Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Leaving Ardis forever, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) recalls Ada’s favorite tree, Ginkgo biloba:

‘The express does not stop at Torfyanka, does it, Trofim?’

‘I’ll take you five versts across the bog,’ said Trofim, ‘the nearest is Volosyanka.’

His vulgar Russian word for Maidenhair; a whistle stop; train probably crowded.

Describing the conversation about religions in “Ardis the First,” Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the plough team (as Van calls himself and Lucette):

‘When I was a little girl,’ said Marina crossly, ‘Mesopotamian history was taught practically in the nursery.’

‘Not all little girls can learn what they are taught,’ observed Ada.

‘Are we Mesopotamians?’ asked Lucette.

Among the doctors (all of whom bear names connected with rabbits) in VN’s novel Ada (1969) there are Doctor Krolik (Ada’s beloved teacher of natural history whose name means in Russian “rabbit”) and the German gynecologist Seitz (whose name sounds like Russian zayats, hare):

Before the family dinner in “Ardis the Second” Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) calls Blanche (a French handmaid at Ardis) “a remarkably pretty soubrette:”

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Van and Ada find out that they are brother and sister thanks to Marina’s old herbarium that they discovered in the attic of Ardis Hall:

According to Ada (the title character of a novel, 1969, by VN), the glossy-limbed shattal tree at the bottom of the garden that Van and Ada climb in "Ardis the First" is really the Tree of Knowledge:

When Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) tells Ada that he abhors and rejects her livid lipstick, Ada says “Ladno (Okay)” and wipes her mouth with a handkerchief:

Describing the library of Ardis Hall, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions a story by Chateaubriand about a pair of romantic siblings:

On Demonia (aka Antiterra, Earth’s twin planet on which VN’s novel Ada, 1969, is set) Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary (1856) is known as Floeberg’s Ursula:

Van reached the third lawn, and the bower, and carefully inspected the stage prepared for the scene, ‘like a provincial come an hour too early to the opera after jogging all day along harvest roads with poppies and bluets catching and twinkle-twining in the wheels of his buggy’ (Floeberg’s Ursula). (1.20)

Describing his journey with Lucette (Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) on Admiral Tobakoff, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the Helmeted Angel of the Yukonsk Ikon whose magic effect was said to change anemic blond maidens into konskie deti, freckled red-haired lads, children of the Sun Horse: