Lolita

It is not the artistic aptitudes that are secondary sexual characteristics as some shams and shamans have said; it is the other way around: sex is but the ancilla of art.

“性只是艺术的女仆。”

ancilla: an aid to achieving or mastering something difficult

Latin: a female servant

Be true to your Dick. Do not let other fellows touch you. Do not talk to strangers. I hope you will love your baby. I hope it will be a boy. That husband of yours, I hope, will always treat you well, because otherwise my specter shall come at him, like black smoke, like a demented giant, and pull him apart nerve by nerve. And do not pity C. Q. One had to choose between him and H. H., and one wanted H. H. to exist at least a couple of months longer, so as to have him make you live in the minds of later generations. I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secrete of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita."

Humbert的畸恋在这里几乎没有了色欲，殷殷叮嘱间流露出父亲对女儿般的保护欲。前文使读者在他内心挣扎的过程中纠结于同情和谴责的写法在全文的最后几行（或最后几章）中消失不见，剩下的是虽则生于情欲却终究挣脱了情欲的淫威的爱。

全书的最后两句话不仅仅在讨论爱，更多的是献给了对艺术的颂赞。“绝种的欧洲野牛与天使、历久不衰的颜料的奥秘、预言一般的十四行诗、艺术的庇护所。” 另言之，虚构角色Humbert的爱得以通过文学并且只可能通过文学这一艺术形式成为不朽。

Humbert最后一句话里满溢着矛盾的悲哀和欣慰。艺术是他和Lolita分享不朽的唯一形式，其根源在于他对Lolita的爱不曾得以回应，其为悲哀。同时他却相信他的爱尽管得不到回应，却足以成为不朽——《洛丽塔》在二十世纪文学史上的地位证明了这点——此为欣慰。他最后称呼Lolita为 "MY lolita”。他有什么资格说“我的洛丽塔”？如果前文里他还可以无视种种暗示，自欺欺人地相信Lolita对他有所依恋，在这里Lolita让人心寒的拒之门外也该使Humbert完全放弃了希望。诚然，Lolita的爱从来都不属于他，但不可否认，Humbert最后的举动让他成为了一个为爱而死的殉道者，Lolita也因此成为了他在毁灭中获得人格升华的契机，从而成为了他的一部分。 最终，Lolita回应与否对Humbert这个角色的塑造来说已经全无所谓，甚至可以说正是Lolita的拒绝所引发的Humbert自我牺牲的悲剧，让这场单方面的爱情获得了摆脱了兽性的高尚，成为不朽。

纳博科夫对自己这部作品的非同寻常之处深具自知之明。在前言当中，他就借虚构的编者John Ray之口，以辩护者的姿态，袒露了他对Lolita的定位：“…and a great work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very nature should come as a more or less shocking surprise.”同样的口吻，也暗示了他对这本书的争议地位的预期。因此，前言一定程度上被用作读者与作品中间的缓冲区，一剂镇静剂，当然，也是他对自己作品的辩词。有时，他近乎站在了读者的立场上，安抚般地指摘Humbert Humbert的堕落败坏之处：“that had our demented diarist gone, in the fatal summer of 1947, to a competent psychopathologist, there would have been no disaster”；“No doubt, he is horrible, he is abject, he is a shining example of moral leprosy, a mixture of ferocity and jocularity, that betrays supreme misery perhaps, but is not conducive to attractiveness. He is ponderously capricious. Many of his casual opinions on the people and scenery of this country are ludicrous. A desperate honesty that throbs through his confession does not absolve him from sins of diabolical cunning. He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman.”似乎是要预告他的种种不是，好让读者在直面这些令常人不齿的话题时，反感不致于被惊异所放大。但是这些话的背后，无疑有“尽管如此这般”的潜台词。所有这些冒天下之大不韪的内容，都无法作为埋没和排斥这部作品的理由，因为——纳博科夫此时仍圆滑地讨好着传统读者——尽管如此，仍不妨碍读者们为Humbert对Lolita温柔而热烈的情诗而着迷（“But how magically his singing violin can conjure up a tendresse, a compassion for Lolita that makes us entranced with the book while abhorring its author!”），还因为这部作品自有它迫切的道德说教意义（“They warn us of dangerous trends; they point out potent evils. Lolita should make all of us - parents, social workers, educators - apply ourselves with still greater vigilance and vision to the task of bringing up a better generation in a safer world.”）。

不过，这些都并不是Lolita最重要的意涵。纳博科夫所做的最破天荒的事，就在它引起争议的“新”里。即使躲在John Ray的面具后面，碍于阅读传统的力量，他自然也无法理直气壮地为自己辩白。但是，他能把对迂腐的阅读传统的讽刺融在讨好中。“For the benefit of old-fashioned readers who wish to follow the destinies of the 'real' people beyond the 'true' story, a few details may be given as received from Mrs. 'Windmuller'…”两个引号中的"real"和"true"，暗中批评了“虚构小说建立在真人真事上”的成见。而随后那六个带引号的“化名”，又反过来消解了它们自己的真实性。讽刺的口吻在这一段末露了头，“The caretakers of the various cemeteries involved report that no ghosts walk”，故事中死者都已经入土为安，不再在真实世界里出没——一笔就划清了虚构与真实的界限。下一段中讽刺的口吻更为辛辣直白。纳博科夫对照了Lolita中对色情内容的艺术化处理，和那些“robust philistine”所惯见的庸俗恋爱作品，指责了能够毫无怨言地容忍庸俗的情爱却指摘Lolita的低俗的读者的自我矛盾和过分拘谨（“paradoxical prude”）。

前言当中，纳博科夫狡猾地把对Lolita最重要任务的暗示夹藏在了那些貌似重要的文学意义预告中。他的关怀之一，就是探索欲望（爱欲）与文明（禁忌）的关系。他并非着意要制造不道德的娈童争议，而是要用艺术的文字呈现热烈的爱情和兽性的欲望缠绕交融的真实爱情状态。Humbert也承认，自己那不道德的兽欲，一旦触碰Lolita，就会化为柔情和温存。于是人类奉为纯洁永恒的爱情和突破道德边界的兽欲之间的界限在哪里呢？Humbert显然是个常规意义上的“性变态”人物，他为热烈的爱火蒙蔽了双眼，主动违逆社会禁忌，又徒劳地为自己辩护的行为，是为道德卫士所不齿的。但是他的辩护是不是也可以看作对社会规约的反嘲呢？Humbert无奈又语中带刺：“…I found myself maturing amid a civilization which allows a man of twenty-five to court a girl of sixteen but not a girl of twelve”。Humbert还进一步引证：在更原始的群岛社会或者印度东部省份，社会对性行为年龄的管控要宽松得多。进一步我们就要随着他问：文明规约的本质是什么？什么是道德？道德规定和人性能完全相符么？这样看，“不道德”又意味着“不人性”么？Humbert（纳博科夫）的观点自然没有那么偏激，完全否认社会规范的合理性。他也会动用科学知识，证明Lolita已经到了天然性成熟的年龄——他并没有违反天然的人性。

对文明的探讨并不局限在爱情上。可以说，Humbert冗长而平淡的“环美游记”，正是把Humbert所代表的过分精致的欧洲文明与美国文明的冲撞，带到以全美为范围的舞台上——一个移动的舞台。这一点在“The Enchanted Hunter”旅馆的章节就埋下了伏笔。汽车旅店是鱼龙混杂的社会场所，是文明风貌的窗口，遍布冷嘲的Humbert可以下口讽刺之处。冗长而单调的行程，把Lolita小妖精的魅力之下粗野低俗的口味、肮脏混乱的生活习惯、堕落的教育全盘暴露出来。尽管叙述者的矛头指向了战后美国文化（“Many of his casual opinions on the people and scenery of this country are ludicrous”在作者层面上显然是反话），很难说纳博科夫对Humbert身上那种旧大陆的过度文明（over-civilization）是不加批判的。从Humbert光怪陆离得不真实的童年经历，到充满矛盾的第一段婚姻，再到道貌岸然的第二段婚姻生活，再到Lolita床前的如履薄冰和对自己意图的“纯洁”狡辩，都是对Humbert和他身上的文明气质的暗中讽刺。

We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country, that, by then, in retrospect, was no more than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires and her sobs in the night—every night, every night—the moment I feigned sleep.

This passage, the last paragraph in Part Two, Chapter 3, beautifully summarizes Humbert’s confused relations with his adopted country and his troubling relationship with Lolita. Humbert is overtly critical of the vulgarity and the transience of American popular culture. He despises Charlotte’s puritan values and constantly attempts to educate Lolita in the higher arts. However, despite his condemnation of American culture, Humbert, like many expatriates, is also enamored of America, of its size and youth and natural beauty. He finds himself contemptuous of America because of his intellectual superiority, yet drawn to the confidence of the American personality. Ultimately, Humbert’s desire for Lolita blinds him to everything else. The tour across the country was only a series of destinations to keep Lolita happy and compliant. With every marked stop, Humbert becomes more and more like the gum-chewing, superficial tourists he despises. The travels neither enrich nor enlighten Lolita and Humbert. They are merely wandering, and Humbert realizes what a wasted opportunity their trip was.

In this section, the reader gets a glimpse of the new, monstrous Humbert, who is capable of great evil in his quest to possess Lolita. Humbert had already planned despicable acts, such as marrying Charlotte to be near Lolita and giving Lolita sleeping pills in order to fondle her, but he had always tried not to cross the line and rob Lolita of her childhood. Now even her sobs, which clearly hurt him, cannot turn him from his purpose of keeping Lolita to himself. He has her under his control and has no knowledge of who the real Lolita is—Humbert is ultimately blind to Lolita, and willfully so. Humbert does not become a villain because of his awareness that his desire controls him, the secret shame of his desires, and he knows, somehow, that Lolita will never understand or return his love. He fools himself into believing that he is “showing Lolita a good time,” even though he knows that his desire will destroy them both.