"Suddenly, as Avis clung to her father's neck and ear while, with a casual arm, the man enveloped his lumpy and large offspring, I saw Lolita's smile lose all its light and become a frozen little shadow of itself…she was gone—to be followed at once and consoled in the kitchen by Avis who had such a wonderful fat pink dad and a small chubby brother, and a brand-new baby sister, and a home, and two grinning dogs, and Lolita had nothing." (286)
Humbert realizes how empty and worthless Lolita has felt all along; that he took her childhood from her and cannot make it up in any way, and that he never really knew the real Lo: "It struck me…that I simply did not know a thing about my darling's mind and that quite possibly…there was in her a garden…which happened to be lucidly and absolutely forbidden to me…" (284).
The reader can also tell he feels very small after he goes to the house where she and her husband live. He asks her to take him back and run away with him, Lolita opposes. From that scene on, it seems like he lowers his guard and forgets all about his French pride and writing skills and is begging Lo to take him back. I find ironic that when they were together, he would take away from her the money he gave her so that she wouldn't escape. But now that she is all escaped and married and pregnant and not his anymore, he is even able to give her $4000 acknowledging she will not go back to him anymore.
Has Humbert become a more sensible, sane man by this point in the story? Or do the last moments of Humbert outside of jail reinforce the themes that have been associated with him? (Insanity, control, evilness)
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