The characters in VN's novel Lolita (1955) include Dr. Blue, the chief physician in the Elphinstone hospital who tells Humbert Humbert that in a couple of days Lolita (who fell ill and on June 28, 1949, was hospitalized in Elphinstone, a small town in the Rocky Mountains) will be “skipping” again:
Mrs. Hays, the brisk, briskly rouged, blue-eyed widow who ran the motor court, asked me if I were Swiss perchance, because her sister had married a Swiss ski instructor. I was, whereas my daughter happened to be half Irish. I registered, Hays gave me the key and a tinkling smile, and, still twinkling, showed me where to park the car; Lo crawled out and shivered a little: the luminous evening air was decidedly crisp. Upon entering the cabin, she sat down on a chair at a card table, buried her face in the crook of her arm and said she felt awful. Shamming, I thought, shamming, no doubt, to evade my caresses; I was passionately parched; but she began to whimper in an unusually dreary way when I attempted to fondle her. Lolita ill. Lolita dying. Her skin was scalding hot! I took her temperature, orally, then looked up a scribbled formula I fortunately had in a jotter and after laboriously reducing the, meaningless to me, degrees Fahrenheit to the intimate centigrade of my childhood, found she had 40.4, which at least made sense. Hysterical little nymphs might, I knew, run up all kinds of temperature - even exceeding a fatal count. And I would have given her a sip of hot spiced wine, and two aspirins, and kissed the fever away, if, upon an examination of her lovely uvula, one of the gems of her body, I had not seen that it was a burning red. I undressed her. Her breath was bittersweet. Her brown rose tasted of blood. She was shaking from head to toe. She complained of a painful stiffness in the upper vertebrae - and I thought of poliomyelitis as any American parent would. Giving up all hope of intercourse, I wrapped her in a laprobe and carried her into the car. Kind Mrs. Hays in the meantime had alerted the local doctor. “You are lucky it happened here,” she said; for not only was Blue the best man in the district, but the Elphinstone hospital was as modern as modern could be, despite its limited capacity. With a heterosexual Erlkönig in pursuit, thither I drove, half-blinded by a royal sunset on the lowland side and guided by a little old woman, a portable witch, perhaps his daughter, whom Mrs. Hays had lent me, and whom I was never to see again. Dr. Blue, whose learning, no doubt, was infinitely inferior to his reputation, assured me it was a virus infection, and when I alluded to her comparatively recent flu, curtly said this was another bug, he had forty such cases on his hands; all of which sounded like the “ague” of the ancients. I wondered if I should mention, with a casual chuckle, that my fifteen-year-old daughter had had a minor accident while climbing an awkward fence with her boy friend, but knowing I was drunk, I decided to withhold the information till later if necessary. To an unsmiling blond bitch of a secretary I gave my daughter’s age as “practically sixteen.” While I was not looking, my child was taken away from me! In vain I insisted I be allowed to spend the night on a “welcome” mat in a corner of their damned hospital. I ran up constructivistic flights of stairs, I tried to trace my darling so as to tell her she had better not babble, especially if she felt as lightheaded as we all did. At one point, I was rather dreadfully rude to a very young and very cheeky nurse with overdeveloped gluteal parts and blazing black eyes - of Basque descent, as I learned. Her father was an imported shepherd, a trainer of sheep dogs. Finally, I returned to the car and remained in it for I do not know how many hours, hunched up in the dark, stunned by my new solitude, looking out open-mouthed now at the dimly illumined, very square and low hospital building squatting in the middle of its lawny block, now up at the wash of stars and the jagged silvery ramparts of the haute montagne where at the moment Mary’s father, lonely Joseph Lore was dreaming of Oloron, Lagore, Rolas - que sais-je! - or seducing a ewe. Such-like fragrant vagabond thoughts have been always a solace to me in times of unusual stress, and only when, despite liberal libations, I felt fairly numbed by the endless night, did I think of driving back to the motel. The old woman had disappeared, and I was not quite sure of my way. Wide gravel roads criss-crossed drowsy rectangual shadows. I made out what looked like the silhouette of gallows on what was probably a school playground; and in another waste - like black there rose in domed silence the pale temple of some local sect. I found the highway at last, and then the motel, where millions of so-called “millers,” a kind of insect, were swarming around the neon contours of “No Vacancy”; and, when, at 3 a. m., after one of those untimely hot showers which like some mordant only help to fix a man’s despair and weariness, I lay on her bed that smelled of chestnuts and roses, and peppermint, and the very delicate, very special French perfume I latterly allowed her to use, I found myself unable to assimilate the simple fact that for the first time in two years I was separated from my Lolita. All at once it occurred to me that her illness was somehow the development of a theme - that it had the same taste and tone as the series of linked impressions which had puzzled and tormented me during our journey; I imagined that secret agent, or secret lover, or prankster, or hallucination, or whatever he was, prowling around the hospital - and Aurora had hardly “warmed her hands,” as the pickers of lavender say in the country of my birth, when I found myself trying to get into that dungeon again, knocking upon its green doors, breakfastless, stool-less, in despair.
This was Tuesday, and Wednesday or Thursday, splendidly reacting like the darling she was to some “serum” (sparrow’s sperm or dugong’s dung), she was much better, and the doctor said that in a couple of days she would be “skipping” again. (2.22)
Goluboy being the Russian word for "blue," Dr. Blue brings to mind Goluboy Vorishka (the Bashful Chiseller), a character in Ilf and Petrov's novel Dvenadtsat' stul'yev ("The Twelve Chairs," 1928). Sparrow's sperm makes one think of Vorob'yaninov, one of the three diamond hunters in "The Twelve Chairs" whose surname comes from vorobey (sparrow). In Russian, stul means "chair" and "stool" (feces). Humbert is knocking upon the hospital's green doors breakfastless, stool-less, in despair. In VN's novel Otchayanie ("Despair," 1934) Felix (a tramp whom Hermann believes to be his perfect double and who signs his letter to Hermann "Sparrow") flings a handful of crumbs to the sparrows:
Он кинул воробьям горсть крошек. Один из них суетливо клюнул, крошка подскочила, ее схватил другой и улетeл. Феликс опять повернулся ко мнe с выражением ожидания и готовности.
«Вон тому не попало», — сказал я, указав пальцем на воробья, который стоял в сторонe, беспомощно хлопая клювом.
«Молод, — замeтил Феликс. — Видите, еще хвоста почти нeт. Люблю птичек», — добавил он с приторной ужимкой.
«Ты на войнe побывал?» — спросил я и нeсколько раз сряду прочистил горло, — голос был хриплый.
«Да, — отвeтил он, — а что?»
«Так, ничего. Здорово боялся, что убьют, — правда?»
Он подмигнул и проговорил загадочно:
«У всякой мыши — свой дом, но не всякая мышь выходит оттуда».
Я уже успeл замeтить, что он любит пошлые прибаутки, в рифму; не стоило ломать себe голову над тeм, какую собственно мысль он желал выразить.
«Все. Больше нeту, — обратился он вскользь к воробьям. — Бeлок тоже люблю (опять подмигнул). Хорошо, когда в лeсу много бeлок. Я люблю их за то, что они против помeщиков. Вот кроты — тоже».
«А воробьи? — спросил я ласково. — Они как — против?»
«Воробей среди птиц нищий, — самый что ни на есть нищий. Нищий», — повторил он еще раз. Он видимо считал себя необыкновенно рассудительным и смeтливым парнем. Впрочем, он был не просто дурак, а дурак-меланхолик. Улыбка у него выходила скучная, — противно было смотрeть. И все же я смотрeл с жадностью. Меня весьма занимало, как наше диковинное сходство нарушалось его случайными ужимками. Доживи он до старости, — подумал я, — сходство совсeм пропадет, а сейчас оно в полном расцвeтe.
Герман (игриво): «Ты, я вижу, философ».
Он как будто слегка обидeлся. «Философия — выдумка богачей, — возразил он с глубоким убeждением. — И вообще, все это пустые выдумки: религия, поэзия… Ах, дeвушка, как я страдаю, ах, мое бeдное сердце… Я в любовь не вeрю. Вот дружба — другое дeло. Дружба и музыка».
He flung a handful of crumbs to the sparrows. The nearest made a flurried peck, the crumb sprang up and was nabbed by another, which immediately flew away. Felix again turned to me with his former expectant and cringing servility.
"That one got nothing," said I, pointing to a little chap standing apart and clicking his beak helplessly.
"He's young," observed Felix. "Look, he has hardly any tail yet. I like birdies," he added with a mawkish grin.
"Been in the war?" I queried; and several times running, I cleared my throat, for my voice was hoarse.
"Yes," he answered. "Two years. Why?"
"Oh, nothing. Damned afraid of getting killed, eh?"
He winked and spoke with evasive obscurity:
"Every mouse has a house, but it's not every mouse that comes out."
In German the end rhymed too; I had already noticed his fondness for insipid sayings; and it was quite useless racking one's brains trying to see the idea he really desired to express.
"That's all. There is no more for you," said he in an aside to the sparrows. "I like squirrels too" (again that wink). "It's good when a wood is full of squirrels. I like 'em because they are against the landowners. And moles."
"What about sparrows?" I asked with great gentleness. "Are they 'against' as you put it?"
"A sparrow is a beggar among birds--a real street-beggar. A beggar," he repeated again and again, now leaning with both hands on his stick and swaying a little. It was obvious he considered himself to be an extraordinarily astute arguer. No, he was not merely a fool, he was a fool of the melancholic type. Even his smile was glum--made one sick to look at it. And nevertheless I looked greedily. It interested me hugely to observe how our remarkable likeness got broken by the working of his face. If he were to attain old age, I reflected, his grins and grimaces would end by eroding completely our resemblance which is now so perfect when his face freezes.
Hermann (playfully): "Ah, you are a philosopher, I see."
That seemed to offend him a little. "Philosophy is the invention of the rich," he objected with deep conviction. "And all the rest of it has been invented too: religion, poetry... oh, maiden, how I suffer, oh, my poor heart! I don't believe in love. Now, friendship--that's another matter. Friendship and music. (Chapter V)
According to Felix, a sparrow is a beggar among the birds. On September 24, 1952, Humbert leaves Windmuller's office a contented pauper:
Feeling I was losing my time, I drove energetically to the downtown hotel where I had arrived with a new bag more than five years before. I took a room, made two appointments by telephone, shaved, bathed, put on black clothes and went down for a drink in the bar. Nothing had changed. The barroom was suffused with the same dim, impossible garnet-red light that in Europe years ago went with low haunts, but here meant a bit of atmosphere in a family hotel. I sat at the same little table where at the very start of my stay, immediately after becoming Charlotte’s lodger, I had thought fit to celebrate the occasion by suavely sharing with her half a bottle of champagne, which had fatally conquered her poor brimming heart. As then, a moon-faced waiter was arranging with stellar care fifty sherries on a round tray for a wedding party. Murphy-Fantasia, this time. It was eight minutes to three. As I walked though the lobby, I had to skirt a group of ladies who with mille grâces were taking leave of each other after a luncheon party. With a harsh cry of recognition, one pounced upon me. She was a stout, short woman in pearl-gray, with a long, gray, slim plume to her small hat. It was Mrs. Chatfield. She attacked me with a fake smile, all aglow with evil curiosity. (Had I done to Dolly, perhaps, what Frank Laselle, a fifty-year-old mechanic, had done o eleven-year-old Sally Horner in 1948?) Very soon I had that avid glee well under control. She thought I was in California. How was - ? With exquisite pleasure I informed her that my stepdaughter had just married a brilliant young mining engineer with a hush-hush job in the Northwest. She said she disapproved of such early marriages, she would never let her Phillys, who was now eighteen -
“Oh yes, of course,” I said quietly. “I remember Phyllis. Phyllis and Camp Q. Yes, of course. By the way, did she ever tell you how Charlie Holmes debauched there his mother’s little charges?”
Mrs. Chatfield’s already broken smile now disintegrated completely.
“For shame,” she cried, “for shame, Mr. Humbert! The poor boy has just been killed in Korea.”
I said didn’t she think “vient de,” with the infinitive, expressed recent events so much more neatly than the English “just,” with the past? But I had to be trotting off, I said.
There were only two blocks to Windmuller’s office. He greeted me with a very slow, very enveloping, strong, searching grip. He thought I was in California. Had I not lived at one time at Beardsley? His daughter had just entered Beardsley College. And how was – ? I gave all necessary information about Mrs. Schiller. We had a pleasant business conference. I walked out into the hot September sunshine a contented pauper. (2.33)
In his Foreword to Humbert's manuscript John Ray, Jr. mentions Mr. “Windmuller,” of “Ramsdale,” and his daughter "Louise:"
For the benefit of old-fashioned readers who wish to follow the destinies of the “real” people beyond the “true” story, a few details may be given as received from Mr. “Windmuller,” of “Ramsdale,” who desires his identity suppressed so that “the long shadow of this sorry and sordid business” should not reach the community to which he is proud to belong. His daughter, “Louise,” is by now a college sophomore, “Mona Dahl” is a student in Paris. “Rita” has recently married the proprietor of a hotel in Florida. Mrs. “Richard F. Schiller” died in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest. “Vivian Darkbloom” has written a biography, “My Cue,” to be publshed shortly, and critics who have perused the manuscript call it her best book. The caretakers of the various cemeteries involved report that no ghosts walk.
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, actually, Lolita dies of ague on July 4, 1949, in the Elphinstone hospital. Everything what happens after her sudden death (Lolita's escape from the hospital, Humbert's affair with Rita, Lolita's marriage and pregnancy, and the murder of Clare Quilty) was invented by Humbert Humbert (whose "real" name is John Ray, Jr.).