27Still in Parkington. Finally, I did achieve an hour's slumber--fromwhich I was aroused by gratuitous and horribly exhausting congress with asmall hairy hermaphrodite, a total stranger. By then it was six in themorning, and it suddenly occurred to me it might be a good thing to arriveat the camp earlier than I had said. From Parkington I had still a hundredmiles to go, and there would be more than that to the Hazy Hills andBriceland. If I had said I would come for Dolly in the afternoon, it wasonly because my fancy insisted on merciful night falling as soon as possibleupon my impatience. But now I foresaw all kinds of misunderstandings and wasall a-jitter lest delay might give her the opportunity of some idletelephone call to Ramsdale. However, when at 9.30 a.m. I attempted to start,I was confronted by a dead battery, and noon was nigh when at last I leftParkington. I reached my destination around half past two; parked my car in a pinegrove where a green-shirted, redheaded impish lad stood throwing horseshoesin sullen solitude; was laconically directed by him to an office in a stuccocottage; in a dying state, had to endure for several minutes the inquisitivecommiseration of the camp mistress, a sluttish worn out female with rustyhair. Dolly she said was all packed and ready to go. She knew her mother wassick but not critically. Would Mr. Haze, I mean, Mr. Humbert, care to meetthe camp counselors? Or look at the cabins where the girls live? Eachdedicated to a Disney creature? Or visit the Lodge? Or should Charlie besent over to fetch her? The girls were just finishing fixing the Dining Roomfor a dance. (And perhaps afterwards she would say to somebody or other:"The poor guy looked like his own ghost.") Let me retain for a moment that scene in all its trivial and fatefuldetail: hag Holmes writing out a receipt, scratching her head, pulling adrawer out of her desk, pouring change into my impatient palm, then neatlyspreading a banknote over it with a bright ". . . and five!"; photographs ofgirl-children; some gaudy moth or butterfly, still alive, safely pinned tothe wall ("nature study"); the framed diploma of the camp's dietitian; mytrembling hands; a card produced by efficient Holmes with a report of DollyHaze's behavior for July ("fair to good; keen on swimming and boating"); asound of trees and birds, and my pounding heart . . . I was standing with myback to the open door, and then I felt the blood rush to my head as I hearther respiration and voice behind me. She arrived dragging and bumping herheavy suitcase. "Hi!" she said, and stood still, looking at me with sly,glad eyes, her soft lips parted in a slightly foolish but wonderfullyendearing smile. She was thinner and taller, and for a second it seemed to me her facewas less pretty than the mental imprint I had cherished for more than amonth: her cheeks looked hollowed and too much lentigo camouflaged her rosyrustic features; and that first impression (a very narrow human intervalbetween two tiger heartbeats) carried the clear implication that all widowerHumbert had to do, wanted to do, or would do, was to give this wan-lookingthough sun-colored little orphan au yeux battus (and even thoseplumbaceous umbrae under her eyes bore freckles) a sound education, ahealthy and happy girlhood, a clean home, nice girl-friends of her age amongwhom (if the fates deigned to repay me) I might find, perhaps, a prettylittle Magdlein for Herr Doktor Humbert alone. But "in a wink," asthe Germans say, the angelic line of conduct was erased, and I overtook myprey (time moves ahead of our fancies!), and she was my Lolita again--infact, more of my Lolita than ever. I let my hand rest on her warm auburnhead and took up her bag. She was all rose and honey, dressed in herbrightest gingham, with a pattern of little red apples, and her arms andlegs were of a deep golden brown, with scratches like tiny dotted lines ofcoagulated rubies, and the ribbed cuffs of her white socks were turned downat the remembered level, and because of her childish gait, or because I hadmemorized her as always wearing heelless shoes, her saddle oxfords lookedsomehow too large and too high-heeled for her. Good-bye, Camp Q, merry CampQ. Good-bye, plain unwholesome food, good-bye Charlie boy. In the hot carshe settled down beside me, slapped a prompt fly on her lovely knee; then,her mouth working violently on a piece of chewing gum, she rapidly crankeddown the window on her side and settled back again. We sped through thestriped and speckled forest. "How's Mother?" she asked dutifully. I said the doctors did not quite know yet what the trouble was. Anyway,something abdominal. Abominable? No, abdominal. We would have to hang aroundfor a while. The hospital was in the country, near the gay town ofLepingville, where a great poet had resided in the early nineteenth centuryand where we would take in all the shows. She thought it a peachy idea andwondered if we could make Lepingville before nine p.m. "We should be at Briceland by dinner time," I said, "and tomorrow we'llvisit Lepingville. How was the hike? Did you have a marvelous time at thecamp?" "Uh-huh." "Sorry to leave?" "Un-un." "Talk, Lo--don't grunt. Tell me something." "What thing, Dad?" (she let the word expand with ironic deliberation). "Any old thing." "Okay, if I call you that?" (eyes slit at the road). "Quite." "It's a sketch, you know. When did you fall for my mummy?" "Some day, Lo, you will understand many emotions and situations, suchas for example the harmony, the beauty of spiritual relationship." "Bah!" said the cynical nymphet. Shallow lull in the dialogue, filled with some landscape. "Look, Lo, at all those cows on that hillside." "I think I'll vomit if I look at a cow again." "You know, I missed you terribly, Lo." "I did not. Fact I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you, but itdoes not matter one bit, because you've stopped caring for me, anyway. Youdrive much faster than my mummy, mister." I slowed down from a blind seventy to a purblind fifty. "Why do you think I have ceased caring for you, Lo?" "Well, you haven't kissed me yet, have you?" Inly dying, inly moaning, I glimpsed a reasonably wide shoulder of roadahead, and bumped and wobbled into the weeds. Remember she is only a child,remember she is only-- Hardly had the car come to a standstill than Lolita positively flowedinto my arms. Not daring, not daring let myself go--not even daring letmyself realize that this (sweet wetness and trembling fire) was thebeginning of the ineffable life which, ably assisted by fate, I had finallywilled into being--not daring really kiss her, I touched her hot, openinglips with the utmost piety, tiny sips, nothing salacious; but she, with animpatient wriggle, pressed her mouth to mine so hard that I felt her bigfront teeth and shared in the peppermint taste of her saliva. I knew, ofcourse, it was but an innocent game on her part, a bit of backfisch fooleryin imitation of some simulacrum of fake romance, and since (as thepsychotherapist, as well as the rapist, will tell you) the limits and rulesof such girlish games are fluid, or at least too childishly subtle for thesenior partner to grasp--I was dreadfully afraid I might go too far andcause her to start back in revulsion and terror. And, as above all I wasagonizingly anxious to smuggle her into the hermetic seclusion of TheEnchanted Hunters, and we had still eighty miles to go, blessed intuitionbroke our embrace--a split second before a highway patrol car drew upalongside. Florid and beetle-browed, its driver stared at me: "Happen to see a blue sedan, same make as yours, pass you before thejunction?" "Why, no." "We didn't," said Lo, eagerly leaning across me, her innocent hand onmy legs, "but are you sure it was blue, because--" The cop (what shadow of us was he after?) gave the little colleen hisbest smile and went into a U-turn. We drove on. "The fruithead!" remarked Lo. "He should have nabbed you." "Why me for heaven's sake?" "Well, the speed in this bum state is fifty, and--No, don't slow down,you, dull bulb. He's gone now." "We have still quite a stretch," I said, "and I want to get therebefore dark. So be a good girl." "Bad, bad girl," said Lo comfortably. "Juvenile delickwent, but frankand fetching. That light was red. I've never seen such driving." We rolled silently through a silent townlet. "Say, wouldn't Mother be absolutely mad if she found out we werelovers?" "Good Lord, Lo, let us not talk that way." "But we are lovers, aren't we?" "Not that I know of. I think we are going to have some more rain. Don'tyou want to tell me of those little pranks of yours in camp?" "You talk like a book, Dad." "What have you been up to? I insist you tell me." "Are you easily shocked?" "No. Go on." "Let us turn into a secluded lane and I'll tell you." "Lo, I must seriously ask you not to play the fool. Well?" "Well--I joined in all the activities that were offered." "Ensuite?" "Ansooit, I was taught to live happily and richly with others and todevelop a wholesome personality. Be a cake, in fact." "Yes. I saw something of the sort in the booklet." "We loved the sings around the fire in the big stone fireplace or underthe darned stars, where every girl merged her own spirit of happiness withthe voice of the group." "Your memory is excellent, Lo, but I must trouble you to leave out theswear words. Anything else?" "The Girl Scout's motto," said Lo rhapsodically, "is also mine. I fillmy life with worthwhile deeds such as--well, never mind what. My duty is--tobe useful. I am a friend to male animals. I obey orders. I am cheerful. Thatwas another police car. I am thrifty and I am absolutely filthy in thought,word and deed." "Now I do hope that's all, you witty child." "Yep. That's all. No--wait a sec. We baked in a reflector oven. Isn'tthat terrific?" "Well, that's better." "We washed zillions of dishes. 'Zillions' you know is schoolmarm'sslang for many-many-many-many. Oh yes, last but not least, as Mothersays--Now let me see--what was it? I know we made shadowgraphs. Gee, whatfun." "C'est bien tout?" "C'est. Except for one little thing, something I simply can'ttell you without blushing all over." "Will you tell it me later?" "If we sit in the dark and you let me whisper, I will. Do you sleep inyour old room or in a heap with Mother?" "Old room. Your mother may have to undergo a very serious operation,Lo." "Stop at that candy bar, will you," said Lo. Sitting on a high stool, a band of sunlight crossing her bare brownforearm, Lolita was served an elaborate ice-cream concoction topped withsynthetic syrup. It was erected and brought her by a pimply brute of a boyin a greasy bow-tie who eyed my fragile child in her thin cotton frock withcarnal deliberation. My impatience to reach Briceland and The EnchantedHunters was becoming more than I could endure. Fortunately she dispatchedthe stuff with her usual alacrity. "How much cash do you have?" I asked. "Not a cent," she said sadly, lifting her eyebrows, showing me theempty inside of her money purse. "This is a matter that will be mended in due time," I rejoined archly."Are you coming?" "Say, I wonder if they have a washroom." "you are not going there," I said Firmly. "It is sure to be a vileplace. Do come on." She was on the whole an obedient little girl and I kissed her in theneck when we got back into the car. "Don't do that," she said looking at me with unfeigned surprise."Don't drool on me. You dirty man." She rubbed the spot against her raised shoulder. "Sorry," I murmured. "I'm rather fond of you, that's all." We drove under a gloomy sky, up a winding road, then down again. "Well, I'm also sort of fond of you," said Lolita in a delayed softvoice, with a sort of sigh, and sort of settled closer to me. (Oh, my Lolita, we shall never get there!) Dusk was beginning to saturate pretty little Briceland, its phonycolonial architecture, curiosity sops and imported shade trees, when wedrove through the weakly lighted streets in search of the Enchanted Hunters.The air, despite a steady drizzle beading it, was warm and green, and aqueue of people, mainly children and old men, had already formed before thebox office of a movie house, dripping with jewel-fires. "Oh, I want to see that picture. Let's go right after dinner. Oh,let's!" "We might," chanted Humbert--knowing perfectly well, the sly tumescentdevil, that by nine, when his show began, she would be dead in hisarms. "Easy!" cried Lo, lurching forward, as an accursed truck in front ofus, its backside carbuncles pulsating, stopped at a crossing. If we did not get to the hotel soon, immediately, miraculously, in thevery next block, I felt I would lose all control over the Haze jalopy withits ineffectual wipers and whimsical brakes; but the passers-by I applied tofor directions were either strangers themselves or asked with a frown"Enchanted what?" as if I were a madman; or else they went into suchcomplicated explanations, with geometrical gestures, geographicalgeneralities and strictly local clues (. . . then bear south after you hitthe court-house. . .) that I could not help losing my way in the maze oftheir well-meaning gibberish. Lo, whose lovely prismatic entrails hadalready digested the sweetmeat, was looking forward to a big meal and hadbegun to fidget. As to me, although I had long become used to a kind ofsecondary fate (McFate's inept secretary, so to speak) pettily interferingwith the boss's generous magnificent plan--to grind and grope through theavenues of Briceland was perhaps the most exasperating ordeal I had yetfaced. In later months I could laugh at my inexperience when recalling theobstinate boyish way in which I had concentrated upon that particular innwith its fancy name; for all along our route countless motor courtsproclaimed their vacancy in neon lights, ready to accommodate salesmen,escaped convicts, impotents, family groups, as well as the most corrupt andvigorous couples. Ah, gentle drivers gliding through summer's black nights,what frolics, what twists of lust, you might see from your impeccablehighways if Kumfy Kabins were suddenly drained of their pigments and becameas transparent as boxes of glass! The miracle I hankered for did happen after all. A man and a girl, moreor less conjoined in a dark car under dripping trees, told us we were in theheart of The Park, but had only to turn left at the next traffic light andthere we would be. We did not see any next traffic light--in fact, The Parkwas as black as the sins it concealed--but soon after falling under thesmooth spell of a nicely graded curve, the travelers became aware of adiamond glow through the mist, then a gleam of lakewater appeared--and thereit was, marvelously and inexorably, under spectral trees, at the top of agraveled drive--the pale palace of The Enchanted Hunters. A row of parked cars, like pigs at a trough, seemed at first sight toforbid access; but then, by magic, a formidable convertible, resplendent,rubious in the lighted rain, came into motion--was energetically backed outby a broad-shouldered driver--and we gratefully slipped into the gap it hadleft. I immediately regretted my haste for I noticed that my predecessor hadnow taken advantage of a garage-like shelter nearby where there was amplespace for another car; but I was too impatient to follow his example. "Wow! Looks swank," remarked my vulgar darling squinting at the stuccoas she crept out into the audible drizzle and with a childish hand tweakedloose the frock-fold that had struck in the peach-cleft--to quote RobertBrowning. Under the arclights enlarged replicas of chestnut leaves plungedand played on white pillars. I unlocked the trunk compartment. A hunchbackedand hoary Negro in a uniform of sorts took our bags and wheeled them slowlyinto the lobby. It was full of old ladies and clergy men. Lolita sank downon her haunches to caress a pale-faced, blue-freckled, black-eared cockerspaniel swooning on the floral carpet under her hand--as who would not, myheart--while I cleared my throat through the throng to the desk. There abald porcine old man--everybody was old in that old hotel--examined myfeatures with a polite smile, then leisurely produced my (garbled) telegram,wrestled with some dark doubts, turned his head to look at the clock, andfinally said he was very sorry, he had held the room with the twin beds tillhalf past six, and now it was gone. A religious convention, he said, hadclashed with a flower show in Briceland, and--"The name," I said coldly, "isnot Humberg and not Humbug, but Herbert, I mean Humbert, and any room willdo, just put in a cot for my little daughter. She is ten and very tired." The pink old fellow peered good-naturedly at Lo--still squatting,listening in profile, lips parted, to what the dog's mistress, an ancientlady swathed in violet veils, was telling her from the depths of a cretonneeasy chair. Whatever doubts the obscene fellow had, they were dispelled by thatblossom-like vision. He said, he might still have a room, had one, infact--with a double bed. As to the cot-- "Mr. Potts, do we have any cots left?" Potts, also pink and bald, withwhite hairs growing out of his ears and other holes, would see what could bedone. He came and spoke while I unscrewed my fountain pen. ImpatientHumbert! "Our double beds are really triple," Potts cozily said tucking me andmy kid in. "One crowded night we had three ladies and a child like yourssleep together. I believe one of the ladies was a disguised man [mystatic]. However--would there be a spare cot in 49, Mr. Swine? "I think it went to the Swoons," said Swine, the initial old clown. "We'll manage somehow," I said. "My wife may join us later--but eventhen, I suppose, we'll manage." The two pink pigs were now among my best friends. In the slow clearhand of crime I wrote: Dr. Edgar H. Humbert and daughter, 342 Lawn Street,Ramsdale. A key (342!) was half-shown to me (magician showing object he isabout to palm)--and handed over to Uncle tom. Lo, leaving the dog as shewould leave me some day, rose from her haunches; a raindrop fell onCharlotte's grave; a handsome young Negress slipped open the elevator door,and the doomed child went in followed by her throat-clearing father andcrayfish Tom with the bags. Parody of a hotel corridor. Parody of silence and death. "Say, it's our house number," said cheerful Lo. There was a double bed, a mirror, a double bed in the mirror, a closetdoor with mirror, a bathroom door ditto, a blue-dark window, a reflected bedthere, the same in the closet mirror, two chairs, a glass-topped table, twobedtables, a double bed: a big panel bed, to be exact, with a Tuscan rosechenille spread, and two frilled, pink-shaded nightlamps, left and right. I was tempted to place a five-dollar bill in that sepia palm, butthought the largesse might be misconstrued, so I placed a quarter. Addedanother. He withdrew. Click. Enfin seuls. "Are we going to sleep in one room?" said Lo, her featuresworking in that dynamic way they did--not cross or disgusted (though plainon the brink of it) but just dynamic--when she wanted to load a questionwith violent significance. "I've asked them to put in a cot. Which I'll use if you like." "You are crazy," said Lo. "Why, my darling?" "Because, my dahrling, when dahrling Mother finds out she'll divorceyou and strangle me." Just dynamic. Not really taking the matter too seriously. "Now look here," I said, sitting down, while she stood, a few feet awayfrom me, and stared at herself contentedly, not unpleasantly surprised ather own appearance, filling with her own rosy sunshine the surprised andpleased closet-door mirror. "Look here, Lo. Let's settle this once for all. For all practicalpurposes I am your father. I have a feeling of great tenderness for you. Inyour mother's absence I am responsible for your welfare. We are not rich,and while we travel, we shall be obliged--we shall be thrown a good dealtogether. Two people sharing one room, inevitably enter into a kind--howshall I say--a kind--" "The word is incest," said Lo--and walked into the closet, walked outagain with a young golden giggle, opened the adjoining door, and aftercarefully peering inside with her strange smoky eyes lest she make anothermistake, retired to the bathroom. I opened the window, tore off my sweat-drenched shirt, changed, checkedthe pill vial in my coat pocket, unlocked the-- She drifted out. I tried to embrace her: casually, a bit of controlledtenderness before dinner. She said: "Look, let's cut out the kissing game and get something toeat." It was then that I sprang my surprise. Oh, what a dreamy pet! She walked up to the open suitcase as ifstalking it from afar, at a kind of slow-motion walk, peering at thatdistant treasure box on the luggage support. (Was there something wrong, Iwondered, with those great gray eyes of hers, or were we both plunged in thesame enchanted mist?) She stepped up to it, lifting her rather high-heeledfeet rather high, and bending her beautiful boy-knees while she walkedthrough dilating space with the lentor of one walking under water or in aflight dream. Then she raised by the armlets a copper-colored, charming andquite expensive vest, very slowly stretching it between her silent hands asif she were a bemused bird-hunter holding his breath over the incrediblebird he spreads out by the tips of its flaming wings. Then (while I stoodwaiting for her) she pulled out the slow snake of a brilliant belt and triedit on. Then she crept into my waiting arms, radiant, relaxed, caressing mewith her tender, mysterious, impure, indifferent, twilight eyes--for all theworld, like the cheapest of cheap cuties. For that is what nymphetsimitate--while we moan and die. "What's the katter with misses?" I muttered (word-control gone) intoher hair. "If you must know," she said, "you do it the wrong way." "Show, wight ray." "All in good time," responded the spoonerette. Seva ascendes, pulsata, brulans, kizelans, dementissima. Elevatorclatterans, pausa, clatterans, populus in corridoro. Hanc nisi mors mihiadimet nemo! Juncea puellula, jo pensavo fondissime, nobserva nihilquidquam; but, of course, in another moment I might have committed somedreadful blunder; fortunately, she returned to the treasure box. From the bathroom, where it took me quite a time to shift back intonormal gear for a humdrum purpose, I heard, standing, drumming, retaining mybreath, my Lolita's "oo's" and "gee's" of girlish delight. She had used the soap only because it was sample soap. "Well, come on, my dear, if you are as hungry as I am." And so to the elevator, daughter swinging her old white purse, fatherwalking in front (nota bene: never behind, she is not a lady). As we stood(now side by side) waiting to be taken down, she threw back her head, yawnedwithout restraint and shook her curls. "When did they make you get up at that camp?" "Half-past--" she stifled another yawn--"six"--yawn in full with ashiver of all her frame. "Half-past," she repeated, her throat filling upagain. The dining room met us with a smell of fried fat and a faded smile. Itwas a spacious and pretentious place with maudlin murals depicting enchantedhunters in various postures and states of enchantment amid a medley ofpallid animals, dryads and trees. A few scattered old ladies, two clergymen,and a man in a sports coat were finishing their meals in silence. The diningroom closed at nine, and the green-clad, poker-faced serving girls were,happily, in a desperate hurry to get rid of us. "Does not he look exactly, but exactly, like Quilty?" said Lo in a softvoice, her sharp brown elbow not pointing, but visibly burning to point, atthe lone diner in the loud checks, in the far corner of the room. "Like our fat Ramsdale dentist?" Lo arrested the mouthful of water she had just taken, and put down herdancing glass. "Course not," she said with a splutter of mirth. "I meant the writerfellow in the Dromes ad." Oh, Fame! Oh, Femina! When the dessert was plunked down--a huge wedge of cherry pie for theyoung lady and vanilla ice cream her protector, most of which sheexpeditiously added to her pie--I produced a small vial containing Papa'sPurple Pills. As I look back at those seasick murals, at that strange andmonstrous moment, I can only explain my behavior then by the mechanism ofthat dream vacuum wherein revolves a deranged mind; but at the time, it allseemed quite simple and inevitable to me. I glanced around, satisfied myselfthat the last diner had left, removed the stopped, and with the utmostdeliberation tipped the philter into my palm. I had carefully rehearsedbefore a mirror the gesture of clapping my empty hand to my open mouth andswallowing a (fictitious) pill. As I expected, she pounced upon the vialwith its plump, beautifully colored capsules loaded with Beauty's Sleep. "Blue!" she exclaimed. "Violet blue. What are they made of?" "Summer skies," I said, "and plums and figs, and the grapeblood ofemperors." "No, seriously--please." "Oh, just purpills. Vitamin X. Makes one strong as an ox or an ax. Wantto try one?" Lolita stretched out her hand, nodding vigorously. I had hoped the drug would work fast. It certainly did. She had had along long day, she had gone rowing in the morning with Barbara whose sisterwas Waterfront Director, as the adorable accessible nymphet now started totell me in between suppressed palate-humping yawns, growing in volume--oh,how fast the magic potion worked!--and had been active in other ways too.The movie that had vaguely loomed in her mind was, of course, by the time wewatertreaded out of the dining room, forgotten. As we stood in the elevator,she leaned against me, faintly smiling--wouldn't you like me to tellyou--half closing her dark-lidded eyes. "Sleepy, huh?" said Uncle Tom whowas bringing up the quiet Franco-Irish gentleman and his daughter as well astwo withered women, experts in roses. They looked with sympathy at my frail,tanned, tottering, dazed rosedarling. I had almost to carry her into ourroom. There, she sat down on the edge of the bed, swaying a little, speakingin dove-dull, long-drawn tones. "If I tell you--if I tell you, will you promise [sleepy, sosleepy--head lolling, eyes going out], promise you won't make complaints?" "Later, Lo. Now go to bed. I'll leave you here, and you go to bed. Giveyou ten minutes." "Oh, I've been such a disgusting girl," she went on, shaking her hair,removing with slow fingers a velvet hair ribbon. "Lemme tell you--" "Tomorrow, Lo. Go to bed, go to bed--for goodness sake, to bed." I pocketed the key and walked downstairs.
