According to John Ray, Jr. (in VN's novel Lolita, 1955, the author of the Foreword to Humbert's manuscript), Humbert Humbert had died in legal captivity, of coronary thrombosis, on November 16, 1952, a few days before his trial was scheduled to start:
“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.
In Ot izdatelya (From the Editor), the Introduction to Pushkin's The Tales of the Late I. P. Belkin (1831), the letter of Belkin's friend to the Editor (i. e. Pushkin) is dated November 16, 1830:
Вот, милостивый государь мой, все, что мог я припомнить касательно образа жизни, занятий, нрава и наружности покойного соседа и приятеля моего. Но в случае, если заблагорассудите сделать из сего моего письма какое-либо употребление, всепокорнейше прошу никак имени моего не упоминать; ибо хотя я весьма уважаю и люблю сочинителей, но в сие звание вступить полагаю излишним и в мои лета неприличным. С истинным моим почтением и проч.
1830 году. Ноября 16.*
Село Ненарадово
The late Ivan Petrovich Belkin was born in 1798 in the village Goryukhino:
Иван Петрович Белкин родился от честных и благородных родителей в 1798 году в селе Горюхине. Покойный отец его, секунд-майор Петр Иванович Белкин, был женат на девице Пелагее Гавриловне из дому Трафилиных. Он был человек не богатый, но умеренный, и по части хозяйства весьма смышленый. Сын их получил первоначальное образование от деревенского дьячка. Сему-то почтенному мужу был он, кажется, обязан охотою к чтению и занятиям по части русской словесности. В 1815 году вступил он в службу в пехотный егерский полк (числом не упомню), в коем и находился до самого 1823 года. Смерть его родителей, почти в одно время приключившаяся, понудила его подать в отставку и приехать в село Горюхино, свою отчину.
Istoriya sela Goryukhina ("The History of the Village Goryukhino," 1837) is a story by Pushkin written, like Belkin's Tales, in Boldino (the poet's family estate in the Province of Nizhniy Novgorod), in the fall of 1830. The narrator in Pushkin's story was born on April 1, 1801, in Goryukino:
Я родился от честных и благородных родителей в селе Горюхине 1801 года апреля 1 числа и первоначальное образование получил от нашего дьячка. Сему-то почтенному мужу обязан я впоследствии развившейся во мне охотою к чтению и вообще к занятиям литературным. Успехи мои хотя были медленны, но благонадежны, ибо на десятом году от роду я знал уже почти все то, что поныне осталось у меня в памяти, от природы слабой и которую по причине столь же слабого здоровья не дозволяли мне излишне отягощать.
April 1 is the birthday of Nikolay Gogol (a Russian writer, 1809-1852). Samosozhzhenie Gogolya ("The Self-Immolation of Gogol," 1909) is a painting by Ilya Repin (a Russian realist painter, 1844-1930) made for the hundredth anniversary of Gogol's birth. Repin is the author of Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581 (1883-1885).
Pushkin's story The History of the Village Goryukhino brings to mind a case history mentioned by John Ray, Jr. at the end of his Foreword to Humbert's manuscript:
As a case history, “Lolita” will become, no doubt, a classic in psychiatric circles. As a work of art, it transcends its expiatory aspects; and still more important to us than scientific significance and literary worth, is the ethical impact the book should have on the serious reader; for in this poignant personal study there lurks a general lesson; the wayward child, the egotistic mother, the panting maniac - these are not only vivid characters in a unique story: they warn us of dangerous trends; they point out potent evils. “Lolita” should make all of us - parents, social workers, educators - apply ourselves with still greater vigilance and vision to the task of bringing up a better generation in a safer world.
John Ray, Jr., Ph. D.
Widworth, Mass
In the Russian Lolita (1967) John Ray, Jr.'s Foreword to Humbert's manuscript is dated "August 5, 1955:"
Джон Рэй, д-р философии
Видворт, Массачусетс
5 августа 1955 года
Ilya Repin was born on August 5, 1844, and died on September 29, 1930. The author of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) died on July 7, 1930. A case history ("Lolita, as a case history, etc.") mentioned by John Ray, Jr. makes one think of Conan Doyle's story A Case of Identity (1891). A character in Conan Doyle's story, Mr Windibank brings to mind Mr. "Windmuller," the Ramsdale lawyer who desires his identity suppressed:
For the benefit of old-fashioned readers who wish to follow the destinies of the “real” people beyond the “true” story, a few details may be given as received from Mr. “Windmuller,” of “Ramsdale,” who desires his identity suppressed so that “the long shadow of this sorry and sordid business” should not reach the community to which he is proud to belong. His daughter, “Louise,” is by now a college sophomore, “Mona Dahl” is a student in Paris. “Rita” has recently married the proprietor of a hotel in Florida. Mrs. “Richard F. Schiller” died in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest. “Vivian Darkbloom” has written a biography, “My Cue,” to be publshed shortly, and critics who have perused the manuscript call it her best book. The caretakers of the various cemeteries involved report that no ghosts walk.
“The long shadow of this sorry and sordid business” may hint at The Great Shadow (also known as The Great Shadow and other Napoleonic Tales, 1892), an action and adventure novel by Conan Doyle. According to John Ray, Jr., Mrs. “Richard F. Schiller” (Lolita's married name) outlived Humbert by forty days and died in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest. Noch' pered Rozhdestvom ("Christmas Eve," 1832) is a story by Gogol. But it seems that, actually, Lolita dies of ague on July 4, 1949, in the Elphinstone hospital. Everything what happens after her sudden death (Lolita's escape from the hospital, Humbert's affair with Rita, Lolita's marriage and pregnancy, the murder of Clare Quilty and Humbert's death in prison) was invented by John Ray, Jr (Humbert Humbert's "real" name).
*"November 16" seems to be a misprint (instead of the correct "November 26") in the 1937 eighteen-volume Soviet edition of Pushkin's Collected Works.