At the end of Pushkin’s poem Poet i tolpa (“The Poet and the Crowd,” 1828) the Poet says:

Не для житейского волненья,
Не для корысти, не для битв,
Мы рождены для вдохновенья,
Для звуков сладких и молитв.

Not for worldly turmoil,

Not for profit, not for battles,

We were born for inspiration,

For sweet sounds and prayers.

It seems to me that the Poet’s assertion could inspire VN to composition of the following anagram:

molitva + Botkin + slava + chitatel’ + revizor + Nabokov + korona + otets + seno = molva + bitva + nikto + chisla + izobretatel’ + vorona + korova + konets + sonet

molitva – prayer

slava – glory; fame

chitatel’ – reader

revizor – inspector

korona – crown

otets – father

seno – hay

molva – rumor, hearsay

bitva – battle

nikto – nobody

chisla – numbers (pl. of chislo, number)

izobretatel’ – inventor

vorona – crow

korova – cow

konets – end

sonet – sonnet

Re seno (hay): in Canto Four of Pale Fire Shade mentions old Zembla’s fields that he ploughs with his razor and slaves who make hay as he shaves the space between his mouth and nose:

And while the safety blade with scrap and screak
Travels across the country of my cheek,
Cars on the highway pass, and up the steep
Incline big trucks around my jawbone creep,
And now a silent liner docks, and now
Sunglassers tour Beirut, and now I plough
Old Zembla's fields where my gray stubble grows,
And slaves make hay between my mouth and nose. (ll. 931-938)

Molitva and bitva rhyme with britva (razor). Britva (1926) is a story by VN.

bitva + razor = britva + roza

roza – rose

In Canto Four (XLII: 1-4) of Eugene Onegin Pushkin offers to the reader the expected rhyme morozy-rozy:

И вот уже трещат морозы
И серебрятся средь полей...
(Читатель ждет уж рифмы розы;
На, вот возьми её скорей!)

And now the frosts already crackle

and silver 'mid the fields

(the reader now expects the rhyme "froze-rose"

 - here, take it quick!).

molitva + roza + fleur = moroz + alfavit + rule = um + lava + ozero + flirt

fleur – Fr., flower (cf. Fleur de Fyler, an elegant lady-in-waiting in Kinbote’s Zembla)

moroz – frost

alfavit – alphabet

um – intellect, wits, mind

lava – lava

ozero – lake

flirt - flirtation

Alexey Sklyarenko