It could be that the answer to many ghost-related riddles in Nabokov
 (including PF) is in "Pnin":
 "He did not believe in an autocratic God. He did believe, dimly, in a democracy of ghosts.
 The souls of the dead, perhaps, formed committees, and these, in
 continuous session, attended to the destinies of the quick."

 It is the interaction and struggle between ghosts, each
 protecting his or her own "quick", much like Greek gods,  that can
 explain the incosistencies.
 As for the tradition of ghosts in the Russian literature, it's
 huge  but it seems that Nabokov's treatment of the theme was
 influenced more by spiritualistic and theosophical
 teachings immensely popular in Russia at the time of Nabokov's youth.

Tatiana Ponomareva

--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co„Editor, NABOKV„L
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