Describing his life with Rita (a girl whom he picked up at a roadside bar between Montreal and New York), Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions an amnesic stranger, a blond, almost albino, young fellow with white eyelashes and large transparent ears, who lay snoring in Humbert's and Rita's bed in their hotel room:
The oddly prepubescent curve of her back, her ricey skin, her slow languorous columbine kisses kept me from mischief. It is not the artistic aptitudes that are secondary sexual characters as some shams and shamans have said; it is the other way around: sex is but the ancilla of art. One rather mysterious spree that had interesting repercussions I must notice. I had abandoned the search: the fiend was either in Tartary or burning away in my cerebellum (the flames fanned by my fancy and grief) but certainly not having Dolores Haze play champion tennis on the Pacific Coast. One afternoon, on our way back East, in a hideous hotel, the kind where they hold conventions and where labeled, fat, pink men stagger around, all first names and business and booze - dear Rita and I awoke to find a third in our room, a blond, almost albino, young fellow with white eyelashes and large transparent ears, whom neither Rita nor I recalled having ever seen in our sad lives. Sweating in thick dirty underwear, and with old army boots on, he lay snoring on the double bed beyond my chaste Rita. One of his front teeth was gone, amber pustules grew on his forehead. Ritochka enveloped her sinuous nudity in my raincoat - the first thing at hand; I slipped on a pair of candy-striped drawers; and we took stock of the situation. Five glasses had been used, which in the way of clues, was an embarrassment of riches. The door was not properly closed. A sweater and a pair of shapeless tan pants lay on the floor. We shook their owner into miserable consciousness. He was completely amnesic. In an accent that Rita recognized as pure Brooklynese, he peevishly insinuated that somehow we had purloined his (worthless) identity. We rushed him into his clothes and left him at the nearest hospital, realizing on the way that somehow or other after forgotten gyrations, we were in Grainball. Half a year later Rita wrote the doctor for news. Jack Humbertson as he had been tastelessly dubbed was still isolated from his personal past. Oh Mnemosyne, sweetest and most mischievous of muses! (2.26)
Der Albino ("The Albino," 1907) is a story by Gustav Meyrink. In Meyrink's novel Der Golem ("The Golem," 1914) the story of Athanasius Pernath, a jeweler and art restorer who lives in the ghetto of Prague, is experienced by an anonymous narrator, who, during a visionary dream, assumes Pernath's identity thirty years before. This dream was perhaps induced because he inadvertently swapped his hat with the real (old) Pernath's. The characters in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) include the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit. As Vitaly suggested, the amnesic stranger with large transparing ears whom Humbert and Rita find snoring in their bed seems to be the White Rabbit. At a Mad Tea Party a Dormouse is sitting between the March Hare and the Hatter who are using the Dormouse as a cussion:
There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. “Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought Alice; “only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.”
The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: “No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw Alice coming. “There’s plenty of room!” said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. “I don’t see any wine,” she remarked.
“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare.
“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily.
“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said the March Hare.
“I didn’t know it was your table,” said Alice; “it’s laid for a great many more than three.”
“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.
“You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Alice said with some severity; “it’s very rude.”
The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
“Come, we shall have some fun now!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles.—I believe I can guess that,” she added aloud. (Chapter VII)
Five used glasses (in the way of clues, an embarrassment of riches) bring to mind Five, a character in the next chapter of Alice in Wonderland:
A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard one of them say, “Look out now, Five! Don’t go splashing paint over me like that!”
“I couldn’t help it,” said Five, in a sulky tone; “Seven jogged my elbow.”
On which Seven looked up and said, “That’s right, Five! Always lay the blame on others!”
“You’d better not talk!” said Five. “I heard the Queen say only yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!”
“What for?” said the one who had spoken first.
“That’s none of your business, Two!” said Seven.
“Yes, it is his business!” said Five, “and I’ll tell him—it was for bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.”
Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun “Well, of all the unjust things—” when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching them, and he checked himself suddenly: the others looked round also, and all of them bowed low.
“Would you tell me,” said Alice, a little timidly, “why you are painting those roses?”
Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low voice, “Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she comes, to—” At this moment Five, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called out “The Queen! The Queen!” and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen. (Chapter VIII "The Queen’s Croquet-Ground")
In 1923 Lewis Carroll's book was translated into Russian (as Anya v strane chudes) by VN. In VN's story Conversation Piece, 1945 the narrator swaps hats with Dr. Shoe. One of Mrs. Hall's guests, Dr. Shoe plays 'The Star-Spangled Banner' (the national anthem of the United States since 1931):
There was a reverent pause while Dr. Shoe tremulously lighted a cigarette, and then Mrs. Hall, pressing the palms of her hands together in a charming, girlish gesture, begged him to round out the meeting with some lovely music. He sighed, got up, trod upon my foot in passing, apologetically touched my knee with the tips of his fingers, and, having sat down before the piano, bowed his head and remained motionless for several audibly silent seconds. Then, slowly and very gently, he laid his cigarette on an ashtray, removed the ashtray from the piano into Mrs. Hall's helpful hands, and bent his head again. At last he said, with a little catch in his voice, "First of all, I will play 'The Star-Spangled Banner. '"
A pair of candy-striped drawers that Humbert slips on and "when I stood Adam-naked before the federal law and all its stinging stars" in a poem that Humbert makes Quilty read aloud before murdering him evoke the image of the American flag. Lolita escapes from the Elphinstone hospital on July 4, 1949 (the American Independance Day). On the other hand, on July 4, 1862, on an outing with the three Liddell sisters, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll's real name) began to tell the story of a little girl named Alice. Describing his life with Rita, Humbert mentions a half-naked nymphet stilled in the act of combing her Alice-in-Wonderland hair:
My letterbox in the entrance hall belonged to the type that allows one to glimpse something of its contents through a glassed slit. Several times already, a trick of harlequin light that fell through the glass upon an alien handwriting had twisted it into a semblance of Lolita’s script causing me almost to collapse as I leant against an adjacent urn, almost my own. Whenever that happenedwhenever her lovely, childish scrawl was horribly transformed into the dull hand of one of my few correspondentsI used to recollect, with anguished amusement, the times in my trustful, pre-dolorian past when I would be misled by a jewel-bright window opposite wherein my lurking eye, the ever alert periscope of my shameful vice, would make out from afar a half-naked nymphet stilled in the act of combing her Alice-in-Wonderland hair. There was in the fiery phantasm a perfection which made my wild delight also perfect, just because the vision was out of reach, with no possibility of attainment to spoil it by the awareness of an appended taboo; indeed, it may well be that the very attraction immaturity has for me lies not so much in the limpidity of pure young forbidden fairy child beauty as in the security of a situation where infinite perfections fill the gap between the little given and the great promised - the great rosegray never-to-be-had. Mes fenêtres! Hanging above blotched sunset and welling night, grinding my teeth, I would crowd all the demons of my desire against the railing of a throbbing balcony: it would be ready to take off in the apricot and black humid evening; did take off - whereupon the lighted image would move and Eve would revert to a rib, and there would be nothing in the window but an obese partly clad man reading the paper. (2.27)
Humbert's exclamation Mes fenêtres! ("My Windows!") brings to mind Meyrink's novel Der Engel vom westlichen Fenster ("The Angel of the West Window," 1927). Athanasius Pernath whose identity is assumed by the anonymous narrator of Meyrink's Golem brings to mind Pern, in VN's novel Pale Fire (1962) the Zemblan name of the Devil:
Many years ago - how many I would not care to say - I remember my Zemblan nurse telling me, a little man of six in the throes of adult insomnia: "Minnamin, Gut mag alkan, Pern dirstan" (my darling, God makes hungry, the Devil thirsty). Well, folks, I guess many in this fine hall are as hungry and thirsty as me, and I'd better stop, folks, right here.
Yes, better stop. My notes and self are petering out. Gentlemen, I have suffered very much, and more than any of you can imagine. I pray for the Lord's benediction to rest on my wretched countrymen. My work is finished. My poet is dead.
"And you, what will you be doing with yourself, poor King, poor Kinbote?" a gentle young voice may inquire.
God will help me, I trust, to rid myself of any desire to follow the example of two other characters in this work. I shall continue to exist. I may assume other disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist. I may turn up yet, on another campus, as an old, happy, healthy, heterosexual Russian, a writer in exile, sans fame, sans future, sans audience, sans anything but his art. I may join forces with Odon in a new motion picture: Escape from Zembla (ball in the palace, bomb in the palace square). I may pander to the simple tastes of theatrical critics and cook up a stage play, an old-fashioned Melodrama with three principals: a lunatic who intends to kill an imaginary king, another lunatic who imagines himself to be that king, and a distinguished old poet who stumbles by chance into the line of fire, and perishes in the clash between the two figments. Oh, I may do many things! History permitting, I may sail back to my recovered kingdom, and with a great sob greet the gray coastline and the gleam of a roof in the rain. I may huddle and groan in a madhouse. But whatever happens, wherever the scene is laid, somebody, somewhere, will quietly set out - somebody has already set out, somebody still rather far away is buying a ticket, is boarding a bus, a ship, a plane, has landed, is walking toward a million photographers, and presently he will ring at my door - a bigger, more respectable, more competent Gradus. (Kinbote's note to Line 1000)
Pern seems to hint at Perun, the ancient Slavic god of thunder. Humbert's very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning). Clare Quilty is the author (in collaboration with Vivian Darkbloom) of The Lady who Loved the Lightning.
In VN's story Pamyati L. I. Shigayeva ("In Memory of L. I. Shigayev," 1934) the narrator, as a result of too much drinking, begins to see the devils :
Длительным, упорным, одиноким пьянством я довел себя до пошлейших видений, а именно - до самых что ни на есть русских галлюцинаций: я начал видеть чертей. Видел я их каждый вечер, как только выходил из дневной дремы, чтобы светом моей бедной лампы разогнать уже заливавшие нас сумерки. Да: отчетливее, чем вижу сейчас свою вечно дрожащую руку, я видел пресловутых пришлецов и под конец даже привык к их присутствию, благо они не очень лезли ко мне. Были они небольшие, но довольно жирные, величиной с раздобревшую жабу, мирные, вялые, чернокожие, в пупырках. Они больше ползали, чем ходили, но при всей своей напускной неуклюжести были неуловимы. Помнятся, я купил собачью плетку, и как только их собралось достаточно на моем столе, попытался хорошенько вытянуть их - но они удивительно избежали удара; я опять плеткой... Один из них, ближайший, только замигал, криво зажмурился, как напряженный пес, которого угрозой хотят оторвать от какой-нибудь соблазнительной пакости; другие же, влача задние лапы, расползлись... Но все они снова потихоньку собрались в кучу, пока я вытирал со стола пролитые чернила и поднимал павший ниц портрет. Вообще говоря, они водились гуще всего в окрестностях моего стола; являлись же откуда-то снизу и, не спеша, липкими животами шурша и чмокая, взбирались - с какими-то карикатурно-матросскими приемами - по ножкам стола, которые я пробовал мазать вазелином, но это ничуть не помогало, и только когда я, случалось, облюбую этакого аппетитного поганчика, сосредоточенно карабкающегося вверх, да хвачу плеткой или сапогом, он шлепался на пол с толстым жабьим звуком, а через минуту, глядь, уже добирался с другого угла, высунув от усердия фиолетовый язык,- и вот, перевалил и присоединился к товарищам. Их было много, я сперва они казались мне все одинаковыми: черные, с одутловатыми, довольно впрочем добродушными, мордочками, они, группами по пяти, по шести, сидели на столе, на бумагах, на томе Пушкина - и равнодушно на меня поглядывали; иной почесывал себе ногой за ухом, жестко скребя длинным коготком, а потом замирал, забыв про ногу; иной дремал, неудобно налезши на соседа, который впрочем в долгу не оставался: взаимное невнимание пресмыкающихся, умеющих цепенеть в замысловатых положениях. Понемножку я начал их различать и, кажется, даже понадавал им имен соответственно сходству с моими знакомыми или разными животными. Были побольше и поменьше (хотя все вполне портативные), погаже и попристойнее, с волдырями, с опухолями и совершенно гладкие... Некоторые плевали друг в друга... Однажды они привели с собой новичка, альбиноса, то есть избела-пепельного, с глазами как кетовые икринки; он был очень сонный, кислый и постепенно уполз.
Once the devils who visit the hallucinating narrator bring a new boy, an albino, of a cinereous tint, with eyes like beads of red caviar, he is very sleepy and glum, and gradually crawls away. In VN's story L. I. Shigayev goes to Prague where he was offered a teaching job and dies there of heart failure in the street. Prague is the city where VN's mother lived and where she died in 1939.