1935-1939

The years 1935 to 1939 constitute a distinct and wretched chapter in Humbert Humbert's life, a period of failed compromise and deepening perversion that he later dismisses as a mere prelude. During this time, he was married to Valeria, a woman whose chief attraction for him was her studied impersonation of a little girl—a performance that masked her true age and nature. The marriage, which he entered into with the hope that domestic routine might pacify his dangerous desires, instead became a squalid farce played out in a small Parisian flat, ending in humiliation and a bitter divorce that left him more isolated and desperate than before.

The Marriage to Valeria

Humbert married Valeria in 1935, motivated not by love but by a calculated, piteous compromise. He was drawn to her because she gave an imitation of a little girl, dressing à la gamine and affecting a frolicsome, dimpled manner. On their wedding night, he had her wear a girl's plain nightshirt he had stolen from an orphanage. The reality of the marriage quickly asserted itself: her bleached hair revealed its dark roots, her shaved shins grew prickly, and she transformed from a pale gutter girl into a large, puffy, big-breasted, and brainless woman. They lived in a small, squalid flat with two rooms, a hazy view from one window, a brick wall from the other, and a shoe-shaped bathtub. Their life was one of quiet desperation: she read Paris-Soir while he worked at a rickety table; they went to movies, bicycle races, and boxing matches. Humbert found some legal outlet for his urges through Valeria's stale flesh, but his real torment was the grocer's daughter opposite, whose shadow drove him mad.

The Collapse and Departure

The marriage ended abruptly in the summer of 1939, when Humbert inherited an income from his American uncle and planned to move to the United States. Valeria, who had become restless and irritable, confessed in the street that there was another man in her life. The man was Maximovich, a stocky White Russian ex-colonel who drove a taxi. In a humiliating scene at a café, Maximovich discussed Valeria as if she were a ward being transferred from one guardian to another, even consulting Humbert on her diet and periods. Humbert, torn between murderous rage and helpless boredom, watched as Valeria packed her belongings. The final insult came when Humbert discovered that Maximovich had used the bathroom and left the toilet unflushed, a detail that struck him as a crowning indignity. Humbert later learned, through a man from Pasadena, that Valeria and Maximovich had moved to California and participated in a year-long experiment on human reactions to a diet of bananas and dates while crawling on all fours. This grotesque end to his first marriage reinforced Humbert's sense of life as a sordid joke.

Aftermath and Descent

The divorce proceedings delayed Humbert's voyage to America, and the gloom of World War II settled over him. After a winter of ennui and pneumonia in Portugal, he finally reached the States. In New York, he took a job editing perfume ads and worked on his comparative history of French literature. The period was marked by excruciating desires and insomnias, and he suffered a dreadful breakdown that sent him to a sanatorium for more than a year. He returned to work only to be hospitalized again. The failure of his marriage and the subsequent mental collapse left him vulnerable, setting the psychological stage for his fateful encounter with Lolita. The years 1935-1939 thus represent a failed experiment in normalcy, a time when Humbert's attempt to contain his perversion through marriage only deepened his alienation and prepared him for the catastrophic obsession that would define the rest of his life.