Lolita

At di

Later, I heard a great banging of doors and other sounds coming from quaking caverns where the two rivals were having a ripping row.

She had not apologized. The lake is out. It might have been fun.

Saturday. For some days already I had been leaving the door ajar, while I wrote in my room; but only today did the trap work. With a good deal of additional fidgeting, shuffling, scrapingto disguise her embarrassment at visiting me without having been calledLo came in and after pottering around, became interested in the nightmare curlicues I had pe

Sunday. Changeful, bad-tempered, cheerful, awkward, graceful with the tart grace of her coltish subteens, excruciatingly desirable from head to foot (all New England for a lady-writer’s pen!), from the black read-made bow and bobby pins holding her hair in place to the little scar on the lower part of her neat calf (where a roller-skater kicked her in Pisky), a couple of inches above her rough white sock. Gone with her mother to the Hamiltonsa birthday party or something. Full-skirted gingham frock. Her little doves seem well formed already. Precocious pet!

Monday. Rainy morning. “Ces matins gris si doux…” My white pajamas have a lilac design on the back. I am like one of those inflated pale spiders you see in old gardens. Sitting in the middle of a luminous web and giving little jerks to this or that strand. My web is spread all over the house as I listen from my chair where I sit like a wily wizard. Is Lo in her room? Gently I tug on the silk. She is not. Just heard the toilet paper cylinder make its staccato sound as it is turned; and no footfalls has my outflung filament traced from the bathroom back to her room. Is she still brushing her teeth (the only sanitary act Lo performs with real zest)? No. The bathroom door has just slammed, so one has to feel elsewhere about the house for the beautiful warm-colored prey. Let us have a strand of silk descend the stairs. I satisfy myself by this means that she is not in the kitche

Tuesday. Clouds again interfered with that picnic on that unattainable lake. Is it Fate scheming? Yesterday I tried on before the mirror a new pair of bathing trunks.

Wednesday. In the afternoon, Haze (common-sensical shoes, tailor-made dress), said she was driving downtown to buy a present for a friend of a friend of hers, and would I please come too because I have such a wonderful taste in textures and perfumes. “Choose your favorite seduction,” she purred. What could Humbert, being in the perfume business, do? She had me cornered between the front porch and her car. “Hurry up,” she said as I laboriously doubled up my large body in order to crawl in (still desperately devising a means of escape). She had started the engine, and was genteelly swearing at a backing and turning truck in front that had just brought old invalid Miss Opposite a brand new wheel chair, when my Lolita’s sharp voice came from the parlor window: “You! Where are you going? I’m coming too! Wait!” “Ignore her,” yelped Haze (killing the motor); alas for my fair driver; Lo was already pulling at the door on my side. “This is intolerable,” began Haze; but Lo had scrambled in, shivering with glee. “Move your bottom, you,” said Lo. “Lo!” cried Haze (sideglancing at me, hoping I would throw rude Lo out). “And behold,” said Lo (not for the first time), as she jerked back, as I jerked back, as the car leapt forward. “It is intolerable,” said Haze, violently getting into second, “that a child should be so ill-ma

My knuckles lay against the child’s blue jeans. She was barefooted; her toenails showed remnants of cherry-red polish and there was a bit of adhesive tape across her big toe; and, God, what would I not have given to kiss then and there those delicate-boned, long-toed, monkeyish feet! Suddenly her hand slipped into mine and without our chaperon’s seeing, I held, and stroked, and squeezed that little hot paw, all the way to the store. The wings of the diver’s Marlenesque nose shone, having shed or burned up their ration of powder, and she kept up an elegant monologue anent the local traffic, and smiled in profile, and pouted in profile, and beat her painted lashes in profile, while I prayed we would never get to that store, but we did.

I have nothing else to report, save, primo: that big Haze had little Haze sit behind on our way home, and secundo: that the lady decided to keep Humbert’s Choice for the backs of her own shapely ears.