Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing his meeting with Lucette in Kingston, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) compares a philosopher’s orbitless eye to a peeled hard-boiled egg:

Van, Vanichka, we are straying from the main point. The point is that the writing desk or if you like, secretaire —’

‘I hate both, but it stood at the opposite end of the black divan.’

In VN’s novel Look at the Harlequins! (1974) Vadim Vadimovich mentions Professor Moody and the "numerical nimbus" syndrome:

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), his and Ada’s half-sister Lucette turned out to be the impeccable paranymph:

In a letter to her lover and brother, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), Ada (now married to Andrey Vinelander) calls herself “a petite fille modèle practicing archery near a vase and a parapet:”

In his essay The Texture of Time (1922) Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions Alice in the Camera Obscura, a book that was given to him on his eighth birthday:

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), Shade wrote his last poem in July, 1959:

In Fyodor’s first imaginary dialogue with Koncheyev (in VN’s novel “The Gift,” 1937, Fyodor’s rival poet) the latter says that he sees in the line that he read today in Vasiliev’s Gazeta, “Na Tebe, Bozhe, chto mne negozhe” (“Take, God, what I don’t need,” a slightly altered Russian proverb), obozhestvlenie kalik (deification of the calques):

Они простились. Фу, какой ветер...

Before the family dinner in “Ardis the Second” Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) mentions his aunt Kitty who married the Banker Bolenski after divorcing that dreadful old wencher Lyovka Tolstoy, the writer:

‘I don’t know if you know,’ said Van, resuming his perch on the fat arm of his father’s chair. ‘Uncle Dan will be here with the lawyer and Lucette only after dinner.’

‘Capital,’ said Demon.

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), he overheard Shade say that a person who deliberately peels off a drab and unhappy past and replaces it with a brilliant invention is not a lunatic, but merely turns a new leaf with the left hand:

Describing a conversation at the Faculty Club, 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 Gerald Emerald (a young instructor at Wordsmith University) to a disciple in Leonardo's Last Supper: