...Somewhere beyond Bill's shack an afterwork radio had begun singing of folly and fate, and there she was with her ruined looks and her adult, rope-veined narrow hands, and her gooseflesh-white arms, and her shallow ears, there she was (my Lolita!), hopelessly worn at seventeen, with that baby, dreaming already in her of becoming a big shot and retiring around 2020 A.D.- and I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. She was only a faint violet whiff and dead leaf echo of the nymphet... an echo on the brink of a russet ravine, with a far wood under a white sky, and brown leaves choking the brook, and one last cricket in the crisp weeds... but thank God it was not that echo alone that I worshiped. What I used to pamper among the tangled vines of my heart, mon grande peche radieux, had dwindled to its essence; sterile and selfish vice, all that I canceled and cursed. You may jeer at me, and threaten to clear the court, but until I am gagged and half-throttled, I will shout my poor truth. I insist the world know how much I loved my Lolita, this Lolita, pale and polluted, and big with another's child, but still grey eyed, still sooty lashed, still auburn and almond, still Carmencita, still mine; Changeons de vie, ma Carmen, allons vivre quelque part ou nous ne serons jamais separes; Ohio? The wilds of Massachusetts? No matter; even if those eyes of hers would fade to myopic fish... even then would I go mad at the mere sight of your dear wan face, at the sound of your racous young voice, my Lolita.

I got the no-review blues... please pander to my ego. It makes me warm and fuzzy inside.