16The hollow of my hand was still ivory-full of Lolita--full of the feelof 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 anunstamped, curiously clean-looking letter in my shaking hand. "This is a confession. I love you [so the letter began; and for adistorted moment I mistook its hysterical scrawl for a schoolgirl'sscribble]. Last Sunday in church--bad you, who refused to come to see ourbeautiful new windows!--only last Sunday, my dear one, when I asked the Lordwhat 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, chиri, 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, chиri.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 trхs, trхs 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." What I present here is what I remember of the letter, and what Iremember 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.17Gentlemen of the jury! I cannot swear that certain motions pertainingto 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 lowneckline, and had vaguely tried to fit her into a plausible daydream. This Iconfess 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)how eventually I might blackmail--no, that it too strong a word--mauvemailbig 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 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 intoevening. I had a drink. And another. And yet another. Gin and pineapplejuice, 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 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.
