Lolita / Лолита. Книга для чтения на английском языке

�This is a free country,’ said Lo. When angry Lo with a Bronx cheer[69 - Bronx cheer — звук тошного отвращения] had gone, I stayed on from sheer inertia, while Haze smoked her tenth cigarette of the evening and complained of Lo.

She had been spiteful, if you please, at the age of one, when she used to throw her toys out of her crib so that her poor mother should keep picking them up, the villainous infant! Now, at twelve, she was a regular pest, said Haze. All she wanted from life was to be one day a strutting and prancing baton twirler or a jitterbug.

Her grades were poor, but she was better adjusted in her new school than in Pisky (Pisky was the Haze home town in the Middle West. The Ramsdale house was her late mother-in-law’s. They had moved to Ramsdale less than two years ago). �Why was she unhappy there?’ �Oh,’ said Haze, �poor me should know, I went through that when was a kid: boys twisting one’s arm, banging into one with loads of books, pulling one’s hair, hurting one’s breasts, flipping one’s skirt. Of course, moodiness is a common concomitant of growing up, but Lo exaggerates. Sullen and evasive. Rude and defiant. Stuck Viola, an Italian schoolmate, in the seat with a fountain pen[70 - fountain pen – авторучка]. Know what I would like? If you, monsieur, happened to be still here in the fall, I’d ask you to help her with her homework – you seem to know everything, geography, mathematics, French. ’ �Oh, everything,’ answered monsieur. �That means,’ said Haze quickly, �you’ll be here!’ I wanted to shout that I would stay on eternally if only I could hope to caress now and then my incipient pupil. But I was wary of Haze. So I just grunted and stretched my limbs non-concomitantly (le mot juste[71 - le mot juste – (фр.) точно сказано]) and presently went up to my room. The woman, however, was evidently not prepared to call it a day[72 - to call it a day – считать дело законченным]. I was already lying upon my cold bed, both hands pressing to my face Lolita’s fragrant ghost, when I heard my indefatigable landlady creeping steathily up to my door to whisper through it – just to make sure, she said, I was through with the Glance and Gulp magazine I had borrowed the other day. From her room Lo yelled she had it. We are quite a lending library in this house, thunder of God.

Friday.