- At low-tide, Vladimir meets Colette, a little French girl digging in the sand. (Miseri coleta! Now we can understand the point of his mis-remembering.)
- Colette is nine, and Vladimir is ten, and she speaks to Vladimir in a mixture of English and French.
- Vladimir has met other little girls at the beach in the past, but Colette (who seems less adored by her parents, poorer, common) is his first love.
- Colette has a fox terrier with whom she took a regular coach train, while her parents took a fancy car all the way from Paris and Nabokov laments: "I cannot recall the dog's name, and this bothers me." (7.3.3)
- At each sign of minor injury or mosquito bite, Colette becomes more and more dead to Vladimir, and he treasures a gold coin which he supposes will pay for their elopement.
- Because they're nine and ten, the pair does not get very far, ending up holding hands in a movie theatre. (This is just one more failed escape for young Vladimir!)
- Nabokov remembers a penholder souvenir from that trip, which had a small peephole through which you could see a small picture of the beach and sea.
- In thinking about the penholder, Nabokov suddenly remembers Collette's pup's name. It's Floss.
- On the way home from vacation, the family stops again in Paris, where Vladimir sees Colette for the last time. She gives him a box of candied almonds, and then skips away forever, with her stick-and-hoop toy.
- "I remember, some detail in her attire (perhaps a ribbon on her Scottish cap, or the pattern of her stockings) that reminded me then of the rainbow spiral in a glass marble." (7.3.9)