Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Could Alamillo in Time and Ebb be suggested to Nabokov by his contemporary the mexican general Luis Alamillo (born in 1904) military attache in Washington DC and Paris around the time of that short story writing?

In VN’s story Sovershenstvo (“Perfection,” 1932) Ivanov wants to let the dappled voices, the bird calls, filter through his being and to enter for a moment into a passerby’s soul as one enters the cool shade of a tree:

In VN's story The Vane Sisters (1951) the spirit of Leo Tolstoy appears at a sèance arranged by Cynthia (Sybil’s elder sister):

At the only inn of Malahar, a miserable village on Ladore River, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) rents a room under a false name (Boucher):

In VN’s story Sovershenstvo (“Perfection,” 1932) Ivanov tries to show to David how to pitch a pebble so as to have it glance off the water’s surface:

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) two gypsy courtesans predict to Van that he will never have children:

Describing his tryst with Ada in the vicinity of Ardis Hall, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions Malahar, a miserable village on Ladore River:

On Demonia (aka Antiterra, Earth’s twin planet on which VN’s novel Ada, 1969, is set) Paris is also known as Lute:

In 1885, having completed his prep-school education, he went up to Chose University in England, where his fathers had gone, and traveled from time to time to London or Lute (as prosperous but not overrefined British colonials called that lovely pearl-gray sad city on the other side of the Channel). (1.28)

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) two gypsy courtesans predicted to Van that he would never have children:

Describing his sexual dreams, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions a dream in which Ada and Lucette slake their thirst in the pool of his blood: