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still in Humbert's early life,
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near the bottom: It happened for instance that
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from my balcony I would notice a lighted window across the street and
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what looked like a nymphet in the act of undressing before
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a co-operative mirror.
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Thus isolated, thus removed, the vision acquired an especially keen charm
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that made me race with all speed toward my lone gratification.
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So, we have a kind of image there of the autonomous aesthetic pleasure,
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right, the pleasure of imagination that's taken alone,
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according to one's own thoughts rather than in some broader, more social form.
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But abruptly, fiendishly,
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the tender pattern of nudity I had adored