Lolita - II

Voici le 2° extrait, tiré du chapitre 29. Humbert vient de récupérer Lolita à son camp de vacances et ils s'arrêtent pour la nuit dans un hôtel. Humbert a soigneusement testé des somnifères sur sa femme pendant tout l'été et il en a administré à Lolita. Malheureusement pour lui, ils n'étaient pas du tout aussi efficaces qu'il le pensait, et il n'a rien pu tenter car elle se réveillait au moindre mouvement du lit. Il s'est donc endormi frustré et se réveille, le lendemain matin, en l'entendant bouger derrière lui.

Frigid women of the jury! I had thought that months, perhaps years would elapse before I dared to reveal myself to Dolores Haze; but by 6 she was wide awake, and by 6.15 we were technically lovers. I am going to tell you something very strange: it was she who seduced me.

(…)

I felt her eyes on me, and when she uttered at last that beloved chortling note of hers, I knew her eyes had been laughing. She rolled over to my side, and her warm brown hair came against my collarbone. I gave a mediocre imitation of waking up. We lay quietly. I gently caressed her hair, and we gently kissed. Her kiss, to my delirious embarrassment, had some rather comical refinements of flutter and probe which made me conclude she had been coached at an early age by a little Lesbian. No Charlie boy could have taught her that? As if to see whether I had my feel and learned the lesson, she drew away and surveyed me. Her cheekbones were flushed, her full underlip glistened, my dissolution was near. All at once, with a burst of rough glee (the sign of the nymphet!) she put her mouth to my ear – but quite for a while my mind could not separate words the hot thunder of her whisper, and she laughed, and brushed her hair off her face, and tried again, and gradually the odd sense of living in a brand new, mad new dream world, where everything was permissible, came over me as I realized what she was suggesting. I answered I did not know what game she and Charlie had played. “You mean you have never - ?’ – Her features twisted into a stare of disgusted incredulity. ‘You have never-“she started again. I took time out by nuzzling her a little. “Lay off, will you”, she said with a tawny whine, hastily removing her brown shoulders from my lips. (It was very curious the way she considered – and kept doing do for a long time – all caresses except kisses on the mouth or the stark act of love either “romantic slosh’ or “abnormal”.)

“You mean”, she persisted, now kneeling above me, “you never did it when you were a kid?”

“Never”, I said quite truthfully.

“Okay”, said Lolita, “here is where we start”.

However, I shall not bore my learned readers with a detailed account of Lolita’s presumptions. Suffice it to say not a trace of modesty did I perceive in this beautiful hardly formed young girl whom modern co-education, juvenile mores, the campfire racket and so forth had utterly and hopelessly depraved. She saw the stark act merely as a part of a youngster’s furtive world, unknown to adults. What adults did for purpose of procreation was no business of hers. My life was handled by little Lo in an energetic, matter-of-fact manner as if it were an insensate gadget unconnected with me. While eager to impress me with the world of tough kids, she was not quite prepared for certain discrepancies between a kid’s life and mine. Pride alone prevented her from giving up; for, in my strange predicament, I feigned supreme stupidity and had her have her way – at least while I could still bear it. But really these are irrelevant matters: I am not concerned with so-called “sex” at all. Anybody can imagine those elements of animality. A great endeavour lures me on: to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets.