unction with sexual innuendo. The double meaning of the 'gagged beast' (triple if one infers that Nabokov is also referring to the trappings of clothing) is set in opposition, once again, with the innocence of youth as it applies to physical attributes. Nevertheless, by indirectly associating himself with the legendary Beast from the fairy tale, Humbert is justifying his sexual attraction and establishing his innocence from the interdict. The poetic escalation accompanying Humbert’s increasing excitement continues, as his “masked lust” becomes “the hidden tumor of an unspeakable passion.” At the moment of orgasm, the narrator vanishes behind his protagonist self who addresses the members of the jury as follows: “and my moaning mouth, gentlemen of the jury, almost reached her bare neck, while I crushed out against her left buttock the last throb of the longest ecstasy man or monster had ever known.” Humbert does not simply apostrophize the members of the jury who will have to try him for murdering Quilty, but another court of justice, which he begs to render its verdict against him for depraving Lolita. Later on, he will be very hard on himself; here, though, he neither accuses himself nor makes amends but jubilantly glorifies his sexual experience which he claims had no precedent in nature and therefore can not be judged by any human court of law. The word “monster” does not imply that Humbert the narrator is beginning to feel remorse, rather at that particularly moment, Humbert the protagonist feels as if he has totally freed himself from the law of men and performed the ultimate erotic act, an act at once ugly and sumptuous. To be sure, Humbert tries to vindicate himself morally after that: “I felt proud of myself. I had stolen the honey of a spasm without impairing the morals of a minor,” and he tries to fool himself into believing that he has not soiled the R...
