Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In "Ardis the First"  Marina (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother) uses the word horosho (good) in the sense "all right:"

Describing his dinner in ‘Ursus’ with Ada and Lucette, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions Flora, a slender, hardly nubile, half-naked music-hall dancer of uncertain origin:

According to Ada, she saw the phrase "far enough, fair enough" in small violet letters before Van (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) put it into orange ones:

The children of Demon Veen and Marina Durmanov, Van and Ada (the two main characters in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) are officially maternal cousins and can marry only by special decree:

They walked through a grove and past a grotto.

Revisiting Ardis in 1888, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) meets Cordula de Prey (Ada’s schoolmate at Brownhill) wearing a yellow-blue Vass frock:

Leaving Van’s Manhattan flat, Lucette (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) pins to the pillow a note scrawled in Arlen Eyelid Green:

Describing the floramors (one hundred palatial brothels built by David van Veen, a wealthy architect of Flemish extraction, all over the world in memory of his grandson Eric, the author of an essay entitled "Villa Venus: an Organized Dream"), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions “some nice vstryaska (shake-up) in the genetic kaleidoscope:”

Describing the floramors (one hundred palatial brothels built by David van Veen, a wealthy architect of Flemish extraction, all over the world in memory of his grandson Eric, the author of an essay entitled "Villa Venus: an Organized Dream"), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions ordinary lupanars:

The characters in VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962) include Queen Disa, the wife of Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla. Duchess of Payn, of Great Payn and Mone, Queen Disa seems to blend Leonardo’s Mona Lisa with Desdemona, Othello’s wife in Shakespeare’s Othello.

In his poem Umri, Florentsiya, Iuda... ("Die, Florence, you Judas...") from the cycle "Italian Verses" (1909) Alexander Blok mentions Leonardo:

Describing his fellow writers in Paris, Vadim Vadimovich (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Look at the Harlequins! 1974) mentions the honest nonentity Suknovalov, author of the popular social satire Geroy nashey ery ("Hero of Our Era"):