''Vladimir Nabokov's Comic Quest for Reality' - Nottingham eTheses

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nearer to Lo, he does not dare to for fear that she
might "explode in screams". His physical discomfort
is intensified by a fit of heartburn and by the fact
that Lolita has left him only a "narrow margin of
bed" and has appropriated "an unfair amount of pillow";
he snatches his back when she has a drink of water
in the night. The "quiet, cosy, old-fashioned" hotel
fairly explodes in all sorts of noises which attack
Humbert's tense and tender nerves from all sides:
the elevator's gate clatters and the elevator bangs
and booms; trucks roar past; toilets gurgle and cascade;
someone in a neighbouring room is "extravagantly
sick". In the end, poor Humbert, exhausted by his
long unpleasant and frustrating vigil, and although
he is intensely aware of Lolita's bare shoulders and
her "nebulous haunch" only a few inches from him, is
affected by "a breeze from wonderland"; and quite
inappropriately and very comically (after all he is
the passionate lover in bed with his "bride" for the
first time) he catches himself "drifting into a melancholy
snore". And just as comically for someone in
his situation, he finds himself in such a state of
perplexity in the morning that he simply admits in
retrospect, "I did not know what to do" and tries
to save his dignity by feigning "handsome profiled
sleep" (127-131). It is here that Lolita takes over
and assumes Humbert's role as seducer, surprisingly
and shamelessly knowledgeable. It was said above
that this reversal of roles is in itself comic, and
there is also something incongruous and comic in