Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

According to Ada, she told the driver to turn somewhere near Morzhey (a Russian pun on ‘Morges,’ a town on Lake Geneva mentioned by Karamzin in “The Letters of a Russian Traveler”):

He left the balcony and ran down a short spiral staircase to the fourth floor. In the pit of his stomach there sat the suspicion that it might not be room 410, as he conjectured, but 412 or even 414, What would happen if she had not understood, was not on the lookout? She had, she was.

Describing the breakfast after the Night of the Burning Barn (when Van and Ada make love for the first time), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions a dab of ye-old Orange Marmalade:

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Van tells Lucette (Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) who looks at Lenore Colline (the movie actress who resembles Ada) that cats do not stare at stars:

Mr Sween, lunching with a young fellow who sported a bullfighter’s sideburns and other charms, bowed gravely in the direction of their table; then a naval officer in the azure uniform of the Gulfstream Guards passed by in the wake of a dark, ivory-pale lady and said: ‘Hullo Lucette, hullo, Van.’

In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Lolita is abducted from Humbert Humbert on July 4, 1949 (the Independence Day).

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), the king escaped from green Zembla clad in bright red clothes:

Describing his stay in Elphinstone (where Lolita falls ill and is hospitalized), Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions Aurora (the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology and Latin poetry) and the pickers of lavender:

The characters in VN’s novel Lolita (1955) include Rev. Rigger, a teacher at Beardsley School whom the girls call Rev. Rigor Mortis (“stiffness of death”):

In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Clare Quilty resembles Gustave Trapp, Humbert Humbert’s Swiss uncle:

When Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) reads Mona Dahl’s letter to Lolita, he does not notice that qu’il t’y (a tongue-twister in the bit of French nonsense quoted by Mona) hints at Clare Quilty, the author of The Enchanted Hunters (the play that was a grand success at Beardsley):

Describing his life with Rita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions Rita’s vin triste smile: