Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing Cincinnatus’s childhood, VN mentions tych’ (poke), a game that Cincinnatus, the hero of VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935), played with other children:

In one of his epigrams on Pasternak VN mentions a naked pastor (pastor nag):

Когда упал бы пастор на ком

и был бы этот пастор наг,

тогда сказали б: Пастернаком

является абсурдный знак.

If a pastor had fallen down on a lump

and if this pastor were naked,

then they would say: "Pasternak

In VN’s novel Otchayanie (“Despair,” 1934) Hermann points out that the name Felix (of a tramp whom Hermann believes to be his perfect double) means “the happy one:”

"А все-таки, – сказал я, – где, в случае чего, можно тебя найти?"

Он подумал и ответил: "Осенью я, наверное, буду в той деревне, где работал прошлой осенью. Вот на тамошний почтамт и адресуйте. Неподалеку от Тарница. Дайте запишу".

Describing his wife, Queen Disa (Duchess of Payn, of Great Payn and Mone), 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) quotes a Zemblan saying belwif ivurkumpf wid spew ebanumf ("A beautiful woman should be like a compass rose of ivory with four parts of ebony”):

The name of the capital of Zembla (a distant northern land in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962), Onhava seems to hint at heaven. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1.5) Hamlet tells Horatio: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." In a letter of Oct. 31, 1838, to his brother Dostoevski says that philosophy should not be regarded as a mere equation where nature is the unknown quantity:

Describing Gradus’ day in Nice, 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 Umruds (an Eskimo tribe) and their umyaks (hide-lined boats):

Describing the King’s escape from Zembla, 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 Mt. Glitterntin:

Describing Gradus (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade's murderer), Kinbote (Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) mentions the mineral blue of his jaw:

The three main characters in VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962) are the poet Shade, his commentator Kinbote (who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) and his murderer Gradus. “One shade the more, one ray the less” is a line in Byron’s poem She Walks in Beauty (1813):

She walks in beauty, like the night 

Of cloudless climes and starry skies; 

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions a game of chess with his wife Sybil who says that her knight is pinned (or is it the poet whose knight is pinned?):