My copyright worries were not over. «With blithe unconcern» (to use a phrase Mr. Girodias favors) he had added to «Copyright 1955 by V. Nabokov» on the title page of his edition the words «and the Olympia Press». On January 28, 1956, I learned from the copyright Office in Washington that this matey formula (for which 1 had not given my permission) might cause trouble at republication in the U.S. which had to take place within five years. I was advised to get an «assignment or quitclaim» from Mr. Girodias, and this I atfonce asked him to send me. I got no reply (as «so many authors» do not get replies from «so many publishers»), wrote to him again and again, but only on April 20 (i.e., three months later) got from him what I asked. It is interesting to conjecture where Mr. Girodias would have been, when «our» book came out in America, had I not had the foresight to protect it there.
By the beginning of 1957, I had still not received from Olympia any statements of accounts since the publication of the book in September 1955. The lapse entitled me to annul the agreement; (see Clause 9), but I decided to wait a little longer. I had to wait till March 28, 1957, and when it came, the statement did not cover the entire period for which it was due.
The nuisance of non-statements did not fail to resume. By the end of August 1957, I had received none for the first semester of that tear which was due on July 31. On September 2, Mr. Girodias asked for a postponement of two months, and I agreed to wait till September 30, but nothing happened, ami having had enough of that nonsense I advised him (Octobel 5) that all rights had reverted to me. He promptly paid up (44,220 anciens francs), and h relented.
In a particularly nasty and silly passage our memoirist juxtaposes my refusal to defend my book in France from the attack of local magistrates and «Philistine readers» (as I wrote to him on March 10, 1957) with my requesting him (a month earlier) to avoid mentioning «Cornell» when referring to me in publicity splashes as a «university professor». I am not sure what He means specifically. Only a very helical mind could twist my request into a semblance of frailty. By signing Lolita I had shown my complete acceptance of whatever (responsibility an author has to take; but as long as an unhealthy flurry of scandal surrounded my innocent Lolita, I certainly was justified in acting as I did, lest a shadow of my responsibility fall on the university that had given me unbelievable freedom in conducting my courses (they were never meddled with by the department or departments under which they were nominally listed); nor did I care to embarrass the close friend who had brought me there to enjoy that true academic freedom.
Nevertheless Mr. Girodias kept urging me to join him in his campaign against French censorship. «Our interests are identical», he wrote; but they were not. He wanted me to defend Lolita, but 1 did not see how my book could be treated separately from his list of twenty or so lewd books. I did not want to defend even Lolita. He repeats in his article one of his favorite arguments that without him Lolita would have never been published. As I wrote him on August 3, 1957, 1 was (and am) deeply grateful to him tor printing that book. But I must also point out to him that he was not the right person to undertake the thing; he lacked the means to launch Lolita properly — a book that differed so utterly in vocabulary, structure, and purpose (or rather absence of purpose) from his other much simpler commercial ventures, such as Debby's Bidet or Tender Thighs. Mr. Girodias greatly exaggerates his powers. Had not Graham Greene and John Gordon clashed in London in such providential fashion, Lolita — especially its second volume which repelled so-called «amateurs» — might have ended in the common grave of Traveler's Favorites or whatever Olympia's little green books were called.
In 1957, the Lolita affair entered its American phase, which to me was in every way more important than its Olympia one. Jason Epstein, by championing the publication of a considerable portion of Lolita in the summer issue, 1957, of Anchor Review, edited by Melvin J. Lasky (Doubleday, New York), and Professor F. W. Dupee, by prefacing that portion with a brilliant article, helped to make the idea of an American edition acceptable. Several publishers were interested in it, but the difficulties Mr. Girodias created in our negotiations with American firms were another source of acute vexation on my part. On September 14, 1957, the head of a distinguished American publishing house flew over to Paris to discuss matters with Mr. Girodias. The latter's account of the interview runs like this in his article: «One publisher spontaneously offered a 20 percent royalty to get the book, but was then apparently frightened away by Nabokov's attitude when he met him later in New York». One part of this passage is inaccurate and the other simply untrue: it was not I who dissuaded this particular publisher, but his partner. The account is inaccurate because Mr. Girodias does not say who was to get most of that 20 percent. «I am prepared to accept this proposal», wrote Mr. Girodias to me (apparently under the impression that he had got a definite otter which was not the case), «if my share is assured at 12,5 percent. The advance would be shared in the same proportion. Would you accept 7,5 percent as your share? I consider my claim justified and fair». My agent wrote that she was «outree de ces pretentious». (His contract obliged him to pay me a 10 percent royalty up to ten thousand copies, and 12 percent after that.)
The interim copyright stipulated that no more than 1500 copies should be imported into the U.S. Mr. Girodias rather resented my keeping an eagle eye on his lighthearted transatlantics. I knew for instance that copies of his edition were being sold for $12 and more in New York. He assured me that the difference was pocketed by the retailers. On November 30, 1957, Mr. Girodias wrote in a mellow mood «I admit that I have been wrong on several occasions in the course of our dealings. ..». He added that he no longer «requested a larger share of the proceeds» of the American edition and that he was canceling his «alternative project» of bringing out his own «American reprint» — a silly threat, the carrying out of which would have been his undoing. But already by December 16, 1957, he was larking again: On that day I learnt with wonder from my agent that Mr. Girodias declared he had sold only eight copies in America in three months (April to June) but that since I thought he had done so at a higher price than shown in his statements ($7.50) he was sending me the difference, a check for 50 cents. And he added that he considered all our differences now settled!
It would be tedious to continue giving instances of the delayed or incomplete statements of accounts that marked Mr. Girodias' course of action during the following years or of such misdemeanors as publishing in Paris a reprint of his edition of Lolita with his own introduction (in intolerably bad English) without my permission — which he knew I would never have given. What always made me regret our association were not «dreams ot impending fortune», not my «hating» him «for having stolen a portion of Nabokov's property», but the obligation to endure the elusiveness, the evasiveness, the procrastination, the dodges, the duplicity, and the utter irresponsibility of the man. This is why, on May 28, 1959, before sailing for Europe after exactly 19 years of absence, I wrote to Mme. Ergaz that I did not wish to make the acquaintance of Mr. Girodias when I came to Paris for the launching of the French translation of Lolita. As revealed now by his Evergreen article, the depths of his personality are even less attractive than they seemed when showing through our correspondence. I suspect that much of the rudeness in his article is the result of his relying too heavily on a journalistic style, redolent, perhaps, of Gallic levity but sadly wanting in English precision. Anyway, I shall not discuss here the insolent and vulgar remarks he makes in regard to my wife (idiotically insinuating, for instance, that certain editorial comments in Life International, July 6, 1959, were written by her though signed «ED»).