Humbert is driving down the highway. He has been at the wheel for more than twelve hours, and he has only stopped once. To compensate, he decides that from that point on he will stop at every bar he comes across.
At the first, he orders a scotch. At the second, a bourbon. At the third, a vodka. At the fourth, a gin. At the fifth, a rye. At the sixth, a glass of wine. At the seventh, a tequila. At the eighth, a rum. At the ninth, an anisette. At the tenth, a cognac. At the eleventh, a martini.
At the thirteenth he sees, right next to the jukebox, a woman who starts out by singing the song that’s playing on the machine, then dances to it by herself, and, as it ends, dances to it with another one of the women sitting there. At the fourteenth, he sees an American flag placed symmetrically across from an Irish flag on either side of the mirror between the shelves of drinks, centered on the shiny cash register. At the fifteenth, a drunk is so happy to hear that Humbert has ordered his brand of beer that he turns his own bottle around to show him the label and demonstrate that he, too, is drinking that brand. At the sixteenth, he finds a backed-up toilet that has left puddles of piss all over the floor, which is composed of tiny tiles. He has to slosh through it to get to the bowl. At the seventeenth, he finds a bar with no bar, only tables. Indignant, he turns and leaves. At the eighteenth, he finds the waiter asleep at one end of the bar, and when he raises his voice to wake him, the other customers give him a dirty look. At the nineteenth, they don’t let him in because they’re closing. At the twentieth, he goes over to the pool table and watches as the player rips a hole in the green felt, and everyone, both the player who made the hole, the other players, and the other customers in the bar, stares at him in silence until he leaves. In the twenty-first he finds a little boy at the bar, drinking sarsaparilla, looking into the eyes of a man who must be his father, who is drinking Curaçao. At the twenty-second, he orders giant clams with horseradish sauce to go with his drink. At the twenty-third, he orders cheese with onions and mustard on wheat bread. At the twenty-fourth, he orders oysters with lemon, but they don’t have any: they’ve run out.
The twenty-fifth is the bar of a roadside hotel. After having a drink at the bar, he orders an abundant supper, followed by coffee and a glass of whiskey. He looks at his watch: 1:15. He decides to spend the night there. He asks if there are any rooms.
A receptionist (dark, tall, with thick lips, a little under twenty years old, who walks in front of him gently swaying her hips) takes him up to his room, showing little surprise at his having no luggage. She takes her tip with a smile and closes the door softly. Humbert urinates, washes his face, and lies on the bed to rest for five minutes. Since it seems clear to him that he isn’t drowsy, and is not likely to fall asleep, he goes back down to the bar.
The bartender asks what he’ll have. Humbert would like to see the whole length of the bar full of glasses and more glasses of different sizes and shapes. For starters he orders gin and then, in succession, a whole series of different kinds of drinks. A half hour later that stretch of bar looks like a glassware showcase, until a woman comes out of the kitchen and picks up all the empty glasses, leaving him just the one that is half-full of maraschino. Humbert takes out the little notebook and writes: “Still life of different types of glasses and mugs.”
Humbert turns his head. A woman with long curly brown hair, dressed in black and staring at the surface of the liquid in her glass, is sitting two stools down. When she also turns her head to look at him, they both smile. Humbert thinks of initiating an approach, but when he feels his eyelids heavy with sleep, he picks up what money is left, puts it in his pocket, and leaves the bar without looking back.
Once in bed he hears a couple arguing in the next room. Humbert positions his ear closer to the wall. The woman is saying (so loud the whole building could probably hear her) that, although he is indeed a good politician, capable perhaps of being the best — by his standards as well as by hers — he would never really be the best, because what he was after was to be the only one, to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue, every member of the human race, forever after, in every remaining moment of history, and that, the woman said, was impossible. There has never been anyone, no matter how important his or her contribution to the course of history, who isn’t a stranger to many. Neither popes, nor emperors, nor film stars, nor pop music idols (when pop music was still producing idols) have ever managed to do it, and neither would he. Humbert takes out the little notebook and takes it all down. The woman is running down a list of great celebrities and asking him how many times a year he thinks of each of them. Without waiting for an answer, she herself responds, hardly ever. He tells her to shut up, and his rebuttal is so garbled that Humbert has trouble understanding any of it. She then says not to take it like that, that she loves him, but that loving him hasn’t left her so blind as not to see clearly what was happening to him. He seems to be sobbing. Humbert hears how she starts consoling him, in a lower voice, and how they kiss. He hears whispering, brief laughter. He can even imagine how they are touching each other. Humbert is immediately aroused. He hears the woman moan. He hears some obscenities being whispered by the man that intensify the woman’s cries. Humbert begins to stroke himself. The bedsprings in the room next door creak obsessively until the woman breaks out in a long cry, almost at the same moment in which Humbert abundantly stains the sheets and, as he dries himself, hears the cavernous groan of the man.
For a while, everything is quiet. Then the whispering starts up again, more placid this time. Humbert has another erection. He should have taken advantage of the chance to strike up an acquaintance with the girl at the bar. Maybe it isn’t too late: he could get dressed and go back down. But most likely she will already have left. Not knowing what to do, he frantically dials the desk and orders a double scotch, and when the same receptionist who had taken him up to the room delivers it, he pulls her into his arms and, between giggles and no-no-nos, drags her to the bed, pushes the wet sheet aside, and kisses her passionately.
•
The following morning he spends his breakfast in the hotel bar trying to imagine which of the couples who occupy the other tables had spent the previous night in the room next to his. He closes his eyes, trying to place the voices, without success. He pays for his breakfast and the room and, as he opens the door, sees two of the chambermaids whispering to each other, looking at him, and shrieking with laughter. He stops, takes out the little notebook, and sketches the hotel, with the two maids at the door, one whispering in the other’s ear.
He drives without stopping. When he reaches the town where he had arranged to meet up with Hildegarda, he sees two cars totaled by a recent crash.
He doesn’t have to look very far: the hotel is a gigantic skyscraper, boring and extravagant, on the only street in town. The receptionist greets him with a smile. He tells him his wife has already arrived, not fifteen minutes before. He tells him the room number. Humbert bounds up the stairs, two by two. He knocks twice on the door. He hears Hildegarda’s voice asking him to wait a moment. But the door had opened when he knocked; it must not have been quite shut. Humbert walks around the room, looking at the items of clothing Hildegarda has left scattered on the bed. He runs his hand over all of them, picks one up, and smells it. Hildegarda opens the bathroom door, wrapped in a towel, and takes little steps in his direction, leaving the floor full of wet footsteps. She hugs him gleefully as he scolds her for having left the door open, and he takes off her towel.