Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing the torments of poor mad Aqua (the twin sister of Van’s, Ada’s and Lucette’s mother Marina), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions Altar – as Gibraltar is known on Demonia (also known as Antiterra, Earth’s twin planet on which Ada is set):

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:”

In VN's novel Lolita (1955) above Humbert’s bed in the Haze house in Ramsdale there is a reproduction of René Prinet’s “Kreutzer Sonata:”

In the Russian version (1967) of VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Gumbert Gumbert (Humbert Humbert in Russian spelling) mentions Princess X who will never go to Italy with Onegin:

Describing Flavita (the Russian Scrabble), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions Ada’s seven ‘luckies’ (the seven letters Ada had taken from the open case where the blocks lay face down):

One of the eleven main characters in VN’s novel Ada (1969) is Daniel Veen (the husband of Van’s, Ada’s and Lucette’s mother Marina):

Upon his arrival at Ardis, Daniel Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, the husband of Van’s, Ada’s and Lucette’s mother Marina) tells Van that it is going to rain in a few minutes, because it started to rain at Ladore, and the rain takes about half-an-hour to reach Ardis:

Telling about his uncle, Daniel Veen (the husband of Van’s, Ada’s and Lucette’s mother Marina), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions a perch that Uncle Dan had once clocked:

Describing the debauch à trois with Ada and Lucette in his Manhattan flat, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) says that sounds have colors and colors have smells:

In his Commentary and Index 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) mentions Igor II, a wise and benevolent king: