Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

According to Ada, at the funeral of Marina (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother) Demon Veen (Van's and Ada's father) and d’Onsky’s son, a person with only one arm, wept comme des fontaines:

‘My upper-lip space feels indecently naked.’ (He had shaved his mustache off with howls of pain in her presence). ‘And I cannot keep sucking in my belly all the time.’

When Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) and Ada (now married to Andrey Vinelander) meet in Mont Roux in October 1905 (half a year after Demon Veen's death in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific), Ada tells Van about the hag who visited her at the Agavia Ranch and demanded certain fantastic sums — which Demon had not had time to pay, for "popping the hymen:"

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 Buddhism and a school of Freudians:

At the Goodson Airport Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) calls Cordula de Prey (Van's mistress) "poule:"

Describing the torments of poor mad Aqua (the twin sister of Marina, Van’s, Ada’s and Lucette’s mother), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the Dr Froit of Signy-Mondieu-Mondieu in the Ardennes:

Describing his fateful conversation with Demon (Van's and Ada's father who tells Van to stop his ignoble affair with his sister), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the Black Miller and Dr Lapiner's wife, born Countess Alp:

A longish pause not unlike a fellow actor’s dry-up, came in response to his well-rehearsed speech.

According to Clare Quilty, a playwright and pornographer whom Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) murders for abducting Lolita from the Elphinstone hospital, he is the author of fifty-two successful scenarios:

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 King Alfin (the father of Charles the Beloved): 

One of the three main characters in VN's novel Pale Fire (1962), Jakob Gradus is a member of the Shadows (a regicidal organization). "Keep your face always toward the sunshine—and shadows will fall behind you" are the words often attributed to Walt Whitman (an American poet, 1819-1892).* This famous quote is widely shared by photographers to describe golden-hour portrait lighting.

Describing his rented house, 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) compares himself to a participant in a regatta:

Lines 47-48: the frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith