96 Interview with Rosalie Macrae for the Daily Express (1961)*

Ah, my American Lolitas. I do not find you here, my Lolita. You do not come to this Côte d’Azur. You here, you are post-Lolitas. You are Bardotists, not Lolitas. You are too aware. For you, Americana and Lolitaism is a cult. You are not the Lolitas I invented.

I never really knew any Lolitas, did I, darling? I do not think I have ever even talked to a schoolgirl of 12. I have a son of 26, and all my friends have sons. But I was aware that they were around.

And I know motels. I have always lived in them. We have never really had a home of our own.

In my book the American girls of ce genre met me more than halfway. Now Lolitas are everywhere. Look at St. Tropez: every girl tries to look like Lolita, my Lolita, but somehow never succeeds.

And yet there is something about the Riviera. Perhaps it comes from being here when I was a little Russian boy on holiday from St. Petersburg and looking at the fat chocolate-cream Riviera trains deluxe passing by.

Perhaps I come here because of the butterflies. I discovered a new butterfly here in 1939 up on the hills, and I still go out hoping to find a new one. But the butterflies now in this region are all friends. I remember I wrote a poem about discovering this butterfly.

Yes, it might be the butterflies, or the beautiful sea, or the fact that French is spoken here, and ça j’adore, and the changing tropical vegetation.

And it might be renting an apartment like this in a hideous yellow birthday cake Victorian villa which now looks beautiful beside the shelfed, white modern flats.

Here I am at ease. But mine is a different Côte d’Azur. I shun the world. I hate restaurants and cafés. When I eat, I go to the big hotel along the road. It is quiet, dignified, and somehow splendid.

I have come down here this time to write—about a man who composes 999 lines of a poem and dies before he reaches the thousandth line. It is after his death, a friend tries to analyze the poem, and involves his own life in doing so.

I allow myself no rest. And when I do try to give myself relaxing time the muse is fighting to get me started again.

I always write in English now. To write in Russian again would be like playing ordinary hockey after ice hockey. I need that American twang for experience.

When I knew you were coming I decided not to shave my head. I will probably do it tomorrow.

It is such a nice sensation. Look at my special bald-headed cap made of white linen.

I am never really happy without a head covering. In bed I always wear a nightcap.

The other day my son Dmitri—he is an opera singer, a wonderful basso profundo baritone—was setting off for winter sports and left his ski cap on the bed. The maid saw the cap, thought he was another of the mad Nabokovs, and shoved it under his pillow. The poor boy had to go skiing without it.