In his poem “Wanted” composed in a madhouse after Lolita was abducted from him Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions gnarled McFate:
Happy, happy is gnarled McFate
Touring the States with a child wife,
Plowing his Molly in every State
Among the protected wild life.
In the preceding stanza Humbert asks Lolita if she is still dancing: