According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955), he spent the night that preceded the murder of Clare Quilty (who lives not far from Parkington) in Insomnia Lodge:
I left Insomnia Lodge next morning around eight and spent some time in Parkington. Visions of bungling the execution kept obsessing me. Thinking that perhaps the cartridges in the automatic had gone stale during a week of inactivity, I removed them and inserted a fresh batch. Such a thorough oil bath did I give Chum that now I could not get rid of the stuff. I bandaged him up with a rag, like a maimed limb, and used another rag to wrap up a handful of spare bullets. (2.35)
In his poem Stikhi, sochinyonnye noch'yu vo vremya bessonnitsy ("Verses Composed at Night during the Insomnia," 1830) Pushkin mentions parki bab'ye lepetan'ye (a Fate's womanish babble) and zhizni mysh'ya begotnya (life's mousey bustle):
Мне не спится, нет огня;
Всюду мрак и сон докучный.
Ход часов лишь однозвучный
Раздаётся близ меня,
Парки бабье лепетанье,
Спящей ночи трепетанье,
Жизни мышья беготня...
Что тревожишь ты меня?
Что ты значишь, скучный шёпот?
Укоризна, или ропот
Мной утраченного дня?
От меня чего ты хочешь?
Ты зовёшь или пророчишь?
Я понять тебя хочу,
Смысла я в тебе ищу...
I can't sleep, the light is out;
Chasing senseless dreams in gloom.
Clocks at once, inside my room,
Somewhere next to me, resound.
Parcae's soft and mild chatter,
Sleeping twilight's noisy flutter,
Life's commotion -- so insane..
Why am I to feel this pain?
What's your meaning, boring mumble?
Disapproving, do you grumble
Of the day I spent in vain?
What has made you so compelling?
Are you calling or foretelling?
I just want to understand,
Thus I'm seeking your intent...
(transl. M. Kneller)
In the Russian version (1967) of Lolita Gumbert Gumbert compares Quilty to myshka (a little mouse), an allusion to koshki-myshki (the cat-and-mouse game):
Милый хозяин встретил меня в турецком будуарчике.
"А я все думаю, кто вы такой?", заявил он высоким хриплым голосом, глубоко засунув руки в карманы халата и уставясь в какой-то пункт на северо-восток от моей головы. "Вы случайно не Брюстер?"
Теперь было ясно, что он витает в каком-то тумане и находится всецело в моей власти. Я мог позволить себе поиграть этой мышкой.
"Правильно", отвечал я учтиво. "Je suis Monsieur Brustere. Давайте-ка поболтаем до того, как начать".
Master met me in the Oriental parlor.
“Now who are you?” he asked in a high hoarse voice, his hands thrust into his dressing-gown pockets, his eyes fixing a point to the northeast of my head. “Are you by any chance Brewster?”
By now it was evident to everybody that he was in a fog and completely at my so-called mercy. I could enjoy myself.
“That’s right,” I answered suavely. “Je suis Monsieur Brustere. Let us chat for a moment before we start.” (2.35)
According to Quilty, he knew Humbert's wife Charlotte slightly:
"Now drop that pistol like a good fellow. I knew your dear wife slightly. You may use my wardrobe."
Lolita outlives Humbert Humbert (who dies in legal captivity soon after finishing his manuscript) only by forty days and dies in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952. It seems that the evil Fate (Atropos) who cuts the thread of Lolita's life is the ghost of her mother.
Let me also draw your attention to the updated version of my recent post “not too complicated event & Haze complications in Lolita” (https://thenabokovian.org/node/35738).