'Guilty of Killing Quilty': The Central Dilemma of Nabokov's Lolita?

BARBARA WYLLIE

There is a significant and pointed discrepancy in dates in Lolita which, if considered

as intentional, offers an entirely new perspective on the novel and its hero. Various
critics have spotted this discrepancy, but few have been prepared to examine its
implications fully, preferring merely to note and comment without disputing the
facts of the novel as presented by its psychotic narrator. In a novel so carefully
constructed, confined within a specific time span to generate dramatic tension and
evoke a sense of actuality, the addition of three days at a crucial point in the
narrative cannot be dismissed lightly. Its precise purpose, however, is difficult to
ascertain.
The discrepancy lies in two specific dates and the stated period of time which
Humbert Humbert spends in prison awaiting trial, presumably for the murder of
Clare Quilty. According to the novel s foreword by the fictional character, John Ray
Jr., Humbert Humbert dies of a heart attack in prison on 16 November 1952. At the
end of the novel, Humbert Humbert states that he has been writing his account for
fifty-six days . In Chapter 27, Humbert Humbert receives a letter from Lolita. It is 22
September 1952, exactly 56 days before Humbert Humbert s death. The narrative
continues however, and over the next three days, Humbert Humbert visits Mrs Dolly
Schiller, murders Quilty, and is subsequently arrested, leaving only 53 days until 16
November. But, if the given dates are accurate, Humbert Humbert would have had
to have been arrested the day he received Lolita s letter and died the day he finished
his book. The murder of Quilty could never have occurred.
There are a number of possible explanations for this discrepancy. Firstly, that
Humbert Humbert made a mistake in his calculations or had forgotten or confused
the exact sequence of events. Secondly, that the date of Humbert Humbert s death
is misquoted by John Ray Jr. and thirdly, that the discrepancy was a simple oversight
on Nabokov s part. Or else, that all the dates given in the novel are actual, that
Nabokov placed them there on purpose, that John Ray Jr. s Foreword is

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independent and impartial, of which Humbert Humbert could have had no
knowledge, and that Humbert Humbert inserted those three extra days, which
without John Ray Jr. s intervention would never have been brought into question.
The morality of Lolita has been the focus of discussion since its publication.
Critics have endeavoured to defend Nabokov s motivations, basing their arguments
on a text containing capricious, ephemeral evidence obscured by a beguiling but
deceptive narrative. The comments Nabokov makes in his epilogue On a Book
Entitled Lolita are equally misleading. He skirts around the issue of morality, talking
rather about the novel as a work of art, indifferent to the controversy it has
provoked whilst defending the aesthetic quality of its eroticism. His most revealing
reference however, is to the novel s nerves , its secret points and subliminal co-
ordinates which indicates a hidden complexity beneath its dazzlingly ambiguous
surface. Nabokov is offering a series of possible solutions, all of equal validity.
Whether a crime novel, a romance, a novel about art and creativity, about paranoid
obsession, about sexual perversion, the experience of emigration, or 1950s America,
Lolita can be any one or a combination of countless elements depending on the
requirements of the individual reader and still ultimately satisfy. Is this discrepancy
in dates then offering merely another possible solution or does it have a more
fundamental bearing on the work as a whole?
Various critics have reached different conclusions over this niggling problem.
Carl Proffer s A Calendar of Lolita noted the discrepancy but he puts it down to
Humbert Humbert s messy timekeeping . Proffer took pains to construct a calendar
of dates and events around the few specific dates which Humbert Humbert gives,
providing calculated estimates to fill in the gaps. Christina Tekiner, in her article
Time in Lolita points out the same discrepancies but argues that it is Proffer s
timekeeping rather than Humbert Humbert s which is messy , exposing Proffer s
calculations as essentially inaccurate. She infers from this that in the last six chapters
of the book the only actual occurrence is Humbert Humbert s arrest for driving on
the wrong side of the road. Leona Toker refers to Tekiner s argument but reserves
judgement, preferring to acknowledge the ambiguity generated by the
discrepancies, which corresponds with the elusive reality of the book as a whole and
the extent of Humbert Humbert s deluded manipulations. Martin Green too,

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discusses the various possibilities generated by Humbert Humbert s vacillating
narration, suggesting that all the male characters in the book are his own fictitious
creations, generated by Humbert s schizoid delusions in an attempt to satisfy his
sense of guilt and to defend his fragile ego. If Quilty never existed, then there could
have been no murder, but if Quilty is removed from the narrative entirely, the fabric
of the plot collapses. From the point when Humbert receives Lolita s letter, not only
is it hard to correlate the sequence of events with real time, but Humbert s account
becomes increasingly fantastic. He tells us that Coalmont is an eight hundred-mile
drive from New York and that he arrives early in the morning, but it is unclear
whether it is still 22 September or possibly by now the 23rd. If Humbert is tricking his
reader into believing his story, he is relying on the fact that at this point, not only he,
but his audience wants him to meet Lolita again, and wants confirmation that she
has survived her ordeal and is leading a normal life. It is also an opportunity for
Humbert Humbert to try to make amends, to transform himself from monster to
generous benefactor and for the first time declare his love, where perhaps, in reality,
he was unable to. But is Humbert Humbert hinting that this is all fantasy? His
narrative control seems to break down, although the elements of hysteria and
confusion serve to dramatise his desperate state and could well be an intentional
device. The theatrical, tragi-comic parody of the murder scene stretches Humbert s
fancy prose style to its limits and his readers willingness to suspend disbelief,
whilst at the same time providing a powerful dénouement. Allusions to Killer Street
and Hunter Road are oddly transparent compared to the evocative, subtle ironies
which have suffused Humbert s prose so far. More puzzling is the name he gives
Quilty s house, Pavor Manor, pavor being an anagram of vapor, whose implications,
coupled with the explicit connotations of the latin term pavor , are
uncharacteristically overt. Why is Humbert revealing his hand in this way? Is he
losing control at this point or is he playing a game of calculated risk, or, is he simply
indulging in a glorious, burlesque charade? Exactly how much of Humbert s account
is fiction is impossible to say, but it would be unwise to assume that Humbert is not
in complete control of the narrative from beginning to end. If he is, the last six
chapters are a daring confidence trick on Humbert s part, in which he mocks and

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teases his audience, safe in the knowledge that they can have no grounds to suspect
him.
Clare Quilty serves a specific function in the plot and psychology of
Humbert s book. He is Humbert s double and arch rival, and it is appropriate that it
should be Quilty who steals Lolita away from Humbert, for he possesses a key quality
which Humbert lacks — glamour. Quilty also serves as a psychological foil and an
object of Humbert s paranoid delusions. Humbert s mistake is in believing him to be
passive and the number and range of references to Quilty which occur throughout
the narrative indicate Humbert s attempt to regain the control which he only ever
tentatively possessed. That Quilty should remain obscure is essential to the success
of the plot. Humbert s achievement is in his ability to scatter bits of Quilty into a
saturated text, establishing a sense of presence without allowing him to emerge until
the right moment. There are holes in Humbert s intricate design which he attempts
only cursorily to conceal. These chinks in the novel s fabric provide an insight into
the sophisticated artifice of Humbert s artistry. Particularly distinct is the reference
to Who’s Who in the Limelight, in which he spots Quilty s name, but leaves the play
The Hunted Enchanters out of his biography and replaces it with The Strange
Mushroom . At this point in the novel, Humbert s audience would be unaware of the
significance of this, but if he had referred directly to The Hunted Enchanters at this
stage he would have given the game away completely. Instead, Humbert indulges in
a little private irony, (I notice the slip of my pen in the preceding paragraph, but
please do not correct it, Clarence) . For Humbert, the Quilty conspiracy is a
convenient means of vindicating himself as avenging hero, but it also renders any
speculation as to the reality of events futile. The murder of Quilty is no more than a
literal act of poetic justice. Humbert Humbert may well be a refinement of Hermann
Karlovich but he is also, more importantly, a nascent Charles Kinbote.
If, as Martin Green suggests, John Ray Jr. is a creation of Humbert s in the
same way that Quilty is, what purpose does he serve? If Humbert Humbert has so
carefully contrived to deceive his readers, why should he use another narrator to
expose himself? What makes better sense, is that John Ray Jr. is Nabokov s
character. He relates the most crucial information about Humbert and Lolita, but it is
not acknowledged because it comes before the story and therefore seems to provide

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merely a frame of actuality and a rather weak and dubious moral prognosis. What
would have been the impact if Nabokov had placed his commentary at the end of
the book? As an epilogue, the details John Ray Jr. divulges would have been far more
thought provoking. As it stands, the Foreword is easily forgotten and could well be
skipped altogether by some readers.
Martin Green defends Nabokov s morality as a morality focused on the value
of art, and that Lolita as a work of art cannot be judged as morally reprehensible.
Yet, this would be to argue that Nabokov was essentially amoral, that he had no
concern for such things. As he states, Lolita has no moral in tow , but this is not a
denial of its existence in the novel. Nabokov s position is oblique and his comments
must be interpreted as such. Rather than resort to crass didacticism, Nabokov is
pointing his reader towards the nerves of the novel. Once these secret points have
been seen, they cannot be unseen, and in Lolita the single detail, 16 November 1952,
is the most forceful indication of Nabokov s moral position, for its implications lead
irrevocably to an indictment of Humbert Humbert s behaviour. Nabokov s scenario
then is this. Humbert Humbert is arrested on 22 September 1952 for a minor driving
offence for which he is to be prosecuted. He is admitted to a psychiatric unit for
observation pending trial, in which time he writes his confession. It is unclear as to
whether the facts about Lolita are known to the authorities. If they are, then
Humbert s book has a specific purpose, as he says, to save his soul and to
immortalise Lolita in the refuge of art. As far as the novel s structure is concerned, if
the visit to Mrs Schiller and the Quilty shooting are removed, the last few chapters of
the book are made up of a series of regretful and nostalgic reminiscences following
Humbert s collapse. This may not be as exciting as Humbert s version, but it is as
plausible and its implications establish in Lolita the stylistic and thematic
preoccupations which had their genesis in The Gift and which were to continue to be
a feature of Nabokov s later work.

©Barbara Wyllie
School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London
September 1994 (uploaded to Nabokv-L, November 1994)