Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip  of  the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
     She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four  feet  ten  in  one sock.  She  was  Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
     Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In  point  of  fact, there  might  have  been  no  Lolita  at  all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea.  Oh  when?  About  as many  years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
     Ladies and gentlemen of the  jury,  exhibit  number  one  is  what  the
seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.