Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,”1935) there are several inscriptions on the wall of Cincinnatus’s cell:

"Бытие безымянное, существенность беспредметная..." - прочёл Цинциннат на стене там, где дверь, отпахиваясь, прикрывала стену.

"Вечные именинники, мне вас --" - написано было в другом месте.

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) Cincinnatus’s mother wears uzhasnyi vaterpruf (an awful raincoat):

Что ж ты плачешь? - спросил Цинциннат, усмехнувшись.

Having learnt of the death sentence, Cincinnatus (the main character in VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’, 1935) writes down that he had premonitions of this finale:

Цинциннат написал: "и всё-таки я сравнительно. Ведь этот финал я предчувствовал этот финал".

Cincinnatus wrote: ‘In spite of everything I am comparatively. After all I had premonitions, had premonitions of this finale.’ (Chapter I)

 In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) lombernyi stol (a card table) is mentioned:

At the beginning of VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) kucha chereshen (a heap of cherries) is mentioned:

As she speaks to Cincinnatus, Cecilia C. (Cincinnatus’s mother) says that she lives in Doktorskoe (Doctorton) and mentions tryn-trava, an idiom rendered in Invitation to a Beheading (the English title of VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’, 1935) as “I take everything in my stride:”

In the first line of the "inverted" sonnet opening Zhizn’ Chernyshevskogo (“The Life of Chernyshevski”), Chapter Four of VN’s novel Dar (“The Gift,” 1937), Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev (the narrator and main character in "The Gift") mentions potomok prosveshchyonnyi (an enlightened descendant):

In Cincinnatus’s cell there is a spider, official friend of the jailed:

Работая лапами, спустился на нитке паук с потолка, - официальный друг заключённых.

Feet working, a spider — official friend of the jailed — lowered itself on a thread from the ceiling. (Chapter One)

At the end of Byron’s poem The Prisoner of Chillon the hero says that he had made friendship with spiders:

In VN’s novel Dar (“The Gift,” 1937) palach (the executioner, a character in Shirin’s novel The Hoary Abyss) stal tyulyukat' (began to coax) mokhnatogo shchenka (a shaggy pup):

When Marthe with her entire family visits Cincinnatus in the fortress, her son Diomedon kills a cat:

"Mali é trano t'amesti..." - полным голосом пропел Марфинькин брат.

Диомедон, оставь моментально кошку, - сказала Марфинька, - позавчера ты уже одну задушил, нельзя же каждый день. Отнимите, пожалуйста, у него, Виктор, милый.