Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Onhava + Conmal + M’sieur Pierre + golos/Logos = Havamal + connoisseur + empire + gorlo

From Kinbote’s Index to Shade’s poem:

Onhava, the beautiful capital of Zembla, 12, 71, 130, 149, 171, 181, 275, 579, 894, 1000.

According to Vadim Vadimovich, the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Look at the Harlequins! (1974), his method of choosing and blending words could hardly be called a timesaving expedient:

In VN’s novel Look at the Harlequins! (1974) Other Books by the Narrator include Vadim’s collection of short stories Exile from Mayda (1947):

"I shall call this close friend of mine, whose case we are about to examine, Mr. Twidower, a name with certain connotations, as those of you who remember the title story in my Exile from Mayda will note."

In VN’s novel Look at the Harlequins! (1974) Other Books by the Narrator include The Red Top Hat (1934):

Telling Cincinnatus about his amorous prowess, M’sieur Pierre (the executioner in VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’, “Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) uses the phrase sam s usam (I’m no piker myself) and mentions his pruzhina (a spring):

Trying to calm him down, the doctor tells Hermann, the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Otchayanie (“Despair,” 1934), that the little countess is quite infatuated with him:

Он поговорил еще немного и встал. Я отдал ему платок.

At a meal in “Ardis the First” Ada (the title character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) calls muzhiks in Tartary (who misapply Kuroslep, the Russian word for marsh marigold, to the buttercup) “poor slaves:”

Van: ‘That yellow thingum’ (pointing at a floweret prettily depicted on an Eckercrown plate) ‘— is it a buttercup?’

According to Hermann, the narrator and main character in VN's novel Otchayanie (Despair,” 1934), both he and Felix look like Amundsen: 

At the end of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions a dark Vanessa butterfly:

A dark Vanessa with crimson band

Wheels in the low sun, settles on the sand

And shows its ink-blue wingtips flecked with white.

And through the flowing shade and ebbing light

A man, unheedful of the butterfly -

At the end of his Commentary 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 he may turn up yet, on another campus, as an old, happy, healthy heterosexual Russian, a writer in exile, sans fame, sans future, sans audience, sans anything but his art:

"And you, what will you be doing with yourself, poor King, poor Kinbote?" a gentle young voice may inquire.