At the beginning of VN's novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert calls Lolita "My sin, my soul:"
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. (1.1)
Chto est' grekh ("What is Sin?" 1902) and Grekh ("Sin," 1938) are poems by Zinaida Hippius (a Russian poet, 1869-1945). Dusha sakhara ("The Soul of Sugar," 1909) is the essay by Dmitri Merezhkovski (a Russian poet and writer, Zinaida Hippius's husband, 1865-1941) on Stanislavski's stage version in the Moscow Art Theater of Maurice Maeterlinck's play L'Oiseau blue ("The Blue Bird," 1908). According to Merezhkovski, the Soul of Shugar (an incidental character in Maeterlinck's play) is the soul of the play, the soul of Maeterlinck himself:
Это одно изъ дѣйствующихъ лицъ метерлинковой Синей Птицы -- высокая бѣлая фигура, вышедшая изъ сахарной головы, одѣтая въ балахонъ цвѣта темно-синей сахарной бумаги, съ ледянцами вмѣсто пальцевъ, которые она отламываетъ и предлагаетъ дѣтямъ пососать. Какъ будто второстепенное, а на самомъ дѣлѣ, главное лицо -- душа пьесы, душа самого Метерлинка. Когда-то была у него душа трагедіи -- горькой полыни, а теперь -- душа сахара.
Волшебное искусство Художественнаго театра вдохнуло и въ зрителей душу сахара, ибо нужно поистинѣ волшебство, чтобы взрослыхъ людей кормить отъ 8 часовъ вечера до 12 1/2 ночи этою тающею, капающею, липнувшею сладостью.
Критики бранятся, капризничаютъ, гримасничаютъ; но не вѣрьте имъ: толпа наслаждается, сосетъ, не насосется, и облизывается, и причмокиваетъ, и слюнки распустила, какъ маленькія дѣти.-- "Если не обратитесь и не станете, какъ дѣти"... Ну, вотъ и обратились, впали въ дѣтство.
A playwright and pornographer whom Humbert murders for abducting Lolita from the Elphinstone hospital, Clare Quilty tells Humbert that he has been called the American Maeterlinck:
“Now look here, Mac,” he said. “You are drunk and I am a sick man. Let us postpone the matter. I need quiet. I have to nurse my impotence. Friends are coming in the afternoon to take me to a game. This pistol-packing face is becoming a frightful nuisance. We are men of the world, in everything - sex, free verse, marksmanship. If you bear me a grudge, I am ready to make unusual amends. Even an old-fashioned rencontre, sword or pistol, in Rio or elsewhere - is not excluded. My memory and my eloquence are not at their best today, but really, my dear Mr. Humbert, you were not an ideal stepfather, and I did not force your little protégé to join me. It was she made me remove her to a happier home. This house is not as modern as that ranch we shared with dear friends. But it is roomy, cool in summer and winter, and in a word comfortable, so, since I intend retiring to England or Florence forever, I suggest you move in. It is yours, gratis. Under the condition you stop pointing at me that [he swore disgustingly] gun. By the way, I do not know if you care for the bizarre, but if you do, I can offer you, also gratis, as house pet, a rather exciting little freak, a young lady with three breasts, one a dandy, this is a rare and delightful marvel of nature. Now, soyons raisonnables. You will only wound me hideously and then rot in jail while I recuperate in a tropical setting. I promise you, Brewster, you will be happy here, with a magnificent cellar, and all the royalties from my next play - I have not much at the bank right now but I propose to borrow - you know, as the Bard said, with that cold in his head, to borrow and to borrow and to borrow. There are other advantages. We have here a most reliable and bribable charwoman, a Mrs. Vibrissa - curious name - who comes from the village twice a week, alas not today, she has daughters, granddaughters, a thing or two I know about the chief of police makes him my slave. I am a playwright. I have been called the American Maeterlinck. Maeterlinck-Schmetterling, says I. Come on! All this is very humiliating, and I am not sure I am doing the right thing. Never use herculanita with rum. Now drop that pistol like a good fellow. I knew your dear wife slightly. You may use my wardrobe. Oh, another thing - you are going to like this. I have an absolutely unique collection of erotica upstairs. Just to mention one item: the in folio de-luxe Bagration Island by the explorer and psychoanalyst Melanie Weiss, a remarkable lady, a remarkable work - drop that gun - with photographs of eight hundred and something male organs she examined and measured in 1932 on Bagration, in the Barda Sea, very illuminating graphs, plotted with love under pleasant skies - drop that gun - and moreover I can arrange for you to attend executions, not everybody knows that the chair is painted yellow” (2.35)
Schmetterling (cf. "Maeterlinck-Schmetterling says I") is German for 'butterfly.' An item in Quilty's collection of erotica, the in folio de-luxe Bagration Island seems to hint at General Pyotr Bagration (1765-1812) who was felled in the battle of Borodino (fought near the village of Borodino on 7 September 1812 during Napoleon's invasion of Russia). Napoleon chose the bee (l'abeille) as the symbol of his armorial bearings. La Vie des Abeilles ("The Life of the Bee," 1901) is a book by Maurice Maeterlinck (a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist, 1862-1949). In his essay Les Parfums ("The Perfumes," 1907) Maeterlinck mentions the flowers visied by the bee (l'abeille) or butterfly (papillon):
Vous êtes-vous jamais demandé ce qu’est en soi cette âme mystérieuse d’un grand nombre de fleurs, qui nous parle à travers leur parfum ? — Il est peu d’énigmes aussi insolubles. Nous ignorons à peu près entièrement l’intention de cette zone d’air férié et invisiblement magnifique que les corolles répandent autour d’elles. Il est fort douteux qu’elle serve principalement à attirer les insectes. D’abord, beaucoup de fleurs, parmi les plus odorantes, n’admettent pas la fécondation croisée, de sorte que la visite de l’abeille ou du papillon leur est indifférente ou importune. Ensuite, ce qui appelle les insectes c’est uniquement le pollen et le nectar, qui généralement n’ont pas d’odeur sensible. Aussi les voyons-nous négliger les fleurs les plus délicieusement parfumées, telles que la rose et l’œillet, pour assiéger en foule celles de l’érable ou du coudrier, dont l’arome est pour ainsi dire nul.
Two of the five senses, the sense of taste (cf. The Soul of Sugar) and the sense of smell (cf. The Perfumes) bring to mind Do the Senses Make Sense?, a modest work by John Ray, Jr. (the author of the Foreword to Humbert's manuscript) wherein certain morbid states and perversions had been discussed:
“Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male,” such were the two titles under which the writer of the present note received the strange pages it preambulates. “Humbert Humbert,” their author, had died in legal captivity, of coronary thrombosis, on November 16, 1952, a few days before his trial was scheduled to start. His lawyer, my good friend and relation, Clarence Choate Clark, Esq., now of the District of Columbia bar, in asking me to edit the manuscript, based his request on a clause in his client’s will which empowered my eminent cousin to use the discretion in all matters pertaining to the preparation of “Lolita” for print. Mr. Clark’s decision may have been influenced by the fact that the editor of his choice had just been awarded the Poling Prize for a modest work (“Do the Senses make Sense?”) wherein certain morbid states and perversions had been discussed.
According to John Ray, Jr. (Humbert Humbert's "real" name, as it transpires), he had just been awarded the Poling Prize for his modest work. As pointed out by Alain Champlain, in VN’s entomological paper Some new or little known Nearctic Neonympha there are several references to Poling:
Neonympha dorothea edwardsi n. subsp.
[…]
Male, holotype, labelled: “Gila Co. Ariz. June 1902, O.C. Poling,” ex A.g. Weeks Coll., Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass.;[…] Paratypes: 3 males “Gila Co. Ariz. June 1902, O.C. Poling,” ex A.G. Weeks Coll., Mus. Comp. Zool.;
(P 256)
Neonympha dorothea avicula n. subsp.
[…]
Fifteen smallish specimens, twelve males, three females (Carn. Mus.), from Paradise, Ariz. taken by Poling late in the season (August–October) represent a certain transition from edwardsi to avicula;
(PP 257-258)
Paradise, Ariz. brings to mind Arizona or California mentioned by Humbert when he describes his first road trip with Lolita across the USA:
At inspection stations on highways entering Arizona or California, a policeman’s cousin would peer with such intensity at us that my poor heart wobbled. “Any honey?” he would inquire, and every time my sweet fool giggled. (Part Two, chapter 2)
and Humbert's elected paradise:
She had entered my world, umber and black Humberland, with rash curiosity; she surveyed it with a shrug of amused distaste; and it seemed to me now that she was ready to turn away from it with something akin to plain repulsion. Never did she vibrate under my touch, and a strident “what d’you think you are doing?” was all I got for my pains. To the wonderland I had to offer, my fool preferred the corniest movies, the most cloying fudge. To think that between a Hamburger and a Humburger, she would - invariably, with icy precision - plump for the former. There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. Did I mention the name of that milk bar I visited a moment ago? It was, of all things, The Frigid Queen. Smiling a little sadly, I dubbed her My Frigid Princess. She did not see the wistful joke.
Oh, do not scowl at me, reader, I do not intend to convey the impressin that I did not manage to be happy. Reader must understand that in the possession and thralldom of a nymphet the enchanted traveler stands, as it were, beyond happiness. For there is no other bliss on earth comparable to that of fondling a nymphet. It is hors concours, that bliss, it belongs to another class, another plane of sensitivity. Despite our tiffs, despite her nastiness, despite all the fuss and faces she made, and the vulgarity, and the danger, and the horrible hopelessness of it all, I still dwelled deep in my elected paradise - a paradise whose skies were the color of hell-flames - but still a paradise. (2.3)
According to Humbert, a policeman would inquire “Any honey?” and every time his sweet fool (as Humbert calls Lolita) giggled. Bees make honey by collecting sweet floral nectar, breaking down its complex sugars into simple sugars with specialized enzymes, and evaporating the water content in the hive.
Lolita's initial, the letter L was called lyudi in the old Russian alphabet. In the penultimate line of his poem Nu na chto mne lyudi? ("What do I care about people," 1944) Georgiy Ivanov (a Russian poet and memoirist, 1894-1958, a friend of the Merezhkovski couple and author of an insulting article on Sirin in the Paris émigré review Chisla, Numbers) mentions iskusstva sladkiy ledenets (a sweet lollipop of art):
А люди? Ну на что мне люди?
Идет мужик, ведет быка.
Сидит торговка: ноги, груди,
Платочек, круглые бока.
Природа? Вот она природа —
То дождь и холод, то жара.
Тоска в любое время года,
Как дребезжанье комара.
Конечно, есть и развлеченья:
Страх бедности, любви мученья,
Искусства сладкий леденец,
Самоубийство, наконец.
The poem ends in the line Samoubiystvo, nakonets (The suicide, at last). Suicide is a major (and, practically, the only) theme in G. Ivanov's poetry. In his poem Nochnoe puteshestvie ("The Night Journey," 1931) Vivian Calmbrood (VN's penname that bings to mind Vivian Darkbloom, Clare Quilty's coauthor who has written a memoir, My Cue, after her friend's death) satirizes Ivanov as Johnson and calls him "Petroniy novyi (new Petronius):"
Бедняга! Он скрипит костями,
бренча на лире жестяной,
он клонится к могильной яме
адамовою головой.
И вообще: поэты много
о смерти ныне говорят;
венок и выцветшая тога -
обыкновенный их наряд.
Ущерб, закат... Петроний новый
с полуулыбкой на устах,
с последней розой бирюзовой
в изящно сложенных перстах,
садится в ванну. Все готово.
Уж вольной смерти близок час.
Но погоди! Чем резать жилу,
не лучше ль обратиться к мылу,
не лучше ль вымыться хоть раз?"
New Petronius's vytsvetshaya toga (faded toga) brings to mind Humbert's flavid toga in a poem that Humbert makes Quilty read aloud before murdering him:
I decided to inspect the pistol - our sweat might have spoiled something - and regain my wind before proceeding to the main item in the program. To fill in the pause, I proposed he read his own sentence - in the poetical form I had given it. The term “poetical justice” is one that may be most happily used in this respect. I handed him a neat typescript.
“Yes,” he said, “splendid idea. Let me fetch my reading glasses” (he attempted to rise).
“No.”
“Just as you say. Shall I read out loud?”
“Yes.”
“Here goes. I see it’s in verse.
Because you took advantage of a sinner
because you took advantage
because you took
because you took advantage of my disadvantage…
“That’s good, you know. That’s damned good.”
…when I stood Adam-naked
before a federal law and all its stinging stars
“Oh, grand stuff!”
…Because you took advantage of a sin
when I was helpless moulting moist and tender
hoping for the best
dreaming of marriage in a mountain state
aye of a litter of Lolitas…
“Didn’t get that.”
Because you took advantage of my inner
essential innocence
because you cheated me
“A little repetitious, what? Where was I?”
Because you cheated me of my redemption
because you took
her at the age when lads
play with erector sets
“Getting smutty, eh?”
a little downy girl still wearing poppies
still eating popcorn in the colored gloam
where tawny Indians took paid croppers
because you stole her
from her wax-browed and dignified protector
spitting into his heavy-lidded eye
ripping his flavid toga and at dawn
leaving the hog to roll upon his new discomfort
the awfulness of love and violets
remorse despair while you
took a dull doll to pieces
and threw its head away
because of all you did
because of all I did not
you have to die
“Well, sir, this is certainly a fine poem. Your best as far as I’m concerned.”
He folded and handed it back to me. (2.35)
"My sin, my soul" (as Humbert calls Lolita) also brings to mind G. Ivanov's poem Dusha cheloveka ("The Soul of a Man"):
Душа человека. Такою
Она не была никогда.
На небо глядела с тоскою,
Взволнованна, зла и горда.
И вот умирает. Так ясно,
Так просто сгорая дотла —
Легка, совершенна, прекрасна,
Нетленна, блаженна, светла.
Сиянье. Душа человека,
Как лебедь, поет и грустит.
И крылья раскинув широко,
Над бурями темного века
В беззвездное небо летит.
Над бурями темного рока
В сиянье. Всего не успеть…
Дым тянется… След остается…
И полною грудью поется,
Когда уже не о чем петь.
Bezzvyozdnoe nebo (the starless sky) into which the dying soul flies brings to mind Gray Star (a settlement in the remotest northwest where, according to John Ray, Jr., Mrs. Richard F. Schiller died in childbed) and "and the rest is rust and stardust," the last line of Humbert's poem "Wanted" composed in a madhouse near Quebec after Lolita's abduction from (or, more likely, death in) the Elphinstone hospital.