Enchanted by Control

In my continued pursuance of the Enchanter's lack of control, I want to draw attention to a particular passage on page 15-16 of the paperback edition:

"The girl's arrival, her breathing, her legs, her hair, everything she did, whether it was scratching a shin and leaving white marks on it, or throwing a small black ball high in the air, or brushing against him with a bare elbow as she seated herself on the bench--all of it (while he appeared engrossed in pleasant conversation) evoked an intolerable sensation of sanguine, dermal, multivascular communion with her, as if the monstrous bisector pumping all the juices from the depths of his being extended into her like a pulsating dotted line, as if this girl were growing out of him, as if, with every carefree movement, she tugged and shook her vital roots implanted in the bowels of his being, so that, when she abruptly changed position or rushed off, he felt a yank, a barbarous pluck, a momentary loss of equilibrium" (15-16)

Drawing attention to Nabokov's description of the Enchanter's feeling, it is clear to see that his connection with this small girl is based on his internal feeling of a lack of control. Though she is completely and entirely carefree, he attaches an extreme feeling of control over him to her actions; he feels her tugging and shaking him around; her actions completely govern his intuitive feelings; she is the "vital roots" of his being. There is a strong sense that the Enchanter does not seek out this girl in order to establish control right away--his attraction to her starts with a feeling of wanting to be controlled by someone whose actions and appearance he sees as untainted.

It is easy to see the stages of this process of attraction in this passage alone as they will develop for the duration of the story: he witnesses her actions and simply her being; the feeling of the attraction begins inside him as a governing source of unbiased and untainted feeling; she continues to "grow out" of him, becoming a separate entity in his eyes, one to be admired; and finally he understands the control she has over him, beginning to yearn for that control from this passage on. It is odd and certainly perverted, in a sense, but it reveals much about the background of the main character without Nabokov having to blatantly say that the Enchanter is "insecure," or something of the like. This ability to characterize so vividly with subtlety is admirable, to say the least.