Cats

How scary! I heard a dreadful, prolonged animalistic shrieking coming from the back yard. I was sure one of my cats had gone to the yard of one of our backyard neighbors and was surprised to learn of a new dog, a vicious dog at that. All three cats are there, though. The shrieking apparently belongs to a human baby, playing with her parents, I guess. I am reminded of how lucky we have been with our cats, at least since we lost Willy so horribly. A little good fortune only seems fair.

Lo (1,9) Hummy Enjoys a Good Mindfuck

After Humbert returned from his arctic expedition, he fell into “another bout of insanity (if to melancholia and a sense of insufferable oppression that cruel term must be applied).” He goes into another sanatorium, a very expensive one we are assured. He makes a splendid recovery, but not through the programmatic means. Instead of humiliating schoolgirls, he delighted in mocking psychiatrists. Nabokov takes the opportunity to grind and whack his favorite axe.

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I discovered there was an endless source of robust enjoyment in trifling with psychiatrists: cunningly leading them on; never letting them see that you know all the tricks of the trade; inventing for them elaborate dreams, pure classics in style (which make them, the dream-extortionists, dream and wake up shrieking); teasing them with fake “primal scenes”; and never allowing them the slightest glimpse of one’s real sexual predicament. By bribing a nurse I won access to some files and discovered, with glee, cards calling me “potentially homosexual” and “totally impotent.” The sport was so excellent, its results - in my case - so ruddy that I stayed on for a whole month after I was quite well (sleeping admirably and eating like a schoolgirl). And then I added another week just for the pleasure of taking on a powerful newcomer, a displaced (and, surely, deranged) celebrity, known for his knack of making patients believe they had witnessed their own conception.

-- “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov

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