Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

At the end of Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions a Balkan king and some faint hope:

Yes! It sufficed that I in life could find

Some kind of link-and-bobolink, some kind

Of correlated pattern in the game,

Plexed artistry, and something of the same

Pleasure in it as they who played it found.

When Ada refuses to leave her sick husband, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) walks some ten kilometers along soggy roads to Rennaz and thence flies to Nice, Biskra, the Cape, Nairobi, the Basset range:

Describing Ada’s allusions to her affairs of the flesh, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions cockamaroo (Russian ‘biks’), played with a toy cue on the billiard cloth of an oblong board with holes and hoops, bells and pins among which the ping-pong-sized eburnean ball zigzagged with bix-pix concussions:

Soon after his reunion with Ada in November, 1892, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) takes Ada and Lucette to ‘Ursus’ (the best Franco-Estotian restaurant in Manhattan Major):

Describing his dinner in ‘Ursus’ (the best Franco-Estotian restaurant in Manhattan Major) with Ada and Lucette (Van’s and Ada’s half-sister), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the vinocherpiy:

The narrator and main character in VN’s novel Otchayanie (“Despair,” 1934), Hermann is a chocolate manufacturer. The trademark on the wrapper of Hermann's chocolate shows dama v lilovom (a lady in lilac), with a fan:

Describing his life in Paris in the 1930s, Vadim Vadimovich (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Look at the Harlequins!, 1974) mentions one of his translators, Mr. Kulich:

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), in the preamble to a game she now could not remember Ada was mumbling and numbering in raw-flesh red the white trunks of a row of young birches with Rose’s purloined lipstick:

Describing the last game of Flavita (Russian Scrabble) that he played at Ardis with Ada and Lucette (Van’s and Ada’s half-sister), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the words ORHIDEYA and TORFYaNUYu composed by Ada:

On Admiral Tobakoff Lucette (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) tells Van that the Robinsons (an elderly couple) had saved her life by giving her on the eve a tubeful of Quietus Pills:

‘Please,’ said Lucette, ‘I’m tired of walking around, I’m frail, I’m feverish, I hate storms, let’s all go to bed!’