1945 or 1946

The years 1945 and 1946 constitute a compressed but decisive phase in Humbert Humbert's pre-Lolita existence, a time when he emerged from the Arctic, suffered another breakdown, and perfected the art of deceiving the psychiatric profession—all without any change to the nympholeptic obsession that governed his life.

Return from the Arctic and Spurious Publication

After spending twenty months on a mysterious expedition in arctic Canada—attached as a "recorder of psychic reactions"—Humbert returned to civilization. The expedition's true purpose was "hush-hush," and he later learned from his genial doctor that it was not really concerned with Victoria Island copper or anything like that, but whatever it was, "that purpose was admirably achieved." During the journey, Humbert had been supposed to quiz his companions on nostalgia, fear of unknown animals, food-fantasies, nocturnal emissions, hobbies, and changes in outlook. Everybody got so fed up with this that he soon dropped the project completely. Only toward the end of his cold labor did he concoct a perfectly spurious and very racy report, which the reader will find published in the Annals of Adult Psychophysics for 1945 or 1946, as well as in the issue of Arctic Explorations devoted to that particular expedition. This fabricated document stands as an early instance of Humbert's willingness to manufacture reality to suit his purposes.

Another Bout with Insanity and the Discovery of Psychiatric Sport

Soon after his return to civilization, Humbert had another bout with insanity—"if to melancholia and a sense of insufferable oppression that cruel term must be applied." He was treated at a very expensive sanatorium, and it was there that he made a discovery that he credited with his complete restoration: an endless source of robust enjoyment in trifling with psychiatrists. He learned to cunningly lead them on, never letting them see that he knew all the tricks of the trade. He invented elaborate dreams for them, "pure classics in style (which make them, the dream-extortionists, dream and wake up shrieking)." He teased them with fake "primal scenes" and never allowed them the slightest glimpse of his real sexual predicament. By bribing a nurse, he won access to some files and discovered, with glee, cards calling him "potentially homosexual" and "totally impotent." The sport was so excellent, and its results in his case so ruddy, that he stayed on for a whole month after he was quite well, sleeping admirably and eating like a schoolgirl. He added another week just for the pleasure of taking on a powerful newcomer, a displaced celebrity known for his knack of making patients believe they had witnessed their own conception.

Continuity of Obsession

Despite the apparent recovery and the diversion of psychiatric games, Humbert's fundamental condition remained unchanged. The period is framed by his characteristic narrative voice: he opens his account of the Annabel phase by addressing "ladies and gentlemen of the jury" and presenting "exhibit number one." The same rhetorical posture—the confession as courtroom defense—governs his entire memoir. The years 1945-1946, then, represent not a turning point but a holding pattern: Humbert returned from the polar regions where "nymphets do not occur," re-entered a world where they did, and armed himself with the cunning that would later serve his catastrophic designs on Dolores Haze. The fabricated report and the mockery of psychiatrists alike demonstrate his growing skill at constructing false fronts—a skill he would deploy with far more devastating consequences in the years immediately following.