(4) Preface

"This annotated edition, a corrected and chastely revised version of the edition first published in 1970, is designed for the general reader and particularly for use in college literature courses." [mijn nadruk] (5)

[Pardon, een kuise revisie? O o, wat betekent dat nu weer? Deze editie is echter in overleg met Nabokov tot stand gekomen, dus het zal wel loslopen hoop ik]

(12) Introduction

"Nabokov’s pronounced antipathy to Freud and the novel of society continued to alienate some critics during his lifetime ... "(16)

"Not surprisingly, Humbert Humbert’s obsession has moved commentators to search for equivalent situations in Nabokov’s earlier work, and they have not been disappointed."(51)

"Nabokov is justly impatient with those who hunt for Ur-Lolitas, for a preoccupation with specific “sexual morbidities” obscures the more general context in which these oddities should be seen, and his Afterword offers an urgent corrective."(53)

"“What was most difficult,” he later told an interviewer, “was putting myself … I am a normal man, you see.” Research was thus called for, and in scholarly fashion Nabokov followed newspaper stories involving pedophilia (incorporating some into the novel), read case studies, and, like Margaret Mead coming home to roost, even did research in the field: “I travelled in school buses to listen to the talk of schoolgirls. I went to school on the pretext of placing our daughter. We have no daughter. For Lolita, I took one arm of a little girl who used to come to see Dmitri [his son], one kneecap of another,” and thus a nymphet was born." [mijn nadruk] (61)

[Alfred Appel die dit boek samenstelde is ongetwijfeld een literatuurprofessor, iemand die met grote deskundigheid over allerlei Engels schrijvende auteurs kan vertellen en het over 'narratieve strategieën' bij Henri James kan hebben alsof het niks is. Ik zie een hoop vage uitspraken van hem én van Nabokov. Volgens mij lees ik boeken nooit met het oog op literaire technische finesses maar altijd vanuit de vraag wat iemand te vertellen heeft. Dat is wat ik zelf nastreef: iets te vertellen hebben, een boodschap overbrengen. Ik zal dan wel een slechte schrijver zijn ... ]

(124) Selected Bibliography

(133) THE ANNOTATED LOLITA

[Ik heb dat 'Foreword' altijd ergerlijk gevonden. Waarom is het voor een auteur nodig om een boek om zijn inhoud al bij voorbaat te verontschuldigen via een 'sidekick'? Voorbeeld van die benadering;]

"This commentator may be excused for repeating what he has stressed in his own books and lectures, namely that “offensive” is frequently but a synonym 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, he is abject, he is a shining example of moral leprosy, a mixture of ferocity and jocularity that betrays supreme misery perhaps, but is not conducive to attractiveness. He is ponderously capricious. Many of his casual opinions on the people and scenery of this country are ludicrous. A desperate honesty that throbs through his confession does not absolve him from sins of diabolical cunning. He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman. But how magically his singing violin can conjure up a tendresse, a compassion for Lolita that makes us entranced with the book while abhorring its author!"(138)

"“Lolita” should make all of us — parents, social workers, educators — apply ourselves with still greater vigilance and vision to the task of bringing up a better generation in a safer world."(139)

[Het is natuurlijk cynisch bedoeld allemaal, maar waarom zou je? ]

(139) Part One

"She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the 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, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style."(139)

[De verfilming van Adrian Lyne van 1997 volgt het boek heel goed en begint exact met de inhoud van deze twee alinea's. Na de scène met de auto gaan we in 1921 eerst naar die badplaats Cannes en Hotel Mirana daar. Wordt dat in het boek verder uitgewerkt? Ja, meteen in sectie 2-4. HH is daar 14 en Annabel ook. Ze zijn hopeloos verliefd op elkaar, maar vier maanden later gaat Annabel dood aan tyfus. "The shock of her death froze something in me. The child I loved was gone. But I kept looking for her long after I'd left my own childhood behind. The poison was in the wound, you see, and the wound wouldn't heal." Daarna start in 1945 het verhaal in New England, USA waar HH als 38-jarige professor in de Engelse literatuur logies zoekt in Ramsdale.]

[In 5. duikt de term 'nymphet' al op. Maar Nabokov blijft vaag over wat voor meisjes dat zijn:]

"Now I wish to introduce the following idea. Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as “nymphets.”"(152)

"A normal man given a group photograph of school girls or Girl Scouts and asked to point out the comeliest one will not necessarily choose the nymphet among them. You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison in your loins and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine (oh, how you have to cringe and hide!), in order to discern at once, by ineffable signs — the slightly feline outline of a cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limb, and other indices which despair and shame and tears of tenderness forbid me to tabulate — the little deadly demon among the wholesome children; she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power."(154)

"When I was a child and she was a child, my little Annabel was no nymphet to me; I was her equal, a faunlet in my own right, on that same enchanted island of time; but today, in September 1952, after twenty-nine years have elapsed, I think I can distinguish in her the initial fateful elf in my life. We loved each other with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives. I was a strong lad and survived; 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 of twenty-five to court a girl of sixteen but not a girl of twelve." [mijn nadruk] (154)

[De zin in de film van 1997 over 'the poison in the wound' is mooier. De voorbeeldervaringen beschreven in 5. illustreren uitgebreid de gevoeligheden voor jonge meisjes / nymfjes van HH na Annabel. Het is heel erg hun opbloeiende schoonheid die hem bevalt, misschien samen met die wonderlijke combinatie van onrustige onzekerheid door alle lichamelijke veranderingen en dat typische gevoel van toenemende macht over de kijker. De laatste zin vormt natuurlijk een kritiek op een samenleving die kunstmatige grenzen stelt. Hij geeft hierna vele voorbeelden uit de geschiedenis en andere culturen die laten zien dat kinderen een erotische rol vervulden, al jong aan seks deden met volwassenen, en zo verder. ]

"The fact that to me the only objects of amorous tremor were sisters of Annabel’s, her handmaids and girl-pages, appeared to me at times as a forerunner of insanity."(156)

"Humbert Humbert tried hard to be good. Really and truly, he did. He had the utmost respect for ordinary children, with their purity and vulnerability, and under no circumstances would he have interfered with the innocence of a child, if there was the least 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."(158)

"Ah, leave me alone in my pubescent park, in my mossy garden. Let them play around me forever. Never grow up.(160)"

"It occurred to me that regular hours, home-cooked meals, all the conventions of marriage, the prophylactic routine of its bedroom activities and, who knows, the eventual flowering of certain moral values, of certain spiritual substitutes, might help me, if not to purge myself of my degrading and dangerous desires, at least to keep them under pacific control."(166)

HH trouwt voor de vorm.

"My choice, however, was prompted by considerations whose essence was, as I realized too late, a piteous compromise. All of which goes to show how dreadfully stupid poor Humbert always was in matters of sex."(168)

[Op p179 noemt hij voor het eerst Quilty, als een naam in een van de weinige boeken in de gevangenisbibliotheek: ]

"Quilty, Clare, American dramatist. Born in Ocean City, N.J., 1911. Educated at Columbia University. Started on a commercial career but turned to playwriting. Author of The Little Nymph, The Lady Who Loved Lightning (in collaboration with Vivian Darkbloom), Dark Age, The Strange Mushroom, Fatherly Love, and others. His many plays for children are notable. Little Nymph (1940) traveled 14,000 miles and played 280 performances on the road during the winter before ending in New York. Hobbies: fast cars, photography, pets."(179)

"Guilty of killing Quilty. Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with!"(180)

Na een aantal psychiatrische episodes in de VS, volgt hij een suggestie van een collega van hem:

"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 story where a late aunt had delicately dwelt. He said they had two little daughters, 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."(185)

Dat huis bleek in vlammen opgegaan toen HH er kwam en de eigenaar verwijst hem naar ene Mrs. Haze, 342 Lawn Street, Ramsdale.

[Lyne's film volgt veel van de hier genoemde elementen op een heel knappe manier. De weergave van Mrs. Haze is in beide films wel goed, het is een ergerlijke vrouw. HH beschrijft haar karakter / persoon als volgt:]

"She was, obviously, one of those women whose polished words may reflect a book club or bridge club, or any other deadly conventionality, but never her soul; women who are completely devoid of humor; women utterly indifferent at heart to the dozen or so possible subjects of a parlor conversation, but very particular about the rules of such conversations, through the sunny cellophane of which not very appetizing frustrations can be readily distinguished. I was perfectly aware that if by any wild chance I became her lodger, she would methodically proceed to do in regard to me what taking a lodger probably meant to her all along, and I would again be enmeshed in one of those tedious affairs I knew so well."(189-190)

"Old-world politeness, however, obliged me to go on with the ordeal."(190)

"I groped for the timetable I had in my pocket and surreptitiously fished it out to look as soon as possible for a train. I was still walking behind Mrs. Haze through the dining room when, beyond it, there came a sudden burst of greenery — “the piazza,” sang out my leader, and then, without the least warning, a blue sea-wave swelled under my heart and, from a mat in a pool of sun, half-naked, kneeling, turning about on her knees, there was my Riviera love peering at me over dark glasses.
It was the same child — the same frail, honey-hued shoulders, the same silky supple bare back, the same chestnut head of hair. A polka-dotted black kerchief tied around her chest hid from my aging ape eyes, but not from the gaze 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, kidnaped, 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, the nurse drunk) I saw again her lovely indrawn abdomen where my southbound mouth had briefly paused; and those puerile hips on which I had kissed the crenulated imprint left by the band of her shorts—that last mad immortal day behind the “Roches Roses.” The twenty-five years I had lived since then, tapered to a palpitating point, and vanished."(193)

[Dit is de scène die in Lyne's versie zo humoristisch de geschetste sfeer volgt. In Kubricks versie is dat heel wat minder.]

"A little later, of course, she, this nouvelle, this Lolita, my Lolita, was to eclipse completely her prototype. All I want to stress is that my discovery of her was a fatal consequence of that “princedom by the sea” in my tortured past. Everything between the two events was but a series of gropings and blunders, and false rudiments of joy. Everything they shared made one of them."(194)

[Hij wil blijkbaar echt die verbinding tussen zijn ervaringen met Annabel en Lolita onderstrepen. Lolita is 12 jaar, zegt hij verderop. Vanaf 11. geeft hij als het ware zijn dagboek weer over alles wat hij met Lolita meemaakte. 'Dit zijn de feiten' lijkt hij daarmee te zeggen. Het zijn evenzovele scènes zoals die vooral door Lyne zijn gebruikt. ]

"Haze 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 popular fraud."(199)

[Kan het onechte gedrag - make-belief, fake, fraud - van Mrs. Haze nog beter duidelijk gemaakt worden?]

"What drives me insane is the twofold nature of this nymphet — of every nymphet, perhaps; this mixture in my Lolita of tender dreamy childishness and a kind of eerie vulgarity, stemming from the snub-nosed cuteness of ads and magazine pictures, from the blurry pinkness of adolescent maidservants in the Old Country (smelling of crushed daisies and sweat); and from very young harlots disguised as children in provincial brothels; and then again, all this gets mixed up with the exquisite stainless tenderness seeping through 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, has individualized the writer’s ancient lust, so that above and over everything there is — Lolita."(202)

"Saturday. For some days already I had been leaving the door ajar, while I wrote in my room; but only today did the trap work. With a good deal of additional fidgeting, shuffling, scraping — to disguise her embarrassment at visiting me without having been called — Lo came in and after pottering around, became interested in the nightmare curlicues I had penned on a sheet of paper. Oh no: they were not the outcome of a bellelettrist’s inspired pause between two paragraphs; they were the hideous hieroglyphics (which she could not decipher) of my fatal lust. As she bent her brown curls over the desk at which I was sitting, Humbert the Hoarse put his arm around her in a miserable imitation of blood-relationship; and still studying, somewhat shortsightedly, the piece of paper she held, my innocent little visitor slowly sank to a half-sitting position upon my knee. Her adorable profile, parted lips, warm hair were some three inches from my bared eyetooth; and I felt the heat of her limbs through her rough tomboy clothes. All at once I knew I could kiss her throat or the wick of her mouth with perfect impunity. I knew she would let me do so, and even close her eyes as Hollywood teaches. A double vanilla with hot fudge — hardly more unusual than that. I cannot tell my learned reader (whose eyebrows, I suspect, have by now traveled all the way to the back of his bald head), I cannot tell him how the knowledge came to me; perhaps my ape-ear had unconsciously caught some slight change in the rhythm of her respiration — for now she was not really looking at my scribble, but waiting with curiosity and composure — oh, my limpid nymphet! — for the glamorous lodger to do what he was dying to do. A modern child, an avid reader of movie magazines, an expert in dream-slow close-ups, might not think it too strange, I guessed, if a handsome, intensely virile grown-up friend — too 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 Leslie Tomson had found in the basement, and little Lolita was not one to miss such a tale."(209)

[Dit is dus Lyne's omgewerkte scène met de kauwgom en zo.]

"adorable Stella, who has let strangers touch her"(216)

[Had ik die maar eerder gevonden :-) ... ]

[In 13. de situatie dat Mrs. Haze - 'the Haze-woman' noemt hij haar vaak denigrerend - naar de kerk gaat en Lo niet mee wil. Hier de scène die duidelijk erotisch is: ze stoeien op de bank, zij legt haar benen over zijn schoot, hij vindt een manier om zo klaar te komen zonder dat ze dat kan merken. ]

"I felt proud of myself. I had stolen the honey of a spasm without impairing the morals of a minor. Absolutely no harm done.(...) I qualify it as pathetic. Pathetic — because despite the insatiable fire of my venereal appetite, I intended, with the most fervent force and foresight, to protect the purity of that twelve-year-old child."(232-232)

[Merkwaardig allemaal. Hoe weet hij dat ze niets gemerkt heeft van zijn erectie en orgasme? En waarom is niet zichtbaar dat hij haar plezier geeft? Doet hij dat niet? Denkt hij alleen aan zijn eigen plezieertjes? Waarom na de opmerkingen over de duivelse stoute nimfjes ineens dat gezeur over het niet willen corrumperen van de moraal van een minderjarige en de zuiverheid van een 12-jarig kind?]

"I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita. She would be thirteen on January 1. In two years or so she would cease being a nymphet and would turn into a “young girl,” and then, into a “college girl”—that horror of horrors. The word “forever” referred only to my own passion, to the eternal Lolita as reflected in my blood. The Lolita whose iliac crests had not yet flared, the Lolita that today I could touch and smell and hear and see, the Lolita of the strident voice and the rich brown hair—of the bangs and the swirls at the sides and the curls at the back, and the sticky hot neck, and the vulgar vocabulary — “revolting,” “super,” “luscious,” “goon,” “drip” — that Lolita, my Lolita, poor Catullus would lose forever." [mijn nadruk] (239)

"One drop of rare honey, however, that Thursday did hold in its acorn cup. Haze was to drive her to the camp in the early morning. Upon sundry sounds of departure reaching me, I rolled out of bed and leaned out of the window. Under the poplars, the car was already athrob. On the sidewalk, Louise stood shading her eyes with her hand, as if the little traveler were already 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 the car door, wind down the glass, wave to Louise and the poplars (whom and which she was never to see again), interrupted the motion of fate: she looked up — and dashed back into the house (Haze furiously calling after her). A moment later I heard my sweetheart running up the stairs. My heart expanded with such force that it almost blotted me out. I hitched up the pants of my pajamas, flung the door open: and simultaneously Lolita arrived, in her Sunday frock, stamping, panting, and then she was in my arms, her innocent mouth melting under the ferocious pressure of dark male jaws, my palpitating darling! The next instant I heard her — alive, unraped — clatter downstairs. The motion of fate was resumed. The blond leg was pulled in, the car 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 but rhythmically waved from her vined veranda."(240)

[Dat is dus de bekende scène waarmee Lyne zo overduidelijk beter mee uit de voeten kan dan Kubrick. Kubrick maakt het onerotisch, cerebraal, daar wordt gepraat. Lyne volgt in alle eerlijkheid het boek en ook visueel is het bij Lyne echt erotisch. Verder dezelfde scène in de kamer van Lo en de brief van Mrs. Haze. Daarover:]

"I have left out a lyrical passage which I more or less skipped at the time, concerning Lolita’s brother who died at 2 when she was 4, and how much I would have liked him. Let me see what else can I say?"(244)

[En verderop: ]

"Of my Lolita she seldom spoke — more seldom, in fact, than she did of the blurred, blond male baby whose photograph to the exclusion of all others adorned our bleak bedroom.(...) Oh, she simply hated her daughter!"(265)

[Ik heb dat element nooit ergens in de films gezien. Zou psychologisch van belang kunnen zijn. In haar slaapkamer een modefoto met een model die op HH lijkt en met de letters HH erbij, waaruit blijkt dat ze hem aantrekkelijk vond. ]

"Under this was another picture, also a colored ad. A distinguished playwright was solemnly smoking a Drome. He always smoked Dromes. The resemblance was slight."(245)

[Dat is dus een foto met Quilty, die in Kubricks film wel en Lynes film niet getoond wordt. Dat zegt een hoop over de films.]

HH besluit met Charlotte Haze te trouwen vanwege Lo en zit al meteen te bedenken hoe hij de zaak zal aanpakken:

"I saw myself administering a powerful sleeping potion to both mother and daughter so as to fondle the latter through the night with perfect impunity."(247)

[Hm ja en precies dat gebruik van slaapmiddelen om 'je ding te kunnen doen' werd bij eerste lezing van het boek mijn grote ergernis.]

ChHaze adoreert HH en hij doet als een volleerd toneelspeler ook de dingen die haar het gevoel geven dat hij echt met haar wilde trouwen. Hij fantaseert daarbij dat ze een oudere versie van Lo is, het bekijken van oude fotoboeken helpt daarbij. Hun leven wordt geschilderd, het is niet allemaal onaangenaam schrijft hij, hun contacten met o.a. de Farlows, hun tochten naar het Hourglass Lake in de bossen. Daar ontvouwt ChHaze haar plannen en Lo komt daar niet in voor.

"“Little Lo, I’m afraid, does not enter the picture at all, at all. Little Lo goes straight from camp to a good boarding school with strict discipline and some sound religious training. And then — Beardsley College. I have it all mapped out, you need not worry.”"(269)

Uiteraard is dat niet HH's bedoeling, maar hij kan er weinig tegen doen zonder zichzelf en zijn gevoelens voor Lolita te verraden.

"The natural solution was to destroy Mrs. Humbert. But how?"(272)

"Simple, was it not? But what d’ye know, folks — I just could not make myself do it!"(276)

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the majority of sex offenders that hanker for some throbbing, sweet-moaning, physical but not necessarily coital, relation with a girl-child, are innocuous, inadequate, passive, timid strangers who merely ask the community to allow them to pursue their practically harmless, so-called aberrant behavior, their little hot wet private acts of sexual deviation without the police and society cracking down upon them. We are not sex fiends! We do not rape as good soldiers do. We are unhappy, mild, dog-eyed gentlemen, sufficiently well integrated to control our urge in the presence of adults, but ready to give years and years of life for one chance to touch a nymphet. Emphatically, no killers are we. Poets never kill." [mijn nadruk] (278)

[En zo is het ook echt, dit is in overeenstemming met de feiten.]

Alles loopt verder totdat ChHaze het afgesloten laatje ontdekt waarin HH zijn geheime dagboek bewaart en het uit jaloezie niet kan laten om zich toegang te verschaffen. Als hij thuiskomt van de dokter waar hij sterke slaapmiddelen heeft weten los te peuteren, zit ze aan een bureau brieven te schrijven. De bekende dialoog vindt plaats en daarna het autoongeluk van ChHaze als ze zonder op te letten de straat opholt om de drie brieven te bezorgen. HH is vrij en gaat op weg om zijn stiefdochter op te halen.

"The elms and the poplars were turning their ruffled backs to a sudden onslaught of wind, and a black thunderhead loomed above Ramsdale’s white church tower when I looked around me for the last time. For unknown adventures I was leaving the livid house where I had rented a room only ten weeks before."(304)

"One might suppose that with all blocks removed and a prospect of delirious and unlimited delights before me, I would have mentally sunk back, heaving a sigh of delicious relief. Eh bien, pas du tout! Instead of basking in the beams of smiling Chance, I was obsessed by all sorts of purely ethical doubts and fears." [mijn nadruk] (307)

[Is dat zo? Of waren het gewoon praktische zorgen over hoe hij met Lo kon omgaan op de manier die hij zo graag wilde? Zijn 'oplossing': liegen. En dus Lolita niet serieus nemen.]

"Hardly had the car come to a standstill than Lolita positively flowed into my arms. Not daring, not daring let myself go — not even daring let myself realize that this (sweet wetness and trembling fire) was the beginning of the ineffable life which, ably assisted by fate, I had finally willed into being — not daring really kiss her, I touched her hot, opening lips with the utmost piety, tiny sips, nothing salacious; but she, with an impatient wriggle, pressed her mouth to mine so hard that I felt her big front teeth and shared in the peppermint taste of her saliva. I knew, of course, it was but an innocent game on her part, a bit of backfisch foolery in imitation of some simulacrum of fake romance, and since (as the psychotherapist, as well as the rapist, will tell you) the limits and rules of such girlish games are fluid, or at least too childishly subtle for the senior partner to grasp — I was dreadfully afraid I might go too far and cause her to start back in revulsion and terror. And, as above all I was agonizingly anxious to smuggle her into the hermetic seclusion of The Enchanted Hunters, and we had still eighty miles to go, blessed intuition broke our embrace — a split second before a highway patrol car drew up alongside."(321)

[Ook hier neemt hij haar niet serieus.]

"“Say, wouldn’t Mother be absolutely mad if she found out we were lovers?”
“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’t you 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?”"(322)

[Idem. Hij kan zich blijkbaar niets voorstellen bij Lo's stoute kant.]

"“The Girl Scout’s motto,” said Lo rhapsodically, “is also mine. I fill my life with worthwhile deeds such as — well, never mind what. My duty is — to be useful. I am a friend to male animals. I obey orders. I am cheerful. That was another police car. I am thrifty and I am absolutely filthy in thought, word and deed.”"(323)

[Hij gaat er niet op in, vraagt niets.]

"“C’est bien tout?”
“C’est. Except for one little thing, something I simply can’t tell you without blushing all over.”
“Will you tell it me later?”
“If we sit in the dark and you let me whisper, I will."(324)

[Hij begrijpt niets van wat ze zegt, vat niet dat ze het over seks heeft.]

"She was on the whole an obedient little girl and I kissed her in the neck 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.” (...) “Well, I’m also sort of fond of you,” said Lolita in a delayed soft voice, with a sort of sigh, and sort of settled closer to me."(325)

[Wat dan weer te denken geeft over wat ze nu eigenlijk wil met hem. In het hotel aait ze het hondje, maar in Lynes film zit daar Quilty aan vast al zien we hem net niet helemaal. Is wel logischer dan zo maar een dame. Hier hebben ze contact via het hondje en maakt hij haar complimenten en zo. Tijdens hun diner zegt ze in Lynes film dat ze Quilty meent te zien.]

"“Are we to sleep in one room?” said Lo, her features working in that dynamic way they did — not cross or disgusted (though plain on the brink of it) but just dynamic — when she wanted to load a question with 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 divorce you and strangle me.”
Just dynamic. Not really taking the matter too seriously."(331)

"“Look here, Lo. Let’s settle this once for all. For all practical purposes I am your father. I have a feeling of great tenderness for you. In your 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 deal together. Two people sharing one room, inevitably enter into a kind — how shall I say — a kind — ”
“The word is incest,” said Lo — and walked into the closet, walked out again with a young golden giggle, opened the adjoining door, and after carefully peering inside with her strange smoky eyes lest she make another mistake, retired to the bathroom."(332)

[Lo weet precies wat er gaande is. In Lynes film ook zo grappig weergegeven, in Kubricks film helemaal niet. ]

"She drifted out. I tried to embrace her: casually, a bit of controlled tenderness before dinner.
She said: “Look, let’s cut out the kissing game and get something to eat.”"(332)

Maar dan ontdekt ze de koffer met alle kleren en mooie dingen die HH voor haar gekocht had en dan is ze om.

"Then she crept into my waiting arms, radiant, relaxed, caressing me with her tender, mysterious, impure, indifferent, twilight eyes — for all the world, like the cheapest of cheap cuties. For that is what nymphets imitate — while we moan and die.
“What’s the katter with misses?” I muttered (word-control gone) into her hair.
“If you must know,” she said, “you do it the wrong way.”
“Show, wight ray.”
“All in good time,” responded the spoonerette."(333)

[Ook dat zegt een heleboel over Lo. Ze is ervarener dan HH denkt, noemt zichzelf later een 'disgusting girl', en heeft van alles te vertellen. Maar HH luistert niet, begrijpt niet, neemt haar niet serieus, geeft haar bij het eten een slaapppil en wil haar daarna alleen maar in slaap hebben. Waarom? Het zou zo gemakkelijk zijn om erotisch contact met haar te hebben. Die slaappil is er in beide films op dat moment van de eerste nacht in het hotel niet.]

"Let me explain. I was not unduly disturbed by her self accusatory innuendoes. I was still firmly resolved to pursue my policy of sparing her purity by operating only in the stealth of night, only upon a completely anesthetized little nude. Restraint and reverence were still my motto — even if that “purity” (incidentally, thoroughly debunked by modern science) had been slightly damaged through some juvenile erotic experience, no doubt homosexual, at that accursed camp of hers." [mijn nadruk] (338)

"Despite my having dabbled in psychiatry and social work, I really knew very little about children. After all, Lolita was only twelve, and no matter what concessions I made to time and place — even bearing in mind the crude behavior of American schoolchildren — I still was under the impression that whatever went on among those brash brats, went on at a later age, and in a different environment. Therefore (to retrieve the thread of this explanation) the moralist in me by-passed the issue by clinging to conventional notions of what twelve-year-old girls should be." [mijn nadruk] (339)

[Wat een belachelijke redenering. Alsof je die onschuld in stand houdt door slaapmiddelen te geven. Alsof je dan minder verantwoordelijk bent voor wat je met iemand doet. En in plaats van iemand serieus te nemen schakel je iemands persoonlijkheid en handelingsbekwaamheid helemaal uit en heb je alleen met een lichaam te maken.]

"I should have understood that Lolita had already proved to be something quite different from innocent Annabel, and that the nymphean evil breathing through every pore of the fey child that I had prepared for my secret delectation, would make the secrecy impossible, and the delectation letha"(340)

[Ook hier, maar dan kort, het gesprek op de veranda met Quilty. Kubrick schuift Quilty de hele tijd naar voren, zo blijkt. Lyne volgt het boek, ook als HH terugkomt op zijn hotelkamer, hoe Lo ligt en slaapt, hoe ze wakker wordt omdat het slaapmiddel zijn werk niet doet. Bij Kubrick ligt Lo stijf in bed en wordt ze pas leuk en stout als ze wakker is en hem op het logeerbed ziet. Over slaapmiddelen horen we hierna geloof ik niet meer.]

"If I dwell at some length on the tremors and gropings of that distant night, it is because I insist upon proving that I am not, and never was, and never could have been, a brutal scoundrel. The gentle and dreamy regions through which I crept were the patrimonies of poets — not crime’s prowling ground." [mijn nadruk] (352)

[Dat is in overeenstemming met de feiten over pedofilie.]

"Frigid gentlewomen of the jury! I had thought that months, perhaps years, would elapse before I dared to reveal myself to Dolores Haze; but by six she was wide awake, and by six fifteen we were technically lovers. I am going to tell you something very strange: it was she who seduced me." [mijn nadruk] (354)

[Iedereen die ontkent dat ze in het boek het initiatief neemt heeft het boek niet gelezen. In Kubricks film is dat ook echt het geval, in Lynes film nog meer. Ze fluistert in zijn oor dat ze een spelletje speelde met Charlie op kamp. Kubrick laat het daarbij en suggereert alleen iets. Lyne gaat veel verder in zijn weergave en suggestie. Later vertelt ze HH in geuren en kleuren hoe ze het afgelopen jaar zo 'slecht' is geworden en dat ze tijdens het kamp met Charlie had geneukt. En let op de leeftijden: Barbara Burke is 14, Charlie 13, en Lo is 12 in het boek op dat moment. Kubrick laat ergens een Charlie zien die minstens 16 is, maar eerder 18. Bij Lyne zien we Charlie niet, hij heeft ook niet dit verhaal, maar alleen de zin "Gentlewomen of the jury, I was not even her first lover."]

"Barbara Burke, a sturdy blond, two years older than Lo and by far the camp’s best swimmer, had a very special canoe which she shared with Lo “because I was the only other girl who could make Willow Island” (some swimming test, I imagine). Through July, every morning — mark, reader, every blessed morning — Barbara and Lo would be helped to carry the boat to Onyx or Eryx (two small lakes in the wood) by Charlie Holmes, the camp mistress’ son, aged thirteen — and the only human male for a couple of miles around (excepting an old meek stone-deaf handyman, and a farmer in an old Ford who sometimes sold the campers eggs as farmers will); every morning, oh my reader, the three children would take a short cut through the beautiful innocent forest brimming with all the emblems of youth, dew, birdsongs, and at one point, among the luxuriant undergrowth, Lo would be left as sentinel, while Barbara and the boy copulated behind a bush.
At first, Lo had refused “to try what it was like,” but curiosity and camaraderie prevailed, and soon she and Barbara were doing it by turns with the silent, coarse and surly but indefatigable Charlie, who had as much sex appeal as a raw carrot but sported a fascinating collection of contraceptives which he used to fish out of a third nearby lake, a considerably larger and more populous one, called Lake Climax, after the booming young factory town of that name." [mijn nadruk] (361-362)

"As she was in the act of getting back into the car, an expression of pain flitted across Lo’s face. It flitted again, more meaningfully, as she settled down beside me. No doubt, she reproduced it that second time for my benefit. Foolishly, I asked her what was the matter. “Nothing, you brute,” she replied. “You what?” I asked. She was silent. Leaving Briceland. Loquacious Lo was silent. Cold spiders of panic crawled down my back. This was an orphan. This was a lone child, an absolute waif, with whom a heavy-limbed, foul-smelling adult had had strenuous intercourse three times that very morning.(...) “You chump,” she said, sweetly smiling at me. “You revolting creature. I was a daisy-fresh girl, and look what you’ve done to me. I ought to call the police and tell them you raped me. Oh, you dirty, dirty old man.” Was she just joking? An ominous hysterical note rang through her silly words. Presently, making a sizzling sound with her lips, she started complaining of pains, said she could not sit, said I had torn something inside her. The sweat rolled down my neck"(366-368)

[Het is duidelijk dat ze ongesteld moet worden en dat ze hem alleen maar plaagt, maar HH begrijpt niet zo veel van meisjes, altijd weer bang dat hij haar kwijt raakt. De scène in de auto wordt door Lyne prachtig gedaan. Kubrick doet er niets mee.]

Uiteindelijk moet hij haar vertellen dat haar moeder dood is, want ze wil naar het ziekenhuis bellen. Het raakt haar nogal en in het volgende hotel huilt ze flink.

"At the hotel we had separate rooms, but in the middle of the night she came sobbing into mine, and we made it up very gently. You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go."(369)

Na dat hotel beginnen ze aan hun reis door de VS totdat HH moet werken en ze zich vestigen in een huis - 14 Thayer Street - in Beardsley. Lolita gaat dan naar de Beardsley Prep School. Dat start vanaf deel 2, sectie 4.

(369) Part Two

"It was then that began our extensive travels all over the States. To any other type of tourist accommodation I soon grew to prefer the Functional Motel — clean, neat, safe nooks, ideal places for sleep, argument, reconciliation, insatiable illicit love."(369)

"Most often, in the slouching, bored way she cultivated, Lo would fall prostrate and abominably desirable into a red springchair or a green chaise longue, or a steamer chair of striped canvas with footrest and canopy, or a sling chair, or any other lawn chair under a garden umbrella on the patio, and it would take hours of blandishments, threats and promises to make her lend me for a few seconds her brown limbs in the seclusion of the five-dollar room before undertaking anything she might prefer to my poor joy.
A combination of naïveté and deception, of charm and vulgarity, of blue sulks and rosy mirth, Lolita, when she chose, could be a most exasperating brat. I was not really quite prepared for her fits of disorganized boredom, intense and vehement griping, her sprawling, droopy, dopey-eyed style, and what is called goofing off — a kind of diffused clowning which she thought was tough in a boyish hoodlum way." [mijn nadruk] (374)

[Volgt een uitgebreide beschrijving van routes, plaatsen, evenementen, bezienswaardigheden waar ze komen waarbij het karakter van Lolita steeds helderder wordt. De twee maken lol, maar hebben ook geregeld ruzie. We lezen ook over een dodelijk vermoeiende, soms vrijwel onhandelbare tiener. We zien een vrolijke, ondeugende, soms een trieste Lolita. Uit de films kun je moeilijk opmaken hoe het geïnterpreteerd is. Kubrick gaat meteen over naar de fase van Beardsley College, zes maanden later, het tweede semester. Lyne werkt deze tussenfase wel uit en geeft het boek weer in allerlei scènes die zoals gewoonlijk het boek weer dicht benaderen. Lo is gewoon een lastige tiener, lief, stout, vervelend, sensueel zoals in de scène waar ze ondanks de hitte bij hem op schoot zit en een tijdschrift leest en ze geleidelijk aan opgewonden raken - zie p.406. Ik zie alleen niets van HH's slechte jaloerse gedrag dat in het boek hier al wel aan de orde komt.]

"In those days, neither she nor I had thought up yet the system of monetary bribes which was to work such havoc with my nerves and her morals somewhat later. I relied on three other methods to keep my pubescent concubine in submission and passable temper."(376)

[Hij dreigt haar met onaangename zaken als ze weer eens doorslaat qua stemming. Iets wat zo veel ouders doen, maar toch onprettig. Zoals met kostschool of - als ze hem verraadt en hij de gevangenis in draait - met weeshuizen, pleegouders, etc. waar ze niets kan doen van wat ze nu wel kan doen met haar kleding, uiterlijk en gedrag.]

"By rubbing all this in, I succeeded in terrorizing Lo, who despite a certain brash alertness of manner and spurts of wit was not as intelligent a child as her I.Q. might suggest. But if I managed to establish that background of shared secrecy and shared guilt, I was much less successful in keeping her in good humor."(381)

[En dat is geen fraai gedrag van HH. Hoe vrijwillig is hun seksuele contact dan nog? Bovendien wordt hij jaloers en wil hij haar alsmaar weghouden van haar mannelijke leeftijdgenoten als ze ergens in een zwembad, een rolschaatsbaan, een tennisbaan is. Nooit een goed idee.]

"Oh, I had to keep a very sharp eye on Lo, little limp Lo! Owing perhaps to constant amorous exercise, she radiated, despite her very childish appearance, some special languorous glow which threw garage fellows, hotel pages, vacationists, goons in luxurious cars, maroon morons near blued pools, into fits of concupiscence which might have tickled my pride, had it not incensed my jealousy. For little Lo was aware of that glow of hers, and I would often catch her coulant un regard in the direction of some amiable male, some grease monkey, with a sinewy golden-brown forearm and watch-braceleted wrist, and hardly had I turned my back to go and buy this very Lo a lollipop, than I would hear her and the fair mechanic burst into a perfect love song of wisecracks." [mijn nadruk] (396)

[Ze hebben dus geregeld seks. En zo'n 'glow' heb je niet als die seks verschrikkelijk en gewelddadig zou zijn. Van de andere kant begint ze zich bij hem te vervelen omdat ze door zijn jaloezie moeilijk een leven met haar leeftijdsgenoten of minstens met mensen van haar eigen keuze kan leiden.]

"This sort of thing soon began to bore my so easily bored Lolita, and, having a childish lack of sympathy for other people’s whims, she would insult me and my desire to have her caress me while blue-eyed little brunettes in blue shorts, copperheads in green boleros, and blurred boyish blondes in faded slacks passed by in the sun."(399)

"How sweet it was to bring that coffee to her, and then deny it until she had done her morning duty. And I was such a thoughtful friend, such a passionate father, such a good pediatrician, attending to all the wants of my little auburn brunette’s body! (...) On especially tropical afternoons, in the sticky closeness of the siesta, I liked the cool feel of armchair leather against my massive nakedness as I held her in my lap."(406)

"She had entered my world, umber and black Humberland, with rash curiosity; she surveyed it with a shrug of amused distaste; and it seemed to me now that she was ready to turn away from it with something akin to plain repulsion. Never did she vibrate under my touch, and a strident “what d’you think you are doing?” was all I got for my pains."(408)

"Well, comrade, let me tell you that I did look for a beach, though I also have to confess that by the time we reached its mirage of gray water, so many delights had already been granted me by my traveling companion that the search for a Kingdom by the Sea, a Sublimated Riviera, or whatnot, far from being the impulse of the subconscious, had become the rational pursuit of a purely theoretical thrill."(409)

[Ze begint hem dus geleidelijk aan af te wijzen. Maar blijkbaar niet altijd? Er gebeuren in ieder geval minder leuke dingen.]

"Some twenty miles earlier I had happened to tell her that the day school she would attend at Beardsley was a rather high-class, non-coeducational one, with no modern nonsense, whereupon Lo treated me to one of those furious harangues of hers where entreaty and insult, self-assertion and double talk, vicious vulgarity and childish despair, were interwoven in an exasperating semblance of logic which prompted a semblance of explanation from me."(417)

"I now think it was a great mistake to move east again and have her go to that private school in Beardsley, instead of somehow scrambling across the Mexican border while the scrambling was good so as to lie low for a couple of years in subtropical bliss until I could safely marry my little Creole ..."(422)

Maar het was nodig voor HH om les te gaan geven al was het maar om geld te verdienen.

"And so we rolled East, I more devastated than braced with the satisfaction of my passion, and she glowing with health, her bi-iliac garland still as brief as a lad’s, although she had added two inches to her stature and eight pounds to her weight. We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour hooks, old tires, and her sobs in the night—every night, every night—the moment I feigned sleep."(426)

===========

Vanaf nu leven ze in Beardsley. Hij werkt op het Beardsley College for Girls. Hij beschrijft hoe hij moet opletten voor de nieuwsgierigheid van sommige - vooral vrouwelijke - buren die alles willen weten over hem en Lo.

"I often felt we lived in a lighted house of glass, and that any moment some thin-lipped parchment face would peer through a carelessly unshaded window to obtain a free glimpse of things that the most jaded voyeur would have paid a small fortune to watch."(434)

"I am now faced with the distasteful task of recording a definite drop in Lolita’s morals."(439)

In de praktijk betkent het dat hij haar moet (om)kopen om seks met haar te kunnen hebben.

"Her weekly allowance, paid to her under condition she fulfill her basic obligations, was twenty-one cents at the start of the Beardsley era — and went up to one dollar five before its end. This was a more than generous arrangement seeing she constantly received from me all kinds of small presents and had for the asking any sweetmeat or movie under the moon — although, of course, I might fondly demand an additional kiss, or even a whole collection of assorted caresses, when I knew she coveted very badly some item of juvenile amusement. She was, however, not easy to deal with. Only very listlessly did she earn her three pennies — or three nickels — per day; and she proved to be a cruel negotiator whenever it was in her power to deny me certain life-wrecking, strange, slow paradisal philters without which I could not live more than a few days in a row, and which, because of the very nature of love’s languor, I could not obtain by force. Knowing the magic and might of her own soft mouth, she managed — during one schoolyear! — to raise the bonus price of a fancy embrace to three, and even four bucks."(440)

Jongens werden natuurlijk een probleem. Min of meer. Op een of andere manier had Lo niet zo veel met schooljongens.

"... of course, my jealousy would constantly catch its jagged claw in the fine fabrics of nymphet falsity; but I did definitely feel — and can now vouchsafe for the accuracy of my feeling — that there was no reason for serious alarm."(445)

"On the whole she seemed to me better adapted to her surroundings than I had hoped she would be when considering my spoiled slave-child and the bangles of demeanor she naïvely affected the winter before in California. Although I could never get used to the constant state of anxiety in which the guilty, the great, the tenderhearted live, I felt I was doing my best in the way of mimicry."(448)

"Her girl friends, whom I had looked forward to meet, proved on the whole disappointing."(450)

[Het gesprek over Lo's seksuele ontwikkeling met Pratt is in II/11. ]

"we all wonder if anybody in the family has instructed Dolly in the process of mammalian reproduction. The general impression is that fifteen-year-old Dolly remains morbidly uninterested in sexual matters, or to be exact, represses her curiosity in order to save her ignorance and self-dignity. All right — fourteen. You see, Mr. Haze, Beardsley School does not believe in bees and blossoms, and storks and love birds, but it does believe very strongly in preparing its students for mutually satisfactory mating and successful child rearing."(460)

"‘When we questioned her about her troubles, Dolly refused to discuss the home situation, but we have spoken to some of her friends and really — well, for example, we insist you un-veto her nonparticipation in the dramatic group. You just must allow her to take part in The Hunted Enchanters. She was such a perfect little nymph in the try-out, and sometime in spring the author will stay for a few days at Beardsley College and may attend a rehearsal or two in our new auditorium. I mean it is all part of the fun of being young and alive and beautiful. You must understand—”" [mijn nadruk] (461)

"“All right,” I said, my hassock exhaling a weary sigh. “You win. She can take part in that play. Provided male parts are taken by female parts.”"(462)

[Waaraan we zien dat Lyne weer het boek volgt en Kubrick niet. Die auteur is dus Quilty die in Lyne's versie inderdaad een keer op afstand zijn gezicht laat zien bij een repetitie en in Kubricks versie weer enorm aanwezig is bij de voorstelling zelf waaraan zowel jongens als meisjes deelnemen. ]

Lolita krijgt een bronchitis en daarna organiseert hij een 'party with boys'. Lolita vindt de jongens maar niks. Ze doet mee aan het toneelstuk en geniet daarvan. Ze gaat op pianoles bij Miss Emperor. Hij ontdekt dat ze daar helemaal niet meer naar toegaat en dingen doet met vriendin Mona, zogenaamd het stuk repeteren in het park. Hij merkt hoe Lolita veranderd is in de laatste maanden. Waarna ze dus intens ruzie maken. Lo gaat eer op de fiets vandoor. Hij er tevoet achteraan. Hij treft haar in een 'drugstore' waar ze aan het opbellen is. Ze zegt dat ze hem probeerde te bereiken en zegt dat ze een beslissing heeft genomen.

"“Look,” she said as she rode the bike beside me, one foot scraping the darkly glistening sidewalk, “look, I’ve decided something. I want to leave school. I hate that school. I hate the play, I really do! Never go back. Find another. Leave at once. Go for a long trip again. But this time we’ll go wherever I want, won’t we?”"(481)

"In our hallway, ablaze with welcoming lights, my Lolita peeled off her sweater, shook her gemmed hair, stretched towards me two bare arms, raised one knee: “Carry me upstairs, please. I feel sort of romantic to-night.”"(482)

========

[Hier begint dus de reis die Lolita stiekem afstemt op contact met Clare Quilty. HH vermoedt dat er iets gaande is door kleine dingen.]

"To my surprise I found her dressed. She was sitting on the edge of the bed in slacks and T-shirt, and was looking at me as if she could not quite place me. The frank soft shape of her small breasts was brought out rather than blurred by the limpness of her thin shirt, and this frankness irritated me. She had not washed; yet her mouth was freshly though smudgily painted, and her broad teeth glistened like wine-tinged ivory, or pinkish poker chips. And there she sat, hands clasped in her lap, and dreamily brimmed with a diabolical glow that had no relation to me whatever."(493)

In een doosje bewaart hij een pistool en vermoedt dat dat pistool nog wel eens van pas kon komen.

" ... just as we could not shake off detective Trapp: for it was during those days that the problem of the Aztec Red Convertible presented itself to me, and quite overshadowed the theme of Lo’s lovers."(497)

[Hij ziet dat ze gevolgd worden. Hij denkt aan een privé-detective. Maar het Quilty, zo zal blijken. Een en ander leidt tot allerlei jaloerse scènes onderweg.]

"As I was in the act of signing a traveller’s check and wondered about my exact whereabouts, I happened to glance through a side window, and saw a terrible thing. A broad-backed man, baldish, in an oatmeal coat and dark-brown trousers, was listening to Lo who was leaning out of the car and talking to him very rapidly, her hand with outspread fingers going up and down as it did when she was very serious and emphatic. What struck me with sickening force was—how should I put it? — the voluble familiarity of her way, as if they had known each other — oh, for weeks and weeks. I saw him scratch his cheek and nod, and turn, and walk back to his convertible, a broad and thickish man of my age, somewhat resembling Gustave Trapp, a cousin of my father’s in Switzerland — same smoothly tanned face, fuller than mine, with a small dark mustache and a rosebud degenerate mouth."(500)

In Elphinstone gekomen krijgt Lolita ineens hevige koorts. Hij brengt haar naar het ziekenhuis. Ze heeft een aantal dagen nodig om beter te worden en hij bezoekt haar geregeld.

"I went on drinking, and by morning the fever was gone, and although I was as limp as a toad, I put on the purple dressing gown over my maize yellow pajamas, and walked over to the office telephone. Everything was fine. A bright voice informed me that yes, everything was fine, my daughter had checked out the day before, around two, her uncle, Mr. Gustave, had called for her with a cocker spaniel pup and a smile for everyone, and a black Caddy Lack, and had paid Dolly’s bill in cash, and told them to tell me I should not worry, and keep warm, they were at Grandpa’s ranch as agreed."(548)

Hij gaat natuurlijk op onderzoek uit en belandt op die manier weer in Beardsley. Hij vindt niets en drie lege jaren volgen. Hij ontmoet ene Rita en trekt een aantal jaren met haar op. Uiteindelijk bereikt hem een brief van Lolita die getrouwd is en zwanger en geld nodig heeft. Hij vindt haar in Colamont. Daar hoort hij de naam van degene met wie Lolita er van door ging, de enige man op wie ze ooit echt gek was - laat ze hem fijntjes weten. Clare Quilty.

"Well, did I know that he had known her mother? That he was practically an old friend? That he had visited with his uncle in Ramsdale? — oh, years ago — and spoken at Mother’s club, and had tugged and pulled her, Dolly, by her bare arm onto his lap in front of everybody, and kissed her face, she was ten and furious with him? Did I know he had seen me and her at the inn where he was writing the very play she was to rehearse in Beardsley, two years later?"(593)

"He was a great guy in many respects. But it was all drink and drugs. And, of course, he was a complete freak in sex matters, and his friends were his slaves. I just could not imagine (I, Humbert, could not imagine!) what they all did at Duk Duk Ranch. She refused to take part because she loved him, and he threw her out.
“What things?”
“Oh, weird, filthy, fancy things. I mean, he had two girls and two boys, and three or four men, and the idea was for all of us to tangle in the nude while an old woman took movie pictures.” (Sade’s Justine was twelve at the start.)"(600)

"“You are sure you are not coming with me? Is there no hope of your coming? Tell me only this.”
“No,” she said. “No, honey, no.”
She had never called me honey before.
“No,” she said, “it is quite out of the question. I would sooner go back to Cue. I mean—”
She groped for words. I supplied them mentally (“He broke my heart. You merely broke my life”)."(604)

[Verderop volgen mijmeringen over het leven dat hij Lolita oplegde, dat hij al wel eerder gezien had dat ze niet gelukkig was met hem en met de incestueuze relatie die ze met hem had. Het is een beetje vreemd om dat nu te lezen, want ze hadden een tijdlang wel degelijk veel plexier met elkaar. Totdat het Lo begon te vervelen.]

"But I admit that a man of my power of imagination cannot plead personal ignorance of universal emotions. I may also have relied too much on the abnormally chill relations between Charlotte and her daughter. But the awful point of the whole argument is this. It had become gradually clear to my conventional Lolita during our singular and bestial cohabitation that even the most miserable of family lives was better than the parody of incest, which, in the long run, was the best I could offer the waif."(618)

Hij komt terug in Ramsdale om de verkoop van het huis en andere dingen te regelen. In een hotel komt hij een bekende tegen:

"It was Mrs. Chatfield. She attacked me with a fake smile, all aglow with evil curiosity. (Had I done to Dolly, perhaps, what Frank Lasalle, a fifty-year-old mechanic, had done to eleven-year-old Sally Horner in 1948?) Very soon I had that avid glee well under control. She thought I was in California. How was —? With exquisite pleasure I informed her that my stepdaughter had just married a brilliant young mining engineer with a hush-hush job in the Northwest. She said she disapproved of such early marriages, she would never let her Phyllis, who was now eighteen —" [mijn nadruk] (622)

[Dat is de passage waarnaar Weinman steeds verwijst.]

"Now that everything had been put out of the way, I could dedicate myself freely to the main object of my visit to Ramsdale. In the methodical manner on which I have always prided myself, I had been keeping Clare Quilty’s face masked in my dark dungeon, where he was waiting for me to come with barber and priest:"(623)

Vervolgens de scène in het huis van Quilty, Pavor Manor, Grimm Road, Parkington, waar hij hem vermoordt.

[Kubrick begint met dat stuk.]

"The road now stretched across open country, and it occurred to me — not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience — that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good."(649)

[Met die scène begint Lyne zijn film. Uiteraard wordt HH dan gearresteerd.]