1951-1952

The years 1951 and 1952 form the terminal arc of Humbert Humbert's narrated existence, a span in which the fugitive passions of his cross-country odyssey give way to a settled but haunted interlude, a brief return to intellectual life, and finally the catastrophic reunion with his lost Lolita that precipitates murder and arrest.

Rita and the Retreat from Pursuit

After abandoning his fruitless search for Lolita and her abductor, Humbert entered a two-year relationship with Rita, a woman he met in a bar between Montreal and New York. She was twice Lolita's age and three-quarters of his, a slight, dark-haired, pale-skinned adult weighing a hundred and five pounds, with asymmetrical eyes and a supple back. Humbert found her the most soothing and comprehending companion he had ever had, and credited her with saving him from the madhouse. They cruised together from the summer of 1950 to the summer of 1952, traveling to California in her natty little coup. Rita was kind, simple, and gentle, and her presence kept Humbert from mischief, though he remained haunted by the memory of Lolita. During this period, Humbert continued to suffer from the effects of his past, including a heart condition and a dependence on alcohol. He also maintained possession of the automatic pistol he had inherited from Harold Haze, and at one point Rita proposed playing Russian roulette with it; a struggle ensued, and the gun discharged, making a hole in the wall of their cabin room.

Literary Work and the Cantrip Interlude

In 1951, Humbert's intellectual pursuits bore fruit. He published an essay titled "Mimir and Memory" in the Cantrip Review, in which he advanced a theory of perceptual time based on the circulation of the blood and the mind's consciousness of both matter and itself. This venture, building on the impression made by his previous scholarly work, led to an invitation from Cantrip College, four hundred miles from New York, for a one-year appointment. From September 1951 to June 1952, Humbert lodged in special apartments for poets and philosophers, while Rita, whom he preferred not to display, vegetated somewhat indecorously in a roadside inn, where he visited her twice a week. During this time, Humbert also revisited Briceland with Rita, attempting to relive his stay there with Lolita. He went to the town library to search the bound Briceland Gazette for a photograph that might have captured him on his way to Lolita's bed, but found nothing of himself. The visit ended with Rita sobbing, and Humbert singing her a wistful French ballad before they drove back to New York.

The Letter from Lolita

In late September 1952, while living in a flat on Central Park West, Humbert received two letters. One was from John Farlow, who wrote hysterically from South America, having remarried and wishing to divest himself of the Haze "complications." The other letter, dated September 18, 1952, was from Lolita herself. Addressed to "Dear Dad," it announced that she was married to a man named Richard F. Schiller, was pregnant, and was in desperate need of money. She wrote from a town Humbert later identified as Coalmont, though he camouflaged the name in his memoir. The letter was a hard one to write, she said, and she had gone through much sadness and hardship. Humbert, upon reading it, left Rita forever, taping a note of tender adieu to her navel, and set out alone in his old blue sedan, with his automatic pistol, to find Lolita and kill her husband.

The Final Reunion and the Murder of Quilty

Driving to Coalmont, Humbert rehearsed the murder of Richard Schiller, hanging an old gray sweater on a branch and shooting it full of holes. Upon arriving at the Schiller home, a clapboard shack in a dismal district, he found Lolita hugely pregnant, her looks faded, her tan gone. She revealed that the man who had taken her from the hospital was not a stranger but Clare Quilty, the playwright whose name had been woven through the narrative. Quilty had known her mother, had visited Ramsdale years ago, and had written the play, The Enchanted Hunters, in which Lolita had performed at Beardsley. He had taken her to a dude ranch called Duk Duk Ranch, where he engaged in orgiastic activities that Lolita refused to participate in, leading him to kick her out. Humbert gave Lolita four hundred dollars in cash and a check for three thousand six hundred more, and she refused his plea to come away with him. He then drove to Grimm Road, to Pavor Manor, Quilty's ancestral home. There, after a long, grotesque struggle, Humbert shot Quilty multiple times, finally killing him. The murder was witnessed by a group of Quilty's friends, who initially dismissed Humbert's confession as a joke. Humbert left the house, drove on the wrong side of the road, and was soon apprehended by the police.

Narrative Role and Thematic Significance

The years 1951-1952 serve as the narrative's denouement, where the consequences of Humbert's earlier actions converge. His relationship with Rita provides a temporary respite, a period of relative stability that contrasts sharply with the chaos of his life with Lolita. His literary work, particularly the essay on time, reflects his ongoing attempt to impose order on his experience through intellectual abstraction. The receipt of Lolita's letter shatters this fragile equilibrium, forcing him to confront the reality of her suffering and his own culpability. The murder of Quilty, while an act of revenge, is depicted as a sordid, farcical, and ultimately unsatisfying climax, underscoring the futility of Humbert's quest for redemption through violence. The period ends with Humbert in custody, writing his memoir, a final act of self-justification and artistic creation that he hopes will grant him a form of immortality alongside his lost Lolita.