"Lolita" pages 179-236

Wow! I am so glad that this is the last time I have to write about Lolita. This story has been very depressing. I am going to be honest, I felt like I got no good out of this book and never want to here it mentioned as long as I live! It makes me feel sick inside.

We pick this story up where Lolita has started to go back to school. On page 183 we find out how low their relationship has gone. “I am now faced with the distasteful task of recording a definite drop in Lolita’s morals. If her share in the ardors she kindled had never amounted to much, neither had pure lucre ever come to the fore. But I was weak, I was not wise, my schoolgirl nymphet had me in a thrall. With the human element dwindling, the passion, the tenderness, the torture only increased; and of this she took advantage. Her weekly allowance, paid to her under condition she fulfill her basic obligations, was twenty-one cents at the start of the Beardsley era-and went up to one dollar five before its end.” Lolita was now only a paid mistress to Humbert. She understood this and began to slip in her school work. She constantly blackmailed him by threatening to withhold sex if no more money was offered. Which Humbert had to pay to fulfill his sexual desires. To help relieve this situation Humbert allowed her to enter the school play. On page 185 Humbert states “but by that time I had brought prices down drastically by having her earn the hard and nauseous way permission to participate in the school’s theatrical program; because what I feared most was not that she might ruin me, but that she might accumulate sufficient cash to run away.”

Humbert took great lengths to find out if there were any boys that Lolita like or was spending time with. He even questions her friend about her interactions with other boys. He is much relived to find out that she basically pays no attention to other boys. I found it very crazy when while Humbert was talking to Lolita’s friend he felt like she was making a move on him. At this point he felt like possibly Lolita was recruiting other girls her age to partake in her lifestyle. This seems so far fetched to me.

But Lolita’s secret life was sort of coming out in school and her teachers new that something was wrong. They consulted Humbert why he would not let her partake in normal high school activities that other kids were. He finally confessed that he didn’t want her around other boys. At home Humbert notices that she is very different than she was two years ago. He tries to impose his will on her and they proceed to get into an argument that ends when Lolita runs away. But she doesn’t go very far. He finds her talking on the phone and she acts like everything is ok. I am wondering who she talked to on the phone that made her calm down.

They proceed to go on another one of their trips before she even performs in the play. As they depart on their way Lolita is acting sort of strange. On page 217 Humbert realizes that a certain car has been following them ever since they left. “Being a murderer with a sensational but incomplete and unorthodox memory, I cannot tell you, ladies and gentlemen, the exact day when I first knew with utter certainty that the red convertible was following us.” Humbert tends to think that this follower is someone after Lolita and even calls that person a second Humbert. Or possibly that he is a cop trying to find out what exactly is going on between them. Humbert even spies Lolita talking to the driver at one point and she, because of her acting classes, has become a very good liar and denies knowing anything about him. This driver even changes cars to avoid suspicion but Humbert still is aware of him following behind. It is obvious to me at several times in the story that Lolita is having some type of contact with whoever this person is. She even disappeared at one point and Humbert thought she was gone for good. But she turns up again and manages to talk her way once again out of whatever she had just done. By the end of the reading for today Humbert was still watching her very closely.

Some unfamiliar words I came across are listed below.

Vouchsafe on page 187: To condescend to grant or bestow

Tonalities on page 190: A system or an arrangement of seven tones built on a tonic key

Mauve on page 223: A moderate grayish violet to moderate reddish purple.