Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In VN’s novel Transparent Things (1972) the narrators mention Hugh Person’s main “umbral companion:”

In VN's novel Otchayanie (Despair,” 1934) Hermann suggests that Ardalion tries drawing his face in profile:

In VN's novel Otchayanie (Despair,” 1934) Hermann says that he does not believe in God and mentions beskonechnaya igra (the endless acting of the fiends in disguise who impersonate our dear dead in the hereafter):

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) compares our world to a cage and says that “we are most artistically caged:”

My picture book was at an early age

The painted parchment papering our cage:

Mauve rings around the moon; blood-orange sun;

Twinned Iris; and that rare phenomenon

The iridule - when, beautiful and strange,

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955), he wanted to use his notes at his trial to save not his head, but his soul:

When Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) visits Lolita (now married to Richard F. Schiller) in Coalmont, a dog barks at him:

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955), at first he wanted to use his notes in toto at his trial:

In the opening line of his poem Kakoe sdelal ya durnoe delo… (“What is the evil deed I have committed?" 1959) VN mentions durnoe delo (the evil deed):

Describing his meeting with Lolita in Camp Q, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions the fates and uses the phrase “in a wink:”

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955), it took him fifty-six days (eight weeks) to write Lolita: