On Apr 27, 2010, at 3:24 PM, laurence hochard wrote: Carolyn, I think it is difficult to find evidence of kindness because true kindness is often invisible: it is of the kind VN described in Lucette's keeping company to the Robinsons just before committing suicide, or Disa's being kind to a servant despite her discovering yet another proof of Kinbote's infidelity. Laurence Hochard
You are too kind. As Nabokov was quick to decline responsibility for his characters' faults, you shouldn't be so quick to give him responsibility for their virtues. He could imagine virtue as well as he could imagine vice, which is to say, very well - - however there's no evidence that he himself behaved either like Humbert Humbert or like Lucette.