In his Foreword to Humbert Humbert's manuscript John Ray, Jr. (a character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions his colleague, Dr. Blanche Schwarzmann:
Viewed simply as a novel, “Lolita” deals with situations and emotions that would remain exasperatingly vague to the reader had their expression been etiolated by means of platitudinous evasions. True, not a single obscene term is to be found in the whole work; indeed, the robust philistine who is conditioned by modern conventions into accepting without qualms a lavish array of four-letter words in a banal novel, will be quite shocked by their absence here. If, however, for this paradoxical prude’s comfort, an editor attempted to dilute or omit scenes that a certain type of mind might call “aphrodisiac” (see in this respect the monumental decision rendered December 6, 1933, by Hon. John M. Woolsey in regard to another, considerably more outspoken, book), one would have to forego the publication of “Lolita” altogether, since those very scenes that one might inpetly accuse of sensuous existence of their own, are the most strictly functional ones in the development of a tragic tale tending unswervingly to nothing less than a moral apotheosis. The cynic may say that commercial pornography makes the same claim; the learned may counter by asserting that “H. H.”‘s impassioned confession is a tempest in a test tube; that at least 12% of American adult males - a “conservative” estimate according to Dr. Blanche Schwarzmann (verbal communication) - enjoy yearly, in one way or another, the special experience “H. H.” describes with such despare; that had our demented diarist gone, in the fatal summer of 1947, to a competent psycho-pathologist, there would have been no disaster; but then, neither would there have been this book.
In an attempt to save his life Clare Quilty (a playwright and pornographer whom Humbert murders for abducting Lolita from the Elphinstone hospital) offers Humbert the in folio de-luxe Bagration Island by the explorer and psychoanalyst Melanie Weiss (whose name is a negative, as it were, of Blanche Schwarzmann):
“Now look here, Mac,” he said. “You are drunk and I am a sick man. Let us postpone the matter. I need quiet. I have to nurse my impotence. Friends are coming in the afternoon to take me to a game. This pistol-packing farce is becoming a frightful nuisance. We are men of the world, in everything - sex, free verse, marksmanship. If you bear me a grudge, I am ready to make unusual amends. Even an old-fashioned rencontre, sword or pistol, in Rio or elsewhere - is not excluded. My memory and my eloquence are not at their best today, but really, my dear Mr. Humbert, you were not an ideal stepfather, and I did not force your little protégé to join me. It was she made me remove her to a happier home. This house is not as modern as that ranch we shared with dear friends. But it is roomy, cool in summer and winter, and in a word comfortable, so, since I intend retiring to England or Florence forever, I suggest you move in. It is yours, gratis. Under the condition you stop pointing at me that [he swore disgustingly] gun. By the way, I do not know if you care for the bizarre, but if you do, I can offer you, also gratis, as house pet, a rather exciting little freak, a young lady with three breasts, one a dandy, this is a rare and delightful marvel of nature. Now, soyons raisonnables. You will only wound me hideously and then rot in jail while I recuperate in a tropical setting. I promise you, Brewster, you will be happy here, with a magnificent cellar, and all the royalties from my next playI have not much at the bank right now but I propose to borrow - you know, as the Bard said, with that cold in his head, to borrow and to borrow and to borrow. There are other advantages. We have here a most reliable and bribable charwoman, a Mrs. Vibrissa - curious name - who comes from the village twice a week, alas not today, she has daughters, granddaughters, a thing or two I know about the chief of police makes him my slave. I am a playwright. I have been called the American Maeterlinck. Maeterlinck-Schmetterling, says I. Come on! All this is very humiliating, and I am not sure I am doing the right thing. Never use herculanita with rum. Now drop that pistol like a good fellow. I knew your dear wife slightly. You may use my wardrobe. Oh, another thingyou are going to like this. I have an absolutely unique collection of erotica upstairs. Just to mention one item: the in folio de-luxe Bagration Island by the explorer and psychoanalyst Melanie Weiss, a remarkable lady, a remarkable work - drop that gun - with photographs of eight hundred and something male organs she examined and measured in 1932 on Bagration, in the Barda Sea, very illuminating graphs, plotted with love under pleasant skies - drop that gun - and moreover I can arrange for you to attend executions, not everybody knows that the chair is painted yellow” (2.35)
The in folio de-luxe Bagration Island brings to mind Prince Pyotr Bagration (a Russian general who was felled in the battle of Borodino, 1765-1812) and Ezda v ostrov lyubvi ("A Journey to the Island of Love," 1730), Vasiliy Trediakovski's Russian translation of Paul Tallemant's novel Voyage de l'isle d'amour (1663). In his Oda o nepostoyanstve mira ("Ode about the Inconstancy of the World," 1730) Trediakovski mentions boy u chyornogo s belym (the battle between black and white):
Бой у черного с белым,
У сухого есть с влажным.
Младое? потом спелым,
Бывает легко важным,
Низким - высоко.
Dr. Blanche Schwarzmann brings to mind Chatte Blanche, a nickname of Princess Catherine Bagration (General Bagration's wife, née Skavronskaya, 1783-1857) who was known for her beauty, love affairs (one of her lovers was Prince Klemens von Metternich, 1773-1859) and unconventional behavior. Marta Skavronskaya (b. 1684) was the maiden name of Catherine I (the second wife and Empress consort of Peter the Great, whom she succeeded as Empress of Russia, ruling from 1725 until her death in 1727). In his Table Talk Pushkin quotes the words of Peter the Great about twelve-year-old schoolboy Vasiliy Trediakovski (1703-1769), vechnyi truzhenik (the perpetual toiler):
Всем известны слова Петра Великого, когда представили ему двенадцатилетнего школьника, Василья Тредьяковского: вечный труженик! Какой взгляд! какая точность в определении! В самом деле, что был Тредьяковский, как не вечный труженик? [XL]
A Russian poet, Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) died at the age of thirty-seven. In May 1947 thirty-seven-year-old Humbert Humbert comes to Ramsdale (a small town in New England) and falls in love with twelve-year-old Dolores Haze (Lolita's full name).
La Chatte Blanche ("The White Cat," 1698) is a French literary fairytale written by Madame d'Aulnoy (1652-1705). Andrew Lang included it in The Blue Fairy Book (1889). L'Oiseau Bleu ("The Blue Bird," 1908) is a play by Maurice Maeterlinck (a Belgian playwright, 1862-1949). Describing Lolita's illness and hospitalization in Elphinstone, Humbert mentions Dr. Blue and compares a naked girl tattoed on big Frank's crippled hand to some sly fairy:
I heard the sound of whistling lips nearing the half-opened door of my cabin, and then a thump upon it.
It was big Frank. He remained framed in the opened door, one hand on its jamb, leaning forward a little.
Howdy. Nurse Lore was on the telephone. She wanted to know was I better and would I come today?
At twenty paces Frank used to look a mountain of health; at five, as now, he was a ruddy mosaic of scarshad been blown through a wall overseas; but despite nameless injuries he was able to man a tremendous truck, fish, hunt, drink, and buoyantly dally with roadside ladies. That day, either because it was such a great holiday, or simply because he wanted to divert a sick man, he had taken off the glove he usually wore on his left hand (the one pressing against the side of the door) and revealed to the fascinated sufferer not only an entire lack of fourth and fifth fingers, but also a naked girl, with cinnabar nipples and indigo delta, charmingly tattooed on the back of his crippled hand, its index and middle digit making her legs while his wrist bore her flower-crowned head. Oh, delicious… reclining against the woodwork, like some sly fairy.
I asked him to tell Mary Lore I would stay in bed all day and would get into touch with my daughter sometime tomorrow if I felt probably Polynesian.
He noticed the direction of my gaze and made her right hip twitch amorously.
“Okey-dokey,” big Frank sang out, slapped the jamb, and whistling, carried my message away, and I went on drinking, and by morning the fever was gone, and although I was as limp as a toad, I put on the purple dressing gown over my maize yellow pajamas, and walked over to the office telephone. Everything was fine. A bright voice informed me that yes, everything was fine, my daughter had checked out the day before, around two, her uncle, Mr. Gustave, had called for her with a cocker spaniel pup and a smile for everyone, and a black Caddy Lack, and had paid Dolly’s bill in cash, and told them to tell me I should not worry, and keep warm, they were at Grandpa’s ranch as agreed.
Elphinstone was, and I hope still is, a very cute little town. It was spread like a maquette, you know, with its neat greenwool trees and red-roofed houses over the valley floor and I think I have alluded earlier to its model school and temple and spacious rectangular blocks, some of which were, curiously enough, just unconventional pastures with a mule or a unicorn grazing in the young July morning mist. Very amusing: at one gravelgroaning sharp turn I sideswiped a parked car but said to myself telestically - and, telepathically (I hoped), to its gesticulating owner - that I would return later, address Bird School, Bird, New Bird, the gin kept my heart alive but bemazed my brain, and after some lapses and losses common to dream sequences, I found myself in the reception room, trying to beat up the doctor, and roaring at people under chairs, and clamoring for Mary who luckily for her was not there; rough hands plucked at my dressing gown, ripping off a pocket, and somehow I seem to have been sitting on a bald brown-headed patient, whom I had mistaken for Dr. Blue, and who eventually stood up, remarking with a preposterous accent: “Now, who is neurotic, I ask?”and then a gaunt unsmiling nurse presented me with seven beautiful, beautiful books and the exquisitely folded tartan lap robe, and demanded a receipt; and in the sudden silence I became aware of a policeman in the hallway, to whom my fellow motorist was pointing me out, and meekly I signed the very symbolic receipt, thus surrendering my Lolita to all those apes. But what else could I do? One simple and stark thought stood out and this was: “Freedom for the moment is everything.” One false move - and I might have been made to explain a life of crime. So I simulated a coming out of a daze. To my fellow motorist I paid what he thought was fair. To Dr. Blue, who by then was stroking my hand, I spoke in tears of the liquor I bolstered too freely a tricky but not necessarily diseased heart with. To the hospital in general I apologized with a flourish that almost bowled me over, adding however that I was not on particularly good terms with the rest of the Humbert clan. To myself I whispered that I still had my gun, and was still a free man - free to trace the fugitive, free to destroy my brother. (2.22)
According to John Ray, Jr., Mrs. “Richard F. Schiller” (Lolita's married name) died in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest. But it seems that Lolita actually dies of ague in the Elphinstone hospital on July 4, 1949, and the rest (Lolita's escape from the hospital with Quilty, Humbert's affair with Rita, Lolita's marriage and pregnancy, and the murder of Quilty) was invented by Humbert Humbert (whose "real" name is John Ray, Jr.).