Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing Gradus’s day in New York, Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) mentions the Rachel Jewelry Company in Brooklyn:

At a meal in "Ardis the First" Marina (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother) blows her nose with the sound of an elephant:

The element that destroys Marina (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother who dies of cancer and whose body is burnt, according to her instructions) is fire:

Numbers and rows and series — the nightmare and malediction harrowing pure thought and pure time — seemed bent on mechanizing his mind. Three elements, fire, water, and air, destroyed, in that sequence, Marina, Lucette, and Demon. Terra waited. 

Describing Gradus’s day in New York, Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) mentions Nikita Khrushchyov's visit to Zembla and "quotes" the Soviet leader's words "Vï nazïvaete sebya zemblerami, a ya vas nazïvayu zemlyakami (You call yourselves Zemblans and I call you fellow countrymen!):"

Describing Gradus’s day in New York, Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) mentions agate type in which the Rachel Jewelry Company in Brooklyn advertised for a jewelry polisher who "must have experience on costume jewelry:"

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) and mentions the fantasies of Poe that he tore apart:

We heard cremationists guffaw and snort

At Grabermann's denouncing the Retort

As detrimental to the birth of wraiths.

We all avoided criticizing faiths.

The great Starover Blue reviewed the role

Planets had played as landfalls of the soul.

Describing his insomnias, Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) mentions a Wagner record and hallucinations:

In his commentary and index to Shade's poem Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) mentions young Baron Mandevil (a man of fashion and Zemblan patriot) and his cousin (the experimentalist, madman and traitor):

Describing IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) in Canto Three of his poem, John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions a medium who smuggled in pale jellies and a floating mandolin:

Among our auditors were a young priest

And an old Communist. Iph could at least

Compete with churches and the party line.

In later years it started to decline:

Buddhism took root. A medium smuggled in

Pale jellies and a floating mandolin.

Fra Karamazov, mumbling his inept

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes a March night and mentions funny creaking and other strange sounds: