Sergey were killed. Boyd interprets Mira as the "moral center of the novel" and argues that in the confused reports of her generosity and fortitude in her last days "she comes to represent humanity at its best and most vulnerable". Relevant to this is the American town of Cremona, where, the morally unreliable narrator of the story informs us, Pnin visited to speak to the women's club at the beginning of the story; Cremona is the name of an Italian city that housed a "displaced persons" center where some Jews who survived the Nazi murders stayed, sometimes for more than a year, after the defeat of the Nazis, before being legally allowed to emigrate. In a similar fashion to the fictional Mira, Sergey Nabokov, who was taken to Neuengamme, exhibited tremendous conduct. According to Ivan Nabokov, Sergey "was extraordinary. He gave away lots of packages he was getting, of clothes and food, to people who were really suffering." Boyd noted Pnin's sharp contrast with Nabokov's most famous character, Humbert Humbert, from Lolita, which was written simultaneously with Pnin. Pnin is the anti-Humbert in every sense: where Humbert flatteringly depicts himself as tall, handsome and charming with perfect English, Pnin is relayed as stubby, rotund, odd-looking and with comically bad English. In their respective stories, Humbert seduces with secret monstrosity, while the seemingly vulgar Pnin is a saint in disguise. The contrast is highlighted in matrimony; Humbert manipulates and secretly loathes his wife Charlotte, contemplates killing her and ultimately breaks her heart and instigates her accidental demise. Pnin, inversely, is mistreated cruelly by his wife and ex-wife Liza Wind, for whom he bends over to do any favour out of selfless love. Lastly and most vividly, in their treatment of children: Humbert abducts and abuses his foster-child Dolores Haze, whom he belittles and plies with sweets, while Pnin by contrast is a caring and supportive figure to Liza's son Victor Wind, who is in a sense his foster son. Fittingly, Dolores despises and resents Humbert and betrays him at the first opportunity, while Victor admires Pnin more than he realises and treasures his friendship, symbolised by the magnificent aquamarine glass bowl Victor purchases for Pnin in Chapter 6. Arthur Mizener noted that whereas social isolation is often depicted as a negative consequence of characters’ behavior in most of Nabokov's novels, Timofey Pnin, the Russian emigrant and protagonist of Pnin, seems to