Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of his dead daughter (whose name he never mentions) and says: 

I think she always nursed a small mad hope. (Line 383)

Die Hoffnung ("The Hope," 1900) is a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke (an Austrian poet, 1875-1926):

Stille Stunden gibt's, da ranken
leicht sich um des Lebens Baum
Wünsche, Hoffnungen, Gedanken,
Bild um Bild und Traum um Traum.

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of his childhood and says that his God died young:

My God died young. Theolatry I found

Degrading, and its premises, unsound.

No free man needs a God; but was I free?

How fully I felt nature glued to me

And how my childish palate loved the taste

Half-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste!

My picture book was at an early age

The painted parchment papering our cage:

Mauve rings around the moon; blood-orange sun

In VN's novel Pale Fire (1962), Shade's poem is almost finished when the author is killed by Gradus. Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla, Kinbote believes that, to be completed, Shade’s poem needs but one line (Line 1000, identical to Line 1: “I was the shadow of the waxwing slain”). But it seems that, like some sonnets, Shade's poem also needs a coda (Line 1001: “By its own double in the windowpane”).

In his foreword 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) says that he is the most impractical fellow in the world and mentions an old fox in the book publishing business:

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) mentions the society sculptor and poet Arnor:

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) quotes Arnor’s poem about a miragarl (mirage girl), for whose "careful jewels" a dream king in the sandy wastes of time would give tri stana verbalala (three hundred camels) ut tri phantana (and three fountains):

One of the greater Shadows, Izumrudov visits Gradus (one of the three main characters in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade's murderer) in Nice and tells him the king's new name and address in America on July 16, 1959:

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) mentions the society sculptor and poet Arnor:

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955), he once overheard Lolita say to Eva Rosen (Lolita's classmate at Beardsley College, a little displaced person from France), “You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own:”

In a dialogue on the porch of The Enchanted Hunters (a hotel in Briceland where Humbert Humbert and Lolita spend their first night together) a stranger (apparently, Clare Quilty) tells Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) that his child needs a lot of sleep and that sleep is a rose, as the Persians say: