In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert would have never met Lolita, if the fire did not destroy McCoo’s house:

Nobody met me at the toy station where I alighted with my new expensive bag, and nobody answered the telephone; eventually, however, a distraught McCoo in wet clothes turned up at the only hotel of green-and-pink Ramsdale with the news that his house had just burned down - possibly, owing to the synchronous conflagration that had been raging all night in my veins. His family, he said, had fled to a farm he owned, and had taken the car, but a friend of his wife’s, a grand person, Mrs. Haze of 342 Lawn Street, offered to accommodate me. (1.10)

In a letter of May 7, 1902, to Balmont Chekhov thanks Balmont for his collection Goryashchie zdaniya (“Burning Buildings,” 1900), a copy that the author sent from Oxford to Yalta:

«Горящие здания» и второй том Кальдерона получил и благодарю Вас безгранично. Вы знаете, я люблю Ваш талант, и каждая Ваша книжка доставляет мне немало удовольствия и волнения. Это, быть может, оттого, что я консерватор.

At the end of his letter Chekhov mentions kheruvimy i seraphimy (cherubs and seraphs):

Будьте здоровы, да хранят Вас херувимы и серафимы. Пишите мне ещё, хоть одну строчку.

At the beginning of Lolita Humbert Humbert mentions the seraphs:

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns. (1.1)

In the novel’s Russian version (1967) Gumbert Gumbert (Humbert Humbert in Russian spelling) calls them Edgarovy serafimy (Edgar’s seraphs):

Уважаемые присяжные женского и мужеского пола! Экспонат Номер Первый представляет собой то, чему так завидовали Эдгаровы серафимы - худо осведомленные, простодушные, благороднокрылые серафимы... Полюбуйтесь-ка на этот клубок терний. (1.1)

In his poem Annabel Lee (1849) Edgar A. Poe mentions “the wingèd seraphs of Heaven.” In a letter of January 1, 1902, to Balmont Chekhov says that in his library there are two books by E. A. Poe in Balmont’s translation, Tainstvennye rasskazy (Tales of Mystery and Imagination) and Poe, Edgar, vol. 1 (Poems, Fairy Tales), and adds that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow he will start reading Poe:

Из Ваших книг у меня имеются: 1) «Под северным непшбом»; 2) Шелли, вып<уск> 2-й и 7-й (Ченчи); 3) «В безбрежности»; 4) «Тишина»; 5) Кальдерон, т. 1; 6) «Таинственные рассказы»; 7) По Эдгар, т. 1.

За книгу всей душой благодарю. Я теперь не работаю, а только читаю, и завтра-послезавтра примусь за Эдг. По.

Chekhov’s letter to Balmont is dated January 1. Dolores Haze (Lolita’s full name) was born on January 1, 1935. Balmont claimed that his ancestor was a Scotsman. At least three of Lolita’s classmates at the Ramsdale school have Scottish names: Virginia McCoo, Vivian McCrystal and Aubrey McFate (1.11). Virginia was the name of E. A. Poe’s wife. In one of his jingles Humbert Humbert compares his Lolita to Poe’s Vee and Dante’s Bea:

Oh, Lolita, you are my girl, as Vee was Poe’s and Bea Dante's, and what little girl would not like to whirl in a circular skirt and scanties? (1.25)

Vivian McCrystal (whose sex is unclear) has the same first name as Vivian Darkbloom (Clare Quilty’s co-author). The surname McCrystal brings to mind magicheskiy kristal (a magic crystal) mentioned by Pushkin in the penultimate line of the penultimate stanza of Eugene Onegin (Eight: L: 13):

Прости ж и ты, мой спутник странный,
И ты, мой верный идеал,
И ты, живой и постоянный,
Хоть малый труд. Я с вами знал
Всё, что завидно для поэта:
Забвенье жизни в бурях света,
Беседу сладкую друзей.
Промчалось много, много дней
С тех пор, как юная Татьяна
И с ней Онегин в смутном сне
Явилися впервые мне —
И даль свободного романа
Я сквозь магический кристалл
Еще не ясно различал.

You, too, farewell, my strange traveling companion,

and you, my true ideal,

and you, my live and constant,

though small, work. I have known with you

all that a poet covets:

obliviousness of life in the world's tempests,

the sweet discourse of friends.

Rushed by have many, many days

since young Tatiana, and with her

Onegin, in a blurry dream

appeared to me for the first time —

and the far stretch of a free novel

I through a magic crystal

still did not make out clearly.

Dal’ svobodnogo romana (the far stretch of a free novel) brings to mind Mona Dahl, Lolita’s schoolmate and confidant at Beardsley College. There is Mona in Desdemona, and Lo (as Charlotte calls her daughter) in Othello. In Ezerski, an unfinished poem written in the EO stanza, Pushkin mentions young Desdemona who loves her blackamoor, as the moon loves the gloom of night:

Зачем крутится ветр в овраге,
Подъемлет лист и пыль несет,
Когда корабль в недвижной влаге
Его дыханья жадно ждет?
Зачем от гор и мимо башен
Летит орел, тяжел и страшен,
На черный пень? Спроси его.
Зачем арапа своего
Младая любит Дездемона,
Как месяц любит ночи мглу?
Затем, что ветру и орлу
И сердцу девы нет закона.
Гордись: таков и ты, поэт,
И для тебя условий нет.

Why does the wind revolve in the ravine,

sweep up the leaves and bear the dust,

when avidly on stirless water

wait for his breath the galleon must?

From mountains and past towers, why

does the dread heavy eagle fly

to a sea stump? Inquire of him.

Why does young Desdemona love

her blackamoor as the moon loves

the gloom of night? Because

for wind and eagle

and maiden’s heart no law is laid.

Poet, be proud: thus are you too:

neither is there a law for you. (XIII)

Vetr v ovrage (wind in the ravine) in the stanza’s first line brings to mind Chekhov’s story V ovrage (“In the Ravine,” 1899). The surname Ezerski comes from ezero (obs., lake). Humbert Humbert is tempted to drown Charlotte in the Hourglass Lake (1.20). The two o’s in the name McCoo resemble hourglass.

Beardsley College hints at Aubrey Beardsley, an English illustrator and author who has the same first name as Aubrey McFate (Lolita’s schoolmate in Ramsdale). In the last stanza of EO (Eight: LI: 8) Pushkin says that fate has snatched much, much away: