A playwright and pornographer whom Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) murders for abducting Lolita from the Elphinstone hospital, Clare Quilty tells Humbert Humbert that he has a funny accent:
“People,” he said, “people in general, I’m not accusing you, Brewster, but you know it’s absurd the way people invade this damned house without even knocking. They use the vaterre, they use the kitchen, they use the telephone. Phil calls Philadelphia. Pat calls Patagonia. I refuse to pay. You have a funny accent, Captain.”
“Quilty,” I said, “do you recall a little girl called Dolores Haze, Dolly Haze? Dolly called Dolores, Colo.?”
“Sure, she may have made those calls, sure. Any place. Paradise, Wash., Hell Canyon. Who cares?”
“I do, Quilty. You see, I am her father.”
“Nonsense,” he said. “You are not. You are some foreign literary agent. A Frenchman once translated my Proud Flesh as La Fierté de la Chair. Absurd.”
“She was my child, Quilty.” (2.35)
At the Elphinstone hospital, a bald brown-headed patient, whom Humbert Humbert mistook for Dr. Blue (the chief physician) and on whom he was sitting, eventually stands up, remarking with a preposterous accent: “Now, who is neurotic, I ask?”:
Elphinstone was, and I hope still is, a very cute little town. It was spread like a maquette, you know, with its neat greenwool trees and red-roofed houses over the valley floor and I think I have alluded earlier to its model school and temple and spacious rectangular blocks, some of which were, curiously enough, just unconventional pastures with a mule or a unicorn grazing in the young July morning mist. Very amusing: at one gravelgroaning sharp turn I sideswiped a parked car but said to myself telestically - and, telepathically (I hoped), to its gesticulating owner - that I would return later, address Bird School, Bird, New Bird, the gin kept my heart alive but bemazed my brain, and after some lapses and losses common to dream sequences, I found myself in the reception room, trying to beat up the doctor, and roaring at people under chairs, and clamoring for Mary who luckily for her was not there; rough hands plucked at my dressing gown, ripping off a pocket, and somehow I seem to have been sitting on a bald brown-headed patient, whom I had mistaken for Dr. Blue, and who eventually stood up, remarking with a preposterous accent: “Now, who is neurotic, I ask?” - and then a gaunt unsmiling nurse presented me with seven beautiful, beautiful books and the exquisitely folded tartan lap robe, and demanded a receipt; and in the sudden silence I became aware of a policeman in the hallway, to whom my fellow motorist was pointing me out, and meekly I signed the very symbolic receipt, thus surrendering my Lolita to all those apes. But what else could I do? One simple and stark thought stood out and this was: “Freedom for the moment is everything.” One false move - and I might have been made to explain a life of crime. So I simulated a coming out of a daze. To my fellow motorist I paid what he thought was fair. To Dr. Blue, who by then was stroking my hand, I spoke in tears of the liquor I bolstered too freely a tricky but not necessarily diseased heart with. To the hospital in general I apologized with a flourish that almost bowled me over, adding however that I was not on particularly good terms with the rest of the Humbert clan. To myself I whispered that I still had my gun, and was still a free man - free to trace the fugitive, free to destroy my brother. (2.22)
A Russian-speaking person would pronounce the word "neurotic" as nevrotik (accented on the middle o). Ieremiya Nedobobov's poem Koshka i myshka ("A Cat and a Mouse") ends in the lines "Nyanya, polozhi za eto / V rotik mne varen'ya! (Nurse, put for this / some jam in my mouth!):"
Кошка и мышка
На полу сидит мышонок,
Кошка на окошке...
Комментарий:
(Я народ в мышонке вывел,
Станового в кошке.)
Кошка - прыг! Мышонок - в нору,
Но хвоста лишился...
Комментарий:
(Это значит, что чиновник
Взяткой поживился.)
Папенька взял трость, и кошку
Высек без пощады...
Комментарий:
(Воздавать хвалу начальству
Завсегда мы рады!)
Злая кошка укусила
Папеньку близ ляжки...
Комментарий:
(Хищный становой недавно
Дослужился пряжки...)
Но поэт его бичует
Словом отверженья...
Няня! положи за это
В ротик мне варенья!
A wunderkind poet, Ieremiya (Jeremy) Nedobobov (son of Platon Nedobobov, a retired teacher of Russian literature) was invented by Ivan Turgenev (a Russian writer, 1818-1883) to parody Nikolay Dobrolyubov (a radical critic, 1836-1861) in an Iskra ("Spark") article Shestiletniy oblichitel' ("The Six-Year-Old Denouncer," 1859). The surname Nedobobov combines Nedorosl' ("The Minor," 1782), a comedy by Denis Fonfizin (a Russian playwright, 1745-1792), with Dobrolyubov (the target of Turgenev's satire). Turgenev is the author of Nakanune ("On the Eve," 1860), a novel severely criticized by Dobrolyubov. On the eve of Lolita's escape from (or, more likely, death in) the Elphinstone hospital Humbert Humbert feels "probably Polynesian:"
I heard the sound of whistling lips nearing the half-opened door of my cabin, and then a thump upon it.
It was big Frank. He remained framed in the opened door, one hand on its jamb, leaning forward a little.
Howdy. Nurse Lore was on the telephone. She wanted to know was I better and would I come today?
At twenty paces Frank used to look a mountain of health; at five, as now, he was a ruddy mosaic of scars - had been blown through a wall overseas; but despite nameless injuries he was able to man a tremendous truck, fish, hunt, drink, and buoyantly dally with roadside ladies. That day, either because it was such a great holiday, or simply because he wanted to divert a sick man, he had taken off the glove he usually wore on his left hand (the one pressing against the side of the door) and revealed to the fascinated sufferer not only an entire lack of fourth and fifth fingers, but also a naked girl, with cinnabar nipples and indigo delta, charmingly tattooed on the back of his crippled hand, its index and middle digit making her legs while his wrist bore her flower-crowned head. Oh, delicious… reclining against the woodwork, like some sly fairy.
I asked him to tell Mary Lore I would stay in bed all day and would get into touch with my daughter sometime tomorrow if I felt probably Polynesian.
He noticed the direction of my gaze and made her right hip twitch amorously.
“Okey-dokey,” big Frank sang out, slapped the jamb, and whistling, carried my message away, and I went on drinking, and by morning the fever was gone, and although I was as limp as a toad, I put on the purple dressing gown over my maize yellow pajamas, and walked over to the office telephone. Everything was fine. A bright voice informed me that yes, everything was fine, my daughter had checked out the day before, around two, her uncle, Mr. Gustave, had called for her with a cocker spaniel pup and a smile for everyone, and a black Caddy Lack, and had paid Dolly’s bill in cash, and told them to tell me I should not worry, and keep warm, they were at Grandpa’s ranch as agreed. (2.22)
Btw., Dr Blue brings to mind Karmazinov ("Mr. Red"), a character (a satire on Turgenev) in Dostoevski's novel Besy ("The Possessed," 1872). In the Russian Lolita (1967), Gumbert Gumbert compares Clare Quilty to myshka (a little mouse), an allusion to koshki-myshki (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)
Humbert Humbert murders Clare Quilty on September 25, 1952. On the previous day, Sept. 24, he revisited Ramsdale. On September 24, 1782, Prince Grigoriy Potyomkin (a favorite of Empress Catherine II) praised Fonvizin after the premiere of his comedy The Minor, famously telling him: "Die, Denis, or don't write anything else, you won't write anything better!"