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more disquieting than all these conjectures and worries, was the fact that
Humbert Humbert, a brand-new American citizen of obscure European origin,
had taken no steps toward becoming the legal guardian of his dead wife's
daughter (twelve years and seven months old). Would I ever dare take those
steps? I could not repress a shiver whenever I imagined my nudity hemmed in
by mysterious statutes in the merciless glare of the Common Law.
My scheme was a marvel of primitive art: I would whizz over to Camp Q,
tell Lolita her mother was about to undergo a major operation at an invented
hospital, and then keep moving with my sleepy nymphet from inn to inn while
her mother got better and better and finally died. But as I traveled
campward my anxiety grew. I could not bear to think I might not find Lolita
there--or find, instead, another, scared, Lolita clamoring for some family
friend: not the Farlows, thank God--she hardly knew them--but might there
not be other people I had not reckoned with? Finally, I decided to make the
long-distance call I had simulated so well a few days before. It was raining
hard when I pulled up in a muddy suburb of Parkington, just before the Fork,
one prong of which bypassed the city and led to the highway which crossed
the hills to Lake Climax and Camp Q. I flipped off the ignition and for
quite a minute sat in the car bracing myself for that telephone call, and
staring at the rain, at the inundated sidewalk, at a hydrant: a hideous
thing, really, painted a thick silver and red, extending the red stumps of
its arms to be varnished by the rain which like stylized blood dripped upon
its argent chains. No wonder that stopping beside those nightmare cripples
is taboo. I drove up to a gasoline station. A surprise awaited me when at
last the coins had satisfactorily clanked down and a voice was allowed to
file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (75 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53
file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt
answer mine.
Holmes, the camp mistress, informed me that Dolly had gone Monday (this
was Wednesday) on a hike in the hills with her group and was expected to
return rather late today. Would I care to come tomorrow, and what was
exactly--Without going into details, I said that her mother was
hospitalized, that the situation was grave, that the child should not be
told it was grave and that she should be ready to leave with me tomorrow
afternoon. The two voices parted in an explosion of warmth and good will,
and through some freak mechanical flaw all my coins came tumbling back to me
with a hitting-the-jackpot clatter that almost made me laugh despite the
disappointment at having to postpone bliss. One wonders if this sudden
discharge, this spasmodic refund, was not correlated somehow, in the mind of
McFate, with my having invented that little expedition before ever learning
of it as I did now.
What next? I proceeded to the business center of Parkington and devoted
the whole afternoon (the weather had cleared, the wet town was like
silver-and-glass) to buying beautiful things for Lo. Goodness, what crazy
purchases were prompted by the poignant predilection Humbert had in those
days for check weaves, bright cottons, frills, puffed-out short sleeves,
soft pleats, snug-fitting bodices and generously full skirts! Oh Lolita, you
are my girl, as Vee was Poe's and Bea Dante's, and what little girl would
not like to whirl in a circular skirt and scanties? Did I have something
special in mind? coaxing voices asked me. Swimming suits? We have them in
all shades. Dream pink, frosted aqua, glans mauve, tulip red, oolala black.
What about playsuits? Slips? No slips. Lo and I loathed slips.
One of my guides in these matters was an anthropometric entry made by
her mother on Lo's twelfth birthday (the reader remembers that
Know-Your-Child book). I had the feeling that Charlotte, moved by obscure
motives of envy and dislike, had added an inch here, a pound there; but
since the nymphet had no doubt grown somewhat in the last seven months, I
thought I could safely accept most of those January measurements: hip girth,
twenty-nine inches; thigh girth (just below the gluteal sulcus), seventeen;
calf girth and neck circumference, eleven; chest circumference,
twenty-seven; upper arm girth, eight; waist, twenty-three; stature,
fifty-seven inches; weight, seventy-eight pounds; figure, linear;
intelligence quotient, 121; vermiform appendix present, thank God.
Apart from measurements, I could of course visualize Lolita with
hallucinational lucidity; and nursing as I did a tingle on my breastbone at
the exact spot her silky top had come level once or twice with my heart; and
feeling as I did her warm weight in my lap (so that, in a sense, I was
always "with Lolita" as a woman is "with child"), I was not surprised to
discover later that my computation had been more or less correct. Having
moreover studied a midsummer sale book, it was with a very knowing air that
file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (76 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53
file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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more disquieting than all these conjectures and worries, was the fact that
Humbert Humbert, a brand-new American citizen of obscure European origin,
had taken no steps toward becoming the legal guardian of his dead wife's
daughter (twelve years and seven months old). Would I ever dare take those
steps? I could not repress a shiver whenever I imagined my nudity hemmed in
by mysterious statutes in the merciless glare of the Common Law.
My scheme was a marvel of primitive art: I would whizz over to Camp Q,
tell Lolita her mother was about to undergo a major operation at an invented
hospital, and then keep moving with my sleepy nymphet from inn to inn while
her mother got better and better and finally died. But as I traveled
campward my anxiety grew. I could not bear to think I might not find Lolita
there--or find, instead, another, scared, Lolita clamoring for some family
friend: not the Farlows, thank God--she hardly knew them--but might there
not be other people I had not reckoned with? Finally, I decided to make the
long-distance call I had simulated so well a few days before. It was raining
hard when I pulled up in a muddy suburb of Parkington, just before the Fork,
one prong of which bypassed the city and led to the highway which crossed
the hills to Lake Climax and Camp Q. I flipped off the ignition and for
quite a minute sat in the car bracing myself for that telephone call, and
staring at the rain, at the inundated sidewalk, at a hydrant: a hideous
thing, really, painted a thick silver and red, extending the red stumps of
its arms to be varnished by the rain which like stylized blood dripped upon
its argent chains. No wonder that stopping beside those nightmare cripples
is taboo. I drove up to a gasoline station. A surprise awaited me when at
last the coins had satisfactorily clanked down and a voice was allowed to
file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (75 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53
file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt
answer mine.
Holmes, the camp mistress, informed me that Dolly had gone Monday (this
was Wednesday) on a hike in the hills with her group and was expected to
return rather late today. Would I care to come tomorrow, and what was
exactly--Without going into details, I said that her mother was
hospitalized, that the situation was grave, that the child should not be
told it was grave and that she should be ready to leave with me tomorrow
afternoon. The two voices parted in an explosion of warmth and good will,
and through some freak mechanical flaw all my coins came tumbling back to me
with a hitting-the-jackpot clatter that almost made me laugh despite the
disappointment at having to postpone bliss. One wonders if this sudden
discharge, this spasmodic refund, was not correlated somehow, in the mind of
McFate, with my having invented that little expedition before ever learning
of it as I did now.
What next? I proceeded to the business center of Parkington and devoted
the whole afternoon (the weather had cleared, the wet town was like
silver-and-glass) to buying beautiful things for Lo. Goodness, what crazy
purchases were prompted by the poignant predilection Humbert had in those
days for check weaves, bright cottons, frills, puffed-out short sleeves,
soft pleats, snug-fitting bodices and generously full skirts! Oh Lolita, you
are my girl, as Vee was Poe's and Bea Dante's, and what little girl would
not like to whirl in a circular skirt and scanties? Did I have something
special in mind? coaxing voices asked me. Swimming suits? We have them in
all shades. Dream pink, frosted aqua, glans mauve, tulip red, oolala black.
What about playsuits? Slips? No slips. Lo and I loathed slips.
One of my guides in these matters was an anthropometric entry made by
her mother on Lo's twelfth birthday (the reader remembers that
Know-Your-Child book). I had the feeling that Charlotte, moved by obscure
motives of envy and dislike, had added an inch here, a pound there; but
since the nymphet had no doubt grown somewhat in the last seven months, I
thought I could safely accept most of those January measurements: hip girth,
twenty-nine inches; thigh girth (just below the gluteal sulcus), seventeen;
calf girth and neck circumference, eleven; chest circumference,
twenty-seven; upper arm girth, eight; waist, twenty-three; stature,
fifty-seven inches; weight, seventy-eight pounds; figure, linear;
intelligence quotient, 121; vermiform appendix present, thank God.
Apart from measurements, I could of course visualize Lolita with
hallucinational lucidity; and nursing as I did a tingle on my breastbone at
the exact spot her silky top had come level once or twice with my heart; and
feeling as I did her warm weight in my lap (so that, in a sense, I was
always "with Lolita" as a woman is "with child"), I was not surprised to
discover later that my computation had been more or less correct. Having
moreover studied a midsummer sale book, it was with a very knowing air that
file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt (76 of 224)18/12/2003 23:07:53
file:///D|/docs/fiction/Nabokov%20-%20Lolita.txt [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]