Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

According to Ada (the title character of a novel, 1969, by VN), the servants called Ben Wright (the English coachman in “Ardis the First” who is associated with farts) “Bengal Ben:”

Nonchalantly, Van went back to the willows and said:

‘Every shot in the book has been snapped in 1884, except this one. I never rowed you down Ladore River in early spring. Nice to note you have not lost your wonderful ability to blush.’

Describing the picnic on Ada’s sixteenth birthday, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the muscat wine:

The muscat wine was uncorked. Ada’s and Ida’s healths drunk. ‘The conversation became general,’ as Monparnasse liked to write.

Count Percy de Prey turned to Ivan Demianovich Veen:

‘I’m told you like abnormal positions?’

According to Marina (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s, Ada’s and Lucette’s mother), the Zemskis were terrible rakes (razvratniki), one of them loved small girls, and another raffolait d’une de ses juments:

The dog came in, turned up a brimming brown eye Vanward, toddled up to the window, looked at the rain like a little person, and returned to his filthy cushion in the next room.

‘I could never stand that breed,’ remarked Van. ‘Dackelophobia.’

Telling Van about strange visitors at the Agavia Ranch (where she lives with her husband Andrey Vinelander), Ada uses the phrase vsyu kompaniyu (the entire company):

‘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.’

According to Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father), the sweetest word in the language rhymes with "billiard:"

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

Describing his imaginary duel with Andrey Vinelander (Ada’s husband), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) calls his adversary “Mr Cutaway:”

Van kissed her leaf-cold hand and, letting the Bellevue worry about his car, letting all Swans worry about his effects and Mme Scarlet worry about Eveline’s skin trouble, he walked some ten kilometers along soggy roads to Rennaz and thence flew to Nice, Biskra, the Cape, Nairobi, the Basset range —

Describing Hugh’s and Armande’s last evening together, the anonymous narrators of VN’s novel Transparent Things (1972) mention a heavy piece of inscrutable sculpture catalogued as "Pauline anide:"

We are back in New York and this is their last evening together.

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Van Veen (the narrator and main character) learns card tricks from Mr Plunkett (a reformed card-sharper):

According to Ada (the title character of a novel, 1969, by VN), she could dissect a koala but not its baby:

He discovered her hands (forget that nail-biting business). The pathos of the carpus, the grace of the phalanges demanding helpless genuflections, a mist of brimming tears, agonies of unresolvable adoration. He touched her wrist, like a dying doctor. A quiet madman, he caressed the parallel strokes of the delicate down shading the brunette’s forearm. He went back to her knuckles. Fingers, please.