The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated (79 page)

fly to Jupiter
: they are going to Juneau, but to H.H. it might as well be the planet. Jupiter is veiled by haze, and Lolita dies in “Gray Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest” (see
Gray Star
).

Carmencita … -je
: “my little Carmen [in Spanish], I asked her”; another quotation from Mérimée.

fool thing a reader … suppose
: especially a consumer of pulp fiction and movies, or a learned reader who has kept
Carmen
in mind. The several
Carmen
allusions on nearby pages serve as very fresh bait. See
Little Carmen
. See also
Keys
, p. 52.

my American … dead love
: “One of the few real, lyrical, heartfelt outbursts on H.H.’s part,” said Nabokov.

pulled on … sweater
: H.H. dons Quilty’s fate, as it were.

genuflexion lubricity
: worshipful lasciviousness or lewdness.

he
: Quilty. For allusions to him, see
Quilty, Clare
.

shadowgraphs
: see
shadowgraphs
.

lithophanic
:
lithophane
is porcelain impressed with figures made distinct by light (e.g., a lampshade).

To quote an old poet
: he is invented, but his “message” is signal.

a garden and … a palace gate
: one of those rare moments when H.H. is “so tired of being cynical.” He contemplates the hidden beauties of Lolita’s soul, and the mood prefigures his realization of Lolita’s loss, fully expressed
here
.

stippled Hopkins
: Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889), English poet.
Stippled
: dotted (see
stippled
). Its use refers to Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty” (1877): “Glory be to God for dappled things— … / For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim.”

shorn Baudelaire
: H.H. is referring to what might be called the poet’s dramatic baldness. In the self-portrait c. 1860 and in Carjat’s photograph of 1863, his hair seems to have been torn from the head; and the sculpture by Raymond Duchamp Villon (1911) and the etched portrait by his brother Jacques Villon (1920) accentuate the great forehead and cranium. See
oh Baudelaire!
.

God or Shakespeare
: an echo of Stephen Dedalus’s invocation of “God, the sun, Shakespeare,” in the Nighttown section of
Ulysses
(1961 Random House edition, p. 505). For Joyce, see
outspoken book: Ulysses
. “The verbal poetical texture of Shakespeare is the greatest the world has known, and is immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays,” said Nabokov. “With Shakespeare it is the metaphor that is the thing, not the play” (
Wisconsin Studies
interview). Although the problem has not yet been submitted to a computer, Shakespeare would seem to be the writer Nabokov invokes most frequently in his novels in English. The title of his story “ ‘That in Aleppo Once …’ ” (1943) is drawn from
Othello.
Part of Chapter Ten of
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
and all of Chapter Seven of
Bend Sinister
are devoted to Shakespeare; he informs the center of
Pale Fire
, where streets of the Zemblan capital city are named Coriolanus Lane and Timon Alley. “Help me, Will,” calls John Shade, searching for a title for his poem—and he does help, providing a passage from
Timon of Athens.
Nabokov translated into Russian Shakespeare’s
Sonnets XVII and XXVII (
The Rudder
, September 18, 1927), two excerpts from
Hamlet
(Act IV, scene vii, and Act V, scene i [
The Rudder
, October 19, 1930]), and Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy (Act III, scene i [
The Rudder
, November 23, 1930]). Regarding
Hamlet
, see
Elsinore Playhouse, Derby, N.Y.
. For significant verbal play on
Richard
III, see
coltish subteens … (all New England for a lady-writer’s pen!)
.

pentapod
: counting as fifth the monster’s “
foot of engorged brawn.
”

turpid
:
rare
; foul, disgraceful.

mais … t’aimais
: French; but I loved you, I loved you!

azure-barred
: the motel’s neon lights reaching their bed from the window.

Avis
: Avis Byrd: a pun, since “Avis” is Latin for
bird
, and another verbal doubling (“bird bird”).

above Moulinet
: in the Alpes-Maritimes.

scintillas
: sparks.

Bonzhur
:
(bonjour)
“good day,” phonetically spelled to mimic Charlotte’s poor French accent; see
ne montrez pas vos zhambes
.

Edward Grammar … had just been arrayed
: an actual crime, noted Nabokov, drawn from a newspaper, as was the case of Frank LaSalle
here
. By saying that Ed had been
arrayed
, instead of
arraigned
, H.H. punningly describes the imposing display. His name deliberately recalls that of Edward G. Robinson (1893–1973), who starred in numerous crime films.

Turgenev
: Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883), Russian writer. H.H. is alluding to the sonata of love that pours out the window near the end of his novel
A Nest of Gentlefolk
(1859).

plashed
:
to plash
is to form a wave so convex that it splashes over (maritime term).

Murphy-Fantasia
: the marriage of Lolita’s classmate
Stella Fantasia
. Note the verbal play on “moon-faced” and “stellar [Stella] care” (see also
Keys
, p. 8). See
Marie … stellar name
for more stellar play.

mille grâces
: French; a thousand affectations.

vient de
: French; just (for the immediate past).

“Réveillez-vous … mourir
”
: French; “Wake-up, Laqueue [
La Que
: Cue; Quilty], it is now time to die!” A fake quotation, significant only for its reference to Quilty. The image of his residence in H.H.’s “dark dungeon” was introduced, in a more generalized way, at The Enchanted Hunters hotel (see
one’s dungeon … some rival devil
).

toad of a face
: a favorite pejorative image in Nabokov (see also
Keys
, p. 153n). “Toad” is the boyhood nickname of the dictator in
Bend Sinister.

Dr. Molnar
: the dentist’s name aptly contains a molar; it is not, said Nabokov, an allusion to Ferenc Molnár, Hungarian playwright.

six hundred
: at that time $600 was a huge sum for dentures.

Full Blued
: simply a reference to
its
finish.

Favor
: Latin; panic, terror. The Manor on Grimm Road burlesques the Gothic castles of fairy tales, Poe’s mouldering House of Usher, and the medieval settings in Maeterlinck.

penele
: a coined adjective; “penis-like” (
penes
is a plural form).

My Lolita!
: the penultimate elegiac “Latin” intonation. See
the writer’s ancient lust
.

selenian
: of or relating to the moon.

raised a gun
: a foreshadowing of Quilty’s death; an echo of the murder prefiguration in Chapter Two of
Laughter in the Dark.

Insomnia Lodge
: Nabokov’s bravura reading of this chapter is not to be missed (Spoken Arts LP 902; Side Two includes seven poems, one in Russian). The recording is especially recommended for classroom use. The nuances of Nabokov’s accent—Cambridge by way of old St. Petersburg, the French in perfect pitch—are a striking aural equivalent to the theme of exile in his work and the international nature of that art; and the gusto of his reading communicates vividly a sense of the man, as well as underscoring the comic tone of the novel. Experience has
suggested that the latter is not always sufficiently appreciated by students who have grown up with TV, and don’t always “get” the tone of a printed page. Where’s the laugh-track when you need it?

fairy tale
: the fairy-tale opening is appropriate, for this is the most fantastic chapter in the novel, as witnessed by the uncommon velocities and trajectories of the bullets H.H. will fire, and the extraordinary behavior of their target. H.H. inspects three bedrooms because that is the fairy-tale number. For more on the fairy tale, see
not human, but nymphic
,
Percy Elphinstone
, and
trudging from room to room
.

deep mirrors
: Quilty literally lives in a house of mirrors, just as H.H. is figuratively imprisoned in one; see
Beale
,
a mirror
, and below, where the mirror is held up to him and he sees a familiar bathrobe. For an index to Quilty’s appearances, see
Quilty, Clare
.

keys … locks … left hand
: the keys don’t work because magic and terror prevail in the special world of Pavor Manor. See
trudging from room to room
.

brief waterfall
: Quilty has once before flushed the toilet thusly; see
someone … beyond our bathroom
.

Je suis … Brustère
: “I am Mr. Brewster,” spelled in phonetic French.

Punch
: the hook-nosed and hunchbacked principal character in the traditional “Punch and Judy” show (see Introduction and
I have only words to play with
). Used here in the sense of “clown.”

vaterre
: “water,” with a phonetic French spelling; slang for “water closet” (lavatory).

Patagonia
: an actual town in Arizona.

Dolores, Colo.
: Nabokov, the enchanted butterfly hunter, made one of his most important captures at Telluride, near Dolores, Colo., which is why he finally chose Dolores rather than Virginia as the proper name of his nymphet. Did you ever hear of a girl named “Telluride”? For Dolores, see
Dolores
. For a mordant blending of Proust and Dolores, see
Dolorès Disparue
. For the butterfly in question, see
from my lofty slope
and
tinkling sounds … Lycaeides sublivens Nabokov
.

those calls
: but H.H. has in mind the fake call
Quilty
made
here
.

La … Chair
:
The Pride of the Flesh
, not a noteworthy translation of
Proud Flesh
, which in French would be
Tissu bourgeonnant or Fongosité.

Wooly- … -are?
: a phonetic burlesque of American pronunciation: “
Voulez-vous boire?
” (French; “Do you want a drink?”).

une femme … cigarette
: “a woman is a woman but a Caporal is a cigarette.” Quilty has made nonsense out of “The Betrothed,” by Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936): “A million surplus Maggie are willing to bear the yoke / And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke” (see also
Keys
, p. 136n). The pun is on
corporal
(military rank) and
Caporal
(the brand name of a French cigarette).

a Gentile’s house
: for a summary of what could be termed “the anti-Semitism theme,” see
spaniel … baptized
.

“Vous … vieux
”
: French; “You are in a fine mess, my friend.”

“Alors … -on?
”
: French; “What do we do then?”

Justine
: see
Sade’s … start: Justine, or, The Misfortunes of Virtue
.

Because … a sinner
: a parody of T. S. Eliot’s “Ash Wednesday” (1930): “Because I do not hope to turn again / Because I do not hope / Because I do not hope to turn.…” H.H.’s structural use of “Because” in the remainder of the poem echoes Eliot’s. For Eliot, see
pastiches
.

moulting
: animals and insects
moult
; to cast off hair, feathers, skin, etc., which is replaced by new growth.

flavid
: yellowish or tawny-colored.

rencontre
: French; meeting (duel).

soyons raisonnables
: French; let us be reasonable.

as the Bard said
: in
Macbeth
(V, vii, 19); and for this pun Quilty deserves to die.

Vibrissa
: one of the stiff, bristly hairs which many animals have about their mouths (a cat’s whiskers); also the similar feathers on a bird.

Schmetterling
: German; butterfly. During a conversation with Nabokov, I singled out this moment in the H.H.-Quilty confrontation as a good example of the kind of humorous but telling detail whose significance critics often miss. Nabokov nodded and with complete seriousness said, “Yes. That’s the most important phrase in the chapter.” At first this may seem to be an extreme statement or leg-pull; but in the context of the involuted patterning it is perfectly just (see
I have only words to play with
), for by mentioning
the German word for
butterfly
Quilty has superimposed the author’s watermark on the scene. Like the mention of Dolores, Colorado (
Dolores, Colo.
), this reference—the only butterfly in the chapter—points to the lawful obsession with Lepidoptera that makes Nabokov a fellow traveler with enchanted hunters as unsavory as H.H. and Quilty. This tack is summarized in
the hospital at Elphinstone … irretrievable Dolly Schiller dying in Gray Star
. For Maeterlinck, the heavy-handed symbolist, see
Maeterlinck
. For the entomological allusions, see
John Ray, Jr.
.