The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated (66 page)

Peacock, Rainbow
: Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866), English poet and novelist, whose name recalls the “Rainbow,” or Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891), French poet. After abandoning literature at the age of eighteen, Rimbaud traveled widely. In 1888 in Abyssinia, where he sold guns, the English called the ex-poet “trader Rainbow,” as Nabokov notes in his
Eugene Onegin
Commentary (Vol. III, p. 412). For further allusions, see
ramparts of ancient Europe
,
parapets of Europe
,
touché, reader!
, and
mon … radieux
.

Lottelita, Lolitchen
: H.H. toys with “Lotte,” a diminutive of “Charlotte,” and discerns
Lolita
in
Lotte
(“Lottelita”), which is also a phonetic transcription of American idiom and diction (
Lot of
[
Lo
]
lita
).
Lolitchen
is formed with the German diminutive ending -
chen.
H.H. no doubt recalls that Goethe’s Werther calls his Charlotte “Lotte” and “Lottchen.” See
Charlotte
.

ecru and ocher
:
ecru
is a grayish yellow that is greener and paler than chamois or old ivory.
Ocher
is a dark yellow color derived from or resembling ocher, a hydrated iron oxide.

4640 Roosevelt Blvd.… mattress
: the firm is Sears Roebuck Co., and the mattress in question will arrive at a grotesquely inappropriate moment at the end of
Chapter 24
.

the jovial dentist
: Clare Quilty’s Uncle Ivor. Much later H.H. will learn from Lolita herself that Quilty met her through this association. H.H. recapitulates their confrontation: “
Well, did I know 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 … onto his lap
 …” An earlier draft of the novel contained Quilty’s appearance before the ladies. See
Quilty, Clare
for a summary of his appearances.

such dainty ladies as Mrs. Glave
: from the unusual verb, “glaver;” “to palaver;” “to flatter; wheedle.”

arrière-pensée
: French; hidden thoughts, ulterior motives.

interrupted Jean
: John is about to say “Jews,” and Jean, suspecting that H.H. may be Jewish, tactfully interrupts. See
spaniel … baptized
.

A Guide to … Development
: the titles H.H. mentions are by turns invented (
Who’s Who in the Limelight
;
Clowns and Columbines
), actual (the other titles
here
;
Brute Force
), or close approximations of existing works, as in this instance. A plethora of actual titles circle about this “fool’s book” (e.g.,
Guide to Child Development through the Beginning School Years
[1946]), and Nabokov seems to have created a central, summary title (though the exact title may yet exist). See
Know Your Own Daughter
.

Hourglass Lake … spelled
: earlier it was “Our Glass Lake” (see
Our Glass Lake
and
Our Glass Lake
). H.H. doesn’t correct “errors” in his “unrevised” draft. Whether right or wrong, both the names are significant, underscoring H.H.’s solipsism (the circumscribing mirror of “our glass”) and obsession with time (“hourglass”).

the gesture
: it inspires the mock quotation, “look, Lord …” as if to demonstrate one’s chains.

duenna of my darling
: the echo of “Annabel Lee” is linked with
duenna
, “The chief lady in waiting on the queen of Spain” (Webster’s 2nd).

c’est moi qui décide
: French; it is I who decide.

acrosonic
: a noise reaching to or past the sonic barrier. It would seem to be H.H.’s own word.

shooting her lover … making him say “akh!”
: a preview of Quilty’s death. See
I shot … said: Ah.’
and
a feminine
. He may indeed have been “her lover,” however fleetingly; “
I knew your dear wife slightly
,” Quilty later admits to H.H.

at first wince
: H.H.’s variant of “at first glance.”

Krestovski
: to give them one kind of scare or another; see
burley … Krestovski
.

Cavall and Melampus
: the Farlows’ dogs. “Cavall” comes from
cavallo
(a horse), and “Melampus” from the seer in Greek mythology who understood the tongue of dogs and introduced the worship of Dionysus. More specifically, noted Nabokov, the dogs are named after those of a famous person, though he was not certain who owned them. He thought it was Lord Byron, who had many bizarrely named dogs. In any event, these allusions are hardly within the cultural reach of the Farlows.

Waterproof
: the wristwatch. See
Waterproof
, where H.H. offers this interlude as a central clue to Quilty’s identity.

old Ivor … his nephew
: Clare Quilty. For a summary of allusions to Quilty, see
Quilty, Clare
.

“
Ce qui … comme ça
”
: French; “What drives me crazy is the fact that I do not know what you are thinking about when you are like this.”

the ultimate sunburst
: in
Who’s Who in the Limelight
, “Roland Pym” is said to have “Made debut in
Sunburst
” (see
Made debut in Sunburst
).

Beaver Eaters
: a portmanteau of “Beefeaters” (the yeomen of the British royal guard) and their beaver hats. Some have seen this as an obvious obscene joke, but Nabokov did not intend one. “Moronic and oxymoronic,” he said, remembering the guard’s old reputation for male prostitution (“beaver” is of the female gender, innocent reader).

Euphemia
: from the Greek
euphēmos
; auspicious, sounding good.

olisbos
: the leather phallos worn by participants in the Greek Dionysia.

child of Dolly’s age
: “Byron, Marguerite” (see
here
). For Dr. Byron’s namesake, see
Well-read Humbert
.

my pin
: a coinage; H.H.’s favorite drink, a
mixture of pineapple juice and gin
. He also refers to this “pin”
here
and
here
.

savoir vivre
: French; good manners, good breeding.

alembic
: anything used to distill or refine.

Adieu, Marlene
: Dietrich; see
Lola
.

simian
: monkey- or apelike. Nabokov is toying with the
Doppelgänger
convention of an evil self; H.H. should not be “simian” because
Quilty
is the bad one.

Eh bien, pas du tout!
: French; Well, not at all!

Climax
: however broad the joke may be, there happen to be seven towns in the United States by this name (as well as a Lolita, Texas). Demon Veen, the father of
Ada
’s hero, retreats to his “aunt’s ranch near Lolita, Texas” (p. 14), a town which doubtless boasts no bookstore or library.

stylized blood
: everything red is “stylized.”

argent
:
archaic
; silver, silvery, shining—as in French.

Vee … and Bea
: see
Virginia … Edgar
and
Dante … month of May
. For a summary of Poe allusions, see
Lo-lee-ta
.

glans
: anatomical word; the conical vascular body which forms the extremity of the penis.

oolala black
: pseudo-French epithet for “sexy” black frills.

anthropometric entry
: anthropometry is the science of measuring the human body and its parts.

glaucous
: a pale yellowish-green hue.

The Enchanted Hunters
: note the plural (H.H., Quilty, and, in another sense, the author). For “enchantment,” see
Little Carmen
. Quilty names his play after the hotel (
here
) and adapts an anagram of it for one of his many pseudonyms (
Ted Hunter, Cane, NH.
); the married Lolita ends up living on “
Hunter Road
.”

Heart, head—everything
: “
Is ‘mask’ the keyword?
” H.H. asked (see
“real people”
). As his narrative approaches the first conjugal night with Lolita, H.H. is overcome by anguish, and in the bare six lines of
Chapter Twenty-six
—the shortest “chapter” in the book—he loses control, and for a moment the mask drops. Not until the very end of the passage does the voice again sound like our Hum the Hummer, when the desperation of “Heart, head—everything” suddenly gives way to the resiliently comic command to the printer. In that one instant H.H.’s masking takes place before the reader, who gets a fleeting look into those “
two hypnotic eyes
” (to quote John Ray) and sees the pain in them.
Lolita
is so deeply moving a novel because of our sharp awareness of the great tension sustained between H.H.’s mute despair and his compensatory jollity. “Crime and Pun” is one of the titles the murderous narrator of
Despair
considers for his manuscript, and it would serve H.H. just as well, for language is as much a defense to him as chess is to Grandmaster Luzhin. But even when H.H. lets the mask slip, one glimpses only his desperation, not the “real” H.H. or the manipulative author. As Nabokov says in Chapter Five of
Gogol
, analogously discussing Akaky Akakyevich and the “holes” and “gaps” in the narrative texture of
The Overcoat
: “We did not expect that, amid the whirling masks, one mask would turn out to be a real face, or
at least the place where that face ought to be
” [italics mine—A.A.]. If the printer had obeyed H.H.’s request to fill the page with Lo’s name, we’d have a twentieth-century equivalent of a totally self-reflexive blank or patterned page in Sterne’s
Tristram Shandy
(1767).

redheaded … lad
: Charlie Holmes turns out to be Lolita’s
first lover
.

moth or butterfly
: a reminder that H.H. is no entomologist. See
John Ray, Jr.
. Nabokov stressed “Humbert’s complete incapacity to differentiate between Rhopalocera and Heterocera.”

lentigo
: a freckly skin pigmentation.

aux yeux battus
: French; with circles round one’s eyes.

plumbaceous umbrae
: Latin; leaden shadows.

mägdlein
: German; little girl.

Lepingville … nineteenth century
: as to the “identity” of this poet, Nabokov responded, “That poet was evidently Leping who used to go lepping (i.e., lepidoptera hunting) but that’s about all anybody knows about him.” See
gay … Lepingville
.

backfisch
: German; an immature, adolescent girl; a teenager.

simulacrum
: a sham; an unreal semblance.

psychotherapist … rapist
: H.H. calls our attention to the rapist in the therapist. Nabokov similarly employs semantic constituents in
Despair
, when he poses a sensible question: “What is this jest in majesty? This ass in passion?” (p. 46).

what shadow … after?
: in traditional
Doppelgänger
fiction the reprehensible self is often imagined as a shadow, as in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Shadow.” H.H. constantly toys with the convention.

Ensuite?
: French; then?

shadowgraphs
: amateur X-ray pictures. The girls made pictures of each other’s bones; not invented, but actual “educational” recreation at “progressive” camps c. 1950.

“C’est bien tout?
”
: “Is that all?” The answer “
C’est
” (“It is”) is incorrect French, a direct translation from English syntax.

carbuncles
: medical; “a painful local inflammation of the subcutaneous tissue, larger and more serious than a boil; a pimple or red spot, due
to intemperance.” Originally, a jewel such as a ruby. H.H. is of course referring to the truck’s parking lights.

magic … rubious
: a corrected misprint (“rubous” in the 1958 edition). The rubylike convertible is Quilty’s, a dark red shining in the rain and the night. His appearances are summarized in
Quilty, Clare
.

frock-fold … Browning
: not a quotation, but an allusion to
Pippa Passes
(1841), a verse drama by Robert Browning, the English poet (1812–1889):