many erasures and corrections) onthe leaves of what is commercially known as a "typewriter tablet"; then, Icopied it out with obvious abbreviations in my smallest, most satanic, hand file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (26 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt in the little black book just mentioned. May 30 is a Fast Day by Proclamation in New Hampshire but not in theCarolinas. That day an epidemic of "abdominal flu" (whatever that is) forcedRamsdale to close its schools for the summer. The reader may check theweather data in the Ramsdale Journal for 1947. A few days before thatI moved into the Haze house, and the little diary which I now propose toreel off (much as a spy delivers by heart the contents of the note heswallowed) covers most of June. Thursday. Very warm day. From a vantage point (bathroom window)saw Dolores taking things off a clothesline in the apple-green light behindthe house. Str

at is) forcedRamsdale to close its schools for the summer. The reader may check theweather data in the Ramsdale Journal for 1947. A few days before thatI moved into the Haze house, and the little diary which I now propose toreel off (much as a spy delivers by heart the contents of the note heswallowed) covers most of June. Thursday. Very warm day. From a vantage point (bathroom window)saw Dolores taking things off a clothesline in the apple-green light behindthe house. Strolled out. She wore a plaid shirt, blue jeans and sneakers.Every movement she made in the dappled sun plucked at the most secret andsensitive chord of my abject body. After a while she sat down next to me onthe lower step of the back porch and began to pick up the pebbles betweenher feet--pebbles, my God, then a curled bit of milk-bottle glass resemblinga snarling lip--and chuck them at a can. Ping. You can't a secondtime--you can't hit it--oh, marvelous: tender and tanned, not the leastblemish. Sundaes cause acne. The excess of the oily substance called sebumwhich nourishes the hair follicles of the skin creates, when too profuse, anirritation that opens the way to infection. But nymphets do not have acnealthough they gorge themselves on rich food. God, what agony, that silkyshimmer above her temple grading into bright brown hair. And the little bonetwitching at the side of her dust-powdered ankle. "The McCoo girl? GinnyMcCoo? Oh, she's a fright. And mean. And lame. Nearly died of polio." Ping.The glistening tracery of down on her forearm. When she got up to take inthe wash, I had a chance of adoring from afar the faded seat of herrolled-up jeans. Out of the lawn, bland Mrs. Haze, complete with camera,grew up like a fakir's fake tree and after some heliotropic fussing--sadeyes up, glad eyes down--had the cheek of taking my picture as I satblinking on the steps, Humbert le Bel. Friday. Saw her going somewhere with a dark girl called Rose.Why does the way she walks--a child, mind you, a mere child!--excite me soabominably? Analyze it. A faint suggestion of turned in toes. A kind ofwiggly looseness below the knee prolonged to the end of each footfall. Theghost of a drag. Very infantile, infinitely meretricious. Humbert Humbert isalso infinitely moved by the little one's slangy speech, by her harsh highvoice. Later heard her volley crude nonsense at Rose across the fence.Twanging through me in a rising rhythm. Pause. "I must go now, kiddo." Saturday. (Beginning perhaps amended.) I know it is madness tokeep this journal but it gives me a strange thrill to do so; and only aloving wife could decipher my microscopic script. Let me state with a sobthat today my L. was sun-bathing on the so-called "piazza," but her motherand some other woman were around all the time. Of course, I might have sat file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (27 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt there in the rocker and pretended to read. Playing safe, I kept away, for I was afraid that the horrible, insane, ridiculous and pitiful tremor thatpalsied me might prevent me from making my entrèe with any semblanceof casualness. Sunday. Heat ripple still with us; a most favonian week. Thistime I took up a strategic position, with obese newspaper and new pipe, inthe piazza rocker before L. arrived. To my intense disappointment shecame with her mother, both in two-piece bathing suits, black, as new as mypipe. My darling, my sweetheart stood for a moment near me--wanted thefunnies--and she smelt almost exactly like the other one, the Riviera one,but more intensely so, with rougher overtones--a torrid odor that at onceset my manhood astir--but she had already yanked out of me the covetedsection and retreated to her mat near her phocine mamma. There my beauty laydown on her stomach, showing me,

tment shecame with her mother, both in two-piece bathing suits, black, as new as mypipe. My darling, my sweetheart stood for a moment near me--wanted thefunnies--and she smelt almost exactly like the other one, the Riviera one,but more intensely so, with rougher overtones--a torrid odor that at onceset my manhood astir--but she had already yanked out of me the covetedsection and retreated to her mat near her phocine mamma. There my beauty laydown on her stomach, showing me, showing the thousand eyes wide open in myeyed blood, her slightly raised shoulder blades, and the bloom along theincurvation of her spine, and the swellings of her tense narrow natesclothed in black, and the seaside of her schoolgirl thighs. Silently, theseventh-grader enjoyed her green-red-blue comics. She was the loveliestnymphet green-red-blue Priap himself could think up. As I looked on, throughprismatic layers of light, dry-lipped, focusing my lust and rocking slightlyunder my newspaper, I felt that my perception of her, if properlyconcentrated upon, might be sufficient to have me attain a beggar's blissimmediately; but, like some predator that prefers a moving prey to amotionless one, I planned to have this pitiful attainment coincide with thevarious girlish movements she made now and then as she read, such as tryingto scratch the middle of her back and revealing a stippled armpit--but fatHaze suddenly spoiled everything by turning to me and asking me for a light,and starting a make-believe conversation about a fake book by some popularfraud. Monday. Delectatio morosa. I spend my doleful days in dumps anddolors. We (mother Haze, Dolores and I) were to go to Our Glass Lake thisafternoon, and bathe, and bask; but a nacreous morn degenerated at noon intorain, and Lo made a scene. The median age of pubescence for girls has been found to be thirteenyears and nine months in New York and Chicago. The age varies forindividuals from ten, or earlier, to seventeen. Virginia was not quitefourteen when Harry Edgar possessed her. He gave her lessons in algebra.Je m'imagine cela. They spent their honeymoon at Petersburg, Fla."Monsieur Poe-poe," as that boy in one of Monsieur Humbert Humbert's classesin Paris called the poet-poet. I have all the characteristics which, according to writers on the sexinterests of children, start the responses stirring in a little girl:clean-cut jaw, muscular hand, deep sonorous voice, broad shoulder. Moreover, file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (28 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt I am said to resemble some crooner or actor chap on whom Lo has a crush. Tuesday. Rain. Lake of the Rains. Mamma out shopping. L., Iknew, was somewhere quite near. In result of some stealthy maneuvering, Icame across her in her mother's bedroom. Prying her left eye open to get ridof a speck of something. Checked frock. Although I do love that intoxicatingbrown fragrance of hers, I really think she should wash her hair once in awhile. For a moment, we were both in the same warm green bath of the mirrorthat reflected the top of a poplar with us in the sky. Held her roughly bythe shoulders, then tenderly by the temples, and turned her about. "It'sright there," she said. "I can feel it." "Swiss peasant would use the top ofher tongue." "Lick it out?" "Yeth. Shly try?" "Sure," she said. Gently Ipressed my quivering sting along her rolling salty eyeball. "Goody-goody,"she said nictating. "It is gone." "Now the other?" "You dope," shebegan, "there is noth--" but here she noticed the pucker of my approachinglips. "Okay," she said cooperatively, and bending toward her warm upturnedrusset face somber Humbert pressed his mouth to her fluttering eyelid. Shelaughed, and brushed past me out of the room. My heart seemed everywhere atonce. Never in my life-

she said. Gently Ipressed my quivering sting along her rolling salty eyeball. "Goody-goody,"she said nictating. "It is gone." "Now the other?" "You dope," shebegan, "there is noth--" but here she noticed the pucker of my approachinglips. "Okay," she said cooperatively, and bending toward her warm upturnedrusset face somber Humbert pressed his mouth to her fluttering eyelid. Shelaughed, and brushed past me out of the room. My heart seemed everywhere atonce. Never in my life--not even when fondling my child-love inFrance--never-- Night. Never have I experienced such agony. I would like to describeher face, her ways--and I cannot, because my own desire for her blinds mewhen she is near. I am not used to being with nymphets, damn it. If I closemy eyes I see but an immobilized fraction of her, a cinematographic still, asudden smooth nether loveliness, as with one knee up under her tartan skirtshe sits tying her shoe. "Dolores Haze, ne montrez pas vos zhambes"(this is her mother who thinks she knows French). A poet þ mes heures, I composed a madrigal to the soot-blacklashes of her pale-gray vacant eyes, to the five asymmetrical freckles onher bobbed nose, to the blond down of her brown limbs; but I tore it up andcannot recall it today. Only in the tritest of terms (diary resumed) can Idescribe Lo's features: I might say her hair is auburn, and her lips as redas licked red candy, the lower one prettily plump--oh, that I were a ladywriter who could have her pose naked in a naked light! But instead I amlanky, big-boned, wooly-chested Humbert Humbert, with thick black eyebrowsand a queer accent, and a cesspoolful of rotting monsters behind his slowboyish smile. And neither is she the fragile child of a feminine novel. Whatdrives me insane is the twofold nature of this nymphet--of every nymphet,perhaps; this mixture in my Lolita of tender dreamy childishness and a kindof eerie vulgarity, stemming from the snub-nosed cuteness of ads andmagazine pictures, from the blurry pinkness of adolescent maidservants inthe Old Country (smelling of crushed daisies and sweat); and from very youngharlots disguised as children in provincial brothels; and then again, allthis gets mixed up with the exquisite stainless tenderness seeping through file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (29 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt the musk and the mud, through the dirt and the death, oh God, oh God. And what is most singular is that she, this Lolita, my Lolita, hasindividualized the writer's ancient lust, so that above and over everythingthere is--Lolita. Wednesday. "Look, make Mother take you and me to Our Glass Laketomorrow." These were the textual words said to me by my twelve-year-oldflame in a voluptuous whisper, as we happened to bump into one another onthe front porch, I out, she in. The reflection of the afternoon sun, adazzling white diamond with innumerable iridescent spikes quivered on theround back of a parked car. The leafage of a voluminous elm played itsmellow shadows upon the clapboard wall of the house. Two poplars shiveredand shook. You could make out the formless sounds of remote traffic; a childcalling "Nancy, Nan-cy!" In the house, Lolita had put on her favorite"Little Carmen" record which I used to call "Dwarf Conductors," making hersnort with mock derision at my mock wit. Thursday. Last night we sat on the piazza, the Haze woman,Lolita and I. Warm dusk had deepened into amorous darkness. The old girl hadfinished relating in great detail the plot of a movie she and L. had seensometime in the winter. The boxer had fallen extremely low when he met thegood old priest (who had been a boxer himself in his robust youth and couldstill slug a sinner). We sat on cushions heaped on the floor, and L. wasbetween the woman and me (she had squeezed herself i

Thursday. Last night we sat on the piazza, the Haze woman,Lolita and I. Warm dusk had deepened into amorous darkness. The old girl hadfinished relating in great detail the plot of a movie she and L. had seensometime in the winter. The boxer had fallen extremely low when he met thegood old priest (who had been a boxer himself in his robust youth and couldstill slug a sinner). We sat on cushions heaped on the floor, and L. wasbetween the woman and me (she had squeezed herself in, the pet). In my turn,I launched upon a hilarious account of my arctic adventures. The muse ofinvention handed me a rifle and I shot a white bear who sat down and said:Ah! All the while I was acutely aware of L.'s nearness and as I spoke Igestured in the merciful dark and took advantage of those invisible gesturesof mine to touch her hand, her shoulder and a ballerina of wool and gauzewhich she played with and kept sticking into my lap; and finally, when I hadcompletely enmeshed my glowing darling in this weave of ethereal caresses, Idared stroke her bare leg along the gooseberry fuzz of her shin, and Ichuckled at my own jokes, and trembled, and concealed my tremors, and onceor twice felt with my rapid lips the warmth of her hair as I treated her toa quick nuzzling, humorous aside and caressed her plaything. She, too,fidgeted a good deal so that finally her mother told her sharply to quit itand sent the doll flying into the dark, and I laughed and addressed myselfto Haze across Lo's legs to let my hand creep up my nymphet's thin back andfeel her skin through her boy's shirt. But I knew it was all hopeless, and was sick with longing, and myclothes felt miserably tight, and I was almost glad when her mother's quietvoice announced in the dark: "And now we all think that Lo should go tobed." "I think you stink," said Lo. "Which means there will be no picnictomorrow," said Haze. "This is a free country," said Lo. When angry Lo witha Bronx cheer had gone, I stayed on from sheer inertia, while Haze smoked file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (30 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt her tenth cigarette of the evening and complained of Lo. She had been spiteful, if you please, at the age of one, when she usedto throw her toys out of her crib so that her poor mother should keeppicking them up, the villainous infant! Now, at twelve, she was a regularpest, said Haze. All she wanted from life was to be one day a strutting andprancing baton twirler or a jitterbug. Her grades were poor, but she wasbetter adjusted in her new school than in Pisky (Pisky was the Haze hometown in the Middle West. The Ramsdale house was her late mother-in-law's.They had moved to Ramsdale less than two years ago). "Why was she unhappythere?" "Oh," said Haze, "poor me should know, I went through that whenI was a kid: boys twisting one's arm, banging into one with loads ofbooks, pulling one's hair, hurting one's breasts, flipping one's skirt. Ofcourse, moodiness is a common concomitant of growing up, but Lo exaggerates.Sullen and evasive. Rude and defiant. Struck Viola, an Italian schoolmate,in the seat with a fountain pen. Know what I would like? If you, monsieur,happened to be still here in the fall, I'd ask you to help her with herhomework--you seem to know everything, geography, mathematics, French." "Oh,everything," answered monsieur. "That means," said Haze quickly, "you'llbe here!" I wanted to shout that I would stay on eternally if only Icould hope to caress now and then my incipient pupil. But I was wary ofHaze. So I just grunted and stretched my limbs nonconcomitantly (le motjuste) and presently went up to my room. The woman, however, wasevidently not prepared to call it a day. I was already lying upon my coldbed both hands pressing to my face Lolita's fragrant ghost when I heard myinde

monsieur. "That means," said Haze quickly, "you'llbe here!" I wanted to shout that I would stay on eternally if only Icould hope to caress now and then my incipient pupil. But I was wary ofHaze. So I just grunted and stretched my limbs nonconcomitantly (le motjuste) and presently went up to my room. The woman, however, wasevidently not prepared to call it a day. I was already lying upon my coldbed both hands pressing to my face Lolita's fragrant ghost when I heard myindefatigable landlady creeping stealthily up to my door to whisper throughit--just to make sure, she said, I was through with the Glance and Gulpmagazine I had borrowed the other day. From her room Lo yelled shehad it. We are quite a lending library in this house, thunder of God. Friday. I wonder what my academic publishers would say if I wereto quote in my textbook Ronsard's "la vermeillette fente" or RemyBelleau's "un petit mont feutrè de mousse dèlicate, tracè sur le milieud'un fillet escarlatte" and so forth. I shall probably have anotherbreakdown if I stay any longer in this house, under the strain of thisintolerable temptation, by the side of my darling--my darling--my life andmy bride. Has she already been initiated by mother nature to the Mystery ofthe Menarche? Bloated feelings. The Curse of the Irish. Falling from theroof. Grandma is visiting. "Mr. Uterus [I quote from a girls' magazine]starts to build a thick soft wall on the chance a possible baby may have tobe bedded down there." The tiny madman in his padded cell. Incidentally: if I ever commit a serious murder . . . Mark the "if."The urge should be something more than the kind of thing that happened to mewith Valeria. Carefully mark that then was rather inept. If and whenyou wish to sizzle me to death, remember that only a spell of insanity could file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (31 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt ever give me the simple energy to be a brute (all this amended, perhaps). Sometimes I attempt to kill in my dreams. But do you know what happens? Forinstance I hold a gun. For instance I aim at a bland, quietly interestedenemy. Oh, I press the trigger all right, but one bullet after anotherfeebly drops on the floor from the sheepish muzzle. In those dreams, my onlythought is to conceal the fiasco from my foe, who is slowly growing annoyed. At dinner tonight the old cat said to me with a sidelong gleam ofmotherly mockery directed at Lo (I had just been describing, in a flippantvein, the delightful little toothbrush mustache I had not quite decided togrow): "Better don't if somebody is not to go absolutely dotty." InstantlyLo pushed her plate of boiled fish away, all but knocking her milk over, andbounced out of the dining room. "Would it bore you very much," quoth Haze,"to come with us tomorrow for a swim in Our Glass Lake if Lo apologizes forher manners?" Later, I heard a great banging of doors and other sounds coming fromquaking caverns where the two rivals were having a ripping row. She had not apologized. The lake is out. It might have been fun. Saturday. For some days already I had been leaving the doorajar, while I wrote in my room; but only today did the trap work. With agood deal of additional fidgeting, shuffling, scraping--to disguise herembarrassment at visiting me without having been called--Lo came in andafter pottering around, became interested in the nightmare curlicues I hadpenned on a sheet of paper. Oh no: they were not the outcome of abelle-lettrist's inspired pause between two paragraphs; they were thehideous hieroglyphics (which she could not decipher) of my fatal lust. Asshe bent her brown curs over the desk at which I was sitting, Humbert theHoarse put his arm around her in a miserable imitation ofblood-relationship; and s

Lo came in andafter pottering around, became interested in the nightmare curlicues I hadpenned on a sheet of paper. Oh no: they were not the outcome of abelle-lettrist's inspired pause between two paragraphs; they were thehideous hieroglyphics (which she could not decipher) of my fatal lust. Asshe bent her brown curs over the desk at which I was sitting, Humbert theHoarse put his arm around her in a miserable imitation ofblood-relationship; and still studying, somewhat shortsightedly, the pieceof paper she held, my innocent little visitor slowly sank to a half-sittingposition upon my knee. Her adorable profile, parted lips, warm hair weresome three inches from my bared eyetooth; and I felt the heat of her limbsthrough her rough tomboy clothes. All at once I knew I could kiss her throator the wick of her mouth with perfect impunity. I knew she would let me doso, and even close her eyes as Hollywood teaches. A double vanilla with hotfudge--hardly more unusual than that. I cannot tell my learned reader (whoseeyebrows, I suspect, have by now traveled all the way to the back of hisbald head), I cannot tell him how the knowledge came to me; perhaps myape-ear had unconsciously caught some slight change in the rhythm of herrespiration--for now she was not really looking at my scribble, but waitingwith curiosity and composure--oh, my limpid nymphet!--for the glamorouslodger to do what he was dying to do. A modern child, an avid reader ofmovie magazines, an expert in dream-slow close-ups, might not think it toostrange, I guessed, if a handsome, intensely virile grown-up friend--too file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (32 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt late. The house was suddenly vibrating with voluble Louise's voice telling Mrs. Haze who had just come home about a dead something she and LeslieTomson had found in the basement, and little Lolita was not one to miss sucha tale. Sunday. Changeful, bad-tempered, cheerful, awkward, gracefulwith the tart grace of her coltish subteens, excruciatingly desirable fromhead to foot (all New England for a lady-writer's pen!), from the blackread-made bow and bobby pins holding her hair in place to the little scar onthe lower part of her neat calf (where a roller-skater kicked her in Pisky),a couple of inches above her rough white sock. Gone with her mother to theHamiltons--a birthday party or something. Full-skirted gingham frock. Herlittle doves seem well formed already. Precocious pet! Monday. Rainy morning. "Ces matins gris si doux . . ." Mywhite pajamas have a lilac design on the back. I am like one of thoseinflated pale spiders you see in old gardens. Sitting in the middle of aluminous web and giving little jerks to this or that strand. My webis spread all over the house as I listen from my chair where I sit like awily wizard. Is Lo in her room? Gently I tug on the silk. She is not. Justheard the toilet paper cylinder make its staccato sound as it is turned; andno footfalls has my outflung filament traced from the bathroom back to herroom. Is she still brushing her teeth (the only sanitary act Lo performswith real zest)? No. The bathroom door has just slammed, so one has to feelelsewhere about the house for the beautiful warm-colored prey. Let us have astrand of silk descend the stairs. I satisfy myself by this means that sheis not in the kitchen--not banging the refrigerator door or screeching ather detested mamma (who, I suppose, is enjoying her third, cooing andsubduedly mirthful, telephone conversation of the morning). Well, let usgrope and hope. Ray-like, I glide in through to the parlor and find theradio silent (and mamma still talking to Mrs. Chatfield or Mrs. Hamilton,very softly, flushed, smiling, cupping the telephone with her free hand,denying by implica

by this means that sheis not in the kitchen--not banging the refrigerator door or screeching ather detested mamma (who, I suppose, is enjoying her third, cooing andsubduedly mirthful, telephone conversation of the morning). Well, let usgrope and hope. Ray-like, I glide in through to the parlor and find theradio silent (and mamma still talking to Mrs. Chatfield or Mrs. Hamilton,very softly, flushed, smiling, cupping the telephone with her free hand,denying by implication that she denies those amusing rumors, rumor, roomer,whispering intimately, as she never does, the clear-cut lady, in face toface talk). So my nymphet is not in the house at all! Gone! What I thoughtwas a prismatic weave turns out to be but an old gray cobweb, the house isempty, is dead. And then comes Lolita's soft sweet chuckle through myhalf-open door "Don't tell Mother but I've eaten all your bacon."Gone when I scuttle out of my room. Lolita, where are you? My breakfasttray, lovingly prepared by my landlady, leers at me toothlessly, ready to betaken in. Lola, Lolita! Tuesday. Clouds again interfered with that picnic on thatunattainable lake. Is it Fate scheming? Yesterday I tried on before themirror a new pair of bathing trunks. Wednesday. In the afternoon, Haze (common-sensical shoes, file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (33 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt tailor-made dress), said she was driving downtown to buy a present for a friend of a friend of hers, and would I please come too because I have sucha wonderful taste in textures and perfumes. "Choose your favoriteseduction," she purred. What could Humbert, being in the perfume business,do? She had me cornered between the front porch and her car. "Hurry up," shesaid as I laboriously doubled up my large body in order to crawl in (stilldesperately devising a means of escape). She had started the engine, and wasgenteelly swearing at a backing and turning truck in front that had justbrought old invalid Miss Opposite a brand new wheel chair, when my Lolita'ssharp voice came from the parlor window: "You! Where are you going? I'mcoming too! Wait!" "Ignore her," yelped Haze (killing the motor); alas formy fair driver; Lo was already pulling at the door on my side. "This isintolerable," began Haze; but Lo had scrambled in, shivering with glee."Move your bottom, you," said Lo. "Lo!" cried Haze (sideglancing at me,hoping I would throw rude Lo out). "And behold," said Lo (not for the firsttime), as she jerked back, as I jerked back, as the car leapt forward. "Itis intolerable," said Haze, violently getting into second, "that a childshould be so ill-mannered. And so very persevering. When she knows she isunwanted. And needs a bath." My knuckles lay against the child's blue jeans. She was barefooted; hertoenails showed remnants of cherry-red polish and there was a bit ofadhesive tape across her big toe; and, God, what would I not have given tokiss then and there those delicate-boned, long-toed, monkeyish feet!Suddenly her hand slipped into mine and without our chaperon's seeing, Iheld, and stroked, and squeezed that little hot paw, all the way to thestore. The wings of the diver's Marlenesque nose shone, having shed orburned up their ration of powder, and she kept up an elegant monologue anentthe local traffic, and smiled in profile, and pouted in profile, and beather painted lashes in profile, while I prayed we would never get to thatstore, but we did. I have nothing else to report, save, primo: that big Haze hadlittle Haze sit behind on our way home, and secundo: that the ladydecided to keep Humbert's Choice for the backs of her own shapely ears. Thursday. We are paying with hail and gale for the tropicalbeginning of the month. In a volume of the Young

traffic, and smiled in profile, and pouted in profile, and beather painted lashes in profile, while I prayed we would never get to thatstore, but we did. I have nothing else to report, save, primo: that big Haze hadlittle Haze sit behind on our way home, and secundo: that the ladydecided to keep Humbert's Choice for the backs of her own shapely ears. Thursday. We are paying with hail and gale for the tropicalbeginning of the month. In a volume of the Young People'sEncyclopedia, I found a map of the states that a child's pencil hadstarted copying out on a sheet of lightweight paper, upon the other side ofwhich, counter to the unfinished outline of Florida and the Gulf, there wasa mimeographed list of names referring, evidently, to her class at theRamsdale school. It is a poem I know already by heart. Angel, Grace Austin, Floyd file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (34 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt Beale, Jack Beale, Mary Buck, Daniel Byron, Marguerite Campbell, Alice Carmine, Rose Chatfield, Phyllis Clarke, Gordon Cowan, John Cowan, Marion Duncan, Walter Falter, Ted Fantasia, Stella Flashman, Irving Fox, George Glave, Mabel Goodale, Donald Green, Lucinda Hamilton, Mary Rose Haze, Dolores Honeck, Rosaline Knight, Kenneth McCoo, Virginia McCrystal, Vivian McFate, Aubrey Miranda, Anthony Miranda, Viola Rosato, Emil Schlenker, Lena Scott, Donald Sheridan, Agnes Sherva, Oleg Smith, Hazel Talbot, Edgar Talbot, Edwin Wain, Lull Williams, Ralph Windmuller, Louise A poem, a poem, forsooth! So strange and sweet was it to discover this "Haze, Dolores" (she!) in its special bower of names, with its bodyguard ofroses--a fairy princess between her two maids of honor. I am trying toanalyze the spine-thrill of delight it gives me, this name among all those file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (35 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt others. What is it that excites me almost to tears (hot, opalescent, thick tears that poets and lovers shed)? What is it? The tender anonymity of thisname with its formal veil ("Dolores") and that abstract transposition offirst name and surname, which is like a pair of new pale gloves or a mask?Is "mask" the keyword? Is it because there is always delight in thesemitranslucent mystery, the flowing charshaf, through which the flesh andthe eye you alone are elected to know smile in passing at you alone? Or isit because I can imagine so well the rest of the colorful classroom aroundmy dolorous and hazy darling: Grace and her ripe pimples; Ginny and herlagging leg; Gordon, the haggard masturbator; Duncan, the foul-smellingclown; nail-biting Agnes; Viola, of the blackheads and the bouncing bust;pretty Rosaline; dark Mary Rose; adorable Stella, who has let strangerstouch her; Ralph, who bullies and steals; Irving, for whom I am sorry. Andthere she is there, lost in the middle, gnawing a pencil, detested byteachers, all the boys' eyes on her hair and neck, my Lolita. Friday. I long for some terrific disaster. Earthquake.Spectacular explosion. Her mother is messily but instantly and permanentlyeliminated, along with everybody else for miles around. Lolita whimpers inmy arms. A free man, I enjoy her among the ruins. Her surprise, myexplanations, demonstrations, ullulations. Idle and idiotic fancies! A braveHumbert would have played with her most disgustingly (yesterday, forinstance, when she was again in my room to show me her drawings,school-artware); he might have bribed her--and got away with it. A simplerand more practical fellow would have soberly stuck to various commercialsubstit

for miles around. Lolita whimpers inmy arms. A free man, I enjoy her among the ruins. Her surprise, myexplanations, demonstrations, ullulations. Idle and idiotic fancies! A braveHumbert would have played with her most disgustingly (yesterday, forinstance, when she was again in my room to show me her drawings,school-artware); he might have bribed her--and got away with it. A simplerand more practical fellow would have soberly stuck to various commercialsubstitutes--if you know where to go, I don't. Despite my many looks, I amhorribly timid. My romantic soul gets all clammy and shivery at the thoughtof running into some awful indecent unpleasantness. Those ribald seamonsters. "Mais allez-y, allez-y!" Annabel skipping on one foot toget into her shorts, I seasick with rage, trying to screen her. Same date, later, quite late. I have turned on the light to take down adream. It had an evident antecedent. Haze at dinner had benevolentlyproclaimed that since the weather bureau promised a sunny weekend we wouldgo to the lake Sunday after church. As I lay in bed, erotically musingbefore trying to go to sleep, I thought of a final scheme how to profit bythe picnic to come. I was aware that mother Haze hated my darling for herbeing sweet on me. So I planned my lake day with a view to satisfying themother. To her alone would I talk; but at some appropriate moment I wouldsay I had left my wrist watch or my sunglasses in that glade yonder--andplunge with my nymphet into the wood. Reality at this juncture withdrew, andthe Quest for the Glasses turned into a quiet little orgy with a singularlyknowing, cheerful, corrupt and compliant Lolita behaving as reason knew shecould not possibly behave. At 3 a.m. I swallowed a sleeping pill, andpresently, a dream that was not a sequel but a parody revealed to me, with a file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (36 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt kind of meaningful clarity, the lake I had never yet visited: it was glazed over with a sheet of emerald ice, and a pockmarked Eskimo was trying in vainto break it with a pickax, although imported mimosas and oleanders floweredon its gravelly banks. I am sure Dr. Blanche Schwarzmann would have paid mea sack of schillings for adding such a libidream to her files.Unfortunately, the rest of it was frankly eclectic. Big Haze and little Hazerode on horseback around the lake, and I rode too, dutifully bobbing up anddown, bowlegs astraddle although there was no horse between them, onlyelastic air--one of those little omissions due to the absentmindedness ofthe dream agent. Saturday. My heart is still thumping. I still squirm and emitlow moans of remembered embarrassment. Dorsal view. Glimpse of shiny skin between T-shirt and white gymshorts. Bending, over a window sill, in the act of tearing off leaves from apoplar outside while engrossed in torrential talk with a newspaper boy below(Kenneth Knight, I suspect) who had just propelled the RamsdaleJournal with a very precise thud onto the porch. I began creeping upto her--"crippling" up to her as pantomimists say. My arms and legs wereconvex surfaces between which--rather than upon which--I slowly progressedby some neutral means of locomotion: Humbert the Wounded Spider. I must havetaken hours to reach her: I seemed to see her through the wrong end of atelescope, and toward her taut little rear I moved like some paralytic, onsoft distorted limbs, in terrible concentration. At last I was right behindher when I had the unfortunate idea of blustering a trifle--shaking her bythe scruff of the neck and that sort of thing to cover my realmanõge, and she said in a shrill brief whine: "Cut it out!"--mostcoarsely, the little wench, and with a ghastly grin Humbert the Humble beata gloomy retreat wh

e her through the wrong end of atelescope, and toward her taut little rear I moved like some paralytic, onsoft distorted limbs, in terrible concentration. At last I was right behindher when I had the unfortunate idea of blustering a trifle--shaking her bythe scruff of the neck and that sort of thing to cover my realmanõge, and she said in a shrill brief whine: "Cut it out!"--mostcoarsely, the little wench, and with a ghastly grin Humbert the Humble beata gloomy retreat while she went on wisecracking streetward. But now listen to what happened next. After lunch I was reclining in alow chair trying to read. Suddenly two deft little hands were over my eyes:she had crept up from behind as if re-enacting, in a ballet sequence, mymorning maneuver. Her fingers were a luminous crimson as they tried to blotout the sun, and she uttered hiccups of laughter and jerked this way andthat as I stretched my arm sideways and backwards without otherwise changingmy recumbent position. My hand swept over her agile giggling legs, and thebook like a sleigh left my lap, and Mrs. Haze strolled up and saidindulgently: "Just slap her hard if she interferes with your scholarlymeditations. How I love this garden [no exclamation mark in her tone]. Isn'tit divine in the sun [no question mark either]." And with a sign of feignedcontent, the obnoxious lady sank down on the grass and looked up at the skyas she leaned back on her splayed-out hands, and presently an old graytennis ball bounced over her, and Lo's voice came from the house haughtily:"Pardonnez, Mother. I was not aiming at you." Of course not, file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (37 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt my hot downy darling. 12 This proved to be the last of twenty entries or so. It will be seem from them that for all the devil's inventiveness, the scheme remained dailythe same. First he would tempt me--and then thwart me, leaving me with adull pain in the very root of my being. I knew exactly what I wanted to do,and how to do it, without impinging on a child's chastity; after all, I hadhad some experience in my life of pederosis; had visually possesseddappled nymphets in parks; had wedged my wary and bestial way into thehottest, most crowded corner of a city bus full of straphanging schoolchildren. But for almost three weeks I had been interrupted in all mypathetic machinations. The agent of these interruptions was usually the Hazewoman (who, as the reader will mark, was more afraid of Lo's deriving somepleasure from me than of my enjoying Lo). The passion I had developed forthat nymphet--for the first nymphet in my life that could be reached at lastby my awkward, aching, timid claws--would have certainly landed me again ina sanatorium, had not the devil realized that I was to be granted somerelief if he wanted to have me as a plaything for some time longer. The reader has also marked the curious Mirage of the Lake. It wouldhave been logical on the part of Aubrey McFate (as I would like to dub thatdevil of mine) to arrange a small treat for me on the promised beach, in thepresumed forest. Actually, the promise Mrs. Haze had made was a fraudulentone: she had not told me that Mary Rose Hamilton (a dark little beauty inher own right) was to come too, and that the two nymphets would bewhispering apart, and playing apart, and having a good time all bythemselves, while Mrs. Haze and her handsome lodger conversed sedately inthe seminude, far from prying eyes. Incidentally, eyes did pry and tonguesdid wag. How queer life is! We hasten to alienate the very fates we intendedto woo. Before my actual arrival, my landlady had planned to have an oldspinster, a Miss Phalen, whose mother had been cook in Mrs. Haze's family,come to stay in the house with Lolita and me, while Mrs. Haze

, and playing apart, and having a good time all bythemselves, while Mrs. Haze and her handsome lodger conversed sedately inthe seminude, far from prying eyes. Incidentally, eyes did pry and tonguesdid wag. How queer life is! We hasten to alienate the very fates we intendedto woo. Before my actual arrival, my landlady had planned to have an oldspinster, a Miss Phalen, whose mother had been cook in Mrs. Haze's family,come to stay in the house with Lolita and me, while Mrs. Haze, a career girlat heart, sought some suitable job in the nearest city. Mrs. Haze had seenthe whole situation very clearly: the bespectacled, round-backed HerrHumbert coming with his Central-European trunks to gather dust in his cornerbehind a heap of old books; the unloved ugly little daughter firmlysupervised by Miss Phalen who had already once had my Lo under her buzzardwing (Lo recalled that 1944 summer with an indignant shudder); and Mrs. Hazeherself engaged as a receptionist in a great elegant city. But a not toocomplicated event interfered with that program. Miss Phalen broke her hip inSavannah, Ga., on the very day I arrived in Ramsdale. file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (38 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt 13 The Sunday after the Saturday already described proved to be as bright as the weatherman had predicted. When putting the breakfast things back onthe chair outside my room for my good landlady to remove at her convenience,I gleaned the following situation by listening from the landing across whichI had softly crept to the banisters in my old bedroom slippers--the only oldthings about me. There had been another row. Mrs. Hamilton had telephoned that herdaughter "was running a temperature." Mrs. Haze informed her daughterthat the picnic would have to be postponed. Hot little Haze informed bigcold Haze that, if so, she would not go with her to church. Mother said verywell and left. I had come out on the landing straight after shaving, soapy-earlobed,still in my white pajamas with the cornflower blue (not the lilac) design onthe back; I now wiped off the soap, perfumed my hair and armpits, slipped ona purple silk dressing gown, and, humming nervously, went down the stairs inquest of Lo. I want my learned readers to participate in the scene I am about toreplay; I want them to examine its every detail and see for themselves howcareful, how chaste, the whole wine-sweet event is if viewed with what mylawyer has called, in a private talk we have had, "impartial sympathy." Solet us get started. I have a difficult job before me. Main character: Humbert the Hummer. Time: Sunday morning in June.Place: sunlit living room. Props: old, candy-striped davenport, magazines,phonograph, Mexican knickknacks (the late Mr. Harold E. Haze--God bless thegood man--had engendered my darling at the siesta hour in a blue-washedroom, on a honeymoon trip to Vera Cruz, and mementoes, among these Dolores,were all over the place). She wore that day a pretty print dress that I hadseen on her once before, ample in the skirt, tight in the bodice,short-sleeved, pink, checkered with darker pink, and, to complete the colorscheme, she had painted her lips and was holding in her hollowed hands abeautiful, banal, Eden-red apple. She was not shod, however, for church. Andher white Sunday purse lay discarded near the phonograph. My heart beat like a drum as she sat down, cool skirt ballooning,subsiding, on the sofa next to me, and played with her glossy fruit. Shetossed it up into the sun-dusted air, and caught it--it made a cuppedpolished plot. Humbert Humbert intercepted the apple. "Give it back," - she pleaded, showing the marbled flush of her palms.I produced Delicious. She grasped it and bit into it, and my heart was like file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (

phonograph. My heart beat like a drum as she sat down, cool skirt ballooning,subsiding, on the sofa next to me, and played with her glossy fruit. Shetossed it up into the sun-dusted air, and caught it--it made a cuppedpolished plot. Humbert Humbert intercepted the apple. "Give it back," - she pleaded, showing the marbled flush of her palms.I produced Delicious. She grasped it and bit into it, and my heart was like file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (39 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt snow under thin crimson skin, and with the monkeyish nimbleness that was so typical of that American nymphet, she snatched out of my abstract grip themagazine I had opened (pity no film had recorded the curious pattern, themonogrammic linkage of our simultaneous or overlapping moves). Rapidly,hardly hampered by the disfigured apple she held, Lo flipped violentlythrough the pages in search of something she wished Humbert to see. Found itat last. I faked interest by bringing my head so close that her hair touchedmy temple and her arm brushed my cheek as she wiped her lips with her wrist.Because of the burnished mist through which I peered at the picture, I wasslow in reacting to it, and her bare knees rubbed and knocked impatientlyagainst each other. Dimly there came into view: a surrealist painterrelaxing, supine, on a beach, and near him, likewise supine, a plasterreplica of the Venus di Milo, half-buried in sand. Picture of the Week, saidthe legend. I whisked the whole obscene thing away. Next moment, in a shameffort to retrieve it, she was all over me. Caught her by her thin knobbywrist. The magazine escaped to the floor like a flustered fowl. She twistedherself free, recoiled, and lay back in the right-hand corner of thedavenport. Then, with perfect simplicity, the impudent child extended herlegs across my lap. By this time I was in a state of excitement bordering on insanity; butI also had the cunning of the insane. Sitting there, on the sofa, I managedto attune, by a series of stealthy movements, my masked lust to herguileless limbs. It was no easy matter to divert the little maiden'sattention while I performed the obscure adjustments necessary for thesuccess of the trick. Talking fast, lagging behind my own breath, catchingup with it, mimicking a sudden toothache to explain the breaks in mypatter--and all the while keeping a maniac's inner eye on my distant goldengoal, I cautiously increased the magic friction that was doing away, in anillusional, if not factual, sense, with the physically irremovable, butpsychologically very friable texture of the material divide (pajamas androbe) between the weight of two sunburnt legs, resting athwart my lap, andthe hidden tumor of an unspeakable passion. Having, in the course of mypatter, hit upon something nicely mechanical, I recited, garbling themslightly, the words of a foolish song that was then popular--O my Carmen, mylittle Carmen, something, something, those something nights, and the stars,and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen; I kept repeating this automaticstuff and holding her under its special spell (spell because of thegarbling), and all the while I was mortally afraid that some act of Godmight interrupt me, might remove the golden load in the sensation of whichall my being seemed concentrated, and this anxiety forced me to work, forthe first minute or so, more hastily than was consensual with deliberatelymodulated enjoyment. The stars that sparkled, and the cars that parkled, andthe bars, and the barmen, were presently taken over by her; her voice stole file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (40 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt and corrected the tune I had been mutilating. She was musical and ap

g seemed concentrated, and this anxiety forced me to work, forthe first minute or so, more hastily than was consensual with deliberatelymodulated enjoyment. The stars that sparkled, and the cars that parkled, andthe bars, and the barmen, were presently taken over by her; her voice stole file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (40 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt and corrected the tune I had been mutilating. She was musical and apple-sweet. Her legs twitched a little as they lay across my live lap; Istroked them; there she lolled in the right-hand corner, almost asprawl,Lola the bobby-soxer, devouring her immemorial fruit, singing through itsjuice, losing her slipper, rubbing the heel of her slipperless foot in itssloppy anklet, against the pile of old magazines heaped on my left on thesofa--and every movement she made, every shuffle and ripple, helped me toconceal and to improve the secret system of tactile correspondence betweenbeast and beauty--between my gagged, bursting beast and the beauty of herdimpled body in its innocent cotton frock. Under my glancing finger tips I felt the minute hairs bristle ever soslightly along her shins. I lost myself in the pungent but healthy heatwhich like summer haze hung about little Haze. Let her stay, let her stay .. . As she strained to chuck the core of her abolished apple into thefender, her young weight, her shameless innocent shanks and round bottom,shifted in my tense, tortured, surreptitiously laboring lap; and all of asudden a mysterious change came over my senses. I entered a plane of beingwhere nothing mattered, save the infusion of joy brewed within my body. Whathad begun as a delicious distention of my innermost roots became a glowingtingle which now had reached that state of absolute security,confidence and reliance not found elsewhere in conscious life. With the deephot sweetness thus established and well on its way to the ultimateconvulsion, I felt I could slow down in order to prolong the glow. Lolitahad been safely solipsized. The implied sun pulsated in the suppliedpoplars; we were fantastically and divinely alone; I watched her, rosy,gold-dusted, beyond the veil of my controlled delight, unaware of it, aliento it, and the sun was on her lips, and her lips were apparently stillforming the words of the Carmen-barmen ditty that no longer reached myconsciousness. Everything was now ready. The nerves of pleasure had beenlaid bare. The corpuscles of Krause were entering the phase of frenzy. Theleast pressure would suffice to set all paradise loose. I had ceased to beHumbert the Hound, the sad-eyed degenerate cur clasping the boot that wouldpresently kick him away. I was above the tribulations of ridicule, beyondthe possibilities of retribution. In my self-made seraglio, I was a radiantand robust Turk, deliberately, in the full consciousness of his freedom,postponing the moment of actually enjoying the youngest and frailest of hisslaves. Suspended on the brink of that voluptuous abyss (a nicety ofphysiological equipoise comparable to certain techniques in the arts) I keptrepeating the chance words after her--barmen, alarmin', my charmin', mycarmen, ahmen, ahahamen--as one talking and laughing in his sleep while myhappy hand crept up her sunny leg as far as the shadow of decency allowed.The day before she had collided with the heavy chest in the hall and--"Look,look!"--I gasped--"look what you've done, what you've done to yourself, ah, file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (41 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt look"; for there was, I swear, a yellowish-violet bruise on her lovely nymphet thigh which my huge hairy hand massaged and slowly enveloped--andbecause of her very perfunctory underthings, there seemed to be not

day before she had collided with the heavy chest in the hall and--"Look,look!"--I gasped--"look what you've done, what you've done to yourself, ah, file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (41 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt look"; for there was, I swear, a yellowish-violet bruise on her lovely nymphet thigh which my huge hairy hand massaged and slowly enveloped--andbecause of her very perfunctory underthings, there seemed to be nothing toprevent my muscular thumb from reaching the hot hollow of her groin--just asyou might tickle and caress a giggling child--just that--and: "Oh, it'snothing at all," she cried with a sudden shrill note in her voice, and shewiggled, and squirmed, and threw her head back, and her teeth rested on herglistening underlip as she half-turned away, and my moaning mouth, gentlemenof the jury, almost reached her bare neck, while I crushed out against herleft buttock the last throb of the longest ecstasy man or monster had everknown. Immediately afterward (as if we had been struggling and now my grip hadeased) she rolled off the sofa and jumped to her feet--to her foot,rather--in order to attend to the formidably loud telephone that may havebeen ringing for ages as far as I was concerned. There she stood andblinked, cheeks aflame, hair awry, her eyes passing over me as lightly asthey did over the furniture, and as she listened or spoke (to her mother whowas telling her to come to lunch with her at the Chatfileds--neither Lo norHum knew yet what busybody Haze was plotting), she kept tapping the edge ofthe table with the slipper she held in her hand. Blessed be the Lord, shehad noticed nothing! With a handkerchief of multicolored silk, on which her listening eyesrested in passing, I wiped the sweat off my forehead, and, immersed in aeuphoria of release, rearranged my royal robes. She was still at thetelephone, haggling with her mother (wanted to be fetched by car, my littleCarmen) when, singing louder and louder, I swept up the stairs and set adeluge of steaming water roaring into the tub. At this point I may as well give the words of that song hit in full--tothe best of my recollection at least--I don't think I ever had it right.Here goes: O my Carmen, my little Carmen! Something, something those something nights, And the stars, and the cars, and the bars and the barmen-- And, O my charmin', our dreadful fights. And the something town where so gaily, arm in Arm, we went, and our final row, And the gun I killed you with, O my Carmen, The gun I am holding now. (Drew his .32 automatic, I guess, and put a bullet through his moll's eye.) file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (42 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt 14 I had lunch in town--had not been so hungry for years. The house was still Lo-less when I strolled back. I spent the afternoon musing, scheming,blissfully digesting my experience of the morning. I felt proud of myself. I had stolen the honey of a spasm withoutimpairing the morals of a minor. Absolutely no harm done. The conjurer hadpoured milk, molasses, foaming champagne into a young lady's new whitepurse; and lo, the purse was intact. Thus had I delicately constructed myignoble, ardent, sinful dream; and still Lolita was safe--and I was safe.What I had madly possessed was not she, but my own creation, another,fanciful Lolita--perhaps, more real than Lolita; overlapping, encasing her;floating between me and her, and having no will, no consciousness--indeed,no life of her own. The child knew nothing. I had done nothing to her. And nothingprevented me from repeating a performance that affected her as little as ifshe were a photographic image rippling upon a screen and I a humblehunchback abusing myse

.What I had madly possessed was not she, but my own creation, another,fanciful Lolita--perhaps, more real than Lolita; overlapping, encasing her;floating between me and her, and having no will, no consciousness--indeed,no life of her own. The child knew nothing. I had done nothing to her. And nothingprevented me from repeating a performance that affected her as little as ifshe were a photographic image rippling upon a screen and I a humblehunchback abusing myself in the dark. The afternoon drifted on and on, inripe silence, and the sappy tall trees seemed to be in the know; and desire,even stronger than before, began to afflict me again. Let her come soon, Iprayed, addressing a loan God, and while mamma is in the kitchen, let arepetition of the davenport scene be staged, please, I adore her sohorribly. No: "horribly" is the wrong word. The elation with which the vision ofnew delights filled me was not horrible but pathetic. I qualify it aspathetic. Pathetic--because despite the insatiable fire of my venerealappetite, I intended, with the most fervent force and foresight, to protectthe purity of that twelve-year-old child. And now see how I was repaid for my pains. No Lolita came home--she hadgone with the Chatfields to a movie. The table was laid with more elegancethan usual: candlelight, if you please. In this mawkish aura, Mrs. Hazegently touched the silver on both sides of her plate as if touching pianokeys, and smiled down on her empty plate (was on a diet), and said she hopedI liked the salad (recipe lifted from a woman's magazine). She hoped I likedthe cold cuts, too. It had been a perfect day. Mrs. Chatfield was a lovelyperson. Phyllis, her daughter, was going to a summer camp tomorrow. Forthree weeks. Lolita, it was decided, would go Thursday. Instead of waitingtill July, as had been initially planned. And stay there after Phyllis hadleft. Till school began. A pretty prospect, my heart. Oh, how I was taken aback--for did it not mean I was losing my darling,just when I had secretly made her mine? To explain my grim mood, I had touse the same toothache I had already simulated in the morning. Must have file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (43 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt been an enormous molar, with an abscess as big as a maraschino cherry. "We have," said Haze, "an excellent dentist. Our neighbor, in fact. Dr.Quilty. Uncle or cousin, I think, of the playwright. Think it will pass?Well, just as you wish. In the fall I shall have him 'brace' her, as mymother used to say. It may curb Lo a little. I am afraid she has beenbothering you frightfully all these days. And we are in for a couple ofstormy ones before she goes. She has flatly refused to go, and I confess Ileft her with the Chatfields because I dreaded to face her alone just yet.The movie may mollify her. Phyllis is a very sweet girl, and there is noearthly reason for Lo to dislike her. Really, monsieur, I am very sorryabout that tooth of yours. It would be so much more reasonable to let mecontact Ivor Quilty first thing tomorrow morning if it still hurts. And, youknow, I think a summer camp is so much healthier, and--well, it is all somuch more reasonable as I say than to mope on a suburban lawn and usemamma's lipstick, and pursue shy studious gentlemen, and go into tantrums atthe least provocation." "Are you sure," I said at last, "that she will be happy there?" (lame,lamentably lame!) "She'd better," said Haze. "And it won't be all play either. The campis run by Shirley Holmes--you know, the woman who wrote CampfireGirl. Camp will teach Dolores Haze to grow in many things--health,knowledge, temper. And particularly in a sense of responsibility towardsother people. Shall we take these candles with us and sit for a while on thepi

ntrums atthe least provocation." "Are you sure," I said at last, "that she will be happy there?" (lame,lamentably lame!) "She'd better," said Haze. "And it won't be all play either. The campis run by Shirley Holmes--you know, the woman who wrote CampfireGirl. Camp will teach Dolores Haze to grow in many things--health,knowledge, temper. And particularly in a sense of responsibility towardsother people. Shall we take these candles with us and sit for a while on thepiazza, or do you want to go to bed and nurse that tooth?" Nurse that tooth. 15 Next day they drove downtown to buy things needed for the camp: any wearable purchase worked wonders with Lo. She seemed her usual sarcasticself at dinner. Immediately afterwards, she went up to her room to plungeinto the comic books acquired for rainy days at Camp Q (they were sothoroughly sampled by Thursday that she left them behind). I too retired tomy lair, and wrote letters. My plan now was to leave for the seaside andthen, when school began, resume my existence in the Haze household; for Iknew already that I could not live without the child. On Tuesday they wentshopping again, and I was asked to answer the phone if the camp mistressrang up during their absence. She did; and a month or so later we hadoccasion to recall our pleasant chat. That Tuesday, Lo had her dinner in herroom. She had been crying after a routine row with her mother and, as hadhappened on former occasions, had not wished me to see her swollen eyes: shehad one of those tender complexions that after a good cry get all blurred file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (44 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt and inflamed, and morbidly alluring. I regretted keenly her mistake about my private aesthetics, for I simply love that tinge of Botticellian pink, thatraw rose about the lips, those wet, matted eyelashes; and, naturally, herbashful whim deprived me of many opportunities of specious consolation.There was, however, more to it than I thought. As we sat in the darkness ofthe verandah (a rude wind had put out her red candles), Haze, with a drearylaugh, said she had told Lo that her beloved Humbert thoroughly approved ofthe whole camp idea "and now," added Haze, "the child throws a fit; pretext:you and I want to get rid of her; actual reason: I told her we wouldexchange tomorrow for plainer stuff some much too cute night things that shebullied me into buying for her. You see, she sees herself as astarlet; I see her as a sturdy, healthy, but decidedly homely kid.This, I guess, is at the root of our troubles." On Wednesday I managed to waylay Lo for a few seconds: she was on thelanding, in sweatshirt and green-stained white shorts, rummaging in a trunk.I said something meant to be friendly and funny but she only emitted a snortwithout looking at me. Desperate, dying Humbert patted her clumsily on hercoccyx, and she struck him, quite painfully, with one of the late Mr. Haze'sshoetrees. "Doublecrosser," she said as I crawled downstairs rubbing my armwith a great show of rue. She did not condescend to have dinner with Hum andmum: washed her hair and went to bed with her ridiculous books. And onThursday quiet Mrs. Haze drove her to Camp Q. As greater authors than I have put it: "Let readers imagine" etc. Onsecond thought, I may as well give those imaginations a kick in the pants. Iknew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would notbe forever Lolita. She would be thirteen on January 1. In two years or soshe would cease being a nymphet and would turn into a "young girl," andthen, into a "college girl"--that horror of horrors. The word "forever"referred only to my own passion, to the eternal Lolita as reflected in myblood. The Lolita whose iliac crests had not yet flared, the Lolita thattoday I cou

aginations a kick in the pants. Iknew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would notbe forever Lolita. She would be thirteen on January 1. In two years or soshe would cease being a nymphet and would turn into a "young girl," andthen, into a "college girl"--that horror of horrors. The word "forever"referred only to my own passion, to the eternal Lolita as reflected in myblood. The Lolita whose iliac crests had not yet flared, the Lolita thattoday I could touch and smell and hear and see, the Lolita of the stridentvoice and rich brown hair--of the bangs and the swirls and the sides and thecurls at the back, and the sticky hot neck, and the vulgarvocabulary--"revolting," "super," "luscious," "goon," "drip"--thatLolita, my Lolita, poor Catullus would lose forever. So how could Iafford not to see her for two months of summer insomnias? Two whole monthsout of the two years of her remaining nymphage! Should I disguise myself asa somber old-fashioned girl, gawky Mlle Humbert, and put up my tent on theoutskirts of Camp Q, in the hope that its russet nymphets would clamor: "Letus adopt that deep-voiced D.P.," and drag the said, shyly smiling Bertheau Grand Pied to their rustic hearth. Berthe will sleep with DoloresHaze! Idle dry dreams. Two months of beauty, two months of tenderness, would file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (45 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt be squandered forever, and I could do nothing about it, but nothing, mais rien. One drop of rare honey, however, that Thursday did hold in its acorncup. Haze was to drive her to the camp in the early morning. Upon sundrysounds of departure reaching me, I rolled out of bed and leaned out of thewindow. Under the poplars, the car was already athrob. On the sidewalk,Louise stood shading her eyes with her hand, as if the little traveler werealready riding into the low morning sun. The gesture proved to be premature."Hurry up!" shouted Haze. My Lolita, who was half in and about to slam thecar door, wind down the glass, wave to Louise and the poplars (whom andwhich she was never to see again), interrupted the motion of fate: shelooked up--and dashed back into the house (Haze furiously calling afterher). A moment later I heard my sweetheart running up the stairs. My heartexpanded with such force that it almost blotted me out. I hitched up thepants of my pajamas, flung the door open: and simultaneously Lolita arrived,in her Sunday frock, stamping, panting, and then she was in my arms, herinnocent mouth melting under the ferocious pressure of dark male jaws, mypalpitating darling! The next instant I heart her--alive, unraped--clatterdownstairs. The motion of fate was resumed. The blond leg was pulled in, thecar door was slammed--was re-slammed--and driver Haze at the violent wheel,rubber-red lips writhing in angry, inaudible speech, swung my darling away,while unnoticed by them or Louise, old Miss Opposite, an invalid, feebly butrhythmically waved from her vined verandah. 16 The hollow of my hand was still ivory-full of Lolita--full of the feel of her pre-adolescently incurved back, that ivory-smooth, sliding sensationof her skin through the thin frock that I had worked up and down while Iheld her. I marched into her tumbled room, threw open the door of thecloset, and plunged into a heap of crumpled things that had touched her.There was particularly one pink texture, sleazy, torn, with a faintly acridodor in the seam. I wrapped in it Humbert's huge engorged heart. A poignantchaos was welling within me--but I had to drop those things and hurriedlyregain my composure, as I became aware of the maid's velvety voice callingme softly from the stairs. She had a message for me, she said; and, toppingmy automatic thanks with a kindly "you're welcome," good Louise left

ap of crumpled things that had touched her.There was particularly one pink texture, sleazy, torn, with a faintly acridodor in the seam. I wrapped in it Humbert's huge engorged heart. A poignantchaos was welling within me--but I had to drop those things and hurriedlyregain my composure, as I became aware of the maid's velvety voice callingme softly from the stairs. She had a message for me, she said; and, toppingmy automatic thanks with a kindly "you're welcome," good Louise left anunstamped, curiously clean-looking letter in my shaking hand. "This is a confession. I love you [so the letter began; and for a distorted moment I mistook its hysterical scrawl for a schoolgirl'sscribble]. Last Sunday in church--bad you, who refused to come to see our file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (46 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt beautiful new windows!--only last Sunday, my dear one, when I asked the Lord what to do about it, I was told to act as I am acting now. You see, there isno alternative. I have loved you from the minute I saw you. I am apassionate and lonely woman and you are the love of my life. Now, my dearest, dearest, mon cher, cher monsieur, you have readthis; now you know. So, will you please, at once, pack and leave.This is a landlady's order. I am dismissing a lodger. I am kicking you out.Go! Scram! Departez! I shall be back by dinnertime, if I do eightyboth ways and don't have an accident (but what would it matter?), and I donot wish to find you in the house. Please, please, leave at once,now, do not even read this absurd note to the end. Go. Adieu. The situation, chèri, is quite simple. Of course, I know withabsolute certainty that I am nothing to you, nothing at all to you,nothing at all. Oh yes, you enjoy talking to me (and kidding poor me), youhave grown fond of our friendly house, of the books I like, of my lovelygarden, even of Lo's noisy ways--but I am nothing to you. Right? Right.Nothing to you whatever. But if, after reading my "confession," youdecided, in your dark romantic European way, that I am attractive enough foryou to take advantage of my letter and make a pass at me, then you would bea criminal--worse than a kidnaper who rapes a child. You see, chèri.If you decided to stay, if I found you at home (which I know Iwon't--and that's why I am able to go on like this), the fact of yourremaining would only mean one thing: that you want me as much as I do you:as a lifelong mate; and that you are ready to link up your life with mineforever and ever and be a father to my little girl. Let me rave and ramble on for a teeny while more, my dearest, since Iknow this letter has been by now torn by you, and its pieces (illegible) inthe vortex of the toilet. My dearest, mon trõs, trõs cher, what aworld of love I have built up for you during this miraculous June! I knowhow reserved you are, how "British." Your old-world reticence, your sense ofdecorum may be shocked by the boldness of an American girl! You who concealyour strongest feelings must think me a shameless little idiot for throwingopen my poor bruised heart like this. In years gone by, many disappointmentscame my way. Mr. Haze was a splendid person, a sterling soul, but hehappened to be twenty years my senior, and--well, let us not gossip aboutthe past. My dearest, your curiosity must be well satisfied if you haveignored my request and read this letter to the bitter end. Never mind.Destroy it and go. Do not forget to leave the key on the desk in your room.And some scrap of address so that I could refund the twelve dollars I oweyou till the end of the month. Good-bye, dear one. Pray for me--if you everpray. C.H." file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (47 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lol

must be well satisfied if you haveignored my request and read this letter to the bitter end. Never mind.Destroy it and go. Do not forget to leave the key on the desk in your room.And some scrap of address so that I could refund the twelve dollars I oweyou till the end of the month. Good-bye, dear one. Pray for me--if you everpray. C.H." file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (47 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt What I present here is what I remember of the letter, and what I remember of the letter I remember verbatim (including that awful French). Itwas at least twice longer. I have left out a lyrical passage which I more orless skipped at the time, concerning Lolita's brother who died at 2 when shewas 4, and how much I would have liked him. Let me see what else can I say?Yes. There is just a chance that "the vortex of the toilet" (where theletter did go) is my own matter-of-fact contribution. She probably begged meto make a special fire to consume it. My first movement was one of repulsion and retreat. My second was likea friend's calm hand falling upon my shoulder and bidding me take my time. Idid. I came out of my daze and found myself still in Lo's room. A full-pagead ripped out of a slick magazine was affixed to the wall above the bed,between a crooner's mug and the lashes of a movie actress. It represented adark-haired young husband with a kind of drained look in his Irish eyes. Hewas modeling a robe by So-and-So and holding a bridgelike tray by So-and-So,with breakfast for two. The legend, by the Rev. Thomas Morell, called him a"conquering hero." The thoroughly conquered lady (not shown) was presumablypropping herself up to receive her half of the tray. How her bed-fellow wasto get under the bridge without some messy mishap was not clear. Lo haddrawn a jocose arrow to the haggard lover's face and had put, in blockletters: H.H. And indeed, despite a difference of a few years, theresemblance was striking. Under this was another picture, also a colored ad.A distinguished playwright was solemnly smoking a Drome. He always smokedDromes. The resemblance was slight. Under this was Lo's chase bed, litteredwith "comics." The enamel had come off the bedstead, leaving black, more orless rounded, marks on the white. Having convinced myself that Louise hadleft, I got into Lo's bed and reread the letter. 17 Gentlemen of the jury! I cannot swear that certain motions pertaining to the business in hand--if I may coin an expression--had not drifted acrossmy mind before. My mind had not retained them in any logical form or in anyrelation to definitely recollected occasions; but I cannot swear--let merepeat--that I had not toyed with them (to rig up yet another expression),in my dimness of thought, in my darkness of passion. There may have beentimes--there must have been times, if I know my Humbert--when I had broughtup for detached inspection the idea of marrying a mature widow (say,Charlotte Haze) with not one relative left in the wide gray world, merely inorder to have my way with her child (Lo, Lola, Lolita). I am even preparedto tell my tormentors that perhaps once or twice I had cast an appraiser'scold eye at Charlotte's coral lips and bronze hair and dangerously low file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (48 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt neckline, and had vaguely tried to fit her into a plausible daydream. This I confess under torture. Imaginary torture, perhaps, but all the morehorrible. I wish I might digress and tell you more of the pavornocturnus that would rack me at night hideously after a chance term hadstruck me in the random readings of my boyhood, such as peine forte etdure (what a Genius of Pain must have invented that!) or the dreadful,mysterious,

e:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt neckline, and had vaguely tried to fit her into a plausible daydream. This I confess under torture. Imaginary torture, perhaps, but all the morehorrible. I wish I might digress and tell you more of the pavornocturnus that would rack me at night hideously after a chance term hadstruck me in the random readings of my boyhood, such as peine forte etdure (what a Genius of Pain must have invented that!) or the dreadful,mysterious, insidious words "trauma," "traumatic event," and "transom." Butmy tale is sufficiently incondite already. After a while I destroyed the letter and went to my room, andruminated, and rumpled my hair, and modeled my purple robe, and moanedthrough clenched teeth and suddenly--Suddenly, gentlemen of the jury, I felta Dostoevskian grin dawning (through the very grimace that twisted my lips)like a distant and terrible sun. I imagined (under conditions of new andperfect visibility) all the casual caresses her mother's husband would beable to lavish on his Lolita. I would hold her against me three times a day,every day. All my troubles would be expelled, I would be a healthy man. "Tohold thee lightly on a gentle knee and print on thy soft cheek a parent'skiss . . ." Well-read Humbert! Then, with all possible caution, on mental tiptoe so to speak, Iconjured up Charlotte as a possible mate. By God, I could make myself bringher that economically halved grapefruit, that sugarless breakfast. Humbert Humbert sweating in the fierce white light, and howled at, andtrodden upon by sweating policemen, is now ready to make a further"statement" (quel mot!) as he turns his conscience inside out andrips off its innermost lining. I did not plan to marry poor Charlotte inorder to eliminate her in some vulgar, gruesome and dangerous manner such askilling her by placing five bichloride-of-mercury tablets in her preprandialsherry or anything like that; but a delicately allied, pharmacopoeialthought did tinkle in my sonorous and clouded brain. Why limit myself to themodest masked caress I had tried already? Other visions of venery presentedthemselves to me swaying and smiling. I saw myself administering a powerfulsleeping potion to both mother and daughter so as to fondle the latterthough the night with perfect impunity. The house was full of Charlotte'ssnore, while Lolita hardly breathed in her sleep, as still as a paintedgirl-child. "Mother, I swear Kenny never even touched me." "Youeither lie, Dolores Haze, or it was an incubus." No, I would not go thatfar. So Humbert the Cubus schemed and dreamed--and the red sun of desire anddecision (the two things that create a live world) rose higher and higher,while upon a succession of balconies a succession of libertines, sparklingglass in hand, toasted the bliss of past and future nights. Then,figuratively speaking, I shattered the glass, and boldly imagined (for I wasdrunk on those visions by then and underrated the gentleness of my nature) file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (49 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt how eventually I might blackmail--no, that it too strong a word--mauvemail big Haze into letting me consort with the little Haze by gently threateningthe poor doting Big Dove with desertion if she tried to bar me from playingwith my legal stepdaughter. In a word, before such an Amazing Offer, beforesuch a vastness and variety of vistas, I was as helpless as Adam at thepreview of early oriental history, miraged in his apple orchard. And now take down the following important remark: the artist in me hasbeen given the upper hand over the gentleman. It is with a great effort ofwill that in this memoir I have managed to tune my style to the tone of thejournal that I kept when Mrs. Haze was to me but an obstacle. That jou

epdaughter. In a word, before such an Amazing Offer, beforesuch a vastness and variety of vistas, I was as helpless as Adam at thepreview of early oriental history, miraged in his apple orchard. And now take down the following important remark: the artist in me hasbeen given the upper hand over the gentleman. It is with a great effort ofwill that in this memoir I have managed to tune my style to the tone of thejournal that I kept when Mrs. Haze was to me but an obstacle. That journalof mine is no more; but I have considered it my artistic duty to preserveits intonations no matter how false and brutal they may seem to me now.Fortunately, my story has reached a point where I can cease insulting poorCharlotte for the sake of retrospective verisimilitude. Wishing to spare poor Charlotte two or three hours of suspense on awinding road (and avoid, perhaps, a head-on collision that would shatter ourdifferent dreams), I made a thoughtful but abortive attempt to reach her atthe camp by telephone. She had left half an hour before, and getting Loinstead, I told her--trembling and brimming with my mastery over fate--thatI was going to marry her mother. I had to repeat it twice because somethingwas preventing her from giving me her attention. "Gee, that's swell," shesaid laughing. "When is the wedding? Hold on a sec, the pup--That put herehas got hold of my sock. Listen--" and she added she guessed she was goingto have loads of fun . . . and I realized as I hung up that a couple ofhours at that camp had been sufficient to blot out with new impressions theimage of handsome Humbert Humbert from little Lolita's mind. But what did itmatter now? I would get her back as soon as a decent amount of time afterthe wedding had elapsed. "The orange blossom would have scarcely withered onthe grave," as a poet might have said. But I am no poet. I am only a veryconscientious recorder. After Louise had gone, I inspected the icebox, and finding it much toopuritanic, walked to town and bought the richest foods available. I alsobought some good liquor and two or three kinds of vitamins. I was prettysure that with the aid of these stimulants and my natural resources, I wouldavert any embarrassment that my indifference might incur when called upon todisplay a strong and impatient flame. Again and again resourceful Humbertevoked Charlotte as seen in the raree-show of a manly imagination. She waswell groomed and shapely, this I could say for her, and she was my Lolita'sbig sister--this notion, perhaps, I could keep up if only I did notvisualize too realistically her heavy hips, round knees, ripe bust, thecoarse pink skin of her neck ("coarse" by comparison with silk and honey)and all the rest of that sorry and dull thing: a handsome woman. The sun made its usual round of the house as the afternoon ripened into file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (50 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt evening. I had a drink. And another. And yet another. Gin and pineapple juice, my favorite mixture, always double my energy. I decided to busymyself with our unkempt lawn. Une petite attention. It was crowdedwith dandelions, and a cursed dog--I loathe dogs--had defiled the flatstones where a sundial had once stood. Most of the dandelions had changedfrom suns to moons. The gin and Lolita were dancing in me, and I almost fellover the folding chairs that I attempted to dislodge. Incarnadine zebras!There are some eructations that sound like cheers--at least, mine did. Anold fence at the back of the garden separated us from the neighbor's garbagereceptacles and lilacs; but there was nothing between the front end of ourlawn (where it sloped along one side of the house) and the street. ThereforeI was able to watch (with the smirk of one about to perform a good action)for the return of Charlotte: that t

t fellover the folding chairs that I attempted to dislodge. Incarnadine zebras!There are some eructations that sound like cheers--at least, mine did. Anold fence at the back of the garden separated us from the neighbor's garbagereceptacles and lilacs; but there was nothing between the front end of ourlawn (where it sloped along one side of the house) and the street. ThereforeI was able to watch (with the smirk of one about to perform a good action)for the return of Charlotte: that tooth should be extracted at once. As Ilurched and lunged with the hand mower, bits of grass optically twitteringin the low sun, I kept an eye on that section of suburban street. It curvedin from under an archway of huge shade trees, then sped towards us down,down, quite sharply, past old Miss Opposite's ivied brick house andhigh-sloping lawn (much trimmer than ours) and disappeared behind our ownfront porch which I could not see from where I happily belched and labored.The dandelions perished. A reek of sap mingled with the pineapple. Twolittle girls, Marion and Mabel, whose comings and goings I had mechanicallyfollowed of late (but who could replace my Lolita?) went toward the avenue(from which our Lawn Street cascaded), one pushing a bicycle, the otherfeeding from a paper bag, both talking at the top of their sunny voices.Leslie, old Miss Opposite's gardener and chauffeur, a very amiable andathletic Negro, grinned at me from afar and shouted, re-shouted, commentedby gesture, that I was mighty energetic today. The fool dog of theprosperous junk dealer next door ran after a blue car--not Charlotte's. Theprettier of the two little girls (Mabel, I think), shorts, halter withlittle to halt, bright hair--a nymphet, by Pan!--ran back down the streetcrumpling her paper bag and was hidden from this Green Goat by the frontageof Mr. And Mrs. Humbert's residence. A station wagon popped out of the leafyshade of the avenue, dragging some of it on its roof before the shadowssnapped, and swung by at an idiotic pace, the sweatshirted driverroof-holding with his left hand and the junkman's dog tearing alongside.There was a smiling pause--and then, with a flutter in my breast, Iwitnessed the return of the Blue Sedan. I saw it glide downhill anddisappear behind the corner of the house. I had a glimpse of her calm paleprofile. It occurred to me that until she went upstairs she would not knowwhether I had gone or not. A minute later, with an expression of greatanguish on her face, she looked down at me from the window of Lo's room. Bysprinting upstairs, I managed to reach that room before she left it. file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (51 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt 18 When the bride is a window and the groom is a widower; when the former has lived in Our Great Little Town for hardly two years, and the latter forhardly a month; when Monsieur wants to get the whole damned thing over withas quickly as possible, and Madame gives in with a tolerant smile; then, myreader, the wedding is generally a "quiet" affair. The bride may dispensewith a tiara of orange blossoms securing her finger-tip veil, nor does shecarry a white orchid in a prayer book. The bride's little daughter mighthave added to the ceremonies uniting H. and H. a touch of vivid vermeil; butI knew I would not dare be too tender with cornered Lolita yet, andtherefore agreed it was not worth while tearing the child away from herbeloved Camp Q. My soi-disant passionate and lonely Charlotte was in everydaylife matter-of-fact and gregarious. Moreover, I discovered that although shecould not control her heart or her cries, she was a woman of principle.Immediately after she had become more or less my mistress (despite thestimulants, her "nervous, eager chèri--a heroic chèr

dare be too tender with cornered Lolita yet, andtherefore agreed it was not worth while tearing the child away from herbeloved Camp Q. My soi-disant passionate and lonely Charlotte was in everydaylife matter-of-fact and gregarious. Moreover, I discovered that although shecould not control her heart or her cries, she was a woman of principle.Immediately after she had become more or less my mistress (despite thestimulants, her "nervous, eager chèri--a heroic chèri!--hadsome initial trouble, for which, however, he amply compensated her by afantastic display of old-world endearments), good Charlotte interviewed meabout my relations with God. I could have answered that on that score mymind was open; I said, instead--paying my tribute to a pious platitude--thatI believed in a cosmic spirit. Looking down at her fingernails, she alsoasked me had I not in my family a certain strange strain. I countered byinquiring whether she would still want to marry me if my father's maternalgrandfather had been, say, a Turk. She said it did not matter a bit; butthat, if she ever found out I did not believe in Our Christian God, shewould commit suicide. She said it so solemnly that it gave me the creeps. Itwas then I knew she was a woman of principle. Oh, she was very genteel: she said "excuse me" whenever a slight burpinterrupted her flowing speech, called an envelope and ahnvelope, and whentalking to her lady-friends referred to me as Mr. Humbert. I thought itwould please her if I entered the community trailing some glamour after me.On the day of our wedding a little interview with me appeared in the SocietyColumn of the Ramsdale Journal, with a photograph of Charlotte, oneeyebrow up and a misprint in her name ("Hazer"). Despite this contretempts,the publicity warmed the porcelain cockles of her heart--and made my rattlesshake with awful glee. by engaging in church work as well as by getting toknow the better mothers of Lo's schoolmates, Charlotte in the course oftwenty months or so had managed to become if not a prominent, at least anacceptable citizen, but never before had she come under that thrillingrubrique, and it was I who put her there, Mr. Edgar H. Humbert (I file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (52 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt threw in the "Edgar" just for the heck of it), "writer and explorer." McCoo's brother, when taking it down, asked me what I had written. WhateverI told him came out as "several books on Peacock, Rainbow and other poets."It was also noted that Charlotte and I had known each other for severalyears and that I was a distant relation of her first husband. I hinted I hadhad an affair with her thirteen years ago but this was not mentioned inprint. To Charlotte I said that society columns should contain ashimmer of errors. Let us go on with this curious tale. When called upon to enjoy mypromotion from lodger to lover, did I experience only bitterness anddistaste? No. Mr. Humbert confesses to a certain titillation of his vanity,to some faint tenderness, even to a pattern of remorse daintily runningalong the steel of his conspiratorial dagger. Never had I thought that therather ridiculous, through rather handsome Mrs. Haze, with her blind faithin the wisdom of her church and book club, her mannerisms of elocution, herharsh, cold, contemptuous attitude toward an adorable, downy-armed child oftwelve, could turn into such a touching, helpless creature as soon as I laidmy hands upon her which happened on the threshold of Lolita's room whithershe tremulously backed repeating "no, no, please no." The transformation improved her looks. Her smile that had been such acontrived thing, thenceforth became the radiance of utter adoration--aradiance having something soft and moist about it, in which, with wonder,

old, contemptuous attitude toward an adorable, downy-armed child oftwelve, could turn into such a touching, helpless creature as soon as I laidmy hands upon her which happened on the threshold of Lolita's room whithershe tremulously backed repeating "no, no, please no." The transformation improved her looks. Her smile that had been such acontrived thing, thenceforth became the radiance of utter adoration--aradiance having something soft and moist about it, in which, with wonder, Irecognized a resemblance to the lovely, inane, lost look that Lo had whengloating over a new kind of concoction at the soda fountain or mutelyadmiring my expensive, always tailor-fresh clothes. Deeply fascinated, Iwould watch Charlotte while she swapped parental woes with some other ladyand made that national grimace of feminine resignation (eyes rolling up,mouth drooping sideways) which, in an infantile form, I had seen Lo makingherself. We had highballs before turning in, and with their help, I wouldmanage to evoke the child while caressing the mother. This was the whitestomach within which my nymphet had been a little curved fish in 1934. Thiscarefully dyed hair, so sterile to my sense of smell and touch, acquired atcertain lamplit moments in the poster bed the tinge, if not the texture, ofLolita's curls. I kept telling myself, as I wielded my brand-newlarge-as-life wife, that biologically this was the nearest I could get toLolita; that at Lolita's age, Lotte had been as desirable a schoolgirl asher daughter was, and as Lolita's daughter would be some day. I had my wifeunearth from under a collection of shoes (Mr. Haze had a passion for them,it appears) a thirty-year-old album, so that I might see how Lotte hadlooked as a child; and even though the light was wrong and the dressesgraceless, I was able to make out a dim first version of Lolita's outline,legs, cheekbones, bobbed nose. Lottelita, Lolitchen. So I tom-peeped across the hedges of years, into wan little windows. file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (53 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt And when, by means of pitifully ardent, naively lascivious caresses, she of the noble nipple and massive thigh prepared me for the performance of mynightly duty, it was still a nymphet's scent that in despair I tried to pickup, as I bayed through the undergrowth of dark decaying forests. I simply can't tell you how gentle, how touching my poor wife was. Atbreakfast, in the depressingly bright kitchen, with its chrome glitter andHardware and Co. Calendar and cute breakfast nook (simulating that CoffeeShoppe where in their college days Charlotte and Humbert used to cootogether), she would sit, robed in red, her elbow on the plastic-toppedtable, her cheek propped on her fist, and stare at me with intolerabletenderness as I consumed my ham and eggs. Humbert's face might twitch withneuralgia, but in her eyes it vied in beauty and animation with the sun andshadows of leaves rippling on the white refrigerator. My solemn exasperationwas to her the silence of love. My small income added to her even smallerone impressed her as a brilliant fortune; not because the resulting sum nowsufficed for most middle-class needs, but because even my money shone in hereyes with the magic of my manliness, and she saw our joint account as one ofthose southern boulevards at midday that have solid shade on one side andsmooth sunshine on the other, all the way to the end of a prospect, wherepink mountains loom. Into the fifty days of our cohabitation Charlotte crammed theactivities of as many years. The poor woman busied herself with a number ofthings she had foregone long before or had never been much interested in, asif (to prolong these Proustian intonations) by my marrying the mother of thechild I loved I had enabled my wif

boulevards at midday that have solid shade on one side andsmooth sunshine on the other, all the way to the end of a prospect, wherepink mountains loom. Into the fifty days of our cohabitation Charlotte crammed theactivities of as many years. The poor woman busied herself with a number ofthings she had foregone long before or had never been much interested in, asif (to prolong these Proustian intonations) by my marrying the mother of thechild I loved I had enabled my wife to regain an abundance of youth byproxy. With the zest of a banal young bride, she started to "glorify thehome." Knowing as I did its every cranny by heart--since those days whenfrom my chair I mentally mapped out Lolita's course through the house--I hadlong entered into a sort of emotional relationship with it, with its veryugliness and dirt, and now I could almost feel the wretched thing cower inits reluctance to endure the bath of ecru and ocher and putt-buff-and-snuffthat Charlotte planned to give it. She never got as far as that, thank God,but she did use up a tremendous amount of energy in washing window shades,waxing the slats of Venetian blinds, purchasing new shades and new blinds,returning them to the store, replacing them by others, and so on, in aconstant chiaroscuro of smiles and frowns, doubts and pouts. She dabbled incretonnes and chintzes; she changed the colors of the sofa--the sacred sofawhere a bubble of paradise had once burst in slow motion within me. Sherearranged the furniture--and was pleased when she found, in a householdtreatise, that "it is permissible to separate a pair of sofa commodes andtheir companion lamps." With the authoress of Your Home Is You, shedeveloped a hatred for little lean chairs and spindle tables. She believedthat a room having a generous expanse of glass, and lots of rich wood file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (54 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt paneling was an example of the masculine type of room, whereas the feminine type was characterized by lighter-looking windows and frailer woodwork. Thenovels I had found her reading when I moved in were now replaced byillustrated catalogues and homemaking guides. From a firm located at 4640Roosevelt Blvd., Philadelphia, she ordered for our double bed a "damaskcovered 312 coil mattress"--although the old one seemed to me resilient anddurable enough for whatever it had to support. A Midwesterner, as her late husband had also been, she had lived in coyRamsdale, the gem of an eastern state, not long enough to know all the nicepeople. She knew slightly the jovial dentist who lived in a kind oframshackle wooden chateau behind our lawn. She had met at a church tea the"snooty" wife of the local junk dealer who owned the "colonial" white horrorat the corner of the avenue. Now and then she "visited with" old MissOpposite; but the more patrician matrons among those she called upon, or metat lawn functions, or had telephone chats with--such dainty ladies as Mrs.Glave, Mrs. Sheridan, Mrs. McCrystal, Mrs. Knight and others, seldom seemedto call on my neglected Charlotte. Indeed, the only couple with whom she hadrelations of real cordiality, devoid of any arriõre-pensèe orpractical foresight, were the Farlows who had just come back from a businesstrip to Chile in time to attend our wedding, with the Chatfields, McCoos,and a few others (but not Mrs. Junk or the even prouder Mrs. Talbot). JohnFarlow was a middle-aged, quiet, quietly athletic, quietly successful dealerin sporting goods, who had an office at Parkington, forty miles away: it washe who got me the cartridges for that Colt and showed me how to use it,during a walk in the woods one Sunday; he was also what he called with asmile a part-time lawyer and had handled some of Charlotte's affairs. Jean,his youngish wife (and first c

s, McCoos,and a few others (but not Mrs. Junk or the even prouder Mrs. Talbot). JohnFarlow was a middle-aged, quiet, quietly athletic, quietly successful dealerin sporting goods, who had an office at Parkington, forty miles away: it washe who got me the cartridges for that Colt and showed me how to use it,during a walk in the woods one Sunday; he was also what he called with asmile a part-time lawyer and had handled some of Charlotte's affairs. Jean,his youngish wife (and first cousin), was a long-limbed girl in harlequinglasses with two boxer dogs, two pointed breasts and a big red mouth. Shepainted--landscapes and portraits--and vividly do I remember praising, overcocktails, the picture she had made of a niece of hers, little RosalineHoneck, a rosy honey in a Girl Scout uniform, beret of green worsted, beltof green webbing, charming shoulder-long curls--and John removed his pipeand said it was a pity Dolly (my Dolita) and Rosaline were so critical ofeach other at school, but he hoped, and we all hoped, they would get onbetter when they returned from their respective camps. We talked of theschool. It had its drawbacks, and it had its virtues. "Of course, too manyof the tradespeople here are Italians," said John, "but on the other hand weare still spared--" "I wish," interrupted Jean with a laugh, "Dolly andRosaline were spending the summer together." Suddenly I imagined Loreturning from camp--brown, warm, drowsy, drugged--and was ready to weepwith passion and impatience. 19 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (55 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt A few words more about Mrs. Humbert while the going is good (a bad accident is to happen quite soon). I had been always aware of the possessivestreak in her, but I never thought she would be so crazily jealous ofanything in my life that had not been she. She showed a fierce insatiablecuriosity for my past. She desired me to resuscitate all my loves so thatshe might make me insult them, and trample upon them, and revoke themapostately and totally, thus destroying my past. She made me tell her aboutmy marriage to Valeria, who was of course a scream; but I also had toinvent, or to pad atrociously, a long series of mistresses for Charlotte'smorbid delectation. To keep her happy, I had to present her with anillustrated catalogue of them, all nicely differentiated, according to therules of those American ads where schoolchildren are pictured in a subtleratio of races, with one--only one, but as cute as they makethem--chocolate-colored round-eyed little lad, almost in the very middle ofthe front row. So I presented my women, and had them smile and sway--thelanguorous blond, the fiery brunette, the sensual copperhead--as if onparade in a bordello. The more popular and platitudinous I made them, themore Mrs. Humbert was pleased with the show. Never in my life had I confessed so much or received so manyconfessions. The sincerity and artlessness with which she discussed what shecalled her "love-life," from first necking to connubial catch-as-catch-can,were, ethically, in striking contrast with my glib compositions, buttechnically the two sets were congeneric since both were affected by thesame stuff (soap operas, psychoanalysis and cheap novelettes) upon which Idrew for my characters and she for her mode of expression. I wasconsiderably amused by certain remarkable sexual habits that the good HaroldHaze had had according to Charlotte who thought my mirth improper; butotherwise her autobiography was as devoid of interests as her autopsy wouldhave been. I never saw a healthier woman than she, despite thinning diets. Of my Lolita she seldom spoke--more seldom, in fact, than she did ofthe blurred, blond male baby whose photograph to the exc

my characters and she for her mode of expression. I wasconsiderably amused by certain remarkable sexual habits that the good HaroldHaze had had according to Charlotte who thought my mirth improper; butotherwise her autobiography was as devoid of interests as her autopsy wouldhave been. I never saw a healthier woman than she, despite thinning diets. Of my Lolita she seldom spoke--more seldom, in fact, than she did ofthe blurred, blond male baby whose photograph to the exclusion of all othersadorned our bleak bedroom. In once of her tasteless reveries, she predictedthat the dead infant's soul would return to earth in the form of the childshe would bear in her present wedlock. And although I felt no special urgeto supply the Humbert line with a replica of Harold's production (Lolita,with an incestuous thrill, I had grown to regard as my child), itoccurred to me that a prolonged confinement, with a nice Cesarean operationand other complications in a safe maternity ward sometime next spring, wouldgive me a chance to be alone with my Lolita for weeks, perhaps--and gorgethe limp nymphet with sleeping pills. Oh, she simply hated her daughter! What I thought especially vicious file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (56 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt was that she had gone out of her way to answer with great diligence the questionnaires in a fool's book she had (A guide to Your Child'sDevelopment), published in Chicago. The rigmarole went year by year, andMom was supposed to fill out a kind of inventory at each of her child'sbirthdays. On Lo's twelfth, January 1, 1947, Charlotte Haze, nèe Becker, hadunderlined the following epithets, ten out of forty, under "Your Child'sPersonality": aggressive, boisterous, critical, distrustful, impatient,irritable, inquisitive, listless, negativistic (underlined twice) andobstinate. She had ignored the thirty remaining adjectives, among which werecheerful, co-operative, energetic, and so forth. It was really maddening.With a brutality that otherwise never appeared in my loving wife's mildnature, she attacked and routed such of Lo's little belongings that hadwandered to various parts of the house to freeze there like so manyhypnotized bunnies. Little did the good lady dream that one morning when anupset stomach (the result of my trying to improve on her sauces) hadprevented me from accompanying her to church, I deceived her with one ofLolita's anklets. And then, her attitude toward my saporous darling'sletters! "Dear Mummy and Hummy, Hope you are fine. Thank you very much for the candy. I [crossed outand re-written again] I lost my new sweater in the woods. It has been coldhere for the last few days. I'm having a time. Love, Dolly." "The dumb child," said Mrs. Humbert, "has left out a word before 'time.' That sweater was all-wool, and I wish you would not send her candywithout consulting me." 20 There was a woodlake (Hourglass Lake--not as I had thought it was spelled) a few miles from Ramsdale, and there was one week of great heat atthe end of July when we drove there daily. I am now obliged to describe insome tedious detail our last swim there together, one tropical Tuesdaymorning. We had left the car in a parking area not far from the road and weremaking our way down a path cut through the pine forest to the lake, whenCharlotte remarked that Jean Farlow, in quest of rare light effects (Jeanbelonged to the old school of painting), had seen Leslie taking a dip "inthe ebony" (as John had quipped) at five o'clock in the morning last Sunday. "The water," I said, "must have been quite cold." file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (57 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53 file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt "That is not the point,"