God, what agony, that silky shimmer above her temple grading into bright brown hair.
...phantom little Lolitas dancing, falling, daisying all over the counter.
Nothing could have been more childish than her snubbed nose,
freckled face or the purplish spot on her naked neck where a fairytale vampire had feasted...
Sometimes I attempt to kill in my dreams. But do you know what happens?
For instance I hold a gun. For instance I aim at a bland, quietly interested enemy.
Oh, I press the trigger all right, but one bullet after another feebly
drops on the floor from the sheepish muzzle. In those dreams,
my only thought is to conceal the fiasco from my foe, who is slowly growing annoyed.
And she was mine, she was mine, the key was in my fist,
my fist was in my pocket, she was mine.
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta:
the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap,
at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo,
in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks.
She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line.
But in my arms she was Lolita.
...a velvet hair ribbon was still clutched in her hand; her honey-brown body...
Everything was somehow so right that day. So blue and green.
...That vibrant sky seemed as naked as she was under her light frock.
I saw her face in the sky, strangely distinct as if it emitted a faint radiance of its own.
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 to us 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.
...Because what I feared most was not that she might ruin me,
but that she might accumulate sufficient cash to run away.
I believe the poor fierce-eyed child had figured out
that with a mere fifty dollars in her purse she might
somehow reach Broadway or Hollywood...
What stopped me was that awful feeling that if I meddled with fate
in any way and tried to rationalize her fantastic gift, that gift would be snatched away...
excerpts from Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita".
This post took me a long time to finish.
Mostly because this story is so captivating that I found myself re-reading it as I went along.
If you haven't read it, do so immediately.
It will stay with you whether you like it or not.
Anyway, hope you are all well, dears. Love you!
