Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

At the end of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's poem Pale Fire, 1962) says that the day (the last day of Shade's life) has passed in a sustained low hum of harmony:

Gently the day has passed in a sustained

Low hum of harmony. The brain is drained

And a brown ament, and the noun I meant

To use but did not, dry on the cement.

Maybe my sensual love for the consonne

D'appui, Echo's fey child, is based upon

A feeling of fantastically planned,

The action in VN's novel Ada (1969) takes place on Demonia, Earth's twin planet also known as Antiterra. Describing the torments of poor mad Aqua (the twin sister of Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother Marina), Van Veen (the narrator and main character) mentions the rosy remoteness of Terra (Terra the Fair, Aqua's real destination):

Describing the torments of poor mad Aqua (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, the twin sister of Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother Marina), Van Veen mentions rearrangement for melodeon of all the cacophonies of all the divinities and divines ever spawned in the marshes of this our sufficient world:

Describing his dinner with Ada and her family in Bellevue Hotel in Mont Roux in October 1905, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) says that Andrey Vinelander (Ada's husband) resembled Kosygin, the mayor of Yukonsk: 

Finally Van reached Ada’s husband.

Describing the torments of poor mad Aqua (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, the twin sister of Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother Marina), Van Veen says that two or three centuries earlier Aqua might have been just another consumable witch:

The characters in VN’s novel Ada (1969) include Dr Fitzbishop, a surgeon at the Kalugano hospital where Van Veen (the narrator and main character) recovers from the wound received in a pistol duel with Captain Tapper, of Wild Violet Lodge.

The element that destroys Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father who perishes in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific) is air:

Furnished Space, l’espace meublé (known to us only as furnished and full even if its contents be ‘absence of substance’ — which seats the mind, too), is mostly watery so far as this globe is concerned. In that form it destroyed Lucette. Another variety, more or less atmospheric, but no less gravitational and loathsome, destroyed Demon.

Describing his final reunion with Ada in July 1922, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the huge memorable oil in the lounge of Les Trois Cygnes (Van's hotel in Mont Roux) — three ample-haunched Ledas swapping lacustrine impressions — that had been replaced by a neoprimitive masterpiece showing three yellow eggs and a pair of plumber’s gloves on what looked like wet bathroom tiling:

Describing the last ten years of his life with Ada, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) cites the epoch-making confession (‘In my student days I became a deflowerer because I failed to pass my botany examination’) of Dr. Froit of Signy-Mondieu-Mondieu:

Describing the beginning of his lifelong romance with Ada, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions Ada's drawing teacher, Miss Wintergreen, and her natures mortes: