Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) young Cincinnatus spent the evenings in the Floating Library, in memoriam of Dr Sineokov:

One of the two main characters in VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) is M'sieur Pierre, the executioner. One of the main characters in Tolstoy’s novel Voina i mir (“War and Peace,” 1869) is Count Pierre Bezukhov. Cincinnatus and M'sieur Pierre arrive at the site of the execution in the same carriage:

To an interviewer’s question “what distinguishes us from animals” VN replied “being aware of being aware of being:”

What distinguishes us from animals?

In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) Luzhin senior begins to write The Gambit, a novella about a chess-playing small boy, in 1928:

In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) the action begins on Friday, August 28, 1908, Leo Tolstoy’s eightieth birthday. In his diary (the entry of March 7, 1904) Tolstoy compares death to a window which has been slammed shut:

Смерть — это захлопнутое окно, через которое смотрел на мир, или опущенные веки и сон, или переход от одного окна к другому.

In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) Kurt mistakes the Russian letters for Latin ones and reads the words Вас вечером (you in the evening) on Luzhin’s postcard as “Bac berepom:”

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of his childhood and mentions the miracle of a lemniscate left upon wet sand by nonchalantly deft bicycle tires:

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain

By feigned remoteness in the windowpane.

I had a brain, five senses (one unique);

But otherwise I was a cloutish freak.

In his Commentary to Shade’s poem 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) says that the Zemblan word coramen denotes the rude strap with which a Zemblan herdsman attaches his humble provisions and ragged blanket to the meekest of his cows when driving them up to the vebodar (upland pastures):

Line 137: lemniscate

In his Commentary to Shade’s poem 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) says that the Zemblan word coramen denotes the rude strap with which a Zemblan herdsman attaches his humble provisions and ragged blanket to the meekest of his cows when driving them up to the vebodar (upland pastures):

Line 137: lemniscate

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes his heart attack (during which he saw a tall white fountain) and mentions Captain Schmidt and Captain Smith:

If on some nameless island Captain Schmidt

Sees a new animal and captures it,

And if, a little later, Captain Smith