Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

At the end of "Ardis the First" Ada, having returned from a bicycle ride in the park with Van, repeats the French phrase tant pis (too bad) two times:

In VN's novel Bend Sinister (1947) the rise of Ekwilism took place in the days when a blatantly bourgeois paper happened to be publishing a cartoon sequence depicting the home life of Mr and Mrs Etermon (Everyman):

Onboard Admiral Tobakoff (a liner on which they cross the Atlantic) Van's and Ada's half-sister Lucette asks Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) whom did 'Miss Condor' (a tall mulatto girl who approached Van) look like:

On the bridge across the Kur (in VN's novel Bend Sinister, 1947, the river that flows in Padukgrad and Omigod) one of the soldiers says that his cousin, the gardener, lives in Bervok and Krug mentions Bervok's grand apples:

Another soldier came up idly juggling with a flashlight and again Krug had a glimpse of a pale-faced little man standing apart and smiling.

'I want some fun too,' the third soldier said.

'Well, well,' said Krug. 'Fancy seeing you here. How is your cousin, the gardener?'

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), the surname Lukin comes from Luke:

On the bridge across the Kur (in VN's novel Bend Sinister, 1947, the river that flows in Padukgrad) one of the illiterate soldiers calls the grocer "ved'min syn [son of a witch]:"

Another soldier came up idly juggling with a flashlight and again Krug had a glimpse of a pale-faced little man standing apart and smiling.

'I want some fun too,' the third soldier said.

'Well, well,' said Krug. 'Fancy seeing you here. How is your cousin, the gardener?'

In VN's novel Bend Sinister (1947) Krug recalls the words of his late wife Olga, 'togliwn ochnat divodiv [the daily surprise of awakening]!':

The characters in VN's novel Bend Sinister (1947) include Krug's friend Ember (a Shakespeare specialist). Three months of the year, September, November and December, end in ember. In Krylov's fable Lzhets ("The Liar," 1811) the Liar uses the phrase kruglyi bozhiy god (the whole God's year):

Из дальних странствий возвратясь,
Какой-то дворянин (а может быть, и князь),

The characters in VN's novel Bend Sinister (1947) include Mariette, the Krugs' housemaid who was sent by Paduk to spy on Adam Krug and his son David:

The name of the dictator of Padukgrad in VN's novel Bend Sinister (1947), Paduk seems to hint at glitay abozh pauk (the spider), in Chekhov's story Chelovek v futlyare ("The Man in a Case," 1898) a nickname that Kovalenko gave Belikov: