A simple child, Lo would scream no! and frantically clutch at my driving hand whenever I put a stop to her tornadoes of temper by turning in the middle of a highway with the implication that I was about to take her straight to that dark and dismal abode. The farther, however, we travelled away from it west, the less tangible that menace became, and I had to adopt other methods of persuasion.
Among these, the reformatory threat is the one I recall with the deepest moan of shame. From the very beginning of our concourse, I was clever enough to realize that I must secure her complete co-operation in keeping our relations secret, that it should become a second nature with her, no matter what grudge she might bear me, no matter what other pleasures she might seek.
Come and kiss your old man, I would say, and drop that moody nonsense. In former times, when I was still your dream male [the reader will notice what pains I took to speak Los tongue], you swooned to records of the number one throb-and-sob idol of your coevals [Lo: Of my what? Speak English]. That idol of your pals sounded, you thought, like friend Humbert. But now, I am just your old man, a dream dad protecting his dream daughter.
My chère Dolorès! I want to protect you, dear, from all the horrors that happen to little girls in coal sheds and alley ways, and, alas, comme vous le savez trop bien, ma gentille[143], in the blueberry woods during the bluest of summers. Through thick and thin[144] I will still stay your guardian, and if you are good, I hope a court may legalize that guardianship before long. Let us, however, forget, Dolores Haze, so-called legal terminology, terminology that accepts as rational the term lewd and lascivious cohabitation. I am not a criminal sexual psychopath taking indecent liberties with a child. The rapist was Charlie Holmes; I am the therapist a matter of nice spacing in the way of distinction. I am your daddum, Lo. Look, Ive a learned book here about young girls. Look, darling, what it says. I quote: the normal girl normal, mark you the normal girl is usually extremely anxious to please her father. She feels in him the forerunner of the desired elusive male (elusive is good, by Polonius!). The wise mother (and your poor mother would have been wise, had she lived) will encourage a companionship between father and daughter, realizing excuse the corny style that the girl forms her ideals of romance and of men from her association with her father. Now, what association does this cheery book mean and recommend? I quote again: Among Sicilians sexual relations between a father and his daughter are accepted as a matter of course, and the girl who participates in such relationship is not looked upon with disapproval by the society of which she is part. Im a great admirer of Sicilians, fine athletes, fine musicians, fine upright people, Lo, and great lovers. But lets not digress. Only the other day we read in the newspapers some bunkum about a middle-aged morals offender who pleaded guilty to the violation of the Mann Act[145] and to transporting a nine-year-old girl across state lines for immoral purposes, whatever these are. Dolores, darling! You are not nine but almost thirteen, and I would not advise you to consider yourself my cross-country slave, and I deplore the Mann Act as lending itself to a dreadful pun, the revenge that the Gods of Semantics take against tight-zippered Philistines. I am your father, and I am speaking English, and I love you.
Finally, let us see what happens if you, a minor, accused of having impaired the morals of an adult in a respectable inn, what happens if you complain to the police of my having kidnapped and raped you? Let us suppose they believe you. A minor female, who allows a person over twenty-one to know her carnally, involves her victim into statutory rape, or second-degree sodomy, depending on the technique; and the maximum penalty is ten years. So I go to jail. Okay. I go to jail. But what happens to you, my orphan? Well, you are luckier. You become the ward of the Department of Public Welfare which I am afraid sounds a little bleak. A nice grim matron of the Miss Phalen type, but more rigid and not a drinking woman, will take away your lipstick and fancy clothes. No more gadding about! I dont know if you have ever heard of the laws relating to dependent, neglected, incorrigible and delinquent children. While I stand gripping the bars, you, happy neglected child, will be given a choice of various dwelling places, all more or less the same, the correctional school, the reformatory, the juvenile detention home, or one of those admirable girls protectories where you knit things, and sing hymns, and have rancid pancakes on Sundays. You will go there, Lolita my Lolita, this Lolita will leave her Catullus and go there, as the wayward girl you are. In plainer words, if we two are found out, you will be analysed and institutionalized, my pet, cest tout[146]. You will dwell, my Lolita will dwell (come here, my brown flower) with thirty-nine other dopes in a dirty dormitory (no, allow me, please) under the supervision of hideous matrons. This is the situation, this is the choice. Dont you think that under the circumstances Dolores Haze had better stick to her old man?