Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In Canto Four of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes shaving and mentions old Zembla's fields where his gray stubble grows:

Describing the family dinner in “Ardis the Second,” Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions Lord Byron’s Hock:



‘Tell me, Bouteillan,’ asked Marina, ‘what other good white wine do we have — what can you recommend?’ The butler smiled and whispered a fabulous name.

After his first night with Ada in “Ardis the Second” Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) tells Ada that he has paid her eight compliments, as a certain Venetian:

The butler, now fully dressed, arrived with the coffee and toast. And the Ladore Gazette. It contained a picture of Marina being fawned upon by a young Latin actor.

Describing his performance in variety shows as Mascodagama (Van's stage name), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions his partner Rita, a Crimean cabaret dancer who sang the tango tune in Russian:  

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969), the ancestor of Ada's husband, Andrey Vinelander, was the first Russian to taste the labruska grape:

Had she cabled him? Cancelled or Postponed? Mrs Viner — no, Vingolfer, no, Vinelander — first Russki to taste the labruska grape.

‘Mne snitsa saPERnik SHCHASTLEEVOY!’ (Mihail Ivanovich arcating the sand with his cane, humped on his bench under the creamy racemes).

‘I dream of a fortunate rival!’ (2.8)

In March 1905 Demon Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) perishes in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific. In the same year, soon after his father's death, Van is elected to the Rattner Chair of Philosophy in the University of Kingston:

Describing his dinner with Ada (now married to Andrey Vinelander) and her family in Bellevue Hotel in Mont Roux, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions the ‘Swiss White’ page of the wine list:

Chance looked after the seating arrangement.

According to Vera Nabokov, the Russian title of VN's novel Transparent Things (1972) should have been Skvoznyak is proshlogo ("A Draft from the Past").

In his Index 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) mentions King Thurgus the Third, Charles Xavier's grandfather who liked to bicycle in the park with a sponge bag on his head:

According to 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), Gradus (Shade's murderer) contended that the real origin of his name should be sought in the Russian word for grape, vinograd, to which a Latin suffix had adhered, making it Vinogradus:

Line 17: And then the gradual; Line 29: gray