Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing the last moments of John Shade's life, 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 horseshoe music from Mystery Lodge:

Line 991: horseshoes 

At the end of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's poem Pale Fire, 1962) says that the day (the last day of Shade's life) has passed in a sustained low hum of harmony:

Gently the day has passed in a sustained

Low hum of harmony. The brain is drained

And a brown ament, and the noun I meant

To use but did not, dry on the cement.

Maybe my sensual love for the consonne

D'appui, Echo's fey child, is based upon

A feeling of fantastically planned,

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes a game of chess with his wife and mentions the writer's grief:

"What is that funny creaking - do you hear?"

"It is the shutter on the stairs, my dear."

"If you're not sleeping, let's turn on the light.

I hate that wind! Let's play some chess." "All right."

"I'm sure it's not the shutter. There - again."

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955), he spent the end of the winter of 1949-1950 and most of the following spring in a Quebec sanatorium where he had stayed before:

Describing his life with Lolita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions his world, umber and black Humberland:

Describing the last game of Flavita (the Russian Scrabble) that he played at Ardis with Ada and Lucette, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) is on the brink of mentioning KREMLIN (the word formed by Lucette's letters):

At the beginning of VN's novel Ada (1969) Van Veen (the narrator and main character) mentions the publishing house Pontius Press that brought out Tolstoy's Detstvo i Otrochestvo:

Describing his nights at Ardis, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions a crash of symbols in an orchal orchestra:

Describing his first physical contact with Lolita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions the picture in Lolita's magazine: a surrealist painter relaxing, supine, on a beach, and near him, likewise supine, a plaster replica of the Venus di Milo, half-buried in sand:

In his foreword to Humbert Humbert's manuscript John Ray, Jr. (a character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions Humbert's singing violin: