Lolita's Russian Doll of Confessions

Nabokov's  Lolita is structured as a confession, but often bends and challenges that structure and description with varying elements and departures from such. During a moment of "poignant chaos" in the story, when Lolita runs back into the Haze's home to kiss her beloved H.H.'s lips one last time before being deported off to camp (the entire scene playing with the idea of a romance novel or other such work where the characters break away from themselves and fold into their passion; this parody being set with the vast age difference and pseudo-familial relations between H.H. and Dolores). For when after she leaves and H.H. is left with himself and the despair of losing his Riviera nymphet, he is given a "curious-looking letter" by Louise, "written" by Charlotte Haze:

"This is a confession: I love you [so the letter began; and for a distorted moment I mistook its hysterical scrawl for a schoolgirl's scribble!]. (67)

Already the game that H.H. is playing with the audience has begun. By placing (with the aid of his photographic memory) a fully transcribed letter (with a few aesthetic omissions by H.H., of course) from Charlotte Haze, confessing her unadulterated love for Humbert, one that we as readers must accept without question or qualm and must take as literal fact. This confession within the confession that is the novel Lolita plays upon the audiences idea of who is the guilty party, the antagonist within theses confessions and stories. For in Charlotte's confessions we can see H.H.'s cynicism towards her and her falsely cultured ways shine through: her various bastardized-french phrases, her improper use of poetic language (which H.H. is able to flawlessly pull of), her false show of nonchalance and her way of play acting, and her distorted view of the world to which H.H. has skillfully shown us. 

But the most exciting parts of C.H's confessional letter are the happy coincidences that magically seem to lift off the page, causing the reader to connect things that H.H. hasn't already verbosely connected for us, and draws us in deeper to his game. The most poignantly painful moment of this occurs in the middle of Charlotte's letter:

"But if, after reading my "confession," you decided, in your dark romantic European way, that I am attractive enough for you to take advantage of my letter and make a pass at me, then you would be a criminal--worse than a kidnaper who rapes a child."(68)

This passage in particular rings like an alarm bell in the reader's head. For how could C.H. hit the nail so upon the head whilst still being so oblivious to the entirety of the situation? Especially after in H.H.'s confession of Lolita running back to him before leaving and kissing him he said: "...then she was in my arms, her innocent mouth melting under the ferocious pressure of my dark make jaws, my palpitating darling! The next instant I heard her--alive, unwrapped--clatter downstairs."(66) This juxtaposition is meant to challenge and confuse the reader, leading us to further investigate and involve ourselves in this literary Russian doll of confessions.