Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

At the beginning of Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions a singing cicada:

There was a time in my demented youth

When somehow I suspected that the truth

About survival after death was known -

To every human being: I alone

Knew nothing, and a great conspiracy

Describing the Zemblan Revolution, 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) compares the King to the only black piece in what a composer of chess problems might term a king-in-the-corner waiter of the solus rex type:

According to 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), upon their return from the secret passage, the young Prince told Oleg "you're all chalky behind:"

Describing the discovery of a secret passage that leads from the Palace to the Royal Theater, 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 a game of chess played by Monsieur Beauchamp (the Prince’s French governor) and Mr. Campbell (the Prince’s Scottish tutor) and the wary, silent, green-carpeted steps of an escalier dérobé:

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions diamonds of frost:

Retake the falling snow: each drifting flake

Shapeless and slow, unsteady and opaque,

A dull dark white against the day's pale white

And abstract larches in the neutral light.

And then the gradual and dual blue

In his Foreword 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 a manila envelope in which the index cards with the manuscript of Shade’s poem are enclosed:

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

Brings back a skin, that island is no myth. (ll. 759-762)

Describing his rented house, 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 the reproduction of a beloved early Picasso: earth boy leading raincloud horse:

Lines 47-48: the frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith

According to 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), after line 274 of Shade’s poem there is a false start in the draft:

I like my name: Shade, Ombre, almost 'man'
In Spanish... (note to Line 275)

According to 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), he was nicknamed “the great beaver” because of his brown beard: