A note about July 15/28: That was Nabokov's nameday, of course, and since in Russia n-days in most families were celebrated more distinctly than b-days, — and since in the Nabokov family that day was a double feast — VN even in the 1970s marked it in his little notebooks ("moi imeniny"). And inserted the date in some of his fictions (e.g. The Defense). And even used Prince Vladimir's Christian name Vasilii (Basil) here and there (in "Spring in Fialta"; he changed it to "Victor" in the English version, to retain the initial V., and chose "Victor" as his Stevensonian alter ego in correspondence with his wife while in Paris in 1937).