According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955), he spent the end of the winter of 1949-1950 and most of the following spring in a Quebec sanatorium where he had stayed before:
It is just possible that had I gone to a strong hypnotist he might have extracted from me and arrayed in a logical pattern certain chance memories that I have threaded through my book with considerably more ostentation than they present themselves with to my mind even now when I know what to seek in the past. At the time I felt I was merely losing contact with reality; and after spending the rest of the winter and most of the following spring in a Quebec sanatorium where I had stayed before, I resolved first to settle some affairs of mine in New York and then to proceed to California for a thorough search there. (2.25)
In her poem Quebec (1910) Henrietta Cordelia Ray (a black American poet, 1852-1916) mentions Wolfe's gallant troops:
O antique city on St. Lawrence shore,
A relic, e'en a page of ancient lore
Thou art! Thy granite fortress tow'ring high,
Stretching its massive bulwarks toward the sky,
Tells of the march of war when nations proud
Proclaimed the force of arms in accents loud,--
The mighty cannon's boom; and valor rose,
While fearless armies ranged themselves as foes.
Here met two noble souls,--two chieftains brave,
Cast in heroic mould. Stern Fortune gave
To one,--the victor's meed; to each, a grave!
Renowned Champlain first gave these rocky heights
A name. Of yore full oft on starlight nights
The Indian war-whoop echoed round these plains,
And smote the desert shores with sad refrains.
Thy limpid waters, fair St. Lawrence, bore
Unchecked the rude canoe. Forevermore
In song and story will the red man be
A part of thy broad stream. Time unto thee
Will add fresh lusture as the ages roll,
And from life's warfare many a thoughtful soul
Hither repair, as to a pilgrim's goal.
Yet why a pilgrim's goal? Was it not here
That valiant armies met, and ev'ry fear
Was lulled in hope of conquest? Was't not here
On sunlit plains Wolfe's gallant troops drew near
And marched to vict'ry ere the morning broke?
Yes! e'en on Abraham's plains when courage woke,
The great commander closed his eyes in death;
But as he yielded up life's fitful breath,
And to proud England's isles the honor gave,
He claimed the poet's lines--this soldier brave:
"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
A stately column here attests his worth,
And e'en the hero to whom France gave birth,
Despite he fell, shorn of the conqueror's wreath,
Not without glorious deeds within the sheath
Placed he his sword. His honored ashes lie
Where soft the vesper hymn goes echoing by,
Within the quiet convent's pious shade.
Such are the heroes that thy glory made,
O antique city by St. Lawrence shore!
And long as round thee mighty waters roar,
Thou wilt remain,--a page of ancient lore!
General Wolfe's gallant troops were the British regular soldiers, grenadiers, and Highlanders who achieved a famous victory under Major-General James Wolfe (who was killed at the height of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, also known as the Battle of Quebec, due to injuries from three musket balls, on Sept. 13, 1759). The Italian-born English poet Humbert Wolfe (1885-1940) died on his fifty-fifth birthday, January 5, 1940. Henrietta Cordelia Ray died on January 5, 1916, in Brooklyn, New York. January 5 is Vera Nabokov's birthday.
"The paths of glory lead but to the grave" is a line (quoted by Henrietta Cordelia Ray in her poem Quebec) from Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751). According to John Ray, Jr. (the author of the foreword to Humbert's manuscript), 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:
For the benefit of old-fashioned readers who wish to follow the destinies of “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 shadows 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 published 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.
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 with Quilty, 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.). Henrietta Cordelia Ray calls Quebec "antique city on St. Lawrence shore." In the second stanza of his poem "Wanted" written during his stay in the Quebec sanatorium Humbert mentions the starling in Laurence Sterne's novel A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768):
Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet.
Age: five thousand three hundred days.
Profession: none, or "starlet."
Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze?
Why are you hiding, darling?
(I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze,
I cannot get out, said the starling).
Where are you riding, Dolores Haze?
What make is the magic carpet?
Is a Cream Cougar the present craze?
And where are you parked, my car pet?
Who is your hero, Dolores Haze?
Still one of those blue-caped star-men?
Oh the balmy days and the palmy bays,
And the cars, and the bars, my Carmen!
Oh Dolores, that juke-box hurts!
Are you still dancin', darlin'?
(Both in worn levis, both in torn T-shirts,
And I, in my corner, snarlin').
Happy, happy is gnarled McFate
Touring the States with a child wife,
Plowing his Molly in every State
Among the protected wild life.
My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair,
And never closed when I kissed her.
Know an old perfume called Soleil Vert?
Are you from Paris, mister?
L’autre soir un air froid d’opéra m’alita:
Son félé - bien fol est qui s’y fie!
Il neige, le décor s’écroule, Lolita!
Lolita, qu’ai-je fait de ta vie?
Dying, dying, Lolita Haze,
Of hate and remorse, I'm dying.
And again my hairy fist I raise,
And again I hear you crying.
Officer, officer, there they go-
In the rain, where that lighted store is!
And her socks are white, and I love her so,
And her name is Haze, Dolores.
Officer, officer, there they are-
Dolores Haze and her lover!
Whip out your gun and follow that car.
Now tumble out, and take cover.
Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Her dream-gray gaze never flinches.
Ninety pounds is all she weighs
With a height of sixty inches.
My car is limping, Dolores Haze,
And the last long lap is the hardest,
And I shall be dumped where the weed decays,
And the rest is rust and stardust.
In Sterne's novel the starling repeatedly cries: "I can't get out, I can't get out." The character Yorick encounters the bird, and its plight becomes a powerful symbol of the cruelty of captivity and the value of liberty. The Rev. Laurence Sterne, M. A. (1713-1768) brings to mind the Rev. Rigger, College clergyman and Bible teacher at Beardsley School whom the girls mockingly call Rigor Mortis ("stiffness of death"). Sterne's humorous novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-1767) makes one think of a Dr. Ilse Tristramson, a young physician at Beardsley who examines Lolita:
Around Christmas she caught a bad chill and was examined by a friend of Miss Lester, a Dr. Ilse Tristramson (hi, Ilse, you were a dear, uninquisitive soul, and you touched my dove very gently). She diagnosed bronchitis, patted Lo on the back (all its bloom erect because of the fever) and put her to bed for a week or longer. At first she “ran a temperature” in American parlance, and I could not resist the exquisite caloricity of unexpected delights - Venus febriculosa - though it was a very languid Lolita that moaned and coughed and shivered in my embrace. And as soon as she was well again, I threw a Party with Boys. (2.12)
"My dove" (as Humbert calls Lolita) brings to mind Henrietta Cordelia Ray's poem My Easter Dove:
There came a dove, an Easter dove,
When morning stars grew dim;
It fluttered round my lattice bars,
To chant a matin hymn.
It brought a lily in its beak,
Aglow with dewy sheen;
I caught the strain, the incense breathed,
And uttered praise between.
It brought a shrine of holy thoughts
To calm my soul that day;
I caught the meaning of the note
Why did it fly away?
Come peaceful dove, sweet Easter dove!
Above earth's storm and strife
Sing of the joy of Easter-tide,
Of light and hope and life.