Lolita

At the pool, Lolita wears “her Aztec Red bathing briefs and bra” (237), and Humbert notices a man staring at her from the shadows. He sees that Lolita is showing off for the stranger before recognizing the man as Trapp; Trapp notices Humbert staring at him and walks away before Humbert can approach him. Humbert vomits, seeing colors on the ground he does not remember eating. He notes that Lolita’s eyes look “more calculating than frightened” (238) and sits by the pool drinking excessive amounts of gin, noting that he is healthy enough to drive the next morning.

Humbert and Lolita move on to a cabin at the Silver Spur Court in Elphinstone. Humbert is convinced he is delusional and that his sightings of Trapp in various automobiles are his own doing. Humbert imagines moving to Mexico with Lolita. When Lolita claims to be sick, Humbert takes her to the hospital. He stays in the motel and notes it is the first time in two years they have been separated. Lolita recovers from her illness, but she remains in the hospital for a few days; Humbert visits her regularly and brings her books and other gifts. The nurse does not seem to like him; when he sees a note on Lolita’s bed tray, the nurse indicates that it is her note, not Lolita’s. Humbert himself becomes sick but tells the hospital he will pick Lolita up the next day. The next day, however, he is told that Lolita has already been picked up by “her uncle, Mr. Gustave” (246), who has come for her in a Cadillac. Humbert controls his rage but whispers to himself that he will use his gun to destroy Trapp, Lolita’s kidnapper, whom he calls his “brother” (247). 

On the road, Humbert tries to find traces of Lolita in the three hundred and forty-two hotels, motels, and inns they stayed at over the last two years. Humbert learns that Trapp had been following them for a long time, recognizing the various fake names Trapp had been using and his distinct handwriting in the registry books of many hotels. The names often involve puns and references to art and literature; Humbert recognizes the clues were planted for him and that no one else would be able to make sense of them. Humbert is hurt when he figures out that some names reveal that Lolita has had contact with Trapp; for example, the use of the names “G. Trapp” and “Harold Haze, Tombstone Arizona,” (251) suggests the man knows about Lolita’s past. No clues to Trapp’s identity appear. 

Humbert decides that the likeliest kidnapper is an art professor at Beardsley College, one of the few men who ever taught at Lolita’s school. Now back in Beardsley, Humbert plans to confront him and brings his gun to campus. When Humbert sees the professor, however, he realizes that it is impossible that the professor could have Lolita at his house. In fact, the professor recognizes Humbert and makes small talk with him about his “delightful tennis-playing daughter” (253). Humbert doubts his sanity as he carries on searching for Lolita, thinking Lolita might be in California. He hires a private detective who attempts to track the fake names Trapp wrote in the hotel books and spends two years looking for Lolita, unsuccessfully. 

Humbert does not dream of Lolita but sees her constantly in his mind. He donates her possessions to an orphanage in Canada and tries to move on. He spends one winter in a sanatorium he knows, and he writes a long poem that he means to use as an advertisement for a missing person. The poem is based on the nonsense poems he used to write for Lolita when she was younger. Looking over his poem, he analyzes the psychological processes involved in the writing of the poem and decides that the poem is something a psychopath would write. He does not submit the ad, and he admits he is not cured of his pedophilia. A woman named Rita enters his life. 

Rita is in her late twenties and recently divorced from her third husband when Humbert picks her up someplace between Montreal and New York. She is not smart, but she comforts Humbert when he gives her vague details of his situation and approves of his plan to seek vengeance. They stay together for two years, drinking heavily and wandering from hotel to hotel, including those he stayed at with Lolita. The Enchanted Hunters is the only hotel he cannot bring himself to visit, although he does remember accidentally appearing in a photo that was taken the night he wandered the public areas of the hotel. He finds a copy of the photo during a trip through Briceland, but he cannot find himself in it.

In the meantime, he has found an apartment to rent in a college town called Cantrip. He is embarrassed by Rita and asks her to stay at a roadside motel. She becomes convinced he will leave her and her alcoholism intensifies, though Humbert asserts that she was a good person. He also admits he may have mixed up a couple trips with Rita but that the specific timeline does not matter.

At his apartment, Humbert receives two letters that have been forwarded to him. One is from John Farlow who, following Jean’s death from cancer, has remarried and is moving to South America. He had been handling the complicated Haze estate but is now happy to rid himself of it; the estate will now be managed by an estate lawyer named Jack Windmuller. John states that Humbert needs to “produce Dolly quick” (266). Humbert notes that he would never have predicted John would remarry and live in South America.

The second letter is from Lolita who addresses Humbert as Dad. She tells him that she is pregnant and that her husband will soon have a job in Alaska. She is writing to request money from Humbert but she does not give him her address in case he is still mad at her. She signs the letter, “Dolly (Mrs. Richard F. Schiller)” (266).