Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) the judge whispers into Cincinnatus’s ear a token phrase ‘with the gracious consent of the audience, you will be made to don the red top hat:’

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) Cincinnatus calls the jailer Rodion, the director Rodrig Ivanovich and the lawyer Roman Vissarionovich (all of whom turn out to be one and the same man) kukla, kucher, krashenaya svoloch’ (rag doll, coachman, painted swine):

- Позвольте вас от души поздравить, - маслянистым басом сказал директор, входя на другое утро в камеру к Цинциннату.

In "Ardis the First" Van makes Lucette (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) learn by heart a little poem by the Poet Laureate Robert Brown, the old gentleman whom Demon Veen (Van's and Ada's father) once pointed out to Van up in the air on a cliff under a cypress, looking down on the foaming turquoise surf near Nice:

In a little poem that Van makes Lucette (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) learn by heart the Poet Laureate Robert Brown mentions oats and oaks:

They tried all sorts of other tricks.

At a lunch with Van in Paris Lucette (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) pokes with a fork at her blue trout which, to judge by its contorted shape and bulging eyes, had boiled alive, convulsed by awful agonies:

She wanted fish, he stuck to cold cuts and salad.

‘You know whom I ran into this morning? Good old Greg Erminin. It was he who told me you were around. His wife est un peu snob, what?’

When they cross the Atlantic on Admiral Tobakoff, Lucette (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) tells Van that she would consider herself a pied cheat if the small parts she conceals in public were not of the same color as those on show:

They met again in the afternoon.

Describing Villa Venus (one hundred palatial brothels, or floramors, built by David van Veen all over the world in memory of his grandson Eric), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the lovely cul-de-sac south of the viaduct of fabulous Palermontovia:

In his poem “Wanted” composed after Lolita was abducted from him Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions an old perfume called Soleil Vert:

My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair ,

And never closed when I kissed her.

Know an old perfume called Soleil Vert? 

Are you from Paris, mister?

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) Cincinnatus works in the toy workshop:

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) Cincinnatus works in the toy workshop: