Act Two

The Office of Camp Q, a Stucco Cottage — early afternoon
The camp mistress hangs up and calls a camp counselor.

CAMP MISTRESS      (to counselor ) Mr. Humbert has just telephoned. Lolita’s mother has been killed in a street accident.

COUNSELLOR      Oh, my gosh.

CAMP MISTRESS      He’s on the way here to fetch her. He asked me to tell her that her mother is sick. Find the girl, please, and have her get ready to leave. By the way, where’s that lazy son of mine—make him move the garbage cans to the back of the shed.

CUT TO:

The Search for Lolita

Her name is cried out in different voices and keys at various points. We pass in review the awfully quaint cabins and tents in a pine grove. The camera looks behind trees and bushes. Two shadows hastily unclip in the undergrowth. Distant cries swell and recede .

Lolita! Lolita!

CUT TO :

Dirt Road

leading to cabins and tents. Humbert drives up. Charlie, the camp mistress’s fourteen-year-old-son, is rolling an empty garbage can across the road.

HUMBERT      (out of car window, pointing questioningly ) Is that the office?

Charlie mutely directs him with a jerk of his thumb.

CUT TO:

Camp Office—Humbert and the Camp Mistress

CAMP MISTRESS      (computing the bill and not raising her eyes from her writing ) What a terrible accident! When is the funeral?

HUMBERT      Oh, that was yesterday. It was decided not to have the child attend. Spare her the shock.

He settles the bill.

CAMP MISTRESS      Thank you. The poor kid. Here’s your receipt.

Lolita arrives, dragging and bumping her valise.

LOLITA      Hi.

He lets his hand rest on her head and takes up her bag. She wears her brightest gingham and saddle oxfords .

As Humbert and she walk toward the car, Lolita waves to Charlie.

LOLITA      Good-bye, Charlie boy!

Moodily, not without some regret, he follows her with his pale, fair-lashed eyes.

CUT TO:

The Hot Car (inside )

She settles down beside Humbert, slaps a prompt fly on her lovely knee; then, her mouth working violently on chewing gum, she rapidly cranks down the window. The car speeds through the striped and speckled forest.

LOLITA      (dutifully ) How’s mother?

HUMBERT      It’s something abdominal.

LOLITA      Abominable?

HUMBERT      No, abdominal. A stomach ailment. She’s been moved to a hospital in the country. Not far from Lepingsville.

LOLITA      Are we going to, what you called it—Lepersville?

HUMBERT      Lepingsville. Yes, I expect we’ll have to hang around a bit while she gets better or at least a little better. And then we’ll go to the mountains. Is that a peachy idea?

LOLITA      Uh-huh. How far is it to her hospital ?

HUMBERT      Oh, two hundred miles. Did you have a marvelous time at the camp?

LOLITA      Uh-huh.

HUMBERT      Sorry to leave?

LOLITA      Un-un.

HUMBERT      Talk, Lolita, don’t grunt. Tell me something.

LOLITA      What thing, Dad?

HUMBERT      Any old thing.

LOLITA      Okay if I call you that?

HUMBERT      Quite.

LOLITA      It’s a sketch, you know——

HUMBERT      A what?

LOLITA      A scream: you falling for my mummy.

HUMBERT      There are also such things as mutual respect and spiritual happiness.

LOLITA      Sure, sure.

(The lull in the dialogue is filled in with some landscapes).

HUMBERT      Look at all those cows on the hillside.

LOLITA      I’ll vomit if I see another cow .

HUMBERT      You know I missed you terribly, Lolita Lo. Really and truly.

LOLITA      I didn’t. Fact I’ve been revoltingly unfaithful to you, but it doesn’t matter a bit because you’ve stopped caring for me, anyway. You drive much faster than my mummy, mister.

He slows down from 70 to 50 as seen on speedometer.

HUMBERT      Why do you think I’ve stopped caring for you?

LOLITA      Well, you haven’t kissed me yet, have you?

Humbert wobbles into the roadside weeds and stops. She cuddles up to him. A highway patrol car draws up alongside.

POLICEMAN      Having trouble?

HUMBERT      No, no. I just wanted to look at the map.

LOLITA      (eagerly leaning across H.H. and speaking with unusual urbanity ) I’m afraid we have parked where we shouldn’t but there was some question of taking a short cut, and we thought——

POLICEMAN      Well, if you want to stop there’s a picnic area three hundred yards from here.

LOLITA      Oh, thank you.

The beetle-browed trooper gives the little colleen his toothiest smile and glides away. Lolita presses a fluttering hand to her breastbone .

LOLITA      The fruithead! He should have nabbed you.

HUMBERT      Why me, for heaven’s sake?

LOLITA      Because the speed limit in this bum state is fifty. No, don’t slow down. He’s gone now.

HUMBERT      We have still quite a stretch, so be a good girl.

LOLITA      That light was red. I’ve never seen such driving.

They roll silently through a silent townlet.

HUMBERT      You said you’d been—I don’t know—naughty? Don’t you want to tell me about that?

LOLITA      Are you easily shocked?

HUMBERT      No. What did you do?

LOLITA      Well, I joined in all the activities that were offered.

HUMBERT      Ensuite?

LOLITA      Ansooit, I was taught to live happily and richly with others and to develop a wholesome personality. Be a cake, actually.

HUMBERT      Yes, I saw that in the camp booklet.

LOLITA      We loved the sings around the fire.

HUMBERT      Anything else ?

LOLITA      (rhapsodically ) The Girl Scout’s motto is also mine. My duty is to be useful to animals. I obey orders. I am cheerful. And I am absolutely filthy in thought, word, and deed.

HUMBERT      Is that all, young wit?

LOLITA      We baked in a reflector oven. Isn’t that terrific? Oh, gee! We made shadowgraphs. We identified the three birds teacher knew. What fun!

HUMBERT      C’est bien tout?

LOLITA      C’est . Except one little thing that I may tell you later in the dark.

CUT TO:

The Road

A sign by the side of the road says 8 MILES TO ENCHANTED HUNTERS . Further, another sign BRICELAND, ELEV . 759 FEET . Finally a sign at a crossing 3 MILES TO ENCHANTED HUNTERS—YE UNFORGETTABLE INN .

LOLITA      Oh, let’s stop at the unforgettable!

HUMBERT      I’ve reserved rooms in a tourist home at Lepingsville, but——

LOLITA      Oh, please. Let’s go to the Enchanted. It’s a famous romantic place. We’ll make people think you’ve eloped with me. Please!

… And there it was, marvelously and inexorably there, at the top of a graded curve under spectral trees, at the top of a graveled drive—the pale palace of The Enchanted Hunters .

LOLITA      (getting out of the car ) Wow! Looks swank.

Old Tom, a hunchbacked and hoary Negro, takes out the bags.

It is a large old heavily quaint family hotel with a pillared porch. Humbert and Lolita enter the ornate lounge. Two conventions, a medical one on the ebb and a floral one on the flow, throng the reception rooms.

Lolita sinks down on her haunches to caress a cocker spaniel sprawling and melting under her hand.

HUMBERT      (At the reception desk talks to Mr. Potts, the clerk,

indistinctly )

I want a room for the night.

POTTS      Excuse me, sir?

HUMBERT      I want two rooms or one room with two beds.

POTTS      I’m not sure we can accommodate you. We have the overflow of a convention of doctors from another hotel and we also have a reunion of rose growers just budding. Is it for you and your little girl?

He looks kindly at Lolita.

HUMBERT      Her mother is ill. We are very tired.

POTTS      Mr. Swoon!

Swoon, another clerk, appears .

POTTS      What about Dr. Love, has he called?

SWOON      He has canceled his reservation.

POTTS      And what about the Bliss family?

SWOON      They are supposed to check out tonight.

POTTS      (to Humbert ) Well, I could give you 342. But it has one bed.

HUMBERT      Could you put in a cot perhaps?

POTTS      We have none available at the moment but the situation may improve later.

HUMBERT      Well, I’ll register.

POTTS      It’s really quite a large

(opens the book )

bed. The other night we had three doctors sleeping in it, and the middle one was a pretty broad

(offers the desk pen to Humbert
whose own pen has stalled )

gentleman.

Third-Floor Corridor

Uncle Tom, with bags and key, opens the door for Humbert and Lolita. There is some fussing with the key.

LOLITA      Oh, look! It’s the same number as our house. 342.

HUMBERT      Funny coincidence .

LOLITA      Yes. Very funny. You know

(laughing )

last night I dreamt mother got drowned in Ramsdale Lake.

HUMBERT      Oh.

CUT TO:

Room

There’s a double bed, a mirror, a double bed in the mirror, a closet door with mirror, a bathroom door ditto, a blue-dark window, a reflected bed there, the same in the closet mirror, two chairs, a glass-topped table, two bed tables, a double bed: a big panel bed, to be exact, with a Tuscan rose chenille spread, and two frilled, pink-shaded nightlamps, left and right.

Humbert tips old Tom one dollar, calls him back, and adds another. Exit Tom, gratefully grinning.

LOLITA      (her features working )
You mean we are both going to sleep here?

HUMBERT      I’ve asked them to give me a separate room or at least to put in a cot—for you or me, as you wish.

LOLITA      You are crazy.

HUMBERT      Why, my darling?

LOLITA      Because, my dahrling, when dahrling Mother finds out, she’ll divorce you and strangle me.

She stands slitting her eyes at herself contentedly in the closet door mirror. Humbert has sat down on the edge of a low chair, nervously rubbing his hands and leaning toward her pleased reflection.

HUMBERT      Now look here, Lo. Let’s settle this once for all. I’m your stepfather. In your mother’s absence I’m responsible for your welfare. We shall be a lot together. And since we are not rich, we won’t be able

(Gets up and hangs up his
raincoat, which however
slips off the hanger .)

to have always two rooms.

LOLITA      Okay. I want my comb.

Humbert tries to embrace her—casually, a bit of controlled tenderness before dinner.

LOLITA      Look, let’s cut out the kissing game and get something to eat.

He opens the suitcase with the articles he bought for her.

HUMBERT      By the way—here are some frocks and things I got for you at Parkington.

“Oh, what a dreamy pet! She walked up to the open suitcase as if stalking it from afar, at a kind of slow-motion walk, peering at that distant treasure box on the luggage support.” She raises by the armlets a garment, pulls out the slow snake of a brilliant belt, tries it on. “Then she crept into my waiting arms, radiant, relaxed, caressing me with her tender, mysterious, impure, indifferent twilight eyes—for all the world like the cheapest of cheap cuties. For that is what nymphets imitate—while we moan and die.” Their kiss is interrupted by a knock on the door. Old Tom enters with a vase of magnificent roses.

HUMBERT      Well! Where do these come from?

TOM      I don’t know.

HUMBERT      What do you mean—you don’t know? Is it the management?

TOM      I don’t know. I was given them at the flower counter. For Mister—

(Glances at the card .)

Mister Homberg and his little girl.

Exit Uncle Tom, with a quarter.

HUMBERT      (shrugging it off ) Seems that flower show had a surplus of roses. I detest flowers. And I also detest when my name is misspelt.

LOLITA      Oh, but they are gorgeous!

(The point is, of course, that the bouquet is from an old admirer of little Dolores, Clare Quilty, whom we shall glimpse presently.)

CUT TO:

Dining Room at the Enchanted Hunters

A pretentious mural depicts enchanted hunters in various postures and states of enchantment amid a medley of animals, dryads, cypresses, and porticoes.

LOLITA      (considering the mural ) What does it mean ?

HUMBERT      Oh, mythological scenes, modernized. Bad art, anyway.

LOLITA      What’s bad art?

HUMBERT      The work of a mediocre derivative artist. Look at that crummy unicorn. Or is it a centaur?

LOLITA      He’s not crummy. He’s wonderful.

Waitress brings food.

CUT TO:

End of Meal

Humbert produces a vial of sleeping pills, removes the stopper and tips the container into his palm. He claps a hand to his mouth and feigns swallowing.

LOLITA      Purple pills—what are they?

HUMBERT      Vitamin P. Purple seas and plums, and plumes of paradise birds. And peat bog orchids. And Priap’s orchard.

LOLITA      And double talk. Gimme one quick!

HUMBERT      Here.

Out of his fist the pill he had palmed is slipped into her gay cupped little hand.

LOLITA      (swallowing ) I bet it’s a love philter .

HUMBERT      Good gracious! What do you know about philters?

LOLITA      Just a movie I saw. Stan and Izzie . With Mark King. Oh, look who’s here.

A man in a loud sports jacket comes into the dining room and walks to a distant table. It is Quilty. He recognizes Mrs. Haze’s fascinating little girl but except for a glance of amused appraisal does not pay any attention to Humbert and her.

LOLITA      Doesn’t he look exactly, but exactly, like Quilty?

HUMBERT      (frightened ) What? Our fat dentist is here?

Lolita arrests the mouthful of water she has just taken and sets down her dancing glass.

LOLITA      (with a splutter of mirth ) ’Course not. I meant the writer fellow in the Drome ad.

HUMBERT      O Fame, O Femina.

WAITRESS      What would you like for dessert? We have ice cream—raspberry, chocolate, vanilla and let me see——

LOLITA      Chocolate and raspberry for me.

HUMBERT      And for me just a cup of coffee. And the check, please.

Lolita shakes her curls trying to dismiss somnolence .

HUMBERT      When did they make you get up at camp?

LOLITA      Half past

(She stifles a big yawn .)

six.

(yawn in full swell, shiver of all her frame )

Half past six.

(throat fills up again )

I went canoeing this morning, and after that——

WAITRESS      We did not have the raspberry after all.

DISSOLVE TO:

The Elevator

Enter Humbert and Lolita; three rose-growing ladies each looking like a rock garden; two old men; and the elevator girl. Humbert and Lolita face each other closely, then still more closely as others crowd in. The two men get out. Lolita somnolent and sly, pressed against Humbert, raises her eyes to him and laughs softly.

HUMBERT      What’s the matter?

LOLITA      Nothing.

The three smiling matrons get out. There is now sufficient room for H. and L. to stand apart.

OPERATOR      Watch your step, please.

CUT TO :

Corridor to Room 342

LOLITA      You ought to carry me as they do in cartoons. Oh, I’m so sleepy. Guess I’ll have to tell you how naughty Charlie and me have been.

CUT TO :

Room 342

LOLITA      This bed sleeps two.

HUMBERT      It’s yours.

LOLITA      Where is your room?

Yawning, she sits on the edge of the bed, removes her shoes and peels off one sock.

HUMBERT      I don’t know yet. Brush your teeth or whatever you’re supposed to do and go to bed.

(Opens her overnight case .)

Here are your things. I want you to be asleep when I come back. I’m going downstairs. Please, Lolita. No, that’s the closet. The bathroom is there.

LOLITA      Mirror, mirror——

She laughs drowsily and exits.

CUT TO:

Humbert Leaves the Room and Walks Downstairs

As he nears the lobby and turns a corner he is brushed by the shoulder of a lurching, elated man (Quilty) .

Humbert asks a bellboy the way to the bar.

BELLBOY      There is no bar.

HUMBERT      I wonder where that lush got his liquor.

BELLBOY      Oh, that’s Mr. Quilty, sir. And he would not want to be bothered. He comes here to write.

HUMBERT      I see. Can you direct me to the washroom.

BELLBOY      To your left and down.

CUT TO:

Humbert

emerging from the lavatory. A hearty old party, Dr. Braddock, on the way in, greets him.

DR. BRADDOCK      Well, how did you like Dr. Boyd’s speech? Oh, I’m sorry. I mistook you for Jack Bliss.

Humbert passes a group of women who are bound for the Rose Room. He consults his watch. He lingers for a moment in the lobby. Mr. Potts, noticing him but by him unnoticed, lifts a finger, then calls old Tom and gives him an order. Humbert consults his watch again and continues his restless loitering. He strolls out onto the dimly lit pillared porch. To one side in the darkness two or more people are sitting. We distinguish vaguely a very old man, and beyond him another person’s shoulder. It is from these shadows that a voice (Quilty’s) comes. It is preceded by the rasp of a screwing off, then a discrete gurgle, then the final note of a placid screwing on.

QUILTY’S VOICE      Where the devil did you get her ?

HUMBERT      I beg your pardon?

QUILTY’S VOICE      I said: the weather is getting better.

HUMBERT      Seems so.

QUILTY’S VOICE      Who’s the lassie?

HUMBERT      My daughter.

QUILTY’S VOICE      You lie—she’s not.

HUMBERT      I beg your pardon?

QUILTY’S VOICE      I said: July was hot. Where’s her mother?

HUMBERT      Dead.

QUILTY’S VOICE      I see. Sorry. By the way, why don’t you two lunch with me tomorrow. That dreadful crowd will be gone by then.

HUMBERT      We’ll be gone, too. Good night.

QUILTY’S VOICE      Sorry. I’m pretty drunk. Good night. That child of yours needs a lot of sleep. Sleep is a rose, as the Persians say. Smoke?

HUMBERT      Not now.

CUT TO:

Humbert Leaves the Porch

Sufficient time has elapsed. He tries not to display any hurry. As he makes his way through a constellation of fixed people in one corner of the lobby near the dining room, there comes a blinding flash, as beaming Dr. Braddock and some matrons are photographed.

DR. BRADDOCK      (pointing to part of the mural which continues around the corner ) And here the theme changes. The hunter thinks he has hypnotized the little nymph but it is she who puts him into a trance.

Humbert Walks up the Stairs

and turns in to the corridor. The door key with its large unwieldly hangpiece of polished wood is dangling from his hand. He takes off his coat. He stands for a moment immobile before door 342. It is a moment of wholesome hesitation. From the service elevator old Tom, the gray-haired Negro, hobbles out trundling a folded cot. Humbert turns guiltily.

TOM      342. I’ve brought you the cot, sir.

HUMBERT      Oh? Yes, yes, of course. But I’m afraid she is fast asleep. She has had a strenuous day.

TOM      That’s quite all right. We’ll put it in gently.

Humbert opens the door. Soft and slow, the rhythm of the young sleeper’s respiration is kept ajar for ten seconds.

HUMBERT      Please, very quietly. I don’t want the child to be disturbed.

Crablike, crippled old Tom unfolds the cot alongside the bed and shuffles out. Once out, he performs very slowly the act of closing a creaky door but at the last moment (the poor devil being somewhat spastic) he bangs it shut. Lolita does not wake up. Humbert (now in pajamas) tests and retests the security of her drugged sleep. He turns on the radio. She does not stir. A fist pounds on the wall. He shuts off the radio and touches her shoulder. Still she sleeps. That drug certainly works. He is about to take advantage of this safe sleep, but as the moon reaches her face, its innocent helpless fragile infantine beauty arrests him. He slinks back to his cot.

CUT TO:

Humbert Lying on His Cot supine, traversed by pale strips of moonlight coming through the slits in the blinds. Clouds engulf the moon.

“There is nothing louder than an American hotel; and, mind you, this was supposed to be a quiet, cozy, old-fashioned, homey place—‘gracious living’ and all that stuff. The clatter of the elevator’s gate—some twenty yards northeast of my head but as clearly perceived as if it were inside my left temple—alternated with the banging and booming of the machine’s various evolutions and lasted well beyond midnight. Every now and then, immediately east of my left ear, the corridor would brim with cheerful, resonant, and inept exclamations ending in a volley of good nights. When that stopped, a toilet immediately north of my cerebellum took over. It was a manly, energetic, deep-throated toilet, and it was used many times. Its gurgle and gush and long afterflow shook the wall behind me. Then someone in a southern direction was extravagantly sick, almost coughing out his life with his liquor, and his toilet descended like a veritable Niagara, immediately beyond our bathroom. And when finally all the waterfalls had stopped, and the enchanted hunters were sound asleep, the avenue under the window of my insomnia, to the west of my wake—a staid, eminently residential, dignified alley of huge trees—degenerated into the despicable haunt of gigantic trucks roaring through the wet and windy night. ”

In the first antemeridian hours there is a lull. The sky pales. A breeze sighs. A bird discreetly twitters. Lolita wakes up and yawns (a childish, cozy, warm yawn). Humbert feigns sleep.

LOLITA      (sitting up, looking at him ) What d’you know! I thought you got another room. Hey! Wake up!

Humbert gives a mediocre imitation of that process.

LOLITA      I never heard you come in. Oh, you’re handsome in bed, Hum. Is that cot comfortable?

HUMBERT      Awful.

LOLITA      Come and sit here. Shall we eat that fruit in the brown bag? You need a shave, pricklepuss.

HUMBERT      Good morning, Lolita.

LOLITA      My tan is much darker that yours. Say, I have a suggestion. Are you listening?

HUMBERT      Yes?

LOLITA      It’s something we did at the camp, Charlie and me. It’s fun.

HUMBERT      Yes?

LOLITA      Gosh, how your heart is thumping! Shouldn’t you see a doctor? You aren’t dying?

HUMBERT      I am dying of curiosity. What was that suggestion ?

LOLITA      It’s playing a game. A game we played in the woods—when we should have been picking berries. I did it strictly for kicks, but oh well, it was sort of fun. It’s a game lots of kids play nowadays. Kind of fad. Still don’t get it? You’re dense, aren’t you?

HUMBERT      I’m dying.

LOLITA      It’s—sure you can’t guess?

HUMBERT      I can’t.

LOLITA      It’s not tiddledywinks, and it’s not Russian roulette.

HUMBERT      I’m a poor guesser.

With a burst of rough glee she puts her mouth to his ear (could one reproduce this hot moist sound, the tickle and the buzz, the vibration, the thunder of her whisper?).

She draws back. Kneeling above recumbent Humbert (who is invisible except for a twitching toe), she contemplates him expectantly. Her humid lips and sly slit eyes seem to anticipate and prompt an assent.

HUMBERT’S VOICE      I don’t know what game you children played.

In an eager gesture, she brushes the hair off her forehead and applies herself again to his tingling ear.

HUMBERT’S VOICE      (faintly ) I never played that game.

LOLITA’S VOICE      Like me to show you ?

HUMBERT      If it’s not too dangerous. If it’s not too difficult. If it’s not too—Ah, mon Dieu!

CUT TO :

Various Rooms in the Enchanted Hunters

The CAMERA glides from room to room at dawn, with some of the guests still fast asleep. The purpose of these shots is to construct a series of situations contrasting with the atmosphere in Room 342. The movement of the CAMERA reveals the following scenes, all of very brief duration:

Room 13: Mr. Potts, the hotel clerk, old, chubby, and bald, is awakened by his alarm clock, which he knocks over in his fussy attempt to stop its ringing.

Room 180: Dr. and Mrs. Braddock—he snoring lustily; she is awakened by two pigeons on the window sill.

Room 423: The playwright Quilty, dead to the world, sprawls prone among the emblems of drunkenness.

Room 342: (balcony) Pigeons. Early sunlight effects. A truck rumbles by below. From the inside of the room comes the laughter of a child (Lolita!).

Room 344: The laughter of a child in the neighboring room rouses Dr. Boyd, who looks at his watch and smiles.

Room 442: A very large woman, Miss Beard, has risen and indulges in some ponderous exercises causing the flowers to shake in her small room.

Room 342: Lolita, sitting up in her tumbled bed, looks up at the loud ceiling. She is messily consuming a peach. A banana skin hangs from the edge of the bed table. The cot is empty. Humbert is in the bathroom, the door of which is ajar. The faucet whines.

Room 242: Mr. Rose is shaving in the bathroom. The faucet in the bathroom above whines. Mrs. Rose urges her daughter, a dark-haired child Lolita’s age, to get up.

Murals in the dining room: The hunters are still in a trance.

Corridor on third floor: Negro maids load a wagon with linen.

The morning grows in brightness and blare. The elevator is active. It is now around 9 A.M. One of the maids attempts to open the door of 342. Humbert’s nervous snarl from within.

CUT TO:

Room 342

Lolita combs her hair before the mirror.

HUMBERT’S VOICE      I love you. I adore you …

LOLITA      Oh, leave me alone now. We must get dressed.

HUMBERT’S VOICE      Lolita, Lolita, Lolita! Please, not yet. Oh, my darling. This is——

CUT TO:

Hotel Dining Room

DR. BRADDOCK      (pointing out details of mural to the Rose family ) This is paradise, or at least a pagan shadow of paradise. Note those ecstatic flowers and things sprouting everywhere. In this corner we have one of the enchanted hunters courting a young nymph. The coloration of the sky is dreamlike. I knew well Lewis Ruskin who painted this remarkable mural. He was a gentle soul, a melancholy drawing master who eventually became the head of a select girls’ school in Briceland. He developed a romantic attachment for one of his young charges and committed suicide when she left his school. She is now married to a missionary.

MRS. ROSE      How very sad. Don’t you just love those three maidens dancing around the sleeping hunter? And that shaggy animal with the mauve horn?

MRS. ROSE’ LITTLE DAUGHTER      Why has one of the girls a bandage on her leg?

CUT TO:

Lounge to Dining Room

Humbert, followed by Lolita, drifts in. She acquires a movie magazine which she reads throughout breakfast, and continues to read as they trail out, and reads it in the lounge while Humbert is paying the bill.

A VOICE      Hullo there, Lolita!

She looks around. There is no one. Humbert joins her. Old Tom carries out the bags.

CUT TO:

The Highway to Lepingsville

They drive in silence. A queer dullness has replaced Lolita’s cheerfulness .

HUMBERT      (attempting small talk ) My, my. I wonder what Mrs. Chatfield would say if she discovered the things her pretty Phyllis did with your filthy Charlie.

LOLITA      (making a weeping grimace ) Look, let us get off the subject.

Silence. Some landscape.

HUMBERT      Why are you fidgeting like that? What is the matter?

LOLITA      Nothing, you brute.

HUMBERT      You what?

She turns away.

They drive on in silence. “Cold spiders of panic crawled down my back. This was an orphan …”

CUT TO:

Receding Road

LOLITA      Oh, a squashed squirrel! What a shame.

HUMBERT      (hopefully ) Yes, isn’t it? The little animals are imprudent. You know, there should be——

LOLITA      Stop at the next gas station. I want to go to the washroom.

HUMBERT      Righto. Tummy-ache ?

LOLITA      (smiling sweetly at him ) You chump, you creep, you revolting character. I was a daisy-fresh girl and look what you’ve done to me. I ought to call the cops and tell them you raped me. Oh, you dirty, dirty old man!

Humbert frowns, sweats, glances at her askance.

LOLITA      (wincing and making a sizzling sound as she intakes through parted lips ) You hurt me. You’ve torn something inside.

CUT TO:

A Filling Station

She scrambles out and disappears. Slowly, lovingly, the old mechanic soaps and wipes the windshield, etc. Lolita reappears.

LOLITA      Look, give me some dimes and nickles. I want to call Mother at that hospital. What’s the number?

HUMBERT      Get in. You can’t call.

LOLITA      Why?

HUMBERT      Get in and slam the door.

The old garage man beams. They swing onto the highway.

LOLITA      Why can’t I call my mother if I want to?

HUMBERT      Because your mother is dead.

CUT TO :

Lepingsville—a Travel Agency on Main Street

A thick smear crayon traces across a map the itinerary which Humbert and Lolita will follow through three or four mountain states, to Beardsley, Idaho. Besides the folding map, they are given a strip map and a tour book.

CUT TO:

Humbert and Lolita Shopping in Lepingsville

The purchases are: a beribboned box of chocolates, comic books, toilet articles, a manicure set, a travel clock, a ring with a real topaz, field glasses, a portable radio, chewing gum, a transparent raincoat, various playsuits and summer frocks. She remains rather sullen throughout though some of the purchases do provoke a transient gleam in her gloom.

CUT TO:

A Forest Road at Nightfall

They have stopped by the side of the road.

HUMBERT      We must have taken the wrong turning. This is awful.

He gets the map and a torch light.

LOLITA      Give me that map.

HUMBERT      We should have turned left half an hour ago and taken 42 south, not north.

LOLITA      We? Leave me out of it.

HUMBERT      (over her shoulder ) I am sure we’ll find some place to stop, if we just drive on .

He nuzzles her tentatively.

LOLITA      (flinching ) Leave me alone. I despise you. You deceived me about Mother. You took advantage of me.

CUT TO:

We see the Car moving on

This is the first, rather ominous, lap in their trip. Things will pick up, however—and then degenerate again.

It is assumed that Humbert and Lolita are traversing by car a distance of some three thousand miles, including side trips, from Lepingsville (which is anywhere between Massachusetts and Minnesota) westward through several mountain states to Beardsley, a college town in Idaho. Their journey is a leisurely, sightseeing tour, so that it takes them not less than two or three weeks to reach, in mid-September, their destination. All along their route there is an evolution of the motel theme, illustrated by six examples beginning with the modest log cabin (Acme Cabins), through cottages in a row (Baskerville Cottages), garage-connected units (Crest Court), fused units (Dymple Manor), and the patio-and-pool type (Eden Lodge), to the fancy two-story affair (Foxcreek Ranch), a gradation which, if pursued further, would lead us back to the country hotel. There is also a (shorter) series of eating places, from the breakfast counter of the Truckers Welcome, through the coffee-shop type, to the more or less smart restaurant.

While the accommodations improve, and their pretentions climb, Lolita’s attitude takes an opposite, downward, course, starting with a forlorn semblance of affection and passing through a gamut of deterioration, to end in the wretchedness of their last night before reaching Beardsley .

We have now put up at The Humble Log Cabin, where Humbert and Lolita will conclude a pathetic pact—soon to be broken.

CUT TO:

Acme Cabins—a Modest Cabin, One of Five, Higgledy-piggledy in a Pine Forest

None has a bath. The separate privy is garlanded with wild roses. A brisk, buxom, unkempt woman shows our tired travelers the wood-burning stove and the two dissimilar beds, separable by a curtain on rings. There is a Bible on the chest of drawers. A fly buzzes drowsily. Above Humbert’s bed there is the picture of a girl garlanded with wild roses.

Humbert, in his curtained-off section, sits on the bed with his face between his fists in mournful meditation. Presently, he puts out the light and lies down; silence. The moon rises, a disturbed fly buzzes and is still again. Humbert lies in the mottled dark with eyes open, his arms under his nape.

A child sob sounds and is followed by more. He sits up, listening. The curtain is drawn aside.

Lolita with tears streaming down her face, her nightgown white and infantine in the moonlight, comes to be comforted. He gently caresses her hair, as she weeps on his shoulder.

HUMBERT      I beseech you not to cry. I love you. I cannot exist without you. Everything will be all right.

LOLITA      (with a snuffle and a wail ) Nothing will ever be all right.

HUMBERT      I’m sure we are going to be very happy, you and I .

LOLITA      But everything has changed , all of a sudden. Everything was so—oh, I don’t know—normal: the camp, and the lake, and Charlie, and the girls, and the—oh, everything. And now there is no camp, and no Ramsdale, nothing!

There is the patter of some little night beast on the roof.

HUMBERT      I don’t want you to cry. We’ll see things, we’ll go places.

LOLITA      There’s no place to go back to.

HUMBERT      We’ll find a new home.

LOLITA      But there’s no old one. And I’ve left all my things there.

HUMBERT      What, for instance?

LOLITA      My roller skates, my—oh, lots of things.

HUMBERT      You silly darling, why didn’t you tell me in Lepingsville?

LOLITA      (tearfully ) I forgot.

HUMBERT      We’ll get every blessed thing you want. It’s over two thousand miles to Beardsley but we’ve got a month before the fall term begins. We can dawdle as much as you want.

LOLITA      But what next? Oh, where is that handkerchief?

HUMBERT      Next you’ll go to school in Beardsley, and have a wonderful time there. I love you. I’m also going to cry if you don’t stop. Remember, I’ll die if you ever leave me.

LOLITA      Leave you? You know perfectly well I have nowhere to go.

CUT TO:

Baskerville Cottages

Ten white-washed cottages in a row, with a vast well-kept lawn in front, separating them from the highway.

Lolita and Humbert in a Leafy Spot not far from their cottage. Humbert with a book on the grass. Lolita in an old garden swing, swinging gently.

HUMBERT      You have been a very sweet child so far. It would be a pity to break the precious rhythm we have now established. I suggest we spend another night here, in this fairy-tale cabin. We shall ramble and read. Do you know, these notes on Edgar Poe that I have prepared for Beardsley College always remind me of Ramsdale and the first time I touched you. Come here, sit down beside me. I’ll read you my favorite poem.

LOLITA      (in the swing, just behind him ) I want to sit here.

HUMBERT      All right, but don’t make it creak. I want you to follow very closely the intonation, the inner construction of these lines.

It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year

Marvelous emphasis on “immemorial.” Makes you step up from one dim rim to a dimmer one .

It was hard by the dim lake of Auber ,
In the misty mid region of Weir

Notice how nicely the “dim” is read back and becomes “mid”—“misty mid region”?

(The swing creaks .)

HUMBERT      Darling, please don’t do that. I skip a few stanzas. Now listen again:

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her
And tempted her out of her gloom …
And we passed to the end of the vista ,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb
 … And I said: “What is written, sweet sister? …
She replied: Ulalume, Ulalume!

LOLITA      I think that’s rather corny.

HUMBERT      Really? What exactly do you object to?

LOLITA      Vista-sister. That’s like Lolita-sweeter.

HUMBERT      Oh, that’s true. A very fine observation.

(A more or less tame rabbit stops, nibbles, lopes on.)

HUMBERT      In my class you’d get an A-plus and a kiss. But what I’m really driving at is that there is a certain intonation in this poem which is so much more original and mysterious than the rather trivial romanticism of Annabel Lee. (He turns his head and notices the swing is empty .)

HUMBERT      (getting up to his feet ) Lolita!

(She has disappeared )

HUMBERT      Lolita, where are you hiding?

He looks for her among the trees and shrubs. He is in a state of distress and distraction hardly warranted by the circumstances. (She has wandered away in dim-smiling, stooping pursuit of the soft elusive rabbit)

HUMBERT      (emerging from a thicket ) Lolita!

She is crouching behind the circumspect bunny. A very low-class young couple with an unattractive baby are on the back porch of a cabin. They talk to Lolita. The young man is not unlike (and should be played by the same actor as) Lolita’s future husband.

THE YOUNG MAN      I guess he doesn’t want to be caught.

Humbert, excited and angry, appears on the scence.

HUMBERT      Will you please come at once. I’ve been calling you for hours. This is preposterous.

(Does not quite know what he is saying .)

Lolita turns and walks back to their cabin, followed by Humbert and the CAMERA . She stops near their parked car, and jiggles the door handle.

LOLITA      Unlock, please.

HUMBERT      Darling, you must forgive me.

LOLITA      You’ve insulted me in front of those people.

HUMBERT      I lost my head. I was reading a poem. I got the nightmare notion that you had disappeared for good —that perhaps you never existed. Don’t be mad at me, my love. I’ll unlock if you like, but don’t be mad. Your mother once told me that when you were quite small and wanted to sulk, you’d get into the family car all alone.

LOLITA      I don’t care. You can’t do this to me.

HUMBERT      I know, I know. I’m asking your pardon. It won’t happen again. I’m a fool. I thought you were gone.

LOLITA      I’ve nowhere to go.

CUT TO:

Breakfast Counter in a Diner Called TRUCKERS WELCOME

A very plain place with a deer head and adman’s visions of celestial sundaes on the wall. At the counter, Lolita has Humbert on her right and a tremendous trucker with hairy forearms on her left. The trucker and Lolita wear identical clothes: dungarees and T-shirts. The man is messily finishing his meal. Humbert and Lolita are waiting for theirs.

CUT TO:

Lolita, Humbert, Driving on

The road is bordered by hilly farmlands and then winds through sparsely settled country interspersed with pine groves.

CUT TO:

Crest Court —a semicircle of stucco units connected by narrow garages

The lawn in front is shaded by ample maples. Inside, two identical pictures (stylized dahlias) hang over the twin beds. The hideous drone of an air-conditioning apparatus provides a constant sonic background.

CUT TO:

Long Shot—Humbert and Lolita Arriving

It is the ordinary procedure. They both get out of the car in front of the office. The woman who runs the motel cries out, “I’ll be with you in a moment,” as she hurriedly escorts some other people back to the office from the room they have seen. It is now Humbert’s and Lolita’s turn. They follow the sidewalk in the wake of the bustling woman. She shows them the room. Humbert nods his head. Listless, Lolita drops into a low chair. Humbert follows the woman back to the office and registers there.

HUMBERT      Where can I get some soft drinks round here?

THE WOMAN      It’s just one block down the road.

Humbert walks out to follow her directions but then thinks better of it and returns to the room, where Lolita is sprawling in the chair with a magazine.

HUMBERT      We’ll be going out in five minutes for a bite. Do lay aside that old magazine and come talk to me.

Lolita scans magazine without replying.

HUMBERT      Do you hear me, darling? I want a little chat with you, mon petit chat . Please .

LOLITA      If you give me a dime. From now on I am coin operated.

She continues to read.

Humbert, who has taken off his shirt, notices the approach of the motel woman and steps into the bathroom. The woman enters bringing a jug of ice cubes.

THE WOMAN      There. You can have a nice cold drink, dearie. Long way from home?

LOLITA      Home? Yes, I guess so. Very long way.

WOMAN      Must be fun to travel all alone with your daddy?

LOLITA      Oh, I dunno——

WOMAN      Depends on what you call fun?

LOLITA      Uh-huh.

WOMAN      Left your mama up at the farm?

LOLITA      Uhn-uhn. We don’t have a farm.

WOMAN      Get along with your daddy?

LOLITA      Yah.

WOMAN      You don’t talk the way he does. I mean, he talks foreign, and you don’t.

LOLITA      Oh, well—I went to school in this country .

WOMAN      And he didn’t? Is he French Canadian?

LOLITA      Sort of.

WOMAN      Look, there’s a Canadian couple living across the road. Maybe you’d like to talk to them?

LOLITA      Why?

HUMBERT      (from the threshold of the bathroom ) Yes—why indeed?

WOMAN      Oh, I thought you had gone out for a drink.

HUMBERT      By the way, can you stop that ventilator, or whatever you call it? I can’t stand that whirr.

CUT TO:

Another Stretch of Road

For the first time sagebrush and juniper appear. There is some uncertainty whether it is a bank of clouds or a range of mountains that have started looming just above the horizon. By the side of the road, a granite obelisk commemorates a bloody battle—the defeat of Blue Bull.

A Crowded Coffee Shop

A hard-working harried young waitress is doing her best to satisfy too many customers.

LOLITA      (to Humbert ) Give me a coin for the juke box. Oh, they have my song.

She starts the juke box. The following song is produced :

Lolita, Lolita, Lolita!
For ever tonight we must part:
Because separation is sweeter
Than clasping a ghost to one’s heart.

Because it’s a maddening summer,
Because the whole night is in bloom,
Because you’re in love with a strummer
Who brings his guitar to your room.

You know he’s a clown and a cheater,
You know I am tender and true—
But he is now singing, Lolita,
The songs I’ve been making for you!

CUT TO:

The Route now offers spectacular scenery

as it snakes up a gigantic mountainside. At the top of the pass, tourists take pictures and feed the marmots. In the next valley we inspect the collection of frontier lore in a Ghost Town museum. We have a little trouble when the car stalls on a steep incline but some kind youths help. The radiator grill is plastered with dead butterflies.

CUT TO:

A Dirt Road in a Canyon

Humbert pulls up at the bloomy and lush wayside.

HUMBERT      I should not have attempted to take a short cut. We’re lost.

LOLITA      Ask that nut with the net over there .

The Butterfly Hunter. His name is Vladimir Nabokov. A fritillary settles with outspread wings on a tall flower. Nabokov snaps it up with a sweep of his net. Humbert walks toward him. With a nip of finger and thumb through a fold of the marquisette Nabokov dispatches his capture and works the dead insect out of the netbag onto the palm of his hand.

HUMBERT      Is that a rare specimen?

NABOKOV      A specimen cannot be common or rare, it can only be poor or perfect.

HUMBERT      Could you direct me——

NABOKOV      You meant “rare species.” This is a good specimen of a rather scarce subspecies.

HUMBERT      I see. Could you please tell me if this road leads to Dympleton?

NABOKOV      I haven’t the vaguest idea. I saw some loggers (pointing ) up there. They might know.

CUT TO:

Dymple Manor—twenty units firmly fused together in a Row The screen doors never cease banging as people come in and out, and the only way to confound one’s neighbor’s canned music is to start one’s own full blast. Sprinklers irrigate the parched-looking lawn and its border of trembling petunias. In the adjacent lot a bulldozer is at work, and another motel is rising.

LOLITA      Give me a quarter for the TV .

HUMBERT      It’s free, my pet, in this, as they say, joint.

A notice under glass says PETS ACCEPTED .

LOLITA      I need a quarter anyway.

HUMBERT      My pet must earn it.

CUT TO:

The Television Screen

A commercial is melting:

A FRUITY VOICE …      soft, soft as the bloom on a peach.

SUPREMELY HAPPY ANNOUNCER      And now we return to Act One of The Nymphet

LOLITA’S VOICE      Oh, I saw it at home last winter. It’s good.

On the TV screen, an art collector is seen examining a miniature statue: a tiny bronze nude.

HIS SUBDUED NARRATIONAL VOICE      I had bought it on a hunch; but now, as I stroked each curve, I knew it was a unique masterpiece.

CLOSE-UP      of the statuette, which is called “Playing Hooky.” A teen-age girl is about to take a dip, her dress and school books are lying at the foot of a gnarled willow.

NARRATIVE UNDERVOICE CONTINUES      I knew that the artist who made it was traveling in a distant country with his young wife. A strange urge possessed me. Next day I was flying over the jungle.

HUMBERT’S VOICE      Must we look at this trash?

LOLITA’S VOICE      It’s not trash. It will get quite exciting. He finds the girl and he shoots her.

CUT TO:

High Altitude

We stop at Sapphire Lake. Snow banks and wild flowers. Two boys from another car engage Lolita in a snowball fight. Humbert, who has incongruously put on rubbers, slips on an icy patch and ignominiously lands on his back. Lolita and the boys laugh at his discomfiture. A scenic drive takes our travelers to the Pueblo dwellings. A rodeo is advertised in the next town.

CUT TO:

Eden Lodge

We are now in the patio-and-pool belt. The arrangement of fused whitewashed units brackets a square of green grounds with a heated swimming pool in the middle. The rooms are smarter and more expensive than at Crest or Dymple; unfortunately, a tented roller-skate rink on the opposite side of the road impairs Eden’s elegancy with a sustained blare of rowdy music.

In the Room

LOLITA      (reading a notice ) Children free. Goody-goody.

HUMBERT      (laughing tenderly ) No quarter tonight, free child .

LOLITA      That’s what you think. From now on this child is paid half a dollar.

HUMBERT      My Persian peach.

LOLITA      And moreover—moreover you must promise you’ll let me go roller-skating—no, wait a sec—it’s not only that, but you must promise you’ll not supervise me—I mean, you may wait outside, or at the chuck wagon, but the inside is reserved for teen-agers. See?

HUMBERT      My carissa, my liquidambar, my early delicious.

CUT TO:

Swimming Pool

At poolside Lolita (satin pants, shirred bra) and two other nymphets (one dark, with a striped ball in her scanty lap, the other fair, with a long scar on her leg) recline. A lad of their age, in bathing trunks, sits on the cement brink, paying not the slightest attention to the three maidens.

FAIR      (in response to Lolita’s index finger ) Rock climbing in Pink Pillar Park. Skinned my fanny too. That’s a cute bracelet you’ve got.

LOLITA      Thank you.

DARK      You can’t be Spanish, Lolita?

LOLITA      (smile, shrug )

FAIR      (to DARK) Are your folks like mine—playing cards all day ?

DARK      My father is an admiral, and my mother’s an actress.

FAIR      Good for you. (pause ) That character there (pointing with her bare toe at owlish Humbert, who at some distance beyond the pool is sitting in a shadow-dappled garden chair ), I know why he wears sunglasses.

(Dark girl and Lolita exchange a glance, and both laugh.)

DARK      It’s her dad, bright kid.

FAIR      I’m sorry.

All three wince as the lad dives, splashing them.

FAIR      And who’s the nitwit?

DARK      He belongs to this motor court.

Humbert, in the dappled distance, raises his hand beckoning Lolita. She makes a grimace of resignation, and leaves the poolside.

DARK      (to Fair ) I bet her folks are divorced.

FAIR      (to Dark ) Yah. She looks like one of those mixed-up kids you see on TV.

CUT TO:

Poolside

HUMBERT      (closing his book ) I see from this point of vantage they have finished cleaning up our room. I therefore suggest we retire for a brief siesta, my love .

LOLITA      I want a hamburger first.

HUMBERT      And then a humburger.

LOLITA      Those two bitch girls are watching us.

HUMBERT      A propos: I don’t mind your playing with girls of your age. In fact, I rather welcome it if I can be present. You may exchange wisecracks with them to your heart’s content. But I must repeat: be careful.

LOLITA      Telling me what to say—huh?

HUMBERT      Telling you what not to say.

CUT TO:

The Motel Room

HUMBERT      Now let me rub this in. I may well be a middle-aged morals offender, d’accord , but you are a minor female who has impaired the morals of an adult in a respectable inn. I go to jail—d’accord . But what happens to you, neglected incorrigible orphan? Let me tell you: a nice grim matron takes away your fancy clothes, your lipsticks, your life. For me, it is jail. But for you, little waif, it is the correctional school, the bleak reformatory, the juvenile detention home where you knit things, and sing hymns, and have rancid pancakes on Sundays. Oh, horrible! My poor wayward girl (come, give me a kiss) should realize, I think, that under the circumstances she’d better be very careful, and not talk to strangers too freely. What were you giggling about with those two girls?

CUT TO :

A Roadside Sign: PINK PILLAR NATIONAL MONUMENT . Another sign further on: SADDLE HORSES. PERSONALIZED TOURS .

DISSOLVE TO:

A Slow Cavalcade of Tourists

weaving along a bridle trail, topped by digitate and phallic cliffs. Lolita is bobbing at a walking pace immediately behind the leader, a lanky ranger who keeps turning to her and kidding the cocky lass. A fat dude rancher in a flowery shirt rides behind her, then come two small boys, then a Mrs. Hopson, and then Humbert.

Edda Hopson (her name is on her back) takes advantage of a widening in the path to fall back and engage reluctant Humbert in polite conversation (oh, shade of Charlotte!).

MRS. HOPSON      What a lovely child you’ve got! I kept admiring her last night in the lounge. Those cheekbones! That virgin bloom on her arms and legs! I’m a bit of an artist, and in fact have exposed. Keep her pure! I do hope she has a good heart. I used to hurt my parents as a savage hurts dumb animals. Is she kind to you? Does she love you?

HUMBERT      No.

MRS. HOPSON      Ah, teen-agers are dreadfully cruel. And such a little beauty! A word of advice: don’t let that redhaired brute of a ranger tease her the way he is doing. I rode with him alone once, and he exhibited his—well, emotion most shamelessly. I must say I thought it rather thick: knowing I was a divorcee and taking advantage.

CUT TO :

A Fairly Good Restaurant

Tablecloths and napkins. Waiters. A three-man orchestra.
Lolita and Humbert sit at a table in shaded light.

LOLITA      (to Humbert ) What’s a roast caponette?

HUMBERT      Chicken.

LOLITA      No. I’ll have the charcoal-broiled filet mignon.

The orchestra plays “Lolita, Lolita, Lolita.” Humbert has ordered half a bottle of wine.

LOLITA      Give me some.

HUMBERT      If nobody’s looking. Well, here’s to your health, my life and my bride.

LOLITA      Okay, okay.

HUMBERT      I’m so anxious to make you happy. Just don’t know what to suggest. I’m rather awkward and sometimes a brute. But I adore every inch of you. I’d like to kiss your kidneys and fondle your liver. Tell me, what shall we do tomorrow? Let’s stay here a couple of days longer and take in Phantom Lake and perhaps hire a boat there. Would you like that?

LOLITA      A boat? What do you know about boats?

HUMBERT      Why are you laughing?

LOLITA      I just remembered. One day we went in the rowboat, Phyl, Agnes, and me, and we found a cove, and went for a swim, and Charlie came out of the wood just like that. And of course he was not supposed to go swimming with us, and Phyllis said——

THE WAITER      Would the young lady like some more milk?

LOLITA      Yes, I guess so.

HUMBERT      So what did Phyllis say?

LOLITA      Nothing.

HUMBERT      I had hoped I was getting another racy account of your camp activities.

LOLITA      No, that’s all.

Three days are spent in this region, and some side trips are made. Humbert photographs Lolita among the rocks of the Devil’s Paint Box—hot springs, baby geysers, bubbling mud, pouting puddles. Another trip takes them to Christmas Tree Cavern, a deep damp place where Humbert shivers and is rude to the guide. A long drive toward a disappointing objective—the display of a local lady’s home-made sculptures—does not improve Lolita’s mood. She feigns gagging. They traverse an incredibly barren and boring desert. Timbered hills rise again.

CUT TO:

Foxcreek Ranch

This is the last and most pretentious motel of the series, a two-story affair, very fancy and ugly, in the heart of the train and truck traffic. The office is brightly illumined. The time is rather late at night .

THE MANAGER      Well, all I have left is this one room with a double bed.

Lolita is examining some Indian souvenirs on the counter.

LOLITA      (to Humbert, who is about to register ) I want this money purse.

HUMBERT      Wait a moment, my dear.

LOLITA      I want this purse.

HUMBERT      Mais c’est si laid .

LOLITA      Si laid or not si laid —I want it.

HUMBERT      All right, all right.

MANAGER      (giving Humbert his change ) Fifteen, and—let me see—three ninety-five for this. One silver dollar and one new nickel. Would the young lady like her monogram upon it?

LOLITA      Yes. It’s D.H.

MANAGER      Aha. Very well. Whew did my old dad put those initials? Dad! Oh, here they are.

LOLITA      D.H. Dolores Haze.

Humbert has started to write his name on a register slip. He has got as far as “Humbert Hu.” With great presence of mind he changes “u” to “a,” and adds “ze.”

MANAGER      Ask your dad for that dollar, Dolores. That’s a tongue twister—dollar doll—isn’t it ?

CUT TO:

Front of Hacienda

The manager shows Humbert where to park.

CUT TO:

Room

Wall-to-wall carpeting and floor-to-ceiling picture windows; dressing alcove; ceramic-tiled bath; trucks and trains accompany the dialogue.

HUMBERT      That “Haze” was a bad slip of your adorable little tongue. While we put up at hotels, you are—remember—Dolores Humbert. Let’s keep “Haze” for the reformatory.

LOLITA      Meaning that school at Beardsley?

HUMBERT      You’re going to an extremely good private school at Beardsley. But one hot whisper to a girl friend, one stupid boast, may send me to jail and you to a juvenile detention home.

LOLITA      By the way, you said “private.” Is it a girls’ school?

HUMBERT      Yes.

LOLITA      Then I’m not going there. I want to go to an ordinary public school.

HUMBERT      Let’s not fight and argue tonight. I’m fagged out. We have to start quite early tomorrow. Please, Dolly Humbert .

LOLITA      I loathe your name. It’s a clown’s name: Humlet Hambert. Omelette Hamburg.

HUMBERT      Or plain “Hamlet.” I daresay, you hate me even more than my name. Oh, Lolita, if you knew what you are doing to me. Some day you’ll regret.

LOLITA      That’s right. Just go clowning on and on.

HUMBERT      Well, let’s struggle with these blinds. The war with Venice. I can’t do anything with these slats and slits.

LOLITA      I’m not listening to you, you know.

HUMBERT      Pity. This is our last night on the road. I wonder what kind of house the Beardsley people have prepared for us. I hope it’s brick and ivy.

LOLITA      I could not care less.

HUMBERT      But don’t you think it has been an enchanting journey? Tell me, what did you like best of all? I think, yesterday’s canyon, eh? I think I’ve never seen such iridescent rocks.

LOLITA      I think iridescent rocks stink.

HUMBERT      (affecting a good-natured laugh ) Have it your way.

She takes off her shoes. Her movements are slumber-slow.

LOLITA      I’m thirsty .

HUMBERT      There’s ice in this jug.

Tinkle.

LOLITA      (hazily ) I want a soda.

HUMBERT      Shall I bring you one from the Coke dispenser?

LOLITA      (yawns and nods )

HUMBERT      Grape? Cherry?

LOLITA      Cherry. No, make it grape.

She yawns.

CUT TO:

Spacious Patio, Neon-flooded Solitude

Humbert walks to the vending machine which is outside the motel office. Dime. Bottle. Repeat performance. He opens both bottles on the cap-bite.

AN OLD MAN’S VOICE      The missus thirsty?

It is the deaf old father of the hotel manager sitting and smoking in the shadows.

HUMBERT      I beg your pardon?

OLD MAN      Women sure get thirsty.

HUMBERT      It’s my daughter. …

OLD MAN      What’s that?

HUMBERT…      who wants a drink.

OLD MAN      No, thank you, very kind of you.

HUMBERT      (after a moment’s hesitation ) Well, good night.

OLD MAN      My wife was also like that—but her drink was beer.

Chuckles, mumbles, expectorates in the dark.

CUT TO:

Humbert

walking back to his door with the two bottles. He reaches the door. He has not got the key. As he frees his hand to knock, the telephone rings somewhere in an adjacent room and for a moment the shadow of a past combination of memorable details is imposed upon the present (“… better come quick …”) Humbert taps gently on the door. No answer.

HUMBERT      (not too loud ) Lolita!

No answer. He taps again, then peers through the slits of the Venetian blind. A blurry light is on in the room. Lolita, half undressed, lies supine on the bed, fast asleep.

It is hopeless. Humbert is disinclined to get the manager to come and unlock: the nymphet’s sleep is not that of an acceptable child .

CUT TO:

Humbert

mouth open, asleep in the car. It is dawn. From one of the motel rooms there gradually emerges a big family—sleepy children, portable icebox, accepted pet, crib—and fills a big station wagon which has the stickers of various resorts and natural marvels affixed to it: a summary also of Humbert’s honeymoon. One of the children turns on the radio.