Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In his poem “Wanted” composed in a madhouse after Lolita was abducted from him Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions gnarled McFate:

Happy, happy is gnarled McFate
Touring the States with a child wife,
Plowing his Molly in every State
Among the protected wild life.

In the preceding stanza Humbert asks Lolita if she is still dancing:

In Chapter Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of his married life and mentions Lafontaine:

Life is a message scribbled in the dark.

Anonymous.

                         Espied on a pine’s bark,

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) and mentions President McAber:

In VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962) Balthasar, Prince of Loam (Kinbote’s black gardener) saves his tenant’s life by dealing Gradus (Shade’s murderer) a tremendous blow with his spade:

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes a game of chess with his wife and mentions the writer's grief:

"What is that funny creaking - do you hear?"

"It is the shutter on the stairs, my dear."

"If you're not sleeping, let's turn on the light.

I hate that wind! Let's play some chess." "All right."

At the beginning of Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions Rabelais’s great Maybe, “the grand potato:”

Describing his life in Paris, Vadim Vadimovich (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Look at the Harlequins!, 1974) mentions the poet Basilevski:

In his note to Line 230 (a domestic ghost) of 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) mentions Aunt Maud’s oil Cypress and Bat:

According to Vadim Vadimovich (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Look at the Harlequins!, 1974), he had first looked at the harlequins in the arbor of his favorite manor of Marevo:

In the second stanza of his poem Vlyublyonnost' (“Being in Love”) composed on the night of July 20, 1922, Vadim Vadimovich (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Look at the Harlequins!, 1974) mentions luch (a moonbeam):

Pokuda snitsya, snis', vlyublyonnost',

No probuzhdeniem ne much',

I luchshe nedogovoryonnost'