Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

According to 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), Jakob Gradus (Shade's murderer) began his career in the glass business as a maker of Cartesian devils:

Describing the beginning of his life with Lolita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions the lyrical, epic, tragic but never Arcadian American wilds:

Describing his childhood, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions the splendid Hotel Mirana that revolved around him as a kind of private universe, a whitewashed cosmos within the blue greater one that blazed outside:

According to John Ray, Jr. (in VN's novel Lolita, 1955, the author of the Foreword to Humbert Humbert's manuscript), Humbert Humbert had died in legal captivity, of coronary thrombosis, on November 16, 1952, a few days before his trial was scheduled to start:

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955), among the pseudonyms he has toyed with before he hit on a particularly apt one was "Lambert Lambert:"

Describing Lolita's illness and hospitalization in Elphinstone (a small town in the Rocky Mountains), Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions poor Bluebeard:

Describing his life in Paris with his first wife Valeria, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) calls Valeria "a large, puffy, short-legged, big-breasted and practically brainless baba:"

When Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) visits Lolita (now married to Dick Schiller and big with child) in Coalmont, she offers him a smoke and is smoking herself:

“Sit down,” she said, audibly striking her flanks with her palms. I relapsed into the black rocker.

“So you betrayed me? Where did you go? Where is he now?”

When Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) visits Lolita (now married to Dick Schiller and big with child) in Coalmont, she offers him a smoke and is smoking herself:

“Sit down,” she said, audibly striking her flanks with her palms. I relapsed into the black rocker.

“So you betrayed me? Where did you go? Where is he now?”

When Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) visits Lolita (now married to Dick Schiller and big with child) in Coalmont, Lolita calls her husband "a lamb:"

She was, as I say, talking. It now came in a relaxed flow. He was the only man she had ever been crazy about. What about Dick? Oh, Dick was a lamb, they were quite happy together, but she meant something different. And I  had never counted, of course?