Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In his Commentary to Shade's poem 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) calls his uncle Conmal (Shakespeare’s translator into Zemblan) “the venerable Duke:”

In VN’s novel Bend Sinister (1947) Miss Bachofen (a girl who comes with Hustav to arrest Ember) mentions a story about the two sailors and the barbok [a kind of pie with a hole in the middle for melted butter]:

In VN’s novel Look at the Harlequins! (1974) other books by the narrator include Esmeralda and her Parandrus (1941), Vadim’s novel that seems to correspond to VN’s Bend Sinister (1947). Parandrus is an ox-sized animal of medieval bestiaries. Esmeralda must be the name of a Spanish nobleman’s little daughter who discovered the paintings in the cave of Altamira:

In VN’s novel Bend Sinister (1947) the philosopher Adam Krug had always wished to know more about the Aurignacian Age and those portraits of singular beings (perhaps Neanderthal half-men—direct ancestors of Paduk and his likes—used by Aurignacians as slaves) that a Spanish nobleman and his little daughter had discovered in the painted cave of Altamira:

In VN’s novel Bend Sinister (1947) Dr. Alexander quotes the saying domusta barbarn kapusta (the ugliest wives are the truest):

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), all the hundred floramors (palatial brothels built by David van Veen, a wealthy architect of Flemish extraction, all over the world in memory of his grandson Eric) opened simultaneously on September 20, 1875:

In VN’s novel Bend Sinister (1947) Krug’s wife Olga is a regular radabarbara (full-blown handsome woman):

In VN’s novel Bend Sinister (1947) Paduk (the dictator of Padukgrad) is compared to Roman emperors Titus and Nero:

The characters in VN’s novel Bend Sinister (1947) include Paduk (nicknamed "The Toad"), the dictator of Padukgrad, former schoolmate of Krug and founder of Ekwilism. The name Paduk seems to hint at Glitay abozh pauk, as in Chekhov’s story Chelovek v futlyare (“The Man in a Case,” 1898) Kovalenko calls Belikov (the man in a case):

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) the author of Quercus, a novel that Cincinnatus reads in the fortress, is compared to a man who sits with his camera somewhere among the topmost branches of the tree, spying out and catching his prey: