/lit/ - Literature

>>2705367
I fear one cannot answer this so plainly.
Annabel is his cause and object of his life-long nostalgia. He experiences true joy through her and is abandoned from it shortly after.
When meeting Dolores, his desire is threefold:
Desire for his ideal, Annabel, that he seems to have found in Lolita.
Desire for his spleen, that is to love which is forbidden too love (surely everyone can notice Humbert is no mindless beast, but more than fully aware of his affection and its implications)
Desire for pain, which follows of the combination of spleen and ideal experienced through lolita.

As the text itself consists of multiple layers of meanings so does Humberts love to Lolita. It is perverted, innocent and religious at once. And this circumstance is one of the main attractions of the relationship between Humbert and Dolores that guarantees the reader to discover new facettes of it whenever they approach it.