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FOREWORD
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Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male,”
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such were the two titles under which the writer of the present
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note received the strange pages it preambulates. "Humbert
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Humbert," their author, had died in legal captivity, of coronary
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thrombosis, on November 16, 1952, a few days before his trial
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was scheduled to start. His lawyer, my good friend and relation,
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Clarence Choate Clark, Esq., now of the District of Columbia
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bar, in asking me to edit the manuscript, based his request on a
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clause in his client's will which empowered my eminent cousin
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to use his discretion in all matters pertaining to the preparation
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of "Lolita” for print. Mr. Clark's decision may have been in-
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fluenced by the fact that the editor of his choice had fust been
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awarded the Poling Prize for a modest work (“Do the Senses
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make Sense?”) wherein certain morbid states and perversions
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had been discussed.
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My task proved simpler than either of us had anticipated .
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Save for the correction of obvious solecisms and a careful sup-
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pression of a few tenacious details that despite "HJi.” 's own
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efforts still subsisted in his text as signposts and tombstones
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5
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(indicative of places -or persons that taste would conceal and
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compassion spare), this remarkable memoir is presented intact.
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Its author’s bizarre cognomen is his own invention; and, of
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course, this mask — through which two hypnotic eyes seem to
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glow — had to remain unfitted in accordance with its wearer’s
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wish. While " Haze ” only rhymes with the heroine’s real sur-
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name, her first name is too closely interwound with the inmost
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fiber of the book to allow one to alter it; nor (as the reader will
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perceive for himself) is there any practical necessity to do so.
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References to “HU.” ’s crime may be looked up by the in-
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quisitive in the daily papers for September 1 952; its cause and
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purpose would have continued to remain a complete mystery,
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had not this memoir been permitted to come under my read-
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ing lamp.
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For the benefit of old-fashioned readers who wish to follow
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the destinies of the “real” people beyond the “ true ” story, a
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few details may be given as received from Mr. "Windmuller,”
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of “ Ramsdale ,” who desires his identity suppressed so that “the
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long shadow of this sorry and sordid business” should not reach
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the community to which he is proud to belong. His daughter,
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“Louise,” is by now a college sophomore, “Mona Dahl” is a
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student in Paris. “Rita” has recently married the proprietor of
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a hotel in Florida. Mrs. “Richard F. Schiller” died in childbed,
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giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray
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Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest. “Vivian Dark-
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bloom” has written a biography , “My Cue,” to he pubh'shed
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shortly, and critics who have perused the manuscript call it her
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best book. The caretakers of the various cemeteries involved
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report that no ghosts walk.
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Viewed simply as a novel, “ Lolita ” deals with situations and
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emotions that would remain exasperatingly vague to the reader
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had their expression been etiolated by means of platitudinous
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evasions. True, not a single obscene term is to be found in the
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whole work; indeed, the robust philistine who is conditioned
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by modem conventions into accepting without qualms a lavish
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array of four-letter words in a banal novel, will be quite shocked
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by their absence here. If, however, for this paradoxical prude's
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comfort, an editor attempted to dilute or omit scenes that a
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certain type of mind might call “aphrodisiac” (sec in this
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respect the monumental decision rendered December 6, 1933,
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by Hon. John M. Woolsey in regard to another, considerably
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more outspoken, book), one would have to forego the publica-
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tion of “Lolita” altogether, since those very scenes that one
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6
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might ineptly accuse of a sensuous existence of their own, are
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the most strictly functional ones in the development of a tragic
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tale tending unswervingly to nothing less than a moral apoth-
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eosis. The cynic may say that commercial pornography makes
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the same claim; the learned may counter by asserting that
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“HI 1." ’s impassioned confession is a tempest in a test tube;
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that at least 12% of American adnlt males— a “conservative”
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estimate according to Dr. Blanche Schwarzmann (verbal com-
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munication) — enjoy yearly, in one way or another, the special
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experience “HU.” describes with such despair; that had our
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demented diarist gone, in the fatal summer of 1947, to a com-
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petent psychopathologist, there would have been no disaster;
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but then, neither would there have been this booh
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This commentator may be excused for repeating what he
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has stressed in his own hooks and lectures, namely that “of-
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fensive” is frequently but a synonym for “unusual”; and a great
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work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very
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nature should come as a more or less shocking surprise. I have
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no intention to glorify “HU.” No doubt, he is horrible, he is
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abject, he is a shining example of moral leprosy, a mixture of
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ferocity and jocularity that betrays supreme misery perhaps,
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but is not conducive to attractiveness. He is ponderously capri-
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cious. Many of his casual opinions on the people and scenery
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of this country are ludicrous. A desperate honesty that throbs
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through his confession does not absolve him from sins of dia-
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bolical cunning. He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman. But
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how magically his singing violin can conjure up a tendsesse, a.
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compassion for Lolita that makes us entranced with the book
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while abhorring its author!
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As a case history, “Lolita" will become, no doubt, a classic
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in psychiatric circles. As a work of art, it transcends its expia-
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tory aspecfspand still mare important to ns than scientific
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significance and literary worth, is the ethical impact the book
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should have on the serious reader, for in this poignant personal
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study there lurks a general lesson; the wayward child, the
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egotistic mother, the panting maniac — these are not only mid
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characters in a unique story; they warn us of dangerous trends;
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they point out potent evils. “Lolita” should make aD of us —
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parents, social workers, educators — apply ourselves with still
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greater vigilance and vision to the task of bringing np a better
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generation in a safer world.
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Widworth, Mass. John Ray, Jr., PhD.
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7
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Part One
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1
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Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my sonL
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Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps
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down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee, Ta.
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She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet
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ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at
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school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my aims
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she was always Lolita.
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Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point
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of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved,
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one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the
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sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was bom as
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my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer
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for a fancy prose style.
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Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is
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what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged
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seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.
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II
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2
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I was born in 1910, in Paris. My father was a gentle, easy-go-
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ing person, a salad of racial genes: a Swiss citizen, of mixed
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French and Austrian descent, with a dash of the Danube in his
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veins. I am going to pass around in a minute some lovely,
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glossy-blue picture-postcards. He owned a luxurious hotel on
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the Riviera. His father and two grandfathers had sold wine,
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jewels and silk, respectively. At thirty he married an' English
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girl, daughter of Jerome Dunn, the alpinist, and granddaughter
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of two Dorset parsons, experts in obscure subjects — paleo-
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pedology and Aeolian harps, respectively. My very photogenic
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mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was
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three, and, save for a pocket or warmth in the darkest past,
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nothing of her subsists within the hollows and dells of mem-
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ory, over which, if you can still stand my style (I am writing
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under observation), the sun of my infancy had set: surely, you
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all know those redolent remnants of day suspended, with the
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midges, about some hedge in bloom or suddenly entered and
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traversed by the rambler, at the bottom of a hill, in the sum-
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mer dusk; a furry warmth, golden midges.
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My mother’s elder sister, Sybil, whom a cousin of my fa-
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ther’s had married and then neglected, served in my immediate
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family as a kind of unpaid governess and housekeeper. Some-
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body told me later that she had been in love with my father,
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and that he had lightheartedly taken advantage of it one rainy
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day and forgotten it by the time the weather cleared. I was
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extremely fond of her, despite the rigidity — the fatal rigidity —
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of some of her rules. Perhaps she wanted to make of me, in the
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fullness of time, a better widower than my father. Aunt Sybil
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had pink-rimmed azure eyes and a waxen complexion. She
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wrote poetry. She was poetically superstitious. She said she
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knew she would die soon afteT my sixteenth birthday, and did.
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Her husband, a great traveler in perfumes, spent most of his
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time in America, where eventually he founded a firm and ac-
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quired a bit of real estate.
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I grew, a happy, healthy child in a bright world of illustrated
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books, clean sand, orange trees, friendly dogs, sea vistas and
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smiling faces. Around me the splendid Hotel Mirana revolved
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as a kind of private universe, a whitewashed cosmos within the
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12
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blue greater one that blazed outside. From the aproned pot-
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scrubber to the flanneled potentate, everybody liked me, every-
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body petted me. Elderly American ladies leaning on their
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canes listed toward me like towers of Pisa. Ruined Russian
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princesses who could not pay my father, bought me expensive
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bonbons. He,_mon cher petit papa, took me out boating and
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biking, taught me to swim and dive and water-ski, read to me
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Don Quixote and Les Mis6rables, and 1 adored and respected
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him and felt glad for him whenever I overheard the servants
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discuss his various lady-friends, beautiful and kind beings who
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made much of me and cooed and shed precious tears over my
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cheerful motherlessness.
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I attended an English day school a few miles from home,
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and there I played rackets and fives, and got excellent marks,
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and was on perfect terms with schoolmates and teachers alike.
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The only definite sexual events that I can remember as having
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occurred before my thirteenth birthday (that is, before I first
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saw my little Annabel) were: a solemn, decorous and purely
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theoretical talk about pubertal surprises in the rose garden of
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the school with an American kid, the son of a then celebrated
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motion-picture actress whom he seldom saw in the three-
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dimensional world; and some interesting reactions on the part
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. of my organism to certain photographs, pearl and umbra, with
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infinitely soft partings, in Piehon’s sumptuous La Beau td
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Humaine that I had filched from under a mountain of marble-
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bound Graphics in the hotel library. Later, in his delightful
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debonair manner, my father gave me all the information he
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thought I needed about sex; this was just before sending me, in
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the autumn of 1923, to a-lycSe in Lyon (where we were to
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spend three winters); but alas, in tire summer of that year,
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he was touring Italy with Mme de R. and her daughter, and I
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had nobody to complain to, nobody to consult.
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3
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Annabel was, like the writer, of mixed parentage: half-Eng-
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lish, half-Dutch, in her case. I remember her features far less
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distinctly today than I did a few years ago, before I knew
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Lolita. There are two kinds of visual memory: one when yon
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13
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skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind,
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vnth your eyes open {and then I see Annabel in such general
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terms as: "honey-colored skin,” "thin arms,” “brown bobbed
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hair,” "long lashes,” "big bright mouth”); and the other when
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you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark innerside of
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yoar eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a be-
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loved face, a little ghost in natural colors (and this is how I
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see Lolita).
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Let me therefore primly limit myself, in describing Annabel,
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to saying she was a lovely child a few months my junior. Her
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parents were old friends of my aunt's, and as stuffy as she.
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They had rented a villa not far from Hotel Mirana. Bald brown
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Mr. Leigh and fat, powdered Mrs. Leigh (bom Vanessa van
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Ness). How I loathed them! At first, Annabel and I talked of
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peripheral affairs. She kept lifting handfuls of fine sand and
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letting it pour through her fingers. Our brains were tuned the
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way those of intelligent European preadolescents were in our
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day and set, and I doubt if much individual genius should be
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assigned to our interest in the plurality of inhabited worlds,
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competitive tennis, infinity, solipsism and so on. The softness
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and fragility of baby animals caused us the same intense pain.
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She wanted to be a nurse in some famished Asiatic country; I
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wanted to be a famous spy.
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All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizing-
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ly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add, because
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that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged
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only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of
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each other's soul and flesh; but there we were, unable even to
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mate as slum children would have so easily found an oppor-
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tunity to do. After one wold attempt we made to meet at night
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in her garden (of which more later), the only privacy we were
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allowed was to be'out of earshot but not out of sight on the
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populous part of the plage. There, on the soft sand, a few feet
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away from our elders, we would spraw'l all morning, in a petri-
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fied paroxysm of desire, and take advantage of every blessed
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quirk in space and time to touch each other: her hand, half-
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hidden in the sand, would creep toward me, its slender brown
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fingers sleepwalking nearer and nearer; then, her opalescent
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knee would start on a long cautious journey; sometimes a
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chance rampart built by younger children granted us sufficient
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concealment to graze each other’s salty lips; these incomplete
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contacts drove our healthy and inexperienced young bodies to
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such a state of exasperation that not even the cool blue water,
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14
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under -which we still clawed at each other, could bring relief. "
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Among some treasures I lost during the wanderings of my
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adult years, there was a snapshot taken by my 'aunt which
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showed Annabel, her parents 'and the staid, elderly, lame
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gentleman, a Dr. Cooper, who that same summer courted my
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aunt, grouped around a table in a sidewalk cafd. Annabel did
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not come out well, caught as sbe was in the act of bending
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over her chocolat glacd, and her thin bare shoulders and the
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parting in her hair were about all that could be identified (as I
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remember that picture) amid the sunny blur into which her
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lost loveliness graded; but I, sitting somewhat apart from the
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rest, came out with a kind of dramatic conspicuousness: a
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moody, beetle-browed boy in a dark sport shirt and well-,
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tailored white shorts, his legs crossed, sitting in profile, looking
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away. That photograph was taken on the last day of our fatal
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summer and just a few minutes before we made our second
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and final attempt to thwart fate. Under the flimsiest of pre- .
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texts (this was our very last chance, and nothing really mat-
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tered) we escaped from the caf6 to the beach, and found a
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desolate stretch of sand, and there, in the violet shadow of
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some red rocks forming a kind of cave, had a brief session of
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avid caresses, with somebody's lost pair of sunglasses for only
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witness. I was on my knees, and on the point of possessing my
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darling, when two bearded bathers, the old man of the sea
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and his brother, came out of the sea with exclamations of
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ribald encouragement, and four months later she died of
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typhus in Corfu.
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I leaf again and again through these miserable memories, and
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keep asking myself, was it then, in the glitter of that remote
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summer, that the rift in my life began; or was my excessive
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desire for that child only the first evidence of an inherent
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singularity? When I try to analyze' my own cravings, motives,
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actions and so forth, I surrender to a sort of retrospective
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imagination which feeds the analytic faculty with boundless
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alternatives and which causes each visualized route to fork and
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re-fork without end in the maddeningly complex prospect of
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15
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my past I am convinced, however, that in a certain magic and
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fateful way Lolita began with Annabel.
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I also know that the shock of Annabel’s death consolidated
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the frustration of that nightmare summer, made of it a perma-
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nent obstacle to any further romance throughout the cold
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years of my youth. The spiritual and the physical had been
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blended in us with a perfection that must remain incompre-
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hensible to the matter-of-fact, crude, standard-brained young-
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sters of today. Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating
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through mine. Long before we met we had had the same
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dreams. We compared notes. We found strange affinities. The
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same June of the same year ( 1919) a stray canary had fluttered
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into her house and mine, in two widely separated countries.
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Oh, Lolita, had you loved me thus!
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I have reserved for the conclusion of my "Annabel” phase
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the account of. our unsuccessful first tryst One night, she
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managed to deceive the vicious vigilance of her family. In a
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nervous and slender-leaved mimosa grove at the back of their
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villa we found a perch on the ruins of a low stone wall.
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Through the darkness and the tender trees we could see the
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arabesques of lighted windows which, touched up by the
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colored inks of sensitive memory, appear to me now like
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playing cards — presumably because a bridge game was keeping
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the enemy busy. She trembled and twitched as I kissed the
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comer of her parted lips and the hot lobe of her ear. A cluster
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of stars palely glowed above us, between the silhouettes of long
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thin leaves; that vibrant sky seemed as naked as she was under
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her light frock. I saw her face in the sky, strangely distinct, as
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if it emitted a faint radiance of its own. Her legs, her lovely
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live legs, were not too close together, and when my hand
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located what it sought, a dreamy and eerie expression, half-
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pleasure, half-pain, came over those childish features. She sat a
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little higher than I, and whenever in her solitary ecstasy she
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was led to kiss me, her head would bend vrith a sleepy, soft,
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drooping movement that was almost woeful, and her bare
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knees caught and compressed my wrist, and slackened again;
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and her quivering mouth, distorted by the acridity of some
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mysterious potion, with a sibilant intake of breath came near
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to my face. She would try to relieve the pain of love by first
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roughly rubbing her dry lips against mine; then my darling
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would draw away with a nervous toss of her hair, and then
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again come darkly near and let me feed on her open mouth,
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while with a generosity that was ready to offer her everything,
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16
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my heart, my throat, my entrails, I gave her to hold in her
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awkward fist the scepter of my passion.
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I recall the scent of some kind of toilet powder— I believe
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she stole it from her mother’s Spanish maid — a sweetish, lowly,
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musky perfume. It mingled with her own biscuity odor, and
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my senses were suddenly filled to the brim; a sudden commotion
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in a nearby bush prevented them from overflowing — and as we
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drew away from each other, and with aching veins attended
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to what was probably a prowling cat, there came from the
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house her mother’s voice calling her, with a rising frantic note
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— and Dr. Cooper -ponderously limped out into the garden.
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But that mimosa grove — the haze of stars, the tingle, the
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flame, the honeydew, and the ache remained with me, and
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that little girl' with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue
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haunted me ever since — until at last, twenty-four years later,
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I broke her spell by incarnating her in another.
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5
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The days of mt touth, as I look back on them, seem to fly
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away from me in a flurry of. pale repetitive scraps like those
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morning snow storms of used tissue paper that a train passen-
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ger sees whirling in the wake of the observation car. In my
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sanitary relations with women I was practical, ironical and
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brisk. While a college student, in London and Paris, paid
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ladies sufficed me. My studies were meticulous and intense,
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although not particularly fruitful. At first, I planned to take a
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degree in psychiatry as many monqu6 talents do; but I was
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even more manqud than that; a peculiar exhaustion, I am so
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oppressed, doctor, set in; and I switched to English literature,
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where so many frustrated poets end as pipe-smoking teachers
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in tweeds. Paris suited me. I discussed Soviet movies with
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expatriates. I sat with uranists in the Deux Magots. I published
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tortuous essays in obscure journals, I composed pastiches:
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. . . Fraulein von Kulp
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may turn, her hand upon the door;
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I will not follow her. Nor Fresca. Nor
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that Gull.
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17
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■ A of mine entitled 'The Proustian theme in a letter
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|
from Keats to Benjamin Bailey” was chuckled over by the six
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|
or seven scholars who read it I launched upon an “Histone
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sbrdgde de la p o6sie anglaise” for a prominent publishing
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|
firm, and then started to compile that manual of French
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|
literature for English-speaking students (with comparisons
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|
drawn from .English writers) which was to occupy me
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|
throughout the forties — and the last volume of which was
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almost ready for press by the time of my arrest
|
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I found a. job-teaching English to a group of adults in
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Auteuil. Then a school for boys employed me for a couple of
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winters. Now and then I took advantage of the acquaintances
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I had formed among social workers and psychotherapists to
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visit in their company various institutions, such as orphan-
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|
ages and reform schools, where pale pubescent girls with
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|
matted eyelashes could be stared at in perfect impunity
|
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|
remindful of that granted one in dreams.
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|
Now I wish to introduce the following idea. Between the
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|
age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to
|
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|
certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than
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|
they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but
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|
nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I
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propose to designate as "nymphets.”
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It will be marked that I substitute time terms for spatial
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|
ones. In fact, I would have the reader see "nine" and "four-
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|
teen” as the boundaries — the mirrory beaches and rosy rocks —
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|
of an enchanted island haunted by those nymphets of mine
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|
and surrounded by a vast, misty sea. Between those age limits,
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|
are all girl-children nymphets? Of course not. Otherwise, rye
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|
who are in the know, we lone voyagers, we nympholepts,
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|
would have long gone insane. Neither are good looks any
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|
criterion; and vulgarity, or at least what a given community
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|
terms so, does not necessarily impair certain mysterious char-
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|
acteristics, the fey grace, the elusive, shifty, soul-shattering
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|
insidious charm that separates the nymphet from such coevals
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|
of hers as are incomparably more dependent on the spatial
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|
world of synchronous phenomena than on that intangible is-
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|
land of entranced time where Lolita plays with her likes. With-
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|
in the same age limits the number of true nymphets is strik-
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|
ingly inferior to that of provisionally plain, or just nice or
|
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|
"cute,” or even "sweet” and "attractive,” ordinary, plumpish,
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|
formless, cold-skinned, essentially human little girls, with tum-
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|
mies and pigtails, who may or may not turn into adults of great
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18
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beauty (look at the ugly dumplings in blade stockings and
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|
white bats that are metamorphosed into stunning stars of the
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|
screen). A normal man given a group photograph of school
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|
girls or Girl Scouts and asked to point out the comeliest one
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|
will not necessarily choose the nymphet among them. You
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|
have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite
|
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|
melancholy, with a bubble of bot poison in your loins and a
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|
super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine
|
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|
(oh, bow you have to cringe and hide!), in order to discern
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|
at once, by ineffable signs — the slightly feline outline of a
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|
|
cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limb, and other indices
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which despair and shame and tears of- tenderness forbid me to
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|
tabulate — the little deafly demon among the wholesome chil-
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dren; she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself
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of her fantastic power.
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Furthermore, since the idea of time plays such a magic part
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|
in the matter, the student should not be surprised to leam that
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|
there must be a gap of several years, never less than ten I
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|
should say, generally thirty or forty, and as many as ninety in a
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|
few known cases, between maiden and man to enable the latter
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|
|
to come under a nymphet's spelL It is a question of focal ad-
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|
justment, of a certain distance that the inner eye thrills to sur-
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|
mount, and a certain contrast that the mind perceives with a
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|
gasp of perverse delight. When I was a child and she was a
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|
|
child, my little Annabel was no nymphet to me; I was her
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|
|
equal, a faunlet in my own right, on that same enchanted is-
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|
|
land of time; but today, in September 1952, after twenty-nine,
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|
|
years have elapsed, I think I can distinguish in her the initial
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|
feteful elf in my life. We loved each other with a premature
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|
|
love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives.
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|
I was a strong lad and survived; but the poison was in the
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|
|
wound, and the wound remained ever open, and soon I found
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|
|
myself maturing amid a civilization which allows a man of
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|
|
twenty-five to court a girl of sixteen but not a girl of twelve.
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|
No wonder, then, that my adult life during the European
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|
|
period of my existence proved monstrously twofold. Overtly, I
|
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|
|
had so-called normal relationships with a number of terrestrial
|
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|
|
women having pumpkins or pears for breasts; inly, I was con-
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|
|
sumed by a hdl furnace of localized lust for every passing
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|
nymphet whom as a law-abiding poltroon I never dared ap-
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|
proach. The human females I was allowed to wield were but
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|
|
palliative agents. I am ready to believe that the sensations I
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|
derived from natural fornication were much the same as those
|
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19
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knownto normal big males consorting wifi their normal big
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|
|
mates in that routine rhythm which shakes the world. The
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|
|
trouble was that those gentlemen had not, and I had, caught
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|
|
glimpses of an incomparably more poignant bliss. The dimmest
|
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|
of my pollutive dreams was a thousand times more dazzling
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|
|
than all the adultery the most virile writer of genius or the
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|
|
most talented impotent might imagine. My world was split. I
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|
|
was aware of not one but two sexes, neither of which was mine;
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|
|
both would be termed female by the anatomist. But to me,
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|
|
through the prism of my senses, "they were as different as mist
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|
|
and mast.” All this I rationalize now. In my twenties and early
|
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|
|
thirties, I did not understand my throes quite so clearly. While
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|
|
my body knew what it craved for, my mind rejected my body's
|
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|
every plea. One moment I was ashamed and frightened, an-
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|
other recklessly optimistic. Taboos strangulated me. Psycho-
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|
|
|
analysts wooed me with pseudoliberations of pseudolibidoes.
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|
|
The fact that to me the only objects of amorous tremor were
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|
|
sisters of Annabel’s, her handmaids and girl-pages, appeared to
|
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|
|
me at times as a forerunner of insanity. At other times I would
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|
|
tell myself that it was all a question of attitude, that there was
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|
|
really nothing wrong in being moved to distraction by girl-
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|
|
children. Let me remind my reader that in England, with the
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|
|
passage of the Children and Young Person Act in 1933, the
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|
|
|
term "girl-child” is defined as "a girl who is over eight but
|
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|
|
under fourteen years” (after that, from fourteen to seventeen,
|
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|
|
the statutory definition is "young person”) . In Massachusetts,
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|
|
JJ.S., on the other hand, a "wayward child” is, technically, one
|
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|
|
“between seven and seventeen years of age” (who, moreover,
|
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|
|
habitually associates with vicious or immoral persons) . Hugh
|
|
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|
|
Broughton, a writer of controversy in the reign of James the
|
|
|
|
|
First, has proved that Rahab was a harlot at ten years of age.
|
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|
|
This is all very interesting, and I daresay you see me already
|
|
|
|
|
frothing at the mouth in a fit; but no, I am not; I am just
|
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|
|
wanking happy thoughts into a little tiddle cup. Here are some
|
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|
|
more pictures. Here is Virgil who could the nymphet sing in
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single tone, but probably preferred a lad’s peritonium. Here
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are two of King Akhna ten's and Queen Nefertiti’s pre-nubile
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Nile daughters (that royal couple had a fitter of six), w'eanng
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nothing but many necklaces of bright beads, relaxed on cush-
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ions, intact after three thousand years, with their soft brown
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puppybodies, cropped hair and long ebony eyes. Here are some
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brides of ten compelled to seat themselves on the fascinum,
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the ririle ivory in the temples of classical scholarship. Mar-
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20
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riage and cohabitation before the age of puberty are still not
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uncommon in certain East Indian provinces. Lepcha old men
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of eighty copulate with girls of eight, and nobody minds.
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After all, Dante fell madly in love -with his Beatrice when she
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was nine, a spariding girieen, painted and lovely, and be-
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Jeweled, in a crimson frock, and this was in 1274, in Florence,
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at a private feast in the merry month of May. And when
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Petrarch fell madly in love with his Laureen, she was a fair-
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haired nymphet of twelve running in the wind, in the pollen
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and dust, a flower in flight, in the beautiful plain as descried
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from the hills of Vaucluse.
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But let ns he prim and civilized. Humbert Humbert tried
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hard to be good. Really and truly, he did. He had the utmost
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respect for ordinary children, with their purity and vulner-
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ability, and under no circumstances would he have interfered
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with the innocence of a child, if there was the least risk of a
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row. But how bis heart beat when, among the innocent throng,
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he espied a demon child, “enfant charmanfe et fourbe," dim
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eyes, bright lips, ten years in jail if you only show her you are
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looking at her. So life went Humbert was perfectly capable of
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intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for. The hud-
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stage of breast development appears early ( 10.7 years) in the
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sequence of somatic changes accompanying pubescence. And
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the next maturational item available is the first appearance of
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pigmented pubic hair (11.2 years) . My little cup brims with
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riddles.
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A shipwreck. An atoll. Alone with a drowned passenger’s ,
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shivering child. Darling, this is only a game! How marvelous
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were my fancied adventures as I sat on a hard park bench pre-
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tending to be immersed in a trembling book. Around the quiet
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scholar, nymphets played freely, as if he were a famflar statue
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or part of an old tree's shadow and sheen. Once a perfect little
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beauty in a tartan frock, with a clatter put her heavily aimed
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foot near me upon the bench to dip her slim hare arms into me
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and tighten the strap of her roller skate,.and I dissolved in the
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sun, with my book for fig leaf, as her auburn ringlets fell all
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over her skinned knee, and the shadow of leaves I shared
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pulsated and melted on her radiant limb next to my chame-
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leonic cheek. Another time a red-haired school girl hung over
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me in the and a revelation of axillary russet I obtained
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remained in my blood for weeks. I could list a great number
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of these one-sided diminutive romances. Some of them ended
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in a rich flavor of hell. It happened for instance that from my
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21
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balcony I would notice a lighted window across the street and
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what looked like a nymphet in the act of undressing before a
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co-operative mirror. Thus isolated, thus removed, the vision
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acquired an especially keen charm that made me race with all
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speed toward my lone gratification. But abruptly, fiendishly,
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the tender pattern of nudity I had adored would be trans-
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formed into the disgusting lamp-lit bare arm of a man in his
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underclothes reading his paper by the open window in the hot,
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damp, hopeless summer. night.
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Rope-skipping, hopscotch. That old woman in black who sat
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down next to me on my bench, on my rack of joy (a nymphet
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was groping under me for a lost marble), and asked if I had
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stomachache, the insolent hag. Ah, leave me alone in my
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pubescent park, in my mossy garden. Let them play around me
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forever. Never grow up.
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A propos: I have often wondered what became of those
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nymphets later? In this wrought-iron world of criss-cross cause
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and effect, could it be that the hidden throb I stole from them
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did not affect their future? I had possessed her — and she never
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knew it. All right. But would it not tell sometime later? Had I
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not somehow tampered with her fate by involving her image in
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my voluptas? Oh, it was, and remains, a source of great and
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terrible wonder.
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I learned, however, what they looked like, those lovely, mad-
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dening, thin-armed nymphets, when they grew up. I remember
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walking along an animated street on a gray spring afternoon
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somewhere near the Madeleine. A short slim girl passed me
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at a rapid, high-heeled, tripping step, we glanced back at the
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same moment, she stopped and I accosted her. She came hard-
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ly up to my chest hair and bad the kind of dimpled round little
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face French girls so often have, and I liked her long lashes and
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tight-fitting tailored dress sheathing in pearl-gray her young
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body which still retained — and that was the nymphic echo, the
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chill of delight, the leap in my loins — a childish something
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mingling with the professional fittillement of her small agile
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rump. I asked her price, and she promptly replied with
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22
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melodious silvery precision (a bird, a very bird!) Cent. I
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tried to haggle bnt she saw the awful lone longing in ray low-
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ered eyes, directed so far down at her round forehead and rudi-
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mentary hat (a band, a posy) ; and with one beat of her lashes:
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“Tant pis ” she said, and made as if to move away. Perhaps
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only three years earlier I might have seen her coming home
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from school! That evocation settled the matter. She led me np
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the usual steep stairs, with the usual bell clearing the way for
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the monsieur who might not care to meet another monsieur,
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on the mournful climb to the abject room, all bed and bidet
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As usual, she ashed at once for her petit cadeau, and as usual
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1 ashed her name (Moniqne) and her age (eighteen). I was
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pretty well acquainted with the banal way of streetwalkers.
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They all answer “dix-hnif” — a trim twitter, a note of finality
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and wistful deceit which they emit np to ten times per day, the
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poor little creatures. But in Monique’s case there could be
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no doubt she was, if anything, adding one or two years to hex
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age. This I deduced from many details of her compact, neat,
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curiously immature body. Hasing shed her clothes with fas-
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cinating rapidity, she stood for a moment partly wrapped in
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the dingy gauze of the window curtain listening with infantile
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pleasure, as pat as pat could be, to an organ-grinder in the
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dusk-brimming courtyard below. When I examined her small
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hands and drew her attention to their grubby fingernails, she
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said with a naive frown “Oui, ce n’est pas bfen,” and went to
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the washbasin, but I said it did not matter, did not matter at
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all. With her brown bobbed hair, luminous gray eyes and pale *
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skin, she looked perfectly charming. Her hips were no bigger
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than those of a squatting lad; in fact, I do not hesitate to say
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(and indeed this is the reason why I linger gratefully in that
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gauze-gray room of memory with little Monique) that among
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the eighty or so grues I had had operate upon me, she was the
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only one that gave me a pang of genuine pleasure. “Tl Stait
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malin, celui qui a invents ce truc-ik,” she commented amiably,
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and got back into ber clothes with the same high-style speed.
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I asked for another, more elaborate, assignment later the
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same evening, and she said sbe would meet me at the comer
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cate at nine, and swore she had never posd nn lapin in all her
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young life. We returned to the same room, and I could not
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help saying how very pretty she was to which she answered
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demurely: “Tu es bien gentil de dire ga,” and then, noticing
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what I noticed too in the mirror reflecting our small Eden —
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the dreadful grimace of clenched-teeth tenderness that dis-
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23
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torted my mouth — dutiful little Monique (oh, she had been
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a nymphet all right) wanted to know if she should remove
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the layer of red from her lips avant gu'on se couche in case I
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planned to kiss her. Of course, I planned it. I let myself go
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with her more completely than I had with any young lady be-
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fore, and my last vision that night of long-lashed Monique is
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touched up with a gaiety that I find seldom associated with any
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event in my humiliating, sordid, taciturn love life. She looked
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tremendously pleased with the bonus of fifty I gave her as
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she trotted out into the April night dr izzl e with Humbert
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Humbert lumbering in her narrow wake. Stopping before a
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window display she said with great gusto: "Je vais m’acheter
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des basf” and never may I forget the way her Parisian childish
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lips exploded on ‘'has/' pronouncing it with an appetite that
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all but changed the “a” into a brief buoyant bursting “o” as in
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“bot.”
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I had a date with her next day at 2:15 p.m. in my own
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rooms, but it was less successful, she seemed to have grown less
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juvenile, more of a woman overnight. A cold I caught from her
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led me to cancel a fourth assignment, nor was I sorry to break
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an emotional series that threatened to burden me with heart-
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rending fantasies and peter out in dull disappointment. So let
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her remain, sleek, slender Monique, as she was for a minute or
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two: a delinquent nymphet shining through the matter-of-
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fact young whore.
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My brief acquaintance with her started a train of thought
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•that may seem pretty obvious to the reader who knows the
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|
ropes. An advertisement in a lewd magazine landed me, one
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brave day, in the office of a Mile Edith who began by offering
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me to choose a kindred soul from a collection of rather formal
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photographs in a rather soiled album. (“Regardez-moi cette
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belle brunef” ) When I pushed the album away and somehow
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managed to blurt out my criminal craving, she looked as if
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|
|
about to show me the door; however, after asking me what
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price I was prepared to disburse, she condescended to put me
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in touch with a person qui pounait arranger la chose. Next
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day, an asthmatic woman, coarsely painted, garrulous, garlicky,
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with an almost farcical Provencal accent and a black mustache
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above a purple lip, took me to wbat was apparently her own
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domicile, and there, after explosively kissing the bunched tips
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of her fat fingers to signify the delectable rosebud quality of
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her merchandise, she theatrically drew aside a curtain to reveal
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what I judged was that part of the room where a large and un-
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24
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fastidious family usually slept It -was bow empty save for a
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monstrously plump, sallow, repulsively plain girl of at least
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fifteen with red-ribboned thick bfack braids who sat on a chair
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perfunctorily nursing a bald doll. When I shook my head and
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tried to shuffle out of the trap, the woman, talking fast began
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removing the dingy woolen jersey from the young giantess'
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torso; then, seeing my determination to leave, she demanded
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son argent. A door at the end of the room was opened, and two
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men who had been dining in the kitchen joined in the
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squabble. They were misshapen, bare-necked, very swarthy and
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one of them wore dark glasses. A small boy and a begrimed,
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bowlegged toddler lurked behind them. With the insolent
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logic of a nightmare, the enraged procuress, indicating the man
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in glasses, said he had served in the police, lui, so that I had
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better do as I was told. I went up to Marie — for that was her
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stellar name — who by then had quietly transferred her heavy
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haunches to a stool at the kitchen table and resumed her in-
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terrupted soup while the toddler picked up the doll. With, a
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surge of pity dramatizing my idiotic gesture, I thrust a bank-
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note into her indifferent hand. She surrendered my gift to the
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cs-detcctive, whereupon I was suffered to leave.
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I no not rarow if the pimp’s album may not have been an-
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|
other link in the daisy-chain; but soon after, for my own safety,
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|
I decided to many. It occurred to me that Tegular hours, home-
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|
cooked meals, all the conventions of marriage, the prophylactic
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routine of its bedroom activities and, who knows, the eventual
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flowering of certain moral values, of certain spiritual substi-
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tutes, might help me, if not to purge myself of my degrading
|
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|
|
and dangerous desires, at least to keep them undeT pacific con-
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|
trol. A little money that had come my way after my father’s
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death (nothing very grand — the Mirana had been sold long
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|
before), in addition to my striking if somewhat brutal good
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|
looks, allowed me to enter upon my quest with equanimity.
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|
After considerable deliberation, my choice fell on the daughter
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|
of a Polish doctor: the good man happened to be treating me
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|
for spells of dizziness and tachvcardia. We played chess; his
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25
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. daughter watched me from behind her easel, and inserted eyes
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or knuckles borrowed from me into the cubistic trash that
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|
accomplished misses then painted instead of lilacs and lambs.
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|
.Let me repeat with quiet force: I was, and still am, despite
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|
|
mes malheurs, an exceptionally handsome male; slow-moving,
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|
tall, with soft dark hair and a gloomy but all the more seduc-
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|
|
tive cast of demeanor. Exceptional virility often reflects in the
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|
|
subject’s displayable features a sullen and congested something
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|
|
that pertains to what he has to conceal. And this was my case.
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|
Well did I know, alas, that I could obtain at the snap of my
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|
fingers any adult female I chose; in fact, it had become quite
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a habit with me of not being too attentive to women lest they
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|
come toppling, bloodripe, into my cold lap. Had I been a
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franpa is moyen with a taste for flashy ladies, I might have
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|
|
easily found, among the many crazed beauties that lashed my
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|
grim rock, creatures far more fascinating than Valeria. My
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|
choice, however, was prompted by considerations whose es-
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|
sence was, as I realized too late, a piteous compromise. All of
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|
|
which goes to show how dreadfully stupid poor Humbert al-
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|
ways was in matters of sex.
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8
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|
Although I told myself I was looking merely for a soothing
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|
|
presence, a glorified pot-au-feu, an animated merkin, what
|
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|
|
really attracted me to Valeria was the imitation she gave of a
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|
|
little girl. She gave it not because sbe had divined something
|
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|
|
about me; it was just her style — and I fell for it. Actually, she
|
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|
|
was at least in her late twenties (I never established her exact
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|
|
age for even her passport lied) and bad mislaid her virginity
|
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under circumstances that changed with her reminiscent
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moods. I, on my part, was as naive as only a pervert can be.
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She looked fluffy and frolicsome, dressed A h gamine, showed
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a generous amount of smooth leg, knew how to stress the white
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of a bare instep by the black of a velvet slipper, and pouted,
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and dimpled, and romped, and dirndled, and shook her short
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curly blond hair in the cutest and tritest fashion imaginable.
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After a brief ceremony at the mairie, I took her to the new
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apartment I had rented and, somewhat to her surprise, bad her
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26
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wear, before I touched her, a girl’s plain nightshirt that I had
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managed to filch from the linen closet of an orphanage. I de-
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rived some fun from that nuptial night and had the idiot in
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hysterics by sunrise. But reality soon asserted itself. The
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bleached curl revealed its melanic root; the down turned to
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prickles on a shaved shin; the mobile moist mouth, no matter
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how I stuffed it with love, disclosed ignomimously its resem-
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blance to the corresponding part in a treasured portrait of her
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toadlike dead mama; and presently, instead of a pale little
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gutter girl, Humbert Humbert had on his hands a large, puffy,
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short-legged, big-breasted and practically brainless baba.
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This state of affairs lasted from 1935 to 1939. Her only asset
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was a muted nature which did help to produce an odd sense of
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comfort in our small squalid fiat: two rooms, a hazy view in
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one window, a brick wall in the other, a tiny kitchen, a shoe-
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shaped bath tub, within which I felt like Marat but with no
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white-necked maiden to stab me. We had quite a few cozy
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evenings together, she deep in her Paris-Soir, I working at a
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rickety table. We went to movies, bicycle races and boxing
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matches. I appealed to her stale flesh very seldom, only in
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cases of great urgency and despair. The grocer opposite had a
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little daughter whose shadow drove me mad; but with Valeria’s
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help I did find after all some legal outlets to my fantastic
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predicament As to cooking, we tacitly dismissed the pot-au-feu
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and had most of our meals at a crowded place in rue Bona-
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parte where there were wine stains on the table doth and a
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good deal of foreign babble. And next door, an art dealer dis-.
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played in his cluttered window a splendid, flamboyant, green,
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red, golden and inky blue, ancient American estampe — a loco-
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motive with a gigantic smokestack, great baroque lamps and a
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tremendous cowcatchei, hauling its mauve coaches through
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the stormy prairie night and mixing a lot of spark-studded
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black smoke with the furry thunder douds.
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These burst. In the summer of 1939 mon oncle cTAmerigue
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died bequeathing me an annual income of a few thousand dol-
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lars on condition I came to live in the States and showed some
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interest in his business. This prospect was most welcome to
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me. I fdt my life needed a shake-up. There was another thing,
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too: moth holes had appeared in the plush of matrimonial
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comfort. During the last weeks 1 had kept noticing that my
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fat Valeria was not her usual self; had acquired a queer rest-
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lessness; even showed something like irritation at times, which
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was quite out of keeping with the stock character she was
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27
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supposed to impersonate. When I informed her we -were short-
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ly*' 0 sail for New York, she looked distressed and bewildered.
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There were some tedious difficulties with her papers. She had
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a Nansen, or better say Nonsense, passport which for some
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reason a share in her husband’s solid Swiss citizenship could
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not easily transcend; and I decided it was the necessity of
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queuing in the prefecture, and other formalities, that had
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made her so listless, despite my patiently describing to her
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America, the country of rosy children and great trees, where
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life would be such an improvement on dull dingy Paris.
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We were coming out of some office building one morning,
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with her papers almost in order, when Valeria, as she waddled
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by my side, began to shake her poodle head vigorously without
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saying a word. I let her go on for a while and then asked if she
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thought she had something inside. She answered (I translate
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from her French which was, I imagine, a translation in its
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turn of some Slavic platitude) : “There is another man in my
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life.”
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Now, these are ugly words for a husband to hear. They
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dazed me, I confess. To beat her up in the street, there and
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then, as an honest vulgarian might have done, was not feasible.
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Years of secret sufferings had taught me superhuman self-
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control. So I ushered her into a taxi which had been invitingly
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creeping along the curb for some time, and in this comparative
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privacy I quietly suggested she comment her wild talk. A
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mounting fury was suffocating me — not because I bad any par-
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ticular fondness for that figure of fun, Mme Humbert, but be-
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cause matters of legal and illegal conjunction were for me alone
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to decide, and here she was, Valeria, the comedy wife, brazenly
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- preparing to dispose in her own way of my comfort and fate.
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I demanded her lover’s name. I repeated my question; but she
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kept up a burlesque babble, discoursing on her unhappiness
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with me and announcing plans for an immediate divorce.
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“Mais qui est-ce?” I shouted at last, striking her on the knee
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with my fist; and she, without even wincing, stared at me as if
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the answer were too simple for words, then gave a quick shrug
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and pointed at the thick neck of the taxi driver. He pulled up
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at a small cafe and introduced himself. I do not remember bis
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ridiculous name but after all those years I still see him quite
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clearly — a stocky White Russian ex-colonel with a bushy mus-
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tache and a crew cut; there were thousands of them plying
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that fool’s trade in Paris. We sat down at a table; the Tsarist
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ordered vane; and Valeria, after applying a wet napkin to her
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28
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kDee, -went on talking— into me rather than to me; she poured
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words into this dignified receptacle with a volubility I had nev-
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er suspected she had in her. And every now and then she would
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volley a burst of Slavic at her stolid lover. The situation was
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preposterous and became even more so when the taxi-colonel,
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stopping Valeria with a possessive smile, began to unfold his
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views and plans. With an atrocious accent to his careful
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French, he delineated die world of love and work into which
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he proposed to enter hand in hand with his child-wife Valeria.
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She by now- was preening herself, between him and me, roug-
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ing her pursed lips, tripling her chin to pick at her blouse-
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bosom and so forth, and he spoke of her as if she were absent,
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and also as if she were a kind of little ward that was in the act
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of being transferred, for her own good, from one wise guardian
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to another even -wiser one; and although my helpless wrath
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may have exaggerated and disfigured certain impressions, I can
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swear that he actually consulted me on such things as her diet,
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her periods, her wardrobe and the books she had read or should
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read. “I think," he said, “she wiD like Jean Christophe?” Oh,
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he was quite a scholar, Mr. Taxovich.
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I put an end to this gibberish by suggesting Valeria pack up
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her few belongings immediately, upon wbicb the platitudinous
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colonel gallantly offered to carry them into the car. Reverting
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to his professional state, he drove the Humberts to their resi-
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dence and all the way Valeria talked, and Humbert the Terrible
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deliberated with Humbert the Small whether Humbert Hum-
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bert should kill her or her lover, or both, or neither. I remem-,
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ber once handling an automatic belonging to a fellow student,
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in the days (I have not spoken of them, I think, but never
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mind) when 1 toyed with the idea of enjoying his little sister,
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a most diaphanous nymphet with a black hair bow, and then
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shooting myself. I now wondered if Valechka (as lie colonel
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called her) was really worth shooting, or strangling, or drown-
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ing. She had very vulnerable legs, and I decided I would limit
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myself to hurting her very horribly as soon as w-e w-ere alone.
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But we never were. Valechka— by now shedding torrents of
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tears tinged with the mess of her rainbow make-up, — started
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to fill anyhow a trunk, and two suitcases, and a bursting carton,
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and visions of putting on my mountain boots and taking a
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running lack at her rump were of course impossible to put into
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execution with the cursed colonel hovering around all the time.
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I cannot say he behaved insolently or anything like that; on
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the contrary, he displayed, as a small sideshow in the theat-
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29
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ricals I had been inveigled in, a discreet old-world civility
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punctuating his movements with all sorts of mispronounced
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apologies (j a i demannde pardonne— — excuse me — est-ce gue
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fai puis — may I — and so forth), arid turning away tactfully
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when Valechka took down with a flourish her pink panties from
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the clothesline above the tub; but he seemed to be all over the
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place at once, Ie gredin, agreeing his frame with the anatomy
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of the flat, reading in my chair my newspaper, untying a
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knotted string, rolling a cigarette, counting the teaspoons,
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visiting the bathroom, helping his moll to wrap up the electric
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fan her father had given her, and carrying streetward her lug-
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gage. I sat with arms folded, one hip on the window sill, dying
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of hate and boredom. At list both were out of the quivering
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apartment — the vibration of the door I had slammed after
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them still rang in my every nerve, a poor substitute for the
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backhand slap with which I ought to have hit her across the
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cheekbone according to the rules of the movies. Clumsily play-
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ing my part, I stomped to the bathroom to check if they had
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taken my English toilet water; they had not; but I noticed with
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a spasm of fierce disgust that the former Counselor of the
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Tsar, after thoroughly easing his bladder, had not flushed the
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toilet That solemn pool of alien urine with a soggy, tawny
|
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cigarette butt disintegrating in it struck me as a crowning
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insult and I wildly looked around for a weapon. Actually I
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daresay it was nothing but middle-class Russian courtesy (with
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an oriental tang, perhaps) that had prompted the good colonel
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(Maximovich! his name suddenly taxies back to me), a very
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formal person as they all are, to muffle his private need in de-
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corous silence so as not to underscore the small size of his host’s
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domicile with the rush of a gross cascade on top of his own
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hushed trickle. But this did not enter my mind at the moment,
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as groaning with rage I ransacked the kitchen for something
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better than a broom. Then, canceling my search, I dashed out
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of the house with the heroic decision of attacking him bare-
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fisted; despite my natural vigor, I am no pugilist, while the
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short but broad-shouldered Maximovich seemed made of pig
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iron. The void of the street, revealing nothing of my wife's
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departure except a rhinestone button that she had dropped in
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the mud after preserving it for three unnecessary years in a
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broken box, may have spared me a bloody nose. But no matter,
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I had my little revenge in due time. A man from Pasadena told
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me one day that Mrs. Maximovich n6e Zborovshi had died in
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childbirth around 1945; the couple had somehow got over to
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30
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California and Lad been nsed there, for an excellent salary, m.
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a year-long experiment conducted by a distinguished American
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ethnologist. The experiment dealt with human and racial re-
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actions to a diet of bananas and dates in a constant position
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on aD fours. My informant, a doctor, swore be had seen with
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his own eyes obese Valechka and her colonel, by- then gray-
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haired and also quite corpulent,, diligently crawling about the
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well-swept Soois of a brightly lit set of rooms (fruit in one,
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water in another, mats in a third and so on) in the company
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of several other hired quadrupeds, selected from indigent and
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helpless groups. I tried to find the results of these tests in the
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|
Review of Anthropology; hut they appear not to have been
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published yet These scientific products take of course some
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time to fluctuate. I hope they will be illustrated with good
|
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photographs when they do get printed, although it is not
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very likely that a prison library will harbor such erudite works.
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The one to which I am restricted these day's, despite my law-
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yer’s favors, is a good example of the inane eclecticism govern-
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|
ing the selection of boohs in prison libraries. They have the
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|
Bible, of course, and Dickens (an ancient set, N.Y., G. W.
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|
|
Dillingham, Publisher, MDCCCLXXXVII); and the Chil-
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dren's Encyclopedia (with some nice photographs of sunshine-
|
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|
haired Girl Scouts in shorts), and A Murder Is Announced
|
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|
by Agatha Christie; but they also have such coruscating trifles
|
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|
|
as A Vagabond In Italy by" Percy Elphinstone, author of
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|
Venice Revisited, Boston, 1868, and a comparatively recent
|
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|
|
(1946) Who’s Who in the Limelight — actors, producers,'
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|
playwrights, and shots of static scenes. In looking through the
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|
latter volume, I was treated last night to one of those dazzling
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|
coincidences that logicians loathe and poets love. I transcribe
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|
most of the page:
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Pym, Roland. Bom in Lundy, Mass., 1922. Received stage
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|
training at Elsinore Playhouse, Derby, N.Y. Made debut in.
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Sunburst. Among his many appearances are Two Blocks
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|
from Here, The Girl in Green, Scrambled Husbands, The
|
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|
Strange Mushroom, Touch and Go, John Lovely, I Was
|
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Dreaming of You.
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|
Quilty, Clare, American dramatist Bom in' Ocean City,
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|
L-l-, 1911. Educated at Columbia University. Started on a
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commercial career but turned to playwriting. Author of
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i he Little Nymph, The Lady who Loved Lightning (in
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|
co Liberation with Vis-fan Darkbloom), Dark Age The
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31
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Strange Mushroom, Fatherly Love, and others. His many
|
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|
|
plays for children are notable. Little Nymph (1940) trav-
|
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|
|
eled 14,000 miles and played 280 performances on the road
|
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|
during the winter before ending in New York. Hobbies:
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fast cars, photography, pets.
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Quine, Dolores. Bom in 1882, in Dayton, Ohio. Studied
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for stage at American Academy. First played in Ottawa in
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1900. Made New York debut in 1904 in Never Talk to
|
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|
Strangers. Has disappeared since in [a list of some thirty
|
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|
plays follows.]
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|
How the look of my dear love’s name, even affixed to some
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|
old hag of an actress, still makes me rock with helpless painl
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Perhaps, she might have been an actress too. Bom 1935. Ap-
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peared (I notice the slip of my pen in the preceding paragraph,
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|
but please do not correct it, Clarence) in The Murdered Play-
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|
wright. Quine the Swine. Guilty of killing QoQty. Oh, my
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Lolita, I have only words to play with!
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9
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Divorce proceedings delayed my voyage, and the gloom of
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yet another World War had settled upon the globe when, after
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a winter of ennui and pneumonia in Portugal, I at last reached
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. the States. In New York I eagerly accepted the soft job fate
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offered me: it consisted mainly of thinking up and editing per-
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fume ads. I welcomed its desultory character and pseudoliter-
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ary aspects, attending to it whenever I had nothing better to
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do. On the other hand, I was urged by a war-time university in
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New York to complete my comparative history of French
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literature for English-speaking students. The first volume took
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me a couple of years during which I put in seldom less than
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fifteen hours of work daily. As I look back on those days, I see
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them divided tidily into ample light and narrow shade: the
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light pertaining to the solace of research in palatial libraries,
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the shade to my excruciating desires and insomnias of which
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enough has been said. Knowing me by now, the reader can
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easily imagine how dusty and hot I got, trying to catch a
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glimpse of nymphets (alas, always remote) playing in Central
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32
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y
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Park, and how repulsed I was by the glitter of deodorized • 1
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career girls that a gay dog in one of the offices kept unloading
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upon me. Let us skip all that A dreadful breakdown sent me
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to a sanatorium for more than a year, I went back to my work
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— only to be hospitalized again. .
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Robust outdoor life seemed to promise me some relief. One
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of my favorite doctors, a charming cynical chap with a little
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brown beard, had a brother, and this brother was about to lead ;
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an expedition into arctic Canada. I was attached to it as a
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“recorder of psychic reactions.” With two young botanists,
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and an old carpenter I shared now and then (never very suc-
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cessfully) the favors of one of our nutritionists, a Dr. Anita
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Johnson — who was soon flown hack, I am glad to say. I had
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little notion of what object the expedition was pursuing. Judg-
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ing by the number of meteorologists upon it, we may have
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been tracking to its lair (somewhere on Prince of Wales' Is-
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land, I understand) the wandering and wobbly north mag-
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netic pole. One group, jointly with the Canadians, established
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a weather station on Pierre Point in Melville Sound. Another
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group, equally misguided, collected plankton.. A third studied
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tuberculosis in the tundra. Bert, a film photographer — an in-
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secure fellow with whom at one time I was made to partake -
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in a good deal of menial work (he, too, had some psychic
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troubles) — maintained that the big men on our team, the real j
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leaders we never saw, were mainly engaged in checking the in- j
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fluence of climatic amelioration on the coats of the arctic fox.
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We lived in prefabricated timber cabins amid a Pre-CatUr
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brian world of granite. We had heaps of supplies — the Read-
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er’s Digest, an ice cream mixer, chemical toilets, paper caps
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for Christmas. My health improved wonderfully in spite or
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because of all the fantastic blankness and boredom. Sur-
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rounded by such dejected vegetation as willow. scrub and
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lichens; permeated, and, I suppose, cleansed by a whistling j
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gale; seated on a boulder under a completely translucent sky j
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(through which, however, nothing of importance showed), I i
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felt curiously aloof from my own self. No temptations mad- j
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dened me. The plump, glossy little Eskimo girls with their j
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fish smell, hideous raven hair and guinea pig faces, evoked |
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c\cn less desire in me than Dr. Johnson had. Nymphets do j
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not occur in polar regions.
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I left my betters the task of analyzing glacial drifts, drum-
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j • an ° gremlins, and kremlins, and for a time tried to jot
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down what I fondly thought were “reactions" (I noticed, for
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33
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- instance, that dreams under the midnight sun tended to be
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highly colored, and this my friend the photographer con-
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firmed). I was also supposed to quiz my various companions
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.on a number of important matters, such as nostalgia, fear of
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unknown animals, food-fantasies, nocturnal emissions, hob-
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bies, choice of radio programs, changes m outlook and so
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forth. Everybody got so fed up with this that I soon dropped
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the project completely, and only toward the end of my twenty
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months of cold labor (as one of the botanists jocosely put it)
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concocted a-perfectly spurious and very racy report that the
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reader will find published in the Anna Is of Adult Psycho-
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physics for 1945 or 1946, as well as in the issue of Arctic
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Explorations devoted to that particular expedition; which, in
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conclusion, was not really concerned with Victoria Island
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copper or anything like that, as I learned later from my genial
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doctor; for the nature of its real purpose was what is termed
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“hush-hush,” and so let me add merely that whatever it was,
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that purpose was admirably achieved.
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The reader will regret to learn that soon after my return to
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civilization I had another bout with insanity (if to melancholia
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and a sense of insufferable oppression that cruel term must be
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applied). I owe my complete restoration to a discovery I made
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while being treated at that particular very expensive sanato-
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rium. I discovered there was an endless source of robust en-
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joyment in trifling with psychiatrists: cunningly leading them
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on; never letting them see that you know all the tricks of the
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trade; inventing for them elaborate dreams, pure classics in style
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(which make them, the dream-extortionists, dream and wake
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up shrieking); teasing them with fake “primal scenes”; and
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never allowing them the slightest glimpse of one’s real sexual
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-predicament. By bribing a nurse I won access to some files and
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discovered, with glee, cards calling me “potentially homo-
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sexual” and “totally impotent.” The sport was so excellent,
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its results — in my case — so ruddy that I stayed on for a whole
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month after I was quite well (sleeping admirably and eating
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like a schoolgirl). And then I added another week just for the
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pleasure of taking on a powerful newcomer, a displaced (and,
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surely, deranged) celebrity, known for his knack of making
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patients believe they had witnessed their own conception.
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34
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10
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Ukw sicning our, I cast around for some place in the New
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England countryside or sleepy small town (elms, white
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church) where I could spend a studious summer subsisting
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on a compact boxful of notes I had accumulated and bathing
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in some nearby lake. My work had begun to interest me again
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— I mean my scholarly exertions; the other thing, my active
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participation in my uncle’s posthumous perfumes, had by then
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been cut down to a minimum.
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One of his former employees, the scion of a distinguished
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family, suggested X spend a few months in the residence of his'
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impoverished cousins, a Mr. McCoo, retired, and his wife, who
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wanted to let their upper story where a late aunt had delicately
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dwelt He said they had two little daughters, one a baby, the
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other a girl of twelve, and a beautiful garden, not far from a
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beautiful lake, and I said it sounded perfectly perfect
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I exchanged letters with these people, satisfying them I was
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housebroken, and spent a fantastic night on the train, imagin-
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ing in all possible detail the enigmatic nymphet I would coach
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in French and fondle in Humbertish. Nobody met me at the
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toy station where I alighted with my new expensive bag, and
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nobody answered the telephone; eventually, however, a dis-
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traught McCoo in wet clothes turned up at the only hotel of,
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green-and-pink Ramsdale with the news that his house had
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fust burned down — possibly, owing to the synchronous con-
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flagration that had been raging all night in my veins. His
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family, he said, had fled to a farm he owned, and had taken
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the car, but a friend of his wife’s, a grand person, Mrs. Haze
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of 342 Lawn Street, offered to accommodate me. A lady who
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lived opposite Mrs. Haze’s had lent McCoo her limousine, a
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marvelously old-fashioned, square-topped affair, manned by a
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cheerful Negro. Now, since the only reason for my coming
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at all had vanished, the aforesaid arrangement seemed prepos-
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terous. All right, his house would have to be completely re-
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built, so what? Had he not insured it sufficiently? I was angry,
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disappointed and bored, but being a polite European, could
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not refuse to be sent off to Lawn Street in that funeral car,
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xcc.ing that otherwise McCoo would devise an even more
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elaborate means of getting rid of me, I saw him scamper away,
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35
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and my chauffeur shoolc his head with a soft chuckle. En route,
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I swore to myself I would not dream of staying in Ramsdale
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under any circumstance but would' fly that very day to the
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'Bermudas or the Bahamas or the Blazes. Possibilities of sweet-
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ness on technicolor beaches had been triclding through my
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spine for some time before, and McCoo’s cousin had, in fact,
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sharply diverted that train of thought with his well-meaning
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but as it transpired now absolutely inane suggestion.
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Speaking of sharp turns: we almost ran over a meddlesome
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suburban dog (one of those who lie in wait for cars) as we
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swerved into Lawn Street. A little further, the Haze house, a
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white-frame horror, appeared, looking dingy and old, more
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gray than white — the kind of place you know will have a rub-
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ber tube affixable to the tub faucet in lieu of shower. I tipped
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the chauffeur and hoped he would immediately drive away so
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that I might double back unnoticed to my hotel and bag;
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but the man merely crossed to the other side of the street
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where an old lady was calling to him from her porch. What
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could I do? I pressed the bell button.
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A colored maid let me in — and left me standing on the mat
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while she rushed back to. the kitchen where something was
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burning that ought not to bum.
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- . The front hall was graced with door chimes, a white-eyed
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wooden thingamabob of commercial Mexican origin, and that
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banal darling of the arty middle class, van Gogh’s "Arl6s-
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ienne." A door ajar to the right afforded a glimpse of a living
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room, with some more Mexican trash in a comer cabinet and a
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striped sofa along the wall. There was a staircase at the end
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of the hallway, and as I stood mopping my brow (only now
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did I realize how hot it had been out-of-doors) and staring, to
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stare at something, at an old gray tennis ball that lay on an
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oak chest, there came from the npper landing the contralto
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voice of Mrs. Haze, who leaning over the banisters inquired
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melodiously, “Is that Monsieur Humbert?” A bit of cigarette
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ash dropped from there in addition. Presently, the lady her-
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self — sandals, maroon slacks, yellow silk blouse, squarish face,
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in -that order — came down die steps, her index finger still
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tapping upon her cigarette.
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I think I had better describe her right away, to get it over
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with. The poor lady was in her middle thirties, she had a shiny
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forehead, plucked eyebrows and quite simple but not unattrac-
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tive features of a type that may be defined as a weak solution cf
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Marlene Dietrich. Patting her bronze-brown bun, she led me
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36
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into the parlor and we talked for a minute about the McCoo
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fire and the privilege of living in Ramsdale. Her very wide-set
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sea-green eyes had a funny way of traveling all over you, care-
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fully avoiding your own eyes. Her smile was but a quizzical
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jerk of one eyebrow; and uncoiling herself from the sofa as she
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talked, she kept making spasmodic dashes at three ashtrays
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and the near fender (where lay the brown core of an apple);
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whereupon she would sink back again, one leg folded under
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her. She was, obviously, one of those women whose polished
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words may reflect a book club or bridge club, or any other
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deadly conventionality, but never her soul; women who are
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completely devoid of humor; women utterly indifferent at
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heart to the dozen or so possible subjects of a parlor con-
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versation, but very particular about the rules of such con-
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versations, through the sunny cellophane of which not very
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appetizing frustrations can be readily distinguished. I was
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perfectly aware that if by any wild chance I became ber
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lodger, sbe would methodically proceed to do in regard to me
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what taking a lodger probably meant to her all along, and I
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would again be enmeshed in one of those tedious affairs I knew
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so well.
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But there was no question of my settling there. I could not
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be happy in that type of household with bedraggled magazines
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on every chair and a kind of horrible hybridization between
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the comedy of so-called "functional modem furniture” and the
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tragedy of decrepit rockers and rickety lamp tables with dead
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lamps. I was led upstairs, and to the left — into "my” room. I*
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inspected it through the mist of my utter rejection of it; hut I
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did discern above "my” bed Ren6 Prinet’s "Kreutzer Sonata.”
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And she called that servant maid’s room a "semi-studio"l Let's
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get out of here at once, I firmly said to myself as I pretended
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to deliberate over the absurdly, and ominously, low' price that
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my wistful hostess was asking for board and bed.
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Old-world politeness, however, obliged me to go on with the
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ordeal. We crossed the landing to the right side of the house
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(where "I and Lo have our rooms” — Lo being presumably the
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maid), and the lodger-loser could hardly conceal a shudder
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when he, a very fastidious male, was granted a preview of the
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only bathroom, a tiny oblong between the landing and "Lo’s”
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room, with limp wet things overhanging the dubious tub (the
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question mark of a hair inside); and there were the expected
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coils of the rubber snake, and its complement— a pinkish
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cozy, coyly covering the toilet lid.
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37
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"I see you are not too favorably impressed" said the lady
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letting her hand rest for a moment upon my sleeve: she com-
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bined a cool forwardness — the overflow of what I think is
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called poise ' — with a shyness and sadness that caused her
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|
detached way of selecting- her words to seem as unnatural as
|
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|
|
the intonation of a professor of “speech.” “This is not a neat
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|
household, I confess,” the doomed dear continued, "but I
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assure you [she looked at my lips], you will be very comfort-
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|
able, very comfortable, indeed. Let me show you the garden”
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(the last more brightly, with a land of winsome toss of the
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voice) .
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Reluctantly I followed her downstairs again; then through
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the kitchen at the end of the hall, on the right side of the
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. house- -the side where also the dining room and the parlor
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were (under “my” room, on the left, there was nothing but a
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garage). In the kitchen, the Negro maid, a plump youngish
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woman said, as she took her large glossy black purse from the
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knob of the door leading to the back porch: ‘Til go now, Mrs.
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Haze.” “Yes, Louise,” answered Mrs. Haze with a sigh. “I'll
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settle with you Friday.” We passed on to a small pantry and
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entered the dining room, parallel to the- parlor we had already
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admired. I noticed a white sock on the floor. With a depreca-
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tory grunt, Mrs. Haze stooped without stopping and threw it
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into a closet next to the pantry. We cursorily inspected a ma-
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hogany table with a fruit vase in the middle, containing noth-
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ing but the still glistening stone of one plum. I groped for the
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timek ble I had in my pocket and surreptitiously fished it out
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to look as soon as possible for a train. I was still walking be-
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hind Mrs. Haze through the dining room when, beyond it,
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there came a sudden burst of greenery — “the piazza,” sang
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out my leader, and then, without the least warning, a blue
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sea-wave swelled under my heart and, from a mat in a pool
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of sun, half-naked, kneeling, turning about on her knees, there
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.was rm Riviera love peering at me over dark glasses.
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It was the same child — the same frail, honey-hued shoulders,
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the same silk}' supple bare back, the same chestnut head of
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hair. A polka-dotted black kerchief tied around her chest hid
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from my aging ape eyes, but not from the gaze of young
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memory, the juvenile breasts I had fondled one immortal day.
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And, as if I were the fairy-tale nurse of some little princess
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(lost, kidnaped, discovered in gypsy rags through which her
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nakedness smiled at the king and his hounds), I recognized
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the tiny dark-brown mole on her side. With awe and delight
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38
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4 .;
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r
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(the king crying for joy, the trumpets blaring, the nurse
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drunk) I saw again her lovely indrawn abdomen where my
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southbound mouth had briefly paused; and those puerile hips
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on which I had kissed the crenulated imprint left by the band
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of her shorts— that last triad immortal day behind the “Roches
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Roses.” The twenty-five years I had lived since then* tapered
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to a palpitating point, and vanished.
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I find it most difficult to express with adequate force that
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flash, that shiver, that impact of passionate recognition. In the
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course of the sun-shot moment that my glance slithered over
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the kneeling child (her eyes blinking over those stem dark
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spectacles— the little Herr Doktor who was to cure me of all
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my aches) while I passed by her in my adult disguise (a great
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big handsome hunk of movieland manhood), the vacuum of
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my soul managed to suck in every detail of her bright beauty,
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and these 1 checked against the features of my dead bride. A
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little later, of course, she, this nouvelle, this Lolita, my Lolita,
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was to eclipse completely her prototype. All I want to stress is
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that my discover}' of her was a fatal consequence of that
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"princedom by the sea" in my tortured past. Everything be-
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tween the two events was but a series of gropings and blunders,
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and false rudiments of joy. Everything they shared made one
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of them.
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I have no illusions, however. My judges will Tegaid all this as f
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a piece of mummery on the part of a madman with a gross
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liking for the fruit vert. Au fond, pa m’est bien 6gal. All I
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know is that while the Haze woman and I went down the steps'
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into the breathless garden, my knees were like reflections of
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knees in rippling water, and my lips were like sand, and —
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"That was my Lo,” she said, "and these are my lilies."
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"Yes," I said, “yes. They axe beautiful, beautiful, beautifull"
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l !
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fc
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11
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Exhibit number two is a pocket diary bound in black imita-
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non leather, with a golden year, 1 947, en escah'er, in its upper
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left-hand corner. I speak of this neat product of the Blank
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clank Co, Bhnkton, Mass., as if it were really before me.
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Actually, it was destroyed five years ago and what we examine
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39
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now (by courtesy of a photographic memory) is but its brief
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materialization, a puny unfledged phoenix.
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I remember, the thing so exactly because I wrote it really
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twice. First I jotted down each entry in pencil (with many
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erasures and corrections) on the leaves of what is commercially
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know as a “typewriter tablet”; then; I copied it out with ob-
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vious abbreviations in my smallest, most satanic, hand in the
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little black book just mentioned.
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May 30 is a Fast Day by Proclamation in New Hampshire
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but not in the Carolinas. That day an epidemic of “abdominal
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flu” (whatever that is) forced. Ramsdale to close its schools
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for the summer. The reader may check the weather data in the
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Ran-sdah Journal for 1947. A few days before that I moved
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into tht Haze house, and the little diary which I now propose
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to reel off (much as a spy delivers by heart the contents of the
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note he swallowed) covers most of June.
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Thursday. Very warm day. From a vantage point (bathroom
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window) saw Dolores taking things off a clothesline in the
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applf free) < light behind the house. Strolled out. She wore a
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plaid shirt blue jeans and sneakers. Every movement she
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mad< in the dappled sun plucked at the most secret and sensi-
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tive chord of my abject body. After a while she sat down next
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to mp on the lower step of, the back porch and began to pick
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up thf pebbles between her feet — pebbles, my God, then a
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curled bit of milk-bottle glass resembling a snarling lip — and
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chuck them at a can. Ping. You can’t a second time — you can't
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hit it — this is agony — a second time. Ping. Marvelous skin —
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oh, marvelous: tender and tanned, not the least blemish. Sun-
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daes rau.v acne. The excess of the oily substance called sebum
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which nourishes the hair follicles of the skin creates, when too
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profuse an irritation that opens the way to infection. But
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nyn 'Whets do not have acne although thev gorge themselves
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on rich food. God, what agony, that silks' shimmer above her
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tern pi ( grading into bright brown hair. And the little bone
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twitchinp at the side of her dust-powdered ankle. “The McCoo
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girP Cjnnx McCoo? Oh, she’s a fright. And mean. And lame.
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Neariv died of polio.” Ping. The glistening tracery of down on
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her forearm. When she got up to take in the wash, I had a
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chancf of adoring from afar the faded seat of her rolled-up
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jeans. Out of the lawn, bland Mrs. Haze,- complete with cam-
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era, grew up like a fakir’s fake tree and after some heliotropic
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fussinr- -sad eyes up, glad eyes down — had the cheek of taking
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my picture as I sat blinking on the steps, Humbert Ie Bel.
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40
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Friday. Saw her going somewhere with a dark girl called
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Rose. Why does the way 'she walks — a child, mind you, a mete
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child! — excite me so abominably? Analyze it A faint sug-
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gestion of turned in toes. A kind of wiggly looseness below toe
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knee prolonged to the end of each footfall. The ghost of a
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drag. Very infantile, infinitely meretricious. Humbert Hum- j
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bert is also infinitely moved by the little one's slangy, speech, . -I
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by her harsh high voice. Later heard her volley crude, nonsense
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at Rose across the fence. Twanging through me in a rising
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rhythm. Pause. “I must go now, Idddo.” .
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Saturday. (Beginning perhaps amended.) I knoyr it is mad-
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ness to keep this journal but it gives me a strange thrill to do
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so; and only a loving wife could decipher my microscopic
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script. Let me state with a sob that today my L. was sun-bath^
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ing on the so-called “piazza," but her mother and some other,
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women were around all the time. Of course,- 1 might have sat
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there in the rocker and pretended to read. Haying safe, I kept
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away, for I was afraid that the horrible, insane, ridiculous and
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pitiful tremor that palsied me might prevent me'from making
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my entire with any semblance of casualness.
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Sunday. Heat ripple still with ns; a most favonian week.
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This time I took up a strategic position, with obese newspaper
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and new pipe, in the piazza rocker before L. arrived. To my in-
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tense disappointment she came with her mother, both in two-
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piece bathing suits, black, as new as my pipe. My darling, my
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sweetheart stood for a moment near me — wanted the funnies :
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—and she smelt almost exactly like the other one, the Rivierg
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one, but more intensely so, with rougher overtones— a torrid
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odor that at once set my manhood astir — hut she had already
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junked out of me the coveted section and Tetreated to her mat
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near her phocine mamma. There my beauty lay down on her
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stomach, showing me, showing toe thousand eyes wide open
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in my eyed blood, her slightly raised shoulder blades, and the
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bloom along the incurvation of her spine, and the swellings of
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her tense narrow nates clothed in black, and the seaside of her
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schoolgirl thighs. Silently, ' the seventh-grader enjoyed her
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gTCcn-rcd-blue comics. She was the loveliest nymphet green-
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rca-blue Priap himself could think up. As I looked on, through
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prismatic layers of light, dry-lipped, focusing my lust and rock-
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ing slightly under my newspaper, 1 felt that my perception of
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her, if properly concentrated upon, might be sufficient to have
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me attain a beggar’s bliss immediately; but, like some predator
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P rcfcrs a moving prey to a motionless one, I planned to
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41
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have this pitiful attainment coincide with one of the various
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girlish movements she made now and then as she read, such as
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trying to scratch the middle of her hack and revealing a
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stippled armpit — but fat Haze suddenly spoiled everything by
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turning to me and asking me for a light, and starting a mak<>
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believe conversation about a fake book by some popular fraud.
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Monday. Ddectatio moiosa. I spend my doleful days in
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dumps and dolors. We (mother Haze, Dolores and I) were to
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go to Our Glass Lake this afternoon, and bathe, and bask; but
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a nacreous mom degenerated at noon into rain, and Lo made
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a scene.
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The median age of pubescence for girls has been found to
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be thirteen years and nine months in New York and Chicago.
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The age varies for individuals from ten, or earlier, to seventeen.
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Virginia was not quite fourteen when Harry Edgar possessed
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her. He gave her lessons in algebra. Je m' imagine cela. They
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spent their honeymoon at Petersburg, Fla. "Monsieur Poe-
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poe,” as that boy in one of Monsieur Humbert Humbert's
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classes in Paris called the poet-poet.
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I have all the characteristics which, according to writers on
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the sex interests of children, start the responses stirring in a
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little girl: clean-cut jaw, muscular hand, deep sonorous voice,
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broad shoulder. Moreover, I am said to resemble some crooner
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or actor chap on whom Lo has a crush.
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Tuesday. Rain. Lake of the Rains. Mamma out shopping,
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L., I knew, was somewhere quite near. In result of some
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stealthy maneuvering, I came across her in her mother's bed-
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room. Prying her left eye open to get rid of a speck of some
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thing. Checked frock. Although I do love that intoxicating
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brown fragrance of hers, I really think she should wash her hair
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once in a while. For a moment, we were both in the same
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warm green bath of the mirror that reflected the top of a
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poplar with us in the sky. Held her roughly by the shoulders,
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then tenderly by the temples, and turned her about. It s right
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there,” she said, "I can feel it” "Swiss peasant would use the
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top of her tongue,” “Lick it out?” "Yeth, Sbly try? Sure,
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she said. Gently I pressed my quivering stingy along her rolling
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salty eyeball. "Goody-goody,” she said nictating. “It is gone.
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“Now the other?” "You dope,” she began, “there is noth—”
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but here she noticed the pucker of my approaching lips.
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"Okay," she said co-operatively, and bending toward her warm
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upturned russet face somber Humbert pressed his mouth to
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her fluttering eyelid. She laughed, and brushed past me out of
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42
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the room. My heart seemed everywhere at once. Never in my
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life — not even when fondling my child-love in France —
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never —
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Night. Never have I experienced such agony. I would Ifke
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to describe her face, her ways — and I cannot, because my own
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desire for- her blinds me when she is near. I am not used to
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being with nymphets, damn it. If I close my eyes I see but an
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immobilized fraction of her, a cinematographic still, a sudden
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smooth nether loveliness, as with one knee up under her tartan
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shirt she sits tying her shoe. “Dolores Haze, ne montrez pas
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vos zhambes” (this is her mother who thinks she knows
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French).
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A poet h mes heures, I composed a madrigal to the soot-
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black lashes of her pale-gray vacant eyes, to the five asymmetri-
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cal freckles of her bobbed nose, to the blond down of her
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brown limbs; but I tore it up and cannot recall it today. Only
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in the tritest of terms (diary resumed) can I describe Lo’s
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features: I might say her hair is aubum, and her lips as red as
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licked red candy, the lower one prettily plump — oh, that I
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were a lady writer who could have her pose naked in a naked
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light! But instead I am lanky, big-boned, woolly-chested Hum-
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|
bert Humbert, with thick black eyebrows and a queer accent,
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and a cesspoolful of rotting monsters behind his slow boyish
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smile. And neither is she the fragile child of a feminine novel.
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What drives me insane is the twofold nature of this nymphet
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— of every nymphet, perhaps; this mixture in my Lolita of
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|
tender dreamy childishness and a kind of eerie vulgarity', stem-
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|
ming from the snub-nosed cuteness of ads and magazine pic-
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tures, from the blurry pinkness of adolescent maidservants in
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the Old Country (smelling of crushed daisies and sweat); and
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from very young harlots disguised as children in provincial
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brothels; and then again, all this gets mixed up with the ex-
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quisite stainless tenderness seeping through the musk and the
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mud, through the dirt and the death, oh God, oh God. And
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what is most singular is that she, this Lolita, my Lolita, has in-
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dividualized the writer’s ancient lust, so that above and over
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everything there is — Lolita.
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Wednesday. “Look, make Mother take you and me to Our
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Glass Lake tomorrow.” These were the textual words said to
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me by my twelve-year-old flame in a voluptuous whisper, as
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we happened to bump into one another on the front porch, I
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out, she in. The reflection of the afternoon sun, a dazzling
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white diamond with innumerable iridescent spikes quivered
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43
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On the round back of a parked car. The leafage of a voluminous
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elm played its mellow shadows upon the clapboard wall of
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the house. Two poplars shivered and shook. You could make
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out the formless sounds of remote traffic; a child calling
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“Nancy, Nan-cy!” In the house, Lolita had put- on her favorite
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“Little Carmen” record which I used to call “Dwarf Con-
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ductors,” making her snort with mock derision at my mock
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wit
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Thursday. Last night we sat on the piazza, the Haze woman,
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Lolita and I. Warm dusk had deepened into amorous darkness.
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The old girl had finished relating in great detail the plot of a
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movie she and L. had seen sometime in the winter. The boxer
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had fallen extremely low when he met the good old priest
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(who had been a boxer himself in his robust youth and could
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still slug a sinner). We sat on cushions heaped on the floor,
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and L. was between the woman and me (she had squeezed
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herself in, the pet) . In my turn, 3 launched upon a hilarious
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account of my arctic adventures. The muse of invention
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handed me a rifle and I shot a white bear who sat down and
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said: Ah! AH the while I was acutely aware of L.’s nearness and
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as I spoke I gestured in the merciful dark and took advantage
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of those invisible gestures of mine /to touch her hand, her
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shoulder and a ballerina of wool and gauze which she played
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with and kept sticking into my lap; and finally, when I had
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completely enmeshed my glowing darling in this weave of
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ethereal caresses, I dared stroke her bare leg along the goose-
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.berry fuzz of her shin, and I chuckled at my own jokes, and
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trembled, and concealed my tremors, and once or twice felt
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with my rapid lips the warmth of her hair as I treated her to a
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quick nuzzling, humorous aside and caressed her plaything.
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She, too, fidgeted a good deal so that finally her mother told
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her sharply to quit it and sent the doll flying into the dark,
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and I laughed and addressed myself to Haze across Lo’s legs
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to let my hand creep up my nymphet’s thin back and feel her
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skin through her boy’s shirt.
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But I knew it was all hopeless, and was sick with longing,
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and my clothes felt miserably tight, and I was almost^glad
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when her mother’s quiet voice announced in the dark: “And
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now r we all think that Lo should gcr to bed.” ‘I think you
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stink,” said Lo; "Which means there will be no picnic tomor-
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row,” said Haze. “This is a free country,” said Lo. When angry
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Lo with a Bronx cheer had gone, I stayed on from sheer in-
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ertia, while Haze smoked her tenth cigarette of the evening
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and complained of Lo.
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44
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She had been spiteful, if you please, at the age of one, when
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she used to throw her toys out of her crib so that her poor
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mother should keep picking them up, the villainous infantl
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Now, at twelve, she was a regular pest, said Haze. AH she
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wanted from life was to be one day a strutting and prancing
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baton twirler or a jitterbug. Her grades were poor, but she was
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better adjusted in her new school than in Pisky (Pisky was the
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Haze home town in the Middle West. The Ramsdale house
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was her late mother-in-law’s. They had moved to Ramsdale less
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than two years ago). “Why was she unhappy there?” “Oh,”
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said Haze, “poor me should know, I went through that when
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I was a kid: boys twisting one’s arm, banging into one with
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loads of books, pulling one’s hair, hurting one’s breasts, flip-
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ping one’s skirt. Of course, moodiness is a common concomi-
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tant of growing up, but Lo exaggerates. Sullen and evasive.
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Rude and defiant. Stuck Viola, an Italian schoolmate, in the
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seat with- a fountain pen. Know what I would like? If you,
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monsieur, happened to be still here in the fall. I'd ask you to
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help her with her homework — you seem to know everything,
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geography, mathematics, French.” "Oh, everything,” answered
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monsieur. “That means," said Haze quickly, “vouHl be herel”
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I wanted to shout that I would stay on eternally if only I could
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hope to caress now and then my incipient pupil. But I was
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wary of Haze. So I just grunted and stretched my limbs non-
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concomitantly (Je wot juste ) and presently went up to my
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room. The woman, however, was evidently not prepared to
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call it a day. I was already lying upon my cold bed both hands >
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pressing to my face Lolita's fragrant ghost when I heard my
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indefatigable landlady creeping stealthily up to my door to
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whisper through it — just to make sure, she said, I was through
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with the Glance and Gulp magazine I had borrowed the other
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day. From her room Lo yelled she had it. We are quite a
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lending library in .this house, thunder of God.
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Friday. I wonder what my academic publishers would say
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if I were to quote in my textbook Ronsard's “la vcrmcillcttc
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fente" or Remy Belleau’s “un petit wont feutrd de mousse
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ddlicatc, tracd sur le milieu d’un fillet cscartette ” and so forth.
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I shall probably have another breakdown if I stay any longer in
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this house, under the strain of this intolerable temptation, by
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the side of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride. Has
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she already been initiated by mother nature to tire Mystery of
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the Mcnarchc? Bloated feeling. The Curse of the Irish. Falling
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from the roof. Grandma is visiting. "Mr. Uterus jl quote from
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a girls’ magazine] starts to build a thick soft wall on the chance
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45
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a possible baby may have to be bedded down there." The tiny
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madman in his padded cell.
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incidentally: if I ever commit a serious murder . . . Mark the
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"if.” The urge should be something more than the kind of
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thing that happened to me with Valeria. Carefully mark that
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the n l was rather inept. If and when you wish to sizzle me to
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death, remember that only a spell of insanity could ever give
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me the simple energy to be a brute (all this amended, per-
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haps) . Sometimes I attempt to kill in my dreams. But do you
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know what happens? For instance I hold a gun. For instance I
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aim at a bland, quietly interested enemy. Oh, I press the trig-
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ger all right, but one bullet after another feebly drops on the
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floor from the sheepish muzzle. In those dreams, my only
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thought is to conceal the fiasco from my foe, who is slowly
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growing annoyed.
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At dinner tonight the old cat said to me with a sidelong
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gleam of motherly mockery directed at Lo (I had just been
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describing, in a flippant vein, the delightful little toothbrush
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mustache I had not quite decided to grow) : "Better don't, if
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somebody is not to go absolutely dotty.” Instantly Lo pushed
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her plate of boiled fish away, all but knocking her milk over,
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and bounced out of the dining room. "Would it bore you very
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much,” quoth Haze, "to come with us tomorrow for a swim in
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Our Glass Lake if Lo apologizes for her manners?”
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Later, I heard a great banging of doors and other sounds
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coming from quaking caverns where the two rivals were having
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.a ripping row.
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She has not apologized. The lake is out. It might have been
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fun.
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Saturday. For some days already I had been leaving the door
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ajar, while I wrote in my room; but only today did the trap
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work. With a good deal of additional fidgeting, shuffling, scrap-
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ing — to disguise her embarrassment at visiting me without
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having been called — Lo came in and after pottering around,
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became interested in the nightmare curlicues I had penned on
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a sheet of paper. Oh no: they were not the outcome of a belle-
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Iettrist’s inspired pause between two paragraphs; they were the
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hideous hieroglyphics (which she could not decipher) of my
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fatal lust As she bent her brown curls over the desk at which
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I was sitting, Humbert the Hoarse put his arm around her in a
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miserable imitation of blood-relationship; and still studying,
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somewhat shortsightedly, the piece of paper she held, my inno-
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cent little visitor slowly sank to a half-sitting position upon my
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46
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knee. Her adorable profile, parted lips, -warm hair were some
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three inches from my bared eyetooth; and I felt the heat of
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her limbs through her rough tomboy clothes. All at once I
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knew I could kiss her throat or the wick of her mouth with
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perfect impunity. I knew she would let me do so, and even
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dose her eyes as Hollywood teaches. A double vanilla with hot
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fudge — hardly more unusual than that. I cannot tell my
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learned reader (whose eyebrows, I suspect, have by now
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travded all the way to the back of his bald bead), I cannot
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tell him how the knowledge came to me; perhaps my ape-ear
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had unconsciously caught some slight change in the rhythm of
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her respiration — for now she was not really looking at my scrib-
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ble, but waiting with curiosity and composure — oh, my limpid
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nymphetl— for the glamorous lodger to do what he was dying
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to do. A modem child, an avid reader of mode magazines, an
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expert in dream-slow dose-ups, might not think it too strange,
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I guessed, if a handsome, intensely virile grown-up friend — too
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late. The house was suddenly vibrating with voluble Louise’s
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voice telling Mrs. Haze who had just come home about a dead
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something she and Leslie Tomson had found in the basement,
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and little Lolita was not one to miss such a tale.
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Sunday. Changeful, bad-tempered, cheerful, awkward, grace-
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ful with the tart grace of her coltish subteens, excruciatingly
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desirable from head to foot (all New England for a lady- writ-
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er’s pen!), from the black ready-made bow and bobby pins
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holding her hair in place to the little scar on the lower part of
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her neat calf (where a roller-skater kicked her in Pisky), a.
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couple of inches above her rough white sock. Gone with her
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mother to the Hamiltons — a birthday party or something.
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Full-skirted gingham frock. Her little doves seem well formed
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already. Precocious pet!
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Monday. Rainy morning. "Ccs matins g ris si doux . . My
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white pajamas have a lilac design on the back. I am like one
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of thosi inflated pale spiders you see in old gardens. Sitting in
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the middle of a luminous web and giving little jerks to this or
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that stand. My web is spread all over the house as 1 listen
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from my chair where I sit like a wily wizard. Is Lo in her room?
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Gently I tug on the silk. She is not. Just heard the toilet paper
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cylinder make its staccato sound as it is turned; and no footfalls
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has my outflung filament traced from the bathroom back to her
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room. Is she still brushing her teeth (the only sanitary act Lo
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performs with real zest)? No. The bathroom door has just
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slammed, so one has to feel elsewhere about the bouse for the
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47
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beautiful warm-colored prey. Let us have a strand of silk
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descend the stairs. I satisfy myself by this means that she is
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not in the kitchen — not banging the refrigerator door or
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screeching at her detested mamma (who, I suppose, is enjoy-
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ing her third, cooing and subduedly mirthful, telephone con-
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versation of the morning) . Well, let us grope and hope. Ray-
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like, I glide in thought to the parlor and find the radio silent
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(and mamma still talking to Mrs. Chatfield or Mrs. Hamilton,
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very softly, flushed, smiling, cupping the telephone with her
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free hand, denying by implication that she denies those amus-
|
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|
ing rumors, rumor, roomer, whispering intimately, as she never
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does, the clear-cut lady, in face to face talk) . So my nymphet is
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not in the house at all! Gone! What I thought was a prismatic
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weave turns out to be but an old gray cobweb, the house is
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empty, is dead. And then comes Lolita’s soft sweet chuckle
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through my half-open door 'Don’t tell Mother but I’ve eaten
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all your bacon.” Gone when I scuttle out of my room. Lolita,
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|
where are you? My breakfast tray, lovingly prepared by my
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|
landlady, leers at me toothlessly, ready to be taken in. Lola,
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|
Lolita!
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|
Tuesday. Clouds again interfered with that picnic on that
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|
unattainable lake. Is it Fate scheming? Yesterday I tried on
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|
before the mirror a new pair of bathing trunks.
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Wednesday. In the afternoon. Haze (common-sensical shoes,
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tailor-made dress), said she was driving downtown to buy a
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|
present for a friend of a friend of hers, and would I please come
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|
.too because I have such a wonderful taste in textures and per-
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|
fumes. “Choose your favorite seduction,” she purred. What
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|
could Humbert, being in the perfume business, do? She had
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|
me cornered between the front porch and her car. “Hurry up,”
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|
she said as I laboriously doubled up my large body in order to
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|
crawl in (still desperately devising a means of escape) . She
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had started the engine, and was genteelly swearing at a backing
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and turning truck in front that had just brought old invalid
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Miss Opposite a brand new wheel chair, when my Lolita’s
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sharp voice came from the parlor window: “You! Where are
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you going? I’m coming too! Wait!” “Ignore her,” yelped Haze
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(killing the motor); alas for my fair driver; Lo was^ already
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pulling at the door on my side, “This is intolerable,”^ began
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Haze; but Lo had scrambled in, shivering with glee. “Move
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your bottom, you,” said Lo. “Lo!” cried Haze (sideglanring at
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|
me, hoping I would throw rude Lo out). “And behold,” said
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|
Lo (not for the first time) , as she jerked back, as I jerked back,
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48
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as the cai leapt forward. “It is intolerable,” said Haze, violently
|
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|
|
getting into second, "that a child should be so ill-mannered.
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|
And so very persevering. When she knows she is unwanted.
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And needs a bath
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My knuckles lay against the child’s blue jeans. She was bare-
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|
footed; her toenails showed remnants of cherry-red polish and
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there was a bit of adhesive tape across her big toe; and, God,
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what would I not have given to kiss then and there those deli-
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cate-boned, long-toed, monkeyish feetl Suddenly her hand
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slipped into mine and without our chaperon’s seeing, I held,
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and stroked, and squeezed that little hot paw, all the way to
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the store. The wings of the driver’s Marlenesque nose shone,
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having shed or burned up their ration of powder, and she kept
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up an elegant monologue anent the local traffic, and smiled in
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profile, and pouted in profile, and beat her painted lashes in
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profile, while I prayed we would never get to that store, but we
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did.
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I have nothing else to report, save, primo: that big Haze had
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little Haze sit behind on our way home, and secundo: that the
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lady decided to keep Humbert’s Choice for the backs of her
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own shapely ears.
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Thursday. We are paying with hail and gale for the tropical
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beginning of the month. In a volume of the Young People’s
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Encyclopedia, I found a map of the States that a child’s pencil
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had started copying out on a sheet of lightweight paper, upon
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the other side of which, counter to the unfinished outline of
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Florida and the Gulf, there was a mimeographed list of names
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referring, evidently, to her class at the Ramsdale school. It is
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a poem I know' already by heart
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Angel, Grace
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Austin, Floyd
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Beale, Jack
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Beale, Mary
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Buck, Daniel
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Byron, Marguerite
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Campbell, Alice
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Carmine, Rose
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Chatficld, Phyllis
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Clarke, Gordon
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Cowan, John
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Cowan. Marion
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Duncan, Walter
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d9
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Falter, Ted - .
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Fantazia, Stella
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Flashman, Irving
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Fox, George
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Glave, Mabel
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Goodale, Donald
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Green, Lucinda
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Hamilton, Mary Rose
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Haze, Dolores
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Honeck, Rosaline
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Knight, Kenneth
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McCoo, Virginia
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McCrystal, Vivian
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McFate, Aubrey
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Miranda, Anthony
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Miranda, Viola
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Rosato, Emil
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Schlenker, Lena
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Scott,' Donald
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Sheridan, Agnes
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Sherva, Oleg
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Smith, r Hazel
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Talbot, Edgar
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Talbot, Edwin
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Wain, Lull
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Williams, Ralph
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Windmuller, Louise
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A poem, a poem, forsooth! So strange and sweet was it to
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discover this “Haze, Dolores” (she!) in its special bower of
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names, with its bodyguard of. roses — a fairy princess between
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her two maids of honor. I am trying to analyze the spine-thrill
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of delieht it gives me, this name among all those others. What
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is it that excites me almost to tears (hot, opalescent, thick tears
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that poets and lovers shed) ? What is it? The tender anonymity
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of this name with its formal veil (“Dolores”) and that abstract
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transposition of first name and surname, which is like a pair
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of new pale gloves or a mask? Is “mask” the keyword? Is it
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becaus' there is always delight in the semitranslucent mystery’,
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the flowing charshaf, through which the flesh and the eye you
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alone are elected to know smile in passing at you alone? Or is it
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becanse I can imagine so well the rest of the colorful classroom
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around my dolorous and hazy' darling: Grace and her ripe
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50
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pimples; Ginny and her lagging leg; Gordon, the haggard mas-
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turbator; Duncan, the foul-smelling clown; nail-biting Agnes;
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Viola, of the blackheads and the bouncing bust; pretty Rosa-
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line; dark Mary Rose; adorable Stella, who has let strangers
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touch her, Ralph, who bullies and steals; Irving, for whom I
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am sorry. And there she is there, lost in the middle, gnawing a
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pencil, detested by teachers, all the boys’ eyes oh her hair and
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neck, my Lolita.
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Friday. I long for some terrific disaster. Earthquake. Spec-
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tacular explosion. Her mother is messily but instantly and
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permanently eliminated, along with everybody else for miles
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around. Lolita, whimpers in my arms. A free man, I enjoy her
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among the mins. Her surprise, my explanations, demonstra-
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tions, uflulations. Idle and idiotic fancies! A brave Humbert
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would have played with her most disgustingly (yesterday, for
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instance, when she was again in my room to show me her
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drawings, school-artware); he might have bribed her — and got
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away with it. A simpler and more practical fellow would have
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soberly stuck to various commercial substitutes — if you know
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where to go, I don’t Despite my manly looks, I am horribly
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timid. My romantic soul gets ah clammy and shivery at the
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thought of running into some awful indecent unpleasantness.
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Those ribald sea monsters. "Mais allez-y, allez-yj” Annabel
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skipping on one foot to get into her shorts, I seasick with
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rage, trying to screen her.
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Same date, later, quite late. I have turned on the light to
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take down a dream. It had an evident antecedent. Haze at
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dinner had benevolently proclaimed that since the weather
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bureau promised a sunny weekend we would go to the lake
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Sunday after church. As I lay in bed, erotically musing before
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trying to go to sleep, I thought of a final scheme how to profit
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by the picnic to come. I was aware that mother Haze hated
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my darling for her being sweet on me. So I planned my lake
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day with a view to satisfying the mother. To her alone would
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I talk; but at some appropriate moment I would say I had left
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my wrist watch or my sunglasses in that .glade yonder — and
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plimge with my nymphet into the wood. Reality at this junc-
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ture withdrew, and the Quest for the Glasses turned into a
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quiet little orgy with a singularly knowing, cheerful, corrupt
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and compliant Lolita behaving as reason knew she conld not
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possibly behave. At 3 a.m. I swallowed a sleeping pQl, and pres-
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ently, a dream that was not a sequel but a parody revealed to
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me, with a kind of meaningful clarity, the^e I had never yet
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a, )V % ; ? M M r‘ ! \ S' 51
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** 5 - — i-* c cy
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visited: it was glazed over with a sheet of emerald ice, and a
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pockmarked Eskimo was trying in vain to break it with a pick-
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axe, although imported mimosas and oleanders flowered on its
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gravelly banks. I am sure Dr. Blanche Schwarzmann would
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have paid me a sack of schillings for adding such a libidream to
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her files. Unfortunately, the rest of it was frankly eclectic. Big
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Haze and little Haze rode on horseback around the lake, and I
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rode too, dutifully bobbing up and down, bowlegs astraddle
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although there was no horse between them, only elastic air —
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one of those little omissions due to the absent-mindedness of
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the dream agent.
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Saturday. My heart is still thumping. I stfll squirm and emit
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low moans of remembered embarrassment
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Dorsal view. Glimpse of shiny skin between T-shirt and
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white gym shorts. Bending, over a window sill, in the act
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of tearing off leaves from a poplar outside while engrossed in
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torrential talk with a newspaper boy below (Kenneth Knight, I
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suspect) who had just propelled the Ramsdale Journal with a
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very precise thud onto the porch. I began creeping up to her —
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“crippling” up to her, as pantomimists say. My arms and legs
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were convex surfaces between which — rather than upon which
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— I slowly progressed by some neutral means of locomotion:
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Humbert the Wounded Spider. I must have taken hours to
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reach her: I seemed to see her through the wrong end of a
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telescope, and toward her taut little rear I moved like some
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paralytic, on soft distorted limbs, in terrible concentration. At
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last I was right behind her when I had the unfortunate idea of
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blustering a trifle — shaking her by the scruff of the neck and
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that sort of thing to cover my real manage, and she said in a
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shrill brief whine: “Cut it outl” — most coarsely, the little
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wench, and with a ghastly grin Humbert the Humble beat a
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gjoomy retreat while she went on wisecracking streetward.
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But now listen to what happened next. After lunch I was
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reclining in a low chair trying to read. Suddenly two deft little
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hands were over my eyes: she had crept up from behind as if
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re-enacting, in a ballet sequence, my morning maneuver. Her
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fingers were a luminous crimson as they tried to blot out the
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sun, and she uttered hiccups of laughter and jerked this way
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and that as I stretched my arm sideways and backwards with-
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out otherwise changing my recumbent position. My hand
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swept over her agile giggling legs, and the book like a sleigh
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left my lap, and Mrs. Haze strolled up and said indulgently:
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“Just slap her hard if she interferes with your scholarly medita-
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52
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tjons. How I love this garden [no exclamation marie in her
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tone]. Isn't it divine in the sun [no question mark either].”
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And with a sigh of feigned content, the obnoxious lady sank
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down on the grass and looked up at the sky as she leaned back
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on her splayed-out hands, and presently an old gray tennis ball
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bounced over her, and Lo's voice came from the house
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haughtily: “Pardonnez, Mother. I was not aiming at yon.” Of
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course not, my hot downy darl i n g.
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12
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This proved to be the last of twenty entries or so. It will he
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seen from them that for all the devil's inventiveness, the
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scheme remained daily the same. First he would tempt me —
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and then thwart me, leaving me with a dull pain in the very
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root of my being. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and
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how to do it, without impinging on a child’s chastity, after all,
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I had had some experience in my life of pederosis; had visually
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possessed dappled nymphets in parks; had wedged my wary
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and bestial way into the hottest, most crowded comer of a city
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bus full of strap-hanging school children. But for almost three
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weeks I had been interrupted in all my pathetic machinations.
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The agent of these interruptions was usually the Haze woman,,
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(who, as the reader will mark, was more afraid of Lo’s deriving
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some pleasure from me than of my enjoying Lo) . The passion
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I had developed for that nympbet — for the first nymphet in
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my life that could be reached at last by my awkward, aching,
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timid daws — would have certainly landed me again in a sana-
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torium, had not the devil realized that I was to be granted
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some relief if he wanted to have me as a plaything for some
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time longer.
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The reader has also marked the curious Mirage of the Lake.
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It would have been logical on the part of Aubrey McFate (as
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I would like to dub that devil of mine) to arrange a small treat
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for me on the promised beach, in the presumed forest. Actual-
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ly, the promise Mrs. Haze had made was a fraudulent one: she
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h2d not told me that Mary Rose Hamfiton (a dark little beauty
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in her own right) was to come too, and that the two nymphets
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would be whispering apart, and playing apart, and having a
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53
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good time all by themselves, while Mrs. Haze and her hand-
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some lodger conversed sedately in the seminude, far from
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prying eyes. Incidentally, eyes did pry and tongues did wag.
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How queer life is! We hasten to alienate the very fates we in-
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tended to v/oo. Before my actual arrival, my landlady had
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planned to have an old spinster, a Miss Phalen, whose mother
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had been cook in Mrs. Haze's family, come to stay in the
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house, with Lolita and me, while Mrs. Haze, a career girl at
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heart, sought some suitable job in the nearest city. Mrs. Haze
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had seen the whole situation very clearly: the bespectacled,
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round-backed Herr Humbert coming with his Central-Eoro-
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pean trunks to gather dust in his comer behind a heap of old
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books; the unloved ugly little daughter firmly supervised by
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Miss Phalen who had already once had my Lo under her
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buzzard wing (Lo recalled that 1944 summer with an indig-
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nant shudder) ; and Mrs. Haze herself engaged as a receptionist
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in a great elegant city. But a not too complicated event inter-
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fered with that program. Miss Phalen broke her hip in Savan-
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nah, Ga., on the very day I arrived in Ramsdale.
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13
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The Sunday after the Saturday already described proved to be
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as bright as the weatherman had predicted. When putting the
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breakfast things back on the chair outside my room for my
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good landlady to remove at her convenience, I gleaned the
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following situation by listening from the landing across which
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I had softly crept to the banisters in my old bedroom slippers
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— the only old things about me.
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There had been another row. Mrs. Hamilton had tele-
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phoned that her daughter "was running a temperature.” Mrs.
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Haze informed her daughter that the picnic -would have to be
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postponed. Hot little Haze informed big cold Haze that, if so,
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she would not go with her to church. Mother said very wen
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and left.
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I had come out on the landing straight after shaving, soapy-
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earlobed, still in my white pajamas with the cornflower blue
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(not the lilac) design on the back; I now wiped off the soap,
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perfumed my hair and armpits, slipped on a purple silk dress-
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54
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mg gown, and, humming nervously, went down the stairs in
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quest of Lo. . _
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I want my learned readers to participate m the scene 1 am
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|
about to replay, I want them to examine its every detail and see
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for themselves how careful, how chaste, the whole wine-sweet
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event is if viewed with what my lawyer has called, in a private
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talk we have had, “impartial sympathy." So let us get started.
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I have a difficult job before me.
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Main character: Humbert the Hummer. Time: -.Sunday
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morning in June. Place: sunlit living room. Props: old, candy-
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striped davenport, magazines, phonograph, Mexican knick-
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knacks (the late Mr. Harold E. Haze- — God bless the good
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man — had engendered my darling at the siesta hour in a blue-
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washed room, on a honeymoon trip to Vera Cruz, and memen-
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toes, among these Dolores, were all over the place). She wore
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that day a pretty print dress that I had seen on her once be-
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fore, ample in the skirt, tight in the bodice, short-sleeved, pink,
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checkered with darker pink, and, to complete the color scheme,
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she had painted her lips and was holding in her hollowed
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hands a beautiful, banal, Eden-red apple. She was not shod,
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however, for church. And her white Sunday purse lay discarded
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near the phonograph.
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My heart beat like a dram as she sat down, cool skirt bal-
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looning, subsiding, on the sofa next to me, and played with her
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glossy fruit She tossed it up into the sun-dusted air, and
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caught it — it made a cupped polished plop.
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Humbert Humbert intercepted the apple.
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"Give it back,” she pleaded, showing the marbled flush of
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her palms. I produced Delicious. She grasped it and hit into it,
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and my heart was like snow under thin crimson skin, and with
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the monkeyish nimbleness that was so typical of that American
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nymphet, she snatched ont of my abstract grip the magazine I
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had opened (pity no film has recorded the curious pattern, the
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monogrammic linkage of our simultaneous or overlapping
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moves). Rapidly, hardly hampered by the disfigured apple she
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held, Lo flipped violently through the pages in search of some-
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thing she wished Humbert to see. Found it at last. I faked
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interest by bringing my bead so close that her hair touched
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my temple and her arm brushed my cheek as she wiped her
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lips with her wrist Because of the burnished mist through
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which I peered at the picture, I was slow in reacting to it, and
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her bare knees nibbed and knocked impatiently against each
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other. Dimly there came into view: a surrealist painter relax-
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55
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mg, supine, on a beach, and near him, likewise supine, a piaster
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r fP' 1 _ c T a , Venus di Milo, half-buried in sand. Picture of
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the Week, said the legend. I whisked the whole obscene thing
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away. Next moment, in a sham effort to retrieve it, she was all
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over me. Caught her by her thin knobby wrist. The magazine
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escaped to the floor like a flustered fowl. She twisted herself
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free, recoiled, and lay back in the right-hand comer of the
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davenport. Then, with perfect simplicity, the impudent child
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extended her legs across my lap.
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By this time I was in a state of excitement bordering on in-
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sanity; but I also had the cunning of the insane. Sitting there,
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on the sofa, I managed to attune, by a series of stealthy move-
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ments, my masked lust to her guileless limbs. It was no easy
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matter to. divert the little maiden's attention while I performed
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the obscure adjustments necessary for the success of the trick.
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Talking fast, lagging behind my own breath, catching up with
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it, mimicking a sudden toothache to explain the breaks in my
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patter — and all the while keeping a maniac’s inner eye on my
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distant golden goal, I cautiously increased the magic friction
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that was doing away, in an fllusional, if not factual, sense, with
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the physically irremovable, but psychologically very friable
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texture of the material divide (pajamas and robe) between the
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weight of two sunburnt legs, resting athwart my lap, and the
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hidden tumor of an unspeakable passion. Having, in the course
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of my patter, hit upon something nicely mechanical, I recited,
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garbling them slightly, the words of a foolish song that was
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then popular — O my Carmen, my little Carmen, something,
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something, those something nights, and the stars, and the cars,
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and the bars, and the barmen; I kept repeating this automatic
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stuff and holding her under its special spell (special because of
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the garbling), and all the while I was mortally afraid that some
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act of God might interrupt me, might remove the golden load
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in the sensation of which all my being seemed concentrated,
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and this anxiety forced me to work, for the first minute or so,
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more hastily than was consensual with deliberately modulated
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enjoyment. The stars that sparkled, and the cars that parkled,
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and the bars, and the barmen, were presently taken over by
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her; her voice stole and corrected. the tune I had been mutilat-
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ing. She was musical and apple-sweet. Her legs twitched a little
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as they lay across my live lap; I stroked them; there she lolled
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in the right-hand comer, almost asprawl, Lola the bobby-soxer,
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devouring her immemorial fruit, singing through its juice, los-
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ing her slipper, rubbing the heel of her slippeiless foot in its
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56
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sloppy anklet, against the pile of old magazines heaped on my
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left on the sofa— and every movement she made, every shuffle
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and ripple, helped me to conceal and to improve the secret
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system of tactile correspondence between beast and beauty—
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between my gagged, bursting-beast and the beauty of ber dim-
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pled body in its innocent cotton frock.
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Under my glancing finger tips I felt the minute hairs bristle
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ever so slightly along her shins. 1 lost myself in the pungent
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but healthy heat which like summer haze hung about little
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Haze. Let her stay, let her stay ... As she strained to chuck the
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core of her abolished apple into the fender, her young weight,
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her shameless innocent shanks and round bottom, shifted in
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my tense, tortured, surreptitiously laboring lap; and all of a
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sudden a mysterious change came over my senses. I entered a
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plane of being where nothing mattered, save the infusion of
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joy brewed within my body. What had begun as a .delicious
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distension of my innermost roots became a glowing tingle
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which now had reached that state of absolute security, confi-
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dence and reliance not found elsewhere in conscious life. With
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the deep hot sweetness thus established and well on its way
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to the ultimate convulsion, I felt I could slow down in order
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to prolong the glow. Lolita had been safely solipsized. The
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implied sun pulsated in the supplied poplars; we were fan-
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tastically 2 nd divinely alone; I watched her, rosy, gold-dusted,
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beyond the veil of my controlled delight, unaware of it, alien
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to it, and the sun was on her lips, and her lips were apparently
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still forming the words of the Carmen-barmen ditty' that ■>
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no longer reached my consciousness. Everything was now
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readv . The nerves of pleasure had been laid bare. The corpuscles
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of Krauze were entering the phase of frenzy. The least pressure
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would suffice to set all paradise loose. I had ceased to be Hum-
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bert the Hound, the sad-eyed degenerate cur clasping the boot
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that would presently kick him away. I was above the tribula-
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tions of ridicule, beyond the possibilities of retribution. In my
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self-made seraglio, I was a radiant and robust Turk, deliber-
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ately, in the full consciousness of his freedom, postponing the
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moment of actually enjoying the youngest and frailest of his
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slaves. Suspended on .the brink of that voluptuous abyss (a
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nicety of physiological equipoise comparable to certain tech-
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niques in the arts) I kept repeating chance words after her —
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barmen, alarmin’, my charmin’, my carmen, ahmen, ahaha-
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F ,en " as one talking and laughing in his sleep while my happy
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band crept up hex sunny leg as far the the shadow of decency
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57 .
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allowed. The day before she had collided with the heavy chest
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re the hall and "Look, look!"— I gasped— ‘'look what you’ve
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done, what you’ve done to yourself, ah, look”; for there was I
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swear, a yellowish-violet bruise on her lovely nymphet thigh
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which my huge hairy hand massaged and slowly enveloped—
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and because of her very perfunctory underthings, there seemed
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to be nothing to prevent my muscular thumb from reaching
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the hot hollow of her groin— just as you might tickle and
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caress a giggling child— just that— and: “Oh it’s nothing at
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all,” she cried with a sudden shrill note in her voice, and she
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wriggled, and squirmed, and threw her head back and her teeth
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rested on her glistening underlip as she half-turned away, and
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my moaning mouth, gentlemen of the jury, almost reached
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her bare neck, while I crushed out against her left buttock the
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last throb of the longest ecstasy man or monster had ever
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known.
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Immediately afterward (as if we had been struggling and
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now my grip bad eased) she rolled off the sofa and jumped to
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her feet — to her foot, rather — in order to attend to the formi-
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dably loud telephone that may have been ringing for ages as
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far as I was concerned. There she stood and blinked, cheeks
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aflame, hair awry, her eyes passing over me as lightly as they
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did over the furniture, and as she listened or spoke (to her
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mother who was telling her to come to lunch with her at the
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Chatfields — neither Lo nor Hum knew yet what busybody
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Haze was plotting), she kept tapping the edge of the table
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with the slipper she held in her band. Blessed be the Lord,
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she had noticed nothingl
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With a handkerchief of multicolored silk, on which her
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listening eyes rested in passing, I wiped the sweat off my fore-
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head, and, immersed in a euphoria of release, rearranged my
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royal robes. She was still at the telephone, haggling with her
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mother (wanted to be fetched by car, my little Carmen ) when,
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singing louder and louder, I swept up the stairs and set a
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deluge of steaming water roaring into the tub.
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At this point I may as well give the words of that song hit in
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full— to the best of my recollection at least— I don’t think I
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ever had it right. Here goes:
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O my Carmen, my little Carmen!
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Somethine, something those something nights,
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And the stars, and the cars, and the bars, and the
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[barmen —
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And, O my charmin', our dreadful fights.
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58
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And the something town where so gaily, arm in
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Arm, we went, and our final row,
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And the gun I lulled you with, O my Carmen,
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The gun I am holding now.
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(Drew his .32 automatic, I guess, and put a bullet through
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his moll’s eye.) .
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^ \ ' • ‘
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. 14
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I had hunch in town — had not been so hungry for years. The
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house was still Lo-less when I strolled back. I spent the after-
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noon musing, scheming, blissfully digesting my experience of
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the morning.
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I felt proud of myself. I had stolen the honey of a spasm,
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without impairing the morals of a minor. Absolutely no harm
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done. The conjurer had poured milk, molasses, foaming cham-
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pagne into a young lady’s new white purse; and lo, the purse
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was intact Thus had I delicately constructed my ignoble,,
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ardent sinful dream; and still Lolita was safe — and I was safe.
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What I had madly possessed was' not she, but my own. crea-
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tion, another fanciful Lolita — perhaps, more real than Lolita;
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overlapping, encasing her; floating between me and her, and .
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having no will, no consciousness — indeed, no life of her own.
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The child knew nothing. I had done nothing to her. And
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nothing prevented me from repeating a performance that af-
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fected her as little as if she were a photographic image rippling
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upon a screen and I a humble hunchback abusing mj’self in the
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dark. The afternoon drifted on and on, in ripe sflence, and the
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sappy tall trees seemed to be in the know; and desire, even
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stronger than before, began to afflict me again. Let her come
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soon, I prayed, addressing a lone God, and while mamma is in
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the kitchen, let a repetition of the davenport scene be staged,
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please, I adore her so horribly.
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No: ‘horribly” is the wrong word. The elation with which
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the vision of new delights filled me was not horrible but
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pathetic. I qualify it as pathetic. Pathetic — because despite the
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insatiable fire of my venereal appetite, I intended, with the
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most fervent force and foresight, to protect the purity of that
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twelve-year old child.
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59
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And now see how I was repaid for my pains. No Lolita came
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home— she had gone with the Chatfields to a movie. The table
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was laid with more elegance than usual: candlelight, if yon
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please. In this mawkish aura, Mrs! Haze gently touched the
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silver on both sides of her plate as if touching piano keys, and
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smiled down on her empty plate (was on a diet), and said she
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hoped I liked the salad (recipe lifted from a woman’s mag-
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azine). She hoped I liked the cold cuts, too. It had been a
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perfect day. Mrs. Chatfield was a lovely person. Phyllis, her
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daughter, was going to a summer camp tomorrow. For three
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weeks. Lolita, it was decided, would go Thursday. Instead of
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waiting till July, as had been initially planned. And stay there
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after Phyllis had left. Till school began. A pretty prospect, my
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heart
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Oh, how I was taken aback — for did it not mean I was los-
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ing my darling, just when I had secretly made her mine? To
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explain my grim mood, I had to use the same toothache I had
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already simulated in the morning. Must have been an enor-
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mous molar, with an abscess as big as a maraschino cherry.
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"We have,” said Haze, "an excellent dentist Our neighbor,
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in fact Dr. Quilty. Uncle or cousin, I think, of the playwright
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Think it will pass? Well, just as you wish. In the fall I shall
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have him Trace’ her, as my mother used to say. It may curb
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Lo a little. I am afraid she has been bothering you frightfully
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all these days. And we are ip for a couple of stormy ones before
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she goes. She has flatly refused to go, and I confess I left hex
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.with the Chatfields because I dreaded to face her alone just
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yet The movie may mollify her. Phyllis is a very sweet girl, and
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there is no earthly reason for Lo to dislike her. Really, mon-
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sieur, I am very sorry about that tooth of yours. It would be so
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much more reasonable to let me contact Ivor Quilty first thing
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tomorrow morning if it stfll hurts. And, you know, I think a
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summer camp is so much healthier, and — well, it is all so much
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more reasonable as I say than to mope on a suburban lawn and
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use mamma’s lipstick, and pursue shy studious gentlemen, and
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go into tantrums at the least provocation.
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"Are you sure,” I said at last, "that she wifi be happy there?
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(lame, lamentably lame!)
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"She’d better," said Haze. "And it won’t be all play either.
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The camp is run by Shirley Holmes — you know, the woman
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who wrote Campfire Girl. Camp will teach Dolores Haze to
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grow in many things — health, knowledge, temper. Ana par-
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ticularly in a sense of responsibility toward other people. Snail
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60
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we take these candles with ns and sit for a while on the piazza,
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or do you want to go to bed and nurse that tooth7"
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Nurse that tooth.
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15
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Next day they drove downtown to buy things needed for the
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camp: any wearable purchase worked wonders with Lo. She
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seemed her usual sarcastic self at dinner. Immediately after-
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wards, she went up to her room to plunge into the comic books
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acquired for rainy days at Camp Q (they were so thoroughly
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sampled by Thursday that she left them behind) . I too retired
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to my lair, and wrote letters. My plan now was to leave for the
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seaside and then, when school began, resume my existence in
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the Haze household; for I knew already that I could not live
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without the child. On Tuesday they went shopping again, and
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I was asked to answer the phone if the camp mistress rang up
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during their absence. She did; and a month or so later we had
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occasion to recall our pleasant chat. That Tuesday, Lo had her
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dinner in her room. She had been crying after a routine row
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with her mother and, as had happened on former occasions,
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had not wished me to see her swollen eyes: she had one of
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those tender complexions that after a good cry get all blurred
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and inflamed, and morbidly alluring. I regretted keenly her
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mistake about my private aesthetics, for I simply love that
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tinge of Botticellian pink, that raw rose about the bps, those
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wet, matted eyelashes; and, naturally, her bashful whim
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deprived me..of many opportunities of specious consolation.
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There was, however, more to it than I thought. As we sat in
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the darkness of the veranda (a rude wind had put out her red
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candles), Haze, with a dreary laugh, said she had told Lo that
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her beloved Humbert thoroughly approved of the whole camp
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idea “and now,” added Haze, "the child throws a fit; pretext:
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you and I want to get rid of her, actual reason: I told her -we
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would exchange tomorrow for plainer stuS some much too
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cute night thinp that she bullied me into buying for her. You
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sec, she sees herself as a starlet; I see her as a sturdy, healthy,
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but decidedly homely kid. This, I guess, is at the root of our
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troubles."
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61
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i managed to ™y h y L° for a few seconds:
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she was on the landing, in sweatshirt and green-stained white
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shorts, rummaging in a trunk. I said something meant to be
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friendly and funny but she only emitted a snort without look-
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ing at me. Desperate, dying Humbert patted her clumsily on
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her coccyx, and she struck him, quite painfully, with one of
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the late Mr. Haze’s shoetrees. “Doublecrosser,” she said as I
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crawled downstairs rubbing my aim with a great show of rue.
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She did not condescend to have dinner with Hum and mum-
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washed her hair and went to bed with her ridiculous books*.
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And on Thursday quiet Mrs. Haze drove her to Camp Q.
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As greater authors than I have put it: “Let readers imagine"
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etc. On second thought, I may as well give those imaginations
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a kick in the pants. I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita
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forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita. She
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would be thirteen on January 1. In two years or so she would
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cease being a nymphet and would turn into a "young girl,”
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and then, into a “college girl” — that horror of horrors. The
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word “forever” referred only to my own passion, to the eternal
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Lolita as reflected in my blood. The Lolita whose iliac crests
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had not yet flared, the Lolita that today I could touch and
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smell and hear and see, the Lolita of the strident voice and the
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rich brown hair — of the bangs and the swirls at the sides and
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the curls at the back, and the sticky hot neck, and the vulgar
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vocabulary — “revolting,” “super,” ‘luscious,” “goon,” “drip”
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— that Lolita, my Lolita, poor Catullus would lose forever. So
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how could I afford not to see her for two months of summer
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insomnias? Two whole months out of the two years of her re-
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maining nymphage! Should I disguise myself as a somber old-
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fashioned girl, gawky Mile Humbert, and put up my tent on
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the outskirts of Camp Q, in the hope that its russet nymphets
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would clamor: “Let us adopt that deep-voiced D.P.,” and drag
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the sad, shyly smiling Berthe au Grand Pied to their rustic
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hearth. Berthe will sleep with Dolores Haze!
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Idle dry dreams. Two months of beauty, two months of ten-
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derness, would be squandered forever, and I could do nothing
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about it, but nothing, mais rien.
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One drop of rare honey, however, that Thursday did hold in
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its acom cup. Haze was to drive her to the camp in the early
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morning. Upon sundry sounds of departure reaching me, I
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rolled out of bed and leaned out of the window. Under the
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poplars, the car was already athrob. On the sidewalk, Louise
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stood shading her eyes with her hand, as if the little traveler
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were already riding into the low morning sun. The gesture
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62
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proved to be premature. "Hurry upP shouted Haze. My
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Lolita, who was half in and about to slam the car door, wind
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down the glass, wave to Louise and the poplars (whom and
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which she was never to see again), interrupted the motion of
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fate: she looked up — and dashed back into the house (Haze
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furiously calling after her) . A moment later I heard my sweet-
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heart running up the stairs. My heart expanded with such
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force that it almost blotted me out I hitched up the pants of
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- my pajamas, flung the door open: and simultaneously Lolita
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arrived, in her Sunday frock, stamping, panting, and then she
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was in my arms, her innocent mouth melting under the fero-
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cious pressure of dark male jaws, my palpitating darling! The
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next instant I heard her — alive, unraped — clatter downstairs.
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The motion of fate was resumed. The blond leg was pulled in,
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the car door was slammed — was re-slammed — and driver Haze
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at the violent wheel, rubber-red bps writhing in angry, . in-
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audible speech, swung my darling away, while unnoticed by
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them or Louise, old Miss Opposite, an invalid, feebly but
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rhythmically waved from her vlned veranda.
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16
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The Honnow of my hand was still ivory-full of Lolita — full of
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the feel of her pre-adolescently incurved back, that ivory- -
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smooth, sliding sensation of her skin through the thin frock
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that I had worked up and down while I held her. I marched
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into her tumbled room, threw open the door of the closet and
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plunged into a heap of crumpled things that had touched her.
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There was particularly one pink texture, sleazy, tom, with a
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faintly acrid odor in the seam. I wrapped in it Humbert's huge
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engorged heart. A poignant chaos was welling within me —
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but I had to drop those things and hurriedly regain my com-
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posure, as I became aware of the maid’s velvety voice calling
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me softly from the stairs. She had a message for me, she said;
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and, topping my automatic thanks with a kindly "you’re wel-
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come,” good Louise left an unstamped, curiously clean-look-
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ing letter in my shaking hand.
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This is a confession: I love you [so the letter began; and
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tor a distorted moment I mistook its hysterical scrawl for a
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schoolgirl’s scribble]. Last Sunday in church— bad you, who
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63
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r&fased to come to see oar beautiful new windows! — only
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last Sunday, my dear one, when Tasked the Lord what to do
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about it, I was told to act as I am acting now. You see, there
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is no alternative. I have loved you from the minute I saw
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you. I am a passionate and lonely woman and you are the
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love of my life.
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Now, my dearest, dearest, mon cher, cher monsieur, you
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have read this; now you know. So, wall you please, at once,
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pack and leave. This is a landlady* s order. I am dismissing a
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lodger. I am kicking you out Go! Scram! Departezl I shall
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be back by dinnertime, if I do eighty both ways and don’t
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have an accident (but what would it matter?), and I do
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not wish to find you in the house. Please, please, leave at
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once, now, do not even read this absurd note to the end.
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Go. Adieu.
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The situation, ch6ri, is quite simple. Of course, I know
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with absolute certainty that I am nothing to you, nothing at
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all. Oh yes, you enjoy talking to me (and kidding poor me),
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you have grown fond of our friendly house, of the books I
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like, of my lovely garden, even of Lo's noisy ways — but I am
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nothing to you. Right? Right. Nothing to you whatever. But
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if, after reading my “confession,” you decided, in your dark
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romantic European way, that I am attractive enough for you
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to take advantage of my letter and make a pass at me, then
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you would be a criminal— worse than a kidnapper who rapes
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a child. You see, ch6ri. If you decided to stay, if I found
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you at home (which I know I won’t — and that's why I am
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able to go on like this), the fact of your remaining would
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only mean one thing: that you want me as much as I do
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you: as a lifelong mate; and that you are ready to link up
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your life with min e forever and ever and be a father to my
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little girl.
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Let me rave and ramble on for a teeny while more, my
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dearest, since I know this letter has been by now tom by you,
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and its pieces (illegible) in the vortex of the toilet My
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dearest mon tr£s, tr&s cher, what a world of love I have
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b uil t up for you during this miraculous June! I know how
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reserved you are, how “British.” Your old-world reticence,
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your sense of decorum may be shocked by the boldness of an
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American girl! You who conceal your strongest feelings must
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think me a shameless little idiot for throwing open my poor
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bruised heart like this. In years gone by, many disappoint-
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ments came my way. Mr. Haze was a splendid person, a
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64
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sterling soul, buthe happened to he twenty years my senior, ;
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and — well, let us not gossip about the past. My dearest, ;
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your cariosity must be well satisfied if you have ignored my
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request and read this letter to the hitter end. Never mind. ’
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Destroy it and go.. Do not forget to leave the hey on the j
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desk in your room. And some scrap of address so that I i
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could refund the twelve dollars I owe you tQl the end of the i
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month. Good-bye, dear one. Pray for me — if yon ever pray. j
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C.H. !
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j
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What I present here is what I remember of foe letter, and j
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what I remember of foe letter I remember verbatim (including |
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that awful French) . It was at least twice longer. I have left ont i
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a lyrical passage which I more or less skipped at foe time, con- ,
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cerning Lolita's brother who died at 2 when she was 4, and j
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how much I would have liked him. Let me see what else can I •
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say? Yes. There is just a chance that "foe vortex of foe toilet" ]
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(where the letter did go) is my own matter-of-fact contribu- ;
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tion. She probably begged me to make a special fire for it. j
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My first movement was one of repulsion and retreat. My J
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second was like a friend's calm band falling upon my shoulder j
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and bidding me take my time. I did. I came out of my daze |
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and found myself still in Lo’s room. A full-page ad ripped out
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of a slick magazine was affixed to foe wall above foe bed, be-
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tween a crooner's mug and foe lashes of a movie actress. It j
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represented a dark-haired young husband with a kind of
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drained look in his Irish eyes. He was modeling a robe by So- J
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and-So and bolding a bridgelike tray by So-and-So, with break- j
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fast for two. The legend, by foe Rev. Thomas Morell, called 1
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him a “conquering hero." The thoroughly conquered lady
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(not shown) was presumably propping heiself up to receive j
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her half of foe tray. How her bedfellow was to get under foe
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bridge without some messy mishap was not clear. Lo had
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drawn a jocose arrow to foe haggard lover's face and had put,
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in block letters: H. H. And indeed, despite a difference of a few
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5 ’ears, foe resemblance was striking. Under this was another
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picture, also a colored ad. A distinguished playwright was sol- ■
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cmnly smoking a Drome. He always smoked Dromes. The
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resemblance was slight. Under this was Lo's chaste bed, lit- 1
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tered with comics.” The enamel had come off the bedstead, !
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leaving black, more or less rounded, marks on foe white. Hav- i
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mg convinced myself that Louise had left, I got into Lo’s bed 1
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and reread the letter. j
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65
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17
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Gentlemen of the joey! I cannot swear that certain mo-
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tions pertaining to the business in hand — if I may coin an
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expression — had not drifted across my mind before. My mind
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had not retained them in any logical form or in any relation
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to definitely recollected occasions; but I cannot swear — let me
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repeat — that I had not toyed with them (to rig up yet an-
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other expression), in my dimness of thought, in my darkness
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of passion. There may have been times — -there must have been
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times, if I know my Humbert — when I had brought up for
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detached inspection the idea of marrying a mature widow (say,
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Charlotte Haze) with not one relative left in the wide gray
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world, merely "in order to have my way with her child (Lo,
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Lola, Lolita). I am even prepared to tell my tormentors that
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perhaps once or twice I had cast an appraiser’s cold eye at
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Charlotte’s coral lips and bronze hair and dangerously low
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neckline, and had vaguely tried to fit her into a plausible day-
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dream. This I confess under torture. Imaginary torture, per-
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haps, but all the more horrible. I wish I might digress and
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tell you more of the pavor noctumus that would rack me at
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night hideously after a chance term had struck me in the ran-
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dom readings of my boyhood, such as peine forte et dure (what
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a Genius of Pain must have invented thatl) or the dreadful,
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mysterious, insidious words, "trauma," "traumatic event,” and
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"transom.” But my tale is sufficiently incondite already.
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After a while I destroyed the letter and w'ent to my room,
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and ruminated, and rumpled my hair, and modeled my purple
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robe, and moaned through clenched teeth and suddenly —
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Suddenly, gentlemen of the jury, I felt a Dostoeyskian grin
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dawning (through the very grimace that twisted my lips) like
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a distant and terrible sun. I imagined (under conditions of
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new and perfect visibility) all the casual caresses her mother’s
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husband would be able to lavish on his Lolita. I would hold
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her against me three times a day, every day. All my troubles
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would be expelled, I would be a healthy man. 'To hold thee
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lightly on a gentle knee and print on thy soft cheek a parent s
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kiss . . Well-read Humbert!
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Then, with all possible caution, on mental tiptoe so to
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speak, I conjured up Charlotte as a possible mate. By God, I
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66
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could make myself bring her that economically halved grape-
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fruit, that sugarless breakfast
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Humbert Humbert sweating in the fierce white light, and
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howled at and trodden upon by sweating policemen, is now
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ready to make a further "statement” ( quel mot!) as he turns
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his conscience inside out and rips off its innermost lining. I
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did not plan to marry poor Charlotte in order to eliminate her
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in some vulgar, gruesome and dangerous manner such as kill-
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ing her by placing five bichloride-of-mercury tablets in her
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preprandial sherry or anything like that hut a delicately allied,
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pharmacopoeial thought did tinkle in my sonorous and
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clouded brain. Why limit myself to the modest masked caress
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I had tried already? Other versions of venery presented them-
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selves to me swaying and smiling. I saw myself administering
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a powerful sleeping potion to both mother and daughter so as
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to fondle the latter through the night with perfect impunity.
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The house was full of Charlotte’s snore, while Lolita hardly
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breathed in her sleep, as still as a painted girl-child. "Mother,
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I swear Kenny never even touched me.” "You either lie,
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Dolores Haze, or it was an incubus.” No, I would not go that
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far.
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So Humbert the Cubus schemed and dreamed — and the red
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sun of desire and decision (the two things that create a live
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world) rose higher and higher, while upon a succession of
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balconies a succession of libertines, sparkling glass in hand,
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toasted the bliss of past and future nights. Then, figuratively
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speaking, I shattered the glass, and boldly imagined (for I was
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drunk on those visions by then and underrated the gentleness
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of my nature) how eventually I might blackmail — no, that is
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too strong a word — mauvemail big Haze into letting me con-
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sort with little Haze by gently threatening the poor doting
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Big Dove with desertion if she tried to bar me from playing
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with my legal stepdaughter. In a word, before such an Amaz-
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ing Offer, before such a vastness and variety of vistas, I was
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as helpless as Adam at the preview of early oriental history,
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miraged in his apple orchard.
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And now take down the following important remark: the
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artist in me Has been given the upper hand over the gentle-
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man. It is with a great effort of will that in this memoir I
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have managed to tune my style to the tone of the journal that
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I kept when Mrs. Haze was to me but an obstacle. That
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journal of mine is no more; but I have considered it my
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artistic duty' to preserve its intonations no matter how false
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67
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and brutal they may seem to me. now. Fortunately, my story
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has reached a point where I can cease insulting poor Charlotte
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for the. sake of retrospective, verisimilitude.
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Wishing to spare poor Charlotte two or three hours of sus-
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pense on a winding road (and avoid, perhaps, a head-on col-
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lision that would shatter our different dreams), I made a
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thoughtful but abortive attempt to reach her at the camp by
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telephone. She had left an hour before, and getting Lo instead,
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I told her — trembling and brimming with my mastery over
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fete — that I was going to marry her mother. I had to repeat it
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twice because something was preventing her from giving me
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her attention. “Gee, that's swell,” she said laughing. “When
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is the wedding? Hold on a sec, the pup — That pup here has
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got hold of my sock. Listen — ” and she added she guessed she
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was going to have loads of fun . . . and I realized as I hung
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up that a couple of hours at that camp had been sufficient to
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blot out with new impressions the image of handsome Hum-
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bert Humbert from little Lolita's mind. But what did it mat-
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ter now?. I would get her back as soon as a decent amount of
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time after the wedding had elapsed. “The orange blossom
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would have scarcely withered on the grave,” as a- poet might
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have said. But I am no poet. I am only a very conscientious
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recorder.
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After Louise had gone, I inspected the icebox, and finding
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it much too puritanic, walked to town and bought the richest
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foods available. I also bought some good liquor and two or
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three kinds of vitamins. I was pretty sure that with the aid of
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these stimulants and my natural resources, I would avert any
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embarrassment that my indifference might incur when called
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upon to display a strong and impatient flame. Again and again
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resourceful Humbert evoked Charlotte as seen in the raree-
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show of manly imagination. She was well groomed and shape-
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ly, this I could say for her, and she was my Lolita's big sister- —
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this notion, perhaps, I could keep up if only I did not visualize
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too realistically her heavy hips, round knees, ripe bust, the
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coarse pink of her neck (“coarse” by comparison with silk
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and honey) and all the rest of that sorry and dull thing; a
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handsome woman.
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The sun made its usual round of the house as the afternoon
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ripened into evening. I had a drink. And another. And yet
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another. Gin and pineapple juice, my favorite mixture, always
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double my energy. I decided to busy myself with our unkempt
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lawn. Une petite attention. It was crowded with dandelions,
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68
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and a cursed dog — I loathe dogs— had defiled the fiat stones
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•where a sundial had once stood. Most of the dandelions had
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changed from suns to moons. The gin and Lolita were dancing
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in me, and I almost fell over the folding chairs that I attempted
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to dislodge. Incarnadine zebras! There are some eructations
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that sound like cheers — at least, mine did. An old fence at the
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back of the garden separated us from the neighbor’ s garbage
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receptacles and lilacs; but there was nothing between the front
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end of onr lawn (where it sloped along one side of the house)
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and the street. Therefore I was able to watch (with the smirk
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of one about to perform a good action) for the return of
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Charlotte: that tooth should be extracted at once. As I lurched
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and lunged with the hand mower, bits of grass optically twit-
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tering in the low sun, I kept an eye on that section of suburban
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street It curved in from under an archway of huge shade
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trees, then sped towards us down, down, quite sharply, past
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old Miss Opposite’s ivied brick house and high-sloping lawn
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(much trimmer than ours) and disappeared behind our own
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front porch which I could not see from where I happily
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belched and labored. The dandelions perished. A reak of sap
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mingled with the pineapple. Two little girls, Marion and
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Mabel, whose comings and goings I had mechanically fol-
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lowed of late (but who could replace my Lolita? ) went toward
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the avenue (from which our Lawn Street cascaded), one push-
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ing a bicycle, the other feeding from a paper bag, both talking
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at the top of their sunny voices. Leslie, old Miss Opposite’s
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gardener and chauffeur, a very amiable and athletic Negro, *
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grinned at me from afar and shouted, re-shouted, commented
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by gesture, that I was mighty energetic to-day. The fool dog of i
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the prosperous junk dealer next door ran after a blue car — >
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not Charlotte’s. The prettier of the two little girls (Mabel, I '
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think) , shorts, halter with little to halt, bright hair — a nymph- j
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et, by Pan! — ran back down the street crumpling her paper 1
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bag and was hidden from this Green Goat by the frontage of !
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Mr. and Mrs. Humbert’s residence. A station wagon popped ]
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out of the leafy shade of the avenue, dragging some of it on its I
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roof before the shadows snapped, and swung by at an idiotic ]
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pace, the sweatshirted driver roof-holding with his left hand
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and the junkman’s dog tearing alonpide. There was a smiling
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pause — and then, with a flutter in my breast, I witnessed the
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return of the Blue Sedan. I saw it glide downhill and disappear
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behind the comer of the house.' I had a glimpse of her calm
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pale profile. It occurred to me that until she went upstairs she
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69
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would not "know whether I had gone or not. A minute later,
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with an expression of great anguish on her face, she looked
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down at me from the window of Lo*s room. By sprinting up-
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stairs, I managed to reach that room before she left it.
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When the bride is a widow and the groom is a widower;
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when the former has lived in Our Great Little Town for hardly
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two years, and the latter for hardly a month; when Monsieur
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wants to get the whole damned thing over with as quickly as
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possible, and Madame gives in with a tolerant smile; then, my
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reader, the wedding is generally a “quiet” affair. The bride
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may dispense with a tiara of orange blossoms securing her
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finger-tip veil, nor does she carry a white orchid in a prayer
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book. The bride's little daughter might have added to the
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ceremonies uniting H. and H. a touch of vivid vermeil; but I
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knew I would not dare be too tender with cornered Lolita yet,
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and therefore agreed it was not worth while tearing the child
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away from her beloved Camp Q.
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My soi-disant passionate and lonely Charlotte was in every-
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day life matter-of-fact and gregarious. Moreover, I discovered
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that although she could not control her heart or her cries, she
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was a woman of principle. Immediately after she had become
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- more ot less my mistress (despite the stimulants, her “nervous,
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eager chdri” — a heroic chdri — had some initial trouble, for
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which, however, he amply compensated her by a fantastic dis-
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play of old-world endearments), good Charlotte interviewed
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me about my relations with God. I could have answered that
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on that score my mind was open; I said, instead — paying rny
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tribute to a pious platitude — that I believed in a cosmic spirit.
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Looking down at her fingernails, she also asked me had I not
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in my family a certain strange strain. I countered by inquiring
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whether she would still want to marry me if my fatheris ma-
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ternal grandfather had been, say, a Turk. She said it did not
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matter a bit; but that, if she ever found out I did not believe
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in Our Christian God, she would commit suicide. She said it
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so solemnly that it gave me the creeps. It was then I knew
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she was a woman of principle.
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70
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Oh, she was very genteel: she said "excuse me” whenever a
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slight burp interrupted her flowing speech, called an envelope
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an ahnvelope, and when talking to her lady-friends referred
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to me as Mr. Humbert I thought it would please her if I
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entered the community trailing some glamor after me. On the
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day of our wedding a little interview with me appeared in the
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Society Column of the Ramsdale Journal, with a photograph
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of Charlotte, one eyebrow up and a misprint in her name
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("Hazer”). Despite this contretemps, the publicity warmed
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the porcelain cockles of her heart — and made my rattles shake j
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with awful glee. By engaging in church w'ork as well as by J
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getting to know tire better mothers of Lo’s schoolmates,
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Charlotte in the course of twenty months or so had managed
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to become if not a prominent, at least an acceptable citizen,
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but never before had she come under that thrilling rnbrique,
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and it was I who put her there, Mr. Edgar H. Humbert (I
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threw in the “Edgar” just for the heck of it), "writer and
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|
explorer.” McCoo’s brother, when taking it down, asked me
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|
what I had written. Whatever I told him came out as “sev-
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|
eral books on Peacock, Rainbow and other poets.” It was also
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noted that Charlotte and I had known each other for several
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|
years and that I was a distant relation of her first husband.
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I hinted I had had an affair with her thirteen years ago but
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this was not mentioned in print To Charlotte I said that
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society columns should contain a shimmer of errors.
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let us go on with this curious tale. When called upon to
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|
enjoy my promotion from lodger to lover, did I experience
|
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|
|
only bitterness and distaste? No. Mr. Humbert .confesses to a
|
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|
certain titillation of bis vanity, to some faint tenderness, even
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|
to a pattern of remorse daintily running along the steel of his
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conspiratorial dagger. Never had I thought that the rather I
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ridiculous, though rather handsome Mrs. Haze, with her blind j
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|
faith in the wisdom of her church and book club, ber manner-
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|
isms of elocution, her harsh, cold, contemptuous attitude to- ;
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|
ward an adorable, downy-armed child of twelve, could turn
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|
into such a touching, helpless creature as soon as I laid my
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|
hands upon her which happened on the threshold of Lolita’s !
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room whither she tremulously backed repeating, "no, no,
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please no."
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The transformation improved her looks. Her smile that had
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|
been such a contrived thing, thenceforth became the radiance
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|
of utter adoration — a radiance haring something soft and 1,
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|
moist about it, in which, with wonder, I recognized a re- j
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71 1
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semblance to tie lovely, inane, lost look that Lo had when
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gloating over a new kind of concoction at the soda fountain
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|
or mutely admiring my expensive, always tailor-fresh clothes.
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|
Deeply fascinated, I would watch Charlotte wbOe sbe swapped
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|
parental woes with some other lady and made that- national
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|
grimace of feminine resignation (eyes rolling up, mouth droop-
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|
ing sideways), which, in an infantile form I had seen Lo
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making herself. We had highballs before turning in, and with
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their help, I would manage to evoke the child while caressing
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the mother. This was the white stomach within which my
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nymphet had been a little curved fish in 1934. This carefully
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dyed hair, so sterile to my sense of smell and touch, acquired
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at certain lamplit moments in the poster bed the tinge, if not
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the texture, of Lolita's curls. I kept telling myself, as I wielded
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my brand-new large-as-life wife, that biologically this was the
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nearest I could get to Lolita; that at Lolita’s age, Lotte had
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been as desirable a schoolgirl as her daughter was, and as
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Lolita’s daughter would be some day. I had my wife unearth
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from under a collection of shoes- (Mr. Haze had a passion for
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them, it appears) a thirty-year-old album, so that I might
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see how Lotte had looked as a child; and even though the light
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was wrong and the dresses graceless, I was able to make out a
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dim first version of Lolita’s outline, legs, cheekbones, bobbed
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nose. Lottelita, Lolitchen.
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So I tom-peeped across the hedges of years, into wan little
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windows. And when, by means of pitifully ardent, naively
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lascivious caresses, she of the noble nipple and massive thigh
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prepared me for the performance of my nightly duty, it was
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still a nymphet’s scent that in despair I tried to pick up, as I
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bayed through the undergrowth of dark decaying forests.
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I simply can’t tell you how gentle, how touching my poor
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wife was. At breakfast, in the depressingly bright kitchen, with
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its chrome glitter and Hardware and Co. Calendar and cute
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breakfast nook (simulating that Coffee Shoppe where in their
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college days Charlotte and Humbert used to coo together),
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she would sit, robed in red, her elbow on the plastic-topped
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table, her cheek propped on her fist, and stare at me with in-
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tolerable tenderness as I consumed my ham and eggs. Hum-
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bert's face might twitch with neuralgia, but in her eyes it vied
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in beauty and animation with the sun and shadow's of leaves
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rippling on the white refrigerator. My solemn exasperation
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was to her the silence of love. My small income added to her
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even smaller one impressed her as a brilliant fortune; not be-
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72
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cause the resulting sum now sufficed for most middle-class
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needs, but because even my money sbone in her eyes with the
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magic of my manliness, and she saw our joint account as one
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of those southern boulevards at midday that have solid shade
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on one side and smooth sunshine on the other, all the way
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to the end of a prospect, where pink mountains loom.
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Into the fifty days of our cohabitation Charlotte crammed
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the activities of as many years. The poor woman busied her-
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self with a number of things she had foregone long before or
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had never been much interested in, as if (to prolong these
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Proustian intonations) by my marrying the mother of the 1
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child I loved I had enabled my wife to regain an abundance :
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of youth by proxy. With the zest of a banal young bride, she
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started to "glorify the home.” Knowing as I did its every !
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cranny by heart — since those days when from my chair I '
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mentally mapped out Lolita's course through the house — I j
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had long entered into a sort of emotional relationship with
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it, with its very ugliness and dirt, and now I could almost feel
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the wretched thing cower in its reluctance to endure the bath
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of ecru and ocher and putty-buff-and-snuff that Charlotte
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planned to give it She never got as far as that thank God,
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but she did use up a tremendous amount of energy in wash-
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ing window shades, waxing the slats of Venetian blinds, pur-
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chasing new shades and new blinds, returning them to the
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store, replacing them by others, and so on, in a constant ’ i
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chiaroscuro of smiles and frowns, doubts and pouts. She |
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dabbled in cretonnes and chintzes; she changed the colors of ;
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the sofa — the sacred sofa where a bubble of paradise had once \
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burst in slow’ motion within me. She rearranged the furniture j
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• — and was pleased when she found, in a household treatise, ;
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that "it is permissible to separate a pair of sofa commodes and [
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their companion lamps.” With the authoress of Your Home -
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Is You, she developed a hatred for little lean chairs and spindle •
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tables. She believed that a room having a generous expanse
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of glass, and lots of rich wood paneling was an example of the I
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masculine type of room, whereas the feminine type was j
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characterized by lighter-looking windows and frailer wood- j
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work. The novels I had found her reading when I moved in
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were now replaced by illustrated catalogues and faomemaking
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guides. From a firm located at 4640 Roosevelt Blvd., Phila-
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delphia, she ordered for our double bed a "damask covered
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?12 coil mattress” — although the old one seemed to me re-
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silient and durable enough for whatever it had to support. j
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73 I
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_ A Midwesterner, as her late husband had also been, she had
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lived in-coy Ramsdale, the gem of an eastern state, not long
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enough to know all the nice people. She knew slightly the
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jovial dentist who lived in a kind of ramshackle wooden
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chateau behind our lawn. She had met at a church tea the
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“snooty” wife of the local junk dealer who owned the “colo-
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nial” white horror at the comer of the avenue. Now and then
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she "visited with” old Miss Opposite; but the more patrician
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matrons among those she called upon,- or met at lawn func-
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tions, or had telephone chats with — such dainty ladies as Mis.
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Glave, Mrs. Sheridan, Mrs. McCrystal, Mrs. Knight and
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others, seldom seemed to call on my neglected Charlotte.
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Indeed, the only couple with whom she had relations of real
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cordiality, devoid of any arriere-pensee or practical foresight,
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were the Farlows who had just come back from a business trip
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to Chile in time to attend our wedding, with the Chatfields,
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McCoos, and a few others (but not Mrs. Junk or the even
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prouder Mrs. Talbot) . John Farlow was a middle-aged, quiet,
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quietly athletic, quietly successful dealer in sporting goods,
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who had an office at Parldngton, forty miles away: it was he
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who got me the cartridges for that Colt and showed me how
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to use it, during a walk in the woods one Sunday; he was also
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what he called with a smile a part-time lawyer and had handled
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some of Charlotte’s affairs. Jean, his youngish wife (and first
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cousin), was a long-limbed girl in harlequin glasses with two
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boxer dogs, two pointed breasts and a big red mouth. She
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painted — landscapes and portraits — and vividly do I remember
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praising, over cocktails, the picture she had made of a niece
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of hers, little Rosaline Honeck, a rosy honey in a Girl Scout
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uniform, beret of green worsted, belt of green webbing,
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charming shoulder-long curls — and John removed his pipe
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and said it was a pity Dolly (my Dolita) and Rosaline were so
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critical of each other at school, but he hoped, and we all
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hoped, they would get on better when they returned from
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their respective camps. We talked of the school. It had its
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drawbacks, and it had its virtues. “Of course, too many of the
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tradespeople here are Italians,” said John, “but on the other
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hand we are still spared — ” “I wish,” interrupted Jean with a
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laugh, “Dolly and Rosaline were spending the summer to-
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gether.” Suddenly I imagined Lo returning from camp —
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brown, warm, drowsy, drugged — and was ready to weep with
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passion and impatience.
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74
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19
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A few words more about Mrs. Humbert while the going is
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good (a bad accident is to happen quite soon). I had been
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always aware of the possessive streak in her, but 1 never
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thought she would be so crazily jealous of anything in my life
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that had not been she. She showed a fierce insatiable curiosity
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for my past. She desired me to resuscitate all my loves so that
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she might make me insult them, and trample upon them, and
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revoke them apostately and totally, thus destroying my past.
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She made me tell her about my marriage to Valeria, who was
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of course a scream; but I also had to invent, or to pad atro-
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ciously, a long series of mistresses for Charlotte’s morbid
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delectation. To keep her happy, I had to present her with an
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illustrated catalogue of them, all nicely differentiated, accord-
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ing to the rules of those American ads where schoolchildren
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are pictured in a subtle ratio of races, with one — only one, but
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as cute as they make them — chocolate-colored round-eyed
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little lad, almost in the very middle of the front row. So I
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presented my women, and had them smile and sway — the
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languorous blond, the fiery brunette, the sensual copperhead —
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as if on parade in a bordello. The more popular and platitu-
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dinous I made them, the more Mrs. Humbert was pleased with
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the show.
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Never in my life had I confessed so much or received so
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many confessions. The sincerity and artlessness with which she
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discussed what she called her “love-life,” from first necking to
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connubial catch-as-catch-can, were, ethically, in striking con-
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trast with my glib compositions, but technically the two sets
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were congeneric since both were affected by the same stuff
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(soap operas, psychoanalysis and cheap novelettes) upon
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which I drew for my characters and she for her mode of ex-
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pression. I was considerably amused by certain remarkable sex-
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ual habits that the good Harold Haze had had according to
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Charlotte who thought my mirth improper, but otherwise
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her autobiography was as devoid of interest as her autopsy
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would have been. I never saw a healthier woman than she,
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despite thinning diets.
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%
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*’J
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;.?•
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;i|
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a
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i ;
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U
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f
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t
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r
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75
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Of my Lolita she seldom spoke — more seldom, in fact, than
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she did of the blurred, blond male baby whose photograph
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-to the exclusion of all others adorned our bleak bedroom. In
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one of her tasteless reveries, she predicted that the dead in-
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fant* s soul would return to earth in the form of the child she
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would bear in her present wedlock. And although I felt no
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special urge to supply the Humbert line with a replica of
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Harold's production (Lolita, with an incestuous thrill, I had
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grown to regard as my child), it occurred to me that a pro-
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longed confinement, with a nice Caesarean operation and
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other complications in a safe maternity ward sometime next
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spring, would give me a chance to be alone with my Lolita for
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weeks, perhaps — and gorge the limp nymphet with sleeping
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pills.
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Oh, she simply hated her daughter! What I thought espe-
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cially vicious was that she had gone out of her way to mswer
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with great diligence the questionnaires in a fool’s book she had
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(A Guide to Your Child’s Development), published in Chi-
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cago. The rigmarole went year by year, and Mom was sup-
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posed to fill out a kind of inventory at each of her child's
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birthdays. On Lo’s twelfth, January 1, 1947, Charlotte Haze,
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nde Becker, had underlined the following epithets, ten out of
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forty, under ‘Tour Child's Personality”: aggressive, boisterous,
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critical, distrustful, impatient, irritable, inquisitive, listless,
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negativistic (underlined twice) and obstinate. She had ignored
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the thirty remaining adjectives, among which were cheerful,
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co-operative, energetic, and so forth. It was really maddening.
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With a brutality that otherwise never appeared in my loving
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wife’s mild nature, she attacked and routed such of Lo’s
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little belongings that had wandered to various parts of the
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house to freeze there like so many hypnotized bunnies. Little
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did the good lady dream that one morning when an upset
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stomach (the result of my trying to improve on her sauces)
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had prevented me from accompanying her to church, I de-
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ceived her with one of Lolita’s anklets. And then, her attitude
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toward my saporous darling’ s letters!
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Dear Mommy and Hommy,
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Hope you are fine. Thank you very much for the candy.
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I [crossed out and re-written again] I lost my new sweater
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in the woods. It has been cold here for the last few days.
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I'm having a time. Love.
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76
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Dolly
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“The dumb child," said Mis. Humbert, "has left out a word
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before ‘time/ That sweater was all-wool, and I wish you would
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not send her candy without consulting me.”
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20
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There was a woodlake (Hourglass Lake — not as I had
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thought it was spelled) a few miles from Ramsdale, and there
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was one week of great heat at the end of July when we drove
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there daily. I am now obliged to describe in some tedious detail
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our last swim together, one tropical Tuesday morning.
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We had left the car in a parting area not far from the road
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and were making our way down a path cut through the pine
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forest to the lake, when Charlotte remarked that Jean Farlow,
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in quest of rare light effects (Jean belonged to the old school
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of painting), had seen Leslie taking a dip “in the ebony" (as
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John had quipped) at five o’clock in the morning last Sunday.
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“The water,” I said, “must have been quite cold.”
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“That is not the point,” said the logical doomed dear. “He
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is subnormal, you see. And,” she continued (in that carefully
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phrased way of hers that was beginning to tell on my health),
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“I have a very definite feeling our Louise is in love with that
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moron.”
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Feeling. “We feel Dolly is not doing as well” etc. (from an
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old school report).
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The Humberts walked on, sandaled and robed.
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“Do you know. Hum: I have one most ambitions dream,”
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pronounced Lady Hum, lowering her bead — sby of that dream
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—and communing with the tawny ground. “I w-ould love to
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get hold of a real trained servant maid like that German girl
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the Talbots spoke of; and have her live in the house.”
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“No room,” I said.
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“Come,” she said with her quizzical smile, "surely, chdri,
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you underestimate the possibilities of the Humbert home. We
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wnuld put her in Lo’s room. I intended to make a guestroom
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of that hole anyway. It’s the coldest and meanest in the whole
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house.”
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“What are you talking about?” I asked, the skin of my
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cheekbones tensing up (this I take the trouble to note only
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77
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because my daughter’s skin did the same when she felt that
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way: disbelief, disgust, irritation) .
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"Are you bothered by Romantic Associations?” queried my
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wife — in allusion to her first surrender.
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"Hell no,” said I. "I just wonder where will you put your
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daughter when you get your guest or your maid.”
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"Ah,” said Mrs. Humbert, dreaming, smiling, drawing out
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the “Ah” simultaneously with the raise of one eyebrow and a
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soft exhalation of breath. "Little Lo, I'm afraid, does not enter
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the picture at all, at all. Little Lo goes straight from camp to
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a good boarding school with strict discipline and some sound
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religious training. And then — Beardsley College. I have it all
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mapped out, you need not worry.”
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She went on to say that she, Mrs. Humbert, would have to
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overcome her habitual sloth and write to Miss Phalen’s sister
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who taught at St. Algebra. The dazzling lake emerged. I said I
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had forgotten my sunglasses in the car and would catch up
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with her.
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I had always thought that wringing one’s hands was a fio-
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fcional gesture — the obscure outcome, perhaps, of some me-
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dieval ritual; but as I took to the woods, for a spell of despair
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and desperate meditation, this was the gesture ("look. Lord,
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at these chains!”) that would have come nearest to the mute
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expression of my mood.
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Had Charlotte been Valeria, I would have known how to
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handle the situation; and "handle” is the word I want. In the
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good old days, by merely twisting fat Valeria’s brittle wrist
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(the one she had fallen upon from a bicycle) I could make
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her change her mind instantly; but anything of the sort in
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regard to Charlotte was unthinkable. Bland American Char-
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lotte frightened me. My lighthearted dream of controlling
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her through her passion for me was all wrong. I dared not do
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anything to spoil the image of me she had set up to adore. I
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had toadied to her when she was the awesome duenna of my
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darling, and a groveling something still persisted in my atti-
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tude toward her. The only ace I held was her ignorance of my
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monstrous love for her Lo. She had been annoyed by Los
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liking me; but my feelings she could not divine. To Valeria I
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might have said: “Look here, you fat fool, c’est moi qai decide
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what is good for Dolores Humbert.” To Charlotte, I could not
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even say (with ingratiating calm) : "Excuse me, my dear, I dis-
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agree. Let us give the child one more chance. Let me be her
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private tutor for a year or so. You once told me yourself — ”
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78
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In fact, I could not say anything at all to Charlotte about the
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child without giving myself away. Oh, you cannot imagine (as
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I had never imagined) what these women of principle are!
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Charlotte, who did not notice the falsity of all the everyday
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conventions and rules of behavior, and foods, and boohs, and
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people sbe doted upon, would distinguish at once a false in-
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tonation in anything I might say with a view to keeping Lo
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near. She was like a musician who may be an odious vulgarian
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in ordinary life, devoid of tact and taste; but who will hear a
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false note in music with diabolical accuracy of judgment. To
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break Charlotte’s will, I would have to break her heart If I
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broke her heart, her image of me. would break too. If I said:
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"Either I have my way with Lolita, and yon help me to keep
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the matter quiet, or we part at once,” she would have tamed as
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pale as a woman of clouded glass and slowly replied: "AH
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right, whatever you add or retract, this is the end.” And
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the end it would he.
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Such, then, was the mess. I remember reaching the parking
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area and pumping a handful of rust-tasting water, and drinking
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it as avidly as if it could give me magic wisdom, youth, free-
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dom, a tiny concubine. For a while, purple-robed, heel-dan-
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gling, I sat on the edge of one of the rude tables, under the
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wooshing pines. In the middle distance, two little maidens in
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shorts and halters came out of a sun-dappled privy marked
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"Women." Gum-chewing Mabel (or Mabel’s understudy)
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laboriously, absent-mindedly, straddled a bicycle, and Marion,
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shaking her hair because of the flies, settled behind, legs wide
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apart; and, wobbling, they slowly, absently, merged with the
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light and shade. Lolital Father and daughter melting into
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these woodsl The natural solution was to destroy Mrs. Hum-
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bert. But how?
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No man can bring about the perfect murder; chance, how-
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ever, can do it There was the famous dispatch of a Mme
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LacouHn Arles, southern France, at the dose of last century.
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An unidentified bearded six-footer, who, it was later con-
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jectured, had been the lady's secret lover, walked up to her in
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a crowded street, soon after her marriage to Colonel Lacour,
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and mortally stabbed her in the back, three times, while the
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Colonel, a small bulldog of a man, bung onto the murderer’s
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arm. By a miraculous and beautiful coincidence, right at the
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moment when the operator was in the act of loosening the
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angry little husband s jaws (while several onlookers were clos-
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ing m upon the group), a crank}’ Italian in the house nearest
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79
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to the scene set off by sheer accident some hind of explosive
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he was tinkering with, and immediately the street was turned
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into a pandemonium of smoke, felling bricks and running
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people. The explosion hurt no one (except that it knocked out
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game Colonel Lacour); but the lady’s vengeful lover ran
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when the others ran — and lived happily ever after.
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Now look what happens when the operator himself plans a
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perfect removal.
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I walked down to Hourglass Lake. The spot from which we
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and a few other "nice” couples (the Farlows, the Chatfields)
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bathed was a kind of small cove; .my Charlotte liked it because
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it was almost "a private beach.” The main bathing facilities
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(or "drowning facilities” as the Ramsdale Journal had had
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occasion to say) were in the left (eastern) part of the hour-
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glass, and could not be seen from our covelet. To our right, the
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pines soon gave way to a curve of marshland which turned
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again into forest on the opposite side.
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I sat down beside my wife so noiselessly that she started.
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"Shall we go in?” she-asked.
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"We shall in a minute. Let me follow a train of thought”
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I thought. More than a minute passed.
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"All right. Come on.”
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‘Was I on that train?”
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"You certainly were.”
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"I hope so,” said Charlotte entering the water. It soon
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reached the gooseflesh of her thick thighs; and then, joining
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her out-stretched hands, shutting her mouth tight very plain-
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faced in her black rubber headgear, Charlotte flung herself
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forward with a great splash.
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Slowly we swam out into the shimmer of the lake.
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On the opposite bank, at least a thousand paces away (if one
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could walk across water), I could make out the tiny figures of
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two men working like beavers on their stretch of shore. I knew
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exactly who they were: a retired policeman of Polish descent
|
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|
|
and the retired plumber who owned most of the timber on
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that side of the lake. And I also knew they were engaged in
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|
building, just for the dismal fun of the thmg, a wharf. The
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knocks that reached us seemed so much bigger than what
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could be distinguished of those dwarfs’ arms and tools; indeed,
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one suspected the director of those acrosonic effects to have
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been at odds with the puppet-master, especially since the hefty
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crack of each diminutive blow lagged behind its visual version.
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The short white-sand strip of "our” beach — from which by
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80
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now we had gone a little way to teach deep water — -was empty
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on weekday mornings. There was nobody around except those
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|
two tiny very busy figures on the opposite side, and a dark-red
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private plane that droned overhead, and then disappeared in
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the blue. The setting was really perfect for a brisk bubbling
|
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murder, and here was the subtle point: the man of law and the
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man of water were just near enough to witness an accident and
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just far enough not to observe a crime. They were near enough
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to hear a distracted bather thrashing about and bellowing for
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somebody to come and help him save his drowning wife; and
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they were too far to distinguish {if they happened to look too
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soon) that the anything but distracted swimmer was finishing
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to tread his wife underfoot I was not yet at that stage; I merely
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|
want to convey the ease of the act, the nicety of the settingl
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So there was Charlotte swimming on with dutiful awkwardness
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(she was a very mediocre mermaid) , but not without a certain
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solemn pleasure (for was not her merman by ber side?); and
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as I watched, with the stark lucidity of a future recollection
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(you know — trying to see things as you wall remember haring
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seen them), the glossy whiteness of her writ face so little
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tanned despite all her endeavors, and her pale lips, and her
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naked convex forehead, and the tight black cap, and the
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plump wet neck, I knew that all I had to do was to drop back,
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take a deep breath, then grab her by the ankle and rapidly dive
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with my captive corpse. I say corpse because surprise, panic
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and inexperience would cause her to inhale at once a lethal
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gallon of lake, while I would be able to bold on for at least a
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full minute, open-eyed under water. The fatal gesture passed
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like the tail of a falling star across the blackness of the con-
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templated crime. It was like some dreadful silent ballet, the
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male dancer holding the ballerina by her foot and streaking
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down through water}- twilight I might come up for a mouthful
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of air while still holding her down, and then would dive again
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as many times as would be necessary', and only when the cur-
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tain came down on her for good, would I permit myself to yell
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for help. And when some twenty minutes later the two pup-
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pets steadily growing arrived in a rowboat one half newly
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painted, poor Mrs. Humbert Humbert, the victim of cramp
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or coronary occlusion, or both, would be standing on her head
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in the inky ooze, some thirty feet below the smiling surface
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of Hourglass Lake.
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Simple, was it not? But what d’ye know, folks — I just could
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not make myself do it!
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SI
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She swam beside me, a trustful and clumsy seal, and all the
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logic of passion screamed in my ear: Now is the time! And,
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folks, I just couldn’tl In silence I turned shoreward and grave-
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ly, dutifully, she also turned, and still hell screamed its counsel,
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and still I could not make myself drown the poor, slippery,
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big-bodied creature. The scream grew more and more remote
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|
as I realized the -melancholy fact that neither tomorrow, nor
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Friday, nor any other day or night, could I make myself put
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her to death. Oh, I could visualize myself slapping Valeria’s
|
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' breasts out of alignment, or otherwise hurting her — and I
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|
could see myself, no less clearly, shooting her lover in the un-
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|
derbelly and making him say “akh!” and sit down. But I could
|
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|
not kill Charlotte — especially when things were on the whole
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|
not quite as hopeless, perhaps, as they seemed at first wince on
|
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|
|
that miserable morning. Were I to catch her by her strong
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kicking foot; were I to see her amazed look, hear her awful
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voice; were I still to go through with the ordeal, her ghost
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|
would haunt me all my life. Perhaps if the year were 1447
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|
instead of 1947 I might have hoodwinked my gentle nature by
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|
administering her some classical poison from a hollow agate,
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|
some tender philter of death. But in our middle-class nosy era
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|
it would not have come off the way it used to in the brocaded
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|
palaces of the past. Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you
|
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|
|
want to be a killer. No, no, I was neither. Ladies and gentle-
|
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|
|
men of the jury, the majority of sex offenders that hanker for
|
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|
|
some throbbing, sweet-moaning, physical but not necessarily
|
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|
coital, relation with a girl-child, are innocuous, inadequate,
|
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|
passive, timid strangers who merely ask the community to
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|
allow them to pursue their practically harmless, so-called aber-
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|
rant behavior, their little hot wet private acts of sexual devia-
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tion without the police and society cracking down upon Them.
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|
We are not sex fiends! We do not rape as good soldiers do.
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|
We are unhappy, mild, dog-eyed gentlemen, sufficiently well
|
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|
integrated to control our urge in the presence of adults, but
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|
ready to give years and years of life for one chance to touch
|
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|
|
a nymphet. Emphatically, no killers are we. Poets never kffi.
|
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|
Oh, my poor Charlotte, do not hate me in your eternal heaven
|
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|
among an eternal alchemy of asphalt and rubber and metal and
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|
stone — but thank God, not water, not water I
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|
Nonetheless it was a very close shave, speaking quite ob-
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|
jectively. And now comes the point of my perfect-crime para-
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|
blei
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|
Wc sat down on our towels in the thirsty sun. She looked
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|
82
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sraund, loosened ter bra, and tamed over on ter stomach to
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|
give her tack a chance to be feasted upon. She said she loved
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me. She sighed deeply. She extended one arm and groped in
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the pocket of her robe for her cigarettes. She sat up and
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smoked. She examined her right shoulder. She kissed me
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heavily with open smoky mouth. Suddenly, down the sand
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tank behind ns, from under the bushes and pines, a stone
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rolled, then another.
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“Those disgusting prying kids,” said Charlotte, holding up
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her big bra to her breast and taming prone again. “I shall haw
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to speak about that to Peter Krestovsld.”
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From the debouchment of the trail came a rustle, a footfall,
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and Jean Farlow marched down with her easel and things.
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“You scared us,” said Charlotte.
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Jean said she had been up there, in a place of green conceal-
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ment, spying on nature (spies are generally shot), trying to
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finish a lakescape, but it was no good, she had no talent what-
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ever (which was quite true) — “And have you ever tried paint-
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ing, Humbert?" Charlotte, who was a little Jealous of Jean,
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wanted to know if John was coming.
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He was. He was coming home for lunch today. He had
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dropped her on the way to Parkington and should be picking
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her up any time now. It was a grand morning. She always felt
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a traitor to Cavall and Melampus for I earing them roped on
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such gorgeous days. She sat down on the white sand between
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Charlotte and me. She wore shorts. Her long brown legs were
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about as attractive to me as those of a chestnut mare. She
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showed her gums when she smiled.
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“I almost put both of you into my lake,” she said. "I even
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noticed something you overlooked. You [addressing Humbert]
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had your wrist watch on in, yes, sir, you had.”
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“Waterproof,” said Charlotte softly, making a fish mouth.
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_ Jean took my wrist upon her knee and examined Charlotte’s
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gift, then put tack Humbert’s hand on the sand, palm up.
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“You could see anything that way," remarked Charlotte
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coquettishly.
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Jean sighed. “I once saw,” she said, “two children, male and
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female, at sunset, right here, making love. Their stadows were
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giants. And I told you about Mr. Tomson at daybreak. Next
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tiinc I expect to see fat old Ivor in the ivory. He is really a
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freak, that man. Last time he told me a completely indecent
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story about his nephew. It appears — “
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“Hullo there,” said John’s voice.
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S3
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21
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My habit of being silent when displeased, or, more exactly,
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the cold and scaly quality of my displeased silence, used to
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frighten Valeria out of her wits. She used to whimper and wad,
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saying “Ce qui me rend folle, c’est que ;'e ne. sais 4 quoi tu
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pen ses quand tu es comme fa.” I tried being silent with Char-
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lotte — and she just chirped on, or chucked my silence under
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the chin. An astonishing womanl I would retire to my former
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room, now a regular “studio,” mumbling I had after all a
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learned opus to write, and cheerfully Charlotte went on beau-
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tifying the home, warbling on the telephone and writing let-
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ters. From my window, through the lacquered shiver of poplar
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leaves, I could see her crossing the street and contentedly mafl-
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ing her letter to Miss Phalen's sister.
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The week of scattered showers and shadows which elapsed
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after our last visit to the motionless sands of Hourglass Lake
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was one of the gloomiest I can recall. Then came two or three
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dim rays of hope — before the ultimate sunburst
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It occurred to me that I had a fine brain in beautiful work-
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ing order and that I might as well use it. If I dared not meddle
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with my wife's plans for her daughter (getting wanner and
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browner every day in the fair weather of hopeless distance), I
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could surely devise some general means to assert myself in a
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general way that might be later directed toward a particular
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occasion. One evening, Charlotte herself provided me with an
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opening.
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“I have a surprise for you,” she said looking at me with fond
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eyes over a spoonful of soup. “In the fall we two are going to
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England.”
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I swallowed my spoonful, wiped my lips with pink paper
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(Oh, the cool rich linens of Mirana Hotel!) and said:
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“I have also a surprise for you, my dear. We two are not go-
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ing to England.”
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"Why, what's the matter?” she said, looking — with more
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surprise than I had counted upon — at my hands (I was invol-
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untarily folding and tearing and crushing and tearing again the
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innocent pink napkin). My smiling face set her somewhat at
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ease, however.
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“The matter is quite simple,” I replied. “Even in the most
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84
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harmonious o £ households, as ours is, not all decisions are
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taken by the female partner. There are certain things that the
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husband is there to decide. I can well imagine the thnU that
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you, a healthy American- gal, must experience at crossing the
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Atlantic on the same ocean liner with Lady Bumble — or Sam
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Bumble, the Frozen Meat King, or a Hollywood harlot. And
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I doubt not that you and I would make a pretty ad for the
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Traveling Agency when portrayed looking — you, frankly starry-
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eyed, I, controlling my envious admiration — at the Palace
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Sentries, or Scarlet Guards, or Beaver Eaters, or whatever
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they are called. Bnt I happen to be allergic to Europe, includ-
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ing merry old England. As you well know, I have nothing but
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very sad associations with the Old and rotting World. No
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colored ads in your magazines will change the situation.”
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“My darling,” said Charlotte. "I really — ”
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"No, wait a minute. The present matter is only incidental.
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I am concerned with a general trend. When you wanted me to
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spend my afternoons sunbathing on the Lake instead of doing
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my work, I gladly gave in and became a bronzed glamor hoy for
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your sake, instead of remaining a scholar and, well, an edu-
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cator. When you lead me to bridge and bourbon with the
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charming Farlows, I meekly follow. No, please, wait. When
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you decorate your home, I do not interfere with your schemes.
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When you decide — when yon decide all kinds of matters, I
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may be in complete, or in partial, let us say, disagreement —
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but I say nothing. I ignore the particular. I cannot ignore the
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general. I love being bossed by yon, but every game has its
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rules. I am not cross. I am not cross at all. Don’t do that. But
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I am one half of this household, and have a small bat distinct
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voice.”
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She had come to my side and had fallen on her knees and
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was slowly, but very vehemently, shaking her head and clawing
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at my trousers. She said she had never realized. She said I was
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her ruler and her god. She said Louise had gone, and let us
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make love rightaway. She said I must forgive her or she would
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die.
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This little incident filled me with considerable elation. I told
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her quietly that it was a matter not of asking forgiveness, but
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of chancing one’s ways; and I resolved to press my advantage
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and spend a good deal of time, aloof and moody/ working at
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my book — or 3t least pretending to work.
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The "studio bed” in my former room had long been con-
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verter! into the sofa it had always been at heart, and Charlotte
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85
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had warned me since the very beginning of our cohabitation
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that gradually the room would be turned into a regular “writ-
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e . r ' s . A couple of days after the British Incident, I was
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sitting in a new and very comfortable easy chair, with a large
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volume in my lap, when Charlotte rapped with her ring finger
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and sauntered in. How different were her movements from
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those of my Lolita, when she used to visit me in her dear dirty
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blue jeans, smelling of orchards in nymphetland; awkward and
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fey, and dimly depraved, the lower buttons of her shirt un-
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fastened. Let me tell you, however, something. Behind the
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brashness of little Haze, and the poise of big Haze, a trickle
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of shy life ran that tasted the same, that murmured the same.
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A great French doctor once told my father that in near rela-
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tives the faintest gastric gurgle has the same “voice.”
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So Charlotte sauntered in. She felt all was not well between
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us. I had pretended to fall asleep the night before, and the
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night before that, as soon as we had gone to bed, and had risen
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at dawn.
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Tenderly, she inquired if she were not “interrupting.”
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“Not at the moment,” I said, turning volume C of the Girls'
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Encyclopedia around to examine a picture printed “bottom-
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edge” as printers say.
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Charlotte went up to a little table of imitation mahogany
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with a drawer. She put her hand upon it. The little table was
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ugly, no doubt, but it had done nothing to her.
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“I have always wanted to ask you,” she said (businesslike,
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not coquettish), “why is this thing locked up? Do you want it
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in this room? It’s so abominably uncouth.”
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“Leave it alone,” I said. I was Camping in Scandinavia.
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“Is there a key?”
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“Hidden.”
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“Oh, Hum ...”
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“Locked up love letters.”
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She gave me one of those wounded-doe looks that hntated
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me so much, and then, not quite knowing if I was serious, or
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how to keep up the conversation, stood for several slow pages
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|
(Campus,' Canada, Candid Camera, Candy) peering at the
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windowpane rather than through it, drumming upon it with
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sharp almond-and-rose fingernails.
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Presently (at Canoeing or Canvasback) she strolled up to
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my chair and sank down, tweedily, weightily, on its arm, in-
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undating me with the perfume my first wife had used. 'Would
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his lordship like to spend the fall here?” she asked, pointing
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86
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■prith her little finger at an autumn view in a conservative East-
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ern State. “Why?” (very distinctly and slowly). She shrugged.
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(Probably Harold used to take a vacation at that time. Open
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season. Conditional reflex on her part)
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“l think I know where that is,” she said, still pointing.
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“There is a hotel I remember, Enchanted Hunters, quaint,
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isn’t it? And the food is a dream. And nobody bothers any-
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body."
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She rubbed her check against my temple. Valeria soon got
|
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over that
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“Is there anything special you would like for dinner, dear?
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John and Jean will drop in later."
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I answered with a grunt She kissed me on my underlip, and,
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brightly saying she would bake a cake (a tradition subsisted
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from my lodging days that 1 adored her cakes) , left me to my
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idleness. ,
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Carefully putting down the open hook where she bad sat
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(it attempted to send forth a rotation of waves, but an inserted
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pencil stopped the pages), I checked the hiding place of the
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key: rather self-consciously it lay under the old expensive safety
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razor I had used before she bought me a much better and
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cheaper one. Was it the perfect hiding place — there, under
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that razor, in the groove of its velvet-lined case? The case lay in
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|
a small trunk where I kept various business papers. Could I
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improve upon this? Remarkable how difficult it is to conceal
|
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|
things — especially when one’s wife keeps monkeying with the
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furniture.
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22
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I think, it was exactly a week after our last swim that the
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|
noon mail brought a reply from the second Miss Phalen. The
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|
lady wrote she had just returned to St Algebra from her sister’s
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|
funeral. “Euphemia had never been the same after breaking
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|
that hip.” As to the matter of Mrs. Humbert’s daughter, she
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wished to report that it was too late to enroll her this year;
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|
but that she, the surviving Phalen, was practically certain that
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|
if Mr. and Mrs. Humbert brought Dolores over in January, her
|
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admittance might be arranged.
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|
Next day, after lunch, I went to see “our” doctor, a friendly
|
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|
|
fellow whose perfect bedside manner and complete reliance
|
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87 1
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°n a few patented drugs adequately masked his ignorance of,
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|
|
and indifference to, medical science. The fact that Lo would
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|
have to come back to Ramsdale was a treasure of anticipation.
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|
For this event I wanted to be fully prepared. I had in fact be-
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|
gun my campaign earlier, before Charlotte made that cruel
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|
decision of hers. I had to be sure when my lovely child arrived,
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|
that very night, and then night after night, until St. Algebra
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|
took her away from me, I would possess the means of putting
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|
two creatures to sleep so thoroughly that neither sound nor
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touch should rouse them. Throughout most of July I had been
|
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|
|
experimenting with various sleeping powders, trying them out
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|
|
on Charlotte, a great taker of pills. The last dose I had given
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|
her (she thought it was a tablet of mild bromides — to anoint
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|
her nerves) had knocked her out for four solid hours. I had
|
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|
put the radio at full blast. I had blazed in her face an olisbos-
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|
like flashlight. I had pushed her, pinched her, prodded her —
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|
and nothing had disturbed the rhythm of her calm and power-
|
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|
ful breathing. However, when I had done such a simple thing
|
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|
as kiss her, she had awakened at once, as fresh and strong as an
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|
octopus (I barely escaped) . This would not do, I thought; had
|
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|
|
to get something still safer. At first. Dr. Byron did not seem to
|
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|
believe me when I said his last prescription was no match for
|
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|
|
my insomnia. He suggested I try again, and for a moment
|
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|
|
diverted my attention by showing me photographs of his
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|
|
family. He had a fascinating child of Dolly’s age; but I saw
|
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|
|
through his tricks and insisted he prescribe the mightiest pill
|
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|
extant. He suggested I play golf, hut finally agreed to give me
|
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|
|
something, that, he said, “would really work”; and going to a
|
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|
|
cabinet, he produced a vial of violet-blue capsules banded with
|
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dark purple at one end, wbicb, be said, bad just been placed
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-on the market and were intended not for neurotics whom a
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draft of water could calm if properly administered, but only
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for great sleepless artists who had to die for a few hours in
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order to live for centuries. I love to fool doctors, and though
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inwardly rejoicing, pocketed the pills with a skeptical shrug.
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Incidentally, I had had to be careful with him. Once, in an-
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other connection, a stupid lapse on my part made me mention
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my last sanatorium, and I thought I saw the tips of his ears
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twitch. Being not at all keen for Charlotte or anybody else
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to know that period of my "past, I had hastily explained that I
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had once done some research among the insane for a novel.
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But no matter; the old rogue certainly had a sweet girleen.
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I left in great spirits. Steering my wife’s car with one finger,
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88
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I contentedly rolled homeward. Ramsdale had, after all,' lots
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of charm. The cicadas whirred; the avenue had been freshly
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watered. Smoothly, almost silkSy, I turned down into our
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steep little street Everything was somehow so right that day.
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So blue and green. I knew the sun shone because my ignition
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key was reflected in the windshield; and I knew it was exactly
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half past , three because the nurse who came to massage Miss
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Opposite every afternoon was tripping down the narrow side-
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walk in her white stockings and shoes. As usual, Junk's hys-
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terical setter attacked me.as I rolled downhill, and as usual, the
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local paper was lying on the porch where it had just been
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hurled by Kenny.
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The day before I had ended the regime of aloofness I had
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imposed upon myself, and now uttered a cheerful homecoming '
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call as I opened the door of the living room. With her cream-
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white nape and bronze bun to me, wearing the yellow blouse
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and maroon slacks she had on when I first met her, Charlotte -
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sat at the comer bureau writing a letter. My hand still on the
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doorknob, I repeated my hearty cry. Her writing hand stopped.
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She sat stall for a moment; then she slowly turned in her chair
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and rested her elbow on its cnrved back. Her face, disfigured
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by her emotion, was not a pretty sight as she stared at my legs
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and said:
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“The Haze woman, the big bitch, the old cat, the obnoxious
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mamma, the — the old stupid Haze is no longer yonr dupe. She
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has — she has ...”
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My fair accuser stopped, swallowing her venom and her
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tears. Whatever Humbert Humbert said — or attempted to say
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• — is inessential. She went on:
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“You’re a monster. You’re a detestable, abominable, crim-
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inal fraud. If you come near — I’ll scream out the window. Get
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backl”
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Again, whatever H.H. murmured may he omitted, I think.
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“I am leasing tonight This is all yours. Only you’ll never,
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never see that miserable brat again. Get out of this room.”
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Reader, I did. I went up to the ex-semi-studio. Arms akim-
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bo, I stood for a moment quite still and self-composed, sur-
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veying from the threshold the raped little table with its open
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drawer, a key hanging from the lock, four other household keys
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on the tabic top, I walked across the landing into the Hum-
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berts’ bedroom, and calmly removed my diary from under her
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pillow into my pocket. Then I started to walk downstairs, but (
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( stopped halfway; she was talking on the telephone which hap- j
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89 j
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pened to be plugged just outside the door of' the living room.
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I wanted to hear what she was saying: she canceled an order
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for something or other, and returned to the parlor. I rearranged
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my respiration and went through the hallway to the kitchen.
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. There, I opened a bottle of Scotch. She could never resist
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Scotch. Then I walked into the dining room and from there,
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through the half-open door, contemplated Charlotte’s broad
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back.
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“You are ruining my life and yours,” I said quietly. "Let us
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be civilized people. It is all your hallucination. You are crazy,
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Charlotte. The notes you found were fragments of a novel.
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Your name and hers were put in by mere chance. Just because
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they came bandy. Think it over. I shall bring you a drink.”
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She neither answered nor turned, but went on writing in a
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scorching scrawl whatever she was writing. A third letter, pre-
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sumably (two in stamped envelopes were already laid out on
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the desk). I went back to the kitchen.
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I set out two glasses (to St Algebra? to Lo?) and opened
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the refrigerator. It roared at me viciously while I removed the
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ice from its heart. Rewrite. Let her read it again. She will not
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recall details. Change, forge. Write a fragment and show it to
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her or leave it lying around. Why do faucets sometimes whine
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so horribly? A horrible situation, really. The little pillow-
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shaped blocks of ice — pillows for polar teddy bear, Lo —
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emitted rasping, crackling, tortured sounds as the warm water
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loosened them in their cells. I bumped down the glasses side
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by side. I poured in the whiskey and a dram of soda. She had
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tabooed my pin. Bark and hang went the icebox. Carrying the
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glasses, I walked through the dining room and spoke through
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the parlor door which was a fraction ajar, not quite space
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enough for my elbow.
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"I have made you a drink,” I said.
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She did not answer, the mad bitch, and I placed the glasses
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on the sideboard near the telephone, which had started to ring.
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"Leslie speaking. Leslie Tomson,” said Leslie Tomson who
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favored a dip at dawn. "Mrs. Humbert, sir, has been run over
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and you’d better come quick.”
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I answered, perhaps a bit testily, that my wife was safe and
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sound, and still holding the receiver, I pushed open the door
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and said: -
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"There’s this man saying you’ve been Jailed, Charlotte.
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But there was no Charlotte in the living room.
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90
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23
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I rushed OUT. The far side of out steep little street presented a £
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pec uli ar sight. A big black glossy Packard bad climbed Miss |
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Opposite’s sloping lawn at an angle from the sidewalk (where 1:
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a tartan laprobe had dropped in a heap), and stood there, p
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shining in the sun, its doors open like, wings, its front wheels r
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deep in evergreen shrubbery. To the anatomical right of this |
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car, on the trim turf of the lawn-slope, an old gentleman with f
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a white mustache, well-dressed — doublebreasted gray suit, j-
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polka-dotted bow-tie — lay supine, his long legs together, like a ;
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death-size wax figure. I have to put the impact of an instanta- . :■
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neous vision into a sequence of words; their physical accumula-
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tion in the page impairs the actual flash, the sharp unity of ■>
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impression: Rug-heap, car, old man-doll. Miss O.'s nurse run-
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ning with a rustle, a half-empty tumbler in her hand, back to i
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the screened porch — where the propped-up, imprisoned, ■;
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decrepit lady herself may be imagined screeching, but not loud ;
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enough to drown the rhythmical yaps of the Junk setter walk-,
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ing from group to group — from a bunch of neighbors already
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collected on the sidewalk, near the bit of checked stuff, and
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back to the car which he had finally run to earth, and then to
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another group on the lawn, consisting of Leslie, two police-
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men and a sturdy man with tortoise shell glasses. At this point,
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I should explain that the prompt appearance of the patrolmen,
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hardly more than a minute after the accident, was due to their
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having been ticketing the illegally parked cars in a cross lane
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two blocks down the grade; that the fellow' with the glasses was
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Frederick Beale, Jr., driver of the Packard; that his 79-year-old
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father, whom the nurse had just watered on the green bank
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where he lay — a banked banker so to speak — was not in a dead
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feint, but was comfortably and methodically recovering from a
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mild heart attack or its possibility; and finally, that the laprobe
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on the sidewalk (where she had so often pointed out to me
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with disapproval the crooked green cracks) concealed the man- j
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glcd remains of Charlotte Humbert who had been knocked
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down and dragged several feet by the Beale car as she was
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hurrying across the street to drop three letters in the mailbox, 1
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at the comer of Miss Opposite’s lawn. These were picked up
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and handed to me by a pretty child in a dirty pink frock, and t
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I got rid of them by clawing them to fragments in my trouser
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pocket
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Three doctors and the Farlows presently arrived on the
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scene and took over. The widower, a man of exceptional self-
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control, neither wept nor raved. He staggered a bit, that he
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did; but he opened his mouth only to impart such information
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or issue such directions as were strictly necessaiy in connection
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with the identification, examination and disposal of a dead
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woman, the top of her head a porridge of bone, brains, bronze
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hair and blood. The sun was still a blinding red when he was
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put to bed in Dolly's room by his two friends, gentle John
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and dewy-eyed Jean; who, to be near, retired to the Hum-
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berts’ bedroom for the night; which, for all I know, they may
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not have spent as innocently as the solemnity of the occasion
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required.
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I have no reason to dwell, in this very special memoir, on
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the pre-funeral formalities that had to be attended to, or on
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the funeral itself, which was as quiet as the marriage had been.
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But a few incidents pertaining to those four or five days after
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Charlotte’s simple death, have to he noted.
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My first night of widowhood I was so drunk that I slept as
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soundly as the child who had slept in that bed. Next morning
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I hastened to inspect the fragments of letters in my pocket
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They had got too thoroughly mixed up to be sorted into three
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complete sets. I assumed that . . and you had better find it
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because I cannot buy . . came from a letter to Lo; and
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other fragments seemed to point to Charlotte’s intention of
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fleeing with Lo to Parkington, or even back to Pisky, lest the
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vulture snatch her precious lamb. Other tatters and shreds
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(never had I thought I had such strong talons) obviously
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referred to an application not to St. A. hut to another boarding
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school which was said to be so harsh and gray and gaunt in its
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methods (although supplying croquet under the elms) as to
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have earned the nickname of “Reformatory for Young Ladies.”
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Finally, the third epistle was obviously addressed to me. I
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made out such items as . . after a year of separation we
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may . . .” “. . . oh, my dearest, oh my . ^ . . worse
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than if it had been a woman you kept . . “• . . or, maybe,
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I shall die . . But on the whole my gleanings made little
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sense; the various fragments of those three hasty missives were
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as jumbled in the palms of my hands as their elements had
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been in poor Charlotte's head.
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That day John had to see a customer, and Jean had to feed
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her dogs, and so I was to be deprived temporarily of my friends’
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92
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company. The dear people were afraid I might commit suicide
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if left alone, and since no other friends were available (Miss
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Opposite was incommunicado, the McCoos were busy build-
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ing a new house miles away, and the Cbatfields had been
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recently called to Maine by some family trouble of their own) ,
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Leslie and Louise were commissioned to beep me company
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under the pretense of helping me to sort out and pack a mul-
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titude of orphaned things. In a moment of superb inspiration
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I showed the kind and credulous Fariows (we were waiting for
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Leslie to come for his paid tryst with Louise) a little photo-
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graph of Charlotte I had found among her affairs. From a
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boulder she smiled through blown hair. It had been taken in
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April 1934, a memorable spring. While on a business visit to
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the States, I had had occasion to spend several months in
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Pisky. We met — and had a mad love affair. I was married,
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alas, and she was engaged to Haze, but after I returned to
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Europe, we corresponded through a friend, now dead. Jean
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whispered she had heard some rumors and looked at the snap-
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shot, and, still looking, handed it to John, and John removed
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his pipe and looked at lovely and fast Charlotte Becker, and
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handed it back to me. Then they left for a few hours. Happy
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Louise was gurgling and scolding her swain in the basement.
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Hardly had the Fariows gone than a blue-chinned cleric
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called — and I tried to make the interview as brief as was con-
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sistent with neither hurting his feelings nor arousing his
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doubts. Yes, I would devote all my life to the child’s welfare.
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Here, incidentally, was a little cross that Charlotte Becker
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had given me when we were both young. I had a female
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cousin, a respectable spinster in New York. There we would
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find a good private school for Dolly. Oh, what a crafty Hum-
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bert!
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For the benefft of Leslie and Louise who might (and did)
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report it to John and Jean I made a tremendously loud and
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beautifully enacted long-distance call and simulated a conver-
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sation with Shirley Holmes. When John and Jean returned,
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I completely took them in by telling them, in a deliberately
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wild and confused mutter, that Lo had gone with the inter-
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mediate group on a five-day hike and could not he reached.
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"Good Lord.” said Jean, "what shall we do?”
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John said it was perfectly simple— -he would get the Climax
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police to find the hikers — it would not take them an hour. In
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fact, he knew the country and —
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"Look.” he continued, "whv don’ I drive there richt now
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anu you may sleep with Jean’’— (he did not reallv add that
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93
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but Jean supported bis offer so passionately that it might he
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implied). '
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I broke down. I pleaded with John to let things remain the
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way they were. I said I could not bear to have the child all
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around me, sobbing, clinging to me, she was so high-strung,
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the experience might react on her future, psychiatrists have
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analyzed such cases. There was a sudden pause.
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"Well, you are the doctor,” said John a little bluntly. "But
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after all I was Charlotte’s friend and adviser. One would like
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to know what you are going to do about the child anyway.”
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"John,” cried Jean, "she is his child, not Harold Haze’s.
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Don’t you understand? Humbert is Dolly's real father.”
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“I see,” said John. “I am sorry. Yes, I see. I did not realize
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that. It simplifies matters, of course. And whatever you feel is
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right."
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The distraught father went on to say he would go and fetch
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his delicate daughter immediately after the funeral, and would
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do his best to give her a good time in totally different sur-
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roundings, perhaps a trip to New ’Mexico or California —
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granted, of course, he lived.
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So artistically did I impersonate the calm of ultimate de-
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spair, the hush before some crazy outburst, that the perfect
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Farlows removed me to their house. They had a good cellar,
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ns cellars go in this country; and that was helpful, for I feared
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insomnia and a ghost.
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Now I must explain my reasons for keeping Dolores away.
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Naturally, at first, when Charlotte had just been eliminated
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and I re-entered the house a free father, and gulped down the
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two whiskey-and-sodas I had prepared, and topped them with
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a pint or two of my "pin,” and went to the bathroom to get
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away from neighbors and friends, there was but one thing in
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my mind and pulse — namely, the awareness that a few hours
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hence, warm, brown-haired, and mine, mine, mine, Lolita
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would be in my arms, shedding tears that I would kiss away
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faster than they could well. But as I stood wide-eyed and
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flushed before the mirror, John Farlow tenderly tapped to
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inquire if I was okay — and I immediately realized it would
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be madness .on my part to have her in the house with all
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those busybodies milling around and scheming to take her
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away from me. Indeed, unpredictable Lo herself might — who
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knows? — show some foolish distrust of me, a sudden repug-
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nance, vague fear and the like — and gone would be the magic
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prize at the very instant of triumph.
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Speaking of busybodies, I had another visitor — friend Beale,
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94
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the fellow who eliminated my wife. Stodgy and solemn, look-
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ing like a kind of assistant executioner, with his bulldog jowls,
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small black eyes, thickly rimmed glasses and conspicuous nos-
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trils, he was ushered in by^ohn who then left ns, closing the
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door upon us, with the utmost tact Suavely saying he had
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twins in my stepdaughter's class, my grotesque visitor un-
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rolled a large diagram he had made of the accident. It was,
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as my stepdaughter would have put it, “a beaut, ' with all
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kinds of impressive arrows and dotted lines in varicolored
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inks. Mrs. H. H.’s trajectory was illustrated at several points
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by a series of those little outline figures — doll-like wee career
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girl or WAC — used in statistics as visual aids. Very clearly
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and conclusively, this route came into contact with a boldly
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traced sinuous line representing two consecutive swerves —
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one which the Beale car made to avoid the Junk dog (dog
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not shown), and the second, a kind of exaggerated continua-
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tion of the first, meant to avert the tragedy. A very black cross
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indicated the spot where the trim little outline figure had at
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last come to rest on the sidewalk. I looked for some similar
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mark to denote the place on the embankment where my
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visitor's huge wax father had reclined, but there was none.
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That gentleman, however, had signed the document as a
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witness underneath the name of Leslie Tomson, Miss Op-
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posite and a few other people.
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With his hummingbird pencil deftly and delicately flying
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from one point to another, Frederick demonstrated his abso-
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lute innocence and the recklessness of my wife: while he was
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in the act of avoiding the dog, she had slipped on the freshly
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watered asphalt and plunged forward whereas she should
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have flung herself not forward but backward (Fred showed
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how’ by a jerk of his padded shoulder) . I said it was certainly
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not his fault, and the inquest upheld my view.
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Breathing violently through jet-black tense nostrils, he shook
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his head and my hand; then, with an air of perfect savoir vri-re
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and gentlemanly generosity, he offered to pay the funeral-
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home expenses. He expected me to refuse his offer. With a
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drunken sob of gratitude I accepted it. This took him aback.
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Slowly, incredulously, he repeated what he had said. 1 thanked
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him again, even more profusely than before.
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In result of that weird interview, the numbness of my soul
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was for a moment resolved. And no wonder! I bad actually
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seen the agent of fate. I had palpated the very ffesh of fate—
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and its padded shoulder. A brilliant and monstrous mutation
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had suddenly taken place, and here was the instrument. Wilh-
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95
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in the intricacies of the pattern (hurrying housewife, slippery
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pai/ement, a pest of a dog, steep grade, big caT, baboon at its
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wheel), I could dimly distinguish my own vile contribution.
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Had I not been such a fool — or such an intuitive genius — to
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preserve that journal, fluids produced by vindictive anger and
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hot. shame would not have blinded Charlotte in her dash to
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the mailbox. But even had they blinded her, still nothing
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might have happened, had not precise fete, that synchronizing
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phantom, mixed within its alembic the car and the dog and
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the sun and the shade and the wet and the weak and the
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strong and' the stone. Adieu, Marlene! Fat fate’s formal hand-
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shake (as reproduced by Beale before leaving the room)
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brought me out of my torpor; and I wept. Ladies and gentle-
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men of the jury — -I wept
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24
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The elms and the poplars were turning their raffled backs
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to a sudden onslaught of wind, and a black thunderhead
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|
loomed above Ramsdale’s white church tower when I looked
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around me for the last time. For unknown adventures I was
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|
leaving the livid house where I had rented a room only ten
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|
weeks before. The shades — thrifty, practical bamboo shades —
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|
were already down. On porches or in the house their rich tex-
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|
tures lend modem drama. The house of heaven must seem
|
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|
pretty bare after that A raindrop fell on my knuckles. I went
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|
back into the house for something or other while John was
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putting my bags into the car, and then a funny thing hap-
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|
pened. I do not know if in these tragic notes I have sufficiently
|
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|
stressed.the peculiar “sending” effect that the writer's good
|
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|
|
looks — pseudo-Celtic, attractively simiarf, boyishly manly —
|
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|
|
had on women of every age and environment. . Of course,
|
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|
|
such announcements made in the first person may sound
|
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|
|
ridiculous. But every once in a while I have to remind the
|
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|
reader of my appearance much as a professional novelist, who
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has given a character of his some mannerism or a dog, has
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to go on producing that dog or that mannerism every time
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|
the character crops up in the course of the book. There may
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be more to it in the present case. My gloomy good looks
|
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|
should be kept in the mind’s eye if my story is to be properly
|
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96
|
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understood. Pubescent Lo swooned to Humbert’s charm as
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|
she did to hiccuppy music; adult Lotte loved me with a ma-
|
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|
ture, possessive passion that I now deplore and respect more
|
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|
|
than I care to say. Jean Farlow who was thirty-one and ab-
|
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|
|
solutely neurotic, had also apparently developed a strong
|
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|
|
liking for me. She was handsome in a carved-Indian sort of
|
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|
|
way, with a burnt sienna complexion. Her lips were like large
|
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|
|
crimson polyps, and when she emitted her special barking
|
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|
|
|
laugh, she showed large dull teeth and pale gums.
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She was very tall, wore either slacks with sandals or billow-
|
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|
|
ing skirts with ballet slippers, drank any strong liquor in any
|
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|
|
amount, had had two miscarriages, wrote stories about animals,
|
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|
|
painted, as the reader knows, lakescapes, was already nursing
|
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|
|
the cancer that was to kill her at thirty-three, and was hope-
|
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|
|
lessly unattractive to me. Judge then of my alarm when a
|
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|
|
few seconds before I left (she and I stood in the hallway)
|
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|
|
Jean, with her always trembling fingers, took 'me by the
|
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|
|
temples, and, tears in her bright blue eyes, attempted, unsuc-
|
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|
|
cessfully, to glue herself to my bps.
|
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|
“Take care of yourself,” she said, "kiss your daughter for
|
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|
me."
|
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|
A clap of thunder reverberated throughout the house, and
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|
she added:
|
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|
|
“Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time,
|
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|
|
we may see each other again” (Jean, whatever, wherever you
|
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|
|
are, in minus time-space or plus soul-time, forgive me all this,
|
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|
|
parenthesis included).
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|
And presently I was shaking hands with both of them in
|
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|
|
the street, the sloping street, and everything was whirling and
|
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|
|
flying before the approaching white deluge, and a truck with a
|
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|
|
mattress from Philadelphia was confidently rolling down to
|
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|
|
an empty house, and dust was running and writhing over the
|
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|
|
|
exact slab of stone where Charlotte, when they lifted the lap-
|
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|
|
robe for me, had been revealed, curled up, her eyes intact,
|
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|
their black lashes still wet, matted, like yours, Lolita.
|
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25
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Os-r Micnr surrosx that with all blocks removed and
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|
P«t of delirious and unlimited delights before me, I
|
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97
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a pros-
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|
would
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have mentally sunk back, heaving a sigh of delicious relief. Eh
|
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|
|
bien, pas <Ju tout l Instead of basking in the beams of smiling
|
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|
|
|
Chance, I was obsessed by all sorts of purely ethical doubts and
|
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|
|
|
fears. For instance: might it not surprise people that Lo was
|
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|
|
so consistently debarred from attending festive and funeral
|
|
|
|
|
functions in her immediate family? Yon remember~we had
|
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|
|
|
not had her at our wedding. Or another thing: granted it was
|
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|
|
|
the long hairy arm of Coincidence that had reached out to
|
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|
|
remove an innocent woman, might Coincidence not ignore
|
|
|
|
|
in a heathen moment.what its twin limb had done and hand
|
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|
|
Lo a premature note of commiseration? True, the accident
|
|
|
|
|
had been' reported only by the Ramsdale Journal — not by the
|
|
|
|
|
Parkington Recorder or the Climax Herald, Camp Q. being
|
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|
|
|
in another state, and local deaths' having no federal news
|
|
|
|
|
interest; but I could not help fancying that somehow Dolly
|
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|
|
Haze had been informed already, and that at the very time
|
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|
|
I was on my way to fetch her, she was being driven to Rams-
|
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|
|
dale by friends unknown to me. Still more disquieting than
|
|
|
|
|
all these conjectures and worries, was the feet that Humbert
|
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|
|
|
Humbert, a brand-new American citizen of obscure European
|
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|
|
|
origin, had taken no steps toward becoming the legal guardian
|
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|
|
of his dead wife's daughter (twelve years and seven months
|
|
|
|
|
old) . Would I ever dare take those steps? I could not repress
|
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|
|
a shiver whenever I imagined my nudity hemmed in by mys-
|
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|
|
terious statutes in the merciless glare of the Common Law.
|
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|
My scheme was a marvel of primitive art: I would whizz
|
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|
|
over to Camp Q., tell Lolita her mother was about to undergo
|
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|
|
a major operation at an invented hospital, and then keep
|
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|
|
moving with my sleepy nymphet from inn to inn while her
|
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|
|
|
mother got better and better and finally died. But as I traveled
|
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|
|
camp ward my anxiety grew. I could not bear to think I might
|
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|
|
not find Lolita there — or find, instead, another, scared, Lolita
|
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|
|
clamoring for some family friend: not the Farlows, thank
|
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|
God-— she hardly knew them — but might there not be other
|
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|
|
people I had not reckoned with? Finally, I decided to make
|
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|
|
|
the long-distance call I had simulated so well a few days be-
|
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|
|
|
fore. It was raining hard when I pulled up in a muddy suburb
|
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|
|
of Parkington, just before the Fork, one prong of which by-
|
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|
|
passed the city and led to the highway which crossed the hills
|
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|
|
to Lake Climax and Camp Q. I flipped off the ignition and
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|
|
for quite a minute sat in the car bracing myself for that tele-
|
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|
|
phone call, and staring at the rain, at the inundated sidewalk,
|
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|
|
at a hydrant: a hideous thing, really, painted a thick silver and
|
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|
98
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red, extending the red stamps of its arms to be varnished by
|
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|
|
the rain which like stylized blood dripped upon its argent
|
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|
|
chains. No wonder that stopping beside those nightmare
|
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|
|
cripples is taboo. I drove np to a gasoline station. A surprise
|
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|
|
|
awaited me when at last the coins had satisfactorily clanked
|
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|
|
down and a voice was allowed to answer mine.
|
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|
Holmes, the camp mistress, informed me that Dolly had
|
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|
|
gone Monday (this was Wednesday) on a hike in the hills
|
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|
|
with her group and was expected to return rather late today.
|
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|
Would I care to come tomorrow, and what was exactly —
|
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|
|
Without going into details, I said that her mother was hos-
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|
|
pitalized, that the situation was grave, that the child should
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|
|
not be told it was grave and that she should be ready to leave
|
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|
|
with me tomorrow afternoon. The two voices parted in an ex-
|
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|
|
plosion of warmth and good will, and through some freak
|
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|
|
mechanical flaw all my coins came tumbling hack to me with
|
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|
|
a hitting-the-jackpot clatter that almost made me laugh de-
|
|
|
|
|
spite the disappointment at having to postpone bliss. One
|
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|
|
|
wonders if this sudden discharge, this spasmodic refund, was
|
|
|
|
|
not correlated somehow, in the mind of McFate, with my
|
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|
|
haring invented that little expedition before ever learning of
|
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|
|
it as I did now.
|
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|
What next? I proceeded to the business center of Parldng-
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|
|
ton and devoted the whole afternoon (the weather had
|
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|
|
cleared, the wet town was like silver-and-glass) to buying
|
|
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|
|
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
|
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|
|
|
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.
|
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|
|
One of my guides in these matters was an anthropometric
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entry made by her mother on Lo’s twelfth birthday (the reader
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remembers that Lnow-1 our-ChDd book). I had the feeling
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thst Charlotte, moved by obscure motives of envy and dislike,
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haa added an inch here, a pound there; but since the nvmphet
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had no doubt grown somewhat in the last seven months, I
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ought I could safely accept most of those January measure-
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99
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meats: hip girth, twenty-nine inches; thigh girth (just below
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the gluteal sulcus), seventeen; calf girth and neck circum-
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ference, eleven; chest circumference, twenty-seven; upper arm
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girth, eight; waist, twenty-three; stature, fifty-seven inches;
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weight, seventy-eight pounds; figure, linear, intelligence quo-
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tient, 121; vermiform appendix present, thank God.
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Apart from measurements, I could of course vis ualiz e Lolita
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with hallucxnational lucidity; and nursing as I did a tingle on
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my breastbone at the exact spot her silky top had come level
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once or twice with my heart; and feeling as I did her warm
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weight in my lap (so that, in a sense, I was always “with Lo-
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lita” as a woman is “with child”), I was not surprised to dis-
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cover later that my computation had been more or less correct
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Having moreover studied a midsummer sale book, it was with
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a very knowing air that I examined various pretty articles,
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sport shoes, sneakers, pumps of crushed kid for crushed kids.
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The painted girl in black who attended to all these poignant
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needs of mine turned parental scholarship and precise de-
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scription into commercial euphemisms, such as “petite.” An-
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other, much older woman, in a white dress, with a pancake
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make-up, seemed to be oddly impressed by my knowledge of
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junior fashions; perhaps I had a midget for mistress; so, when
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shown a skirt with two “cute” pockets in front, I intentionally
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put a naive male question and was rewarded by a smiling
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demonstration of the way the zipper worked in the back of
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the skirt. I had next great fun with all kinds of shorts and
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briefs — phantom little Lolitas dancing, falling, daisying all
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over the counter. We rounded up the deal with some prim
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cotton pajamas in popular butcher-boy style. Humbert, the
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popular butcher.
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There is a touch of the mythological and the enchanted in
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those large stores where according to ads a career girl can get a
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complete desk-to-date wardrobe, and where little sister can
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dream of the day when her wool jersey will make the boys in
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the back row of the classroom drool. Lifesize plastic figures of
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snubbed-nosed children with dun-colored, greenish, brown-
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dotted, faunish faces floated around me. I realized I was the
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only shopper in that rather eerie place where I moved about
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fish-like, in a glaucous aquarium. I sensed strange thoughts
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form in the minds of the languid ladies that escorted me from
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counter to counter, from rock ledge to seaweed, and the belts
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and the bracelets I chose seemed to fall from siren hands
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into transparent water. I bought an elegant valise, had my
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100
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purchases put into it, and repaired to the nearest hotel, well
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pleased with my day.
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Somehow, in connection with that quiet poetical afternoon
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of fastidious shopping, I recalled the hotel or inn with the
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seductive name of The Enchanted Hunters which Charlotte
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had happened to mention shortly before my liberation. With
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the help of a guidebook I located it in the secluded town of
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Briceland, a four-honr drive from Lo’s camp. I-conld have
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telephoned but fearing my voice might go out of control and
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lapse into coy croaks of broken English, I decided to send a
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wire ordering a room with twin beds for the next night. What
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a comic, clumsy, wavering Prince Charming I wasl How some
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of my readers will laugh at me when I tell them the trouble
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I had with the wording of my telegram! What should I put:
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Humbert and daughter? Humberg and small daughter? Hom-
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berg and immature girl? Homburg and child? The droll mis-
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take — the "g” at the end — which eventually came through
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may have been a telepathic echo of these hesitations of mine.
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And then, in the velvet of a summer night, my broodings
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over the philter I had with me! Oh miserly Hamburg! Was he
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not a very Enchanted Hunter as he deliberated with himself
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over his boxful of magic ammunition? To rout the monster
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of insomnia should he try himself one of those amethyst cap-
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sules? There were fort}’ of them, all told — forty nights with a
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frail little sleeper at my throbbing side; could I rob myself of
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one such night in order to sleep7 Certainly not: much too
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precious was each tiny plum, each microscopic planetarium
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with its live stardust. Oh', let me be mawkish for the noncel
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I am so tired of being cynical.
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26
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This r>An.Y utladache in the opaque air of this tombal jail is
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disturbing, but I must persevere. Have written more than a
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hundred pages and not got anywhere vet My calendar is get-
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bng confused. That must have been around August 1 5, 1947
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Dont think I can go on. Heart head— everything. Lolita"
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Loins, Lohta. Lehtn, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita. Repeat till
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the page is full, printer. r ^ r
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101
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27
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Still in Pakkington. Finally, I did achieve an hour's slum-
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ber — from which I was aroused by gratuitous and horribly
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exhausting congress with a small hairy hermaphrodite, a total
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stranger. By then it was six in the morning, and it suddenly
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occurred to me it might be a good thing to arrive at the camp
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earlier than I had said. From Parldngton I had still a hundred
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miles to go, and there would be more than that to the Hazy
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Hills and Briceland. If I had said I would come for Dolly
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in the afternoon, it was only because my fancy insisted on
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merciful night falling as soon as possible upon my impatience.
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But now I foresaw all hinds of misunderstandings and was all
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a-jitter lest delay might' give her the opportunity of some idle
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telephone call to Ramsdale. However, when at 9.30 a.m. I
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attempted to start, I was confronted by a dead battery, and
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noon was nigh when at last I left Parldngton.
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I reached my destination around half past two; parted my
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car in a pine grove where a green-shirted, redheaded impish
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lad stood throwing horseshoes in sullen solitude; was laconi-
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cally directed by him to an office in a stucco cottage; in a dying
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state, had to endure for several minutes the inquisitive com-
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miseration of the camp mistress, a sluttish worn out female
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with rusty hair. Dolly she said was all packed and ready to go.
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She knew her mother was sick but not critically. Would Mr.
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Haze, I mean, Mr. Humbert, care to meet the camp counsel-
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lors? Or look at the cabins where the girls live? Each dedicated
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to a Disney creature? Or visit the Lodge? Or should Charlie
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be sent over to fetch her? The girls were just finishing fixing
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the Dining Room for a dance. (And perhaps afterwards she
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would say to somebody or other:’ “The poor guy looked like
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his own ghost.”)
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Let me retain for a moment that scene in all its trivial and
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fateful detail: hag Holmes writing out a receipt, scratching her
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head, pulling a drawer out of her desk, pouring change into my
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impatient palm, then neatly spreading a banknote over it with
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a bright “. . . and five!”; photographs of girl-children; some
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gaudy moth or butterfly, still alive, safely pinned to the wall
|
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(“nature study”) ; the foamed diploma of the camp's dietitian;
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my trembling hands; a card produced by efficient Holmes with
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102
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-V
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a report of Dolly Haze’s behavior for July ("fair to good; been
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on swimming and boating”); a sound of trees and birds, and
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|
my pounding heart ... I was standing with my back to the
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|
open door, and then I felt the blood rush to my head as I heard
|
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her respiration and voice behind me. She arrived dragging and
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|
bumping her heavy suitcase. "Hi!” she said, and stood still,
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|
looking at me with sly, glad eyes, her soft lips parted in a
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slightly foolish hut wonderfully endearing smile.
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She was thinner and taller, and for a second it seemed to
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me her face was less pretty than the mental imprint I bad
|
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|
cherished for more than a month: her cheeks looked hollowed
|
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|
and too much lentigo camouflaged her rosy rustic features; and
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that first impression (a very narrow human interval between
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two tiger heartbeats) carried the dear implication that all
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widower Humbert had to do, wanted to do, or would do, was
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to give this wan-looldng though sun-colored little orphan aux
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ycux battus (and even those plumbaceons umbrae under her
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|
eyes bore freckles) a sound education, a healthy and happy
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girlhood, a dean home, nice girl-friends of her age among
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whom (if the fates ddgned to repay me) I might find, per-
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haps, a pretty little magdfein for Herr Doktor Humbert alone.
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|
But “in a wink,” as the Germans say, the angelic line of con-
|
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duct was erased, and I overtook my prey (time moves ahead
|
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of our fancies!), and she was my Lolita again — in fact, more
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|
of my Lolita than ever. I let my hand rest on her warm auburn
|
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|
head and took up her bag. She was all rose and honey, dressed
|
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|
in her brightest gingham, with a pattern of little red apples,
|
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|
and her arms and legs were of a deep golden browni, with
|
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|
|
scratches like tiny dotted lines of coagulated rubies, and the
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ribbed cuffs of her white socks were turned down at the re-
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membered level, and because of her childish gait, or because
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I had memorized her as always wearing heelless shoes, her
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saddle oxfords looked somehow too large and too high-heeled
|
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for her. Good-bye, Camp Q., meny Camp Q. Good-bye, plain
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unwholesome food, good-bye Charite'boy. In the hot car she
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settled down beside me, slapped a prompt fly on ber lovely
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knee; then, her mouth working violently on a piece of chew-
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ing gum, she rapidly cranked down the window on her side
|
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and settled bad: again. We sped through the striped and
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|
speckled forest
|
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“How’s mother?" she asked dutifully.
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I said the doctors did not quite know vet what the trouble
|
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was. Anyway, something abdominal. Abominable? No, abdom-
|
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103
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inal. We would have to hang around for a while. The hospital
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|
|
was in the country, near the gay town of Lepingville, where
|
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|
a great poet had resided in the early nineteenth century and
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where we would talce in all the shows. She thought it a peachy
|
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idea and wondered if we could make Lepingville before nine
|
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P.M.
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“We should be at Briceland by dinner tune/’ I said, “and
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tomorrow we’ll visit Lepingville. How was the hike? Did you
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have a marvelous time at the camp?”
|
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“Uh-huh.”
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“Sorry to leave?”
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“Un-un.”
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“Talk, Lo — don’t grunt. Tell me something.”
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'What thing, Dad?” (she let the word expand with ironic
|
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|
deliberation).
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“Any old thing.”
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“Okay, if I call you that?” (eyes slit at the road).
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"Quite.”
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“It's a sketch, you know. When did you fall for my mum-
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my?”
|
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“Some day, Lo, you will understand many emotions and
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|
situations, such as for example the harmony, the beauty of
|
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|
|
spiritual relationship.”
|
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“Bah!” said the cynical nymphet
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Shallow lull in the dialogue, filled with some landscape.
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“Look, Lo, at all those cows on that hillside.”
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“I think I’ll vomit if I look at a cow again.”
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“You know, I missed you terribly, Lo.”
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“I did not. Fact I’ve been revoltingly unfaithful to you, but
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- it does not matter one bit, because you’ve stopped caring for
|
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|
me, anyway. You drive much faster than my mummy, mister.”
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I slowed down from a blind seventy to a purblind fifty.
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‘Why do you think I have ceased caring for you, Lo?”
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‘Well, you haven’t kissed me yet, have you?”
|
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Inly dying, inly, moaning, I glimpsed a reasonably wide
|
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|
shoulder of road ahead, and bumped and wobbled into the
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weeds. Remember she is only a child, remember she is only —
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Hardly had the car come to a standstill than Lolita positively
|
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|
|
flowed into my arms. Not daring let myself go — not even
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|
daring let myself realize that this (sweet wetness and trem-
|
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|
bling fire) was the beginning of the ineffable life which, ably
|
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|
assisted by fate, I had finally willed into being — not daring
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|
really kiss her, I touched her hot, opening lips with the utmost
|
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104
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piety, tiny sips, nothing salacious; but she, with an impatient
|
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|
wriggle, pressed her mouth to mine so hard that I felt her big
|
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|
front teeth and shared in the peppermint taste of her saliva.
|
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|
I knew, of course, it was but an innocent game on her part,
|
|
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|
|
a bit of backfisch foolery in imitation of some simulacrum
|
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|
|
of fake romance, and since (as the psychotherapist, as well as
|
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|
|
the rapist, will tell you} the limits and rules of such girlish
|
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|
|
games are fluid, or at least too childishly subtle for the senior
|
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|
|
partner to grasp — I was dreadfully afraid I might go too far
|
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|
and cause her to start back in revulsion and terror. And, as
|
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|
|
above all I was agonizingly anxious to smuggle ber into the
|
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|
|
hermetic seclusion of The Enchanted Hunters, and we had
|
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|
|
still eighty miles to go, blessed intuition broke our embrace —
|
|
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|
|
a split second before a highway patrol car drew up alongside.
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Florid and beetlebrowed, its driver stared at me:
|
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|
“Happen to see a blue sedan, same make as yours, pass you
|
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|
before the junction?”
|
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“Why, no.”
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‘We didn't,” said Lo, eagerly leaning across me, her in-
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nocent hand on my legs, “but are you sure it was blue,
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because — "
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The cop (what shadow of us was he afteT?) gave the little
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colleen his best smile and went into a U-turn.
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We drove on.
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“The fruitheadl” remarked Lo. "He should have nabbed
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you."
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“Why me for heaven's sake?”
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‘Well, the speed in this bum state is fifty, and — No, don’t
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slow down, you, dull bulb. He’s gone now.”
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‘We have still quite a stretch,” I said, “and I want to get
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there before dark. So be a good girl.”
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“Bad, bad gill,” said Lo comfortably. "Juvenile deliekwent,
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but frank and fetching. That light was red. I’ve never seen
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such driving.”
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We rolled silently through a silent townlct.
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“Say, wouldn't Mother be absolutely mad if sbe found out
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we were lovers?”
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“Good Lord, Lo, let us not talk that way.”
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“But we arc lovers, aren't we?”
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Not that I know of. I think we arc going to have some
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mere rain. Don’t you want to tell me of those little pranks of
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yours in camp?”
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“Lon talk like a book. Dad.”
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IG>
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"What have you been up to? I insist you tell me.”
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‘Are you easily shocked?”
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"No. Go on.”
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4< Let us turn into a secluded lane and I'll tell you.”
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Lo, I must seriously ask you not to play the fool. Well?"
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<r Well — I joined in all the activities that were offered.”
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“Ensuite?”
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“Ansooit, I was taught to live happily and richly with
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others and to develop a wholesome personality. Be a cake,
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in fact.”
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“Yes. I saw something of the sort in the booklet.”
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“We loved the sings around the fire in the big stone fire-
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place or under the darned stars, where every girl merged her
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own spirit of happiness with the voice of the group.”
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“Your memory is excellent, Lo, but I must trouble you to
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leave out the swear words. Anything else?”
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“The Girl Scout's motto,” said Lo rhapsodically, “is also
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mine. I fill my life with worthwhile deeds such as — well, never
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mind what. My duty is — to be useful: I am a friend to male
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animals. I obey orders. I am cheerful. That was another
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police car. I am thrifty and I am absolutely filthy in thought,
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word and deed.”
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“Now I do hope that’s ah, you witty child.”
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“Yep. That’s all. No — wait a sec. We baked in a reflector
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oven. Isn't that terrific?”
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“Well, that’s better.”
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'We washed zillions of dishes. ‘Zillions’ you know is school-
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marm’s slang for many-many-many-many. Oh yes, last but
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not least; as Mother says — Now let me see — what was it?
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I know: We made shadowgraphs. Gee, what fun.”
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“C’est bien tout?”
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“C'est. Except for one little thing, something I simply can't
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tell you without blushing ah over.”
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“Will you tell it me later?”
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“If we sit in the dark and you let me whisper, I wOl. Do
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you sleep in your old room or in a heap with Mother?
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“Old room. Your mother may have to undergo a very
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serious operation, Lo.”
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“Stop at that candy bar, will yon,” said Lo.
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Sitting on a high stool, a band of sunlight crossing her bare
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brown forearm, Lolita was served an elaborate ice-cream con-
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coction topped with synthetic syrup. It was erected and
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brought her by a pimply brute of a boy in a greasy bow-tie
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106
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v.-ho eyed my fragile child in her thin cotton frock with carnal
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deliberation. My impatience to reach Briceland and The En-
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chanted Hunters was becoming more than I could endure.
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Fortunately she dispatched the stuff with her usual alacrity.
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“How much cash do you have?" I asked.
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“Not a cent,” she said sadly, lifting her eyebrows, showing
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me the empty inside of her money purse.
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“This is a matter that will be mended in due time," I re-
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joined archly. “Are you coming?”
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“Say, I wonder if they' have a washroom.”
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“You are not going there,” I said firmly. “It is sure to be a
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sile place. Do come on.”
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She was on the whole an obedient little girl and I kissed
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her in the neck when we got back into the car.
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“Don’t do that,” she said looking at me with unfeigned
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surprise. “Don’t drool on me. You dirty’ man.”
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She rubbed the spot against her raised shoulder.
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“Sorry,” I murmured. “I’m rather fond of yon, that’s all.”
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We drove under a gloomy sky, up a winding road, then
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down again.
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“Well, I’m also sort of fond of yon,” said Lolita in a delayed
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soft voice, with a sort of sigh, and sort of settled closer to me.
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(Oh, my Lolita, we' shall never get there!)
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Dusk was beginning to saturate pretty little Briceland, its
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phony colonial architecture, curiosity shops and imported
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shade trees, when we drove through the weakly lighted streets
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in search of The Enchanted Hunters. The air, despite a steady
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drizzle beading it, was warm and green, and a queue of people,
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mainly children and old men, had already- formed before the
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box office of a movie house, dripping with jewel-fires.
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“Oh, I want to see that picture. Let’s go right after dinner.
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Oh, let’s!”
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“We might,” chanted Humbert — knowing perfectly well,
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tbe sly tumescent devil, that by nine, when his show began,
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she would be dead in his arms.
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“Easy!" cried Lo, lurching forward, as an accursed truck
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in front of us, its backside carbuncles pulsating, stopped at a
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crossing.
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If we did not get to the hotel soon, immediatclv, miracu-
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lously. in the very next block. 1 felt I would lose all control
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over the Haze jalopy with its ineffectual wipers and whimsical
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t-.Lcs; but the passers-by I applied to for directions were
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fctlicr strangers themselves or asked with a frown "Enchanted
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107
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what? ’ as if I were a madman; or else they went into such
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complicated explanations, with geometrical gestures, geograph-
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ical generalities and strictly local clues (. . . then bear south
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after you hit the courthouse . . .) that I could not help
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losing my way in the maze of their well-meaning gibberish.
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Lo, whose lovely prismatic entrails had already digested the
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sweetmeat, was looking forward to a big meal and had begun
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to fidget. As to me, although I had long become used to a
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kind of secondary fate (McFate's inept secretary, so to speak)
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pettily interfering with the boss's generous magnificent plan
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— to grind and grope through the avenues of Briceland was
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perhaps the most exasperating ordeal I had yet faced. In
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later months I could laugh at my inexperience when recalling
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the obstinate boyish way in which I had concentrated uporr
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that particular inn with its fancy name; for all along our route
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countless motor courts proclaimed their vacancy in neon
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lights, ready to accommodate salesmen, escaped convicts, im-
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potents, family groups, as well as the most corrupt and vig-
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orous couples. Ah, gentle drivers gliding through summer's
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black nights, what frolics, what twists of lust, you might see
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from your impeccable highways if Kumfy Kabins were sud-
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denly drained of their pigments and became as transparent as
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boxes of glassl
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The miracle I hankered for did happen after all. A man
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and a girl, more or less conjoined in a dark car under dripping
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trees, told us we were in the heart of The Park, but had only
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to turn left at the next traffic light and there we would be.
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We did not see any next traffic light — in fact. The Park was as
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black as the sins it concealed — but soon after falling under
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the smooth spell of a nicely graded curve, the travelers be-
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came aware of a diamond glow through the mist, then a gleam
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of lakewater appeared — and there it was, marvelously and in-
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exorably, under spectral trees, at the top of a graveled drive—
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the pale palace of The Enchanted Hunters.
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A row of parked cars, like pigs at a trough, seemed at first
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sight to forbid access; -but then, by magic, a formidable con-
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vertible, resplendent, rubous in the lighted rain, came into
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motion — was energetically backed out by a broad-shouldered
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driver — and we gratefully slipped into the gap it had left. I
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immediately regretted my haste for I noticed that my pre-
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decessor had now taken advantage of a garage-like shelter
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nearby where there was ample space for another car; but I was
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too impatient to follow his example.
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108
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“Wcrwl Looks swank,” remarked my vulgar darling squint-
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ing at the stucco as she crept out into the audible drizzle and
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with a childish hand tweaked loose the frock-fold that had
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stuck in the peach-deft — to quote Robert Browning. Under
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the arch'ghts enlarged replicas of chestnut leaves plunged and
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played on white pillars. 1 unlocked the trunk compartment
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A hunchbacked and hoary Negro in a uniform of sorts took
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our bags and wheeled them slowly into the lobby. It was
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fall of old ladies and clerg ym en. Lolita sank down on her
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haunches to caress a pale-faced, blue-freckled, black-eared
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cocker spaniel swooning on the floral carpet under her hand —
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as who would not, my heart — while I cleared my throat
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through the throng to the desk. There a bald porcine old man
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— everybody was old in that old hotel — examined my features
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with a polite smile, then leisurely produced my (garbled)
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telegram, wrestled with some dark doubts, turned his head
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to look at the clock, and finally said he was very sorry, he
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had held the room with the twin beds till half past six, and
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now it was gone. A religious convention, he said, had clashed
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with a flower show in Briceland, and — “The name,” I said
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coldly, “is not Humberg and not Humbug, but Herbert, I
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mean Humbert, and any room will do, just put in a cot for my
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little daughter. She is teu and very tired.”
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The pink old fellow peered good-naturedly at Lo — stfll
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squatting, listening in profile, lips parted, to what the dog’s
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mistress, an ancient lady swathed in violet veils, was telling
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her from the depths of a cretonne easy chair.
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Whatever doubts the obscene fellow had, they were dis-
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pelled by that blossom-like vision. He said, he might still hare
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a room, had one in fact — with a double bed. As to the cot —
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“Mr. Potts, do we have any cots left?” Potts, also pink and
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bald, with white hairs growing out of his ears and other holes,
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would sec what could be done. He came and spoke while I
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unscrewed my fountain pen. Impatient Humbertl
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"Our double beds arc really triple,” Potts cozily said tucking
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me and my lad in. “One crowded night we had three ladies
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and a child like yours sleep together. I believe one of the ladies
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was a disguised man [my static]. However— would there be a
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rparc cot in 19, Mr, Swine?”
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"I think it went to the Swoons,” said Swine, the initial old-
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down.
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"Well manage somehow,” I
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htcr — but even then, I suppose,
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109
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said. ,c My wife may join us
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, well manage.”
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The two pink pigs were now among my best friends. In the
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slow dear hand of crime I wrote:. Dr. Edgar H. Humbert and
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daughter, 342 Lawn Street, Ramsdale. A key (3421) was half-
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|
shown to me (magician showing object he is about to palm) —
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and handed over to Uncle Tom. Lo, leaving the dog as she
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|
would leave me some day, rose from her haunches; a raindrop
|
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|
fell on Charlotte's grave; a handsome young Negress slipped
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|
open the elevator door, and the doomed child went in fol-
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lowed by her throat-clearing father and crayfish Tom with the
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bags.
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Parody of a hotel corridor. Parody of silence and death.
|
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|
"Say, it's our house number," said cheerful Lo. '
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|
There was a double bed, a mirror, a double bed in the mir-
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ror, a closet door with mirror, a bathroom door ditto, a blue-
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|
dark window, a reflected bed there, the same in the closet
|
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|
mirror, two chairs, a glass-topped table, two bedtables, a dou-
|
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ble bed: a big panel bed, to be exact, with a Tuscan rose
|
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chenille spread, and two frilled, pink-shaded nightlamps, left
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and right.
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I was tempted to place a five-dollar bill in that sepia palm,
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|
but thought the largesse might be misconstrued, so I placed a
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|
quarter. Added another. He withdrew. Click. EnSn sevls.
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|
"Axe we to sleep in one room?” said Lo, her features work-
|
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|
ing in that dynamic way they did — not cross or disgusted
|
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|
(though plain on the brink of it) but just dynamic — when
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|
she wanted to load a question with violent significance.
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“I've asked them to put in a cob Which I’ll use if you like."
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“You are crazy," said Lo.
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“Why, my darling?”
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"Because, my dahrling, when dahrling Mother finds out
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she'll divorce you and strangle me.”
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Just dynamic. Not really taking the matter too seriously.
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“Now look here," I said, sitting down, while she stood, a
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few feet from me, and stared at herself contentedly, not un-
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pleasantly surprised at her own appearance, filling with her
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own rosy sunshine the surprised and pleased closet-door mir-
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ror. _ . .
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“Look here, Lo. Let's settle this once for all. For all practical
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purposes I am your father. I have a feeling of great tenderness
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for you. In your mother’s absence I am responsible for your
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welfare. We are not rich, and while we travel, we shall be
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obliged — we shall be thrown a good deal together. Two people
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sharing one room, inevitably enter into a kind — how shall I
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say — a kind — ”
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110
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through t ' (ficht drcaw- expe® 51 ^ ' ~ ' a bemu^
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sf jSsBS&a'sg jar.
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assess s-jsssrS - * ;
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XS siting arms, ^ n V£nt
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brilliant t>~ crept into njy ^ e rious r nnp ’ j cheap
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.SfrJ.'sss&t^e:—
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s w - * " — “ , 1— —
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a °^Ws fl* totto m,SKS &c wote «>'•"
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t J?W° *“< C*,» *. «a 30 *
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«*■*» SggfSHrfK
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SV:sS.” r »*Syi s s£^, ;
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*S» «““■
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From the bathroom, where it took me quite a time to shift
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back into normal gear for a humdrum purpose, I heard, stand-
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ing, drumming, retaining my breath, my Lolita’s “oo’s” and
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“gee’s” of girlish delight
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She had used the soap only because' it was sample soap.
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“Well, come on, my dear, if you are as hungry as I am.”
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And so to the elevator, daughter swinging her old white
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purse, father walking in front (notabene: never behind, she is
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not a lady). As we stood (now side by side) waiting to be
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taken down, she threw back her head, yawned without re-
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straint and shook her curls.
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'When did they make you get up at that camp?”
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“Half-past — ” she stifled another yawn — “six” — yawn in
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full with a shiver of all her frame. “Half-past,” she repeated,
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her throat filling up again.
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The dining room met us with a smell of fried fat and a
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faded smile. It was a spacious and pretentious place with
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maudlin murals depicting enchanted hunters in various pos-
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tures and states of enchantment amid a medley of pallid ani-
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mals, dryads and trees. A few scattered old ladies, two clergy-
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men, and a man in a sports coat were finishing their meals in
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silence. The dining room closed at nine, and the green-clad,
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poker-faced serving girls were, happily, in a desperate hurry
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to get rid of us.
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“Does not he look exactly, but exactly, like Quilty?” said
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Lo in a soft voice, her sharp brown elbow not pointing, but
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visibly burning to point, at the lone diner in the loud checks,
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in the for comer of the room.
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“Like our fat Ramsdale dentist?”
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Lo arrested the mouthful of water she had just taken, and
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put down her dancing glass.
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“Course not,” she said with a splutter of mirth. “I meant
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the writer fellow in the Dromes ad,”
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Oh, Famel Oh, Femina!
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When the dessert was plunked down — a huge wedge of
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cherry pie for the young lady and vanilla ice cream for her
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protector, most of which she expeditiously added to her pie
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— I produced a small vial containing Papa’s Purple Fills. As I
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look back at those seasick murals, at that strange and mon-
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strous moment, I can only explain my behavior then by the
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mechanism of that dream vacuum wherein revolves a de-
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ranged mind; but at the time, it all seemed quite simple
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and inevitable to me. I glanced around, satisfied myself that
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112
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the last diner had left, removed the stopper, and with the
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utmost deliberation tipped the philter into my palm. I had
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carefully rehearsed before a mirror the gesture of clapping my
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empty hand to my open mouth and swallowing a (fictitious)
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pffl. As I expected, she pounced upon the vial with its plump,
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beautifully colored capsules loaded with Beauty’s Sleep.
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"Bluei” she exclaimed. “Violet blue. What are they made
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of?"
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"Summer sides.’’ I said, "and plums and figs, and the grape-
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blood of emperors.”
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"No, seriously — please."
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"Oh, just Purpills. Vitamin X. Makes one strong as an ox
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or an ax. Want to try' one?”
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Lolita stretched out her hand, nodding vigorously.
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I had hoped the drug would wort fast. It certainly did. She
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had had a long long day, she had gone rowing in the morning
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with Barbara whose sister was Waterfront Director, as the
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adorable accessible nymphet now started to tell me in between
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suppressed palate-humping yawns, growing in volume — oh,
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how fast the magic potion worked! — and had been active in
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other ways too. The mode that had vaguely loomed in her mind
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was, of course, by the time we watertreaded out of the dining
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room, forgotten. As we stood in the elevator, she leaned against
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me, faintly smiling — wouldn’t you like me to tell you? — half
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closing her dark-lidded eyes. "Sleepy, huh?” said Uncle Tom
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who was bringing up the quiet Franco-Irish gentleman and his
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daughter as well as two withered women, experts in roses. They
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looked with sympathy at my frail, tanned, tottering, dazed
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roscdarling. I had almost to carry her into out room. There,
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she sat down on the edge of the bed, swaying a little, speaking
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in dove-dull, long-drawn tones.
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"If T tell you — if I tell you, will you promise [sleepy, so
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sleepy — head lolling, eyes going out), promise you won’t make
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complaints?”
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"Later, Lo. Now go to bed. IT1 leave sou here, and you go to
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bed. Give you ten minutes.”
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"Oh, I’ve been such a disgusting girl,” she went on, shaking
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htr hair, removing with slow fingers a velvet hair ribbon.
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"Lcmmc tell you — ”
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‘Tomorrow, Lo. Go to bed, go to bed — for goodness, sake,
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to bed.”
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I pocketed the key and walked downstairs.
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113
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Gentlewomen of the jetky! Bear with met Allow me to take
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just a tiny bit of your precious time! So this was le grand mo-
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ment. I had left my Lolita still sitting on the edge of the
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abysmal bed, drowsily raising her foot, fumbling at the shoe-
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laces, and showing as she did so the nether side of her thigh
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up to the crotch of her panties — she had always been singularly
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absent-minded, or shameless, or both, in matters of legshow.
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This, then, was the hermetic vision of her which I had locked
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in— after satisfying myself that the door ’ carried no inside
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bolt- The key, with its numbered dangler of carved wood, be-
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came forthwith the weighty sesame to a rapturous and formida-
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ble future. .It was mine, it was part of my hot hairy fist In a
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few minutes — say, twenty, say half-an-hour, siche r ist sichec
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as my uncle Gustave used to say — I would let myself into that
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“342” and find my nympheb my beauty and bride, emprisoned
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in her crystal sleep. Jurorsl If my happiness could have talked,
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it would have filled that genteel hotel with a deafening roar.
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And my only regret today is that I did not quietly deposit
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key “342” at the office, and leave the town, the country, the
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continent, the hemisphere, — indeed, the globe — that very
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same night
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Let me explain. I was not- unduly disturbed by her self-ac-
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cusatory innuendoes. I was still firmly resolved to pursue my
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policy of sparing her purity by operating only in the stealth of
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night, only upon a completely anesthetized little nude. Re-
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straint and reverence were still my motto — even if that “puri-
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ty” (incidentally, thoroughly debunked by modem science)
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had been slightly damaged through some juvenile erotic ex-
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perienee, no doubt homosexual, at that accursed camp of hers.
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Of course, in my old-fashioned, old-world way, I, Jean-Jacques
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Humbert, had taken for granted, when I first met her, that
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she was as unravished as the stereotypical notion of normal
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child” had been since the lamented end of the Ancient World
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b.c. and its fascinating practices. We are not surrounded in
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our enlighted era by little slave flowers that can be casually
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plucked between business and bath as they used to be in the
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days of the Romans; and we do not, as dignified Orientals did
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in still more luxurious times, use tiny entertainers fore and
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aft between the mutton and the rose sherbet The whole
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114
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point is that the old link between the adult world and the
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child world has been completely severed nowadays by new
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customs and new laws. Despite my having dabbled in psy-
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chiatry and social work, I really knew very little about chil-
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dren. After all, Lolita was only twelve, and no matter what
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concessions I made to time and place — even bearing in mind
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the crude behavior of American schoolchildren — I still was
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under the impression that whatever went on among those
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brash brats, went on at a later age, and in a different environ-
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ment. Therefore (to retrieve the thread of this explanation)
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the moralist in me by-passed the issue by clinging to conven-
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tional notions of what twelve-year-old girls should be. The
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child therapist in me (a fake, as most of them are — but no
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matter) regurgitated neo-Freudian hash and conjured up a
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dreaming and exaggerating Dolly in the "latency’' period of
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girlhood. Finally, the sensualist in roe (a great and insane
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monster) had no objection to some depravity in his prey. But
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somewhere behind the raging bliss, bewildered shadows con-
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ferred — and not to have heeded them, this is what I regret!
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Human beings, attcndl I should have understood that Lolita
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had already proved to be something quite different from inno-
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cent Annabel, and that the nymphean evil breathing through
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every pore of the fey child that I had prepared for my secret
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delectation, would make the secrecy impossible, and the de-
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lectation lethal. I should have known (by the signs made to
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me by something in Lolita — the real child Lolita or some
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haggard angel behind her back) that nothing but pain and
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horror would result from the expected rapture. Oh, winged
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gentlemen of the jury!
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And she was mine, she was mine, the key was in my fist, my
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fist was in my pocket, she was mine. In the course of the evo-
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cations and schemes to which I had dedicated so many in-
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somnias, I had gradually eliminated all the superfluous blur,
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and by stacking level upon level of translucent vision, had
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evolved a final picture. Naked, except for one sock and her
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charm bracelet, spread-eagled on the bed where my philter
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had felled hd — so I forcglimpsed her; a velvet hair ribbon
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was still clutched in her hand; her honey-brown body, with
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the white negative image of n rudimentary swimsuit patterned
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against her tan, presented to me its pale breastbuds; in the
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row lamplight, a little pubic fio«s glistened on its plump
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hillock. The cold key with its warm w-ooden addendum was
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in my pocket.
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I wandered through various public rooms, glcrv below,
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115
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gloom above: for the look of Inst always is gloomy; lust is
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never quite sure — even when the velvety victim is locked up
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in one’s dungeon — that some rival devil or influential god
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may still not abolish one’s prepared triumph. In common
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parlance, I needed a drink; but there was no barroom in that
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venerable place full of perspiring phflistines and period objects.
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I drifted to the Men’s Room. There, a person in clerical
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black — a “hearty party” comme on dit — checking with the
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assistance of Vienna, if it was still there, inquired of me how
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- 1 had liked Dr. Boyd's talk, and looked puzzled when I (King
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Sigmund the Second) said Boyd was quite a boy. Upon which,
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I neatly chucked the tissue paper I had been wiping my sensi-
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tive finger tips with into the receptacle provided for it, and
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sallied lobbyward. Comfortably resting my elbows on the
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counter, I asked Mr. Potts was he quite sure my wife had
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not telephoned, and what about that cot? He answered she
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had not (she was dead, of course) and the cot would he in-
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stalled tomorrow if we decided to stay on. From a big crowded
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place called The Hunters’ Hall came a sound of many voices
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|
discussing horticulture or eternity. Another room, called The
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Raspberry Room, all bathed in light, with bright little tables
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and a large one with “refreshments,” was still empty exrept
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for a hostess (that type of worn woman with a glassy stnfle
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and Charlotte's manner of speaking); she floated up to me
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to ask if I was Mr. Braddock, because if so, Miss Beard had
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been looking for me. “What a name for a woman,” I said
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and strolled away.
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In and out of my heart flowed my rainbow blood. I would
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give her till half-past-nine. Going back to the lobby, I found
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there a change: a number of people in floral dresses or black
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cloth had formed little groups here and there, and some elfish
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chance offered me the sight of a delightful child of Lolita’s age,
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in Lolita’s type of frock, but pure white, and there was a white
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ribbon in her black hair. She was not pretty, but she was a
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nymphet, and hex ivory pale legs and lily neck formed for one
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memorable moment a most pleasurable antiphony (in terms of
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spinal music) to my desire for Lolita, brown and pink, flushed
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and fouled. The pale child noticed my gaze (which was really
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quite casual and debonair), and being ridiculously self-con-
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scious, lost countenance completely, rolling her eyes and put-
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ting the back of her hand to her cheek, and pulling at the hem
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of her skirt, and finally turning her thin mobile shoulder blades
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to me in specious chat with her cow-like mother.
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116
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I left the loud lobby and stood outside, on the white steps,
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looking at the hundreds of powdered bugs wheeling around
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the lamps in the soggy black night, full of ripple and stir. AH
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I would do— all I would dare to do— would amount to such a
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trifle ...
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Suddenly I was aware that in the darkness next to me there
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was somebody sitting in a chair on the pillared porch. I could
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not really see him. but what gave him away was the rasp of a
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screwing oS, then a discreet gurgle, then the final note of a
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placid screwing on. I was about to move away when his voice
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addressed me:
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“Where the devil did you get her?”
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"I beg your pardon?”
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"I said: the weather is getting better."
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“Seems so.”
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“Who’s the lassie?”
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“My daughter."
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“You lie — she’s not”
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"1 beg your pardon?”
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“I said: July was hot Where's her mother?”
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“Dead.”
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“I see. Sorry. By the way, why don’t you two lunch with
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me tomorrow. That dreadful crowd will be gone by then.”
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‘We’ll be gone too. Good night”
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“Sorry. I’m pretty drunk. Good night That child of yours
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needs a lot of sleep. Sleep is a rose, as the Persians say. Smoke?”
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“Not now.”
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He struck a light, but because he was drunk, or because the
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wind was, the flame illumined not him but another person, a
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very old man, one of those permanent guests of old hotels —
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and his white rocker. Nobody said anything and the darkness
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returned to its initial place. Then I heard the old-rimer cough
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and deliver himself of some sepulchral mucus.
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I left the porch. At least half an hour in all had elapsed. I
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ought to have asked for a sip. The strain was beginning to tdl.
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If a violin string can ache, then I was that string. But it would ;
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have been unseemly to display any hurry. As I made my way
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through a constellation of fixed people in one comer of the !
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lobby, there came a blinding flash — and beaming Dr. Brnddock, j
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two orchid-omamcntnlired matrons, the smalf rid in white, !
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and presumable the bared teeth of Humbert Humbert sidling
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between the bridclikc Irssic and the enchanted cleric, were im-
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mortalized— insofar as the texture and print of small-town
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117
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newspapers can be deemed, immortal. A twittering group had
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gathered near the elevator. I again chose the stairs. 342 was
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near the fire escape. One could still — but the key was already
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in the - lock, and then I was in the room.
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29
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The door of the lighted bathroom stood ajar; in addition to
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that, a skeleton glow came through the Venetian blind from
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the outside arclights; these intercrossed rays penetrated the
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darkness of the bedroom and revealed the following situation.
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Clothed in one of her old nightgowns, my Lolita lay on her
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side with her back to me, in the middle of the bed. Her lightly
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veiled body and bare limbs formed a Z. She had put both
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pillows under her dark tousled head; a band of pale light
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crossed her top vertebrae.
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I seemed to have shed my clothes and slipped into pajamas
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with the kind of fantastic instantaneousness which, is implied
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when in a cinematographic scene the process of changing is
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cut; and I had already placed my knee on the edge of the bed
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when Lolita turned her head and stared at me through the
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striped shadows.
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Now this was something the intruder had not expected. The
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whole pill-spiel (a rather sordid affair, entre nous soit d it) had
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had for object a' fastness of sleep that a whole regiment would
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not have disturbed, and here she was staring at me, and thickly
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calling me “Barbara.” Barbara, , wearing my pajamas which
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were much too tight for her, remained poised motionless over
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the little sleep-talker. Softly, with a hopeless sigh, Dolly turned
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away, resuming her initial position. For at least two minutes
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I waited and strained on the brink, like that tailor with his
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homemade parachute forty years ago when about to jump from
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the Eiffel Tower. Her faint breathing had the rhythm of
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sleep. Finally I heaved myself onto my narrow margin of bed,
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stealthily pulled at the odds and ends of sheets piled up to
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the south of my stone-cold heels — and Lolita lifted her head
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and gaped at me.
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As I learned later from a helpful pharmaceutist, the purple
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pill did not even belong to the big and noble family of barbitu-
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118
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rates, and though it might have induced sleep in s neurotic
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who believed it to be a potent drug, it was too mOd a sedative
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to affect for any length of time a wary, albeit weary, nymphet
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Whether the Ramsdale doctor was a charlatan or a shrewd old
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rogue, does not, and did not, really matter. What mattered was
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that I had been deceived. When Lolita opened her eyes again,
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I realized that whether or not the drug might work later in the
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night, the security I had relied upon was a sham one. Slowly
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her head turned away and dropped onto her unfair amount of
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pillow. I lay quite still on my brink, peering at ber rumpled
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hair, at the glimmer of nymphet flesh, where half a haunch
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and half a shoulder dimly showed, and trying to gauge the
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depth of her sleep by the rate of her respiration. Some time
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passed, nothing changed, and I decided I might risk getting a
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little closer to that lovely and maddening glimmer; but hardly
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bad I moved into its warm purlieus than her breathing was
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suspended, and I had the odious feeling that little Dolores
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was wide awake and would explode in screams if I touched
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her with any part of my wretchedness. Please, reader: no mat-
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ter your exasperation with the tenderhearted, morbidly sensi-
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tive, infinitely circumspect hero of my book, do not skip these
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essential pages! Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not
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imagine me; try to discern the doe in me, trembling in the
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forest of my own iniquity; let's even smile a little. After all,
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there is no harm in smiling. For instance (I almost wrote
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"frinsfance"), I had no place to rest my head, and a fit of
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heartburn (they call those fries 'Trench,” grand DieuI) was
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added to my discomfort
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She was again fast asleep, my nymphet, but still I did not
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dare to launch upon my enchanted voyage. La Peb'teDormcusc
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ou P Am ant Ridicule. Tomorrow I would stuff her with those
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earlier pills that had so thoroughly numbed her mummy. In
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the glove compartment — or in the Gladstone bag? Should I
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wait 3 solid hour and then creep up again? The science of
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nympholcpsv is a precise science. Actual contact would do it in
|
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one second fiat An interspace of a millimeter would do it in
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ten. Let us wait
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There is nothing louder than an American hotel; and. mind
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you. this was supposed to be a quiet cozy, old-fashioned,
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|
homey place — "gracious living” and all that stuff. The clatter
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of the elevator’s gate — some twenty surds northeast cf my
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bead but as dearly perceived as if it w-ere inside my left temple
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— alternated with the binging and booming of the machine’s
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119
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various evolutions and lasted well beyond midnight Every
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now and then, immediately east of my left ear (always as-
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suming I lay on my bach, not daring to direct my viler side
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toward the nebulous haunch of my bed-mate), the corridor
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would brim with cheerful, resonant and inept exclamations
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ending in a volley of good-nights. When that stopped, a toilet
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immediately north of my cerebellum took over. It was a
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manly, energetic, deep-throated toilet and it was used many
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times. Its gurgle and gush and long afterflow shook the wall
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behind me. Then someone in a southern direction was ex-
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travagantly sick, almost coughing out his life with his liquor,
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and his toilet descended like a veritable Niagara, immediately
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|
beyond our bathroom. And when finally all the waterfalls had
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stopped, and the enchanted hunters were sound asleep, the
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avenue under the window of my insomnia, to the west of my
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wake — a staid, eminently residential, dignified alley of huge
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trees — degenerated into the despicable haunt of gigantic tracks
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|
roaring through the wet and windy night. '
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And less than six inches from me and my burning life, was
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nebulous Lolita! After a long stirless vigil, my tentacles moved
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|
towards her again, and this time the creak of the mattress did
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not awake her. I managed to bring my ravenous bulk so close
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to her that I felt the aura of her bare shoulder like a warm
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breath upon my cheek. And then, she sat up, gasped, muttered
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with insane rapidity something about boats, tugged at the
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sheets and lapsed back into her rich, dark, young unconscious-
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ness. As she tossed, within that abundant flow of sleep, recently
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auburn, at present lunar, her arm struck me across the face.
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For a second I held her. She freed herself from the shadow
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of my embrace — doing this not consciously, not violently, not
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with any personal distaste, but with the neutral plaintive
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|
murmur of a child demanding its natural rest. And again the
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|
situation remained the same: Lolita with her curved spine
|
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|
to Humbert, Humbert resting his head on his hand and burn-
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ing with desire and dyspepsia.
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The latter necessitated a trip to the bathroom for a draft of
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water which is the best medicine I know in my case, except
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perhaps milk wath radishes; and when I re-entered the strange
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pale-striped fastness where. Lolita’s old and new.' clothes re-
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clined in various attitudes of enchantment on pieces of furni-
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ture that seemed vaguely afloat, my impossible daughter sat up
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and in clear tones demanded a drink, too. She took the resilient
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and cold paper cup in her shadowy hand and gulped down its
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120
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contents gratefully, her long eyelashes pointing cupwatd, and
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then, with an infantile gesture that carried more charm than
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any carnal caress, little Lolita wiped her lips against my shoul-
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der. She fell bach on her pillow (I had subtracted mine while
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she dranh) and was instantly asleep again.
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I had not dared o6er her a second helping of the drug, and
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had not abandoned hope that the first might still consolidate
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her sleep. I started to move toward her, ready for any disap-
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pointment, knowing I had better wait but incapable of wait-
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|
ing. My pillow smelled of her hair. I moved toward my glim-
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mering darling, stopping or retreating every time I thought
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she stirred or was about to stir. A breeze from wonderland had
|
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begun to affect my thoughts, and now they seemed couched
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in italics, as if the surface reflecting them were wrinkled by the
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phantasm of that breeze. Time and again my consciousness
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folded the wrong way, my shuffling body entered the sphere
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of sleep, shuffled out again, and once or twice I caught myself
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drifting into a melancholy snore. Mists of tenderness enfolded
|
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|
mountains of longing. Now and then it seemed to me that
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the enchanted prey was about to meet halfway the enchanted
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hunter, that her haunch was working its way toward me under
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the soft sand of a remote and fabulous beach: and then her
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dimpled dimness would stir, and I would know she was farther
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away from me than ever.
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If I dwell at some length on the tremors and groping; of that
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distant night, it is because 1 insist upon proring that 1 am not,
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|
and never was, and never could have been, a brutal scoundrel.
|
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|
The gentle and dreamy regions through which I crept were
|
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|
the patrimonies of poets — not crime’s prowling ground. Had 1
|
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|
reached my goal, my ecstasy would have been all softness, a
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|
case of internal combustion of which she would hardly have
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|
felt the heat, even if she were wide awake. But 1 still hoped she
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might gradually be engulfed in a completeness of stupor that
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|
would allow me to taste more than a glimmer of her. And so,
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|
in between tentative approximations, with a confusion of per-
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|
ception metamorphosing her into eyespots g{ moonlight or a
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|
fluffy flowering bush, I would dream I renamed consciousness,
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dream I lay in wait.
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|
In the first antemeridian hours there was a lull in the restless
|
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|
hole, night. Then around four the corridor toilet cascaded nr.d
|
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|
its door banged. A little after five a reverberating monologue
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|
.pm to . mve. in several installments, teem some courtverd
|
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|
or pu'rir.g place. It was not rcallv a monclrcuc, since tlm
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121
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speaker stopped every few seconds to listen (presumably) to f
|
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|
another fellow, but that other voice did not reach me, and 1
|
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|
|
so no real meaning could be derived from the part heard. Its :
|
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|
|
matter-of-fact intonations, however, helped to bring in the 1
|
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|
|
dawn, and the room was already suffused with lilac gray, when
|
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|
|
several industrious toilets went to work, one after the other,
|
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|
and the clattering and whining elevator began to rise and take ■
|
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|
|
down early risers and downers, and for some minutes I miser-
|
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|
|
ably dozed, and Charlotte was a mermaid in a greenish tank,
|
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|
|
and somewhere in the passage Dr. Boyd said “Good morning
|
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|
|
to you” in a fruity voice, and birds were busy in the trees, and
|
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|
then Lolita yawned.
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Frigid gentlewomen of the jury! I had thought that months,
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perhaps years, would elapse before I dared to reveal myself to
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Dolores Haze; but by six she was wide awake, and by six fifteen
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we were technically lovers. I am going to tell you something
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very strange: it was she who seduced me.
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Upon hearing her first morning yawn, I feigned handsome
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profiled sleep. I just did not know what to do. Would she be
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shocked at finding me by her side, and not in some spare bed?
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Would she collect her clothes and lock herself up in the bath-
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room? Would she demand to be taken at once to Rams dale—
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to her mother's bedside — back to camp? But my Lo was a
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sportive lassie. I felt her eyes on me, and when she uttered at
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last that beloved chortling note of hers, I knew her eyes had
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been laughing. She rolled over to my side, and her warm brown
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hair came against my collarbone. I gave a mediocre imitation
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of waking up. We lay quietly. I gently caressed her hair, and
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we gently kissed. Her kiss, to my delirious embarrassment, had
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some rather comical refinements of flutter and probe which
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made me conclude she had been coached atnn early age by a
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little Lesbian. No Charlie boy could have taught her that As
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if to see whether I had my fill and learned the lesson, she drew
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away and surveyed me. Her cheekbones were flushed, her full
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underlip glistened, my dissolution was near. All at once, with
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a burst of rough glee (the sign of the nymphet!), she put her
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mouth to my ear — but for quite a while my mind could not
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separate into words the hot thunder of her whisper, and she
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laughed, and brushed the hair off her face, and tried again, and
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gradually the odd sense of living in a brand new, mad new
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dream world, where everything was permissible, came over me
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as I realized what she was suggesting. I answered I did not
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know what game she and Charlie had played. “You mean you
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122
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have never — •?” — her features twisted into a stare of disgusted
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incredulity. “You have never — ” she started again. I took time
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out by n uzzlin g her a little. “Lay off, will you," she said with
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a twangy whine, hastily removing her brown shoulder from
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my lips. (It was very curious the way she considered — and
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kept doing so for a long time — all caresses except kisses on the
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mouth or the stark act of love either “romantic slosh” or
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“abnormal".)
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“You mean,” she persisted, now kneeling above me, "yon
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never did it when you were a kid?”
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“Never,” I answered quite truthfully.
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“Okay,” said Lolita, ''here is where we start”
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However, I shall not bore my learned readers with a detailed
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account of Lolita’s presumption. Suffice it to say that not a
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trace of modesty did I perceive in this beautiful hardly formed
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young girl whom modem co-education, juvenile mores, the
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campfire racket and so forth had utterly and hopelessly de-
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praved. She saw the stark act merely as part of a youngster’s
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furtive world, unknown to adults. What adults did for pur-
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poses of procreation was no business of hers. My life was
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bandied by little Lo in an energetic, matter-of-fact manner
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as if it were an insensate gadget unconnected with me. While
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eager to impress me with the world of tough lads, she was
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not quite prepared for certain discrepancies between a kid’s
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life and mine. Pride alone prevented her from giving up; for,
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in my strange predicament, I feigned supreme stupidity and
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bad "her have her way — at least while I could still bear it. But
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really- these are irrelevant matters; I am not concerned with
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so-called “sex” at all. Anybody can imagine those elements
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of animality. A greater endeavor lures me on: to fix once for
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all the perilous magic of nymphets.
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30
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I have to tread carefully. I have to speak m a whisper. Oh
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you, veteran crime reporter, you grave old usher, you once
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popular policeman, now in solitary confinement after gracing
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that school crossing for years, you wretched emeritus read to by
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a boyl It would never do, would it, to have you fellows fail
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123
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madly in love with my Lolita! Had I been a painter, had the
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management of The Enchanted Hunters lost its mind one
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su mm er day and commissioned me to redecorate their dining
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room with murals of my own making, this is what I might have
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thought up, let me list some fragments:
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There would have been a lake. There would have been an
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arbor in flame-flower. There would have been nature studies —
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a tiger pursuing a bird of paradise, a choking snake sheathing
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whole the flayed trunk of a shoat. There would have been a
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sultan, his face expressing great agony (belied, as it were, by
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his molding caress), helping a callypygean slave child to climb
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a column of onyx. There would have been those luminous
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globules of gonadal glow that travel up the opalescent sides of
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juke boxes. There would have been aD lands of camp activities
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on the part of the intermediate group. Canoeing, Coranting,
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Combing Curls in the lakeside sun. There would have been
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poplars, apples, a suburban Sunday. There would have been a
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fire opal dissolving within a ripple-ringed pool, a last throb, a
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last dab of color, stinging red, smarting pink, a sigh, a wincing
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child.
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I am trying to describe these things not to relive them in
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my present boundless misery, but to sort out the portion of
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hell and the portion of heaven in that strange, awful, madden-
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ing world — nymphet love. The beastly and beautiful merged at
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one point, and it is that borderline I would like to fix, and I
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feel I fail to do so utterly. Why?
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The stipulation of the Roman law, according to which a girl
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may marry at twelve, was adopted by the Church, and is still
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preserved, rather tacitly, in some of the United States. And
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fifteen is lawful everywhere. There is nothing wrong, say both
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hemispheres, when a brute of forty, blessed by the local priest
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and bloated with drink, sheds his sweat-drenched finery and
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thrusts himself up to the hilt into his youthful bride. “In such
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stimulating temperate climates [says an old magazine in this
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prison library] as St Louis, Chicago and Cincinnati, girls
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124
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mature about the end of their twelfth year.” Dolores Haze was
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bom less than three hundred miles from stimulating Cin-
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cinnati. I have but followed nature. I am nature's faithful
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hound. Why then this horror that I cannot shake off? Did I
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deprive her of her flower? Sensitive gentlewomen of the jury,
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I was not even her first lover.
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32
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She toed me the way she had been debauched. We ate flavor-
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less mealy bananas, bruised peaches and very palatable potato
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chips, and die Kleine told me everything. Her voluble but dis-
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jointed account was accompanied by many a droll moue. As I
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think I have already observed, I especially remember one wry
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face on an “ughl” basis: jelly-mouth distended sideways and
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eyes rolled up in a routine blend of comic disgust, resignation
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and tolerance for young frailty.
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Her astounding tale started with an introductory mention of
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her tent-mate of the previous summer, at another camp, a “very
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select” one as she put it That tent-mate ("quite a derelict
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character,” “half-crazy,” but a “swell kid’’) instructed her in
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various manipulations. At first; loyal Lo refused to tell me
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her name.
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“Was it Grace Angel?” I asked. .
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She shook her head. No, it wasn’t, it was the daughter of a
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big shot. He —
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“Was it perhaps Rose Carmine?”
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"No, of course, not Her father — ”
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"Was it, then, Agnes Sheridan, perchance?”
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She swallowed and shook her head — and then did a double
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take.
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“Say, how come you know all those kids?”
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I explained.
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Well,” she said. “They are pretty bad, some of that school
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bunch, but not that bad. If you have to know, her name was
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Elizabeth Talbot, she goes now to a swanky private school,
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her father is an executive.”
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I recalled with a funny pang the frequency with which poor
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125
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Charlotte used to introduce into party chat such elegant tid-
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bits as “when my daughter was out hiking last year with the
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Talbot girl.”
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I wanted to know if either mother had learned of those
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Sapphic diversions?
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“Gosh no,” exhaled limp Lo mimicking dread and relief,
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pressing a falsely fluttering hand to her chest.
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I was more interested, however, in heterosexual experience.
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She had entered the sixth grade at eleven, soon after moving
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to Ramsdale from the Middle West. What did she mean by
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“pretty bad”?
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Well, the Miranda twins had shared the same bed for years,
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and Donald Scott, who was the dumbest boy in the school,
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had done it with Hazel Smith in his uncle's garage, and Ken-
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neth Knight — who was the brightest— -used to exhibit himself
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wherever and whenever he had a chance, and —
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“Let us switch to Camp Q,” I said. And presently I got the
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whole story.
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Barbara Burke, a sturdy blond, two years older than Lo and
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by far the camp’s best swimmer, had a very special canoe
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'which she shared with Lo “because I was the only other girl
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who could make Willow Island” (some swimming test, I
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imagine) . Through July, every morning — mark, reader, every
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blessed morning — Barbara and Lo would be helped to carry the
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boat to Onyx or Eryx (two small lakes in the wood ) by Charlie
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Holmes, the camp mistress' son, aged thirteen — and the only
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human male for a couple of miles around (excepting an old
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meek stone-deaf handyman, and a farmer in an old Ford who
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sometimes sold the campers eggs as farmers will); every morn-
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ing, oh my reader, the three children would take a short cut
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through the beautiful innocent forest brimming with all the
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emblems of youth, dew, birdsongs, and at one point, among
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the luxuriant undergrowth, Lo would be left as sentinel, while
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Barbara and the boy copulated behind a bush.
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At first, Lo had refused “to try what it was like,’' but
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curiosity and camaraderie prevailed, and soon she and Barbara
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were doing it by turns with the silent, coarse and surly but
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indefatigable Charlie, who had as much sex appeal as a raw
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carrot but sported a fascinating collection of contraceptives
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which he used to fish out of a third nearby lake, a consider-
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ably larger and more populous one, called Lake Climax, after
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the booming young factory town of that name. Although
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conceding it was “sort of fun” and “fine for the complexion,”
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126
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Lolita, I am glad to say, held Charlie's mind and manners m
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the greatest contempt Nor had her temperament been roused
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by that filthy fiend. In fact, I think he had rather stunned it,
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despite the "fun.” , . , .
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By that time it was close to ten. With the ebb of lust, an
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ashen sense of awfulness, abetted by the realistic -drabness of
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a gray nearalgic day, crept over me and bummed within my
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temples. Brown, naked, frail Lo, her narrow white buttocks
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to me, her sulky face to a door mirror, stood, aims akimbo,
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feet (in new slippers with pussy-fur tops) wide apart, and
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through a forehanging lock tritely mugged at herself in the
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glass. From the corridor came the cooing voices of colored
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maids at work, and presently there was a mild attempt to open
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the door of our room. I had Lo go to the bathroom and take
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a much-needed soap shower. The bed was a frightful mess
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with overtones of potato chips. She tried on a two-piece navy
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wool, then a sleeveless blouse with a swirly clathrate skirt, but
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the first was too tight and the second too ample, and when
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I begged her to hurry up (the situation was beginning to
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frighten me) , Lo viciously sent those nice presents of mine
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hurtling into a corner, and put on yesterday’ s dress. When
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she was ready at last, I gave her a lovely new purse of simulated
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calf (in which I had slipped quite a few pennies and two mint-
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bright dimes) and told her to buy herself a magazine in the
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lobby.
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"Ill be down in a minute,” I said. “And if I were you, my
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dear, I would not talk to strangers.”
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Except for my poor little gifts, there was not much to pack;
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but I was forced to devote a dangerous amount of time (was
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she up to something downstairs? ) to arranging the bed in sucb
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a way as to suggest the abandoned nest of a restless father
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and his tomboy daughter, instead of an ex-convict’s saturnalia
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with a couple of fat old whores. Then I finished dressing and
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had the hoary bellboy come up for the bags.
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Ever ything was fine. There, in the lobby, she sat, deep in an
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oyerstuffed blood-red armchair, deep in a lurid movie maga-
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zine. A fellow of my age in tweeds (the genre of the place
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had changed overnight to a spurious country-squire atmos-
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phere) was staring at my Lolita over his dead cigar and stale
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newspaper. She wore her professional white socks and saddle
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oxfords, and that bright print frock with the square throat a
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splash of jaded lamplight brought out the golden down on her
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warm brown limbs. There she sat, her legs carelessly high-
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127
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crossed, and her pale eyes swimming along the lines rath
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every now and then a blink. Bill’s wife had worshipped him
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from afar long before they ever met: in fact, she used to
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secretly admire the famous young actor as he ate sundaes in
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Schwob's drugstore. Nothing could have been more childish
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than her snubbed nose, freckled face or the purplish spot on
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her naked neck where a fairytale vampire had feasted, or the
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unconscious movement of her tongue exploring a touch of
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rosy rash around her swollen lips; nothing could be more harm-
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less than to read about JH1, an energetic starlet who made her
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own clothes and was a student of serious literature; nothing
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could be more innocent than the part in that glossy brown
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hair with that silky sheen on the temple; nothing could be
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more naive — But what sickening envy the lecherous fellow
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whoever he was — come to think of it, he resembled a little
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my Swiss uncle Gustave, also a great admirer of le dScouvert —
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would have experienced had he known that every nerve in me
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was stiH anointed and ringed with the feel of her body — the
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body of some immortal daemon disguised as a female child.
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Was pink pig Mr. Swoon absolutely sure my wife had not
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telephoned? He was. If she did, would he tell her we had
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'gone on to Aunt Clare’s place? He would, indeedie. I settled
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the bill and roused Lo from her chair. She read to the car.
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Still reading, she was driven to a so-called coffee shop a few
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blocks south. Oh, she ate all right. She even laid aside her
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magazine to eat, bnt a queer dullness had replaced her usual
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cheerfulness. I knew little Lo could be very nasty, so I braced
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myself and grinned, and waited for a squall. I was unbathed,
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unshaven, and had had no bowel movement. My nerves were
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a-jangle. I did not like the way my little mistress shrugged
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her shoulders and distended her nostrils when I attempted
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casual small talk. Had Phyllis been in the know before she
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joined her parents in Maine? I asked with a smile. "Look,”
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said Lo making a weeping grimace, “let us get off the sub-
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ject” I then tried — also unsuccessfully, no matter how I
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smacked my lips — to interest her in the road map. Our desti-
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nation was, let me remind my patient reader whose meek
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temper Lo ought to have copied, the gay town of LepingviHe,
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somewhere near a hypothetical hospital. That destination was
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in itself a perfectly arbitrary one (as, alas, so many were to be),
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and I shook in my shoes as I wondered how to keep the whole
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arrangement plausible, and what other plausible objectives
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to invent after we had taken in all the movies in Lepingville.
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128
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More and more uncomfortable did Humbert feel. It ■was
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something quite special, that feeling: an oppressive, hideous
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constraint as if I were sitting with the small ghost of some-
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body I had just killed.
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As she was in the act of getting back into the car, an ex-
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pression of pain flitted across Lo’s face. It flitted again, more
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meaningfully, as she settled down beside me. No doubt, she
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reproduced it that second time for my benefit. Foolishly, I
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asked her what was the matter. “Nothing, you brute,” she re-
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plied. “You what?” I asked. She was silent. Leaving Briceland.
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Loquacious Lo was silent Cold spiders of panic crawled down
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my back. This was an orphan. This was a lone child, an ab-
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solute waif, with whom a heavy-limbed, foul-smelling adult
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had had strenuous intercourse three times that very morning.
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Whether or not the realization of a lifelong dream had sur-
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passed all expectation, it had, in a sense, overshot its mark —
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and plunged into a nightmare. I had been careless, stupid, and
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ignoble. And let me be quite frank: somewhere at the bottom
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of that dark turmoil I felt the writhing of desire again, so
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monstrous was my appetite for that miserable nymphet.
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Mingled with the pangs of guilt was the agonizing thought
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that her mood might prevent me from making love to her
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again as soon as I found a nice country road where to park
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in peace. In other words, poor Humbert Humbert was dread-
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fully unhappy, and while steadily and inanely driving toward
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Lepingville, he kept racking his brains for some quip, under
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the bright wing of which he might dare turn to his seatmate.
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It was she, however, who broke the silence:
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“Oh, a squashed squirrel,” she said. “What a shame.”
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‘Tfes, isn't it?” (eager, hopeful Hum).
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“Let us stop at the next gas station,” Lo continued. **I want
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to go to the washroom.”
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‘We shall stop wherever you want,” I said. And then as a
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lovely, lonely, supercilious grove (oaks, I thought; American
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trees at that stage were beyond me) started to echo greenly
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the rush of our car, a red and ferny road on our right turned
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its head before slanting into the woodland, and I suggested
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we might perhaps —
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"Drive on,” my Lo cried shrilly.
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"Righto. Take it easy.” (Down, poor beast, down.)
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I glanced at her. Thank God, the child was smiling.
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“You chump,” she said, sweetly smiling at me. “You revolt-
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ing creature, I was a daisy-fresh girl, and look what you’ve
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129
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done to me. I ought to call the police and tell them yon raped
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me. Oh you, dirty, dirty old man/'
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Was she joking? An ominous hysterical note rang through
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her silly words. Presently, making a sizzling sound with her
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lips, she started complaining of pains, said she could not sit,
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said I had tom something inride her. The sweat rolled down
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my neck, and we almost rah over some little animal or other
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that was crossing the road with tail erect, and again my vfle-
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tempered companion called me an ugly name. When we
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stopped at the filing station, she scrambled out without a
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word and was a long time away. Slowly, lovingly, an elderly
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friend with a broken nose, wiped my windshield — they do it
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differently at every place, from chamois cloth to soapy brush,
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this fellow used a pink sponge.
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She appeared at last. “Look,” she said in that neutral voice
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that hurt me so, “give me some dimes and nickels. I want to
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call mother in that hospital. What’s the number?”
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“Get in,” I said. “You can’t call that number.”
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“Why?”
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“Get in and slam the door.”
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She got in and slammed the door. The old garage man
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beamed at her. I swung onto the highway. *
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'Why can’t I call my mother if I want to?”
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“Because,” I answered, “your mother is dead.”
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In the gat town of Lepingville I bought her four books of
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comics, a box of candy, a box of sanitary pads, two cokes, a
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manicure set, a travel clock with a luminous dial, a ring with a
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real topaz, a tennis racket, roller skates with white high shoes,
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field glasses, a portable radio set, chewing gum, a transparent
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raincoat, sunglasses, some more garments— swooners, shorts,
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all kinds of summer frocks. At the hotel we had separate
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rooms, but in the middle of the night she came sobbing into
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mine, and we made it up very gently. You see, she bad abso-
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lutely nowhere else to go.
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130
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Part Two
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1
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It was then that began our extensive travels all over the
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States. To any other type of tourist accommodation I soon
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grew to prefer the Functional Motel — dean, neat, safe nooks,
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ideal places for sleep, argument, reconciliation, insatiable illicit
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love. At first, in my dread of arousing suspicion, I would ea-
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gerly pay for both sections of one double unit, each containing
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a double bed. I wondered what type of foursome this arrange-
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ment was ever intended for, since only a pharisaic parody of
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privacy could be attained by means of the incomplete partition
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diriding the cabin or room into two communicating love nests.
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By and by, the very possibilities that such honest promiscuity
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suggested (two young couples merrily swapping mates or a
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child shamming sleep to earwitness primal sonorities) made me
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bolder, and every now and then I would take a bed-and-cot
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or twin-bed cabin, a prison cell of paradise, with yellow window
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shades pulled down to create a morning illusion of Venice and
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sunshine when actually it was Pennsylvania and rain.
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We came to know — nous eonnumes, to use a Flaubertian
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intonation — the stone cottages under enormous Chateaubrian-
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133
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desque trees, the brick unit, the adobe unit, the stucco court,
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on what the Tour Book of the Automobile Association de-
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scribes as “shaded” or “spacious” or 'landscaped” grounds.
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The log kind, finished in knotty pine, reminded Lo, by its
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golden-brown glaze, of fried-chicken bones. We held in con-
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tempt the plain whitewashed clapboard Kabins, with their
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faint sewerish smell or some other gloomy self-conscious stench
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and nothing to boast of (except “good beds”), and an un-
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smiling landlady always prepared to have her gift (“. . . well,
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I could give you . . .”) turned down.
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Nous connhmes (this is royal fun) the would-be entice-
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ments of their repetitious names — all those Sunset Motels,
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U-Beam Cottages, Hillcrest Courts, Pine View' Courts, Moun-
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tain View Courts, Skyline Courts, Park Plaza Courts, Green
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Acres, Mac’s Courts. There was sometimes a special line in
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_the_ write-up, such as “Children welcome, pets allowed” (You I
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are welcome, you are allowed). The baths were mostly tiled
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showers, vrith an endless variety of spouting mechanisms,
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but with one definitely non-Laodicean characteristic in com-
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mon, a propensity, while in use, to turn instantly beastly hot or
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blindingly cold upon you, depending on whether your neigh-
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bor turned on his cold or his hot to deprive you of a necessary
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complement in the shower you had so carefully blended. Some
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motels had instructions pasted above the toilet (on whose
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.tank the towels were unhygienically heaped) asking guests
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not to throw into its bowl garbage, beer cans, cartons, still-
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bom babies; others had special notices under glass, such as
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Things to Do (Riding: You wall often see riders coming down
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Main Street on their way back from a romantic moonlight
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ride. “Often at 3 a.m.,” sneered unromantic Lo).
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Nous connfim es the various types of motor court operators,
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the reformed criminal, the retired teacher and the business
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flop, among the males; and the motherly, pseudo-ladylike
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and madamic variants among the females. And sometimes
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trains would cry in the monstrously hot and humid night with
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heartrending and ominous plangency, mingling power and
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hysteria in one desperate scream.
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We avoided Tourist Homes, country cousins of Funeral
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ones, old-fashioned, genteel and showerless, with elaborate
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dressing tables in depressingly white-and-pink little bedrooms,
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and photographs of the landlady’s children in all their instars.
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But I did surrender, now r and then, to Lo’s predilection for
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‘real” hotels. She would pick out in the book, while I petted
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134
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her in the parted car in the silence of a dash-mellowed, mys-
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E terious side-road, some highly recommended lake lodge which
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c ofiered all sorts of things magnified by the flashlight she moved
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ill over them, such as congenial company, between-meals snacks,
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outdoor barbecues— but which in my mind conjured up odious
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i: visions of stinking high school boys in sweatshirts and an em-
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:: ber-red cheek pressing against hers, while poor Dr. Humbert,
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k embracing nothing but two masculine knees, would cold-
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humor his piles on the damp turf. Most tempting to her,
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too, were those “Colonial” Inns, which apart from “gracious
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~ atmosphere” and picture windows, promised "unlimited
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- quantities of M-m-m food.” Treasured recollections of my
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£ father’s palatial hotel sometimes led me to seek for its like
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& in the strange country we traveled through. I was soon dis-
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e couraged; but Lo kept following the scent of rich food ads,
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while I derived a not exclusively economic kick from such
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- roadside signs as Timber Hotel, Children under 14 Free.
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~ On the other hand, I shudder when recalling that soi-disant
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- "high-class” resort in a Midwestern state, which advertised
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-■ "raid-the-icebox” midnight snacks and, intrigued by my ao-
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? cent, wanted to know my dead wife’s and dead mother’s
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~ maiden names. A two-days’ stay there cost me a hundred and
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: twenty-four dollars! And do you remember, Miranda, that
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’ other “ultrasmart” robbers’ den with complimentary morning
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* coffee and circulating ice water, and no children under six-
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- teen (no Lolitas, of course)?
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1 Immediately upon arrival at one of the plainer motor
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' courts which became our habitual haunts, she would set the
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: electric fan a-whirr, or induce me to drop a quarter into the
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radio, or she would read all the signs and inquire with a whine
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- why she could not go riding up some advertised trail or
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swimming in that local pool of warm mineral water. Most
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often, in the slouching, bored way she cultivated, Lo would
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fall prostrate and abominably desirable into a red springchair
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or a green chaise longue, or a steamer chair of striped canvas
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with footrest and canopy, or a sling chair, or any other lawn
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chair under a garden umbrella on the patio, and it would
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fake hours of blandishments, threats and promises to make
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her lend me for a few seconds her brown limbs in the se-
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clusion of the five-dollar room before undertaking anything
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she might prefer to my poor joy,
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A combination of naTvetd and deception, of charm and vul-
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garity, of blue sulks and rosy mirth, Lolita, when she chose,
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135
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could be a most exasperating brat. I was not really quite pre-
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pared for her fits of disorganized boredom, intense and ve-
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hement griping, her sprawling, droopy, dopey-eyed style, and
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what is called goofing off — a kind of diffused clowning which ■
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she thought was tough in a boyish hoodlum way. Mentally,
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I found her to be a disgustingly conventional little girl. Sweet
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hot jazz, square dancing, gooey fudge sundaes, musicals, movie
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magazines and so forth— these were the obvious items in
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her list of beloved things. The Lord knows how many nickels
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I fed to the gorgeous music boxes that came with every meal
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we had! I still hear the nasal voices of those invisibles serenad-
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ing her, people with names like Sammy and Jo and Eddy and
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Tony and Peggy and Guy and Patty and Rex, and sentimental
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song hits, all of them as similar to my ears as her various
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candies were to my palate. She believed, with a kind of celestial
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trust, any advertisement or advice that appeared in Movie
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Love or Screen Land — Starasil Starves Pimples, or “You bet-
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ter watch out if you're wearing your shirttails outside your
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jeans, gals, because Jill says you shouldn’t." If a roadside sign
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said: Visit Our Gift Shop — we had to visit it, had to buy its
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Indian curios, dolls, copper jewelry, cactus candy. The words
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“novelties and souvenirs” simply entranced her by their tro-
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chaic lilt. If some cafd sign proclaimed Icecold Drinks, she
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was automatically stirred, although all drinks everywhere were
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ice-cold. She it was to whom ads were dedicated: the ideal
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consumer, the subject and object of every foul poster. And she
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attempted — unsuccessfully — to patronize only those restau-
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rants where the holy spirit of Huncan Dines had descended
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upon the cute paper, napkins and cottage-cheese-crested salads.
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. In those days, neither she nor I had thought up yet the sys-
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tem of monetary bribes which was to work such havoc with
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my nerves and her morals somewhat later. I relied on three
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other methods to keep my pubescent concubine in submis-
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sion and passable temper. A few years before, she had spent
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a rainy summer under Miss Phalen's bleary eye in a dilapi-
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dated Appalachian farmhouse that had belonged to some
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gnarled Haze or other in the dead past. It still stood among
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its rank acres of goldenrod on the edge of a flowerless forest,
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at the end of a permanently muddy road, twenty miles from
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the nearest hamlet Lo recalled that scarecrow of a house,
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the solitude, the soggy old pastures, the wind, the bloated
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wilderness, -with an energy of disgust that distorted her mouth
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and fattened her half-revealed tongue. And it was there that
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136
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I warned her she would dwell with me in exile for months
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and years if need be, studying under me French and Latin,
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unless her "present attitude” changed. Charlotte, 1 began to
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understand youl
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A simple child, Lo would scream nol and frantically dutch
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at my driving hand whenever I put a stop to her tornadoes of
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temper by turning in the middle of a highway with the im-
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plication that I was about to take her straight to that dark
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and dismal abode. The farther, however, we traveled away
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from it west, -the less tangible that menace became, and I had
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to adopt other methods of persuasion.
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Among these, the reformatory threat is the one I recall with
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the deepest moan of shame. From the very beginning of our
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concourse, I was clever enough to realize that I must secure
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her complete co-operation in keeping our relations secret, that
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it should become a second nature with her, no matter what
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grudge she might bear me, no matter what other pleasures
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she might seek.
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"Come and kiss your old man,” I would say, "and drop
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that moody nonsense. In former times, when I was still your
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dream male [the reader will notice what pains I took to speak
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Lo’s tongue , you swooned to records of the number one
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throb-and-sob idols of your coevals [Lo: "Of my what? Speak
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English”]. That idol of your pals sounded, you thought, like
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friend Humbert. But now, I am just your old man, a dream
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dad protecting his dream daughter.
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"My chbre Dolor dsl I want to protect you, dear, from all
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the horrors that happen to little girls in coal sheds and alley
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ways, and, alas, comme vous le savez trop bien, ma gen tide, in
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the blueberry woods during the bluest of summers. Through
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thick and thin I will still stay your guardian, and if you are
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good, I hope a court may legalize that guardianship before
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long. Let us, however, forget, Dolores Haze, so-called legal
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terminology, terminology that accepts as rational the term
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*Iewd and lascivious cohabitation.' I am not a criminal sexual
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psychopath taking indecent liberties with a child. The rapist
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was Charlie Holmes; I am the therapist — a matter of nice
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spacing in the way of distinction, I am your daddum, Lo.
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Look, I've a learned book here about young girls. Look, dar-
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ling, what it says. I quote: the normal girl — normal, mark
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you — the normal girl is usually extremely anxious to please
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her father. She feels in him the forerunner of the desired
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elusive male (‘elusive’ is good, by Polonius!) . The wise mother
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137
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(and your poor mother would have been wise, had she lived)
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will encourage a companionship between father and daughter,
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realizing — excuse the comy style — that the girl forms her
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ideals of romance and of men from her association with her
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father. Now, what association does this cheery book mean — '
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and recommend? I quote again: Among Sicilians sexual rela-
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tions between a father and his daughter are accepted as a
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matter of course, and the girl who participates in such rela-
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tionship is not looked upon with disapproval by the society of
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which she is part. I'm a great admirer of Sicilians, fine athletes,
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fine musicians, fine upright people, Lo, and great lovers. But
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let’s not digress. Only the other day we read in the news-
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papers some bunkum about a middle-aged morals offender
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who pleaded guilty to the violation of the Mann act and to
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transporting a nine-year-old girl across state lines for immoral
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purposes, whatever these are. Dolores darh'ngl You are not
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nine but almost thirteen, and I would not advise you to con-
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sider yourself my cross-country slave, and I deplore the Mann
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act as lending jtself to a dreadful pun, the revenge that the
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Gods of Semantics take against b'ght-zippered Philistines.
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I am your father, and I am speaking English, and I love you.
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“Finally, let us see what happens if you, a minor, accused
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of having impaired the morals of an adult in a respectable inn,
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what happens if you complain to the police of my having kid-
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naped and raped you? Let us suppose they believe you. A
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minor female, who allows a person over twenty-one to know
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her carnally, involves her victim into statutory rape, or second-
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degree sodomy, depending on the technique; and the maxi-
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mum penalty is ten years. So I go to jail. Okay. I go to jail.
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But what happens to you, my orphan? Well, you are luclder.
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You become the ward of the Department of Public Welfare —
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which I am afraid sounds a little bleak. A nice grim matron
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of the Miss Phalen type, but more rigid and not a drinking
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woman,' will take away your lipstick and fancy clothes. No
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more gadding aboutl I don’t know if you have ever heard of
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the law's relating to dependent, neglected, incorrigible and
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delinquent children. While I stand gripping the bars, you,
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happy neglected child, will be given a choice of various dwell-
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ing places, all more or less the same, the correctional school,
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the reformatory, the juvenile detention home, or one of those
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admirable girls’ protectories where you knit things, and sing
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hymns, and have rancid pancakes on Sundays. You will go
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there, Lolita — my Lolita, this Lolita will leave her Catullus
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138
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and go there, as the wayward girl you are. In plainer words, if
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we two are found out, you will be analyzed and institutional-
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ized, my pet, c'est tout. You will dwell, my Lolita will dwell
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(come here, my brown flower) with thirty-nine other dopes in
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a dirty dormitory (no, allow me, please) under the supervision
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of hideous matrons. This is the situation, this is the choice.
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Don’t you think that under the circumstances Dolores Haze
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had better stick to her old man?”
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By rubbing all this in, I succeeded in terrorizing Lo, who
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despite a certain brash alertness of manner and spurts of wit
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was not as intelligent a child as her I.Q. might suggest. But
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if I managed to establish that background of shared secrecy
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and shared guilt, I was much less successful in keeping her in
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good humor. Every morning during our yearlong travels I had
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to devise some expectation, some special point in space and
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time for her to look forward to, for her to survive till bedtime.
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Otherwise, deprived of a shaping and sustaining purpose, the
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skeleton of her day sagged and collapsed. The object in view
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might be anything — a lighthouse in Virginia, a natural cavdin
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Arkansas converted to a caf£, a collection of guns and violins
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somewhere in Oklahoma, a replica of the Grotto of Lourdes
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in Louisiana, shabby photographs . of the bonanza mining
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period in the local museum of a Rocky Mountain resort, any-
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thing whatsoever — but it had to be there, in front of us, like a
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fixed star, although as likely as not Lo would feign gagging '
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as soon as we got to it.
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By putting the geography of the United States into motion,
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I did my best for hours on end to give her the impression of
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"going places,” of rolling on to some definite destination, to
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some unusual delight. I have never seen such smooth amiable
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roads as those that now radiated before us, across the crazy
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quilt of forty -eight states. Voraciously we consumed those
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long highways, in rapt silence we glided over their glossy black
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dance floors. Not only had Lo no eye for scenery but she
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furiously resented my calling her attention to this or that
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enchanting detail of landscape; which I myself learned to dis-
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cern only after being exposed for quite a time to the delicate
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beauty ever present in the margin of our undeserving journey.
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By a paradox of pictorial thought, the average lowland North-
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Amcrican countryside had at first seemed to me something
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I accepted with a shock of amused recognition because of
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those painted oilcloths which were imported from America
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m the old days to be hung above vasbstands in Central-
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139
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European nurseries, and which fascinated a drowsy child at
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bed time with the rustic green views they depicted— opaque
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curly trees, a bam, cattle, a brook, the dull white of vague
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orchards in bloom, and perhaps a stone fence or hills of
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greenish gouache. But gradually the models of those ele-
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mentary rusticities became stranger and stranger to the eye,
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the nearer I came to know them., .Beyond the tilled plain,
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beyond the toy roofs, there would be a slow suffusion of inutile
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loveliness, a low sun in a platinum haze with a warm, peeled-
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peach tinge pervading the upper edge of a two-dimensional,
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dove-gray cloud fusing with the distant amorous mist. There
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might be a line of spaced trees silhouetted against the horizon,
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and hot still noons above a wilderness of clover, and Claude
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Lorrain clouds inscribed remotely into misty azure with only
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their cumulus part conspicious against the neutral swoon of
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the background. Or again, it might be a stem El Greco hori-
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zon, pregnant with inky rain, and a passing glimpse of some
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mummy-necked farmer, and all around alternating strips of
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quick-silverish water and harsh green com, the whole arrange-
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ment opening like a fan, somewhere in Kansas.
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Now and then, in the vastness of those plains, huge trees
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would advance toward us to cluster self-consciously by the
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roadside and provide a bit of humanitarian shade above a pic-
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nic table, with sun flecks, flattened paper cups, samaras and
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discarded ice-cream sticks littering the brown ground. A great
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user of roadside facilities, my unfastidious Lo would be
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charmed by toilet signs — Guys-Gals, John-Jane, Jack-Jill and
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even Buck’s-Doe's; while lost in an artist's dream, I would
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stare at the honest brightness of the gasoline paraphernalia
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against the splendid green of oaks, or at a distant hill scram-
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bling out — scarred but still untamed — from the wilderness
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of agriculture that was trying to swallow it.
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At night, tall trucks studded with colored lights, like dread-
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ful giant Christmas trees, loomed in the darkness and thun-
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dered by the belated little sedan. And again next day a thinly
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populated sky, losing its blue to the heat, would melt over-
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head, and Lo would clamor for a drink, and her cheeks would
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hollow vigorously over the straw, and the car inside would be
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a furnace when we got in again, and the road shimmered
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ahead, with a remote car changing its shape mirage-like in the
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surface glare, and seeming to hang for a moment, old-fash-
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ionedly square and high, in the hot haze. And as we pushed
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westward, patches of what the garage-man called “sage brush”
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140
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appeared, and then the mysterious outlines of table-like hills,
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and the red bluffs ink-blotted with junipers, and then a moun-
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tain range, dun grading into blue, and blue into dream, and
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the desert would meet us with a steady gale, dust, gray thorn
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bushes, and hideous bits of tissue paper mimicking pale flow-
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ers among the prickles of wind-tortured withered stalks all
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along the highway; in the middle of which there sometimes
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stood simple cows, immobilized in a position (tail left, white
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eyelashes right) cutting across all human rules of traffic.
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My lawyer has suggested I give a clear, frank account of the
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itinerary we followed, and I suppose I have reached here a
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point where I cannot avoid that chore. Roughly, during that
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mad year (August 1947 to August 1948), our route began
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with a series of waggles and whorls in New England, then
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meandered south, up and down, east and west; dipped deep
|
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|
into ce qu’on appelle Dixieland, avoided Florida because the
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|
Farlow's were there, veered west, zigzagged through com belts
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and cotton belts (this is not too clear I am afraid, Clarence,
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|
but I did not keep any notes, and have at my disposal only an
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|
atrociously crippled tour book in three volumes, almost a
|
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|
symbol of my tom and tattered past, in which to check these
|
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|
|
recollections); crossed and recrossed the Rockies, straggled
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through southern deserts where we wintered; reached the
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Pacific, turned north through the pale lilac fluff of flowering
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|
shrubs along forest roads; almost reached the Canadian border;
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|
and proceeded east, across good lands and had lands, back to
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|
agriculture on a grand scale, avoiding, despite little Lo’s
|
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|
strident remonstrations, little Lo’s birthplace, in a com, coal
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|
and hog producing area; and finally returned to the fold of
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the East, petering out in the college towm of Beardsley.
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. 2
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Now, rs- perusing what follows, the reader should hear in
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|
|
mind not only the general circuit as adumbrated above, with
|
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|
|
its many sidetrips and tourist traps, secondary circles and skit-
|
|
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|
|
tish deviations, but also the fact that far from being an
|
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|
|
indolent parfie de plaisir, our tour was a hard, twisted, teleo-
|
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|
logical growth, whose sole raison d’etre (these French cliches
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141
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are symptomatic) was to keep my companion in passable
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humor from kiss to kiss.
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Thumbing through that battered tour book, I dimly evoke
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that Magnolia Garden in a southern state which cost me four
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bucks and which, according to the ad in the book, you must
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visit for three reasons: because John Galsworthy (a stone-
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dead writer of sorts) acclaimed it as the world’s fairest garden;
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because in 1900 Baedeker’s Guide had marked it with a star;
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and finally, because . . . O, Reader, My Reader, guess! . . .
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because children (and by Jingo was not my Lolita a childl ) will
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“walk starry-eyed and reverently through this foretaste of
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Heaven, drinking in beauty that can influence a life.” “Not
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mine,” said grim Lo, and settled down on a bench with the
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fillings of two Sunday papers in her lovely lap.
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We passed and re-passed through the whole gamut of
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American roadside restaurants, from the lowly Eat with its
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deer head (dark trace of long tear at inner canthus), "humor-
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ous” picture post cards of the posterior “Kurort” type, impaled
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guest checks, life savers, sunglasses, adman visions of celestial
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sundaes, one half of a chocolate cake under glass, and several
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horribly experienced flies zigzagging over the sticky sugar-
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pour on the ignoble counter; and all the way to the expensive
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place with the subdued lights, preposterously poor table linen,
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inept waiters (ex-convicts or college boys), the roan back of a
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screen actress, the sable eyebrows of her male of the moment,
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and an orchestra of zoot-suiters with trumpets.
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We inspected the world’s largest stalagmite in a cave where
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three southeastern states have a family reunion; admission by
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age; adults one dollar, pubescents sixty cents. A granite obelisk
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commemorating the Battle of Blue Licks, with old bones and
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Indian pottery in the museum nearby, Lo a dime, very reason-
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able. The present log cabin boldly simulating the past log
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cabin where Lincoln was bom. A boulder, with a plaque, in
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memory of the author of "Trees” (by now we are in Poplar
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Cove, N.C., reached by what my kind, tolerant, usually so
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restrained tour book angrily calls “a very narrow road, poorly
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maintained,” to which, though no Kihnerite, I subscribe).
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From a hired motorboat operated by an elderly, but still
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repulsively handsome White Russian, a baron they said (Lo’s
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palms were damp, the little fool), who had known in Cali-
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fornia, good old Maximovich and Valeria, we could distinguish
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the inaccessible "millionaires’ colony” on an island, somewhere
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off the Georgia coast. We inspected further: a collection of
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142
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European hotel picture post cards in a museum devoted to
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hobbies at a Mississippi resort, where with a hot wave of pride
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I discovered a colored photo of my father’ s Mirana, its striped
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awnings, its flag flying above the retouched palm trees. “So
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what?” said Lo, squinting at the bronzed owner of an ex-
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pensive car who had followed us into the Hobby House. Relics
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of the cotton era. A forest in Arkansas and, on her brown
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shoulder, a raised purple-pink swelling (the work of some
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gnat) which I eased of its beautiful transparent poison between
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my long thumbnails and then sucked tfll I was gorged on her
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spicy blood. Bourbon street (in a town named New Orleans)
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whose sidewalks, said the tour book, "may [I liked the ‘may 1 ]
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feature entertainment by pickaninnies'who will [I liked the
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'will' even better] tap-dance for pennies ” (what run), while
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“its numerous small and intimate night clubs are thronged
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with visitors” (naughty). Collections of frontier lore. Ante-
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bellum homes with iron-trellis balconies and hand-w’orked
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stairs, the land down which movie ladies with sun-kissed
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shoulders mn in rich Technicolor, holding up the fronts of
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their flounced skirts with both little hands in that special way,
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and the devoted Negress shaking her head on the upper land-
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ing. The Menninger Foundation, a psychiatric clinic, just for
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the heck of it A patch of beautifully eroded clay; and yucca
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blossoms, so pure, so waxy, but lousy with creeping white flies.
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Independence, Missouri, the starting point of the Old Oregon
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Trail; and Abilene, Kansas, the home of the Wild Bill Some-
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thing Rodeo. Distant mountains. Near mountains. More
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mountains; bluish beauties never attainable, or ever turning
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into inhabited hill after Ml; south-eastern ranges, altitudinal
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failures as alps go; heart and sky-piercing snow-veined gray
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colossi of stone, relentless peaks appearing from nowhere at a l
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turn of the highway; timbered enormities, with a system of l
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neatly overlapping dark firs, interrupted in places by pale j
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puffs of aspen; pink and lilac formations, Pharaonic, phallic, [
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“too prehistoric for words” (blas6 Lo); buttes of black lava; j
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early spring mountains with young-elephant lanugo along their )
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spines; end-of-the-summer mountains, all hunched up, their ('
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heavy Egyptian limbs folded under folds of tawny moth-eaten j
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plush; oatmeal hills, flecked with green round oaks; a last {.
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rufous mountain with a rich rug of lucerne at its foot
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. Moreover, we inspected: Little Iceberg Lake, somewhere
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m Colorado, and the snow banks, and the cushionets of tiny t
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alpine flowers, and more snow, down which Lo in red-peaked (
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143 i
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cap tried to slide, and squealed, and was snowballed by some
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youngsters, and retaliated in ldnd comme on dit. Skeletons
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of burned aspens, patches of spired blue flowers. The various
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items of a scenic drive. Hundreds of scenic drives, thousands
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of Bear Creeks, Soda Springs, Painted Canyons. Texas, a
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drought-struck plain. Crystal Chamber in the longest cave in
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the world, children under 12 free, Lo a young captive. A col-
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lection of a local lady’s homemade sculptures, closed on a
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miserable Monday morning, dust, wind, witherland. Concep-
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tion Park, in a town on the Mexican border which I dared not
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cross. There and elsewhere, hundreds of gray hummingbirds
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in the dusk, probing the throats of dim flowers. Shakespeare,
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a ghost town in New Mexico, where bad man Russian Bill
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was colorfully hanged seventy years ago. Fish hatcheries. Cliff
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dwellings. The mummy of a child (Florentine Bea’s Indian
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contemporary). Our twentieth Hell’s Canyon. Our fiftieth
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Gateway to something or other fide that tour book, the cover
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of which had been lost by that time. A tick in my groin. Al-
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ways the same three old men, in hats and suspenders, idling
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away the summer afternoon under the trees near the public
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fountain. A hazy blue view beyond railings on a mountain
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pass, and the backs of a family enjoying it (with Lo, in a hot,
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happy, wild, intense, hopeful, hopeless whisper — “Look, the
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McCrystals, please, let's talk to them, please” — let's talk to
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them, readerl — “please! I'll do anything you want, oh,
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please . . .”). Indian ceremonial dances, strictly commercial.
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ART: American Refrigerator Transit Company. Obvious
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Arizona, pueblo dwellings, aboriginal pictogxaphs, a dinosaur
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track in a desert canyon, printed there thirty million years ago,
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when I was a child. A lanky, six-foot, pale boy with an active
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Adam's apple, ogling Lo and her orange-brown bare midriff,
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which I kissed five minutes later. Jack. Winter in the desert,
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spring in the foothills, almonds in bloom. Reno, a dreary town
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in Nevada, with a nightlife said to be “cosmopolitan and
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mature.” A winery in California, with a church built in the
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shape of a wine barrel. Death Valley. Scotty’s Castle. Works
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of Art collected by one Rogers over a period of years. The
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ugly villas of handsome actresses. R. L. Stevenson’s footprint
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on an extinct volcano. Mission Dolores: good title for book.
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Surf-carved sandstone festoons. A man having a lavish epileptic
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fit on the ground in Russian Gulch State Park. Blue, blue
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Crater Lake. A fish hatchery in Idaho and the State Peniten-
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tiary. Somber Yellowstone Park and its colored hot springs,
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144
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baby geysers, rainbows of bubbling mud— symbols of my pas- j
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sion. A herd of antelopes in a wildlife refuge. Our hundredth
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cavern, adults one dollar, Lolita fifty cents. A chateau built
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by a French marquess in N.D. The Com Palace in SJD.; and
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the huge heads of presidents carved in towering granite. The
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Bearded Woman read our jingle and now she is no longer
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single. A zoo in Indiana where a large troop of monkeys lived
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on concrete replica of Christopher Columbus’ flagship. Bil-
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lions of dead, or halfdead, fish-smelling May flies in every
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window of every' eating place all along a dreary sandy shore. >
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Fat gulls on big stones as seen from the ferry City of Che-
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boygan, whose brown woolly smoke arched and dipped over
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the green shadow it cast on the aquamarine lake. A motel
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whose ventilator pipe passed under the city sewer. Lincoln’s
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home, largely spurious, with parlor books and period furniture
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that most visitors reverently accepted as personal belongings. j
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We had rows, minor and major. The biggest ones we had |
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took place: at Lacework Cabins, Virginia; on Park Avenue, j
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Little Rock, near a school; on Milner Pass, 10,759 feet high, [
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in Colorado; at the comer of Seventh Street and Central j
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Avenue in Phoenix, Arizona; on Third Street, Los Angeles, |
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because the tickets to some studio or other were sold out; j
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at a motel called Poplar Shade in Utah, where six pubescent [
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trees were scarcely taller than my Lolita, and where she asked, |
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& propos de rien, how long did I think we were going to live j
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in stuffy cabins, doing filthy things together and never be- j
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having like ordinary people? On N. Broadway, Bums, Oregon, j
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comer of W. Washington, feeing Safeway, a grocery. In some j
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little town in the Sun Valley of Idaho, before a brick hotel, [
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pale and flushed bricks nicely mixed, with opposite, a poplar j
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playing its liquid shadows all over the local Honor Roll. In a •
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sage brush wilderness, between Pinedale and Farson. Some- f
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where in Nebraska, on Main Street, near the First National r
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Bank, established 1889, with a view of a railway crossing in £
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the vista of the street, and beyond that the white organ pipes j
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of a multiple silo. And on McEwen St, comer of Wheaton j
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Ave., in a Michigan town bearing his first name.
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We came to know the curious roadside species. Hitchhiking t
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Man, Homo pollex of science, with all its many sub-species and l
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forms: the modest soldier, spic and span, quietly waiting, qni- ?:
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cth conscious of khaki s viatic appeal; the schoolbov wishing to .J
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go two blocks; the killer wishing to go two thousand miles; the f-
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mystenous, nervous, elderly' gent, with brand-new suitcase and |
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i
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clipped mustache; a trio of optimistic Mexicans; the college
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student displaying the grime of vacational outdoor work as
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proudly as the name of the famous college arching across the
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front of his sweatshirt; the desperate lady whose battery has
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just died on her; the clean-cut, glossy-haired, shifty-eyed, white-
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faced young beasts in loud shirts and coats, vigorously, almost
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priapically thrusting out tense thumbs to tempt lone women
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or sadsack salesmen with fancy cravings.
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“Let’s take him,” Lo would often plead, rubbing her knees
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together in a way she had, as some particularly disgusting pol-
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Jex, some man of my age and shoulder breadth, with the face
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d claques of an unemployed actor, walked backwards, practical-
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ly in the path of our car.
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Oh, I had to keep a very sharp eye on Lo, little limp.Lol
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Owing perhaps to constant amorous exercise, she radiated, de-
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spite her very childish appearance, some special , languorous
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glow which threw garage fellows, hotel pages, vacationists,
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goons in luxurious cars, maroon morons near blued pools, into
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fits of concupiscence which might have ticlded my pride, had it
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not incensed my jealousy. For little Lo was aware of that glow
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of hers, and I would often catch her coulant un regard in the
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direction of some amiable male, some grease monkey, with a
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sinewy golden-brown forearm and watch-braceleted wrist, and
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hardly had I turned my back to go and buy this very Lo a
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lollipop, than I would hear her and the fair mechanic burst
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into a perfect love song of wisecracks.
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When, during our longer stops, I would relax after a par-
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ticularly violent morning in bed, and out of the goodness of my
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lulled heart .allow her — indulgent HumI — to visit the rose gar-
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den or children's library across the street with a motor court
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neighbor's plain little Mary and Mary’s eight-year old brother,
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Lo would come back an hour late, with barefoot Mary trailing
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far behind, and the little boy metamorphosed into two gan-
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gling, golden-haired high school uglies, all muscles and gonor-
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rhea. The reader may u’ell imagine what I answered my pet
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when — rather uncertainly, I admit — she would ask me if she
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could go with Carl and A1 here to the roller-skating rink.
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I remember the first time, a dusty windy afternoon, I did
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let her go to one such rink. Cruelly she said it w'ould be no fun
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if I accompanied her, since that time of day was reserved for
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teenagers. We wrangled out a compromise: I remained in the
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car, among other (empty) cars with their noses to the canvas-
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topped open-air rink, where some fifty young people, many in
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146
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pairs, were endlessly rolling round and round to mechanical
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music, and the wind silvered the trees. Dolly wore blue jeans
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and white high shoes, as most of the other girls did. I kept
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counting the revolutions of the rolling crowd — and suddenly
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she was missing. When she rolled past again, she was together
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with three hoodlums whom I had heard analyze a moment be-
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fore the girl skaters from the outside — and jeer at a lovely leggy
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young thing who had arrived clad in red shorts instead of those
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jeans or slacks.
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At inspection stations on highways entering Arizona or Cali-
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fornia, a policeman’s cousin would peer with such intensity at
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us that my poor heart wobbled. “Any honey?” he would in-
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quire, and every time my sweet fool giggled. I still have, vibrat-
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ing all along my optic nerve, visions of Lo on horseback, a link
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in the chain of a guided trip along a bridle trail: Lo bobbing at
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a walking pace, with an old woman rider in front and a lech-
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erous red-necked dude-rancher behind; and I behind him,
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hating his fat flowery-shirted back even more fervently than a
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motorist does a slow track 'on a mountain road. Or else, at a
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ski lodge, I would see her floating away from me, celestial and
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solitary, in an ethereal chairlift, up and up, to a glittering sum-
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mit where laughing athletes stripped to the waist were waiting
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for her, for her.
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In whatever town we stopped I would inquire, in my polite
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European way, anent the whereabouts of natatoriums, muse-
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ums, local schools, the number of children in the nearest school
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and so forth; and at school bus time, smiling and twitching a
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little (I discovered this tic nerveux because cruel Lo was the
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first to mimic it) , I would park at a strategic point, with my
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vagrant schoolgirl beside me in the car, to watch the children
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leave school — always a pretty sight. This sort of thing soon
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began to bore my so easily bored Lolita, and, having a childish
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lack of sympathy for other people's whims, she would insult
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me and my desire to have her caress me while blue-eyed little
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brunettes in blue shorts, copperheads in green boleros, and
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blurred boyish blondes in faded slacks passed by in the sun.
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As a sort of compromise, I freely advocated whenever and
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wherever possible the use of swimming pools with other girl
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children. She adored brilliant water and was a remarkably
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diver. Comfortably Tobed, I would settle down in the
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rich post-meridian shade after my own demure dip, and there I
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would sit, with a dummy book or a bag of bonbons, or both, or
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nothing but my tingling glands, and watch her gambol, rabber-
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M7
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capped, bepearled, smoothly tanned, as glad as. an ad, in bet
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trim-fitted satin pants and shirred bra. Pubescent sweetheart!
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How. smugly would I marvel that she was mine, mine, mine,
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and revise the recent matitudinal swoon to the moan of the
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mourning doves, and devise the late afternoon one, and slitting
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my sun-speared eyes, compare Lolita to whatever other nymph-
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ets parsimonious chance collected around her for my antho-
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logical delectation and judgment; and today, putting my hand
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on my ailing heart, I really do not think that any of them ever
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surpassed her in desirability, or if they did, it was so two or
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three times at the most, in a certain light, with certain per-
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fumes blended in the air — once in the hopeless case of a pale
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Spanish child, the daughter of a heavy-jawed nobleman, and
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another time — ma is je divague.
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Naturally, I had to be always wary, fully realizing, in my
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lucid jealousy, the danger of those dazzling romps. I had only
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to turn away for a moment — to walk, say, a few steps in order
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to see if our cabin was at last ready after the morning change of
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linen — and Lo and Behold, upon returning, I would find the
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former, les yeux perdus, dipping and kicking her long-toed feet
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in the water on the stone edge of which she lolled, while on
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either side of her, there crouched a brun adolescent whom
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her russet beauty and the quicksilver in the baby folds of her
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stomach were sure to cause to se toidie — oh Baudelaire! — in
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recurrent^ dreams fonnonths to come.
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I tried to teach her to play tennis so we might have more
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amusements in common; but although I had been a good
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player in my prime, I proved to be hopeless as a teacher, and
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so, in California, I got her to take a number of very expensive
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lessons with a famous coach, a husky, wrinkled old-timer, with
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a harem of ball boys; he looked an awful wreck off the court,
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but now and then, when, in the course of a lesson, to keep up
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the exchange, he would put out as it were an exquisite spring
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blossom of a stroke and twang the ball back to his pupil, that
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divine delicacy of absolute power made me recall that, thirty
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years before, I had seen him in Cannes demolish the great
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Gobert! Until she began taking those lessons, I thought she
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would never learn the game. On this or that hotel court I
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would drill Lo, and try to relive the days when in a hot gale, a
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daze of dust, and queer lassitude, I fed ball after ball to gay,
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innocent, elegant Annabel (gleam of bracelet, pleated white
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skirt, black velvet hair band). With every word of persistent
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advice I would only augment Lo's sullen fury. To our games,
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148
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oddly enough, she preferred— at least, before -we reached Cali-
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fornia-formless pat ball approximations— more ball hunting
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than actual play — with a wispy, weak, wonderfully pretty in an
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ange gauche way coeval. A helpful spectator, I would go up to
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that other child, and inhale her faint musky fragrance as I
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touched her forearm and held her knobby wrist, and push this
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way or that her cool thigh to show her the back-hand stance.
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In the meantime, Lo, bending forward, would let her sunny-
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brown curls hang forward as she stuck her racket, like a crip-
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ple's stick, into the ground and emitted a tremendous ugh of
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disgust at my intrusion. I would leave them to their game and
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look on, comparing their bodies in motion, a sQk scarf round
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my throat; this was in south Arizona, I think — and the days
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had a lazy lining of warmth, and awlward Lo would slash at
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the ball and miss it, and curse, and send a simulacrum of a
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serve into the net, and show the wet glistening young down of
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her armpit as she brandished her racket in despair, and her
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even more insipid partner would dutifully rush out after every
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ball, and retrieve none; but both were enjoying themselves
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beautifully, and in clear ringing tones kept the exact score
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of their ineptitudes all the time.
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One day, I remember, I offered to bring them cold drinks
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from the hotel, and went up the gravel path, and came back
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with two tall glasses of pineapple juice, soda and ice; and then
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a sudden void within my chest made me stop as I saw that the
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tennis court was deserted. I stooped to set down the glasses on
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a bench and for some reason, with a kind of icy vividness, saw
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Charlotte's face in death, and I glanced around, and noticed
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Lo in white shorts receding through the speckled shadow of
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a garden path in the company of a tall man who carried two
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tennis rackets. I sprang after them, but as I was crashing
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through the shrubbery, I saw, in an alternate vision, as if life's
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course constantly branched, Lo, in slacks, and her companion,
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in shorts, trudging up and down a small weedy area, and
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beating bushes with their rackets in listless search for their
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last lost ball
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I itemize these sunny nothings mainly to prove to my judges
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that I did everything in my power to give my Lolita a really
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good time. How charming it was to see her, a child herself,
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showing another child some of her few accomplishments, such
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as for example a special way of jumping rope. With her right
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hand holding her left arm behind her untanned back, the lesser
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nymphet, a diaphanous darling, would be all eyes, as the pavo-
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1-49
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nine sun was all eyes on the gravel under the flowering trees,
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while in the midst of that oculate_ paradise, my freckled and
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raffish lass skipped, repeating the movements of so many others
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I had gloated over on the sun-shot, watered, damp-smelling
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sidewalks and ramparts of ancient Europe. Presently, she
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would hand the rope back to her little Spanish friend, and
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watch in her turn the repeated lesson, and brush away the hair
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from her brow, and fold her arms, and step on one toe with
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the other, or drop her hands loosely upon her still unflared
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hips, and I would satisfy myself that the damned staff had at
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last finished cleaning up our cottage; whereupon, flashing a
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smile to the shy, dark-haired page girl of my princess and
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thrusting my fatherly fingers deep into Lo’s hair from behind,
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and then gently but firmly clasping them around the nape of
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her neck, I would lead my reluctant pet to our small home for
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a quick connection before dinner.
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“Whose cat has scratched poor you?” A full-blown fleshy
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handsome woman of the repulsive type to which I was par-
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ticularly attractive might ask me at the “lodge,” during a table
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d’hdte dinner followed by dancing promised to Lo. This was
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one of the reasons why I tried to keep as far away from people
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as possible, while Lo, on the other hand, would do her utmost
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to draw as many potential witnesses into her orbit as she could.
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She would be, figuratively speaking, wagging her tiny tail,
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her whole behind in fact as little bitches do — while some grin-
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ning stranger accosted us and began a bright conversation with
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a comparative study of license plates. “Long way from home!”
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Inquisitive parents, in order to pump Lo about me, would sug-
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gest her going to a movie with their children. We had some
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close shaves. The waterfall nuisance pursued me of course in
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all our caravansaries. But I never realized how wafery their wall
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substance was until one evening, after I had loved too loudly, a
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neighbor's masculine cough filled the pause as clearly as mine
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would have done; and next morning as I was having breakfast
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at the milk bar (Lo was a late sleeper, and I liked to bring her a
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pot of hot coffee in bed), my neighbor of the eve, an elderly
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fool wearing plain glasses on his long virtuous nose and a con-
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vention badge on his lapel, somehow managed to rig up a con-,
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versation with me, in the course of which he inquired, if my
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missus was like his missus a rather reluctant get-upper when
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not on.the farm; and had not the hideous danger I was skirting
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almost suffocated me, I might have enjoyed the odd look of
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surprise on this thin-lipped weather-beaten face when I drily
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150
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answered that I was thank God a widower.
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How sweet it was to bring that coffee to her, and then deny
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it until she had done her morning duty. And I was such a
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thoughtful friend, such a passionate father, such a good pedi-
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atrician, attending to ah the wants of my little auburn bru-
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nette's bodyl My only grudge against nature was that I could
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not turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips to her
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young matrix, her unknown heart, her nacreous liver, the sea-
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grapes of her lungs, her comely twin kidneys. On especially
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tropical afternoons, in the sticky closeness of the siesta, I liked
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the cool feel of armchair leather against my massive nakedness
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as I held her in my lap. There she would be, a typical kid
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picking her nose while engrossed in the lighter sections of a
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newspaper, as indifferent to my ecstasy as if it were something
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she had sat upon, a shoe, a doll, the handle of a tennis racket,
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and was too indolent to remove. Her eyes would follow the
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adventures of her favorite strip characters: there was one
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well-drawn sloppy bobby-soxer, with high cheekbones and
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angular gestures, that I was not above enjoying myself; sbe
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studied the photographic results of head-on collisions; she
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never doubted the reality of place, time and circumstance
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alleged to match the publicity pictures of naked-thighed beau-
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ties; and sbe was curiously fascinated by the photographs of
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local brides, some in full wedding apparel, holding bouquets
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and wearing glasses.
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A fly would settle and walk in the vicinity of her navel or
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explore her tender pale areolas. She tried to catch it in her fist
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(Charlotte's method) and then would turn to the column
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Let’s Explore Your Mind.
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"Let’s explore your mind. Would sex crimes he reduced if
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children obeyed a few don’ts? Don't play around public toi-
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lets. Don’t take candy or rides from strangers. If picked up,
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mark down the license of the car.”
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". . . and the brand of the candy,” I volunteered.
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She went on, her cheek (recedent) against mine (pursu-
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ant); and this was a good day, mark, O reader!
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"If you don’t have a pencil, but are old enough to read — ”
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“We,” I quip-quoted, "medieval mariners, have placed in
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this bottle — •”
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“If,” she repeated, "you don't have a pencil, hut are old
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enough to read and write — this is what the guy means, isn’t
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it, you dope — scratch the number somehow on the roadside.”
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"With your little claws, Lolita."
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151
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She had entered my world, umber and blacb Humberland,
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with. rash curiosity; she surveyed it with a shrug of amused dis-
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taste; and it seemed to me now that she was ready to turn away
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from it with something akin to plain repulsion. Never did she
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vibrate under my touch, and a strident “what d’you think you
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are doing?” was all I got for my pains. To the wonderland I
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had to offer, my fool preferred the corniest movies, the most
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cloying fudge. To think that between a Hamburger and a
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Humburger, she would — invariably, with icy precision — plump
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for the former. There is nothing more atrociously cruel than
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an adored child. Did I mention the name of that milk bar I
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visited a moment ago? It was of all things. The Frigid Queen.
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Smiling a little sadly, I dubbed her My Frigid Princess. She
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did not see the wistful joke.
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Oh, do not scowl at me, reader, I do not intend to convey
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the impression that I did not manage to be happy. Reader
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must understand that in the possession and thralldom of a
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nymphet the enchanted traveler stands, as it. were, beyond
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happiness. For there is no other bliss on earth comparable
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to that of fondling a nymphet It is hors concerns, that bliss,
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it belongs to another class, another plane of sensitivity. De-
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spite our tiffs, despite her nastiness, despite all the fuss and
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faces she made, and the vulgarity, and the danger, and the
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horrible hopelessness of it all, I still dwelled deep in my elected
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paradise — a paradise whose skies were the color of hell-flames
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— but still a paradise.
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The able psychiatrist who studies my case — and whom by
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now Dr. Humbert has plunged, I trust, into a state of leporine
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fascination — is no doubt anxious to have me take my Lolita to
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the seaside and have me find there, at last, the “gratification”
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of a lifetime urge, and release from the “subconscious” obses-
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sion of an incomplete childhood romance with the initial little
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Miss Lee.
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Well, comrade, let me tell you that I did look for a beach,
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though I also have to confess that by the time we reached its
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mirage of gray water, so many delights had already been grant-
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ed me by my traveling companion that the search for a
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Kingdom by the Sea, a Sublimated Riviera, or whatnot, far
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. 152
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from being the impulse of the subconscious, had become the
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rational pursuit of a purely theoretical thrill. The angels knew
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it, and arranged things accordingly. A visit to a plausible cove
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on the Atlantic side was completely messed up by foul weather.
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A thick damp sky, muddy waves, a sense of boundless but
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somehow' matter-of-fact mist — what could be further removed
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from the crisp charm, the sapphire occasion and rosy’ contin-
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gency of my Riviera romance? A couple of semitropical beaches
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on the Gulf, though bright enough, were starred and spat-
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tered by venomous beasties and swept by hurricane winds.
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Finally, on a Californian beach, facing the phantom of the
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Pacific, I hit upon some rather perverse privacy in a kind of
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a cave whence you could hear the shrieks of a lot of girl scouts
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taking their first surf bath on a separate part of the beach,
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behind rotting trees; but the fog was like a w’et blanket, and
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the sand was gritty and clammy, and Lo was all goosefiesh and
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grit, and for the first time in my life I had as little desire for her
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as for a manatee. Perhaps, my learned readers may perk up if
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I tell them that evCn had we discovered a piece of sympathetic
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seaside somewhere, it would have come too late, since my real
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liberation had occurred much earlier: at the moment, in point
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of feet, when Annabel Haze, alias Dolores Lee, alias Loleeta,
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had appeared to me, golden and brown, kneeling, looking up,
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on that shoddy veranda, in a kind of fictitious, dishonest, but
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eminently satisfactory' seaside arrangement {although there
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was nothing but a second-rate lake in the neighborhood).
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So much for those special sensations, influenced, if not ac-
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tually brought about, by the tenets of modem psychiatry. Con-
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sequently, I turned away — I headed my Lolita away — from
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beaches which were either too bleak when lone, or too pop-
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ulous when ablaze. However, in recollection, I suppose, of my
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hopeless hauntings of public parks in Europe, I was still keenly
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interested in outdoor activities and desirous of finding suitable
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playgrounds in the open where I had suffered such shameful
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privations. Here, too, I was to be thwarted. The disappoint-
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ment I must now register (as I gently grade my story into an
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expression of the continuous risk and dread that ran through
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my bliss) should in no wise reflect on the lyrical, epic, tragic
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but never Arcadian American wilds. They arc beautiful, heart-
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rcndingly beautiful, those wilds, with a quality of wide-eyed,
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unsung, innocent surrender that my lacquered, toy-bright
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Swiss villages and exhaustively Lauded Alps no longer possess.
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Innumerable lovers have clipped and kissed on the trim turf
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153
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of old-world mountainsides, on the innerspring moss, by a
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handy, hygienic rill, on rustic benches under the initialed
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oaks, and in so many cabanes in so many beech forests. But
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. in the Wilds of America the open-air lover will not find it
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easy to indulge in the most ancient of all crimes and pastimes.
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Poisonous plants bum his sweetheart’s buttocks, nameless in-
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sects sting his; sharp items of the forest floor prick his knees,
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insects .hers; and all around there abides a sustained rustle
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of potential snakes — que dis-je, of semi-extinct dragons!—
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while the crablike seeds of ferocious flowers cling, in a hideous
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green crust, to gartered black sock and sloppy wbite sock alike.
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I am exaggerating a little. One summer noon, just below
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timberline, ' where heavenly-hued blossoms that I would fain
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call larkspur crowded all along a purly mountain brook, we did
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find, Lolita and I, a secluded romantic spot, a hundred feet
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or so above the pass where we had left our car. The slope
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seemed untrodden. A last panting pine was taking a well-
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earned breather on the rock it had reached. A marmot whistled
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at us and withdrew. Beneath the lap-robe I had spread for Lo,
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dry flowers crepitated softly. Venus came and went. The jagged
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cliff crowning the upper talus and a tangle of shrubs growing
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below us seemed to offer us protection from sun and man
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alike. Alas, I had not reckoned with a faint side trail that
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curled up in cagey fashion among the shrubs and rocks a few
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feet from us.
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It was then that we came closer to detection than ever
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before, and no wonder the experience curbed forever my yearn-
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ing for rural amours.
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I remember the operation was over, all over, and she was
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weeping in my arms; — a salutory storm of sobs after one of the
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fits of moodiness that had become so frequent with her in the
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course of that otherwise admirable year! I had just retracted
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some silly promise she had forced me to make in a moment of
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blind impatient passion, and there she was sprawling and sob-
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bing, and pinching my caressing hand, and I was laughing
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happily, and the atrocious, unbelievable, unbearable, and, I
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suspect, eternal horror that I know now was still but a dot. of
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blackness in the blue of my bliss; and so we lay, when with
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one of those jolts that have ended by knocking my poor heart
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out of its groove, I met the unblinking dark eyes of two strange
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and beautiful children, faunlet and nymphet, whom their
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identical flat dark hair and bloodless cheeks proclaimed siblings
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if not twins. They stood crouching and gaping at us, both in
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blue playsuits, blending with the mountain blossoms. I
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i r j
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i
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!
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:
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l
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!
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£
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f
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if
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h
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£
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£,
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v
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y,
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c!
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%
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if frrt ;j- ri'Tj.n
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plucked at the lap-robe for desperate concealment— and with-
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in the same instant, something. that looked like a polka-dotted
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pushball among the undergrowth a few paces away, went into
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a turning motion which was transformed into the gradually
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rising figure of a stout lady with a raven-black bob, who auto-
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matically added a wild lily to her bouquet, while -staring over
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her shoulder at us from behind her lovely carved bluestone
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children.
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Now that I have an altogether, different mess on my con-
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science, I know' that I am a courageous man, but in those
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days I was not aware of it, and I remember being surprised by
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my own coolness. With the quiet murmured order one gives
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a sweatstained distracted cringing trained animal even in the
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worst of plights (what mad hope or hate makes the young
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beast’s flanks pulsate, wbat black stars pierce the heart of the
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tamerl), I made Lo get up, and we decorously walked, and then
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indecorously scuttled down to the car. Behind it a nifty station
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wagon was parked, and a handsome Assyrian with a little blue-
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black beard, un monsieur tr£s bien, in silk shirt and magenta
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slacks, presumably the corpulent botanist’s husband, was grave-
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ly taking the picture of a signboard giving the altitude of the
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pass. It was well over 10,000 feet and I was quite out of
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breath; and with a scrunch and a skid we drove off, Lo still
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struggling with her clothes and swearing at me in language
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that I never dreamed little girls could know, let alone use.
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There were other unpleasant incidents. There was the movie
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theatre once, for example. Lo at the time still had for the
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cinema a veritable passion (it was to decline into tepid con-
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descension during her second high school year) . We took in,
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voluptuously and indiscriminately, oh, I don’t know-, one
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hundred and fifty or two hundred programs during that one
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year, and during some of the denser periods of movie-going
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we saw many of the news-reels up to a half-a-dozen times since
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the same weekly one went with different main pictures and
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pursued us from town to town. Her favorite kinds were, in this
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order: musicals, underworlders, westerners. In the first, real
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singers and dancers had unreal stage careers in an essentially
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grief-proof sphere of existence wherefrom death and truth were
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banned, and where, at the end, white-haired, dewy-eyed, tech-
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nically deathless, the initially reluctant father of a show-crazy
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■-girl always finished by applauding ber apotheosis on fabulous
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'■ Broadway. The underworld was a world apart: there, heroic
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newspapermen were tortured, telephone bills ran to billions,
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and, in a robust atmosphere of incompetent marksmanship
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155
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villains were chased through sewers and storehouses by patho-
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logically fearless cops (I was to give them less exercise) . Final-
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ly there was the mahogany landscape, the florid-faced, blue-eyed
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roughriders, the prim pretty schoolteacher arriving in Roaring
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Gulch, the rearing hope, the spectacular stampede, the pistol
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thrust through the shivered windowpane, the stupendous fist
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fight, the crashing mountain of dusty old-fashioned furniture,
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the table used as a weapon, the timely somersault, the pinned
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hand still groping for the dropped bowie knife, the grunt, the
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sweet crash of fist against chin, the kick in the belly, the flying
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tackle; and immediately after a plethora of pain that would
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have hospitalized a Hercules (I should know by now), nothing
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to show but the rather becoming bruise on the bronzed cheek
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of the warmed-up hero embracing his gorgeous frontier bride. I
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remember one matinee in a small airless theatre crammed with
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children and reeking with the hot breath of popcorn. The
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moon was yellow above the neckerchiefed crooner, and his
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finger was on his strumstring, and his foot was on a pine log,
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and I had innocently encircled Lo's shoulder and approached
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my jawbone to her temple, when two harpies behind us started
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muttering the queerest things — I do not know if I understood
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aright, but what I thought I did, made me withdraw my gentle
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hand, and of course the rest of the show was fog to me.
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Another jolt I remember is connected with a little burg we
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were traversing at night, during our return journey. Some
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twenty miles earlier I had happened to tell her that day the
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school she would attend at Beardsley was a rather high-class,
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non-coeducational one, with no modem nonsense, whereupon
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Lo treated me to one of those furious harangues of hers where
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entreaty and insult, self-assertion and double talk, vicious vul-
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garity and childish despair, were interwoven in an exasperating
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semblance of logic which prompted a semblance of explana-
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tion from me. Enmeshed in her wild words (swell chance . . .
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I’d be a sap if I took your opinion seriously . . . Stinker . . .
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You can’t boss me ... I despise you . . - and so forth), I
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drove through the slumbering town at a fifty-mile-per-hour
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pace in continuance of my smooth highway swoosh, and a
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twosome of patrolmen put their spotlight on the car,^ and
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told me to pull over. I shushed Lo who was automatically
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raving on. The men peered at her and me with malevolent
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curiosity. Suddenly all dimples, she beamed sweetly at them,
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as she never did at my orchideous masculinity; for, in a
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sense, my Lo was even more scared of the law than I — and
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when the land officers pardoned us and servilely we crawled
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on, her eyelids dosed and fluttered as she mimicked limp
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prostration. _
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At this point I have a curious confession to make. You win
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laugh — but really and truly I somehow never man aged to End
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out quite exactly what the legal situation was. I do not know
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it yet Oh, I have learned a few odds and ends. Alabama pro-
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hibits a guardian from changing the ward’s residence without
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an order of the court; Minnesota, to whom I take off my hat,
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provides that when a relative assumes permanent care and
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custody of any child under fourteen, the authority of a court
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does not come into play. Query: is the stepfather of a gaspingly
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adorable pubescent pet, a stepfather of only one month’s
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standing, a neurotic widower of mature years and small but
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independent means, with the parapets of Europe, a divorce
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and a few madhouses behind him, is he to be considered a
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relative, and thus a natural guardian? And if not, must I, and
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could I reasonably dare notify some Welfare Board and file a
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petition (how do you file a petition?), and have a court’s
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agent investigate meek, fishy me and dangerous Dolores Haze?'
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The many books on marriage, rape, adoption and so on, that
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I guiltily consulted at the public libraries of big and small
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towns, told me nothing beyond darkly insinuating that the
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state is the super-guardian of minor children. Pilvin and
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Zapel, if I remember their names right, in an impressive vol-
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ume on the legal side of marriage, completely ignored step-
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fathers with motherless girls on their hands and knees. My
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best friend, a social sendee monograph (Chicago, 1936), which
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was dug out for me at great pains from a dusty storage recess
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by an innocent old spinster, said “There is no principle that
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every minor must hare a guardian; the court is passive and
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enters the fray only when the child’s situation becomes con-
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spicuously perilous.” A guardian, I concluded, was appointed
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only when he expressed his solemn and formal desire; but
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months might elapse before he was given notice to appear at
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a hearing and grow his pair of gray wings, and in the meantime
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the fair daemon child was legally left to her own derices which,
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after all, was the case of Dolores Haze. Then came the hearing.
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A few questions from the bench, a few reassuring answers from
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the attorney, a smile, a nod, a light drizzle outside, and the
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appointment was made. And still I dared not Keep away, be a
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mouse, curl up in your hole. Courts became extravagantly ac-
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tive only when there was some monetary question involved:
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two greedy guardians, a robbed orphan, a third, still greedier,
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party. But here all was in perfect order, an inventory' had been
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157
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made, and her mother’s small property was waiting untouched
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for Dolores Haze to grow up. The best policy seemed to be to
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refrain from any application. Or would some busybody, some
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Humane Society, butt in if I kept too quiet?
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Friend Farlow, who was a lawyer of sorts and ought to have
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been able to give me some solid advice, was too much occupied
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with Jean's cancer to do anything more than what he had
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promised — namely, to look after Charlotte’s meager estate
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while I recovered very gradually from the shock of her death. I
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had conditioned him into believing Dolores was my natural
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child, and so could not expect him to bother his head about
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the situation. I am, as the reader must have gathered by now, a
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poor businessman; but neither ignorance nor indolence should
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have prevented me from seeking professional advice elsewhere.
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What stopped me was the awful feeling that if I meddled with
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fate in any way and tried to rationalize her fantastic gift, that
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gift would be snatched away like that palace on the mountain
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top in the Oriental tale which vanished whenever a prospective
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owner asked its custodian how come a strip of sunset sky was
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clearly visible from afar between black rock and foundation.
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I decided that at Beardsley (the site of Beardsley College for
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Women) I would have access to works of reference that I had
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not yet been able to study, such as Woemer's Treatise "On
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the American Law of Guardianship" and certain United States
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Children’s Bureau Publications. I also decided that anything
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was better for Lo than the demoralizing idleness in which she
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lived. I could persuade her to do so many things — their list
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might stupefy a professional educator; but no matter how I
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pleaded or stormed, I could never make her read any other
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book than the so-called comic books or stories in magazines
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for American females. Any literature a peg higher smacked to
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her of school, and though theoretically willing to enjoy A
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Girl of the Limbeilost or the Arabian Nights, or Little Wom-
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en , she was quite sure she would not fritter away her "vaca-
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tion” on such highbrow reading matter.
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I now think it was a great mistake to move east again and
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have her go to that private school in Beardsley, instead of
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somehow scrambling across the Mexican border while the
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scrambling was good so as to lie low for a couple of years in
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subtropical bliss until I could safely marry my little Creole: for
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I must confess that depending on the condition of my glands
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and ganglia, I could switch in the course of the same day
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from one pole of insanity to the other — from the thought that
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around 1950 I would have to get rid somehow of a difficult
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158.
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have net
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eventually a ny®P who wouldbemgbt ^ indeed, *®
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Lolita the Sewn^ ^ daDS la force ^ enough to
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ssjssS-i
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sStPfw-* t— ' °s^> ?
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In the days ot tnac > t was a ridiculous ^ biblical
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•S& » w£2sK*3a« ^JESSES- *»
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Lest- 1 read and r<m~a nangbter, which * 6° de i^e vol-
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titlc Know Your Own thirteenth b*h Y> ^dersen’s
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« at °^fS* aid ** S^’dSs* e® e ° f
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•window to he diner, or P^y ^ ^ other motor-
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hearty meal m - n g, ot silently sta ^ b lood-bespattered
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SftSS* d^gyfiKi'SSai (JESS’S
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® exart W random «►
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casions, 1 seemed Was, perhaps, go ty Would
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0{ there being f^^nce of the to some
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there, but also by *epms myself semen ^ X
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desire to get stripes *ouW ? of French at
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patterned surface ■ ™ ^J, w in the d^art™^ 1 ° ^booh in
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thought ofaman 0( j enough to t0 deliver
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Beardsley Co % h "tSpted to get ^^Ihave once
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his classes and had V 0 { doing so, since, few
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» tel®. iW^f these OTtaons, ^
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Is - ta *
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which my nymphets am ^
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label, a background, and a simulacrum, and, as presently will
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become clear, there was a reason, a rather zany reason, why
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old Gaston Godin’s company would be particularly safe.
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Finally, there was the money question. My income was
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cracking under the strain of our joy-ride. True, I clung to the
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cheaper motor courts; but every now and then, there would be
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a loud hotel de luxe, or a pretentious dude ranch, to mutilate
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•our budget; staggering sums, moreover, were expended on
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• sightseeing and Lo's clothes, and the old Haze bus, although a
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still vigorous and very devoted machine, necessitated numerous
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minor and major repairs. In one of our strip maps that has
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happened to survive among the papers which the authorities
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have so kindly allowed me to use for the purpose of writing my
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statement, I find some jottings that help me compute the fol-
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lowing. During that extravagant year 1947-1948, August to
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August, lodgings and food cost us around 5,500 dollars; gas, oil
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and repairs, 1,234, and .various extras almost as much; so that
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during about 150 days of actual motion (we covered about
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27.000 milesl ) plus some 200 days of interpolated standstills,
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this modest rentier spent around 8,000 dollars, or better say
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10.000 because, unpractical as I am, I have surely forgotten a
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number of items.
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And so we rolled East I more devastated than braced with
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the satisfaction of my passion, and she glowing with health,
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her bi-iliac garland still as brief as a lad’s although she had add-
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ed two inches to her stature and eight pounds to hex weight.
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We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I
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catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only
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defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy,
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enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more
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to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books,
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old tires, and her sobs in the night — every night, every night —
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the moment I feigned sleep.
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4
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When through decorations of light and shade, we drove np
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to 14 Thayer Street, a grave little lad met us with the keys and
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160
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a note from Gaston -who had rented the honse for us. My Lo,
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without granting her new surroundings one glance, unseeingly
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turned on the radio to which instinct led her and lay down on
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the living room sofa with a hatch of old magazines which in
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the same precise and blind manner she landed by dipping her
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hand into the nether anatomy of a lamp table.
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I really did not mind where to dwell provided I could loch
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my Lolita up somewhere; but I had, I suppose, in the course
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of my correspondence with vague Gaston, vaguely visualized a
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house of ivied brick. Actually the place bore a dejected resem-
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blance to the Haze home (a mere 400 miles distant) : it was
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the same sort of dull gray frame affair with a shingled roof and
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dull green drill awnings; and the rooms, though smaller and
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furnished in a more consistent plush-and-plate style, were ar-
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ranged in much the same order. My study turned out to he,
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however, a much larger room, lined from floor to ceiling with
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some two thousand hooks on chemistry which my landlord
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(on sabbatical leave for the time being) taught at Beardsley
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College.
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I had hoped Beardsley School for girls, an expensive day
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school, with lunch thrown in and a glamorous gymnasium,
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would, while cultivating all those young bodies, provide some
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formal education for their minds as well. Gaston Godin, who
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wa s seldom right in his judgment of American habitus, had
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warned me that the institution might turn out to be one of
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those where girls are taught, as he put it with a foreigner's love
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for such things: "not to spell very weB, but to smell very well."
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I don’t think they achieved even that
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At my first interview with headmistress Pratt, she approved
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of my child’s "nice blue eyes” (blue! Lolita!) and of my own
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friendship with that "French genius’' (a genius! Gaston!) —
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and then, having turned Dolly over to a bliss Cormorant, she
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wrinkled her brow in a kind of recueillcment and said:
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"We are not so much concerned, Mr. Humbird, with hav-
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ing our students become bookworms or be able to reel off all
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the capitals of Europe which nobody knows anyway, or learn
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by heart the dates of forgotten battles. What we are concerned
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with is the adjustment of the child to group life. This is why
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we stress the four D’s: Dramatics, Dance, Debating and Dat-
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ing. Wc arc confronted by certain facts. Your delightful DoTly
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will presently enter an age group where dates, dating, date
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dress, date book, date etiquette, mean as much to her as say,
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business, business connections, business success, mean to you,
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161
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or as much as [smiling] the happiness of my girls means to
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me. Dorothy Humbird is already involved in a whole system of
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social life which consists, whether we like it or not, of hot-dog
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stands, comer drugstores, malts and cokes, movies, square-
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dancing, blanket parties On beaches, and even hair-firing par-
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ties! Naturally at Beardsley School we disapprove of some of
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these activities; and we rechannel others into more construc-
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tive directions. But we do try to turn - our backs on the fog
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and squarely face the sunshine. To put it briefly, while adopt-
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ing certain teaching techniques, we are more interested in
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communication than in composition. That is, with due respect
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to Shakespeare and others, we want our girls to communicate
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freely with the live world around them rather than plunge
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into musty old books. We are still groping perhaps, but we
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grope intelligently, like a gynecologist feeling a tumor. We
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think. Dr. Humburg, in organismal and organizational terms.
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We have done away with the mass of irrelevant topics that
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have traditionally been presented to young girls, leaving no
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place, in former days, for the knowledges -and the skills, and
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the attitudes they will need in managing their lives and — as
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the cynic might add — the lives of their husbands. Mr. Hum-
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berson, let us put it this way: the position of a star is im-
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portant, but the most practical spot for an icebox in the
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kitchen may be even more important to the budding house-
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wife. You say. that all you expect a child to obtain from school
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is a sound education. But what do we mean by education? In
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the old days it was in the main a verbal phenomenon; I
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mean, you could have a child leam by heart a good encyclo-
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pedia and he or she would know as much as or more than a
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school could offer. Dr. Hummer, do you realize that for the
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modem pre-adolescent child, medievd dates are of less vital
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value than weekend ones [twinkle]? — to repeat a pun that I
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heard the Beardsley college psychoanalyst permit herself the
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other day. We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in
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a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.
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What on earth can Dorothy Hummerson care for Greece and
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the Orient with their harems and slaves?”
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This program rather appalled me, but I spoke to two intel-
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ligent ladies who had been connected with the school, and they
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affirmed that the girls did quite a bit of sound reading and that
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the “communication’' line was more or less ballyhoo aimed at,
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giving old-fashioned Beardsley School a financially remunera-
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162
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live modem touch, though actually it remained as prim as a
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prawn.
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Another reason attracting me to that particular school may
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seem funny to some readers, but it was very important to me,
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for that is die way I am made. Across our street, exactly in front
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of our house, there was, I noticed, a gap of weedy wasteland,
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with some colorful bushes and a pile of bricks and a few scat-
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tered planks, and the foam of shabby mauve and chrome
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autumn roadside flowers; and through that gap you could see a
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shimmery section of School Rd., running parallel to our
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Thayer St, and immediately beyond that die playground of
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the school. Apart from the psychological comfort this general
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arrangement should afford me by keeping Dolly's day adjacent
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to mine, I immediately foresaw the pleasure I would have in
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distinguishing from my study-bedroom, by means of powerful
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binoculars, the statistically inevitable percentage of nymphets
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among the other girl children playing around Dolly during
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recess; unfortunately, on the very first day of school, workmen
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arrived and put up a fence some way down the gap, and in no
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time a construction of tawny wood maliciously arose beyond
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that fence utterly blocking my magic vista; and as soon as
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they had erected a sufficient amount of material to spoil
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everything, those absurd builders suspended their work and
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never appeared again.
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5
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Ik a. street called Thayer Street, in the residential green, fawn
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and golden of a mellow academic townlet, one was bound
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to have a few amiable fine-dayeis yelping at you. I prided my-
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self on the exact temperature of my relations with them: never
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rude, always aloof. My west-door neighbor, who might have
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been a businessman or a college teacher, or both, would speak
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to me once in a while as he barbered some late garden blooms
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|
or watered his car, or, at a later date, defrosted his driveway (I
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|
don’t mind if these verbs are all wrong), but my brief grunts,
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just sufficiently articulate to sound like conventional assents or
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intenogath-e pause-fillers, precluded any evolution toward
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163
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chumminess. Of the two houses flanking the bit of scrubby
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waste opposite, one was closed, and the other contained two
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professors of English, tweedy and short-haired Miss Lester and
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fadedly feminine Miss Fabian, whose only subject of brief
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sidewalk conversation with me was (God bless their tactl) lie
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young loveliness of my daughter and the naive charm of Gas-
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ton Godin. My east-door neighbor was by far the most dan-
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gerous one, a sharp-nosed stock character whose late brother
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had been attached to. the College as Superintendent of Build-
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ings and Grounds. I remember her waylaying -Dolly, while I
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stood at the living-room window, feverishly awaiting my dar-
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ling's return from school. The odious spinster, trying to con-
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ceal her morbid inquisitiveness under a mask of dulcet good-
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will, stood leaning on her slim umbrella (the sleet had just
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stopped, a cold wet sun had sidled out) , and Dolly, her brown
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coaL open despite the raw weather, her structural heap of
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books pressed against her stomach, her knees showing pink
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above her clumsy wellingtons, a sheepish frightened little smile '
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flitting over and off her snub-nosed face, which — owing per-
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haps to the pale wintry light — looked almost plain, in a rustic,
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German, magdlein-like way, as she stood there and dealt with
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Miss East’s questions “And where is your mother, my dear?
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And what is your poor father's occupation? And where did
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you live before?” Another time the loathsome creature ac-
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costed me with a welcoming whine — but I evaded her; and
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a few days later there came from her a note in a blue-margined
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envelope, a nice mixture of poison and treacle, suggesting
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Dolly come over on a Sunday and curl up in a chair to look
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through the “loads ofbeautiful books my dear mother gave me
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when I was a child, instead of having the radio on at full
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blast till all hours of the night”
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I had also to be careful in regard to a Mrs. Holigan, a char-
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woman and cook of sorts whom I had inherited with the
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vacuum cleaner from the previous tenants. Dolly got lunch at
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school, so that this was no trouble, and I had become adept at
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providing her with a big breakfast and warming up the dinner
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that Mrs. Holigan prepared before leaving. That kindly and
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harmless woman had, thank God, a rather bleary eye that
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missed details, and I had become a great expert in bedmaking;
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but still I was continuously obsessed by the feeling that some
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fatal stain had been left somewhere, or that, on the rare occa-
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sions where Holigan's presence happened to coincide with
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Lo’s, simple Lo might succumb to buxom sympathy in the
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164
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water pipes. Upstairs he had a studio — he painted a little, the
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old fraud. He had decorated its sloping •wall (it was really not
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more than a garret) with large photographs of pensive Andr6
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Gide, Tchaikovsky, Norman Douglas, two other well-known
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English writers, Nijinsky (all thighs and fig leaves), Harold D.
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Doublename (a misty-eyed left-wing professor of a Midwest-
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ern university) and Marcel Proust. Ah these poor people
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seemed about to fall on you from their inclined plane. He
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had also an album with snapshots of ah the Jackies and
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Dickies of the neighborhood, and when I happened to thumb
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through it and make some casual remark, Gaston would purse
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his fat lips and murmur with a wistful pout “Oui, 3s sont
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gentils.” His brown eyes would roam around the various
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sentimental and artistic bric-a-brac present, and his own banal
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toiles (the conventionally primitive eyes, sliced guitars, blue
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nipples and geometrical designs of the day), and with a vague
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gesture toward a painted wooden bowl or veined vase, he
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would say “Pienez done one de ces poizes. La bonne dame
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tTen face m’en oflte plus que je n’en peux savourer.” Or:
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“Mississe TaiUe Lore vrent de me dormer ces dahlias, belles
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fleurs que fexdcre.” (Somber, sad, full of world-weariness.)
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For obvious reasons, I preferred my house to his for the
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games of chess we had two or three times weekly. He looked
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like some old battered idol as he sat with his pudgy hands in
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his lap and stared at the board as if it were a corpse. Wheezing
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he would meditate for ten minutes — then make a losing move.
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Or the good man, after even more thought, might utter:
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Au roil with a slow old-dog woof that had a gargling sound
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at the back of it which made his jowls wabble; and then he
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would lift his circumflex eyebrows with a deep sigh as I
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pointed out to him that he was in check himself.
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Sometimes, from where we sat in my cold study I could
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hear Lo's bare feet practicing dance techniques in the living
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room downstairs; but Gaston's outgoing senses were com-
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fortably dulled, and he remained unaware of those naked
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rhythms — and-one, and-two, and-one, and-two, weight trans-
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ferred on a straight right leg, leg up out to the side, and-one,
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and-two, and only when she started jumping, opening her legs
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at the height of the jump, and flexing one leg, and extending
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the other, and flying, and landing on her toes — only then did
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my pale, pompous, morose opponent rub his head or cheek
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as if confusing those distant thuds with the awful stabs of my
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formidable Queen.
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166
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Sometimes Lola would slouch in while we pondered the
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board — and it was every time a treat to see Gaston, his
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elephant eye still fixed on his pieces, ceremoniously rise to
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shake hands with her, and forthwith release her limp fingers,
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and without looking once at her, descend again into his chair
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to topple into the trap I had laid for him. One day around
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Christmas, after I had not seen him for a fortnight or so,
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he asked me “Et toutes vos GEettes, elles vont bien?” from
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which it became evident to me that he had multiplied my
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unique Lolita by the number of sartorial categories his down-
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cast moody eye had glimpsed during a whole series of her
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appearances: blue jeans, a skirt, shorts, a quilted robe.
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I am loath to dwell so long on the poor fellow I * * * * * 7 (sadly
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enough, a year later, during a voyage to Europe, from which
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he did not return, he got involved in a sale historic, in Naples
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of all places!). I w'ould have hardly alluded to him at all had
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not his Beardsley existence had such a queer bearing on my
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case. I need him for my defense. There he was devoid of any
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talent whatsoever, a mediocre teacher, a worthless scholar,
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a glum repulsive fat old invert, highly contemptuous of the
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American way of life, triumphantly ignorant of the English
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language — there he was in priggish New England, crooned
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over by the old and caressed by the young — oh, having a
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grand time and fooling everybody; and here was I.
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7
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I am now faced with the distasteful task of recording a
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definite drop in Lolita’s morals. If her share in the ardois she
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kindled had never amounted to much, neither had pure lucre
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ever come to the fore. But I was weak, I was not wise, my
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school-girl nymphet had me in thrall. With the human ele-
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ment dwindling, the passion, the tenderness, and the torture
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only increased; and of this she took advantage.
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Her weekly allowance, paid to her under condition she
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fulfill her basic obligations, was twenty one cents at the start
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of the Beardsley era — and went up to one dollar five before
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its end. This was a more than generous arrangement seeing
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she constantly received from me all kinds of small presents
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167
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and had for the asking any sweetmeat or movie under the
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moon — although, of course, I might fondly demand an addi-
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tional kiss, or even a whole collection of assorted caresses,
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when I knew she coveted very badly some item of juvenile
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amusement. She was, however, not easy to deal with. Only
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.very listlessly did she earn her three pennies — or three nickels
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—per day; and she proved to be a cruel negotiator whenever
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it was in her power to deny me certain life-wrecking, strange,
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slow paradisal philters without which I could not live more
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than a few days in a row, and which, because of the very
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nature of love’s languor, I could not obtain by force. Know-
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ing the magic and might of her own soft mouth, she man-
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aged — during one school yearl — to raise the bonus price of a
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fancy embrace to three, and even four bucks, O Reader! Laugh
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not, as you imagine me, on the very rack of joy noisily emitting
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dimes and quarters, and great big silver dollars like some
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sonorous, jingly and wholly demented machine vomiting
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riches; and in the margin of that leaping epilepsy she would
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firmly clutch a handful of coins in her little fist, which, any- -
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way, I used to pry open afterwards unless she gave me the slip,
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scrambling away to hide her loot. And just as every other day
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I would cruise all around the school area and on comatose
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feet visit drugstores, and peer into foggy lanes, and listen to
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receding girl laughter in between my heart throbs and the
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felling leaves, so every now and then I would burgle her
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room and scrutinize tom papexs in the wastebasket with the
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painted roses, and look under the pillow of the virginal bed I
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had just made myself. Once I found eight one-dollar notes in
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one of her books (fittingly — Treasure Island), and once a
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hole in the wall behind Whistler’s Mother yielded as much as
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twenty-four dollars and some change — say twenty-four sixty — •
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which I quietly removed, upon which, next day, she accused,
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to my face, honest Mrs.-, Holigan of being a filthy thief.
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Eventually, she lived up to her I.Q. by finding a safer hoard-
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ing place which I never discovered; but by that time I had
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brought prices down drastically by haring her earn the hard
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and nauseous way permission to participate in the school’s
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theatrical program; because what I feared most was not that
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she might min me, but that she might accumulate sufficient
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cash to mn away. I believe the poor fierce-eyed child had
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figured out that with a mere fifty dollars in her purse she
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might somehow reach Broadway or Hollywood — or the foul
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kitchen of a diner (Help Wanted) in a dismal ex-prairie state,
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r
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168
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t4
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with the wind blowing, and the stars blinking, and the cars,
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and the bars, and the barmen, and everything soiled, tom,
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dead-
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8
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I did mt best, your Honor, to tackle the problem of boys.
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Oh, I used even "to read in the Beardsley Star a so-called Col-
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umn for Teens, to find out how to behavel
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A word to fathers. Don’t frighten ass-ay daughter’s friend.
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Maybe it is a bit hard for you to realize that now- the boys
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are finding her attractive. To you she is stall a little girl. To
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the boys she’s charming and fun, lovely and gay. The}- like
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her. Today you clinch big deals in an executive’s office, but
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yesterday you were just high-scbool Jim carrying Jane’s
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school books. Remember? Don’t you want your daughter,
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now that her turn has come, to be happy in the admiration
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and company of boys she likes? Don’t you want them to
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have wholesome fun together?
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Wholesome fun? Good Lord!
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Why not treat the young fellows as guests in your house?
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Why not make conversation with them? Draw them out,
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make them laugh and feel at case?
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Welcome, fellow-, to this bordello.
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If she breaks the rules don’t explode out loud in front of
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her partner in crime. Let hex take the brunt of your dis-
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pleasure in private. And stop making the boys fed she's
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the daughter of an old ogre.
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First of all the old ogre drew up a list under “absolutely
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forbidden” and another under “reluctantly allowed." Abso-
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lutely forbidden were dates, single or double or triple — the
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next step being of course mass orgy. She might visit 3 candy
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bat with her girl friends, and there gigglc-cbat with occasional
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169
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young males, while I waited m the car at a discreet distance;
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and I promised her that if her group were invited by a socially
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acceptable group in Butler’s Academy for Boys for their an-
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nual ball (heavily chaperoned, of course), I might consider
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the question whether a girl of fourteen can don her first
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"formal” (a land of gown that makes thin-armed teen-agers
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look like flamingoes) . Moreover, I promised her to throw a
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party at our house to which she would be allowed to invite her
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prettier girl friends and the nicer boys she would have met by
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that time at the Butler dance. But I was quite positive that as
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long as my regime lasted she would never, never be permitted
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to go with a youngster in rut to a movie, or neck in a car,
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or go to boy-girl parties at the houses of schoolmates, or in-
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dulge out of my earshot in boy-girl telephone conversations,
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even if "only discussing his relations with a friend of mine.”
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Lo was enraged by all this — called me a lousy crook and
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worse — and I would probably have lost my temper had I not
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soon discovered, to my sweetest relief, that what really angered
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her was my depriving her not of a specific satisfaction but of a
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general right I was impinging, you see, on the conventional
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program, the stock pastimes, the "things that are done,” the
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routine of youth; for there is nothing more conservative than
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a child, especially a girl-child, be she the most auburn and
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russet, the most mythopoeic nymphet in October’s orchard-
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haze.
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Do not misunderstand me. I cannot be absolutely certain
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that in the course of the winter she did not manage to have,
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in a casual way, improper contacts with unknown young fel-
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lows; of course, no matter how closely I controlled her leisure/
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there would constantly occur unaccounted-for time leaks with
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over-elaborate explanations to stop them up in retrospect;
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of course, my jealousy would constantly catch its jagged claw
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in the fine fabrics of nymphet falsity; but I did definitely
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feel — -and can now vouchsafe for the accuracy of my feeling —
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that there was no reason for serious alarm. I felt that way not
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because I never once discovered any palpable hard young
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throat to crush among the masculine mutes that flickered
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somewhere in the background; but because it was to me "over-
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whelmingly obvious” (a favorite expression with my aunt
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Sybil) that all varieties of high school boys — from 'the per-
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spiring nincompoop whom "holding hands” thrills, to the
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self-sufficient rapist with pustules and a souped-up car —
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equally bored my sophisticated young mistress. “AD this noise
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170
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about boys gags, me,” she had scrawled on the inside of a
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schoolbook, and underneath, in Mona’s hand (Mona is due
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any minute now) /there v&s the sly c^uip- 'What about Rig-
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ger?” (due too). , -
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Faceless, then, are the' chappies I happened to see in her
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company. There was for instance Red Sweater who one day,
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the day we had the first snow — saw her home; from the parlor
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window I observed them talking near our porch. She wore
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her first cloth coat with a fur collar; there was a small brown
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cap on my favorite hairdo — the fringe in front and the swirl
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at the sides and the natural curls at the back — and her damp-
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dark moccasins and white socks were more sloppy than ever.
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She pressed as usual her books to her chest while speaking or
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listening, and her feet gestured all the time: she would stand
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on her left instep with her right toe, remove it backward,
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cross her feet, rock slightly, sketch a few steps, and then start
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the series all over again. There was Windbreaker who talked
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to her in front of a restaurant one Sunday afternoon while his
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mother and sister attempted to walk me away for a chat;
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I dragged along and looked back at my only love. She had
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developed more than one conventional mannerism, such as
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the polite adolescent way of showing one is literally "doubled
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up” with laughter by inclining one’s head, and so (as she
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sensed my call), still feigning helpless merriment, she walked
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backward a couple of steps, and then faced about, and walked
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toward me with a fading smile. On the other hand, I greatly
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liked — perhaps because it reminded me of her first unfor-
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gettable confession — her trick of sighing "oh dear!” in humor-
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ous wistful submission to fate, or emitting a long "no-o” in a
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deep almost growling undertone when the blow r of fate had
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actually fallen. Above ah — since we are speaking of movement
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and youth — I liked to see her spinning up and down Thayer
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Street on hex beautiful young bicycle: rising on the pedals
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to work on them lustily, then sinking back in languid posture
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while the speed wore itself oft; and then she would stop at our
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mailbox and, still astride, would Sip through a magazine she
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found there, and put it back, and press her tongue to one side
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of her uppcrlip and push off with her foot, and again sprint
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through pale shade and sun.
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On the whole she seemed to me better adapted to her sur-
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roundings than I had hoped she would be when considering
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my spoiled slave-child and tire ban ales of demeanoT she naivelv
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affected the winter before in California. Although I could
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171
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never get used to the constant state of anxiety in which the
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guilty, the great, the tenderhearted live, I felt I was doing
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my test in the way of mimicry. As I lay on my narrow studio
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bed after a session of adoration and despair in Lolita’s cold
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bedroom, I used to review the concluded day by checking
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my own image as_ it prowled rather than passed before the
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mind's red eye. I watched dark-and-handsome, not un-Celtic,
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probably high-church, possibly very high-church. Dr. Hum-
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bert see his daughter off to school. I watched him greet with
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his slow smile and pleasantly arched thick black ad-eyebrows
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good Mrs. Holigan, who smelled of the plague (and would
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head, I knew, for masted s gin at the first opportunity) . With
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Mr. West, retired executioner or writer of religious tracts —
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who cared? — I saw neighbor what’s his name, I think they are
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French or Swiss, meditate in his frank-windowed study over
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a typewriter, rather gaunt-profiled, an almost Hitlerian cow-
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lick on his pale brow. Weekends, wearing a well-tailored over-
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coat and brown gloves, Professor H. might be seen with his
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daughter strolling to Walton Inn (famous for its violet-
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ribboned china bunnies and chocolate boxes among which you
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sit and wait for a “table for two” still filthy with your pred-
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ecessor’s crumbs). Seen on weekdays, around one p.ml,
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saluting with dignity Arguseyed East while maneuvering the
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car out of the garage and around the damned evergreens, and
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down onto the slippery road. Raising a cold eye from book to
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clock in the positively sultry Beardsley College library, among
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bulky young women caught and petrified in the overflow’ of
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human knowledge. Walking across the campus with the col-
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lege clergyman, the Rev. Rigger (who also taught Bible in
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Beardsley School). “Somebody told me her mother was a
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celebrated actress killed in an airplane accident. Oh? My
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mistake, I presume. Is that so? I see. How sad.” (Sublimating
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her mother, eh7) Slowly pushing my little pram through the
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labyrinth of the supermarket, in the wake of Professor W.,
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also a slow-moving and gentle widower with the eyes of a
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goat Shoveling the snow in my shirt-sleeves, a voluminous
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black and white’ muffler around my neck. Following with no
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show' of rapacious haste (even taking time to wipe my feet on
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the mat) my school-girl daughter into the house. Takmg
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Dolly to the dentist — pretty nurse beaming at her — old maga-
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zines — ne montrez pas vos zhambes. At dinner with Dolly in
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town, Mr. Edgar H. Humbert was seen eating his steak in
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the continental knife-and-fork manner. Enjoying, in duplicate,
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|
172
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a concert: two marble-faced, becalmed Frencbmen sitting side
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|
by side, with Monsieur H. H.’s musical little girl on her
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father’s right, and the musical little boy pf Professor W.
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(father spending a hygienic evening in Providence) on Mon-
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sieur G. G.’s left Opening the garage, a square of light that
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|
engulfs the car and is extinguished. Brightly pajamaed, Jerk-
|
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|
ing down the window shade in Dolly's bedroom. Saturday
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|
morning, unseen, solemnly weighing the winter-bleached lassie
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|
in the bathroom. Seen and heard Sunday morning, no church-
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goer after all, saying don’t be too late, to DoBy who is bound
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for the covered court Letting in a queerly observant school-
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|
mate of Dolly's: “First time I’ve seen a man wearing a smok-
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|
ing jacket sir — except in movies, of course.”
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Her girl friends, whom I had looked forward to meet
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|
proved on the whole disappointing. There was Opal Some-
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thing, and Linda Hall, and Avis Chapman, and Eva Rosen,
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|
and Mona Dahl (save one, aB these names are approximations,
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|
of course). Opal was a bashful, formless, bespectacled, be-
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pimpled creature who doted on DoBy who buBied her. With
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|
Linda Han the school tennis champion, Dolly played singles
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at least twice a week: I suspect Linda was a true nymphet
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|
but for some unknown reason she did not come — was per-
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haps not allowed to come — to our house; so I recaH her only
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as a flash of natural sunshine on an indoor court. Of the rest,
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|
none had any claims to nymphetry except Eva Rosen. Avis
|
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|
Tins a plump lateral child with hairy legs, while Mona, though
|
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|
handsome in a coarse sensual way and only a year older than
|
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|
mv aging mistress, had obviously long ceased to he a nymphet,
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|
if she ever had been one. Eva Rosen, a displaced little person
|
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|
from France, was on the other hand a good example of a not
|
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|
|
strikingly beautiful child revealing to the perspicacious ama-
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|
teur some of the basic elements of nymphet charm, such as
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|
|
a perfect pubescent figure and lingering eyes and high cheek-
|
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|
bones. Her glossy copper hair had Lolita’s sBkiness, and the
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|
|
features of her delicate mflkv-white face with pink lips and
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|
nlvcrfch eyelashes were less foxy than those of her likes—
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173
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the. great clan of intra-racial redheads; nor did she sport their
|
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|
|
green uniform but wore, as I remember her, a lot of black or
|
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|
|
cherry. dark— a very smart black pullover, for instance, and
|
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|
|
high-heeled black shoes, and gamet-red fingernail polish. I
|
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|
|
spoke French to her (much to Lo’s disgust). The child's
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|
|
tonalities were still admirably pure, but for school words and
|
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|
|
play words she resorted to current American and then a slight
|
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|
|
Brooklyn accent would crop up in her speech, which was
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|
|
amusing in a little Parisian who went to a select New England
|
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|
|
school with phoney British aspirations. Unfortunately, despite
|
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|
|
"that French kid’s uncle” being "a millionaire,” Lo dropped
|
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|
|
Eva for some reason before I had had time to enjoy in my
|
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|
|
modest way her fragrant presence in the Humbert open
|
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|
|
house. The reader knows what importance I attached to hav-
|
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|
|
ing a bevy of page girls, consolation prize nymphets, around
|
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|
|
my Lolita. For .a while, I endeavored to interest my senses
|
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|
|
|
in Mona Dahl who was a good deal around, especially during
|
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|
|
the spring term when Lo and she got so enthusiastic about
|
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|
|
dramatics. I have often wondered what secrets outrageously
|
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|
|
|
treacherous Dolores Haze had imparted to Mona while blurt-
|
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|
|
ing out to me by urgent and well-paid request various really
|
|
|
|
|
incredible details concerning an affair that Mona had had
|
|
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|
|
with a marine at the seaside. It was characteristic of Lo that
|
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|
|
she chose for her closest chum that elegant, cold, lascivious,
|
|
|
|
|
experienced young female whom I once heard (misheard, Lo
|
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|
|
swore) cheerfully say in the hallway to Lo — who had re-
|
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|
|
|
marked that her (Lo’s) sweater was of virgin wool: "The only
|
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|
|
thing about you that is, kiddo . . .” She had a curiously husky
|
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|
|
voice, artificially waved dull dark hair, earrings, amber-brown
|
|
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|
|
prominent eyes and luscious lips. Lo said teachers had remon-
|
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|
|
strated with her on her loading herself with so much costume
|
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|
|
jewelry. Her hands trembled. She was burdened with a 150
|
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|
I.Q. And I also knew she had a tremendous chocolate-brown
|
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|
mole on her womanish back which I inspected the night Lo
|
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|
|
and she had worn low-cut pastel-colored, vaporous dresses for
|
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|
|
|
a dance at the Butler Academy.
|
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|
I am anticipating a little, but I cannot help running my
|
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|
|
memory all over the keyboard of that school year. In meeting
|
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|
|
my attempts to find out what kind of boys Lo knew. Miss
|
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|
|
Dahl was elegantly evasive. Lo, who had gone to play tennis
|
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|
|
at Linda’s country club had telephoned she might be a full half
|
|
|
|
|
hour late, and so, would I entertain Mona who was coming
|
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|
|
to practice with her a scene from The Taming of the Shrew.
|
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174
|
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|
Using all the modulations, all the allure of manner and voice
|
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|
she was capable of and staring at me with perhaps — could I
|
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|
|
be mistaken? — a faint gleam of crystalline irony, beautiful
|
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|
|
Mona replied: "Well, sir, the fact is Dolly is not much con-
|
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|
|
cerned with mere boys. Fact is, we are rivals. She and I have
|
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|
|
a crush on the Reverend Rigger.” (This was a joke I have
|
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|
|
|
already mentioned that gloomy giant of a man, with the jaw
|
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|
|
|
of a horse: he was to bore me to near murder with his im-
|
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|
|
pressions of Switzerland at a tea party for parents that I am
|
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|
|
unable to place correctly in terms of time.)
|
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|
How had the ball been? Oh, it had been a riot A what? A
|
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|
|
panic. Terrific, in a word. Had Lo danced a lot? Oh, not a
|
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|
|
frightful lot, just as much as she could stand. What did she,
|
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|
|
languorous Mona, think of Lo? Sir? Did she think Lo was
|
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|
|
|
doing well at school? Gosh, she certainly was quite a kid. But
|
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|
|
her general behavior was — ? Oh, she was a swell kid. But
|
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|
|
still? ‘‘Oh, she’s a doll,” concluded Mona, and sighed abruptly,
|
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|
|
and picked up a book that happened to lie at hand, and with
|
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|
|
a change of expression, falsely furrowing her brow, inquired:
|
|
|
|
|
“Do tell me about Ball Zack, sir. Is he really that good?” She
|
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|
|
moved up so dose to my chair that I made out through lotions
|
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|
|
and creams her uninteresting skin scent A sudden odd thought
|
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|
|
|
slabbed me: was my Lo playing the pimp? If so, she had found
|
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|
|
the wrong substitute. Avoiding Mona’s cool gaze, I talked
|
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|
|
literature for a minute. Then Dolly arrived — and slit her pale
|
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|
|
|
eyes at us. I left the two friends to their own devices. One of
|
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|
|
the latticed squares in a small cobwebby casement window
|
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|
|
at the turn of the staircase was glazed with ruby, and that
|
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|
|
raw wound among the unstained rectangles and its asymmetri-
|
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|
|
cal position — a knight’s move from the top — always strangely
|
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|
|
disturbed me.
|
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10
|
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SoMrmrEs . . . Come on, how often exaetty, Bert? Can you
|
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|
|
|
recall four, five, more such occasions? Or would no human
|
|
|
|
|
icart have survived two or three? Sometimes (I have nothing
|
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|
|
|
to say m reply to your question), while Lolita would be hap-
|
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|
|
^arcUy preparing her homework, sucking a pencil, lolling
|
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|
175
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|
sideways in an easy chair with both legs over its arm, I would
|
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|
|
shed all my pedagogic restraint, dismiss all our quarrels, forget
|
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|
|
all my masculine pride — and literally crawl on my knees to
|
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|
|
your chair, my Lolita! You would give me one look — a gray
|
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|
|
furry .question mark of a look: “Oh no, not again” (incredulity,
|
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|
|
exasperation); for you never deigned to believe that I could,
|
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|
|
without any specific designs, ever crave to bury my face in your
|
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|
|
plaid skirt, my darling! The fragility of those bare arms of
|
|
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|
|
yours — how I longed to enfold them, all your four limpid love-
|
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|
|
ly limbs, a folded colt, and take your head between my un-
|
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|
worthy hands, and pull the temple skin back on both sides,
|
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|
|
and kiss your chinesed eyes, and — 'Tulease, leave me alone,
|
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|
|
will you,” you would say, “for Christ’s sake leave me alone.”
|
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|
|
And I would get up from the floor while you looked on, your
|
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|
|
face deliberately twitching in imitation of my tic nerveux.
|
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|
But never mind, never mind, I am only a brute, never mind,
|
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|
|
let us go on with my miserable story.
|
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|
|
One Monday forenoon, in December I think, Pratt asked
|
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|
|
me to come over for a talk. Dolly's last report had been poor,
|
|
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|
|
I knew. But instead of contenting myself with some such
|
|
|
|
|
plausible explanation of this summons, I imagined all sorts
|
|
|
|
|
of horrors, and had to fortifiy myself with a pint of my “pin”
|
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|
|
before I could face the interview. Slowly, all Adam’s apple and
|
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|
|
heart, I went up the steps of the scaffold.
|
|
|
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|
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|
|
- A huge woman, gray-haired, frowsy, with a broad flat nose
|
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|
|
|
and small eyes behind black-rimmed glasses — “Sit down,”
|
|
|
|
|
she said, pointing to an informal and humiliating hassock,
|
|
|
|
|
while she perched with ponderous spryness on the arm of an
|
|
|
|
|
oak chair. For a moment or two, she peered at me with smiling
|
|
|
|
|
curiosity. She had done it at our first meeting, I recalled, but I
|
|
|
|
|
could afford then to scowl back. Her eye left me. She lapsed
|
|
|
|
|
into thought — probably assumed. Making up her mind she
|
|
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|
|
rubbed, fold on fold, her dark gray flannel skirt at the knee,
|
|
|
|
|
dispelling a trace of chalk or something. Then she said, still
|
|
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|
|
nibbing, not looking up:
|
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|
|
Let me ask you a blunt question, Mr. Haze. You are an
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176
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old-fashioned Continental father, aren’t yon?”
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"Why, no,” I said, "conservative, perhaps, but not wnat
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you would call old-fashioned.
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She sighed, frowned, then clapped her big plump hands
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together in a lefs-get-down-to-business manner, and again
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fixed her beady eyes upon me.
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“Dolly Haze,” she said, “is a lovely child, but the onset ot
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sexual maturing seems to give her trouble.
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1 bowed sliahtly. What else could I do?
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“She is still' shuttling” said Miss Pratt, showing how with
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her liver-spotted hands, "between the anal and genital zones
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of development. Basically she is a lovely — ■”
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"I beg your pardon,” I said, "wbat zones?”
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"That’s the old-fashioned European in you!” cried Pratt
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delivering a slight tap on my wrist watch and suddenly dis-
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closing her dentures. “All I mean is that biologic and psy-
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chologic drives — do you smoke? — are not fused in Dolly,
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do not fall so to speak into a — into a rounded pattern.” Her
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hands held for a moment an invisible melon.
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"She is attractive, bright though careless” (breathing
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heavily, without leaving her perch, the woman took time out
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to look at the lovely child’s report sheet on the desk at her
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right). “Her marks are getting worse and worse. Now I won-
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der, Mr. Haze — ” Again the false meditation.
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"Well,” she went on with zest, "as for me, I do smoke, and,
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as dear Dr. Pierce used to say: I’m not proud of it but I jeest
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love it” She lit up and the smoke she exhaled from her nos-
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trils was like a pair of tusks.
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"Let me give you a few details, it won't fake a moment
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Now let me see [rummaging among her papers). She is dehant
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toward Miss Reacock and impossibly rude to Miss Cormorant
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Now here is one of our special research reports: Enjoys sing-
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ing with group in class though mind seems to wander. Crosses
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her knees and nags left leg to rhythm. Type of by-words: a
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two-hundred-forty-two word area of the commonest pubescent
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slang fenced in by a number of obviously European polysyl-
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n ^Ebs a good deal in class. Let me see. Yes. Now comes
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the last week in November. Sighs a good deal in class. Chews
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gum vehemently. jDoes not bite her nails though if she did,,
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this would conform better to her general pattern — scientifi-
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cally spiking, of course. Menstruation, according to the sub-
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jcci well established. Belongs at present to no church or-
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ganization. By the nay, Mr. Haze, her mother was—? Oh, I
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177
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see. And you are — ? Nobody’s business is, I suppose, God's
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business. Something else we wanted to know. She has no
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regular home duties, I understand. Making a princess of your
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Dolly, Mr. Haze, eh? Well, what else have we got here?
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Handles books gracefully. Voice pleasant Giggles rather often.
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A little dreamy. Has private jokes of her own, transposing for
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instance the first letters of some of her teachers’ names. Hair
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light and dark brown, lustrous — well [laughing] you are aware
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of that, I suppose. Nose unobstructed, feet high-arched, eyes —
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let me see, I had here somewhere a still more recent report
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Aha, here we are. Miss Gold says Dolly’s tennis form is ex-
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cellent to superb, even better than Linda Hall's, but concen-
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tration and point-accumulation are just “poor to fair.” Miss
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Cormorant cannot decide whether Dolly has exceptional
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emotional control or none at all. Miss Horn reports she — I
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mean, Dolly — cannot verbalize her emotions, while according
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to Miss Cole Dolly’s metabolic efficiency is superfine. Miss
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Molar thinks Dolly is myopic and should see a good ophthal-
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mologist, but Miss Redcock insists that the girl simulates
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eyestrain to get way with scholastic incompetence. And to con-
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clude, Mr. Haze, our researchers are wondering about some-
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thing really crucial. Now I want to ask you something. I want
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to know if your poor wife, or yourself, or anyone else in the
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family — I understand she has several aunts and a maternal
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grandfather in California? — oh, hadf — I’m sorry — well, we
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all wonder if anybody in the family has instructed Dolly in
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the process of mammalian reproduction. The general im-
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pression is that fifteen-year-old Dolly remains morbidly unin-
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terested in sexual matters, or to be exact, represses her curiosity
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in order to save her ignorance and self-dignity. All right —
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fourteen. You see, Mr. Haze, Beardsley School does not be-
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lieve in bees and blossoms, and storks and love birds, but it
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does believe very strongly in preparing its students for mutually
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satisfactory mating and successful child rearing. We feel Dolly
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could make excellent progress if only she would put her mind
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to her work. Miss Cormorant’s report is significant in that
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respect Dolly is inclined to be, mildly speaking, impudent
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But all feel that primo, you should have your family doctor
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tell her the facts of life and, secundo, that you allow her to
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enjoy the company of her schoolmates’ brothers at the Junior
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Club or in Dr. Rigger’s organization, or in the lovely homes
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of our parents.”
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“She may meet boys at her own lovely home,” I said.
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178
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“I hope she will,” said Pratt buoyantly. "When we ques-
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tioned her about her troubles, Dohy refused to discuss the
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home situation, but we have spoken to some of her friends
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and really— well, for example, we insist you un-veto her non-
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participation in the dramatic group. You just must allow her
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to take part in The Hunted Enchanters. She was such a per-
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fect little nymph in the try-out, and sometime in spring the
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author will stay for a few days at Beardsley College and may
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attend a rehearsal or two in our new auditorium. I mean it is
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all part of the fun of being young and alive and beautiful. You
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must understand — ”
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"I always thought of myself," I said, “as a very understand-
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ing father.”
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"Oh no doubt, no doubt, but Miss Cormorant thinks, and
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I am inclined to agree with her, that DoTly is obsessed by
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sexual thoughts for which she finds no outlet, and will tease
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and martyrize other girls, or even our younger instructors be-
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cause they do have innocent dates with boys.”
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Shrugged my shoulders. A shabby 6migr6.
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"Let us put our two heads together, Mr. Haze. What on
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earth is wrong with that child?” r
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"She seems quite normal and happy to me,” I said (dis-
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aster coming at last? was I found out? had they got some hyp-
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notist? ).
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"What worries me,” said Miss Pratt looking at her watch
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and starting to go over the whole subject again, "is that both
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teachers and schoolmates find Dolly antagonistic, dissatisfied,
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cage ? — and everybody wonders why you are so firmly opposed
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to all the natural recreations of a normal child.”
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"Do you mean sex play?” I asked jauntily, in despair, a cor-
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nered old rati
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Well, I certainly welcome this civilized terminology,” said
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Pratt with a grin. "But this is not quite the point Under the
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auspices of Beardsley School, dramatics, dances and other
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natural activities are not technically sex play, though girls
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do^mcet boys, if that is what you object to.”
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_ "AB right," I said, my hassock exhaling a weary sigh. "You
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v.m. She can take part in that play. Provided male parts are
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taken by female parts.”
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"I am always fascinated,” said Pratt, “by the admirable way
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torcigners— or at least naturalized Americans — use our rich
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language. I’m sure Miss Gold, who conducts the play group,
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MU be overjoyed. I notice she is one of the few teacbera that
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179
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seem to like — I mean who seem to find Dolly manageable.
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This takes care of general topics, I guess; now comes a special
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matter. We are in trouble again.”
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Pratt paused truculently, then rubbed her index finger under
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her nostrils with such vigor that her nose performed a land
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of war dance.
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“I'm a frank person,” she said, “but conventions are con-
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ventions, and I find it difficult . . . Let me put it this way . . .
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The Walkers, who live in what we call around here the Duke’s
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Manor, you know the great gray house on the hill — they send
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their two girls to our school, and we have the niece of Presi-
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dent Moore with us, a really gracious child, not to speak of a
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number of other prominent children. Well, under the cir-
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cumstances, it is rather a jolt when Dolly, who looks like a
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little lady, uses words which you as a foreigner probably simply
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do not know or do not understand. Perhaps it might be better
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—Would you like me to have Dolly come up here tight away
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to discuss things? No? You see — oh well, let's have it out
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Dolly has written a most obscene four-letter word which our
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Dr. Cutler tells me is low-Mexican for urinal with her lipstick
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on some health pamphlets which Miss Redcock, who is get-
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ting married in June, distributed among the girls, and we
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thought she should stay after hours— another half hour at
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least But if you like—”
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“No,” I said, “I don't want to interfere with rules. I shall
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talk to her later; I shall thrash it out.”
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“Do,” said the woman rising from her chair arm. “And per-
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haps we can get together again soon, and if things do not
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improve we might have Dr. Cutler analyze her.”
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Should I marry Pratt and strangle her?
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“. . . And perhaps your family doctor might like to examine
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her physically — just a routine check-up. She is in Mushroom —
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the last classroom along the passage.”
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Beardsley School, it may be explained, copied a famous
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girls’ school in England by having “traditional” nicknames for
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its various classrooms: Mushroom, Room-In 8, B-room, Room-
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BA and so on. Mushroom was 'Smelly, with a sepia print of
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Reynolds’ “Age of Innocence” above the chalkboard, and
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several rows of dumsy-looldng pupil desks. At one of these,
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my Lolita was reading the chapter on “Dialogue” in Baker’s
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Dramatic Technique, and all was very quiet, and there was
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another girl with a very naked, porcelain-white neck and won-
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derful platinum hair, who sat in front reading too, absolutely
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180
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lost to the world and interminably winding a soft carl aroand
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one finger, and I sat beside .Dolly just behind that neck and
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that hair, and unbuttoned my overcoat and for sixty-five cents
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plus the permission to participate in the school play, had
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Dolly put her inky, chalky, red-knuckled hand nnder the desk.
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Oh, stupid and reckless of me, no doubt, but after the torture
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I had been subjected to, I simply bad to take advantage of
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a combination that I knew would never occur again.
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12
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Around Christmas she caught a bad chill and was examined
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by a friend of Miss Lester, a Dr. Use Tristramson (hi. Use, you
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were a dear, uninquisitive soul, and you touched my dove very
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gently). She diagnosed bronchitis, patted Lo on the back (all
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its bloom erect because of the fever) and put her to bed for
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a week or longer. At first she “ran a temperature” in American
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parlance, and I could not resist the exquisite caloricity of un-
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expected delights — Venus febriculosa — though it was a very
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languid Lolita that moaned and coughed and shivered in my
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embrace. And as soon as she was well again, I threw a Party
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with Boys.
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Perhaps I had drunk a little too much in preparation for the
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ordeal. Perhaps I made a fool of myself. The girls had dec-
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orated and plugged in a small fir tree-— German custom, except
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that colored bulbs had superseded wax candles. Records were
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chosen and fed into my landlord’s phonograph. Chic Dolly
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wore a nice gray dress with fitted bodice and flared skirt. Hum-
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ming. I retired to my study upstairs — and then every ten or
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twenty minutes I would come down like an idiot just for a
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few seconds; to pick up ostensibly my pipe from the mantel-
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piece or hunt for the newspaper; and with every new visit
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these simple actions became harder to perform, and I was
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reminded of the dreadfully distant dais when I used to brace
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myself to casually enter a room in the Ramsdale bouse where
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little Carmen was on.
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The party was not a success. Of the three girls invited, one
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aid not come at all, and one of the boys brought his cousin
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Rov, jo there was a superfluity of two boys, and the cousins
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181
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knew all the steps, and the other fellows could hardly dance
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at all, and most of the evening was spent in messing up the
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kitchen, and then endlessly jabbering about what card game
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to play, and sometime later, two girls and four boys sat on
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the floor of the living room, with all windows open, and played
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a word game which Opal could not be made to understand,
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while Mona and Roy, a lean handsome lad, drank ginger ale
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in the kitchen, sitting on the table and dangling their legs,
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and hotly discussing Predestination and the Law of Averages.
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After they had all gone my Lo said ugh, closed her eyes, and
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dropped into a chair with all four limbs starfished to express
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the utmost disgust and exhaustion and swore it was the most
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revolting bunch of boys she had ever seen. I bought her a new
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tennis racket for that remark.
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January was humid and warm, and February fooled the for-
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sythia: none of the townspeople had ever seen such weather.
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Other presents came tumbling in. For her birthday I bought
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her a bicycle, the doe-like and altogether charming machine
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already mentioned — and added to this a History of Modem
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|
American Painting: her bicycle manner, I mean her approach
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to it, the hip movement in mounting, the grace and so on,
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afforded me supreme pleasure; but my attempt to refine her
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pictorial taste was a failure; she wanted to know if the guy
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noon-napping on Doris Lee’s hay was the father of the pseudo-
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voluptuous hoyden in the foreground, and could not under-
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stand why I said Grant Wood or Peter Hurd was good, and
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Reginald Marsh or Frederick Waugh awfuL
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By the time spring had touched up Thayer Street with yellow
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and green and pink, Lolita was irrevocably stage-struck. Pratt,
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whom I chanced to notice one Sunday lunching with some
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people at Walton Inn, caught my eye from afar and went
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through the motion of sympathetically and discreetly clapping
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her hands while Lo was not looking. I detest the theatre as
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being a primitive and putrid form, historically speaking; a
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form that smacks of stone-age rites and communal nonsense
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despite those individual injections of genius, such as, say
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182
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Elizabethan poetxy which a closeted reader automatically
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pumps out of the stuff. Being much occupied at the time
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with my own literary labors, I did not bother to read the com-
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plete text of The Enchanted Hunters, the playlet in which
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Dolores Haze was assigned the part of a farmer's daughter
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who imagines herself to be a woodland witch, or Diana, or
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something, and who, having got hold of a book on hypnotism,
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plunges a number of lost hunters into various entertaining
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trances before falling in her turn under the spell of a vagabond
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poet (Mona Dahl). That much I gleaned from bits of
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crumpled and poorly typed script that Lo sowed all over the
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house. The coincidence of the title vrith the name of an on-
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forgettable inn was pleasant in a sad little way: I wearily
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thought I had better not bring it to my own enchantress’s
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notice, lest a brazen accusation of mawkishness hurt me even
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more than her failure to notice it for herself had done. I as-
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sumed the playlet was just another, practically anonymous,
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version of some banal legend. Nothing prevented one, of
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course, from supposing that in quest of an attractive name the
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founder of the hotel had been immediately and solely in-
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fluenced by the chance fantasy of the second-rate moralist he
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had hired, and that subsequently the hotel’s name had sug-
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gested the play’s title. But in my credulous, simple, benevolent
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mind I happened to twist it the other way round, and with-
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out giving the whole matter much thought really, supposed
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that mural, name and title had all been derived from a com-
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mon source, from some local tradition, which I, an alien
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unversed in New England lore, would not be supposed to
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know. In consequence I was under the impression (all this
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quite casually, you understand, quite outside any orbit of
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importance), that the accursed playlet belonged to the type
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of whimscy for juvenile consumption, arranged and rearranged
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many times, such as Hansel and Gretel by Richard Roe. or
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The Sleeping Beauty by Dorothy Doe, or The Emperor’s New
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Clothes by Maurice Vermont and Marion Rumpelmcver —
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all this to be found in any Plays for School Actors or Let’s
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Have a Play! In other words. I did not know — and would not
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have cared, if I did — that actually The Enchanted Hunters
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was a quite recent and technically original composition which
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had been produced for the first time only three or four months
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ago by a highbrow group in New York To me— inasmuch as
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l could judge from my charmer s part — it seemed to be a pretty
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183
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dismal kind of fancy work, with echoes from Lenormand and
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Maeterlinck and various quiet British dreamers. The red-
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capped, uniformly attired hunters, of which one was a hanker,
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another a plumber, a third a policeman, a fourth an under-
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taker, a fifth an underwriter, a sixth an escaped convict (you
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see the possibilities!), went through a complete change of
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mind in Dolly’ s Dell, and remembered their real lives only as
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dreams or nightmares from which little Diana had aroused
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them; but a seventh Hunter (in a green cap, the fool) was a
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Young Poet, and he insisted, much to Diana’s annoyance,
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that she and the entertainment provided (dancing nymphs,
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and elves, and monsters) were his, the Poet’s, invention. I
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understand that finally, in utter disgust at this cocksureness,
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barefooted Dolores was to lead check-trousered Mona to the
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paternal farm behind the Perilous Forest to prove to the brag-
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gard she was not a poet’s fancy, but a rustic, down-to-brown-
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earth lass — and a last-minute kiss was to enforce the play’s
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profound message, namely, that mirage and reality merge in
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love. I considered it wiser not to criticize the thing in front
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of Lo: she was so healthily engrossed in “problems of ex-
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pression,” and so charmingly did she put her narrow Floren-
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tine hands together, batting her eyelashes and pleading with
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me not to come to rehearsals as some ridiculous parents did
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because she wanted to dazzle me with a perfect First Night —
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and because I was, anyway, always butting in and saying the
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wrong thing, and cramping her style in the presence of other
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people.
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There was one very special rehearsal , . . my heart, my
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heart . . . there was one day in May marked by a lot of gay
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flurry — it all rolled past, beyond my ken, immune to my mem-
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ory, and when I saw Lo next, in the late afternoon, balancing
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on her bike, pressing the palm of her hand to the damp bark
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of a young birch tree on the edge of our lawn, I was so struck
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by the radiant tenderness of her smile that for an instant I
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believed all our troubles gone. “Can you remember,” she said,
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“what was the name of that hotel, you know [nose puckered],
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come on, you know — with those white columns and the
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marble swan in the lobby? Oh, you know [noisy exhalation of
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breath] — the hotel where you raped me. Okay, slap it. I mean,
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was it [almost in a whisper] The Enchanted Hunters? Oh, it
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was? [musingly] Was it?” — and with a yelp of amorous vernal
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laughter she slapped the glossy bole and tore uphill, to the
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end of the street, and then rode back, feet at rest on stopped
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184
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pedals, posture relaxed, one hand dreaming .in her print-
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flowered lap.
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14
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Because it supposedly tied up with her interest in dance
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and dramatics, I had permitted Lo to take piano lessons with
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a Miss Emperor (as we French scholars may conveniently call
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her) to whose blue-shuttered little White house a mile or so
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beyond Beardsley Lo would spin oS twice a week. One Friday
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night toward the end of May (and a week or so after the very
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special rehearsal Lo had not had me attend) the telephone
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in my study, where I was in the act of mopping up Gustave’s —
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1 mean Gaston’s — king’s side, rang and Miss Emperor asked
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if Lo was coming next Tuesday because she had missed last
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Tuesday's and today’s lessons. I said she would by all means —
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and went on with the game. As the reader may well imagine,
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my faculties were now’ impaired, and a move or two later, .
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with Gaston to play, I noticed through the film of my general
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distress that he could collect my queen; he noticed it too,
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but thinking it might be a trap on the part of his tricky op-
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ponent, he demurred for quite a minute, and puffed and
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wheezed, and shook his Jowls, and even shot furtive glances at
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me, and made hesitating half-thrusts with his pudgily bunched
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r fingers — dying to take that juicy queen and not daring —
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; and ah of a sudden he swooped down upon it (who knows if
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; it did not teach him certain later audacities?), and I spent a
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- dreary hour in achieving a draw. He finished his brandy and
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• presently lumbered away, quite satisfied with this result (mon
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pauvre ami, jc ne mas a i jamais reru et quoiqu’ff y ait bicn peu
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• de chance que vous voyiez mon line, permettez-moi de vous
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: dire que je vous serre la main bicn cordialement, et que
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$ ftrates mes fihettes vous salucnt) . 1 found Dolores Haze at the
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■i kitchen table, consuming a wedge of pie, with her eyes fixed
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£ ori her script. Then - rose to meet mine with a land of celestial
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> vapidity. She remained singularly unruffled when confronted
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f. ^"ffh my discovery, and said d"un petit air faussement contrit
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: -’he knew she was a very wicked kid, but simply had not
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-s been able to resist the enchantment, and had used up those
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1S>
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music hours — O Reader, My Reader! — in a nearby public park
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1 rehearsing the magic forest scene with Mona. I said “fine"—
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and stalked to the telephone. Mona’s mother answered: “Oh
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yes, she’s in” and retreated with a mother’s neutral laugh of po-
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lite pleasure to shout off stage “Roy caHingl” and the very next
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- moment Mona rustled up, and forthwith, in a low monotonous
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not untender voice started berating Roy for something he had
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said or done and I interrupted her, and presently Mona was
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saying in her humblest, sexiest contralto, “yes, sir,” “surely,
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sir,” “I am alone to blame, sir, in this unfortunate business,”
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(what elocution! what poise!) “honest, I feel very bad about
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it” — and so on and so forth as those little harlots say.
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So downstairs I went clearing my throat and holding my
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heart. Lo was now in the living room, in her favorite over-
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stuffed chair. As she sprawled there, biting at a hangnail and
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mocking me with her heartless vaporous eyes, and all the time
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rocking a stool upon which she had placed the heel of an
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outstretched shoeless foot, I perceived all at once with a sick-
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ening qualm how much she had changed since I first met her
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two years ago. Or had this happened during those last two
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weeks? Tendiesse? Surely that was an exploded myth. She sat
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right in the focus of my incandescent anger. The fog of all
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lust had been swept away leaving nothing but this dreadful
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lucidity. Oh, she had changed! Her complexion was now that
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|
of any vulgar untidy highschool girl who applies -shared cos-
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metics with grubby fingers to an unwashed face and does not
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mind what soiled texture, what pustulate epidermis comes in
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contact with her skin. Its smooth tender bloom had been so
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lovely in former days, so bright with tears, when I used to
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roll, in play, her tousled head on my knee. A coarse flush had
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now replaced that innocent-fluorescence. What was locally
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known as a “rabbit cold” had painted with flaming pink the
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edges of her contemptuous nostrils. As in terror I lowered my
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gaze, it mechanically slid along the underside of her tensely
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stretched bare thigh — how polished and muscular her legs had
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grown! She kept her wide-set eyes, clouded-glass gray and
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slightly bloodshot, fixed upon me, and I saw the stealthy
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thought showing through them that perhaps after all Mona
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was right, and she, orphan Lo, could expose me without getting
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penalized herself. How wrong I was. How mad I was! Every-
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thing about her was of the same exasperating impenetrable
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order — the strength of her shapely legs, the dirty sole of her
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white sock, the thick sweater she wore despite the closeness of
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186
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the room, her wenchy smell, and especially the dead end of her
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fece with its strange flush and freshly made-up lips. Some of
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the red had left stains on her front teeth, and I was struck by a
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ghastly recollection— the evoked image not of Monique, but
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of another young prostitute in a bell-house, ages ago, who had
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been snapped up by somebody else before I had time to decide
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whether her mere youth warranted my risking some appalling
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disease, and who had jnst such flushed prominent pommettes
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and a dead maman, and big front teeth, and a bit of dingy red
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ribbon in her country-brown bair.
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"Well, speak,” said Lo. ‘Was the corroboration satisfac-
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tory?”
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"Oh, yes,” I said. ‘Terfecti Yes. And I do not doubt you two
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made it up. As a matter of fact, I do not doubt you have told
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her everything about us.”
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"Oh, yah?”
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I controlled my breath and said: "Dolores, this must stop
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right away. I am ready to yank you out of Beardsley and lock
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you up you know where, but this must stop. I am ready to take
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|
you away the time it takes to pack a suitcase. This must stop
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or else anything may happen.”
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"Anything may happen, huh?”
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I snatched away the stool she was rocking with her heel
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and her foot fell with a thud on the floor.
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"Hey," she cried, "take it easy.”
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"First of all you go upstairs,” I cried in my turn, — and
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simultaneously grabbed at her and pulled her up. From that
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moment, 1 stopped restraining my voice, and we continued
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|
yelling at each other, and she said unprintable things. She said
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|
she loathed me. She made monstrous faces at me, inflating her
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checks and producing a diabolical plopping sound. Sbe said I
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|
had attempted to violate her several times when I was her
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mother’s roomer. She said she was sure I bad murdered hex
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mother. She said she would sleep with the very first fellow
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who asked her and I could do nothing about it I said sbe was
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to go upstairs and show me all her hiding places. It was a
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|
strident and hateful scene. I held her by her knobby wrist
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and she kept turning and twisting it this way and that, sur-
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reptitiously trying to find a weak point so as to wrench herself
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free at a favorable moment, but I held her quite bard and in
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fact hurt her rather badly for which I hope my heart may
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rot. and once or twice she jerked her arm so violently that I
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reared her wrist might snap, and all the while she stared at me
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1S7
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with those unforgettable eyes where cold anger and hot tears
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|
struggled, and our voices were drowning the telephone, and
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when I grew aware of its ringing she instantly escaped.
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With people in movies I seem to share the services of the
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|
machina telephonica and its sudden god. This time it was an
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irate neighbor. The east window happened to be agape in the
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|
living room, with the blind mercifully down, however; and
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|
behind it the damp black night of a sour New England spring
|
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|
had been breathlessly listening to us. I had always thought
|
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|
that type of haddocky spinster with the obscene mind was
|
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|
|
. the result of considerable literary inbreeding in modem fiction;
|
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|
but now I am convinced that prude and prurient Miss East —
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|
or to explode her incognito, Miss Fenton Lebone — had been
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probably protrading three-quarter-way from her bedroom win-
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dow as she strove to catch the gist of our quarrel.
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“. . . This racket . . . lacks all sense of . . ." quacked
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the receiver, “we do not live in a tenement here. I must
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emphatically ...”
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I apologized for my daughter’s friends being so loud. Young
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people, you know — and cradled the next quack and a half.
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Downstairs the screen door banged. Lo? Escaped?
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Through the casement on the stairs I saw a small impetuous
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ghost slip through the shrubs; a silvery dot in the dark — hub
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of bicycle wheel — moved, shivered, and she was gone.
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It so happened that the car was spending the night in a
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repair shop downtown. I had no other alternative than to
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pursue on foot the winged fugitive. Even now, after more than
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three years have heaved and elapsed, I cannot visualize that
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spring-night street, that already so leafy street, without a gasp
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of panic. Before their lighted porch Miss Lester was prom-
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enading Miss Fabian’s dropsical dackel, Mr. Hyde almost
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knocked it over. Walk three steps and run three. A tepid rain
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started to drum on the chestnut leaves. At the next corner,
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pressing Lolita against an iron railing, a blurred youth held
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and kissed — no, not her, mistake. My talons still tingling, I
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flew on.
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Half a mile or so east of number fourteen, Thayer Street
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tangles with a private lane and a cross street; the latter leads
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to the town proper; in front of the first drugstore, I saw — with
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what melody of relief 1 — Lolita’s fair bicycle waiting for her. I
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pushed instead of pulling, pulled, pushed, pulled, and entered.
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Look out! Some ten paces away Lolita, through the glass of a
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188
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V
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telephone booth (membranous god still with us), cupping the
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tube, confidentially bunched over it, slit her eyes at me, turned
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away with her treasure, hurriedly hung up, and walked out
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with a flourish. - . '
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‘Tried to reach yon at home,” she said bnghtly. A peat
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decision has been made. Bnt first buy me a drink. Dad.”
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She watched the listless pale fountain girl put in the ice,
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pour in the coke, add the cherry syrup— -and my heart was
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bursting with lore-ache. That childish wrist My lovely child.
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You hare a lovely child, Mr. Humbert. We always admire her
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as she passes by. Mr. Pirn watched Pippa suck in the con- .
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coction.
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J'ai fou/ours sdmiid Tccvnrre Ormonde da sublime Dabli-
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nois. And in the meantime the rain had become a voluptuous
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shower.
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“Look," she said as she rode the bike beside me, one foot
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scraping the darkly glistening sidewalk, “look. I've decided
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something. I want to leave school. I hate that school. I hate
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the play, I really do! Never go back. Find another. Leave at
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once. Go for a long trip again. But this time we’ll go wherever
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I want, won't we?"
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I nodded. My Lolita.
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“I choose? Ccst entendu?” she asked wobbling a little be-
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side me. Used French only when she was a very good little girl.
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"Okay. Entendu. Now hop-hop-hop, Lenore, or you’ll get
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soaked.” (A storm of sobs was filling my chest)
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Sire bared her teeth and after her adorable scbool-girl fash-
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ion, leaned forward, and away she sped, my bird.
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Miss Lester* s finely groomed hand held a porch-door open
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for a waddling old dog qui pren ait son temps.
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Lo was waiting for me near die ghostly birchtree.
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“I am drenched,” she declared at the top of her voice. “Are
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you glad? To hell with the play! See what I mean?”
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An invisible hag’s daw slammed down an upper-floor win-
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dow.
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In our hallway, ablaze with welcoming lights, my Lolita
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peeled off her sweater, shook her gemmed hair, stretched
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towards me two bare arms, raised one knee:
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“Cany me upstairs, please. I feel sort of Tomanfa'c to-night”
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It may interest physiologists to learn, at this point, that I
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nave the ability — a most singular case, I presume — of shedding
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torrents oi tears throughout the other tempest
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159
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The brakes were relined, the waterpipes unclogged, the
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valves ground, and a number of other repairs and improve-
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ments were paid for by not very mechanically-minded but
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prudent papa Humbert, so that the late Mrs. Humbert's car
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was in respectable shape when ready to undertake a new
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journey. . '
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We had promised Beardsley School, good old Beardsley
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School, that we would be back as soon as my Hollywood en-
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gagement came to an end (inventive Humbert was to be, I
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hinted, chief consultant in the production of a film dealing
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with "existentialism," still a hot thing at the time) . Actually
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I was toying with the idea of gently trickling across the Mex-
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ican border — I was braver now than last year — and there de-
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ciding what to do with my little concubine who was now sixty
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inches tall and weighed ninety pounds. We had dug out our
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tour books and maps. She had traced our route with immense
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zest. Was it thanks to those theatricals that she had now out-
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grown her juvenile jaded airs and was so adorably keen to
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explore rich reality? I experienced the queer lightness of
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dreams that pale but warm Sunday morning when we aban-
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doned Professor Chem's puzzled house and sped along Main
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Street toward the four-lane highway. My Love’s striped, black-
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and-white, cotton frock, jaunty blue cap, white socks and
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brown moccasins were not quite in keeping with the large
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beautifully cut aquamarine on a silver chainlet, which gemmed
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her throat: a spring rain gift from me. We passed the New
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Hotel, and she laughed. "A penny for your thoughts," I said
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and she stretched out her palm at once, but at that moment
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I had to apply the brakes rather abruptly at a red light. As we
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pulled up, another car came to a gliding stop alongside, and
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a very striking looking, athletically lean young woman (where
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had I seen her? ) with a high complexion and shoulder-length
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brilliant bronze hair, greeted Lo with a ringing “Hil" — and
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then, addressing me, effusively, edusively (placed!), stressing
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certain words, said. “What a shame it was to tear Dolly away
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from the play — you should have heard the author raving about
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her after that rehearsal — ” “Green light, you dope,” said Lo
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under her breath, and simultaneously, waving in bright adieu a
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190
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bangJed arm, Joan of Arc (in a performance we saw at the local
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theatre) violently outdistanced os to swerve into Campus
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Avenue. '
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"Who was it esadly? Vermont or Rumpelmeyer?
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“No — Edusa Gold— -the gal who coaches ns.”
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"I was not referring to her. Who exactly concocted that
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"Ohl Yes, of course. Some old woman, Clare Something, I
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guess. There was quite a crowd of them there.”
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"So she complimented you?”
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"Complimented my eye — she hissed me on my pure brow”
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— and my darling emitted that new yelp of merriment which
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— perhaps in connection with her theatrical mannerisms — sire
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had lately begun to affect
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"You are a funny creature, Lolita,” I said — or some such
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words. "Naturally, I am overjoyed you gave up that absurd
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stage business. But what is curious is that you dropped the
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whole thing only a week before its natural climax. Oh, Lolita,
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you should be careful of those surrenders of yonis. I remember
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you gave up Ramsdale for camp, and camp for a joyride, and
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I could list other abrupt changes in your disposition. You must
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be careful. There are things that should never be given up. You
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must persevere. You should try’ to be a little nicer to me,
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Lolita. You should also watch your diet. The tour of your
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thigh, you know, should not exceed seventeen and a half
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inches. More might be fatal (I was kidding, of course). We
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arc now setting out on a long happy journey. I remember — ”
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I ixmemher as a child in Europe gloating over a map of
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No:th America that had “Appalachian Mountains” boldly
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running from Alabama up to New Brunswick, so that the
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V'UC.e region they spanned — Tennessee, the Virginias, Penn-
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rwvania New lork, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine,
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•Tpccrcd to my imagination as a gigantic Switzerland or even
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iu>ct, an mountain, glorious diamond peak upon peak, giant
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ecu-ters, 1 : montapmd dmigrd in his bear skin glory, and
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c.:s trgrij goldsmith!, and Red Indians under the catalpas.
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191
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That it all boiled down to a measly suburban lawn and a
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smoking garbage incinerator, was appalling. Farewell, Appa-
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lachia! Leaving it, we crossed Ohio, the three states be ginnin g
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with "I,” and Nebraska — ah, the first whiff of the West! We
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travelled very leisurely, having more than a week to reach
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Wace, Continental Divide, where she passionately desired to
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see the Ceremonial Dances marking the seasonal opening of
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Magic Cave, and at least three weeks to reach Elphinstone,
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gem of a western state where she yearned to climb Red Rock
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from which a mature screen star had recently jumped to her
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death after a drunken row with her gigolo.
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Again we were welcomed to wary motels by means of in-
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scriptions that read:
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“We wish you to feel at home while here. AH equipment
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was carefully checked upon your arrival. Your license number
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is on record here. Use hot water sparingly. We reserve the
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right to eject without notice any objectionable person. Do not
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throw waste material of any kind in the toilet bowl. Thank
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you. Call again. The Management. P.S. We consider our
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guests the Finest People of the World.”
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In these frightening places we paid ten for twins, flies
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queued outside at the screenless door and successfully scram-
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bled in, the ashes of our predecessors still lingered in the ash-
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trays, a woman’s hair lay on the pillow, one heard one’s neigh-
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bor hanging his coat in his closet, the hangers were ingeniously
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fixed to their bars by coils of wire so as to thwart theft, and, in
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crowning insult, the pictures above the twin beds were iden-
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tical twins. I also noticed that commercial fashion was chang-
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ing. There was a tendency for cabins to fuse and gradually
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form the caravansary, and, lo (she was not interested but the
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reader may be), a second story was added, and a lobby grew
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in, and cars were removed to a communal garage, and the
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motel reverted to the good old hotel.
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I now warn the reader not to mock me and my mental
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daze. It is easy for him and me to decipher now a past destiny;
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but a destiny in the making is, believe me, not one of those
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honest mystery stories where all you have to do is keep an eye
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on the clues. In my youth I once read a French detective tale
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where the clues were actually in italics; but that is not Mc-
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Fate’s way — even if one does Ieam to recognize certain obscure
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indications.
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For instance: I would not swear that there was not at
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east otLe occasion, prior to, or at the very beginning of, the
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192 ^
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Midwest lap of oat journey, when she managed to convey
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some information to, or otherwise get into contact with, a
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person or persons unknown. We had stopped at a gas station,
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under the sign of Pegasus, and she had slipped out of her seat
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and escaped to the rear of the premises while the raised hood,
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under which I had bent to watch the mechanic’ s manipula-
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tions, hid her for a moment from my sight Being inclined to
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he lenient I only shook my benign head though strictly
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speaking such visits were taboo, since I felt instinctively that
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toilets — as also telephones — happened to be for reasons un-
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fathomable, the points where my destiny was liable to catch.
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We all have such fateful objects — it may he a recurrent land-
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scape in one case, a number in another — carefully chosen by
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the gods to attract events of special significance for us: here
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shah John always stumble; there shah Jane’ s heart always break.
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Well — my car had been attended to, and I had moved it
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away from the pumps to let a pickup truck be serviced — when
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the growing volume of her absence began to weigh upon me in
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the windy grayncss. Not for the first time, and not for the
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last, had I stared in such dull discomfort of mind at those
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stationary trivialities that look almost surprised, like staring
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rustics, to find themselves in the stranded traveller’s field of
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virion: that green garbage can, those very black, very white-
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walled tires for sale, those bright cans of motor oil, that red
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icebox with assorted drinks, the four, five, seven discarded
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bottles within the incomplcted crossword puzzle of their
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wooden cells, that bug patiently walking up the inside of the
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window of the office. Radio music was coming from its open
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door, and because the rhythm was not synchronized with the
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heave and flutter and other gestures of wind-animated vege-
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tation, one had the impression of an old scenic film bring its
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own life while piano or fiddle followed a line of music quite
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outodc the shivering flower, the swaying branch. The sound
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of Charlotte's last sob incongruously vibrated through me as,
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with her dress fluttering athwart the rhythm, Lolita veered
|
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bom a totally unexpected direction. She had found the toilet
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occupied and had crossed over to the sign of the Conche in
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t-e next block. They said they were proud of their home-clean
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rorirooms. These prepaid postcards, thev said, had been uro-
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vwed for your comments. No postcards. No soap. Nothing
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v'O comments.
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That cay or the next, after a tedious drive throuah a land of
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.nod crops, wm reached a pleasant little burg and put up at
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195
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Chestnut Court — nice cabins, damp green grounds, apple
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trees, an old swing — and a tremendous sunset which the tired
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child ignored. She had wanted to go through Kasbeam because
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it was only thirty miles north from her home town but on the
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following morning I found her quite listless, with no desire to
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see again the sidewalk where she had played hopscotch some
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five years before. For obvious reasons I had rather dreaded
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that side trip, even though we had agreed not to make our-
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selves conspicuous in any way — to remain in the car and not
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look up old friends. My relief at her abandoning the project
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was spoiled by the thought that had she felt I were totally
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against the nostalgic possibilities of Pisky, as I had been last
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year, she would not have given up so easily. On my men-
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tioning this with a sigh, she sighed too and complained of
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being out of sorts. She wanted to remain in bed till teatime
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at least, with lots of magazines, and then if she felt better she
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suggested we just continue westward. I must say she was very
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sweet and languid, and craved for fresh fruits, and I decided to
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go and fetch her a toothsome picnic lunch in Kasbeam. Our
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cabin stood on the timbered crest of a hill, and from our
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window you could see the road winding down, and then
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running as straight as a hair parting between two rows of
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chestnut trees, towards the pretty, town, which looked sin-
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gularly distinct and toylike in the pure morning distance. One
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could make out an elf-like girl on an insect-like bicycle, and a
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dog, a bit too large proportionately, all as clear as those pilgrims
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- and mules winding up wax-pale roads in old paintings with
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blue hills and red little people. I have the European urge to
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use my feet when a drive can be dispensed with, so I leisurely
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walked down, eventually meeting the cyclist — a plain plump
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girl with pigtails, followed by a huge St. Bernard dog with
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orbits like pansies. In Kasbeam a very old barber gave me a
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very mediocre haircut: he babbled of a baseball-playing son
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of his, and, at every explodent, spat into my neck, and every
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now and then wiped his glasses on my sheet-wrap, or inter-
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rupted his tremulous scissor work to produce faded newspaper
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clippings, and so inattentive was I that it came as a shock to
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realize as he pointed to an easeled photograph among the
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ancient gray lotions, that the mustached young ball player
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had been dead for the last thirty years.
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I had a cup of hot flavorless coffee, bought a bunch of ba-
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nanas for my monkey, and spent another ten minutes or so in
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a delicatessen store. At least an hour and a half must have
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194
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elapsed svhcn this homeward-hound little pilgrim appeared on
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the winding road leading to Chestnut Castle.
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The girl I had seen on my way to town was now loaded with
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linen and engaged in helping a misshapen man whose big head
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and coarse features reminded me of the "Bertoldo” character
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in low Italian comedy. They were cleaning the cabins of which
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there was a dozen or so on Chestnut Crest, all pleasantly
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spaced amid the copious verdure. It was noon, and most of
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them, with a final bang of their screen doors, had already got
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rid of their occupants. A very elderly, almost mummy-like cou-
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ple in a very new model were in the act of creeping out of
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one of the contiguous garages; from another a red hood pro-
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truded in somewhat cod-piece fashion; and nearer to our
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cabin, a strong and handsome young man with a shock of
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black hair and blue eyes was putting a portable refrigerator
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into a station wagon. For some reason he gave me a sheepish
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grin as I passed. On the grass expanse opposite, in the many-
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limbcd shade of luxuriant trees, the familiar St. Bernard dog
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was guarding his mistress’ bicycle, and nearby a young woman,
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far gone in the family way, had seated a rapt baby on a swing
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and was rocking it gently, while a jealous boy of two or three
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was making a nuisance of himself by trying to push or pull
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the swing hoard; he finally succeeded in getting himself
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knocked down by it, and bawled loudly as he lay supine on
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the grass while his mother continued to smile gently at neither
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of her present children. I recall so clearly these minutiae prob-
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ably because I was to check my impressions so thoroughly only
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a few minutes later, and besides, something in me had been
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on guard ever since that awful night in Beardsley. 1 now
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refused to be diverted by the feeling of well-being that my
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walk had engendered — by the young summer breeze that en-
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veloped the nape of my neck, the giving crunch of the damp
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gravel, the juicy tidbit I had sucked out at last from a hollow'
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tooth, and even the comfortable weight of my provisions
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which the general condition of my heart should not have
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allowed me to carry; but even that miserable pump of mine
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seemed to be working sweetly, and I felt adolori cfamoureuse
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Bngucur, to quote dear old Ronsard, as I reached the cottage
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where I had left my Dolores.
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To my surprise I found her dressed. She was sitting on the
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edge of the bed in slacks and T-shirt, and was looking at me
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as if she could not quite place me. The frank soft shape of
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her small breasts was brought out rather than blurred bv the
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195
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limpness of her thin shirt, and this frankness irritated me. She
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had not washed; yet her mouth was freshly though smudgily
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painted, and her broad teeth glistened like wine-tinged ivory,
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or pinkish poker chips. And there she sat, hands clasped in
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her lap, and dreamily brimmed with a diabolical glow that had
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no relation to me whatever.
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I plumped down my heavy paper bag and stood staring at
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the bare ankles of her sandaled feet, then at her silly face, then
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again at her sinful feet. “You’ve been out,” I said (the sandals
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were filthy with gravel) .
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“I just got up,” she replied, and added upon intercepting
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my downward glance: '“Went out for a sec. Wanted to see
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if you were coming back.”
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She became aware of the bananas and uncoiled herself table-
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ward.
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What special suspicion could I have? None indeed — but
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those muddy, moony eyes of hers, that singular warmth ema-
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nating from her! I said nothing. I looked at the road mean-
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dering so distinctly within the frame of the window . . .
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Anybody wishing to betray my trust would have found it a
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splendid lookout. With rising appetite, Lo applied herself to
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the fruit. All at once I remembered the ingratiating grin of
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the Johnny nextdoor. I stepped out quickly. All cars had dis-
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appeared except his station wagon; his pregnant young wife
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was now getting into it with her baby and the other, more
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or less cancelled, child.
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“What’s the matter, where are you going?” cried Lo from
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the porch.
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I said nothing. I pushed her softness back into the room and
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went in after her. I ripped her shirt off. I unzipped the rest of
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her. I tore off her sandals. Wildly, I pursued the shadow of her
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|
infidelity; but the scent I travelled upon v/as so slight as to be
|
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practically undistinguishable from a madman’s fancy.
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17
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Gitos Gaston, in his prissy way, had liked to make presents —
|
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|
presents just a prissy rvee bit out of the ordinary, or so he
|
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|
prissily thought. Noticing one night that my box of chessmen
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196
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was broken, he sent rne next morning, with a little lad of his.
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a copper case: it had an elaborate Oriental design over the
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|
lid and could be securely locked. One glance sufficed to assure
|
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|
me that it was one of those cheap money boxes called for
|
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|
some reason "luizettas” that you buy in Algiers and elsewhere,
|
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|
and •wonder what to do with afterwards. It turned out to be
|
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|
much too fiat for holding my bulky chessmen, but I kept it —
|
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|
using it for a totally different purpose.
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In order to break some pattern of fate in which 1 obscurely
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|
felt myself being enmeshed, I had decided — despite Lo's risi-
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|
ble annoyance — to spend another night at Chestnut Court;
|
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|
definitely waking up at four in the morning, I ascertained that
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Lo was still sound asleep (mouth open, in a kind of dull
|
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|
|
amazement at the curiously inane life we all had rigged up
|
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|
for her) and satisfied myself that the precious contents of the
|
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|
'ffuizetta" were safe. There, snugly wrapped in a white woollen
|
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|
scarf, lay a pocket automatic: caliber .52, capacity of magazine
|
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|
|
8 cartridges, length a little under one ninth of Lolita’s length,
|
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|
|
stock checked walnut, finish full blued. I had inherited it
|
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|
|
from the late Harold Haze, with a 1958 catalog which cheerily
|
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|
|
said in part: "Particularly well adapted for use in the home
|
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|
and car as well as on the person." There it lay. ready for instant
|
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|
|
service on the person or persons, loaded and fully cocked with
|
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|
the slide lock in safety position, thus precluding any acci-
|
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|
dental discharge. We must remember that a pistol is the
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Freudian symbol of the Ur-fathcr’s central forclimb.
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I was now glad I had it with me — and even mom glad that I
|
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|
had learned to use it two years before, in the pine forest around
|
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|
|
my and Charlotte’s glass Lake. Farlow, with whom 1 had
|
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|
|
roamed those remote woods, was an admirable marksman, and
|
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|
|
with his .38 actually managed to hit a humming bird, though
|
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|
|
I must say not much of it could be retrieved for proof — only
|
|
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|
|
a little iridescent fluff. A burly cx-policcman called Krtr-
|
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|
|
tovski, who in the twenties had shot and lolled two escaped
|
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|
|
convicts, joined us and bagged a tiny woodpecker — completely
|
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|
|
out of season, incidentally. Ectwcen those two sportsmen I of
|
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|
|
course was a norice and kept missing everything, though 1
|
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|
|
did wound a squirrel on a later occasion when 1 went out
|
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|
|
alone. "You He here.” I whispered to my light-weight com-
|
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|
|
pact little chum, and then toasted it with a drr.m cf pin.
|
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197
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The readee must now forget Chestnuts and Colts, and ac-
|
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|
company us further west The following days were marked by a
|
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|
|
number of great thunderstorms — or perhaps, there was but one
|
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|
|
single storm which progressed across country in ponderous
|
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|
|
frog-leaps and which we could not shake off just as we could
|
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|
|
not shake off detective Trapp: for it was during those days that
|
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|
the problem of the Aztec Red Convertible presented itself
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|
to me, and quite overshadowed the theme of Lo’s lovers.
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Queerl I who was jealous of every male we met — queer, how
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|
I misinterpreted the designations of doom. Perhaps I had been
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|
lulled by Lo's modest behavior in winter, and anyway it would
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|
have been too foolish even for a lunatic to suppose another
|
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|
|
Humbert was avidly following Humbert and Humbert's
|
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|
nymphet with Jovian fireworks, over the great and ugly plains.
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|
I surmised, done, that the Red Yak keeping behind us at a
|
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|
discreet distance mile after mile was operated by a detectiye
|
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|
whom some busybody had hired to see what exactly Humbert
|
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|
|
Humbert was doing with that minor stepdaughter of his. As
|
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|
|
happens with me at periods of electrical disturbance and
|
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|
|
crepitating lightnings, I had hallucinations. Maybe they were
|
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|
|
more than hallucinations. I do not know what she or he, or
|
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|
|
both had put into my liquor but one night I felt sure some-
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|
body was tapping on the door of our cabin, and I flung it
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|
open, and noticed two things — that I was stark naked and
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|
that, white-glistening in the rain-dripping darkness there stood
|
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|
|
a man holding before his face the mask of Jutting Chin, a
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|
|
grotesque sleuth in the funnies. He emitted a muffled guffaw
|
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|
and scurried away, and I reeled back into the room, and
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|
|
fell asleep again, and am not sure even to this day that the visit
|
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|
|
was not a drag-provoked dream: I have thoroughly studied
|
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|
|
Trapp’s type of humor, and this might have been a plausible
|
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|
|
sample. Oh, crude and absolutely ruthlessl Somebody, I imag-
|
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|
|
ined, was making money on those masks of popular monsters
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|
and morons. Did I see next morning two urchins rummaging
|
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|
|
in a garbage can and trying on Jutting Chin? I wonder. It
|
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|
|
may all have been a coincidence— due to atmospheric condi-
|
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|
|
tions, I suppose.
|
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|
Being a murderer with a sensational but incomplete and un-
|
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198
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orthodox memory, I cannot tell yon, ladies and gentlemen, the
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|
exact day when I first knew with ntter certainty that the red
|
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|
convertible was following us. I do remember, however, the first
|
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|
time I saw its driver quite clearly. I was proceeding slowly one
|
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|
|
afternoon through torrents of rain and kept seeing that red
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|
ghost swimming and shivering with lust in my mirror, when
|
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|
|
presently the deluge dwindled to a patteT, and then was sus-
|
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|
pended altogether. With a swishing sound a sunburst swept
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|
|
the highway, and needing a pair of new sunglasses, I pulled
|
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|
up at a filling station. What was happening was a sickness, a
|
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|
|
cancer, that could not be helped, so I simply ignored the fact
|
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|
|
that our quiet pursuer, in his converted state, stopped a little
|
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|
|
behind us at a cafd or bar bearing the idiotic sign: The Bustle:
|
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|
|
A Deceitful Seatful. Having seen to the needs of my car, I
|
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|
walked into the office to get those glasses and pay for the gas.
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|
|
As I was in the act of signing a travellers' check and wondered
|
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|
|
about my exact whereabouts, I happeued to glance through
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|
|
a side window, and saw a terrible thing. A broad-backcd man,
|
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|
|
baldish, in an oatmeal coat and dark-brown trousers, was lis-
|
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|
tening to Lo who was leaning out of the car and tailing to
|
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|
him very' rapidly, heT hand with outspread fingers going up
|
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|
and down as it did when she was very serious and emphatic.
|
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|
What struck me with sickening force was — how should I put
|
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|
|
it? — the voluble familiarity' of her way, as if they had known
|
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|
each other — oh, for weeks and weeks. I saw him scratch his
|
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|
|
cheek and nod, and turn, and walk back to his convertible, s
|
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|
|
broad and thickish man of my age, somewhat resembling
|
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|
|
Gustave Trapp, a cousin of my father’s in Switzerland — same
|
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|
|
smoothly tanned face, fuller than mine, with a small dark mus-
|
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|
|
tache and a rosebud degenerate mouth. Lolita was studying a
|
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|
|
road map when I got bad: into the cur.
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|
|
“What did that man ask you, Lo?"
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|
“Man? Oh, that man. Oh yes. Oh, I don’t know. He won-
|
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|
dered if I had a map. Lost his way, I guess.”
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|
We drove on, and I said:
|
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|
|
“Now listen, Lo. I do not know whether yen ere Ling or
|
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|
|
not, and I do not know whether you arc insane or not. end I
|
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|
|
do not care for the moment; but that person has been foliar.--
|
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|
|
ing us all day, and his car was at the motel yesterday, and I
|
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|
|
think he is a cop. You know perfectly well what will happen
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and where you will go if the police find out about thin,;;. Now
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I wont to know erectly whet he said to }ou and what you
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told him.”
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19 ?
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She laughed.
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"If he's really a cop,” she said shrilly but not iHogically, “the
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worst thing we could do, would be to show him we are scared.
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Ignore him, Dad.”
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"Did he ash where we were going?”
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“Oh, he knows that” (mocking me) .
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“Anyway,” I said, giving up, "I have seen his face now. He
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is not pretty. He looks exactly like a relative of mine called
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Trapp.”
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“Perhaps he is Trapp. If I were you — Oh, look, all the nines
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are changing into the next thousand. When I was a little kid,”
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she continued unexpectedly, “I used to think they’d stop and
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go back to nines, if only my mother agreed to put the car
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in reverse.”
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It was the first time, I think, she spoke spontaneously of her
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pre-Humbertian childhood; perhaps, the theatre had taught
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her that trick; and silently we travelled on, unpursued.
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But next day, like pain in a fatal disease that comes back
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as the drug and hope wear off, there it was again behind us,
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that glossy red beast. The traffic on the highway was light that
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day; nobody passed anybody; and nobody attempted to get
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in between our humble blue car and its imperious red shadow
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— as if there were some spell cast on that interspace, a zone
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of evil mirth and magic, a zone whose very precision and sta-
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bility had a glass-like virtue that was almost artistic. The
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driver behind me, with his stuffed shoulders and Trappish
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mustache, looked like a display dummy, and his convertible
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seemed to move only because an invisible rope of silent silk
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connected it with our shabby vehicle. We were many times
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weaker than his splendid, lacquered machine, so that I did
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not even attempt to outspeed him. O lente cunite noctis equil
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O softly run, nightmares! We climbed long grades and rolled
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downhill again, and heeded speed limits, and spared slow
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children, and reproduced in sweeping terms the black wiggles
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of curves on their yellow shields, and no matter how and
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where we drove, the enchanted interspace slid on intact,
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mathematical, mirage-like, the viatic counterpart of a magic
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carpet. And all the time I was aware of a private blaze on my
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right: her joyful eye, her flaming cheek.
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A traffic policeman, deep in the nightmare of crisscross
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streets — at half-past-four p.m. in a factory town — was the
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hand of chance that interrupted the spell. He beckoned me
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200
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on, and then with the same hand cut off my shadow. A score
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of cars were launched in between us, and I sped on, and deftly
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turned into a narrow lane. A sparrow alighted with a jumbo
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bread crumb, was taclded by another, and lost the crumb.
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When after a few grim stoppages and a bit of deliberate
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meandering, I returned to the highway, our shadow had dis-
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appeared.
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Lola snorted and said: "If he is what you think he is, how
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silly to give him the slip.”
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"I have other notions by now,” I said.
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"You should — ah— check them by — ah — keeping in tench
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with him, fahther deah,” said Lo, writhing in the coils of her
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own sarcasm. "Gee, you are mean,” she added in her ordinary
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voice.
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We spent a grim night in a very foul cabin, under a
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sonorous amplitude of rain, and with a land of prchistorically
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loud thunder incessantly rolling above us.
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"I am not a lady and do not like lightning,” said Lo, whose
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dread of electric storms gave me some pathetic solace.
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We had breakfast in the township of Soda, pop. 1091.
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"Judging by the terminal figure,” I remarked, "Fatfaec
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is already here."
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“Your humor,” said Lo, "is sidesplitting, dcab fahther.”
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We were in sage-brush country by that time, and there war
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z day or two of lovely release (I had been a fool, all was well,
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that discomfort was merely a trapped flatus), and presently
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the mesas gave way to real mountains, and, on time, vc drove
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into Wacc.
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Oh, disaster. Some confusion had occurred, she had m bread
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fi date in the Tour Book, and the Marie Cave ceremonies were
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over! She took it b rarely, I must admit — and, when we dis-
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covered there was in lcurortish Wace a summer theatre in full
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ruing, we naturally drifted toward it one fair mid-June evening.
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I really could not tell you the plot of the play we saw. A trivial
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affair, no doubt, with self-conscious light effects and a m:di-
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oerc leading lady. The only detail that pleased me wc> r*r-
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land of seven little graces, more or less immobile, prettily
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painted, barclimbed — seven bemused pubescent iritis in c.b
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ored gaur.c that had been recruited locally (judging by the
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partisan flurry here and there among the audience 1 end ear
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supposed to represent a living rainbow, which lingered thteerh-
|
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|
out the last act, and rather trcs-incly faced behind a tree, e:
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291 ~
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multiplied veils. I remember thinking that this idea of chil-
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dren-colors had been lifted by authors Clare Quilty and Vivian
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|
Darkbloom from a passage in James Joyce, and that two of the
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colors were quite exasperatingly lovely — Orange who kept
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fidgeting all the time, and Emerald who, when her eyes got
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used to the pitch-black pit where we all heavily sat, suddenly
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smiled at her mother or her protector.
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As soon as the thing was over, and manual applause — a
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sound my nerves cannot stand — began to crash all around me,
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I started to pull and push Lo toward the exit, in my so natural
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amorous impatience to get her back to our neon-blue cottage
|
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in the stunned, starry night: I always say nature is stunned by
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the sights she sees. Dolly-Lo, however, lagged behind, in a |
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rosy daze, her pleased eyes narrowed, her sense of vision
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swamping the rest of her senses to such an extent that her
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limp hands hardly came together at all in the mechanical
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action of clapping they still went through. I had seen that
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kind of thing in children before but, by God, this was a
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special child, myopically beaming at the already remote stage
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|
where I glimpsed something of the joint authors — a man’s
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tuxedo and the bare shoulders of a hawklike, black-haired.
|
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Strikingly tall woman.
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"You’ve again hurt my wrist, you brute,” said Lolita in a
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|
small voice as she slipped into her car seat.
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"I am dreadfully sorry, my darling, my own ultraviolet dar-
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ling,” I said, unsuccessfully trying to catch her elbow, and I
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|
added, to change the conversation — to change the direction
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|
of fate, oh God, oh God: "Vivian is quite a woman. I am
|
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|
sure we saw her yesterday in that restaurant, in Soda pop.”
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“Sometimes,” said Lo, "you are quite revoltingly dumb.
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|
First, Vivian is the male author, the gal author is Clare; and
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|
second, she is forty, married and has Negro blood.”
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"I thought,” I said kidding her, “Quflty was an ancient
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|
flame of yours, in the days when you loved me, in sweet old
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Ramsdale.”
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"What?” countered Lo, her features working. “That fat
|
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|
dentist? You must be confusing me with some other fast
|
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|
little article.”
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|
And I thought to myself how those fast little articles forget
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|
everything, everything, while we, old lovers, treasure every inch
|
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|
of their nymphancy.
|
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202
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19
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With Lo's knowledge and assent, the two post offices given
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|
to the Beardsley postmaster as forwarding addresses were P.O.
|
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|
Wace and P.O. Elphinstone. Next morning we visited the
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|
former and had to wait in a short but slow queue. Serene Lo
|
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|
|
studied the rogues' gallery. Handsome Biyan Bryansld, alias
|
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|
|
Anthony Bryan, alias Tony Brown, eyes hazel, complexion
|
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|
|
fair, was wanted for kidnaping. A sad-eyed old gentleman's
|
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|
|
faux-pas was mail fraud, and, as if that were not enough, he
|
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|
|
was cursed with deformed arches. Sullen Sullivan came with
|
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|
|
a caution: Is believed armed, and should be considered ex-
|
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|
|
tremely dangerous. If you want to make a movie out of my
|
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|
book, have one of these faces gently melt into my own, while
|
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|
I look. And moreover there was a smudgy snapshot of a
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|
Missing Girl, age fourteen, wearing brown shoes when last
|
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|
|
seen, rhymes. Please notify Sheriff Buffer.
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|
I forget my letters; as to Dolly's, there was her report and
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|
a very special-looking envelope. This I deliberately -opened
|
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|
and perused its contents. I concluded I was doing the foreseen
|
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|
since she did not seem to mind and drifted toward the news-
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|
stand near the exit
|
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"Dolly-Lo: Well, the play was a grand success. AD three
|
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|
|
hounds lay quiet having been slightly drugged by Cutler, I
|
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|
|
suspect, and Linda knew all your lines. She was fine, she had
|
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|
|
alertness and control, but lacked somehow the responsiveness,
|
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|
|
the relaxed vitality, the charm of my — and the author’s —
|
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|
» Diana; but there was no author to applaud us as last time,
|
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|
|
and the terrific electric storm outside interfered with our own
|
|
|
|
|
modest off-stage thunder. Oh dear, life does fly. Now that
|
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|
|
everything is over, school, play, the Roy mess, mother’s con-
|
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|
|
finement (our baby, alas, did not live!), it all seems such a
|
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|
Iona .time ago, though practically I still bear traces of the paint.
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v 77e are going to New York after to-morrow, and I guess I
|
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|
can’t manage to wriggle out of accompanying my parents to
|
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|
|
Europe. I have even worse news for you, Dolly-Lo! I may not
|
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|
|
be back at Beardsley if and when you return. With one thing
|
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and another, one being you know who, and the other not being
|
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203
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who you think you know. Dad wants me to go to school in
|
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|
Paris for one year while he and Fullbright axe around..
|
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|
“As expected, poor Poet stumbled in Scene III when arriving
|
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|
at the bit of French nonsense. Remember? Ne manque pas de
|
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|
dire k ton am ant, Chim&ne, comme le lac est beau car il faut
|
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qu'il t'y mkne. Lucky beau! Qu’il t’y — What a tongue-twister!
|
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|
Well, be good, Lollikins. Best love from your Poet, and best
|
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|
|
regards to the Governor. Your Mona. P. S. Because of one
|
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|
thing and another, my correspondence happens to be rigidly
|
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|
controlled. So better wait till I write you from Europe.” (She
|
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|
never did as far as I know. The letter contained an element of
|
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|
|
mysterious nastiness that I am too tired to-day to analyze. I
|
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|
|
found it later preserved in one of the Tour Books, and give it
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|
here k tit re documentaire. I read it twice.)
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I looked up from the letter and was about to — There was no
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|
Lo to behold. While I was engrossed in Mona's witchery, Lo
|
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|
had shrugged her shoulders and vanished. "Did you happen
|
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|
|
to see — ” I asked of a hunchback sweeping the floor near the
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|
|
entrance. He had, the old lecher. He guessed she had seen
|
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|
|
a friend and had hurried out. I hurried out too. I stopped — she
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|
had not. I hurried on. I stopped again. It had happened at
|
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|
last. She had gone for ever. • ,
|
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|
In later years I have often wondered why she did not go for
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|
|
ever that day. Was it the retentive quality of her new summer
|
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|
|
clothes in my locked car? Was it some unripe particle in some
|
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|
general plan? Was it simply because, all things considered, I
|
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|
might as well be used to convey her to Elphinstone — the secret
|
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|
terminus, anyway? I only know I was quite certain she had left
|
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|
me for ever. The noncommittal mauve mountains half encir-
|
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|
|
cling the town seemed to me to swarm with panting, scram-
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|
bling, laughing, panting Lolitas who dissolved in their haze. A
|
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|
big W made of white stones on a steep talus in -the far vista of
|
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|
a cross street seemed the very initial of woe.
|
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|
The new and beautiful post office I had just emerged from
|
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|
|
stood between a dormant movie house and a conspiracy of
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|
poplars. The time was 9 a.m. mountain time. The street was
|
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|
|
Main Street I paced its blue side peering at the opposite one:
|
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|
|
charming it into beauty, was one of those fragile young sum-
|
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|
mer mornings with flashes of glass here and there and a
|
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|
|
general air of faltering and almost fainting at the prospect
|
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|
|
of an intolerably torrid noon. Crossing over, I loafed and
|
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|
|
leafed, as it were, through one long block: Drugs, Real
|
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|
|
Estate, Fashions, Auto Parts, Cafe, Sporting Goods, Real
|
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204
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Estate, Furniture, Appliances, Western Union, Cleaners,
|
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|
Grocery. Officer, officer, my daughter has run away. In collu-
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|
sion with a detective; in love with a blackmailer. Took advan-
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|
tage of my utter helplessness. I peered into all the stores. I
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|
deliberated only if I should talk to any of the sparse foot-
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|
passengers. I did not I sat for a while in the parked car. I
|
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|
inspected the public garden on the east side. I went back
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|
to Fashions and Auto Parts. I told myself with a burst of
|
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|
|
furious sarcasm — un ricanement — that I was crazy to suspect
|
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|
her, that she would turn up in a minute.
|
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She did.
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I wheeled around and shook off the hand she had placed
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|
on my sleeve with a timid and imbecile smile.
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"Get into the car,” I said.
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|
She obeyed, and I went on pacing up and down, struggling
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|
|
with nameless thoughts, trying to plan some way of tackling
|
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|
her duplicity.
|
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|
Presently she left the car and was at my side again. My
|
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|
sense of hearing gradually got tuned in to station Lo again,
|
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|
and I became aware she was telling me that she had met a
|
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|
former girl friend.
|
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“Yes? Whom?”
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"A Beardsley girh"
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"Good. I know every name in your group. Alice Adams?”
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"This girl was not in my group.”
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“Good. I have a complete student list with me. Her name
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please.”
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“She was not in my school. She is just a town girl in
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Beardsley.”
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"Good. I have the Beardsley directory with me too. Well
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look up all the Browns.”
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“I only know her first name.”
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"Mary or Jane?"
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"No — Dolly, like me.”
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“So that’s the dead end” (the mirror you break your nose
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against). "Good. Let us try another angle. You have been ab-
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sent twenty-eight minutes. What did the two Dollys do?”
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‘We went to a drugstore.”
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“And you had there — ?”
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“Oh, just a couple of cokes.”
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"Careful, Dolly. We can check that, you know.”
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"At least, she had. I had a glass of water.”
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"Good. Was it that place there?”
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205
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"Sure.”
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"Good, come on, we'll grill the soda jerk."
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"Wait a sec. Come to think it might have been further
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down — just around the comer."
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"Come on all the same. Go in please. Well, let’s see.”
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(Opening a chained telephone book.) "Dignified Funeral
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Service. No, not yet. Here we are: Druggists-Retail. Hill Drug
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Store. Larkin’s Pharmacy. And two more. That’s all Wace
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seems to have in the way of soda fountains — at least in the
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business section. Well, we will check them all.”
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"Go to hell," she said.
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"Lo, rudeness will get you nowhere.”
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"Okay,” she said. "But you’re not going to trap me. Okay,
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so we did not have a pop. We just talked and looked at dresses
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in show windows.”
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"Which? That window there for example?”
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"Yes, that one there, for example.”
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"Oh Lo! Let’s look closer at it”
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It was indeed a pretty sight. A dapper young fellow was
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vacuum-cleaning a carpet of sorts upon which stood two figures
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that looked as if some blast had just worked havoc with them.
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One figure was stark naked, wigless and armless. Its compara-
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tively small stature and smirking pose suggested that when
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clothed it had represented, and would represent when clothed
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again, a girl child of Lolita's size. But in its present state it was
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sexless. Next to it, stood a much taller veiled bride, quite per-
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fect and intacta except for the lack of one arm. On the floor,
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at the feet of these damsels, where the man crawled about
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laboriously with his cleaner, there lay a cluster of three slender
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arms, and a blond wig. Two of the arms happened to be
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twisted and seemed to suggest a clasping gesture of horror
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and supplication.
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"Look, Lo,” I said quietly. "Look well. Is not that a rather
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good symbol of something or other? However” — I went on as
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we got back into the car — "I have taken certain precautions.
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Here (delicately opening the glove compartment), on this
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pad, I have our boy friend’s car number.”
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As the ass I was I had not memorized it. What remained of
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it in my mind were the initial letter and the closing figure as if
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the whole amphitheatre of six signs receded concavely behind a
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tinted glass too opaque to allow the central series to be deci-
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phered, but just translucent enough to make out its extreme
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edges — a capital P and a 6. I have to go into those details
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206
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(which in themselves can interest only a professional psy-
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chologne) because otherwise the reader (ah, if I could vis-
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ualize him as a blond-bearded scholar with rosy lips sucking
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la pomme de sa canne as he quaffs my manuscript!) might
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not understand the quality . of the shock I experienced upon
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noticing that the P had acquired the bustle of a B and that
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the 6 had been deleted altogether. The rest, with erasures
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revealing the hurried shuttle smear of a pencil's rubber end,
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and with parts of numbers obliterated or reconstructed in a
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child’s hand, presented a tangle of barbed wire to any logical
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interpretation. All I knew was the state — one adjacent to the
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state Beardsley was in.
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I said nothing. I put the pad back, closed the compartment,
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and drove out of Wace. Lo had grabbed some comics from
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the back seat and, mobile-white-bloused, one brown elbow out
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of the window, was deep in the current adventure of some
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clout or clown. Three or four miles out of Wace, I turned into
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the shadow of a picnic ground where the morning had dumped
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- its litter of light on an empty table; Lo looked up with a semi-
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smile of surprise and without a word I delivered a tremendous
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backhand cut that caught her smack on her hot hard little
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cheekbone.
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And then the remorse, the poignant sweetness of sobbing
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atonement, groveling love, the hopelessness of sensual recon-
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ciliation. In the velvet night, at Mirana Motel (Miranal) I
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kissed the yellowish soles of her long-toed feet, I immolated
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myself . . . But it was all of no avail. Both doomed were we.
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And soon I was to enter a new cycle of persecution.
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In a street of Wace, on its outskirts . . . Oh, I am quite
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sure it was not a delusion. In a street of Wace, I had glimpsed
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the Aztec Red Convertible, or its identical twin. Instead of
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Trapp, it contained four or fisc loud young people of several
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sexes — -but I said nothing. After Wace a totally new situation
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arose. For a day or two, I enjoyed the mental emphasis with
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which I told myself that we were not, and never had been fol-
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lowed; and then I became sickeningly conscious that Trapp
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had changed his tactics and was still with us, in this or that
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rented car.
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A veritable Proteus of the highway, with bewildering ease
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|
he switched from one vehicle to another. This technique im-
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|
plied the existence of garages specializing in “stage-auto-
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mobile” operations, but I neser could discover the remises be
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used. He seemed to patronize at first the Chevrolet genus,
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207
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beginning with a Campus Cream convertible, then going on
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to a small Horizon Blue sedan, and thenceforth fading into
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Surf Gray and Driftwood Gray. Then he turned to other
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malces and passed through a pale dull rainbow of paint shades,
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|
and one day I found myself attempting to cope with the subtle
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|
distinction between our own Dream Blue Melmoth and the
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Crest Blue Oldsmobile he had rented; grays, however, re-
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|
mained his favorite cryptochromism, and, in agonizing night-
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mares, I tried in vain to sort out properly such ghosts as
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Chrysler's Shell Gray, Chevrolet’s Thistle Gray, Dodge's
|
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French Gray . . .
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|
The necessity of being constantly on the lookout for his
|
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|
little moustache and open shirt — or for his baldish pate and
|
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|
|
broad shoulders — led me to a profound study of all cars on
|
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|
|
the road — behind, before, alongside, coming, going, every
|
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|
vehicle under the dancing sun: the quiet vacationist’s auto-
|
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|
|
mobile with the box of Tender-Touch tissues in the back
|
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|
|
window; the recklessly speeding jalopy full of pale children
|
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|
|
with a shaggy dog’s head protruding, and a crumpled mud-
|
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|
|
guard; the bachelor’s tudor sedan crowded with suits on
|
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|
hangers; the huge fat house trailer weaving in front, immune
|
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|
|
to the Indian file of fury boiling behind it; the car with the
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|
young female passenger politely perched in the middle of the
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|
front seat to be closer to the young male driver; the car carry-
|
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|
|
ing on its roof a red boat bottom up . . . The gray car slowing
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|
up before us, the gray car catching up with us.
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We were in mountain country, somewhere between Snow
|
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|
and Champion, and rolling down an almost imperceptible
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|
grade, when I had my next distinct view of Detective Para-
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|
mour Trapp. The gray mist behind us had deepened and
|
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|
|
concentrated into the compactness of a Dominion Blue sedan.
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|
All of a sudden, as if the car I drove responded to my poor
|
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|
heart’s pangs, we were slithering from side to side, with some-
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|
thing making a helpless plap-plap-plap under us.
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"You got a flat, mister,” said cheerful Lo.
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I pulled up — near a precipice. She folded her arms and put
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her foot on the dashboard. I got out and examined the right
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|
rear wheel. The base of its tire was sheepishly and hideously
|
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|
|
square. Trapp had stopped some fifty yards behind us. His
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|
distant face formed a grease spot of mirth. This was my
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|
chance. I started to walk towards him — with the brilliant idea
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|
of asking him for a jack though I had one. He backed a little.
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|
I stubbed my toe against a stone — and there was a sense of
|
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208
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|
general laughter. Then a tremendous truck loomed from be-
|
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|
hind Trapp and thundered by me — and immediately after,
|
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|
I heard it utter a convulsive honk. Instinctively I looked back
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|
— and saw my own car gently creeping away. I could make out
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|
Lo ludicrously at the wheel, and the engine was certainly run-
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|
ning — though I remembered I had cut it but had not applied
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|
the emergency brake; and during the brief space of throb-
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|
|
time that it took me to reach the croaking machine which
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|
|
came to a standstill at last, it dawned upon me that during
|
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|
|
the last two years little Lo had had ample time to pick up
|
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|
the rudiments of driving. As I wrenched the door open, I
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|
was goddam sure she had started the car to prevent me from
|
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|
walking up to Trapp, Her trick proved useless, however, for
|
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|
even while I was pursuing her he had made an energetic U-
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tum and was gone. I rested for a while. Lo asked wasn’t I
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|
going to thank her — the car had started to move by itself and
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|
— Getting no answer, she immersed herself in a study of the
|
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|
. map. I got out again and commenced the “ordeal of the orb,”
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|
as Charlotte used to say. Perhaps, I was losing my mind.
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We continued our grotesque journey. After a forlorn and
|
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|
|
useless dip, we went up and up. On a steep grade I found
|
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|
|
myself behind the gigantic track that had overtaken us. It was
|
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|
|
now groaning up a winding road and was impossible to pass.
|
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|
Out of its front part a small oblong of smooth silver — the
|
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|
inner wrapping of chewing gum — escaped and flew back into
|
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|
our windshield. It occurred to me that if I were really losing
|
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|
my mind, I might end by murdering somebody. In fact — said
|
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|
|
high-and-dry Humbert to floundering Humbert — it might he
|
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|
quite clever to prepare things — to transfer the weapon from
|
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|
|
'box to pocket — so as to be ready to take advantage of the
|
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|
spell of insanity when it does come.
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20
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By PERMnrtNC Lolita to study acting I had, fond fool,
|
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|
|
suffered her to cultivate deceit. It now appeared that it had
|
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|
|
not been merely a matter of learning the answers to such
|
|
|
|
|
questions as what is the basic conflict in “Hedda Gabler,"
|
|
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|
|
or where are the climaxes in “Love Under the Lindens," or
|
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|
209
|
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|
|
analyze the prevailing mood of “Cherry Orchard"; it was
|
|
|
|
|
really a matter of learning to betray me. How I deplored now
|
|
|
|
|
the exercises in sensual simulation that I had so often seen
|
|
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|
|
her go through in our Beardsley parlor when I would observe
|
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|
|
her from some strategic point while she, like a hypnotic sub-
|
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|
|
ject or a performer in a mystic rite, produced sophisticated
|
|
|
|
|
versions of infantile make-believe by going through the mi-
|
|
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|
|
metic actions of hearing a moan in the dark, seeing for the
|
|
|
|
|
first time a brand new young stepmother, tasting something '
|
|
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|
|
she hated, such as buttermilk, smelling crushed grass in a
|
|
|
|
|
lush orchard, or touching mirages of objects with her sly,
|
|
|
|
|
slender, girl-child hands. Among my papers I still have a
|
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|
|
|
mimeographed sheet suggesting:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Tactile drill. Imagine yourself picking up and holding:
|
|
|
|
|
a pingpong ball, an apple, a sticky date, a new flannel-
|
|
|
|
|
fluffed tennis ball, a hot potato, an ice cube, a kitten, a
|
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|
|
puppy, a horseshoe, a feather, a torchlight.
|
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|
Knead with your fingers the following imaginary things:
|
|
|
|
|
a piece of bread, india rubber, a friend’s aching temple, a
|
|
|
|
|
sample of velvet, a rose petal.
|
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|
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|
|
You are a blind girl. Palpate the face of: a Greek youth,
|
|
|
|
|
Cyrano, Santa Claus, a baby, a laughing faun, a sleeping
|
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|
|
stranger, your father."
|
|
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|
|
But she had been so pretty in the weaving of those delicate
|
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|
|
spells, in the dreamy performance of her enchantments and
|
|
|
|
|
dutiesl On certain adventurous evenings, in Beardsley, I also
|
|
|
|
|
had her dance for me with the promise of some treat or gift,
|
|
|
|
|
and although these routine leg-parted leaps of hers were more
|
|
|
|
|
like those of a football cheerleader than like the languorous
|
|
|
|
|
and jerky motions of a Parisian petit rat, the rhythms of her
|
|
|
|
|
not quite nubile limbs had given me pleasure. But all that was
|
|
|
|
|
nothing, absolutely nothing, to the indescribable itch of rap-
|
|
|
|
|
ture that her tennis game produced in me — the teasing delir-
|
|
|
|
|
ious feeling of teetering on the very brink of unearthly order
|
|
|
|
|
and splendor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Despite her advanced age, she was more of a nyrophet than
|
|
|
|
|
ever, with her apricot-colored limbs, in her sub-teen tennis
|
|
|
|
|
togs! Winged gentlemen! No hereafter is acceptable if it does
|
|
|
|
|
not produce her as she was then, in that Colorado resort be-
|
|
|
|
|
tween Snow and Elphinstone, with everything right: the white
|
|
|
|
|
wade little-boy shorts, the slender waist, the apricot midriff,
|
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|
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|
|
210
|
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|
the white breast-kerchief whose ribbons went up and encircled
|
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|
|
her neck to end behind in a dangling knot leaving bare her
|
|
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|
|
gaspingly young and adorable apricot shoulder blades with
|
|
|
|
|
that pubescence and those lovely gentle bones, and the
|
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smooth, downward-tapering bade. Her cap had a white peak.
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Her racket had cost me a small fortune. Idiot, triple idiot!
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I could have filmed her! I would have had her now with me,
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before my eyes, in the projection room of my pain and de-
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spair.
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She would wait and relax for a bar or two of white-lined time
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before going into the act of serving, and often bounced the
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ball once or twice, or pawed the ground a little, always at
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ease, always rather vague about the score, always cheerful as
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she so seldom was in foe dark life she led at home. Her tennis
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was foe highest point to which I can imagine a young creature
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bringing foe art of make-believe, although I daresay, for her
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it was foe very geometry of basic reality.
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The exquisite clarity of all her movements had its auditory
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counterpart in the pure ringing sound of her every stroke. The
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ball when it entered her aura of control became somehow
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whiter, its resilience somehow richer, and foe instrument of
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precision she used upon it seemed inordinately prehensile
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and deliberate at the moment of clinging contact. Her form
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was, indeed, an absolutely perfect imitation of absolutely top-
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notch tennis — without any utilitarian results. As Edusa’s sister,
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Electra Gold, a marvelous young coach, said to me once while
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I sat on a pulsating hard bench watching Dolores Haze toying
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with Linda Hall (and being beaten by her): “Dolly has a
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magnet in foe center of her racket guts, but why the heck is
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she so polite?” Ah, Electra, what did it matter, with such
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grace! I remember at foe very first game I watched being
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drenched with an almost painful convulsion of beauty assimi-
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lation. My Lolita had a way of raising her bent left knee at
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foe ample and springy start of foe service cycle when there
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would develop and hang in foe sun for a second a vital web j
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of balance between toed foot, pristine armpit, burnished arm r
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and far back-flung racket, as she smiled up with gleaming
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teeth at foe small globe suspended so high in foe zenith of |
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foe powerful and graceful cosmos she had created for the j
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express purpose of fallin g upon it with a clean resounding j
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crack of her golden whip. i
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It had, that serve of hers, beauty, directness, youth, a classi- {
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cal purity of trajectory, and was, despite its spanking pace, ;
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211 i
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fairly easy to return, having as it did no twist or sting to its
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long elegant hop.
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That I could have had all her strokes, all her enchantments,
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immortalized in segments of celluloid, makes me moan to-day
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with frustration. They would have been so much more than
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the snapshots I burned! Her overhead volley was related to her
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service as the envoy is to the ballade; for she had been trained,
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my pet, to patter up at once to the net on her nimble, vivid,
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white-shod feet. There was nothing to choose between her
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forehand and backhand drives: they were mirror images of one
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another — my very loins still tingle with those pistol re-
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ports repeated by crisp echoes and Electra's cries. One of the
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pearls of Dolly’s game was a short half-volley that Ned Litam
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had taught her in California.
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She preferred acting to swimming, and swimming to tennis;
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yet I insist that had not something within her been broken by
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me — not that I realized it then! — she would have had on the
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top of her perfect form the will to win, and would have be-
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come a real girl champion. Dolores, with two rackets under
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her arm, in Wimbledon. Dolores endorsing a Dromedary.
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Dolores turning professional. Dolores acting a girl champion
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in a movie. Dolores and her gray, humble, hushed husband-
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coach, old Humbert.
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There was nothing wrong or deceitful in the spirit of her
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game — unless one considered her cheerful indifference toward
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its outcome as the feint of a nymphet. She who was so cruel
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and crafty in everyday life, revealed an innocence, a frankness,
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a kindness of ball-placing, that permitted a second-rate but
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determined player, no matter how uncouth and incompetent,
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to poke and cut his way to victory. Despite her small stature,
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she covered the one thousand and fifty three square feet of
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her half of the court with wonderful ease, once she had
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entered into the rhythm of a rally and as long as she could
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direct that rhythm; but any abrupt attack, or sudden change
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of tactics on her adversary's part, left her helpless. At match
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point, her second serve, which — rather typically — was even
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stronger and more stylish than her first (for she had none of
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the inhibitions that cautious winners have), would strike
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vibrantly the harp-cord of the net — and ricochet out of court.
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The polished gem of her dropshot was snapped up and put
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away by an opponent who seemed four-legged and wielded a
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crooked paddle. Her dramatic drives and lovely volleys would
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candidly fall at his feet. Over and over again she would land
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212
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an easy one into the net — and merrily mimic dismay by droops
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ing in a ballet attitude, with her forelocks' hanging. So sterile
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were her grace and whipper that she could not even win from
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panting me and my old-fashioned lifting drive.
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I suppose I am especially susceptible to the magic of games.
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In my chess sessions with Gaston I saw the board as a square
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pool of limpid water with rare shells and stratagems rosily
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visible upon the smooth tessellated bottom, which to my con-
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fused adversary was all ooze and squid-cloud. Similarly, the
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initial tennis coaching I had inflicted on Lolita — prior to the
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revelations that came to her through the great Californian’s
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lessons — remained in my mind as oppressive and distressful
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memories — not only because she had been so hopelessly and
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irritatingly irritated by every suggestion of mine — but because
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the precious symmetry of the court instead of reflecting the
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harmonies latent in her was utterly jumbled by the clumsiness
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and lassitude of the resentful child I mistaught. Now things
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were different, and on that particular day, in the pure air of
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Champion, Colorado, on that admirable court at the foot of
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steep stone stairs leading up to Champion Hotel where we
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had spent the night, I felt I could rest from the nightmare
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of unknown betrayals within the innocence of her style, of her
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soul, of her essential grace.
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She was hitting hard and flat, with her usual effortless sweep,
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feeding me deep skimming balls — all so rhythmically coordi-
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nated and overt as to reduce my footwork to, practically, a
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swinging stroll — crack players will understand what I mean.
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My rather heavily cut serve that I had been taught by my
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father who had learned it from Decugis or Borman, old friends
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of his and great champions, would have seriously troubled my
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Lo, had I really tried to trouble her. But who would upset such
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a lucid dear? Did I ever mention that her bare arm bore the 8
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of vaccination? That I loved her hopelessly? That she was only
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fourteen?
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An inquisitive butterfly passed, dipping, between us.
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_ Two people in tennis shorts, a red-haired fellow only about
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eight years my junior, with sunburnt bright pink shins, and an
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indolent dark girl with a moody mouth and hard eyes, about
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|
two yean Lolita's senior, appeared from nowhere. As is com-
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mon with dutiful tyros, their rackets were sheathed and
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framed, and they carried them riot as if they were the natural
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and comfortable extensions of certain specialized muscles,
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but h a mm ers or blunderbusses or wimbles, or my own dread-
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213
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ful cumbersome sins. Rather unceremoniously seating them-
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selves near my precious coat, on a bench adjacent to the court,
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they fell to admiring very vocally a rally of some fifty ex-
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changes that Lo innocently helped me to foster and uphold —
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|
until there occurred a syncope in the series causing her to
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gasp as her overhead smash went out of court, whereupon she
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melted into winsome merriment, my golden pet
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I felt thirsty by then, and walked to the drinking fountain;
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|
there Red approached me and in all humility suggested a
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|
mixed double. “I am Bill Mead,” he said. “And that’s Fay
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|
Page, actress. MafEy On Say” — he added (pointing with his
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ridiculously hooded racket at polished Fay who was already
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|
talking to Dolly). I was about to reply “Sony, but — ” (for I
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hate to have my filly involved in the chops and jabs of cheap
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bunglers), when a remarkably melodious cry diverted my at-
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tention: a bellboy was tripping down the steps from the hotel
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to our court and making me signs. I was wanted, if you
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|
please, on an urgent long distance call — so urgent in fact that
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the line was being held for me. Certainly. I got into my coat
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(inside pocket heavy with pistol) and told Lo I would be back
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in a minute. She was picking up a ball — in the continental
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foot-racket way which was one of the few nice things I had
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taught her, — and smiled — she smiled at mel
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An awful calm kept my heart afloat as I followed the boy up
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to the hotel. This, to use an American term, in which discov-
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|
ery, retribution, torture, death, eternity appear in the shape
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of a singularly repulsive nutshell, was it. I had left her in
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mediocre hands, but it hardly mattered now. I would fight, '
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of course. Oh, I would fight Better destroy everything than
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surrender her. Yes, quite a climb.
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At the desk, a dignified, Roman-nosed man, with, I suggest
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|
|
a very obscure past that might reward investigation, handed
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me a message in his own hand. The line had not been held
|
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|
after all. The note said:
|
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"Mr Humbert The head of Birdsley (sic!) School called.
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|
Summer residence — Birdsley 2-8282. Please call back immedi-
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ately. Highly important”
|
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I folded myself into a booth, took a little pill, and for about
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|
|
twenty minutes tussled with space-spooks. A quartet of propo-
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|
|
sitions gradually became audible: soprano, there was no such
|
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|
number in Beardsley; alto, Miss Pratt was on her way to
|
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England; tenor, Beardsley School had not telephoned; bass,
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214
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they could not have done so, since nobody knew I was, that
|
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|
particular day, in Champion, Colo. Upon my stinging him,
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the Roman took the trouble to find out if there had been a
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long distance calk There had been none. A fake call from
|
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some local dial was not excluded. I thanked him. He said: You
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bet After a visit to the purling men's room and a stiff drink
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|
at the bar, I started on my return march. From the very first
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terrace I saw, far below, on the tennis court which seemed the
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size of a school child's Si-wiped slate, golden Lolita playing
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in a double. She moved like a fair angel among three horrible
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Boschian cripples. One of these, her partner, while changing
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' sides, jocosely slapped her on her behind with his racket. He
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had a remarkably round head and wore incongruous brown
|
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trousers. There was a momentary flurry — he saw me, and
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throwing away his racket — mine! — scuttled up the slope. He
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waved his wrists and elbows in would-be comical imitation
|
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|
of rudimentary wings, as he climbed, bow-legged, to the street,
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where his gray car awaited him. Next moment he and the gray-
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ness were gone. When I came down, the remaining trio were
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collecting and sorting out the balls.
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"Mr. Mead, who was that person?”
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Bill and Fay, both looking very solemn, shook their heads.
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That absurd intruder had butted in to make up a double,
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hadn’t he, Dolly?
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Dolly. The handle of my racket was still disgustingly warm.
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Before returning to the hotel, I ushered her into a little alley
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|
half-smothered in fragrant shrubs, with flowers like smoke,
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|
and was about to burst into ripe sobs and plead with her un-
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|
perturbed dream in the most abject maimer for clarification,
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|
no matter how meretricious, of the slow awfulness envelop-
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|
ing me, when we found ourselves behind the convulsed Mead
|
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|
twosome — assorted people, you know, meeting among idyllic
|
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|
settings in old comedies. Bill and Fay were both weak with
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|
laughter — we had come at the end of their private joke. It did
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|
not really matter.
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Speaking as if it really did not really matter, and assuming,
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|
apparently, that life was automatically rolling on with all its
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routine pleasures Dolores said she would like to change into
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|
her bathing things, and spend the rest of the afternoon at
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the swimming pooh It was a gorgeous day. Lolita!
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215
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21
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“Lol Lola! Lolita!” I hear myself crying from a doorway into
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the sun, with the acoustics of time, domed time, endowing my
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|
call and its tell-tale hoarseness with such a wealth of anxiety,
|
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|
passion and pain that really it would have been instrumental in
|
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|
wrenching open the zipper of her nylon shroud had she been
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dead. Lolita! In the middle of a trim turfed terrace I found her
|
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|
at last — she had run out before I was ready. Oh Lolita! There
|
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|
she was playing with a damned dog, not me. The animal, a
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|
|
terrier of sorts, was losing and snapping up again and adjust-
|
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|
ing between his jaws a wet little red ball; he took rapid chords
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|
with his front paws on the resilient turf, and then would
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bounce away. I had only wanted to see where she was, I could
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not swim with my heart in that state, but who cared — and
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|
there she was, and there was I, in my robe — and so I stopped
|
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|
calling;, but suddenly something in the pattern of her motions,
|
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|
as she dashed this way and that in her Aztec Red bathing
|
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|
briefs and bra, struck me . . . there was an ecstasy, a madness
|
|
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|
|
about her frolics that was too much of a glad thing. Even the
|
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|
dog seemed puzzled by the extravagance of her reactions. I
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|
put a gentle hand to my chest as I surveyed the situation.
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|
The turquoise blue swimming pool some distance behind the
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lawn was no longer behind that lawn, but within my thorax,
|
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|
|
and my organs swam in it like excrements in the blue sea water
|
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|
|
in Nice. One of the bathers had left the pool and, half-con-
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|
|
cealed by the peacocked shade of trees, stood quite still, hold-
|
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|
ing the ends of the towel around his neck and following Lolita
|
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|
with his amber eyes. There he stood, in the camouflage of
|
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|
sun and shade, disfigured by them and masked by his own
|
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|
nakedness, his damp black hair or what was left of it, glued
|
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|
|
to his round head, his little mustache a humid smear, the
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|
wool on his chest spread like a symmetrical trophy, his navel
|
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pulsating, his hirsute thighs dripping with bright droplets,
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his tight wet black bathing trunks bloated and bursting with
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■vigor where his great fat bullybag was pulled up and back
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like a padded shield over his reversed beasthood. And as I
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looked at his oval nut-brown face, it dawned upon me that
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what I had recognized him by was the reflection of my daugh-
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ter s countenance — the same beatitude and g rima ce but made
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216
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hideous by 1
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«« ghsM^Ss &s2s
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gost) Hie m '‘° 'If^ aoed agarnst i W > . aftOT aris a
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Sd "Th^td F *ps shivered- fa>“f longer the
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tude of dapp nnation took place. ’c^iss cousin,- the
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marvelous banrfO oJ-natuted audfoohshS ^ who used
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satyr but a very B mentl oned more tn &e g00 d
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Gustave Trapp 1 „ ( be drank beer grunting on
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to counteract bis r^g^t-lifting— totten g £ bat hing suit
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swine) by f f ats . , bis otherwise very co P n oticed me
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a lake beach with h« om ^ This TmpP d bact
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jauntily stnppedjrom towe l o» ?g e ha d gone
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from afar and workmg ol And as ^ oring the
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with false ^f^lTckened and ^ ^ **a
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out of the game, L# , ^ before her./V/ . a ro mp?
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Srtb^teare e caused m * e *££
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tTVS i sphered
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StoS- to , seyes and they seemed to
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ffiaSSSf Ss£! “
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I felt strong enough
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doctor believed).
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22
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c*i *pT Court*
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I am not referring to Trapp or Trapps. After all — well, really
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. . . After all, gentlemen, it was becoming abundantly clear
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that all those identical detectives in prismatically changing
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cars were figments of my persecution mania, recurrent images
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based on coincidence and chance resemblance. Soyons logi-
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ques, crowed the cocky Gallic part of my brain — and pro
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( ceeded to rout the notion of a Lolita-maddened salesman or
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comedy gangster, with stooges, persecuting me, and hoaxing
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me, and otherwise taking riotous advantage of my strange
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relations with the law. I remember humming my panic away.
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I remember evolving even an explanation of the “Birdsley”
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telephone call . . . But if I could dismiss Trapp, as I had
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dismissed my convulsions on the lawn at Champion, I could
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do nothing with the anguish of knowing Lolita to be so tan-
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talizingly, so miserably unattainable and beloved on the very
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eve of a new era, when my alembics told me she should stop
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being a nymphet, stop torturing me.
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An additional, abominable, and perfectly gratuitous worry
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was lovingly prepared for me in Elphinstone. Lo had been dull
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and silent during the last lap — two hundred mountainous
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miles uncontaminated by smoke-gray sleuths or zigzagging
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zanies. She hardly glanced at the famous, oddly shaped, splen-
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didly flushed rock which jutted above the mountains and had
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been the take-off for nirvana on the part of a temperamental
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show girl. The town was newly built, or rebuilt, on the flat
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floor of a seven-thousand foot high valley; it would soon bore
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Lo, I hoped, and we would spin on to California, to the
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Mexican border, to mythical bays, saguaro deserts, fatamor-
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ganas. }os6 Lizzarrabengoa, as you remember, planned to take
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his Carmen to the E tats Unis. I conjured up a Central Amer-
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ican tennis competition in which Dolores Haze and various
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Californian schoolgirl champions would dazzlingly participate.
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Good-will tours on that smiling level eliminate the distinction
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between passport and sport Why did I hope we would be
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happy abroad? A change of environment is the traditional
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fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, rely.
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Mrs. Hays, the brisk, brickly rouged, blue-eyed widow who
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ran the motor court, asked me if I were Swiss perchance, be-
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cause her sister had married a Swiss ski instructor. I was,
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whereas my daughter happened to be half Irish. I registered.
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Hays gave me the key and a twinkling smile, and, still twin-
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kling, showed me where to park the car; Lo crawled out and
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shivered a little: the luminous evening air was decidedly crisp.
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218
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Upon entering the cabin, she sat down on a chair at a card
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table, buried her face in the crook of her arm and said she
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felt awful. Shamming, I thought, s hamm ing, no doubt, to
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evade my caresses; I was passionately parched; but she be-
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gan to whimper in an unusually dreary way when I attempted
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to fondle her. Lolita iH. Lolita dying. Her skin was scalding
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hotl I took her temperature, orally, then looked up a scribbled
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formula I fortunately had in a jotter and after laboriously re-
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ducing the, meaningless to me, degrees Fahrenheit to the
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intimate centigrade of my childhood, found she had 40.4,
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which at least made sense. Hysterical little nymphs might, I
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knew, run up all kinds of temperature — even exceeding a
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fetal count. And I would have given her a sip of hot spiced
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wine, and two aspirins, and kissed the fever away, if, upon
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an examination of her lovely uvula, one of the gems of her
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body, I bad not' seen that it was a burning red. I undressed
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her. Her breath was bittersweet Her brown rose tasted of
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blood. She was shaking from head to toe. She complained of
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a painful stiffness in the upper vertebrae — and I thought of
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poliomyelitis as any American parent, would. Giving up all
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hope of intercourse, I wrapped her up in a laprobe and carried
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her into the car. Kind Mrs. Hays in the meantime had alerted
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the local doctor. "You are lucky it happened here,” she said;
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for not only was Blue the best man in the district but the
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Elphinstone hospital was as modem as modem could be, de-
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spite its limited capacity. With a heterosexual Erlkonig in pur-
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suit, thither I drove, half-blinded by a royal sunset on the
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lowland side and guided by a little old woman, a portable
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witch, perhaps his daughter, whom Mrs. Hays had lent me,
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and whom I was never to see again. Dr. Blue, whose learning,
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no doubt, was infinitely inferior to his reputation, assured me
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it was a virus infection, and when I alluded to her compara-
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tively recent flu, curtly said this was another bug, he bad
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forty such cases on his hands; all of which sounded like the
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“ague” of the ancients. I wondered if I should mention, with
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a casual chuckle, that my fifteen-year-old daughter had had a
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minor accident while climbing an awkward fence with her boy
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friend, but knowing I was drunk, I decided to withhold the
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information till later if necessary. To an unsmiling blond bitch
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of a secretary I gave my daughters age as “practically sixteen.”
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While I was not looking, my child was taken away from mel
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In vain I insisted I be allowed to spend the night on a "wel-
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come” mat in a comer of their damned hospitaL I ran up
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219
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constructivistic flights of stairs, I tried to trace my darling so as
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to tell her she had better not babble, especially if she felt as
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lightheaded as we all did. At one point, I was rather dreadfully
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rude to a very young and very cheeky nurse with overdeveloped
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gluteal parts and blazing black eyes — of Basque descent, as I
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learned. Her father was an imported shepherd, a trainer of
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sheep dogs. Finally, I returned to the car and remained in it
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for I do not know how many hours, hunched up in the dark,
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stunned by my new solitude, looking out open-mouthed now
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at the dimly illumed, very square and low hospital building
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squatting in the middle of its lawny block, now up at the
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wash of stars and the jagged silvery ramparts of the haute
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montagne where at the moment Mary's father, lonely Joseph
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Lore, was dreaming of Oloron, Lagore, Rolas — que sais-jeJ —
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or seducing a ewe. Such-like fragrant vagabond thoughts have
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been always a solace to me in times of unusual stress, and only
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when, despite liberal libations, I felt fairly numbed by the
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endless night, did I think of driving back to the motel. The old
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woman had disappeared, and I was not quite sure of my way.
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Wide gravel roads criss-crossed drowsy rectangular shadows. I
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made out what looked like the silhouette of gallows on what
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was probably a school playground; and in another wastelike
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block there rose in domed silence the pale temple of some local
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sect I found the highway at last, and then the motel, where
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millions of so-called “millers,” a kind of insect, were swarming
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around the neon contours of "No Vacancy”; and, when, at
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3 a.m., after one of those untimely hot showers which like
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some mordant only help to fix a man's despair and weariness,
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I lay on her bed that smelled of chestnuts and roses, and pep-
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permint, and the very delicate, very special French perfume
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I latterly allowed her to use, I found myself unable to assimi-
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late the simple fact that for the first time in two years I was
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separated from my Lolita. AH at once it occurred to me that
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her Alness was somehow the development of a theme- — that
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it had the same taste and tone as the series of linked im-
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pressions which had puzzled and tormented me during our
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journey; I imagined that secret agent, or secret lover, or
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prankster, or hallucination, or whatever he was, prowling
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around the hospital — and Aurora had hardly "wanned her
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hands,” as the pickers of lavender say in the country of my
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birth, when I found myself trying to get into that dungeon
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again, knocking upon its green doors, breakfastless, stool-less,
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in despair.
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220
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, This was Tuesday, and Wednesday or Thursday, splendidly
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reacting like the darling she was to some "serum” (sparrow’s
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sperm or dugong’s dung) , she was much better, and the doctor
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said that in a couple of days she would be "skipping” again.
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Of the eight times I visited her, the last one alone remains
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sharply engraved on my mind. It had been a great feat to come
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for I felt all hollowed out by the infection that by then was
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at work on me too. None will know the strain it was to carry
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that bouquet, that load of love, those books that I had trav-
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eled sixty miles to buy; Browning’s Dramatic Works, The
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History of Dancing, Clowns and Columbines, The Russian
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Ballet, Flowers of the Rockies, The Theatre Guild Anthology,
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Tennis by Helen Wills, who bad won the National Junior
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Girl Singles at the age of fifteen. As I was staggering up to
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the door of my daughter’s tbiiteen-doHar-a-day private room,
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Mary Lore, the beastly young part-time nurse who had taken
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an unconcealed dislike to me, emerged with a finished break-
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fast tray, placed it with a quick crash on a chair in the cor-
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ridor, and, fundament figging, shot back into the room —
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probably to warn her poor little Dolores that the tyrannic old
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father was creeping up on crepe soles, with books and bou-
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quet; the latter I had composed of wild flowers and beautiful
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leaves gathered with my own gloved hands on a mountain
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pass at sunrise (I hardly slept at all that fateful week) .
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Feeding my Carmencita web? Idly I glanced at the tray.
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On a yolk-stained plate there was a crumpled envelope. It had
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contained something, since one edge was tom, but there was
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no address on it — nothing at all, save a phony armorial design
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with ‘Tonderosa Lodge” in green letters; thereupon I per-
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formed a chassg-croisd with Mary, who was in the act of
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bustling out again — wonderful how fast they move and how
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little they do, those rumpy young nurses. She glowered at the
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envelope I had put back, uncrumpled.
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“You better not touch,” she said, nodding directionally.
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"Could bum your fingers.”
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Below my dignity to rejoin. All I said was:
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"Je croyais que c'dtait rm bill — not a billet doux.” Then,
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entering the sunny room, to Lolita: “Bonjour, mon petit.”
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“Dolores,” said Mary Lore, entering with me, past me,
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through me, the plump whore, and blinking, and starting to
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|
fold very rapidly a white flannel blanket as she blinked:
|
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"Dolores, your pappy thinks you are getting letters from my
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boy friend. It's me (smugly tapping herself on the small gilt
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221
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cross she wore) gets them. And my pappy can parlay-voo as
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well as yours.”
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She left the room. Dolores, so rosy and russet, lips freshly
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|
painted, hair brilliantly brushed, bare arms straightened out
|
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on neat coverlet, lay innocently beaming at me or nothing.
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|
On the bed table, next to a paper napkin and a pencil, her
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topaz ring burned in the sun.
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“What gruesome funeral flowers,” she said. “Thanks all the
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same. But do you mind very much cutting out the French? It
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annoys everybody.”
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Back at the usual rush came the ripe young hussy, reeking
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|
|
of urine and garlic, with the Deseret News, which her fair
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|
patient eagerly accepted, ignoring the sumptuously illustrated
|
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volumes I had brought
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“My sister Ann,” said Mary (topping information with
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|
|
afterthought) “works at the Ponderosa place.”
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|
Poor Bluebeard. Those brutal brothers. Est-ce que tu ne
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|
|
m’aimes plus, ma Carmen? She never had. At the moment I
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|
|
knew my love was as hopeless as ever — -and I also knew the
|
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|
|
two girls were conspirators, plotting in Basque, or Zemfirian,
|
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|
|
against my hopeless love. I shall go further and say that Lo was
|
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|
|
playing a double game since she was also fooling sentimental
|
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|
|
Mary whom she had told, I suppose, that she wanted to dwell
|
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|
with her fun-loving young unde and not with cruel melan-
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choly me. And another nurse whom I never identified, and
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|
the village idiot who carted cots and coffins into the elevator,
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|
and the idiotic green love birds in a cage in the waiting room
|
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|
|
— all were in the plot, the sordid plot. I suppose Mary thought
|
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|
|
comedy father Professor Humbertoldi was interfering with
|
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|
|
the romance between Dolores and her father-substitute, roly-
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poly Romeo (for you were rather lardy, you know, Rom, de-
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spite all that "snow” and “joy juice”).
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My throat hurt. I stood, swallowing, at the window and
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stared at the mountains, at the romantic rock high up in the
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smiling plotting sky.
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“My Carmen,” I said (I used to call her that sometimes)
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"we shall leave this raw sore town as soon as you get out of
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bed.”
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“Incidentally, I want all my clothes,” said the gitaniDa,
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humping up her knees and turning to another page.
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. . Because, really,” I continued, “there is no point in
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staying here.”
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There is no point in staying anywhere,” said Lolita.
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222
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V
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I lowered myself into a cretonne chair and, opening the at-
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tractive botanical work, attempted, in the fever-humming
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hush of the room, to identifiy my flowers. This proved im-
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possible. Presently a musical bell softly sounded somewhere
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in the passage.
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I do not think they had more than a dozen patients (three
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or four were lunatics, as Lo had cheerfully informed me
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earlier) in that show place of a hospital, and the staff had
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too much leisure. However — likewise for reasons of show —
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regulations were rigid. It is also true that I kept coming at the
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wrong hours. Not without a secret flow of dreamy malice,
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visionary Mary (next time it will be une belle dame toute en
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bleu floating through Roaring Gulch) plucked me by the
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sleeve to lead me out I looked at her hand; it dropped. As
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I was leaving, leaving voluntarily, Dolores Haze reminded me
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to bring her next morning . . . She did not remember where
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the various things she wanted were . . . "Bring me,” she
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cried (out of sight already, door on the move, closing, closed),
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"the new gray suitcase and Mother’s trunk”; but by next
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morning I was shivering, and boozing, and dying in the motel
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bed she had used for just a few minutes, and the best I could
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do under the circular and dilating circumstances was to send
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the two bags over with the widow’s beau, a robust and kindly
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trucker. I imagined Lo displaying her treasures to Mary . . .
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No doubt, I was a little delirious — and on the following day I
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was still a vibration rather than a solid, for when I looked out
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of the bathroom window at the adjacent lawn, I saw Dolly’s
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beautiful young bicycle propped up there on its support,
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the graceful front wheel looking away from me, as it always
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did, and a sparrow perched on the saddle — but it was the
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landlady’s bike, and smiling a little, and shaking my poor
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head over my fond fancies, I tottered back to my bed, and
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lay as quiet as a saint —
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Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores,
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On a patch of sunny green
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With Sanchicha reading stories
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In a movie magazine —
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— which was represented by numerous specimens wherever
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Dolores landed, and there was some great national celebration
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in town judging by the firecrackers, veritable bombs, that ex-
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ploded all the time, and at five minutes to two pj-i. I heard
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22 ?
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the sound of whistling lips nearing the half-opened door of
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my cabin, and then a thump upon it.
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It was big Frank. He remained framed in the opened door,
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one hand on its jamb, leaning forward a little.
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Howdy. Nurse Lore was on the telephone. She wanted to
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know was I better and would I come today?
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At twenty paces Frank used to look a mountain of health;
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at five, as now, he was a ruddy mosaic of scars — had been
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blown through a wall overseas; but despite nameless injuries he
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was able to man a tremendous truck, fish, hunt, drink, and
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buoyantly dally with roadside ladies. That day, either because
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it was such a great holiday, or simply because he wanted to
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divert a sick man, he had taken off the glove he usually wore
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on his left hand (the one pressing against the side of the
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door) and revealed to the fascinated sufferer not only an entire
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lack of fourth and fifth fingers, but also a naked girl, with
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cinnabar nipples and indigo delta, charmingly tattooed on
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the back of his crippled hand, its index and middle digit mak-
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ing her legs while his wrist bore her flower-crowned head.
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Oh, delicious . . . reclining against the woodwork, like some
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sly fairy.
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I asked him to tell Mary Lore I would stay in bed all day
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and would get into touch with my daughter sometime tomor-
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row if I felt probably Polynesian.
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He noticed the direction of my gaze and made her right
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hip twitch amorously.
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"Okey-dokey,” big Frank sang out, slapped the jamb, and,
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whistling, carried my message away, and I went on drinking,
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and by morning the fever was gone, and although I was as limp
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as a toad, I put on the purple dressing gown over my maize
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yellow pajamas, and walked over to the office telephone.
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Everything was fine. A bright voice informed me that yes,
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everything was fine, my daughter had checked out the day
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before, around two, her uncle, Mr. Gustave, had called for her
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uath a cocker spaniel pup and a smile for everyone, and a black
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Caddy Lack, and had paid Dolly's bill in cash, and told them
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to tell me I should not worry, and keep warm, they were at
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Grandpa’s ranch as agreed.
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Elphinstone was, and I hope still is, a very cute little town.
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It was spread like a maquette, you know, with its neat green-
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W'ool trees and red-roofed houses over the valley floor and I
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think I have alluded earlier to its model school and temple
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and spacious rectangular blocks, some of which were, curiously
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224
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's
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enough, just unconventional pastures with a mule or a unicorn
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grazing in the young July morning mist Very amusing: at one
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gravel-groaning sharp turn I sideswiped a parked car but said
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to myself telestically — and, telepathically (I hoped), to its
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gesticulating owner — that I would return later, address Bird
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School, Bird, New Bird, the gin kept my heart alive but
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bemazed my brain, and after some lapses and losses common
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to dream sequences, I found myself in the reception room,
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trying to beat up the doctor, and roaring at people under
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chairs, and clamoring for Mary who luckily for her was not
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there; rough hands plucked at my dressing gown, ripping off a
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pocket, and somehow I seem to have been sitting on a bald
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brown-headed patient, whom I had mistaken for Dr. Blue,
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and who eventually stood up, remarking with a preposterous
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accent: "Now, who is nevrotic, I ask?” — and then a gaunt
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unsmiling nurse presented me with seven beautiful, beautiful
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books and the exquisitely folded tartan lap robe, and de-
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manded a receipt; and in the sudden silence I became aware
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of a policeman in the hallway, to whom my fellow motorist
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was pointing me out, and meekly I signed die very symbolic
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receipt, thus surrendering my Lolita to all those apes. But
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what else could I do? One simple and stark thought stood out
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and this was: “Freedom for the moment is everything.” One
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false move — and I might have been made to explain a life of
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crime. So I simulated a coming out of a daze. To my fellow
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motorist I paid what he thought was fair. To Dr. Blue, who
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by then was stroking my hand, I spoke in tears of the liquor
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I bolstered too freely a tricky but not necessarily diseased
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heart with. To the hospital in general I apologized with a
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flourish that almost bowled me over, adding however that I
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was not on particularly good terms with the rest of the Hum-
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bert clan. To myself I whispered that I still had my gun, and
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was still a free man — free to trace the fugitive, free to destroy
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my brother.
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23
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A thousand-mtle stretch of silk-smooth road separated Kas-
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beam, where, to the best of my belief, the red fiend bad been
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225
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scheduled to appear for the first time, and fateful Elphinstone
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which we had reached about a week before Independence Day.
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The journey had taken up most of June for we had seldom
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made more than a hundred and fifty miles per traveling day,
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spending the rest of the time, up to five days in one case, at
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various stopping places, all of them also prearranged, no doubt
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It was that stretch, then, along which the fiend's spoor should
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be sought; and to this I devoted myself, after several unmen-
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tionable days of dashing up and down the relentlessly radiating
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roads in the vicinity of Elphinstone.
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Imagine me, reader, with my shyness, my distaste for any
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ostentation, my inherent sense of the comme il faut, imagine
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me masking the frenzy of my grief with a trembling ingratiat-
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ing smile while devising some casual pretext to flip through the
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hotel register: "Oh,” I would say, "I am almost positive that
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I stayed here once — let me look up the entries for mid-June
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— no, I see I'm wrong after all — what a very quaint name for
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a home town, Kawtagain. Thanks very much.” Or: "I had
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a customer staying here — I mislaid his address — may I . . .?”
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And every once in a while, especially if the operator of the
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place happened to be a certain type of gloomy male, personal
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inspection of the books was denied me.
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I have a memo here: between July 5 and November 18,
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when I returned to Beardsley for a few days, I registered, if
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not actually stayed, at 342 hotels, motels and tourist homes.
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This figure includes a few registrations between Chestnut and
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Beardsley, one of which yielded a shadow of the fiend (“N.
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Petit, Larousse, HI.”); I had to space and time my inquiries
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carefully so as not to attract undue attention; and there must
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have been at least fifty places where I merely inquired at the
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desk — but that was a futile quest, and I preferred building
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up a foundation of verisimilitude and good will by first pay-
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ing for an unneeded room. My survey showed that of the
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300 or so books inspected, at least 20 provided me with a
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clue: the loitering fiend had stopped even more often than we,
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or else — he was quite capable of that — he had thrown in
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additional registrations in order to keep me well furnished
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with derisive hints. Only in one case had he actually stayed
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at the same motor court as we, a few paces from Lolita’s pil-
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low. In some instances he had taken up quarters in the same
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or in a neighboring block; not infrequently he had lain in
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wait at an intermediate spot between two bespoken points.
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How vividly I recalled Lolita, just before our departure from
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226
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Beardsley, prone on the- parlor rag, studying tour hoots and
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maps, and marking laps and stops with her lipstick! .
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I discovered at once that he had foreseen my investigation
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and had planted insulting pseudonyms for my special benefit.
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At the very first motel office I visited, Ponderosa Lodge, his
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entry, among a dozen obviously human ones, read: Dr. Gra-
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tiano Forbeson, Mirandola, NY. Its Italian Comedy conno-
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tations could not fail to strike me, of course. The landlady
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deigned to inform me that the gentleman had been laid up for
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five days with a bad cold, that he had left his car for repairs
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in some garage or other and that he had checked out on the
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4th of July. Yes, a girl called Ann Lore had worked formerly
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at the Lodge, but was now married to a grocer in Cedar City.
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One moonlit night I waylaid white-shoed Mary on a solitary
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street; an automaton, she was about to shriek, but I managed
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to humanize her by the simple act of falling on my knees
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and with pious yelps imploring her to help. She did not know
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a thing, she swore. Who was this Gratiano Forbeson? She
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seemed to waver. I whipped out a hundred-dollar bill. She
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lifted it to the light of the moon. “He is your brother," she
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whispered at last. I plucked the bill out of her moon-cold
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hand, and spitting out a French curse turned and ran away.
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This taught me to rely on myself alone. No detective could
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discover the clues Trapp had tuned to my mind and manner.
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I could not hope, of course, he would ever leave his correct
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name and address; but I did hope he might slip on the glaze
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of his own subtlety, by daring, say, to introduce a richer and
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more personal shot of color than was strictly necessary', or by
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revealing too much through a qualitative sum of quantitative
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parts which revealed too little. In one thing he succeeded:
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he succeeded in thoroughly enmeshing me and my thrashing
|
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anguish in his demoniacal game. With infinite skill, he swayed
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and staggered, and regained an impossible balance, always
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leaving me with the sportive hope — if I may use such a term
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in speaking of betrayal, fury, desolation, horror and hate —
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that he might give himself away next time. He never did —
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though coming damn close to it. We all admire the spangled
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|
acrobat with classical grace meticulously walking his tight rope
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in the talcum light; but how much rarer art there is in the
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|
sagging rope expert wearing scarecrow clothes and impersonat-
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|
ing a grotesque drunk! I should know.
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The clues he left did not establish his identity but they re-
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flected his personality, or at least a certain homogenous and
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227
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striking personality; his genre,- his type of humor — at its best
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|
at least — the tone of his brain, had affinities with my own. He
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mimed and mocked me. His allusions were definitely high-
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brow. He was well-read. He knew French. He was versed in
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|
logodaedaly and logomancy. He was an amateur of sex lore.
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|
He had a feminine handwriting. He could change his name
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|
but he could not disguise, no matter how he slanted them, his
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very peculiar Ps, w’s and l’s. Quelquepart Island was one of
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|
his favorite residences. He did not use a fountain pen which
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|
|
fact, as any psychoanalyst will tell you, meant that Hie patient
|
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|
|
was a repressed undinist. One mercifully hopes there are water
|
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|
nymphs in the Styx.
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His main trait was his passion for tantalization. Goodness,
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|
what a tease the poor fellow was! He challenged my scholar-
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ship. I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be
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modest about my not knowing all; and I daresay I missed some
|
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|
|
elements in that cryptogrammic paper chase. What a shiver
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of triumph and loathing shook my frail frame V/hen, among
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the plain innocent names in the hotel recorder, his fiendish
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conundrum would ejaculate in my face! I noticed that when-
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ever he felt his enigmas were becoming too recondite, even for
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such a solver as I, he would lure me back with an easy one.
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“Arsine Lupin” was obvious to a Frenchman who remem-
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bered the detective stories of his youth; and one hardly had to
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be a Coleridgian to appreciate the trite poke of “A. Person,
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Porlock, England.” In horrible taste but basically suggestive
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of a cultured man — not a policeman, not a common goon, not
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a lewd salesman — were such assumed names as "Arthur Rain-
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bow” — plainly the travestied author of Le Bateau Bleu— -let
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me laugh a little too, gentlemen — and "Morris Schmetter-
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ling,” of L’Oiseau Ivre fame (touchS, readerl). The silly but
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funny "D. Orgon, Elmira NY,” was from Moli^re, of course,
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and because I had quite recently tried to interest Lolita in a
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famous 18th-century play, I welcomed as an old friend "Harry
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Bumper, Sheridan, Wyo.” An ordinary encyclopedia informed
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me who the peculiar looking “Phineas Quimby, Lebanon,
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NH” was; and any good Freudian, with a German name and
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some interest in religious prostitution, should recognize at a
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glance the implication of "Dr. Kitzler, Eryx, Miss.” So far so
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good. That sort of fun was shoddy but on the whole imper-
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sonal and thus innocuous. Among entries that arrested my
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attention as undoubtable dues per se but baffled me in respect
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to their finer points I do not care to mention many since I
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feel I am groping in a border-land mist with verbal phantoms
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V 228
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turning, perhaps, into living vacationists. Who mas "Johnny
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Randall, Ramble, Ohio”? Or was he a real person who just
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happened to write a hand similar to “N.S. Aristoff, Catagela,
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NY”? What was the sting in "Catagela”? And what about
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"James Mayor Morrell, Hoaxton, England”? "Aristophanes,”
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“hoax” — fine, but what was I missing?
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There was one strain running through all that pseudonymity
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which caused me especially painful palpitations when I came
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across it Such things as “G. Trapp, Geneva, NY.” was the
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sign of treachery on Lolita’s part “Aubrey Beardsley, Quel-
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quepart Island” suggested more lucidly than the garbled tele-
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phone message had that the starting point of the affair should
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be looked for in the East “Lucas Picador, Merrymay, Pa.,”
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insinuated that my Carmen had betrayed my pathetic endear-
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ments to the impostor. Horribly cruel, forsooth, was ’Will
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Brown, Dolores, Colo.” The gruesome "Harold Haze, Tomb-
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stone, Arizona” (which at another time would have appealed
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to my sense of humor) implied a familiarity with the girl’s
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past that in nightmare fashion suggested for a moment that
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my quarry was an old friend of the family, maybe an old flame
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of Charlotte’s, maybe a redresser of wrongs ("Donald Quix,
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Sierra, Nev.”). But the most penetrating bodkin was the
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anagramtafled entry in the register of Chestnut Lodge ‘Ted
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Hunter, Cane, NH”.
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The garbled license numbers left by all these Persons and
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Orgons and Morells and Trapps only told me that motel keep-
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ers omit to check if guests’ cars are accurately listed. Refer-
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ences — incompletely or incorrectly indicated — to the cars the
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fiend had hired for short laps between Wace and Elphinstone
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were of course useless; the license of the initial Aztec was a
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shimmer of shifting numerals, some transposed, others altered
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or omitted, but somehow forming interrelated combinations
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(such as ‘WS 1564” and "SH 1616,” and Q32888” or "CU
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88322”) which however were so cunningly contrived as to
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never reveal a common denominator.
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It occurred to me that after he had turned that convertible
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over to accomplices at Wace and switched to the stage-motor
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car system, his successors might have been less careful and
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might have inscribed at some hotel office the archtypc of those
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interrelated figures. But if looking for the fiend along a road I
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knew he had taken was such a complicated vague and un-
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profitable business, what could I expect from any attempt to
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trace unknown motorists traveling along unknown routes?
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229
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24
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By the time I reached Beardsley, in the course of the har-
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rowing recapitulation I have now discussed at sufficient length,
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a complete image had formed in my mind; and through the—
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always risky — process of elimination I had reduced this image
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to the only concrete source that morbid cerebration and torpid
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memory could give it-
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Except for the Rev. Rigor Mortis (as the girls called him),
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and an old gentleman who taught non-obligatory German and
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Latin, there were no regular male teachers at Beardsley School.
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But on two occasions an art instructor on the Beardsley Col-
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lege faculty had come over to show the schoolgirls magic lan-
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tern pictures of French castles and nineteenth-century paint-
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ings. I had wanted to attend those projections and talks, but
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Dolly, as was her wont, had asked me not to, period. I also
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remembered that Gaston had referred to that particular lec-
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turer as a brilliant garfon; but that was all; memory refused to
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supply me with the name of the chateau-lover.
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On the day fixed for the execution, I walked through the
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sleet across the campus to the information desk in Maker Hah,
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Beardsley College. There I learned that the fellow’ s name was
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Riggs (rather like that of the minister), that he was a bachelor,
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and that in ten minutes he would issue from the “Museum"
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where he was having a class. In the passage leading to the audi-
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torium I sat on a marble bench of sorts donated by Cecilia
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Dalrymple Ramble. As I waited there, in prostatic discomfort,
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drunk, sleep-starved, with m’y gun in my fist in my raincoat
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pocket, it suddenly occurred to me that I was demented and
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was about to do something stupid. There was not one chance
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in a million that Albert Riggs, Ass. Prof., was hiding my Lolita
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at his Beardsley home, 24 Pritchard Road. He could not be the
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villain. It was absolutely preposterous. I was losing my time
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and my wits. He and she were in California and not here
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at all.
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Presently, I noticed a vague commotion behind some white
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statues; a door — not the one I had been staring at — opened
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briskly, and amid a bevy of women students a baldish head
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and two bright brown eyes bobbed, advanced.
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He was a total stranger to me but insis ted wc had met at a
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230
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lawn party at Beardsley School. How was my delightful tennis-
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playing daughter? He had another class. He would be seeing
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me.
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Another attempt at identification was less speedily resolved:
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through an advertisement in one of Lo’s magazines I dared to
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get in touch with a private detective, an ex-pugilist, and merely
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to give him some idea of the method adopted by the fiend, I
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acquainted him with the kind of names and addresses I had
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collected. He demanded a goodish deposit and for two years —
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|
two years, reader! — that imbecile busied himself with checking
|
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those nonsense data. I had long severed all monetary relations
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with him when he turned up one day with the triumphant in-
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formation that an eighty-year old Indian by the name of Bill
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Brown lived near Dolores, Colo.
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25
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This book is about Lolita; and now that I have reached the
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part which (had I not been forestalled by another internal
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combustion martyr) might be called "Dolores Disp arue,”
|
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there would be little sense in analyzing the three empty yean
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that followed. While a few pertinent points have to be
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marked, the general impression I desire to convey is of a side
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door crashing open in life’s full flight, and a rush of roaring
|
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black time drowning with its whipping wind the cry of lone
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disaster.
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Singularly enough, I seldom if ever dreamed of Lolita as I
|
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|
remembered her — as I saw her constantly and obsessively in
|
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my conscious mind during my daymares and insomnias. More
|
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precisely: she did haunt my sleep but she appeared there in
|
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strange and ludicrous disguises as Valeria or Charlotte, or a
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cross between them. That complex ghost would come to me,
|
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|
shedding shift after shift, in an atmosphere of great melan-
|
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choly and disgust, and would recline in dull imitation on
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some narrow board or hard settee, with flesh ajar like the rub-
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ber valve of a soccer ball’s bladder. I would find myself, den-
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tures fractured or hopelessly mislaid, in horrible chambrcs
|
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gamies where I would be entertained at tedious vivisecting
|
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parties that generally ended with Charlotte or Valeria weep-
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231
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mg in my bleeding arms and being tenderly kissed by my
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brotherly lips in a dream disorder of auctioneered Viennese
|
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|
|
bric4-brac, pity, impotence and the brown wigs of tragic old
|
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women who had just been gassed.
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One day I removed from the car and destroyed an accumula-
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tion of teen-magazines. You know the sort. Stone age at head;
|
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up to date, or at least Mycenaean, as to hygiene. A handsome,
|
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|
very ripe actress with huge lashes and a pulpy red underlip,
|
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|
endorsing a shampoo. Ads and fads. Young scholars dote on
|
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|
plenty of pleats — que c’dtait loin, tout cela [ It is your hostess’
|
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|
duty to provide robes. Unattached details take all the sparkle
|
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|
out of your conversation. AH of us have known "pickers" — one
|
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|
who picks her cuticle at the office party. Unless he is very
|
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|
elderly or very important, a man should remove his gloves
|
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|
before shaking hands with a woman. Invite Romance by wear-
|
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|
ing the Exciting New Tummy Flattener. Trims turns, nips
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|
hips. Tristram in Movielove. Yessir! The Joe-Roe marital
|
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|
|
enigma is making yaps flap. Glamourize yourself quickly and
|
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|
inexpensively. Comics. Bad girl dark hair fat father cigar; good
|
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|
girl red hair handsome daddums clipped mustache. Or that
|
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|
repulsive strip with the big gagoon and his wife, a kiddoid
|
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|
gnomide. Et mo i qui t'offra is mon gdnie ... I recalled the
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|
rather charming nonsense verse I used to write her when she
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|
was a child: “nonsense,” she used to say mockingly, “is cor-
|
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rect”
|
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The Squirl and his Squirrel, the Rabs and their Rabbits
|
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Have certain obscure and peculiar habits.
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Male humming birds make the most exquisite rockets.
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The snake when he walks holds his hands in his pock-
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ets .. .
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Other things of hers were harder to relinquish. Up to the
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end of 1949, I cherished and adored, and stained with my
|
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kisses and merman tears, a pair of old sneakers, a boy’s shirt
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she had worn, some ancient blue jeans I found in the trunk
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compartment a crumpled school cap, suchlike wanton treas-
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ures. Then, when I understood my mind was cracking, I
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collected these sundry belongings, added to them what had
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been stored in Beardsley — a box of books, her bicycle, old
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coats, galoshes — and on her fifteenth birthday mailed every-
|
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|
thing as an anonymous gift to a home for orphaned girls on
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a windy lake, on the Canadian border.
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232
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It is just possible that had I gone to a strong hypnotist he
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might have extracted from me and arrayed in a logical pattern
|
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|
certain chance memories that I have threaded through my
|
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|
booh with considerably more ostentation than they present
|
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|
themselves with to my mind even now when I know what to
|
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|
seek in the past. At the time I felt I was merely losing contact
|
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|
with reality; and after spending the rest of the winter and
|
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|
most of the following spring in a Quebec sanatorium where
|
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|
I had stayed before, I resolved first to settle some affairs of
|
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|
|
mine in New York and then to proceed to California for a
|
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|
|
thorough search there.
|
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Here is something I composed in my retreat:
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Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
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Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet.
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Age: five thousand three hundred days.
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Profession: none, or "starlet.''
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Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze?
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Why are you hiding, darling?
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(I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze,
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I cannot get out, said the starling).
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Where are you riding, Dolores Haze?
|
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What make is the magic carpet?
|
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Is a Cream Cougar the present craze?
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And where are you parked, my car pet?
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Who is your hero, Dolores Haze?
|
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Still one of those blue-caped star-men?
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Oh the balmy days and the palmy bar’s.
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And the cars, and the bars, my Cannenl
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Oh Dolores, that juke-box burtsl
|
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Are you still dancin’, darlin’?
|
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(Both in wom lew's, both in tom T-shirts,
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And I, in my comer, snarlin').
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Happy, happy is gnarled McFate
|
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|
Touring the States with a child wife.
|
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Plowing his Molly in every State
|
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|
Among the protected wild life.
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My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair.
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And never dosed when I kissed her.
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233
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Know an old perfume called Soleil Vert?
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Are you from Paris, mister?
|
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I/autre soir un air hold cTopdra m’alita;
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Son i£l6 — bien fol est qui s’y fi el
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II nefge, le d6cot s'dcioule, Lolita!
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Lolita, qu’ai-fe fait de ta vie?
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Dying, dying, Lolita Haze,
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Of hate and remorse. I'm dying.
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And again my hairy fist I raise,
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And again I hear you crying.
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Officer, officer, there they go —
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In the rain, where that lighted store isl
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And her sochs are white, and I love her so.
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And her name is Haze, Dolores.
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Officer, officer, there they are —
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Dolores Haze and her loverl
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Whip out your gun and follow that car.
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Now tumble out, and take cover.
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Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
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Her dream-gray gaze never flinches.
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Ninety pounds is all she weighs
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With a height of sixty inches.
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My car is limping, Dolores Haze,
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And the last long lap is -the hardest.
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And I shall be dumped where the weed decays.
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And the rest is rust and stardust.
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By psychoanalyzing this poem, I notice it is really a mani-
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ac’s masterpiece. The stark, stiff, lurid rhymes correspond very
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exactly to certain perspectiveless and terrible landscapes and
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figures, and magnified parts of landscapes and figures, as drawn
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by psychopaths in tests devised by their astute trainers, I wrote
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many more poems. I immersed myself in the poetry of others.
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But not for a second did I forget the load of revenge.
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I would be a knave to say, and the reader a fool to believe,
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shock of losing Lolita cured me of pederosis. My
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accursed nature could not change, no matter how my love for
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234
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her did On playgrounds and beaches, my sullen and stealthy
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eye, against my wiD, still sought out the flash of a nymphet's
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limbs, the sly tokens of Lolita’s handmaids and rosegirls. But
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one essential vision in me had withered: never did I dwell now
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on possibilities of bliss with a little maiden, specific or syn-
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thetic, in some out-of-the-way place; never did my fancy sink
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its fangs into Lolita’s sisters, far far away, in the coves of
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evoked islands. That was all over, for the time being at least.
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On the other hand, alas, two years of monstrous indulgence
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had left me with certain habits of Inst: I feared lest the void
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I lived in might drive me to plunge into the freedom of sud-
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den insanity when confronted with a chance temptation in
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some lane between school and supper. Solitude was corrupting
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me. I needed company and care. My heart was a hysterical
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unreliable organ. This is how Rita enters the picture.
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26
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She was twice Lolita’s age and three quarters of mine: a very
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slight, dark-haired, pale-skinned adult, weighing a hundred and
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five pounds, with charmingly asymmetrical eyes, an angular,
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rapidly sketched profile, and a most appealing cnsellurc to her
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supple back — I think she had some Spanish or Babylonian
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blood. I picked her up one depraved May evening somewhere
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between Montreal and New York, or more narrowly, between
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Toylestown and Blake, at a darkishly burning bar under the
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sign of the Tigermoth, where she was amiably drunk: she in-
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sisted we had gone to school together, and she placed her
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trembling little hand on my ape paw. My senses were very
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slightly stirred but I decided to give her a try; I did — and
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adopted her as a constant companion. She was so kind, was
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Rita, such a good sport, that I daresay she would have given
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herself to any pathetic creature or fallacy, an old broken tree
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or a bereaved porcupine, out of sheer chumminess and com-
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passion.
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When I first met her she had but recently divorced her
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third husband — and a little more recently had been abandoned
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by her seventh cavalier servant — the others, the mutables, were
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too numerous and mobile to tabulate. Her brother was — and
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255
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no doubt still is — a prominent, pasty-faced, suspenders-and-
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painted-tie-wearing politician, mayor and booster of bis baH-
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playing, Bible-reading, grain-handbng home town. For the last
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eight years he had been paying his great little sister several
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hundred dollars per month under the stringent condition that
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she would never never enter great little Grainball City. She
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told me, with wails of wonder, that for some God-damn reason
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every new boy friend of hers would first of all take her Grain-
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bah-ward: it was a fatal attraction; and before she knew what
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was what, she would find herself sucked into the lunar orbit
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of the town, and would be following the flood-lit drive that
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encircled it — "going round and round,” as she phrased it,
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“like a God-damn mulberry moth."
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She had a natty little coup6; and in it we traveled to Cali-
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fornia so as to give my venerable vehicle a rest. Her natural
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speed was ninety. Dear Rital We cruised together for two dim
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years, from summer 1950 to summer 1952, and she was the
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sweetest, simplest, gentlest, dumbest Rita imaginable. In com-
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parison to her, Valechka was a Schlegel, and Charlotte a Hegel.
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There is no earthly reason why I should dally with her in
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the margin of this sinister memoir, but let me say (hi, Rita —
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wherever you are, drunk or hangoverish, Rita, hi!) that she
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was the most soothing, the most comprehending companion
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that I ever had, and certainly saved me from the madhouse. I
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told her I was trying to trace a girl and plug that girl's bully.
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Rita solemnly approved of the plan — and in the course of
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some investigation she undertook on her own (without really
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knowing a thing), around San Humbertino, got entangled
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with a pretty awful crook herself; I had the devil of a time
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retrieving her — used and bruised but still cocky. Then one
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day she proposed playing Russian roulette with my sacred
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automatic; I said you couldn’t, it was not a revolver, x and we
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struggled for it, until at last it went off, touching off a very
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thin and very comical spurt of hot water from the hole it made
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in the wall of the cabin room; I remember her shrieks of
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laughter.
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The oddly prepubescent curve of her back, her ricey skin,
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her slow languorous colombine kisses kept me from mischief.
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It is not the artistic aptitudes that are secondary sexual char-
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acters as some shams and shamans have said; it is the other
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way around: sex is but the anci Ha of art One rather mysterious
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spree that had interesting repercussions I must notice. I had
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abandoned the search: the fiend was either in Tartary or bum-
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236
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ing avray in my cerebellum (the flames fanned by my fancy
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and grief) but certainly not having Dolores Haze play cham-
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pion tennis on the Pacific Coast. One afternoon, on our way
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bade East, in a hideous hotel, the land where the}’ hold con-
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ventions and where labeled, fat, pink men stagger around, all
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first names and business and booze — dear Rita and I awoke
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to find a third in our room, a blond, almost albino, young
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fellow with white eyelashes and large transparent ears, whom
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neither Rita nor I recalled having ever seen in our sad lives.
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Sweating in thick dirty underwear, and with old army boots
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on, he lay snoring on the double bed beyond my chaste Rita.
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One of his front teeth was gone, amber pustules grew’ on his
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forehead. Ritochka enveloped her sinuous nudity in my rain-
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coat — the first thing at hand; I slipped on a pair of candy-
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striped drawers; and we took stock of the situation. Five
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glasses had been used, which, in the way of clues, was an em-
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barrassment of riches. The door was not properly closed. A
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sweater and a pair of shapeless tan pants by on the floor. We
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shook their owner into miserable consciousness. He was com-
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pletely amnesic. In an accent that Rita recognized as pure
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Brooldynese, he peevishly insinuated that somehow we had
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purloined his (worthless) identity. We rushed him into his
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clothes and left him at the nearest hospital, realizing on the
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way that somehow or other after forgotten gyrations, we were
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in Grainball. Half a year later Rita wrote the doctor for news.
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Jack Humhertson as he had been tastelessly dubbed was stall
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isolated from his personal past Oh Mnemosyne, sweetest and
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most mischievous of muses!
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I would not have mentioned this incident had it not started
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a chain of ideas that resnlted in my publishing in the Cantrip
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Review an essay on “Munir and Memory,” in which I sug-
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gested among other things that seemed original and important
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to that splendid review’s benevolent readers, a theory of per-
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ceptual time based on the circulation of the blood and con-
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ceptually depending (to fill up this nutshell) on the mind's
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being conscious not only of matter but also of its own self,
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thus creating a continuous spanning of two points (the stor-
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able future and the stored past) . In result of this venture —
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and in culmination of the impression made by my previous
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travaux — I was called from New York, where Rita and I were
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living in a little flat with a view of gleaming children taking
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shower baths far below in a fountainous arbor of Central
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Park, to Cantrip College, four hundred miles away, for one
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237
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year. I lodged there, in special apartments for poets and
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philosophers, from September 1951 to June 1952, -while Rita
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whom I preferred not to display vegetated — somewhat in-
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decorously, I am afraid — in a roadside inn where I visited her
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twice a week. Then she vanished — more humanly than her pred-
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ecessor had done: a month later I found her in the local jail.
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She was tr£s digne, had had her appendix removed, and man-
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aged to convince me that the beautiful bluish furs she had
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been accused of stealing from a Mrs. Roland MacCrum had
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really been a spontaneous, if somewhat alcoholic, gift from
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Roland himself. I succeeded in getting her out without ap-
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pealing to her touchy brother, and soon afterwards we drove
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back to Central Park West, by way of Briceland, where we
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had stopped for a few hours the year before.
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A curious urge to relive my stay there with Lolita had got
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hold of me. I was entering a phase of existence where I had
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given up all hope of tracing her kidnaper and her. I now at-
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tempted to fall back on old settings in order to save what still
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could be saved in the way of souvenir, souvenir que me veux-
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tn? Autumn was ringing in the air. To a post card requesting
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twin beds Professor Hamburg got a prompt expression of
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regret in reply. They were full up. They had one bathless
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basement room with four beds which they thought I would
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not want Their note paper was headed:
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The Enchanted Huntees
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NEAR CHURCHES NO DOGS
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AD legal beverages
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I wondered if the last statement was true. AH? Did they have
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for instance sidewalk grenadine? I also wondered if a hunter,
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enchanted or otherwise, would not need a pointer more than a
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pew, and with a spasm of pain I recalled a scene worthy of a
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great artist: petite nymphe accroupie; but that silky cocker
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spaniel had perhaps been a baptized one. No — I felt I could
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not endure the throes of revisiting that lobby. There -was a
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much better possibility of retrievable time elsewhere in soft,
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rich-colored, autumnal Briceland. Leaving Rita in a bar, I
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made for the town library. A twittering spinster was only too
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glad to help me disinter mid-August 1947 from the bound
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Briceland Gazette , and presently, in a secluded nook under a
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naked light, I was turning the enormous and fragile pages of
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238
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a coffin-black volume almost as big as Lolita.
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Reader! B ruder/ What a foolish Hamburg that Hamburg
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■was! Since his supersensitive system was loath to face the
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actual scene, he thought he could at least enjoy a secret part
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of it — which reminds one of the tenth or twentieth soldier
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in the raping queue who throws the girl’s black shawl over
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her white face so as not to see those impossible eyes while
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taking his military pleasure in the sad, sacked village. What I
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lusted to get was the printed picture that had chanced to
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absorb my trespassing image while the Gazette’s photographer
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was concentrating on Dr. Braddock and his group. Passionately
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I hoped to find preserved the portrait of the artist as a younger
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brute. An innocent camera catching me on my dark way to
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Lolita’s bed — what a magnet for Mnemosyne! I cannot well
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explain the true nature of that urge of mine. It was allied, I
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suppose, to that swooning curiosity which impels one to
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examine with a magnifying glass bleak little figures — still life
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practically, and everybody about to throw up — at an early
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morning execution, and the patient’s expression impossible to
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make out in the print Anyway, I was literally gasping for
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breath, and one comer of the book of doom kept stabbing
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me in the stomach while I scanned and skimmed . . . Brute
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|
Force and Possessed were coming on Sunday, the 24th to both
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|
theaters. Mr. Purdom, independent tobacco auctioneer, said
|
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that ever since 1925 he had been an Omen Faustum smoker.
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|
Husky Hank and his petite bride were to be the guests of
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|
Mr. and Mrs. Reginald G. Gore, 58 Inchkeith Ave. The size
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|
of certain parasites is one sixth of the host Dunkerque was
|
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|
fortified in the tenth century. Misses’ socks, 39 c. Saddle Ox-
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fords 3.98. Wine, wine, wine, quipped the author of Dark
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Age who refused to be photographed, may suit a Persian bub-
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ble bird, hut I say give me rain, rain, rain on the shingle
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roof for roses and inspiration every time. Dimples are caused
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by the adherence of the sldn to the deeper tissues. Greeks
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repulse a heavy guerilla assault — and, ah, at last a little figure
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in white, and Dr. Braddock in black, but whatever spectral
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shoulder was brushing against his ample form — nothing of
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myself could I make out
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I went to find Rita who introduced me with her vin trisic
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miile to a pocket-sized wizened truculently tight old man say-
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|
ing this was — what was that name again, son? — a former
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schoolmate of hen. He tried to retain her, and in the slight
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scuffle that followed I hurt my thumb against his hard head.
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239
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In the silent painted park where I walked her and aired her
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a little, she sobbed and said I would soon, soon leave her as
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everybody had, and I sang her a wistful French ballad, and
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strung together some fugitive rhymes to amuse her:
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The place was called Enchanted Hunters. Query:
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What Indian dyes, Diana, did thy dell
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endorse to make of Picture Lake a very
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blood bath of trees before the blue hotel?
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She said: “Why blue when it is white, why blue for
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heaven's sake?” and started to cry again, and I marched her
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to the car, and we drove on to New York, and soon she was
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reasonably happy again high up in the haze on the little terrace
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of our flat. I notice I have somehow mixed up two events, my
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visit with Rita to Briceland on our way to Cantrip, and our
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passing through Briceland again on our way back to New
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York, but such suffusions of swimming colors are not to be
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disdained by the artist in recollection.
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My letterbox in the entrance hall belonged to the type that
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allows one to glimpse something of its contents through a
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glassed slit. Several times already, a trick of harlequin light that
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fell through the glass upon an alien handwriting had twisted it
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into a semblance of Lolita’s script causing me almost to col-
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lapse as I leant against an adjacent urn, almost my own.
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Whenever that happened — whenever her lovely, loopy, child-
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ish scrawl was horribly transformed into the dull hand of one
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of my few correspondents — I used to recollect, with anguished
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amusement, the times in my trustful, pre-dolorian past when I
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would be misled by a jewel-bright window opposite wherein my
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lurking eye, the ever alert periscope of my shameful vice, would
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make out from afar a half-naked nymphet stilled in the act of
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combing her Alice-in-Wonderland hair. There was in the flery
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phantasm a perfection which made my wild delight also per-
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fect, just because the vision was out of reach, with no possi-
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bility of at tainm ent to spoil it by the awareness of an ap-
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240
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"x
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pended taboo; indeed, it may well be that the very attraction
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immaturity has for me lies not so much in the limpidity of
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pure young forbidden fairy child beauty as in the security of
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a situation where infinite perfections fill the gap between the
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little given and the great promised — the great rosegray never-
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tobe-had. Mes fenStres! Hanging above blotched sunset and
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welling night, grinding my teeth, I would crowd all the de-
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mons of my desire against the railing of a throbbing balcony:
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it would be ready to take off in the apricot and black humid
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evening; did take off — whereupon the lighted image would
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move and Eve would revert to a rib, and there would be noth-
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ing in the window but an obese partly clad man reading the
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paper.
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Since I sometimes won the race between my fancy and
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nature’s reality, the deception was bearable. Unbearable pain
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began when chance entered the fray and deprived me of the
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smile meant for me. “Savez-vous qu’ji dix ans ma petite dtait
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folle de vous?” said a woman I talked to at a tea in Paris, and
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the petite had just married, miles away, and I could not even
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remember if I had ever noticed her in that garden, next to
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those tennis courts, a dozen years before. And now likewise,
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the radiant foreglimpse, the promise of reality, a promise not
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only to he simulated seductively but also to be nobly held —
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all this, chance denied me — chance and a change to smaller
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characters on the pale beloved writer’s part. My fancy was
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both Proustianized and Procrusteanized; for that particular
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morning, early in September 1952, as I had come down to
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grope for my mail, the dapper and bilious janitor with whom
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I was on execrable terms started to complain that a man
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who had seen Rita home recently had been "sick like a dog”
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on the front steps. In the process of listening to him and
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tipping him, and then listening to a revised and politer version
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of the incident, I had the impression that one of the two
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letters w’hich that blessed mail brought was from Rita’s
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mother, a crazy little woman, whom we had once visited on
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Cape Cod and who kept writing me to my various addresses,
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saying how wonderfully well matched her daughter and I
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were, and how wonderful it would be if wc married; the other
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letter which I opened and scanned rapidly in the el era tor was
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from John Farlow.
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I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our
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friends wath the stability of type that literary characters ac-
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quire in the reader’s mind. No matter how many times we
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241
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reopen “King Lear,” never shall we find the good Idng banging
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his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion
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with all three daughters and their lapdogs. Never will Emma
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rally, revived by the sympathetic salts in Flaubert’s father’s
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timely tear. Whatever evolution this or that popular character
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has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed
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in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow
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this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for
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them. Thus X will never compose the immortal music that
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would clash with the second-rate symphonies he has accus-
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tomed us to. Y will never commit murder. Under no circum-
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stances can Z ever betray us. We have it all arranged in our
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minds, and the less often we see. a particular person the more
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satisfying it is to check how obediently he conforms to our
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notion of him every time we hear of him. Any deviation in
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the fates we have ordained would strike us as not only anom-
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alous but unethical. We would prefer not to have known at
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all our neighbor, the retired hot-dog stand operator, if it turns
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out he has just produced the greatest book of poetry his age
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has seen.
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I am saying all this in order to explain how bewildered I was
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by Farlow’s hysterical letter. 1 knew his wife had died but I
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certainly expected him to remain, throughout a devout widow-
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hood, the dull, sedate and reliable person he had always been.
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Now he wrote that after a brief visit to the U.S. he had re-
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turned to South America and had decided that whatever affairs
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he had controlled at Ramsdale he would hand over to Jack
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Windmuller of that town, a lawyer whom we both knew. He
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seemed particularly relieved to get rid of the Haze “complica-
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tions.” He had married a Spanish girl. He had stopped smok-
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ing and had gained thirty pounds. She was very young and a
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ski champion. They were going to India for their honeymon-
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soon. Since he was “building a family” as he put it, he would
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have no time henceforth for my affairs which he termed “very
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strange and very aggravating.” Busybodies — a whole commit-
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tee of them, it appeared — had informed him that the where-
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abouts of little Dolly Haze were unknown, and that I was
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living with a notorious divorcee in California. His father-in-law
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was a count, and exceedingly wealthy. The people who had
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been renting the Haze house for some years now wished to buy
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it. He suggested that I better produce Dolly quick. He had
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broken his leg. He enclosed a snapshot of himself and a
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brunette in white wool beaming at each other among the
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snows of Chile.
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242
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hr
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,ztz
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ire:
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ek
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??,■£■
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PSt'
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^refc?
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;TX?^'
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ibr-
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•‘fct’tf
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■V-^
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7fc^
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ifeif;-
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,&*?
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A!
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IS*--*
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JS^'
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I remember letting myself into my flat and starting to say:
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Well, at least we sbafi now track them down — when the other
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letter began .talking to me in a small matter-of-fact voice:
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Dear Dad:
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How’s everything? Fm married. I’m going to have a baby.
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I guess he’s going to be a big one. I guess he'll come right for
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Christmas. This is a hard letter to write. Fm going nuts be-
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cause we don’t have enough to pay our debts and get out of
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here. Dick is promised a big job in Alaska in his very special-
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ized comer of the mechanical field, that’s all I know about
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it but it’s really grand. Pardon me for withholding our home
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address but you may still be mad at me, and Dick must not
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know. This town is something. You can't see the morons
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for the smog. Please do send us a check, Dad. We could
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manage with three or four hundred or even less, anything is
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welcome, you might sell my old things, because once we get
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there the dough will just start rolling in. Write, please. I
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have gone through much sadness and hardship.
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Yours expecting,
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Dolly (Mrs. Richard F. Schiller)
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28
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I was again on the road, again at the wheel of the old blue
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sedan, again alone. Rita had still been dead to the world when
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I read that letter and fought the mountains of agony it raised
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within me. I had glanced at her as she smiled in her sleep and
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had kissed her on her moist brow, and had left her forever, with
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a note of tender adieu which I taped to her navel — otherwise
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she might not have found it.
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"Alone” did I say? Pas tout £ fait. I had my little black
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chum with me, and as soon as I reached a secluded spot, I
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rehearsed Mr. Richard F. Schiller's violent death. I had found
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a very old and very dirty gray sweater of mine in the back
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of the car, and this I hung up on a branch, in a speechless
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glade, which I had reached by a wood road from the now re-
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mote highway. The carrying out of the sentence was a little
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marred by what seemed to me a certain stiffness in the play
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of the trigger, and I wondered if I should get some oil for the
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243
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mysterious thing but decided I had no time to spare. Back into
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the car went the old dead sweater, now with additional per-
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forations, and having reloaded warm Chum, I continued my
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journey.
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The letter was dated September 18, 1952 (this was Septem-
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ber 22), and the address she gave was "General Delivery,
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Coalmont” (not “Va.,” not ‘Ta.,” not "Tenn.” — and not
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Coalmont, anyway — I have camouflaged everything, my love).
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Inquiries showed this to be a small industrial community some
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eight hundred miles from New York City. At first I planned
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to drive all day and night, but then thought better of it and
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rested for a couple of hours around dawn in a motor court
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room, a few miles before reaching the town. I had made up
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my mind that the fiend, this Schiller, had been a car salesman
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who had perhaps got to know my Lolita by giving her a ride
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in Beardsley — the day her bike blew a tire on the way to Miss
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Emperor — and that he had got into some trouble since then.
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The corpse of the executed sweater, no matter how I changed
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its contours as it lay on the back seat of the car, had kept
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revealing various outlines pertaining to Trapp-Schiller — the
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grossness and obscene bonhommie of his body, and to counter-
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act this taste of coarse corruption I resolved to make myself
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especially handsome and smart as I pressed home the nipple
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of my alarm clock before it exploded at the set hour of six
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a.m. Then, with the stem and romantic care of a gentleman
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about to fight a duel, I checked the arrangement of my papers,
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bathed and perfumed my delicate body, shaved my face and
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chest, selected a silk shirt and clean drawers, pulled on trans-
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parent taupe socks, and congratulated myself for having with
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me in my trunk some very exquisite clothes — a waistcoat with
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nacreous buttons, for instance, a pale cashmere tie and so on.
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I was not able, alas, to hold my breakfast, but dismissed that
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physicality as a trivial contretemps, wiped' my mouth with a
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gossamer handkerchief produced from my sleeve, and, with a
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blue block of ice for heart, a pill on my tongue and solid death
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in my hip pocket, I stepped neatly into a telephone booth in
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Coalmont (Ah-ah-ah, said its little door) and rang up the only
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Schiller — Paul, Furniture — to be found in the battered book.
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Hoarse Paul told me he did know a Richard, the son of a
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cousin of his, and his address was, let me see, 10 Killer Street
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(I am not going very far for my pseudonyms) . Ah-ah-ah, said
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the little door.
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At 10 Killer Street, a tenement house, I interviewed a num-
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N 244
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her of dejected old people and two long-haired strawberry-blond
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incredibly grubby nymphets (rather abstractly, just for the
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heck of it, the ancient beast in me was casting about for some
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lightly dad child I might hold against me for a minute, after
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the killing was over and nothing mattered any more, and
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|
everything was allowed) . Yes, Dick Sldller had lived there, but
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|
had moved when he married. Nobody knew his address. "They
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might know at the store," said a bass voice from an open
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manhole near which I happened to be standing with the two
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thin-armed, barefoot little girls and their dim grandmothers.
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I entered the wrong store and a wary old Negro shook his
|
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|
head even before I could ask anything. I crossed over to a
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bleak grocery and there, summoned by a customer at my re-
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|
quest, a woman’s voice from some wooden abyss in the floor,
|
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|
tiie manhole’s counterpart, cried out: Hunter Road, last house.
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Hunter Road was miles away, in an even more dismal dis-
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trict, all dump and ditch, and wormy vegetable garden, and
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shade, and gray drizzle, and red mud, and several smoking
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stacks in the distance. 1 stopped at the last "house” — a clap-
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board shack, with two or three similar ones farther away from
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the road and a waste of withered weeds all around. Sounds of
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hammering came from behind the house, and for several min-
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utes I sat quite still in my old car, old and frail, at the end
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of my journey, at my gray goal, finis, my friends, finis, my
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fiends. The time was around two. My pulse was -40 one minute
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and 100 the next. The drizzle crepitated against the hood
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of the car. My gun had migrated to my right trouser pocket. A
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nondescript cur came out from behind the house, stopped in
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surprise, and started good-naturedly woof-woofing at me, his
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eyes slit, his shaggy belly all muddy, and then walked about a
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little and woofed once more.
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29
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I got out of the CA?. and slammed its door. How mattei-of-
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fact, how square that slam sounded in the void of the sunless
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dayl Woof, commented the dog perfunctorily. I pressed the
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bell button, it vibrated through my whole system. Person ne. Je
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resonne. Repexsonne. From what depth this rc-nonsense?
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245
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Woof, said the dog. A rush and a shuffle, and woosh-woof
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went the door.
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Couple of inches taller. Pink-rimmed glasses. New, heaped-
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up hairdo, new ears. How simplel The moment, the death I
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had kept conjuring up for three years was as simple as a bit of
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dry wood. She was frankly and hugely pregnant. Her head
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looked smaller (only two seconds had passed really, hut let
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me give them as much wooden duration as life can stand), and
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her pale-fredded cheeks were hollowed, and her bare shins and
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arms had lost all their tan, so that the little hairs showed.
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She wore a brown, sleeveless cotton dress and sloppy felt
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slippers.
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“We — e — elll” she exhaled after a pause with all the
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emphasis of wonder and welcome.
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“Husband at home?” I croaked, fist in pocket.
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I could not kill her, of course, as some have thought. You
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see I loved her. It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever
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and ever sight.
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“Come in,” she said with a vehement cheerful note. Against
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the splintery deadwood of the door, Dolly Schiller flattened
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herself as best she could (even rising on tiptoe a little) to let
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me pass, and was crucified for a moment, looking down, smil-
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ing down at the threshold, hollow-cheeked with round pom -
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mettes, her watered-milk-white arms outspread on the wood. I
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passed without touching her bulging babe. Dolly-smell, with
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a faint fried addition. My teeth chattered like an idiot's. “No,
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you stay out” (to the dog). She closed the door and followed
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me and her belly into the dollhouse parlor.
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“Dick’s down there,” she said pointing with an invisible
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tennis racket, inviting my gaze to travel from the drab parlor-
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bedroom where we stood, right across the kitchen, and through
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the back-doorway where, in a rather primitive vista, a dark-
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haired young stranger in overalls, instantaneously reprieved,
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was perched with his back to me on a ladder fixing something
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near or upon the shack of his neighbor, a plumper fellow with
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only one arm, who stood looking up.
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This pattern she explained from afar, apologetically (“Men
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will be men”); should she call him in?
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No.
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Standing in the middle of the slanting room and emitting
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questioning “hm’s,” she made familiar Javanese gestures with
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her wrists and hands, offering me, in a brief display of humor-
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ous courtesy, to choose between a rocker and the divan (their
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246
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Bed after ten p . m.) . I say “familiar” because one day she had
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welcomed me with the same wrist dance to her party in
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Beardsley. We both sat down on the divan. Cnrions: although
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actually her looks had faded, I definitely realized, so hope-
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lessly late in the day, how much she looked — had always
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looked — like Botticelli’s russet Venus — the same soft nose, the
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same blurred beauty. In my pocket my fingers gently let go
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and repacked a little at the tip, within the handkerchief it
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was nested in, my unused weapon.
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“That’s not the fellow I want,” I said. !
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The diffuse look of welcome left her eyes. Her forehead J
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puckered as in the old bitter days:
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“Not who?"
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"Where is he? Quick!”
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"Look,” she said, inclining her head to one side and shaking
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it in that position. “Look, you are not going to bring that up.”
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“I certainly am," I said, and for a moment — strangely
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enough the only merciful, endurable" one in the whole in-
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terview— we were bristling at each other as if she were still
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mine.
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A wise girl, she controlled herself.
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Dick did not know a thing of the whole mess. He thought I
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was her father. He thought she had run away from an upper-
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class home just to wash dishes in a diner. He believed anything.
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Why should I want to make things harder than they were by
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Taking up all that muck? ,
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But, I said, she must be sensible, she must be a sensible girl \
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(with her bare drum under that thin brown stuff), she must i
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understand that if she expected the help I had come to give, I
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must have at least a clear comprehension of the situation.
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“Come, his namel” !
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She thought I had guessed long ago. It was (with a mis- ;
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chievous and melancholy smile) such a sensational name. I
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would never believe it She could hardly believe it herself. j
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His name, my fall nymph. ;
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It was so unimportant, she said. She suggested I slap it. *
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Would I hke a cigarette? j
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No. His name. j
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She shook her head with great resolution. She guessed it '
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was too late to raise hell and I would never believe the un- :
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believably unbelievable — ;
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I said I had better go, regards, nice to have seen her.
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She said really it was useless, she would never tell, but on
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2i7
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the other hand, after all — "Do you really want to know who
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it was? Well, it was — ”
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And softly, confidentially, arching her thin eyebrows and
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puckering her parched lips, she emitted a little mockingly,
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somewhat fastidiously, not untenderly, in a kind of muted
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whistle, the name that the astute reader has guessed long ago.
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Waterproof. Why did a flash from Hourglass Lake cross my
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|
consciousness? I, too, had known it, without knowing it, all
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along. There was no shock, no surprise. Quietly the fusion took
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place, and everything fell into order, into the pattern of
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branches that I have woven throughout this memoir with the
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express purpose of having the ripe fruit fall at the right mo-
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ment; yes, with the express and perverse purpose of rendering
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— she was talking but I sat melting in my golden peace — of
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|
rendering that golden and monstrous peace through the satis-
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faction of logical recognition, which my most inimical reader
|
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|
should experience now.
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She was, as I say, talking. It now came in a relaxed flow. He
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was the only man she had ever been crazy about. What about
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Dick? Oh, Dick was a lamb, they were quite happy together,
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but she meant something different. And I had never counted,
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of course?
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She considered me as if grasping all at once the incredible—
|
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|
and somehow tedious, confusing and unnecessary — fact that
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the distant, elegant, slender, forty-year-old valetudinarian in
|
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velvet coat sitting beside her had known and adored every
|
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pore and follicle of her pubescent body. In her washed-out
|
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|
gray eyes, strangely spectacled, our poor romance was for a
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|
|
moment reflected, pondered upon, and dismissed like a dull
|
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party, like a rainy picnic to which only the dullest botes had
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|
come, like a humdrum exercise, like a bit of dry mud caking
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her childhood.
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I just managed to jerk my knee out of the range of a sketchy
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tap — one of her acquired gestures.
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She asked me not to be dense. The past was the past I had
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been a good father, she guessed — granting me that. Proceed,
|
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|
Dolly Schiller.
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Well, did I know that he bad known her mother? That he
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|
was practically an old friend? That he had visited with his
|
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uncle in Ramsdale? — oh, years ago — and spoken at Mother's
|
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club, and had tugged and pulled her, Dolly, by her bare arm
|
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onto his lap in front of everybody, and kissed her face, she
|
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was ten and furious with him? Did I know he had seen me and
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248
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her at the inn -where he was writing the very play she was to
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|
rehearse in Beardsley, two years later7 Did I know — It bad
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been horrid of her to sidetrack me into believing that Clare
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|
was an old female, maybe a relative of his or a sometime life-
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|
mate — and oh, what a dose shave it had been when the Wace
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Journal carried his picture.
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The Briceland Gazette had not Yes, very amusing.
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Yes, she said, this world was just one gag after another, if
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somebody wrote up her life nobody would ever believe it.
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At this point, there came brisk homey sounds from the
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kitchen into which Dick and Bill had lumbered in quest of !
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beer. Through the doorway they noticed the visitor, and Dick
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entered the parlor, |
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“Dick, this is my Dad!” cried Dolly in a resounding violent !
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voice that struck me as totally strange, and new, and cheerful, ]
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and old, and sad, because the young fellow, veteran of a re- j
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mote war, was hard of hearing.
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Arctic blue eyes, black hair, ruddy cheeks, unshaven chin.
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We shook hands. Discreet Bill, who evidently took pride in
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working wonders with one hand, brought in the beer cans
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he had opened. Wanted to withdraw. The exquisite courtesy j
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of simple folks. Was made to stay. A beer ad. In point of fact, J
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I preferred it that way, and so did the Schillers. I switched to j
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the jittery rocker. Avidly munching, Dolly plied me with j
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marshmallows and potato chips. The men looked at her fr tgile, j
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frileux, diminutive, old-world, youngish but sickly, father in j
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velvet coat and beige vest, maybe a viscount. j
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They were under the impression I bad come to stay, and ;
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Dick with a great wrinkling of brows that denoted difficult \
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thought, suggested Dolly and he might sleep in the kitchen J
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on a spare mattress. I waved a light hand and told Dolly who [
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transmitted it by means of a special shout to Dick that I hall
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merely dropped in on my way to Readsburg where I was to
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be entertained by some friends and admirers. It was then no-
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ticed that one of the few' thumbs remaining to Bill was bleed-
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ing (not such a wonder-worker after all). How womanish and
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somehow never seen that way before was the shadowy division
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between her pale breasts when she bent down over the man’s
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hand! She took him for repairs to the kitchen. For a few
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minutes, three or four little eternities which positively welled
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with artificial warmth, Dick and I remained alone. He sat on ;
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a hard chair rubbing his fordimbs and frowning. I had an idle
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urge to squeeze out the blackheads on the wings of his per-
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249
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; sad eyes
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Guam’s apple
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^ large and tauy- Why. s Doty had ha* uwe^ a d *tJ
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brawny chaps? ' ttieie , at aiat— how long tod
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course on that con moie . and before ® at all, nothing
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thnes, Mo grudge. Funny-no gni | ^ nose . i ms
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ste ^ 0 SrfSd nanS. He waj nownrbb loath he wodd
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except g 11 ^ finallv tie w'ould .9?° c v, e ’s a swell lad, M •
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sure that {i s head) : a ^eU rnothen
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say (slightly shaki g , g g0in g to ® This gave him
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H^ze. She sure is. ^?^_ and took a sip o* «**• at the
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He opened his mou we nt on sipP®|^ Florentine breasts.
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countenance— and had cupped h phalanges, the
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South. He and broken finer tt
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Lhunbert Humbert. __ r he silent too. ^ ^^Mied-to
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Good Tf he was s
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lair was— and then p crushed tngg . But pres-
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eSoyed the Viennese medicine m^ hypnQtold
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ss& « r i? - ■ ” ,a
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“’"And s“ I ahonted ' youarag^ rf course. «WeH,h<=
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, -V_l re-shouted— 1 *r~ ddin g sagely ^ "Vlv.”
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nursed his glass aui noddmg ^ ^ly ^
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rnt it on a lagger, I g^ 5 hi bloom. A A flower-
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Lovely mauve almon^ ^ pointihsbc ^ reappea red.
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istic arm han&og ^ Do hy and bandaid ^ pa i e beauty
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££2&%*$£
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He guessed Mr. naz ^
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each other. He guessed he would he seeing me before I left
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Why do those people guess so much and shave so little, and
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are so disdainful of hearing aids? j
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"Sit down,” she said, audibly striking her Hanks with her j
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palms. I relapsed into the black rocker. j
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"So you betrayed me? Where did you go? Where is he
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now7” . j
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She took from the mantelpiece a concave glossy snapshot j
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Old woman in white, stout beaming, bowlegged, very short j
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dress; old man in his shirtsleeves, drooping mustache, natch j
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chain. Her in-laws. Living with Dick’s brother’s family in j
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Juneau. . !
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"Sure you don’t want to smoke?” J
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She was smoking herself. First time I saw her doing it :
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Streng verboten under Humbert the Terrible. Gracefully, in j
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a blue mist Charlotte Haze rose from her grave. I would find
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him through Uncle Ivory if she refused. j
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"Betrayed you? No.” She directed the dart of her cigarette, ]
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index rapidly tapping upon it toward the hearth exactly as her j
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mother used to do, and then, like her mother, oh my God, i
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with her fingernail scratched and removed a fragment of j
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cigarette paper from her underlip. No. She had not betrayed '
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me. I was among friends. Edusa had warned her that Cue :
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liked little girls, had been almost jailed once, in fact (nice 1
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fact), and he knew she knew. Yes . . . Elbow in palm, puff, !
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smile, exhaled smoke, darting gesture. Waxing reminiscent. i
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He saw — smiling — through everything and everybody, because :
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he was not like me and her but a genius. A gieat guy. Full of i
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fun. Had rocked with laughter when she confessed about me
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and her, and said he had thought so. It was quite safe, under :
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the circumstances, to tell him ...
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Well, Cue — they' all called him Cue —
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Her camp five years ago. Curious coincidence — . . . took
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her to a dude ranch about a day's drive from Elephant (El-
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phinstone). Named? Oh, some silly name — Duk Duk Ranch
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— you know just plain silly — but it did not matter now, any-
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way, because the place had vanished and disintegrated. Really,
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she meant, I could not imagine how utterly lush that ranch
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was, she meant it h 2 d everything but everything, even an in-
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door waterfall. Did I remember the redhaired guy we (“we”
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was good) had once had some tennis with? Well, the place
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really belonged to Red’s brother, but he had turned it over to
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Cue for the summer. When Cue and she came, the others had
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251
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them actually go through a coronation ceremony and then —
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a terrific ducking, as when you cross the Equator. You know.
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Her eyes rolled in synthetic resignation.
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"Go on, please.”
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Well. The idea was he would take her in September to
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Hollywood and arrange a tryout for her, a bit part in the ten-
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nis-match scene of a movie picture based on a play of his —
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Golden Guts — and perhaps even have her double one of its
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sensational starlets on the Klieg-struck tennis court. Alas, it
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never came to that.
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"Where is the hog now?”
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He was not a hog. He was a great guy in many respects. But
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it was all drink and drugs. And, of course, he was a complete
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freak in sex matters, and his friends were his slaves. I just
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could not imagine (I, Humbert, could not imaginel) what
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they all did at Duk Duk Ranch. She refused to tike part be-
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cause she loved him, and he threw her out.
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'What things?”
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"Oh, weird, filthy, fancy things. 1 mean, he had two girls
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and two boys, and three or four men, and the idea was for all
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of us to tingle in the nude while an old woman took movie
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pictures.” (Sade’s Justine was twelve at the start).
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"What things exactly?”
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"Oh, things . . . Oh, I — really I” — she uttered the "I” as a
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subdued cry while she listened to the source of the ache, and
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for- lack of words spread the five fingers of her angularly up-
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and-down-moving hand. No, she gave it up, she refused to go
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into particulars with that baby inside her.
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That made sense.
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“It is of no importance now,” she said pounding a gray
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cushion with her fist and then lying back, belly up, on the
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divan. “Crazy things, filthy things. I said no. I’m just not
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going to [she used, in all insouciance really, a disgusting slang
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term which, in a literal French translation, would be souffler]
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your beastly boys, because I want only you. Well, he kicked
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me out”
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There was not much else to tell. That winter 1949, Fay and
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she had found jobs. For almost two years she had — oh, just
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drifted, oh, doing some restaurant work in small places, and
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then she had met Dick. No, she did not know where the other
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was. In New York, she guessed. Of course, he was so famous
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she would have found him at once if she had wanted. Fay
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had tried to get back to the Ranch — and it just was not there
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252
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any more — it had burned to the ground, nothing remained,
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just a charred heap of rubbish. It 'was so strange, so strange —
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She dosed her eyes and opened her mouth, leaning back on
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the cushion, one felted foot on the floor. The wooden floor
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slanted, a little steel ball would have rolled into the kitchen.
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I knew all I wanted to know. I had no intention of torturing
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my darling. Somewhere beyond Bill's shack an afterwork radio
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had begun singing of folly and fate, and there she was with
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her ruined looks and her adult, rope-veined narrow hands and
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her gooseflesh white arms, and her shallow ears, and her un-
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kempt armpits, there she was (my Lolita!), hopelessly worn
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at seventeen, with that baby, dreaming already in her of be-
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coming a big shot and retiring around 2020 a.d. — and I looked
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and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die,
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that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or
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imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. She was only
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the faint violet whiff and dead leaf echo of the nymphet I had
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rolled myself upon with such cries in the past; an echo on the
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brink of a russet ravine, with a far wood under a white sky,
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and brown leaves choking the brook, and one last cricket in
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the crisp weeds . . . but thank God it was not that echo
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alone that I worshiped. What I used to pamper among the
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tangled vines of my heart, mon grand p€ch6 radieux, had
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dwindled to its essence: sterile and selfish wee, all that I can-
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celed and cursed. You may jeer at me, and threaten to clear
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the court, but until I am gagged and half-throttled, I will
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shout my poor truth. I insist the world know how much I
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loved my Lolita, this Lolita, pale and polluted, and big with
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another’s child, but still gray-eyed, still sooty-lashed, still
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auburn and almond, stall Carmencita, still mine; Changeons
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de vie, ma Carmen, alJons vivre quelque part oh nous ne serom
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jamais s£par&; Ohio? The wilds of Massachusetts? No mat-
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ter, even if those eyes of hers would fade to myopic fish, and
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her nipples swell and crack, and her lovely young velvety
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delicate delta be tainted and tom — even then I would go mad
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with tenderness at the mere sight of your dear wan face, at the
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mere sound of your raucous young voice, my Lolita.
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"Lolita,” I said, "this may be neither here nor there but I
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hare to say it Life is very short From here to that old car
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you know so well there is a stretch of twenty, twenty-five
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paces. It is a very short walk Make those twenty-five steps.
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Nov,'. Right now. Come just as you axe. And we shall lire
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happily ever after.”
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2
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t
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(
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f
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t
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i
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J.
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£
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t
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i
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1
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t
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t
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i
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i,
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t
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j
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!
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(
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<
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r
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t
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253
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Carmen, voulez-vous venir avec moi?
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‘Ton mean,” she said opening her eyes and raising herself
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slightly, the snake that may strike, “you mean you will give us
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[us] that money only if I go with you to a motel. Is that what
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you mean?”
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“No,” I said, “you got it all wrong. I want you to leave
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your incidental Dick, and this awful hole, and come to live
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with me, and die with me, and everything with me” (words
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to that effect) .
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“You're crazy,” she said, her features working.
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“Think it over, Lolita. There are no strings attached. Ex-
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cept, perhaps — well, no matter.” (A reprieve, I wanted to
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say hut did not.) “Anyway, if you refuse you will still get
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your . . . trousseau .”
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“No kidding?” asked Dolly.
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I handed her an envelope with four hundred dollars in cash
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and a check for three thousand six hundred more.
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Gingerly, uncertainly, she received mon petit cadeau; and
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then her forehead became a beautiful pink. “You mean,” she
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said, with agonized emphasis, “you are giving us four thousand
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bucks?" I covered my face with my hand and broke into the
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hottest tears I had ever shed. I felt them winding through my
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fingers and down my chin, and burning me, and my nose got
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clogged, and I could not stop, and then she touched my wrist.
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“I’ll die if you touch me,” I said. “You are sure you are not
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coming with me? Is there no hope of your coming? Tell me
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only this.”
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“No,” she said. “No, honey, no.”
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She had never called me honey before.
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“No,” she said, “it is quite out of the question. I would
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sooner go back to Cue. I mean — ”
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She groped for words. I supplied them mentally (“He broke
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my heart. You merely broke my life”).
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“I think,” she went on — “oops” — the envelope skidded to
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the floor — she picked it up — “I think it's oh utterly grand of
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you to give us all that dough. It settles everything, we can
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start next week. Stop crying, please. You should understand.
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Let me get you some more beer. Oh, don’t cry. I'm so sorry
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I cheated so much, but that’s the way things are.”
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I wiped my face and my fingers. She smiled at the cadeau.
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She exulted. She wanted to call Dick. I said I would have to
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leave in a moment, did not want to see him at all, at all. We
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tried to think of some subject of conversation. For some rea-
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son, I kept seeing — it trembled and sHkxly glowed on my damp
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254
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retina— a radiant child of twelve, sitting on a threshold,
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"pinging” pebbles at an empty can. I almost said — trying to
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find some casual remark — "I wonder sometimes what has be-
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come of the little McCoo girl, did she ever get better?” — but
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stopped in time lest she rejoim “I wonder sometimes what has
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become of the little Haze girl . . Finally, I reverted to money
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matters. That sum, I said, represented more or less the net
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rent from her mother's house; she said: "Had it not been sold
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years ago?” No (I admit I had told her this in order to sever
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all connections with R.); a lawyer would send a full account
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of the financial situation later, it was rosy; some of the small
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securities her mother had owned had gone up and up. Yes,
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I was quite sure I had to go. I had to go, and find him, and
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destroy him.
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Since I would not have survived the touch of her lips, I
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kept retreating in a mincing dance, at every step she and her
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belly made toward me.
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She and the dog saw me off. I was surprised (this a rhetorical
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figure, I was not) that the sight of the old car in which she
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had ridden as a child and a nymphet, left her so very indiffer-
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ent All she remarked was it was getting sort of purplish about
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the gills. I said it was hers, I could go by bus. She said don’t
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be silly, they would fly to Jupiter and buy a car there. I said
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I would buy this one from her for five hundred dollars.
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“At this rate we’ll be millionnaires next," she said to the
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ecstatic dog.
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Carmencita, Iui demandais-je . . . "One last word,” I said
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in my horrible careful English, “are you quite, quite sure that
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— well, not tomorrow, of course, and not after tomorrow,
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but — well — some day, any day, you will not come to live with
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me? I will create a brand new God and thank him with
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piercing cries, if you give me that microscopic hope” (to that
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effect) .
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*|No,” she said smiling, “no.”
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"It would have made all the difference,” said Humbert
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Humbert
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Then I pulled out my automatic — I mean, this is the land
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of a fool thing a reader might suppose I did. It never even
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occurred to me to do it
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“Good by-ayel” she chanted, my American sweet immortal
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dead love; for she is dead and immortal if you are reading this.
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I mean, such is the formal agreement with the so-called
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authorities.
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Then, as I drove away, I heard her shout in a vibrant voice
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255
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to her Dick; and the dog started to lope alongside my car
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like a fat dolphin, but he was too heavy and old, and very soon
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gave up.
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And presently I was driving through the drizzle of the
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dying day, with the windshield wipers in full action but un-
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able to cope with my tears.
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Leaving as i did Coalmont around four in the afternoon
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(by Route X — I do not remember the number) , I might have
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made Ramsdale by dawn had not a short-cut tempted me.
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I had to get onto Highway Y. My map showed quite blandly
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that just beyond Woodbine, which I reached at nightfall, I
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could leave paved X and reach paved Y by means of a trans-
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verse dirt road. It was only some forty miles long according
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to my map. Otherwise I would have to follow X for another
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hundred miles and then use leisurely looping Z to get to Y
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and my destination. However, the short cut in question got
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worse and worse, bumpier and bumpier, muddier and muddier,
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and when I attempted to turn back after some ten miles of
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purblind, tortuous and tortoise-slow progress, my old and weak
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Melmoth got stuck in deep clay. All was dark and muggy, and
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hopeless. My headlights hung over a broad ditch full of water.
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The surrounding country, if any, was a black wilderness. I
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sought to extricate myself but my rear wheels only whined
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in slosh and anguish. Cursing my plight, I took off my fancy
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clothes, changed into slacks, pulled on the bullet-riddled
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sweater, and waded four miles back to a roadside farm. It
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started to rain on the way but I had not the strength to go
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back for a mackintosh. Such incidents have convinced me that
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my heart is basically sound despite recent diagnoses. Around
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midnight, a wrecker dragged my car out. I navigated back to
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Highway X and traveled on. Utter weariness overtook me an
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hour later, in an anonymous little town. I pulled up at the
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curb and in darkness drank deep from a friendly flask.
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The rain had been cancelled miles before. It was a black
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warm night, somewhere in Appalachia. Now and then cars
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passed me, red tail-lights receding, white headlights advance
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256
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ing, "bat the town was dead. Nobody strobed and laughed
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on the sidewalks as relaxing burghers would in sweet, mellow,
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rotting Europe. I was alone to enjoy the innocent night and
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my terrible thoughts. A wire receptacle on the curb was very
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particular about acceptable contents: Sweepings. Paper. No
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Garbage. Sheny-red letters of light marked a Camera Shop.
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A large thermometer with the name of a laxative qnietly
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dwelt on the front of a drugstore. Ruhinov's Jewelry Com-
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pany had a display of artificial diamonds reflected in a red
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mirror. A lighted green clock swam in the linenish depth of
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Jiffy Jeff Laundry. On the other side of the street a garage
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said in its sleep — genuflexion lubricity; and corrected itself to
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Gulflex Lubrication. An airplane, also gemmed by Rubinov,
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passed, droning, in the velvet heavens. How many small
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dead-of-night towns I had seenl This was not yet the last.
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Let me dally a little, he is as good as destroyed. Some way
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further across the street, neon lights flickered twice slower
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than my'heart: the outline of a restaurant sign, a large coffee-
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pot, kept bursting, every full second or so, into emerald life,
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and every time it went out, pink letters saying Fine Foods
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relayed it, but the pot could stfll be made out as a latent
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shadow teasing the eye before its next emerald resurrection.
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We made shadowgraphs. This furtive burg was not far from
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The Enchanted Hunters. I was weeping again, drunk on the
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impossible past
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31
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At tkis soi.it sky stop for refreshments between Coalmont
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and Ramsdale (between innocent Dolly SchilleT and jovial
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Uncle Ivor), I reviewed my case. With the utmost simplicity
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and clarity I now saw myself and my love. Previous attempts
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seemed out of focus in comparison. A couple of years before,
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under the guidance of an intelligent French-speaking con-
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fessor, to whom, in a moment of metaphysical curiosity, I had
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turned over a Protestant’s drab atheism for an old-fashioned
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popish cure, I had hoped to deduce from my sense of sin the
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existence of a Supreme Being. On those frosty mornings in
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rimc-laced Quebec^ the good priest worked on me with the
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finest tenderness and understanding. I am infinitely obliged
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to him and the great Institution he represented. Alas, I was
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unable to transcend the simple human fact that whatever
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spiritual solace I might find, whatever lithophanic eternities
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might be provided for me, nothing could make my Lolita for-
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get the foul lust I had inflicted upon her. Unless it can be
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proven to me — to me as I am now, today, with my heart and
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my beard, and my putrefaction — that in the infinite run it
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does not matter a jot that a North American girl-child named
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Dolores Haze had been deprived of her childhood by a
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maniac, unless this can be proven (and if it can, then life
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is a joke) , I see nothing for the treatment of my misery but
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the melancholy and very local palliative of articulate art.
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To quote an old poet:
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The moral sense in mortals is the duty
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We have to pay on mortal sense of beauty.
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There was the day, during our first trip — our first circle of
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paradise — when in order to enjoy my phantasms in peace I
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firmly decided to ignore what I could not help perceiving, the
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fact that I was to her not a boy friend, not a glamour man, not
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a pal, not even a person at all, but just two eyes and a foot of
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engorged brawn — to mention only mentionable matters.
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There was the day when having withdrawn the functional
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promise I had made her on the eve (whatever she had set her
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funny little heart on — a roller rink with some special plastic
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floor or a movie matinee to which she wanted to go alone),
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I happened to glimpse from the bathroom, through a chance
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combination of minor aslant and door ajar, a look on her face
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. . . that look I cannot exactly describe ... an expression
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of helplessness so perfect that it seemed to grade into one of
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rather comfortable inanity just because this was the very
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limit of injustice and frustration — and every limit presup-
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poses something beyond it — hence the neutral illumination.
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And when you bear in mind that these were the raised eye-
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brows and parted lips of a child, you may better appreciate
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258
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what depths of calculated carnality, what reflected despair,
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restrained me from falling at her dear feet and dissolving in
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human tears, and sacrificing my jealousy to whatever pleasure
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Lolita might hope to derive from mixing with dirty and
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dangerous children in an outside world that was real to her.
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And I have stSI other smothered memories, now unfolding
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themselves into limbless monsters of pain. Once, in a sunset-
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ending street of Beardsley, she turned to little Eva Rosen (I
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was taking both nymphets to a concert and walking behind
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them so close as almost to touch them with my person), she
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turned to Eva, and so very serenely and seriously, in answer
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to something the other had said about its being better to die
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than hear Milton Pinski, some local schoolboy she knew, talk
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about music, my Lolita remarked:
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“You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are
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completely on your own"; and it struck me, as my automaton
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knees went up and down, that I simply did not know a thing
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about my darling’s mind and that quite possibly, behind the.
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awful juvenile cliches, there was in her a garden and a twilight,
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and a palace gate — dim and adorable regions which happened
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to be lucidly and absolutely forbidden to me, in my polluted
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rags and miserable convulsions; for I often noticed that living
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as we did, she and I, in a world of total evil, we would be-
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come strangely embarrassed whenever I tried to discuss some-
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thing she and an older friend, she and a parent, she and a real
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healthy sweetheart, I and Annabel, Lolita and a sublime, puri-
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fied, analyzed, deified Harold Haze, might have discussed —
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an abstract idea, a painting, stippled Hopkins or shorn Baude-
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laire, God or Shakespeare, anything of a genuine kind. Good
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willl She would mail her vulnerability in trite brashness and
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boredom, whereas I, using for my desperately detached com-
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ments an artificial tone of voice that set my own last teeth on
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edge, provoked my audience to such outbursts of rudeness
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as made any further conversation impossible, oh my poor,
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bruised cbfld.
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I loved you. I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you. I
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was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je
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t aimais, je t’aimais! And there were times when I knew how
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you felt, and it was hell to know it, my little one. Lolita girl,
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brave Dolly Schiller.
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I recall certain moments, let us call them icebergs in para-
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dise, when after haring had my fill of her — after fabulous,
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msane exertions that left me limp and azure-barred — I would
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259
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gather her in my arms with, at last, a mute moan of human
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tenderness (her shin glistening in the neon light coming from
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the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black
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lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever — for
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all the world a little patient still in the confusion of a drug
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after a major operation) — and the tenderness would deepen
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to shame and despair, and I would lull and rock my lone light
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Lolita in my marble arms, and moan in her warm hair, and
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caress her at random and mutely ask her blessing, and at the
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peak of this human agonized selfless tenderness (with my
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soul actually hanging around her naked body and ready to
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|
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repent), all at once, ironically, horribly, lust would swell
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again — and “oh, no,” Lolita would say with a sigh to heaven,
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and the next moment the tenderness and the azure — all would
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be shattered.
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Mid-twentieth century ideas concerning child-parent rela-
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tionship have been considerably tainted by the scholastic
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rigmarole and standardized symbols of the psychoanalytic
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racket, but I hope I am addressing myself to unbiased readers.
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Once when Avis’s father had honked outside to signal papa
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had come to take his pet home, I felt obliged to invite him
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into the parlor, and he sat down for a minute, and while we
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conversed. Avis, a heavy unattractive, affectionate child, drew
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up to him and eventually perched plumply on his knee. Now,
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I do not remember if I have mentioned that Lolita always had
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an absolutely enchanting smile for strangers, a tender furry
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slitting of the eyes, a dreamy sweet radiance of all her features
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which did not mean a thing of course but was so beautiful,
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so endearing that one found it hard to reduce such sweetness
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to but a magic gene automatically lighting up her face in
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atavistic token of some ancient rite' of welcome — hospitable
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prostitution, the coarse reader may say. Well, there she stood
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while Mr. Byrd twirled his hat and talked, and — yes, look how
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stupid of me, I have left out the main characteristic of the
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famous Lolita smile, namely: while the tender, nectared,
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dimpled brightness played, it was never directed at the stranger
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in the room but hung in its own remote flowered void, so to
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speak, or wandered with myopic softness over chance objects
|
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— and this is what was happening now: while fat Avis sidled
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up to her papa, Lolita gently beamed at a fruit knife that
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she fingered on the edge of the table, whereon she leaned,
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many miles away from me. Suddenly, as Avis clung to her
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father’s neck and ear while, with a casual arm, the man en-
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260
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\
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vdoped his lumpy and large offspring, I saw Lolita's smile lose
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all its light and become a frozen little shadow of itself, and the
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fruit knife slipped off the table and struck her with its silver
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handle a freak blow on the ankle which made her gasp, and
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crouch head forward, and then, jumping on one leg, her face
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awful with the preparatory grimace which children hold till the
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tears gush, she was gone — to be followed at once and con-
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soled in the kitchen by Avis who had such a wonderful fat
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pink dad and a small chubby brother, and a brand-new baby
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sister, and a home, and two grinning dogs, and Lolita had
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nothing. And I have a neat pendant to that little scene — also
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|
in a Beardsley setting. Lolita, who had been reading near the
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fire, stretched herself, and then inquired, her elbow up, with
|
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|
a grunt: ‘'Where is she buried anyway?” "Who?” "Oh, you
|
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|
know, my murdered mummy.” "And you know where her
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|
grave is," I said controlling myself, whereupon I named the
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|
cemetery — just outside Ramsdde, between the railway tracks
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|
and Lakeview Hill. “Moreover,” I added, "the tragedy of such
|
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|
an accident is somewhat cheapened by the epithet you saw fit
|
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|
to apply to it If you really wish to triumph in your mind
|
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|
over the idea of death — •” "Ray,” said Lo for hurra}', and
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|
languidly left the room, and for a long while I stared with
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|
smarting eyes into the fire. Then I picked up her book. It
|
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|
was some trash for young people. There was a gloomy girl
|
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|
Marion, and there was her stepmother who turned out to be,
|
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|
against all expectations, a young, gay, understanding redhead
|
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|
who explained to Marion that Marion's dead mother had
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|
TeaHy been a heroic woman since she had deliberately dis-
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simulated her great love for Marion because she was dying,
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and did not want her child to miss her. I did not rush up to
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her room with cries. I always preferred the mental hygiene
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of noninterference. Now, squirming and pleading with my
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own memory, I recall that on this and similar occasions, it
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was always my habit and method to ignore Lolita’s states of
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mind while comforting my own base self. ’When my mother,
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in a livid wet dress, under the tumbling mist (so I vividly
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imagined her), had ran panting ecstatically up that ridge
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above Moulinet to be felled there by a thunderbolt, I was but
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an infant, and in retrospect no yearnings of the accepted land
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could I ever graft upon any moment of my youth, no matter
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how savagely psychotherapists heckled me in my later periods
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of depression. But I admit that a man of my power of imagina-
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tion cannot plead personal irmorance of universal emotions.
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261
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I may also have relied too much on the abnormally chill rela-
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tions between Charlotte and her daughter. But the awful point
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of the whole argument is this. It had become gradually clear to
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my conventional Lolita during our singular and bestial cohabi-
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tation that even the most miserable of family lives was better
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than the parody of incest, which, in the long run, was the
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best I could offer the waif.
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33
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Ramsdaxe revisited. I approached it from the side of the
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lake. The sunny noon was all eyes. As I rode by in my mud-
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flecked car, I could distinguish scintillas of diamond water
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between the far pines. I turned into the cemetery and walked
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among the long and short stone monuments. Bonzhur, Char-
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lotte. On some of the graves there were pale, transparent little
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national flags slumped in the windless air under the ever-
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greens. Gee, Ed, that was bad luck — referring to G. Edward
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Grammar, a thirty-five-year-old New York office manager who
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had just been arrayed on a charge of murdering his thirty-
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three-year-old wife, Dorothy. Bidding for the perfect crime,
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Ed had bludgeoned his wife and put her into a car. The case
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came to light when two county policemen on patrol saw Mrs.
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Grammar’ s new big blue Chrysler, an anniversary present from
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her husband, speeding crazily down a hill, just inside their
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jurisdiction (God bless our good copsl). The car sideswiped
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a pole, ran up an embankment covered with beard grass, wild
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strawberry and cinquefoil, and overturned. The wheels were
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still gently spinning in the mellow sunlight when the officers
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removed Mrs. G.’s body. It appeared to be a routine highway
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accident at first. Alas, the woman’s battered body did not
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match up with only minor damage suffered by the car. I did
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better.
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I rolled on. It was funny to see again the slender white
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church and the enormous elms. Forgetting that in an Amer-
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ican suburban street a lone pedestrian is more conspicuous
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than a lone motorist, I left the car in the avenue to walk
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unobtrusively past 342 Lawn Street. Before the great blood-
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shed, I was entitled to a little relief, to a cathartic spasm of
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262
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mental regurgitation. Closed were the white shutters of the
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Junk mansion, and somebody had attached a found black
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velvet hair ribbon to the white for sale sign which was lean-
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ing toward the sidewalk. No dog barked. No gardener tele-
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phoned. No Miss Opposite sat on the vined porch — where
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to the lone pedestrian’s annoyance two pony-tailed young
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women in identical polka-dotted pinafores stopped doing
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whatever they were doing to stare at him: she was long dead,
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no doubt, these might be her twin nieces from Philadelphia.
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Should I enter my old house? As in a Turgenev story, a tor-
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rent of Italian music came from an open window — that of the
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living room: what romantic soul was playing the piano where
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no piano had plunged and plashed on that bewitched Sunday
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with the sun on her beloved legs? All at once I noticed that
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from the lavra I had mown a golden-skinned, brovra-haired
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nymphet of nine or ten, in white shorts, was looking at me
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with wild fascination in her large blue-black eyes. I said some-
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thing pleasant to her, meaning no harm, an old-world com-
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pliment, what nice eyes you have, but sbe retreated in haste
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and the music stopped abruptly, and a violent-looking dark
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man, glistening with sweat, came out and glared at me. I was
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on the point of identifying myself when, with a pang of dream-
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embarrassment, I became aware of my mud-caked dungarees,
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my filthy and tom sweater, my bristly chin, my bum’s blood-
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shot eyes. Without saying a word, I turned and plodded back
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the way I had come. An aster-like anemic flower grew out
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of a remembered chink in the' sidewalk. Quietly resurrected.
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Miss Opposite was being wheeled out by her nieces, onto heT
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porch, as if it were a stage and I the star performer. P raring
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sbe would not call to me, I hurried to my car. What a steep
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little street. What a profound avenue. A red ticket showed
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between wiper and windshield; I carefully tore it into two,
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four, eight pieces.
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Feeling I was losing my time, I drove energetically to the
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downtown hotel where I had arrived with a new’ bag more than
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five years before. I took a room, made two appointments by
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telephone, shaved, bathed, put on black clothes and went
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down for a’drink in the bar. Nothing had changed. The bar-
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room was suffused with the same dim, impossible gamet-red
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light that in Europe years ago went with low haunts, but here
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meant a bit of atmosphere in a family hotel. 1 sat at the same
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little table where at the very start of my stay, immediately
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after becoming Charlotte’s lodger, I had thought fit to cclc-
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263
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brate the occasion, by suavely sharing with her half a bottle
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of champagne, which had fatally conquered her poor brim-
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ming heart. As then, a moon-faced waiter was arranging with
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stellar care fifty sherries on a round tray for a wedding party.
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Murphy-Fantasia, this time. It was eight minutes to three.
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As I walked through the lobby, I had to skirt a group of ladies
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who with mille graces were taking leave of each other after a
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luncheon party. With a harsh cry of recognition, one pounced
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upon me. She was a stout, short woman in pearl-gray, with a
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long, gray, slim plume to her small hat. It was Mrs. Chatfield.
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She attacked me with a fake smile, all aglow with evil curiosity.
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(Had I done to Dolly, perhaps, what Frank Lasalle, a fifty-year-
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old mechanic, had done to eleven-year-old Sally Homer in
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1948?) Very soon I had that avid glee well under control. She
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thought I was in California. How was — ? With exquisite
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pleasure I informed her that my stepdaughter had just mar-
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ried a brilliant young mining engineer with a hush-hush job in
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the Northwest. She said she disapproved of such early mar-
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riages, she would never let her Phyllis, who was now eighteen —
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“Oh .yes of course,” I said quietly. “I remember Phyllis.
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Phyllis and Camp Q. Yes, of course. By the way, did she ever
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tell you how Charlie Holmes debauched there his mother’s
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little charges?”
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Mrs. Cbatfield's already broken smile now disintegrated
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completely.
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“For shame,” she cried, “for shame, Mr. Humbert! The
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poor boy has just been killed in Korea.”
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I said didn’t she think "vient de,” with the infinitive, ex-
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pressed recent events so much more neatly than the English
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“just,” with the past? But I had to be trotting off, I said.
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There were only two blocks to Windmuller’s office. He
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greeted me with a very slow, very enveloping, strong, searching
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grip. He thought I was in California. Had' I not lived at one
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time at Beardsley? His daughter had just entered Beardsley
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College. And how was — ? I gave all necessary information
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about Mrs. Schiller. We had a pleasant business conference. I
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walked out into the hot September sunshine a contented
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pauper.
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Now that everything had been put out of the way, I could
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dedicate myself freely to the main object of my visit to Rams-
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dale. In the methodical manner on which I have always prided
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myself, I had been keeping Clare Quilty’s face masked in my
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dark dungeon, where he was waiting for me to come with
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264
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barber and priest: “RiveHlez-vons, Laqueue, U est temps de
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mouriiF I bare no time right now to discoss the mnemonics
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of phyriognomization — I am on my way to his unde and
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walking fast — but let me jot down this: I had preserved in
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the alcohol of a douded memory the toad of a face. In the
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course of a few glimpses, I had noticed its slight resemblance
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to a cheery and rather repulsive wine dealer, a relative of mine
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in Switzerland, With his dumbbells and stinking tricot, and
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fat hairy arms, and bald patch, and pig-faced servant-concu-
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bine, he was on the whole a harmless old rascal. Too harmless,
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in fact, to he confused ’with my prey. In the state ofamind I
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now found myself, I had lost contact with Trapp’s image. It
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had become completely engulfed by the face of Clare Quilty — ■
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as represented, with artistic precision, by an easeled photo-
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graph of him that stood on his unde’s desk.
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In Beardsley, at the hands of charming Dr. Molnar, I had
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undergone a rather serious dental operation, retaining only a
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few upper and lower front teeth. The substitutes were depend-
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ent on a system of plates with an inconspicuous wire affair run-
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ning along my upper gums. The whole arrangement was a
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masterpiece of comfort, and my canines were in perfect health.
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However, to garnish my secret purpose with a plausible pretext,
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I told Dr. Quilty that, in hope of alleviating facial neuralgia,
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I had derided to hare all my teeth removed. What would a
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complete set of dentures cost? How long would the process
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fake, assuming we fixed our first appointment for some time
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in November? Where was his famous nephew now? Would it
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be possible to hare them all out in one dramatic session?
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_ A white-smocked, gray-haired man, with a crew cut and the
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big fiat cheeks of a politician. Dr. Quilty perched on the comer
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of his desk, one foot dreamily and seductively rocking as he
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launched on a glorious long-range plan. He would first proride
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me with provisional plates until the gums settled. Then he
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would make me a permanent set. He would like to have a look
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at that mouth of mine. He wore perforated pied shoes. He had
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not visited with the rascal since 1946, but supposed he could
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he found at his ancestral home, Grimm Road, not far from
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Partington. It was a noble dream. His foot rocked, his gaxe
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was inspired. It would cost me around six hundred. He sug-
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gested he take measurements right away, and make the first set
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before starting operations. My mouth was to him a splendid
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cave full of priceless treasures, but I denied him entrance.
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"No,” I said. "On second thoughts, I shall hare it all done
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265
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by Dr. Molnar. His price is Higher, but he is of course a much
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better dentist than you.”
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I do not know if any of my readers will ever have a chance
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to say that. It is a delicious dream feeling. Clare's uncle re-
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mained sitting on the desk, still looking dreamy, but his foot
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had stopped push-rocking the cradle of rosy anticipation. On
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the other hand, his nurse, a skeleton-thin, faded girl, with the
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tragic eyes of unsuccessful blondes, rushed after me so as to
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be able to slam the door in my wake.
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Push the magazine into the butt. Press home until you hear
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or feel the magazine catch engage. Delightfully snug. Capacity:
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eight cartridges. Full Blued. Aching to be discharged.
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A cas station attendant in Parkington explained to me very
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clearly how to get to Grimm Road. Wishing to be sure Quflty
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would be at home, I attempted to ring him up but learned that
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his private telephone had recently been disconnected. Did that
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mean he was gone? I started to drive to Grimm Road, twelve
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miles north of the town. By that time night had eliminated
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most of the landscape and as I followed the narrow winding
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highway, a series of short posts, ghostly white, with reflectors,
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borrowed my own lights to indicate this or that curve. I could
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make out a dark valley on one side of the road and wooded
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slopes on the other, and in front of me, like derelict snow-
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flakes, moths drifted out of the blackness into my probing
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aura. At the twelfth mile, as foretold, a curiously hooded
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bridge sheathed me for a moment and, beyond it, a white-
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washed rock loomed on the right, and a few car lengths further,
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on the same side, I turned off the highway up gravelly Grimm
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Road. For a couple of minutes all was dank, dark, dense forest
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Then, Pavor Manor, a wooden house with a turret, arose in a
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circular clearing. Its windows glowed yellow and red; its drive
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v/as cluttered with half a dozen cars. I stopped in the shelter
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of the trees and abolished my lights to ponder the next move
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quietly. He would be surrounded by his henchmen and whores.
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I could not help seeing the inside of that festive and ram-
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shackle castle in terms of “Troubled Teens,” a story in one of
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266
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Lei magazines, vague “orgies/’ a sinister adult with penele ci-
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gar, drugs, bodyguards. At least, be was there. I would return
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in the toipid morning. ~
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Gently I rolled back to town, in that old faithful car of
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mine which was serenely, almost cheerfully working for me.
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My Lolital There was still a three-year-old bobby pin of
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hers in the depths of the glove compartment. There was still
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that stream of pale moths siphoned out of the night by my
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headlights. Dark bams still propped themselves up here and
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there by the roadside. People were still going to the movies.
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While searching for night lodgings, I passed a drive-in. In
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a selenian glow, truly mystical in its contrast with the moonless
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and massive night, on a gigantic screen slanting away among
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dark drowsy fields, a thin phantom raised a gun, both he and
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his arm reduced to tremulous dishwater by the oblique angle
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of that receding world, — and the next moment a row of trees
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shut off the gesticulation.
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35
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I left Insomnia Lodge next morning around eight and spent
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some time in Parldngton. Visions _of bungling the execution
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kept obsessing me. Thinking that perhaps the cartridges in the
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automatic had gone stale during a week of inactivity, I re-
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moved them and inserted a fresh batch. Such a thorough oil
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bath did I give Chum that now I could not get rid of the
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stuff. I bandaged him up with a rag, like a maimed limb, and
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osed another rag to wrap up a handful of spare bullets.
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A thunderstorm accompanied me most of the way back to
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Grimm Road, but when I reached Pavor Manor, the sun was
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visible again, burning like a man, and the birds screamed in the
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drenched and steaming trees. The elaborate and decrepit bouse
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seemed to stand in a kind of daze, reflecting as it were my own
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state, for I could not help realizing, as my feet touched the
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springy and insecure ground, that I had overdone the alcoholic
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stimulation business.
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A guardedly ironic silence answered my bell. The garage,
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however, was loaded with his car, a black convertible for the
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nonce. I tried the knocker. Re-nobody. With a petulant stud,
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267
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I pushed the front door — and, how nice, it swung open as in
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a medieval fairy tale. Having softly closed it behind me, I made
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my way across a spacious and very ugly hall; peered into an ad-
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jacent drawing room; noticed a number of used glasses growing
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out of the carpet; decided that, master was still asleep in the
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master bedroom.
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So I trudged upstairs. My right hand clutched muffled
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Chum in my pocket, my left patted the sticky banisters. Of
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the three bedrooms I inspected, one had obviously been slept
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in that night. There was a library full of flowers. There was a
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rather bare room with ample and deep mirrors and a polar bear
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skin on the slippery floor. There were still other rooms. A
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happy thought struck me. If and when master returned from
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his constitutional in the woods, or emerged from some secret
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lair, it might be wise for an unsteady gunman with a long
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job before him to prevent his playmate from locking himself
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up in a room. Consequently, for at least five minutes I went
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about — lucidly insane, crazily calm, an enchanted and very
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tight hunter — turning whatever keys in whatever locks there
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were and pocketing them with my free left hand. The house
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being an old one, had more planned privacy than have modem
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glamour-boxes, where the bathroom, the only lockable locus,
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has to be used for the furtive needs of planned parenthood.
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Speaking of bathrooms — I was about to visit a third one
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when master came out of it, leaving a brief waterfall behind
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him. The comer of a passage did not quite conceal me. Gray-
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faced, baggy-eyed, fluffily disheveled in a scanty balding way,
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but still perfectly recognizable, he swept by me in a purple
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bathrobe, very like one I had. He either did not notice me, or
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else dismissed me as some familiar and innocuous hallucina-
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tion — and, showing me his hairy calves, he proceeded, sleep-
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walker-wise, downstairs. I pocketed my last key and followed
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him into the entrance hah. He had half opened his mouth
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and the front door, to peer out through a sunny chink as one
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who thinks he has heard a half-hearted visitor ring and recede.
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Then, still ignoring the raincoated phantasm that had stopped
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in midstairs, master walked into a cozy boudoir across the hall
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from the drawing room, through which — taking it easy, know-
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ing he was safe — I now went away from him, and in a bar-
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adomed kitchen gingerly unwrapped dirty Chum, taking care
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not to leave any oil stains on the chrome — I think I got the
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wrong product, it was black and awfully messy. In my usual
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meticulous way, I transferred naked Chum to a dean recess
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268
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about me and made for the little boudoir. My step, as I say,
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•was springy — too springy perhaps for success. But my heart
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pounded with tiger joy, and I crunched a.cochtail glass under-,
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foot
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Master met me in the Oriental parlor.
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“Now who are you?” he ashed in a high hoarse voice, his
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hands thrust into his dressing-gown pockets, his eyes. fixing' a
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point to the northeast of my head. “Are you by any chance
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Brewster?”
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By now it was evident to everybody that he wns in a fog and
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completely at my so-called mercy. I could enjoy myself.
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“That’s right,” I answered suavely. "Je suis Monsieur Brus-
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f£re. Let us chat for a moment before we start.”
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He looked pleased. His smudgy mustache twitched. I re-
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moved my raincoat. I was wearing a black suit, a black shirt,
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no tie. We sat down in two easy chairs.
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"You know,” he said, scratching loudly his fleshy and gritty
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gray cheek and showing his small pearly teeth in a crooked
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grin, “you don’t look like Jack Brew'ster. I mean, the resem-
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blance is not particularly striking. Somebody told me he had
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a brother with the same telephone company.”
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To hare him trapped, after those years of repentance and
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rage ... To look at the black hairs on the back of his pudgy
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hands ... To wander with a hundred eyes over his purple
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silks and hirsute chest foreglimpsing the punctures, and mess,
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and music of pain ... To know that this semi-animated,
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subhuman trickster who had sodomized my darling — oh, my
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darling, this was intolerable bliss!
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“No, I am afraid I am neither of the Brewsters.”
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He cocked his head, looking more pleased than ever.
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“Guess again. Punch.”
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"Ah,” said Punch, “so j - ou have not come to bother me
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about those long-distance calls?”
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"You do make them once in a while, don’t you?”
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"Excuse me?”
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I said I had said I thought he had said he had never —
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'Tcople,” he said, “people in general. I’m not accusing you,
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Brewster, but you know it’s absurd the way people invade this
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damned house without even knocking. The} - use the vaferre,
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they use the kitchen, they use the telephone. Phil calls Phila-
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delphia. Pat calls Patagonia. I refuse to pay. You have a funny
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accent, Captain.”
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“Quflty,” I said, "do you recall a little girl called Delores
|
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269
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Haze, Dolly Haze? Dolly called Dolores, Colo?”
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“Sure, she may have made those calls, sure. Any place.
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Paradise, Wash., Hell Canyon. Who cares?”
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“I do, Quilty. You see, I am her father.”
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“Nonsense,” he said. “You are not. You are some foreign
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literary agent. A Frenchman once translated my Proud Flesh
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as La FiertS de la Chair. Absurd.”
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“She was my child, Quilty.”
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In the state he was in he could not really be taken aback
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|
by anything, but his blustering manner was not quite convinc-
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ing. A sort of wary inkling kindled his eyes into a semblance
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of life. They were immediately dulled again.
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“I'm very fond of children myself,” he said, “and fathers are
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among my best friends.”
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He turned his head away, looking for something. He beat
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his pockets. He attempted to rise from his seat.
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“Down!” I said — apparently much louder than I intended.
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“You need not roar at me,” he complained in his strange
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feminine manner. “I just wanted to smoke. I'm dying for a
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smoke.”
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“You're dying anyway.”
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“Oh, chucks,” he said. “You begin to, bore me. What do
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|
you want? Are you French, mister? Woolly-woo-boo-are? Let's
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|
go to the barroomette and have a stiff — ”
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He saw the little dark weapon lying in my palm as if I were
|
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|
offering it to him.
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“Say!” he drawled (now imitating the underworld numb-
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|
skull of movies), “that's a swell little gun you’ve got there.
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What d'you want for her?”
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I slapped down his outstretched hand and he managed to
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knock over a box on a low table near him. It ejected a handful
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|
of cigarettes.
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"Here they are,” he said cheerfully. “You recall Kipling:
|
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|
une femme est une femme, mais un Capoial est one cigarette ?
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|
Now we need matches.”
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"Quilty,” I said. “I want you to concentrate. You are going
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|
|
to die in a moment. The hereafter for all we know may be an
|
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|
|
eternal state of excruciating insanity. You smoked your last
|
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|
|
cigarette yesterday. Concentrate. Try to understand what is
|
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|
|
happening to you.”
|
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|
He kept taking the Drome cigarette apart and munching
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|
bits of it.
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“I am willing to try,” he said. “You are either Australian, or
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270
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a German refugee. Must you talk to me? This is a Gentile’s
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|
house, you know. Maybe, you’d better run along. And do stop
|
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|
|
demonstrating that gun. I’ve an old Stem-Luger in the music
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|
room."
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I pointed Chum at his slippered foot and crushed the trig-
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|
ger. It clicked. He looked at his foot, at the pistol, again at his
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|
foot I made another awful effort, and, with a ridiculously
|
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|
|
feeble and juvenile sound, it vent off. The bullet entered the
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thick pink rug, and I had the paralyzing impression that it
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|
had merely trickled in and might come out again.
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“See what I mean?” said Quilty. "You should be a little
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|
more careful. Give me that, thing for Christ’s sake.”
|
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He reached for it. I pushed him back into the chair. The
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rich joy was waning. It was high time I destroyed him, but he
|
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|
must understand why he was being destroyed. His condition
|
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|
|
infected me, the weapon felt limp and clumsy in my hand.
|
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"Concentrate," I said, "on the thought of Dolly Haze whom
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|
you kidnaped — ”
|
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‘1 did notl” he cried. 'You’re all wet. I saved her from a
|
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beastly pervert Show me your badge instead of shooting at my
|
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|
foot, you ape, you. Where is that badge? I'm not responsible
|
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|
|
for the rapes of others. Absurd! That joy ride, I grant you, was
|
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|
|
a silly stunt but you got her back, didn’t you? Come, let s have
|
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|
a drink.”
|
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I asked him whether he wanted to be executed sitting or
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standing.
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"Ah, let me think,” he said. "It is not an easy question. In-
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|
cidentally — -I made a mistake. Which I sincerely regret. You
|
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|
sec, I had no fun with your Dolly. I am practically impotent,
|
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|
to tell the melancholy truth. And I gave her a splendid vaca-
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|
tion. She met some remarkable people. Do you happen to
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know’ — ■”
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And with a tremendous lurch he fell all over me, sending
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|
the pistol hurtling under a chest of drawers. Fortunately he
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was more impetuous than rigorous, and I bad little difficulty
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in shoring him back into his chair.
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He puffed a little and folded his arms on his chest.
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"Now you’re done it,” he said- “Vous vodd dans de beaux
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|
draps. mon rieux.”
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His French was improving.
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I looked around. Perhaps, if — Perhaps I could — On my
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hands and knees? Risk it?
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"AJors, que fait-on?” he asked watching me closely.
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271
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I stooped. He did not move. I stooped lower.
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“My dear sir/’ he said, “stop trifling with life and death. I
|
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|
|
am a playwright. I have written tragedies, comedies, fantasies.
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|
I have made private movies out of Justine and other eight-
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|
eenth-century sexcapades. I’m the author of fifty-two successful
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|
scenarios. I know all the ropes. Let me handle this. There
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|
should be a poker somewhere, why don't I fetch it, and then
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|
we'll fish out your property.”
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|
Fussily, busybodily, cunningly, he had risen again while he
|
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|
talked. I groped under the chest trying at the same time to
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|
keep an eye on him. All of a sudden I noticed that he had
|
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|
|
noticed that I did not seem to have noticed Chum protruding
|
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|
|
from beneath the other comer of the chest. We fell to
|
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|
|
wrestling again. We rolled all over the floor, in each other’s
|
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|
|
arms, like two huge helpless children. He was naked and goat-
|
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|
ish under his robe, and I felt suffocated as he rolled over me. I
|
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|
|
rolled over him. We rolled over me. They rolled over him. We
|
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|
rolled over us.
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|
In its published form, this book is being read, I assume, in
|
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|
|
the first years of 2000 a.d. (1935 plus eighty or ninety, live
|
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|
|
long, my love); and elderly readers, will surely recall at this
|
|
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|
|
point the obligatory scene in the Westerns of their childhood.
|
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|
|
Our tussle, however, lacked the ox-stunning fisticuffs, the fly-
|
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|
|
ing furniture. He and I were two large dummies, stuffed with
|
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|
|
dirty cotton and rags. It was a silent, soft, formless tussle on the
|
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|
|
part of the two literati, one of whom was utterly disorganized
|
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|
|
by a drag while the other was handicapped by a heart condition
|
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|
|
and too much gin. When at last I had possessed myself of my
|
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|
|
precious weapon, and the scenario writer had been reinstalled
|
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|
|
in his low chair, both of us were panting as the cowman and
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|
the sheepman never do after their battle.
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|
I decided to inspect the pistol — our sweat might have
|
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|
|
spoiled something — and regain my wind before proceeding to
|
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|
|
the main item in the program. To fill in the pause, I proposed
|
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|
|
he read his own sentence — in the poetical form I had given it
|
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|
|
The term “poetical justice” is one that may be most happily
|
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|
|
used in this respect I handed him a neat typescript.
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“Yes,” he said, “splendid idea. Let me fetch my reading
|
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|
glasses” (he attempted to rise).
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“No.”
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“Just as you say. Shall I read out loud?”
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“Yes.”
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“Here goes. I see it’s in verse.
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272
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Because yon tool: advantage of a sinner
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because you took advantage
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because you took
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because you took advantage of my disadvantage
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“That’s good, you know. That's damned good.”
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. . . when I stood Adam-naked
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before a federal law and all its stinging stars
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"Oh, grand stuffl”
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. . , Because you took advantage of a sin
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when I was helpless moulting moist and tender
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hoping for the best
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dreaming of marriage in s mountain state
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aye of a litter of Lolitas . . .
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"Didn't get that"
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Because you took advantage of my inner
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essential innocence
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because you cheated me —
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"A little repetitious, what? ’Where was I?”
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Because you cheated me of my redemption
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because you took
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her at the age when lads
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play with erector sets
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"Getting smutty, eh?”
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a little downy girl still wearing poppies
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still eating popcorn in the colored gloom
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where tawny Indians took paid croppers
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because you stole her
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from her wax-browed and dignified protector
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spitting into his heavy-lidded eye
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ripping his flavid toga and at dawn
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leasing the hog to roll upon his new discomfort
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the awfulncss of love and violets
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remorse despair while vou
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took a dull doll to pieces
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and threw its head away
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because of all you did
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because of all I did not
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you have to die
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“Well, sir, this is certainly a fine poem. Your best as far
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as I am concerned.”
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He folded and handed it back to me.
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I asked him if he had anything serious to say before dying.
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The automatic was again ready for use on the person. He
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looked at it and heaved a big sigh.
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“Now look here, Mac,” he said. “You are drunk and I am a
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sick man. Let us postpone the matter. I need quiet. I have to
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nurse my impotence. Friends are coming in the afternoon to
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take me to a game. This pistol-packing farce is becoming a
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frightful nuisance. We are men of the world, in everything —
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sex, free verse, marksmanship. If you bear me a grudge, I am
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ready to make unusual amends. Even an old-fashioned ren-
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contre, sword or pistol, in Rio or elsewhere — is not excluded.
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My memory and my eloquence are not at their best today but
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really, my dear Mr. Humbert, you were not an ideal stepfather,
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and I did not force your little p rotdgde to join me. It was she
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made me remove her to a happier home. This house is not as
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modem as that ranch we shared with dear friends. But it is
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roomy, cool in summer and winter, and in a word comfortable,
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so, since I intend retiring to England or Florence forever, I
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suggest you move in. It is yours, gratis. Under the condition
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you stop pointing at me that [he swore disgustingly] gun. By
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the -way, I do not know if you care for the bizarre, but if you
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do, I can offer you, also gratis, as house pet, a rather exciting
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little freak, a young lady with three breasts, one a dandy, this
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is a rare and delightful marvel of nature. Now soyons raison-
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nables. You will only wound me hideously and then rot in
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jail while I recuperate in a tropical setting. I promise you,
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Brewster, you will be happy here, with a magnificent cellar,
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and all the royalties from my next play — I have not much at
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the bank right now but I propose to borrow — you know, as the
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Bard said, with that cold in his head, to borrow and to borrow
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and to borrow. There are other advantages. We have -here
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a most reliable and bribable charwoman, a Mrs. Vibrissa — •
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curious name — who comes from the village twice a week, alas
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not today, she has daughters, granddaughters, a thing or two
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I know about the chief of police makes him my slave. I am a
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274
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playwright I have been called the American Maeterlinck
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Maeterlinck-Schmetterling, says I. Come 'on! AD this is very j;
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humiliatmg, and I am not sure I am doing the right thing.
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Ne\'er use herculanita with rum. Now drop that pistol like
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a good fellow. I knew your dear wife slightly. You may use ■
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my wardrobe. Oh, another thing— you are going to like this. I jl
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have an absolutely unique collection of erotica upstairs. Just
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to mention one item: the in folio de-luxe Bagration Island by L
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the explorer and psychoanalyst Melanie Weiss, a remarkable ji
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lady, a remarkable work — drop that gun — with photographs j“
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of eight hundred and something male organs she examined h
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and measured in 1932 on Bagration, in the Barda Sea, very !;
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illuminating graphs, plotted with love under pleasant sides — p
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drop that gun — and moreover I can arrange for you to attend ;
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executions, not everybody knows that the chair is painted V.
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yellow — ” - ij
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Feu. This time I hit something hard. I hit the hack of a j>
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black rocking chair, not unlike Dolly SchiHei’s — my bullet hit j;
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the inside surface of its hack whereupon it immediately went
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into a rocking act, so fast and with such zest that any one .
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coming into the room might have been flabbergasted by the r
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double miracle: that chair rocking in a panic all by itself, and ;
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the armchair, where my purple target had just been, now void :
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of all live content. Wiggling his fingers in the ah, with a rapid
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heave of his rump, he flashed into the music room and the
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next second W'e were tugging and gasping on both sides of the :
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door which had a key I had overlooked. I won again, and with
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another abrupt movement Clare the Impredictable sat down
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before the piano and played several atrociously vigorous fun- ■
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damentally hysterical, plangent chords, his jowls quivering, his ;
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spread hands tensely plunging, and his nostrils emitting the ,
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soundtrack snorts which had been absent from our fight. Still
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singing those impossible sonorities, he made a futile attempt ■
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to open with his foot a kind of seaman’s chest near the piano.
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My next bullet caught him somewhere in the side, and he i
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rose from his chair higher and higher, like old, gray, mad
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Nijinski, like Old Faithful, like some old nightmare of mine,
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to a phenomenal altitude, or so it seemed, as he rent the j
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air— still shaking with the rich black music — head thrown
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back in a howl, hand pressed to his brow, and with his other
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hand clutching his armpit as if stung by a hornet, down he
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came on his heels and, again a normal robed man, scurried out
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into the hall.
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I see myself following him through the hall, with a kind of
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77 ?
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double, triple, Icangaroo jump, remaining quite straight on
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straight legs while bouncing up twice in his wake, and then
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bouncing between him and the front door in a ballet-like stiff
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bounce, with the purpose of heading him off, since the door
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was not properly closed.
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Suddenly dignified, and somewhat morose, he started to
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walk up the broad stairs, and, shifting my position, but not
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actually following him up the steps, I fired three or four times
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in quick succession, wounding him at every blaze; and every
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time I did it to him, that horrible thing to him, his face would
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twitch in an absurd clownish manner, as if he were exaggerat-
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ing the pain; he slowed down, rolled his eyes half closing
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them and made a feminine “ah I” and he shivered every time
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a bullet hit him as if I were tickling him, and every time I
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got him with those slow, clumsy, blind bullets of mine, he
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would say under his breath, with a phoney British accent —
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all the while dreadfully twitching, shivering, smirking, but
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withal talking in a curiously detached and even amiable man-
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ner: “Ah, that hurts, sir, enough I Ah, that hurts atrociously,
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my dear fellow. I pray you, desist. Ah — very painful, very
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painful, indeed . . . God! Hah! This is abominable, you
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should really not — ” His voice trailed off as he reached the
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landing, but he steadily walked on despite all the lead I had
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lodged in his bloated body — and in distress, in dismay, I
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understood that far from killing him I was injecting spurts
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of energy into the poor fellow, as if the bullets had been
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capsules wherein a heady elixir danced. , ,
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I reloaded the thing with hands that were black and bloody
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— I had touched something he had anointed with his thick
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gore. Then I rejoined him upstairs, the keys jangling in my
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pockets like gold.
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He was trudging from room to room, bleeding majestically,
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trying to find an open window, shaking his head, and still try-
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ing to talk me out of murder. I took aim at his head, and he
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retired to the master bedroom with a burst of royal purple
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where his ear had been.
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“Get out, get out of here,” he said coughing and spitting;
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and in a nightmare of wonder, I saw this blood-spattered but
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still buoyant person get into his bed and wrap himself up in
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the chaotic bedclothes. I hit him at very close range through
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the blankets, and then he lay back, and a big pink bubble with
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juvenile connotations formed on his lips, grew to the size of
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a toy balloon, and vanished.
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276
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I may haw lost contact with reality for a -second or two— oh,
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nothing of the I-just-blacked-out sort that your common crimi-
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nal enacts; on the contrary, I want to stress the fact that I was
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responsible for every shed drop of his bubbleblood; but a land
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of momentary shift occurred as if I were in the connubial bed-
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room, and Charlotte were sick in bed. Quflty was a very sick
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roan. I held one of his slippers instead of the pistol — I was sit-
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ting on the pistol. Then I made myself a little more comfort-
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able in the chair near the bed, and consulted my wrist watch.
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The crystal was gone but it ticked. The whole sad business
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had taken more than an hour. He was quiet at last Far from
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feeling any relief, a burden even weightier than the one I had
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hoped to get rid of was with me, upon me, over me. I could
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not bring myself to touch him in order to make sure he was
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really dead. He looked it: a quarter of his face gone, and two
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flies beside themselves with a dawning sense of unbelievable
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luck. My hands were hardly in better condition than his. I
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washed up as best I could in the adjacent bathroom. Now I
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could leave. As I emerged on the landing, I was amazed to
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discover that a vivacious buzz I had just been dismissing as a
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mere singing in my ears was really a medley of voices and
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radio music coming from the downstairs drawing room.
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I found there a number of people who apparently had just
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arrived and were cheerfully drinking Quilty’s liquor. There was
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a fat man in an easy chair; and two dark-haired pale young
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beauties, sisters no doubt, big one and small one (almost a
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child), demurely sat side by side on a davenport. A florid-faced
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fellow with sapphire-blue eyes was in the act of bringing two
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glasses out of the bar-like kitchen, where two or three women
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were chatting and chinking ice. I stopped in the doorway and
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said: “I have just killed Clare Quflty.” ‘‘Good for you," said
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the florid fellow as he offered one of the drinks to the elder
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girl. “Somebody ought to have done it long ago,” remarked
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the fat man. “What does he say, Tony?” asked a faded blonde
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from the bar. “He says,” answered the florid fellow, “he has
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killed Cue.” “Well," said another unidentified man rising in
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a comer where he had been crouching to inspect some records,
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I guess we all should do it to him some day.” "Anyway,” said
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Tony, "he'd better come down. We can’t wait for him much
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longer if we want to go to that game.” “Give this man a drink
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somebody," said the fat person. 'Want a beer?” said a woman
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m slacks, showing it to me from afar.
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Only the two girls on the davenport, both wearing black,
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277
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the younger fingering a bright something about her white
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neck, only they said nothing, but just smiled on, so young, so
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lewd. As the music paused for a moment, there was a sudden
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noise on the stairs. Tony and I stepped out into the hah.
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Quilty of all people had managed to crawl out onto the land-
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ing, and there we could see him, flapping and heaving, then
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subsiding, forever this time, in a purple heap.
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“Hurry up. Cue-/' said Tony with a laugh. “I believe, hes
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still—" He returned to the drawing room, music drowned the
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rest of the sentence. - # .
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This, I said to myself, was the end of the ingenious play
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staged for me by Quilty. With a heavy heart I left the house
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and walked through the spotted blaze of the sun to my car.
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Two other cars were parked on both sides of it, and I had
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some trouble squeezing out.
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The rest is a little flattish and faded. Slowly I drove downhill,
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and presently found myself going at the same lazy pace in a
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direction opposite to Parkington. I had left my raincoat in the
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boudoir and Chum in the bathroom. No, it was not a house
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I would have liked to live in. I wondered idly if some surgeon
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of genius might not alter his own career, and perhaps the whole
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destiny of mankind, by reviving quilted Quilty, Clare Obscure.
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Not that I cared; on the whole I wished to forget the whole
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mess — and when I did learn he was dead, the only satisfaction
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it gave me, was the relief of knowing I need not mentally ac-
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company for months a painful and disgusting convalescence
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interrupted by all kinds of unmentionable operations and re-
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lapses, and perhaps an actual visit from him, with trouble on
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my part to rationalize him as not being a ghost. Thomas had
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something. It is strange that the~'tactfie sense, which is so
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infinitely less precious to men than sight, becomes at critical
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moments our main, if not only, handle to reality. I was all
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covered with Quilty — with the feel of that tumble before
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the bleeding.
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The road now stretched across open country, and it occurred
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to me — not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like
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278
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that, but merely as a novel experience — that since I had dis- \
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-regarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the )
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rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and j
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checked the feeling, and the feeling was good. It was a pleasant
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diaphragmal melting, with elements of diffused tactility, all this j
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enhanced by the thought that nothing could be nearer to the j
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elimination of basic physical laws than deliberately driving on i
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the wrong side of the road. In a way, it was a very spiritual itch. ;
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Gently, dreamily, not exceeding twenty miles an hour, I drove
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on that queer mirror side. Traffic was light Cars that now and h
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then passed me on the side I had abandoned to them, honked ' ;
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at me brutally. Cars coming towards me wobbled, swerved, and •;
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cried oat in fear. Presently I found myself approaching pop-
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ulated places. Passing through a red light was like a sip of for- ;
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hidden Burgundy when I was a child. Meanwhile complica- 1;
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ti'ons were arising. I was being followed and escorted. Then in '!
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front of me I saw two cars placing themselves in such a man- v
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ner as to completely block my way. With a graceful movement ;
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I turned off the road, and after two or three big bounces, rode j
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up a grassy slope, among surprised cow's, and there I came to
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a gentle rocking stop. A kind of thoughtful Hegelian synthesis
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linking up two dead women.
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I was soon to be taken out of the car (Hi, Melmoth, thanks
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a lot, old fellow) — and was, indeed, looking forward to sur-
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render myself to many hands, without doing anything to
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cooperate, while the}' moved and carried me, relaxed, com-
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fortable, surrendering myself lazily, like a patient, and de-
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riving an eerie enjoyment from my limpness and the absolutely
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reliable support given me by the police and the ambulance i
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people. And while I was waiting for them to run up to me j
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on the high slope, I evoked a last mirage of wonder and hope- ■ j
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lessness. One day, soon after her disappearance, an attack of j
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abominable nausea forced me to pull upon the ghost cf an ;
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old mountain road that now accompanied, now traverse u a t
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brand new highway, with its population cf asters bathin’ in :
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the detached warmth of a pale-blue afternoon in late summer. j
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After coughing myself inside out. I rested a while on s h-r.d- ;
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der, and then, thinking the sweet air minht da mr r.'^k (.
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walked a little way toward a low stone parapet on the prrc.moa j
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side of the highway. Small grasshoppers spurted cut of the
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withered roadside weeds. A very h.-ht clour. v~.-< rptr" — ]
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arms and moving toward a slirintly mere suh f t.;::t.-'. <~v. f
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longing to another, mere slurgish, heaven 1 .:-, car- r;-;t «. ..i i
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I approached the friendly abyss, I grew aware of melodious,
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unity of sounds rising like vapor from a small mining town
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that lay at my feet, in a fold of the valley. One could make
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out the geometry of the streets between blocks of red and gray
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roofs, and green puffs of trees, and a serpentine stream, and
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the rich, ore-like glitter of the city dump, and beyond the
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town, roads crisscrossing the crazy quilt of dark and pale
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fields, and behind it all, great timbered mountains. But even
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brighter than those quietly rejoicing colors — for there are
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colors and shades that seem to enjoy themselves in good com-
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pany — both brighter and dreamier to the ear than they were
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to the eye, was that vapory vibration of accumulated sounds
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that never ceased for a moment, as it rose to the lip of
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granite where I stood wiping my foul mouth. And soon I
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realized that all these sounds were of one nature, that no
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other sounds but these came from the streets of the trans-
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parent town, with the women at home and the men away.
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Readerl What I heard was but the melody of children at play,
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nothing but that, and so limpid was the air that within this
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vapor of blended voices, majestic and minute, remote and
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magically near, frank and divinely enigmatic — one could hear
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now and then, as if released, an almost articulate spurt of vivid
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laughter, or the crack of a bat, or the clatter of a toy wagon,
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but it was all really too far for the eye to distinguish any
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movement in the lightly etched streets. I stood listening to
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that musical vibration from my lofty slope, to those flashes
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of separate cries with a kind of demure murmur for back-
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ground, and then I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing
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was not Lolita's absence from my side, but the absence of her
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voice from that concord.
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This then is my story. I have reread it. It has bits of marrow
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sticking to it, and blood, and beautiful bright-green flies. At
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this or that twist of it I feel my slippery self eluding me, glid-
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ing into deeper and darker waters than I care to probe. I have
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camouflaged what I could so as not to hurt people. And I have
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toyed with many pseudonyms for myself before I hit on a
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particularly apt one. There are in my notes "Otto Otto” and
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‘Mesmer Mesmer” and “Lambert Lam bert,” but for some
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reason I think my choice expresses the nastiness best.
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When I started, fifty-six days ago, to write Lolita, first in the
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psychopathic ward for observation, and then in this well-
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heated, albeit tombal, seclusion, I thought I would use these
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notes in toto at my trial, to save not my head, of course, but
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280
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my sod. In mid-composition, however, I realized that I could
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not parade living Lolita. I still may use parts of this memoir in
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hermetic sessions, but publication is to be deferred.
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For reasons that may appear more obvious than they really
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|
are, I am opposed to capital punishment; this attitude will be,
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|
I trust, shared by the sentencing judge. Had I come before
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|
myself, I would have given Humbert at least thirty-five years
|
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|
|
for rape, and dismissed the rest of the charges. But even so,
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|
Dolly Schiller will probably survive me by many years. The
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|
following decision I make with all the legal impact and support
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|
|
of a signed testament: I wish this memoir to be published
|
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|
only when Lolita is no longer alive.
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|
Thus, neither of us is alive when the reader opens this book.
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|
But while the blood still throbs through my writing hand, you
|
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|
are still as much part of blessed matter as I am, and I can still
|
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|
talk to you from here to Alaska. Be true to your Dick. Do not
|
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|
let other fellows touch you. Do not talk to strangers. I hope
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|
you will love your baby. I hope it will be a boy. That husband
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of yours, I hope, will always treat you well, because otherwise
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my specter shall come at him, like black smoke, like a de-
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|
mented giant, and pull him apart nerve by nerve. And do not
|
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|
pity C. Q. One had to choose between him and H. H., and one
|
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|
wanted H, H. to exist at least a couple of months longer, so
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as to have him make you live in the minds of later generations.
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I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pig-
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|
ments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the
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|
only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.
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Vladimir Nabokov
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on a book entitled LOLITA
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After doing my impersonation of suave John Ray, the char-
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acter in Lolita who pens the Foreword, any comments coming
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straight from me may strike one — may strike me, in fact —
|
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|
as an impersonation of Vla dim ir Nabokov talking about his
|
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|
|
own book. A few points, however, have to be discussed; and
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the autobiographic device may induce mimic and model to
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blend. '
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|
Teachers of Literature are apt to think up such problems
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|
|
as “What is the author’s purpose?” or still worse 'What is
|
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|
|
the guy trying to say?” Now, I happen to be the kind of author
|
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|
|
who in starting to work on a book has no other purpose than
|
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|
|
to get rid of that book and who, when asked to explain its
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|
|
origin and growth, has to rely on such ancient terms as Inter-
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|
|
reaction of Inspiration and Combination — which, I admit,
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|
|
sounds like a conjurer explaining one trick by performing
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|
another.
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The first little throb of Lolita went through me late in 1939
|
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|
or early in 1940, in Paris, at a time when I was laid up with a
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|
|
severe attack of intercostal neuralgia. As far as I can recall,
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|
the initial shiver of inspiration was somehow prompted by a
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282
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newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes who,
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|
|
after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first
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|
drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the
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bars of the poor creature's cage. The impulse I record had no
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|
textual connection with the ensuing train of thought, which
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|
|
resulted, however, in a prototype of my present novel, a short
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|
story some thirty pages long. I wrote it in Russian, the lan-
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guage in which I had been writing novels since 1924 (the best
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of these are not translated into English, and all are prohibited j
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|
for political reasons in Russia). The man was a Central j
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European, the anonymous nymphet was French, and the loci
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were Paris and Provence. I had him marry the little girl’s sick j
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mother who soon died, and after a thwarted attempt to take •
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advantage of the orphan in a hotel room, Arthur (for that was *
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his name) threw himself under the wheels of a truck. I read j
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|
the story one blue-papered wartime night to a group of friends
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|
— Mark Aldanov, two social revolutionaries, and a woman f
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doctor; but I was not pleased with the tiring and destroyed j
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it sometime after moving to America in 1940. j
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Around 1949, in Ithaca, upstate New York, the throbbing, i
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which had never quite ceased, began to plague me again. j
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|
Combination joined inspiration with fresh zest and involved i
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|
me in a new treatment of the theme, this time in English — the j
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language of my first governess in St. Petersburg, circa 1905. a ;
|
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Miss Rachel Home. The nymphet, now with a dash of Irish !
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blood, was really much the same lass, and the baric marrying- j
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hcr-mother idea also subsisted; but otherwise the thing was j
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new and had grown in secret the claws and wings of a novel. j.
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The book developed slowly, with many interruptions and ^
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asides. It had taken me some forty years to invent Russia red i
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Western Europe, and now I was faced by the task, cf inventing ,
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America. The obtaining of such local ingredients a' w.-mid ]
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allow me to inject a modicum of average "reality” '’one rf the [
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few words which mean nothing without quotes) into thrjusw j
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of individual fancy, proved at fifty a much mere drr.ee t ■.
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|
process than it had been in the Europe of my youth n’.m ;
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rcceptiveness and retention were at their r.utrm.-t:r ^
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Other books intervened. Once or twice I was cn the p ut \
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of burning the unfinished draft and had camru ms- • t*. - r it * t
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Dark as far as the shadow of the laming mcmrirtv t er. trr j
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innocent lawn, when I was stopped by the fhmrr.t t t.-e .>
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ghost of the destroyed book would haunt my Car fa: tar .
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of my lift. j
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Every summer my wife and I go butterfly bunting. The
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specimens are deposited at scientific institutions, such as the
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|
|
Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard or the Cornell
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|
University collection. The locality labels pinned under these
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|
butterflies will be' a boon to some twenty-first-century scholar
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|
|
with a taste for recondite biography.- It was at such of our
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|
headquarters as TeHuride, Colorado; Afton, Wyoming; Portal,
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|
Arizona; and Ashland, Oregon, that Lolita was energetically
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resumed in the evenings or on cloudy days. I finished copying
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the thing out in longhand in the spring of 1954, and at once
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began casting around for a publisher.
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At first, on the advice of a wary old friend, I was meek
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|
enough to stipulate that the book be brought out anony-
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|
mously. I doubt that I shall ever regret that soon afterwards,
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|
|
realizing how likely a mask was to betray my own cause, I
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|
|
decided to sign Lolita. The four American publishers, W, X,
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|
Y, Z, who in turn were offered the typescript and had their
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|
|
readers glance at it, were shocked by Lolita to a degree that
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even my wary old friend FT. had not expected.
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|
While it is true that in ancient Europe, and well into the
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|
eighteenth century (obvious examples come from France),
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deliberate lewdness was not inconsistent with flashes of com-
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|
|
edy, or vigorous satire, or even the verve of a fine poet in a
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|
|
wanton mood, it is also true that in modem times the term
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|
“pornography" connotes mediocrity, commercialism, and
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|
|
certain strict rales of narration. Obscenity must be mated with
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|
|
banality because every kind of aesthetic enjoyment has to be
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|
|
entirely replaced by simple sexual stimulation which demands
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|
the traditional word for direct action upon the patient. Old
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|
rigid rales must be followed by the pomographer in order to
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|
have his patient feel the same security of satisfaction as, for
|
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|
example, fans of detective stories feel — stories where, if you
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|
do not watch out, the real murderer may tum out to be, to
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|
the fan’s disgust, artistic originality (who for instance would
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|
want a detective story without a single dialogue in it? ) . Thus,
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|
in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the cop-
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|
ulation of cliches. Style, structure, imagery should never dis-
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|
tract the reader from his tepid lust. The novel must consist
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|
of an alternation of sexual scenes. The passages in between
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|
must be reduced to sutures of sense, logical bridges of the
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simplest design, brief expositions and explanations, which the
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|
reader wfll probably skip but must know they exist in order
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not to feel cheated (a mentality stemming from the routine
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284
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of "true" fairy tales in childhood). Moreover, the sexual
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scenes in the booh must follow a crescendo line, with new
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variations, new combinations, new sexes, and a steady increase
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in the number of participants (in a Sade play they call the
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gardener in), and therefore the end of the book must be
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more replete with lewd lore than the first chapters.
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Certain techniques in the beginning of Lolita (Humbert’s
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Journal, for example) misled some of my first readers into
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assuming that this was going to be a lewd book. The}- ex-
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pected the rising succession of erotic scenes; when these
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stopped, the readers stopped, too, and felt bored and let down.
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This, I suspect, is one of the reasons why not all the four
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firms read the typescript to the end. Whether they found it
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pornographic or not did not interest me. Their refusal to buy
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the book wa s based not on my treatment of the theme but
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on the theme itself, for there are at least three themes which
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are utterly taboo as far as most American publishers arc con-
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cerned. The two others are: a Negro-White marriage which
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is a complete and glorious success resulting in lots of children
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and grandchildren; and the total atheist who lives a happy
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and useful life, and dies in his sleep at the age of 106.
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Some of the reactions were very amusing: one reader sug-
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gested that his firm might consider publication if I turned
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my Lolita into a twelve-ycar-old lad and had him seduced by
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Humbert, a fanner, in a bam, amidst gaunt and arid sur-
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roundings, all this set forth in short, strong, "realistic” sen-
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tences (“He acts crazy. We all act crazy, I guess. I guess God
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acts crazy.” Etc.). Although everybody should know that
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I detest symbols and allegories (which is due partly to my old
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feud with Freudian voodooism and partly to my loathing of
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generalizations devised by literary mythisis and sociologist'!,
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an otherwise intelligent reader who flipped through the first
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part described Lolita as "Old Europe debauching yrr.r.g
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America,” while another flipper saw in it ‘Tonne Amm."
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debauching old Europe.” Publisher X. whore advisers retire
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bored with Humbert that they never got beyond pare r c L
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had the nalvetd to write me th3t Part Two was too lone. FnN
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lishcr Y, on the other hand, regretted th- :e v.-ere no r r '*'d I
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pic in the book. Publisher Z said if he panted Lc.rt.*, be e:rt.
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I would go to jail. _ .
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No writer in a free country should be exported pr
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about the exact demarcation between the seme.-:' r: ; : ■'
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sensual; this is preposterous; I can only r.g.'.mre 1 't
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emulate the accuracy of judgment of those who pose the
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fair young mammals photographed in magazines where the
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general neckline is just low enough to provoke a past master’s
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chuckle and just high enough not to make a postmaster
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frown. I presume there exist readers who find titillating the
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display of mural words in those hopelessly banal and enormous
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novels which are typed out by the thumbs of tense mediocrities
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and called "powerful" and "stark" by the reviewing hack.
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There are gentle souls who would pronounce Lolita meaning-
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less because it does not teach them anything. I am neither a
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reader nor a writer of didactic fiction, and, despite John Ray’s
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assertion, Lolita has no moral in tow. For me a work of fiction
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exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call
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aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere,
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connected with other states of being where art (curiosity,
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tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm. There are not
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many such books. All the rest is either topical trash or what
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some call the Literature of Ideas, which very often is topical
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trash coming in huge blocks of plaster that are carefully
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transmitted from age to age until somebody comes along with
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a hammer and takes a good crack at Balzac, at Gorki, at Mann.
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Another charge which some readers have made is that Lolita
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is anti-American. This is something that pains me considerably
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more than the idiotic accusation of immorality. Considerations
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of depth and perspective (a suburban lawn, a mountain
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meadow) led me to build a number of North American sets.
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I needed a certain exhilarating milieu. Nothing is more ex-
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hilarating than philistine vulgarity. But in regard to philistine
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vulgarity there is no intrinsic difference between Palearctic
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manners and Nearctic manners. Any proletarian from Chicago
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can be as bourgeois (in the Flaubertian sense) as a duke. I
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chose American motels instead of Swiss hotels or English inns
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only because I am trying to be an American writer and claim
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only the same rights that other American writers enjoy. On
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the other hand, my creature Humbert is a foreigner and an
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anarchist, and there are many things, besides nymphets, in
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which I disagree with him. And all my Russian readers know
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that my old worlds — Russian, British, German, French — are
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just as fantastic and personal as my new one is.
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Lest the little statement I am making here seem an airing of
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grudges, I must hasten to add that besides the lambs who read
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tho typescript of Lolita or its Olympia Press edition in a spirit
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of “Why did he have to write it?” or "Why should I read
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286
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about maniacs?” there have been a number of wise, sensitive,
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and staunch people who understood my book much better
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than l ean explain its mechanism here.
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Every serious writer, 1 dare say, is aware of this or that pub-
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lished book of his as of a constant comforting presence. Its
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pilot light is steadily burning somewhere in the basement and
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a mere touch applied to one’s private thermostat instantly
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results in a quiet little explosion of familiar warmth. This
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presence, this glow of the book in an ever accessible remote-
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ness is a most companionable feeling, and the better the book
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has conformed to its prefigured contour and color the ampler
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and smoother it glows. But even so, there are certain points,
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byroads, favorite hollows that one evokes more eagerly and
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enjoys more tenderly than the rest of one’s book. I have not
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reread Lolita since I went through the proofs in the winter of
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1954 but I find it to be a delightful presence now that it
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quietly hangs about the house like a summer day which one
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knows to be bright behind the haze. And when I thus think
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of Lolita, I seem always to pick out for special delectation such
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images as Mr. Taxovich, or that class list of Ramsdalc School,
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or Charlotte saying "waterproof,” or Lolita in slow morion
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advancing toward Humbert’s gifts, or the pictures decorating
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the stylized garret of Gaston Godin, or the Kasbcam barber
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{who cost me a month of work), or Lolita playing tennis, or
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the hospital at Elphinstone, or p3lc, pregnant, beloved, ir-
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retrievable Dolly Schiller dying in Gray Star (the capital town
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of the book), or the tinkling sounds of the valley town com-
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ing up the mountain trail (on which I caught the first known
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female of Lycacidcs sublivens Nabokov). These arc the nerve*
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of the novel. These arc the secret points, the subliminal co-
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ordinates by means of which the book is plotted — although
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I realize very clearly that these and other scenes will be slim-
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med over or not noticed, or never even reached, by them
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wbo begin reading the book under the impression tint it h
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something on the lines of Memoirs of a Woman o' F.Va-wc
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or Les Amours dc Milord Gropn't. That my novel dow con-
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tain various allusions to the physiological urges of a
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is quite true. But after all vve are not children, n-t
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juvenile delinquents, not English public b-yr w.m riir:
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a night of homosexual romp* have to endure the pm: w of
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reading the Ancients in cxprug.rtrd veu'Yrr.
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It is childish to study .a work of fict.- n m ora,-: : - r".- -u-
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formation about a conntrv or about a reck! cl"' f t -■
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author. And yet one of my very few intimate friends, after
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reading Lolita , was sincerely worried that I (I!) should be
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living “among such depressing people” — when the. only dis-
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comfort I really experienced was to live in my workshop
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among discarded limbs and unfinished torsos.
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After Olympia Press, in Paris, published the book, an
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American critic suggested that Lolita was the record of my
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love affair with the romantic novel. The substitution “English
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language” for “romantic novel” would make this elegant
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formula more correct. But here I feel my voice rising to a
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much too strident pitch. None of my American friends have
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read my Russian books and thus every appraisal on the strength
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of my English ones is bound to be out of focus. My private
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tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody’s
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concern, is that I had to abandon my natural, idiom, my un-
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trammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a
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second-rate brand of English, devoid of any of those ap-
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paratuses — the baffling mirror, the black velvet backdrop,
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the implied associations and traditions — which the native il-
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lusionist, frac-tails flying, can magically use to transcend the
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heritage in his own way.
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November 12, 1956
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THE END
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of a Crest Reprint by
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Vladimir Nabokov
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288
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