The Annotated Lolita Post # 2

"The only definite sexual events that  can remember as having occurred before my thirteenth birthday...and some interesting reactions on the part of my organism to certain photographs, pearl and umbra, with infinitely soft partings, in Pichon's sumptuous La Beaute Humaine that I had filched from under a mountain of marble-bound Graphics in the Hotel Library." The Annotated Lolita p.11

In this passage Humbert Humbert recalls his brief moments of sexual awakening before he meets his first love and nymphetic inspiration, Annabel. One of the moments he describes is when he sees this photograph that he describes. On first read, when trying to find if this was a real reference Nabokov was making, I found out that Le Beaute Humaine (translated means The Human Beauty) is not a real book or collection. I found this interesting because of all the real references Nabokov makes, it is hard to tell if he is purposefully being fictional, and wanted to create an imaginary image for the reader, or if it's a nudge to the reader that the actual character that he created may be lying, or if it's simply a trick to confuse a learned reader and deceive a more passive one. When he describes "Pearl and Umbra" those could possibly be a description of colors within the photograph or of two women, it is hard to tell. The first things that came to mind when he mentioned "soft partings" was either the partings of the brush strokes of beautiful women, or even just beautiful colors, or whether he means the partings of women's genitals or legs. When he says that he had "filched" them I believe he is trying to emphasize his youth and carefree attitude, the fact that he just snatched up something that brought him this sort of pleasure without any guilt whatsoever. I feel he is emphasizing this because in his mind Annabel represents what changed everything or him, what turned him to a happy, healthy sexually charged adolescent to being guilty about his desires, and what he manages to "steal" from young girls.