Many years after their affair comes to an end, Humbert describes with rapture and sentimentality his years with Lolita, including their first evening alone at an inn. This event is the turning point in his relationship with Lolita – when they become lovers – yet Humbert looks back with remorse on that fateful night: “And my only regret today is that I did not quietly deposit key “342” at the office, and leave the town, the country, the continent, the hemisphere, – indeed, the globe – that very same night.” (123) Humbert originally blames Lolita’s “nymphean evil” (125) as t

he underlying cause of his future trials with her, as Lolita proves to be not so much the submissive little girl Humbert expected she was. She learns to survive as a child in an adult’s game, getting what she wants from him by demanding compensation for her reluctant sexual favors. However, Humbert acknowledges his overwhelming guilt as the adult. Too late he understands that the selfish satisfaction of his desires was not worth the damage it would cause either of them as he laments, “I should have known … that nothing but pain and horror would result from the expected rapture.” (125)

Some topics in this essay:
Quilty Humbert, Humbert Humbert, Dolores Haze, Beauty Rose, HH HH, Quilty Lolita’s, Lolita Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov’s, North American, lolita’s life, life �, dolores haze, humbert realizes, quilty humbert,