Lolita

◆ 4 >> But that mimosagrovethe haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me,and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever sinceuntil at last,twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another. ◆ 5 >> Between the age limits of nine and fourteen thereoccur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, revealtheir true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosencreatures I propose to designate as “nymphets.” >> It will be marked that I substitute time terms for spatial ones. In fact, I would have the readersee “nine” and “fourteen” as the boundariesthe mirrory beaches and rosy rocksof anenchanted island haunted by those nymphets of mine and surrounded by a vast, misty sea >> either aregood looks any criterion; and vulgarity, or at least what a given community terms so, does notnecessarily impair certain mysterious characteristics, the fey grace, the elusive, shifty, soul-shattering, insidious charm that separates the nymphet from such coevals of hers as areincomparably more dependent on the spatial world of synchronous phenomena than on thatintangible island of entranced time where Lolita plays with her likes >> Furthermore, since the idea of time plays such a magic part in the matter, the student shouldnot be surprised to learn that there must be a gap of several years, never less than ten Ishould say, generally thirty or forty, and as many as ninety in a few known cases, betweenmaiden and man to enable the latter to come under a nymphet’s spell. >> It is a question of focaladjustment, of a certain distance that the inner eye thrills to surmount, and a certain contrastthat the mind perceives with a gasp of perverse delight. >> We loved eachother with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives. I was astrong lad and survived; but the poison was in the wound, and the wound remained ever open,and soon I found myself maturing amid a civilization which allows a man of twenty-five tocourt a girl of sixteen but not a girl of twelve. >> A shipwreck. An atoll. Alone with a drowned passenger’s shivering child. Darling, this is only agame! How marvelous were my fancied adventures as I sat on a hard park bench pretending tobe immersed in a trembling book. >> Once a perfect little beautyin a tartan frock, with a clatter put her heavily armed foot near me upon the bench to dip herslim bare arms into me and righten the strap of her roller skate, and I dissolved in the sun,with my book for fig leaf, as her auburn ringlets fell all over her skinned knee, and the shadowof leaves I shared pulsated and melted on her radiant limb next to my chameloenic cheek. >> Ah, leave me alone in my pubescent park, in my mossy garden.Let them play around me forever. Never grow up. ◆ 6 >> I had a date with her next day at 2.15 P.M. in my own rooms, but it was less successful, sheseemed to have grown less juvenile, more of a woman overnight. ◆ 7 >> Exceptional virility often reflects in the subject’s displayable features asullen and congested something that pertains to what he has to conceal. And this was mycase >> Well did I know, alas, that I could obtain at the snap of my fingers any adult female Ichose; in fact, it had become quite a habit with me of not being too attentive to women lestthey come toppling, bloodripe, into my cold lap >> Had I been a francais moyen with a taste forflashy ladies, I might have easily found, among the many crazed beauties that lashed my grimrock, creatures far more fascinating than Valeria. >> My choice, however, was prompted byconsiderations whose essence was, as I realized too late, a piteous compromise. All of whichgoes to show how dreadfully stupid poor Humbert always was in matters of sex. >> y choice, however, was prompted byconsiderations whose essence was, as I realized too late, a piteous compromise. All of whichgoes to show how dreadfully stupid poor Humbert always was in matters of sex ◆ 8 >> Although I told myself I was looking merely for a soothing presence, a glorified pot-au-feu, ananimated merkin, what really attracted me to Valeria was the imitation she gave of a little girl. >> I, on my part, was as naive as only a pervert can be ◆ 9 >> I see them dividedtidily into ample light and narrow shade: the light pertaining to the solace of research inpalatial libraries, the shade to my excruciating desires and insomnias of which enough hasbeen said. Knowing me by now, the reader can easily imagine how dusty and hot I got, tryingto catch a glimpse of nymphets (alas, always remote) playing in Central Park, and howrepulsed I was by the glitter of deodorized career girls that a gay dog in one of the officeskept unloading upon me. >> I felt curiously aloof from my own self. No temptations maddened me >> The plump, glossy little Eskimo girls with their fish smell, hideous raven hair and guinea pig faces, evoked even less desire in me than Dr.Johnson had. Nymphets do not occur in polar regions. ◆ 10 >> “That was my Lo,” she said, “and these are my lilies.”“Yes,” I said, “yes. They are beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.” ◆ 11 >> What drives me insane is the twofold nature of this nymphetof everynymphet, perhaps; this mixture in my Lolita of tender dreamy childishness and a kind ofeerie vulgarity, stemming from the snub-nosed cuteness of ads and magazine pictures,from the blurry pinkness of adolescent maidservants in the Old Country (smelling ofcrushed daisies and sweat) >> and from very young harlots disguised as children in provincialbrothels; and then again, all this gets mixed up with the exquisite stainless tendernessseeping through the musk and the mud, through the dirt and the death, oh God, oh God. >> And what is most singular is that she, this Lolita, my Lolita, has individualized the writer’sancient lust, so that above and over everything there isLolita. >> “poor me should know, I went through that when I was a kid: boys twisting one’s arm,banging into one with loads of books, pulling one’s hair, hurting one’s breasts, flippingone’s skirt. Of course, moodiness is a common concomitant of growing up, but Loexaggerates >> Sullen and evasive. Rude and defiant. Struck Viola, an Italian schoolmate, inthe seat with a fountain pen ◆ 28 >> And she was mine, she was mine, the key was in my fist, my fist was in my pocket, she was mine. In the course of evocations and schemes to which I had dedicated so many insomnias, I had gradually eliminated all the superfluous blur, and by stacking level upon level of translucent vision, had evolved a final picture >> Naked, except for one sock and her charm bracelet, spread-eagled on the bed where my philter had felled herso I foreglimpsed her; a velvet hair ribbon was still clutched in her hand >> her honey-brown body, with the white negative image of a rudimentary swimsuit patterned against her tan, presented to me its pale breastbuds; in the rosy lamplight, a little pubic floss glistened on its plump hillock. The cold key with its warm wooden addendum was in my pocket. ◆ 29 >> I shall not exist if you do not imagine me; try to discern the doe in me, trembling in the forest of my own iniquity; let’s even smile a little. After all, there is no harm in smiling. >> I am going to tell you something very strange: it was she who seduced me.

真讽刺啊，这竟然是我可以提供给她最好的生活。可怜的Lolita，连那种最糟糕、最悲惨的家庭生活也过不上。

这大概就是有文化的变态能写出最美的赞美和惋惜吧

I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. No matter how many ties we reopen "King Lear," nevery shall we find the good king banging his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion with all three daughters and their lapdogs. Never will Emma rally, revived by the sympathetic salts in Flaubert's father's timely tear. Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them. Thus X will never compose the immortal music that would clash with the second-rate symphonies he has accustomed us to. Y will never commit murder. Under no circumstances can Z ever betray us. We have it all arranged in our minds, and the less often we see a particular person the more satisfying it is to check how obediently he conforms to our notion of him every time we hear of him. Any deviation in the facts we have ordained would dtrike us as not only anomalous but unethical. We would prefer not to have known at all our neighbor, the retired hot-dog stand operator, if it turns out he has just produced the greatest book of poetry his age has seen.