Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

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), his landlord, Judge Goldsworth, resembles a Medusa-locked hag:

During one of their ten meetings in Mont Roux in October 1905 Ada (now married to Andrey Vinelander) tells Van (Van Veen, the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) that a couple of hours after Demon's death in a mysterious airplane disaster she and her husband had sudden visitors at the ranch — an incredibly graceful moppet of eight, black-veiled, and a kind of duenna, also in black, with two bodyguards:

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), Jakob 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

Describing his debauch á trois with Ada snd Lucette after the dinner in ‘Ursus,’ Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions a bordel's vue d’oiseau:

During one of their ten meetings in Mont Roux in October 1905 Ada (now married to Andrey Vinelander) tells Van (Van Veen, the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) about her campng out in the mountains with Mayo, a cowhand:

‘My upper-lip space feels indecently naked.’ (He had shaved his mustache off with howls of pain in her presence). ‘And I cannot keep sucking in my belly all the time.’

Describing the case of Spencer Muldoon, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions nurse Langford:

A teasy problem demanded Dr Veen’s presence in England.

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), in her tight rubber cap Lucette (Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) evokes the Helmeted Angel of the Yukonsk Ikon whose magic effect is said to change anemic blond maidens into konskie deti, freckled red-haired lads, children of the Sun Horse:

According to Dorothy Vinelander (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Ada's sister-in-law), Demon Veen (Van's and Ada's father who in March 1905 perishes in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific) resembled a Russian aristocrat much more than he did an Irish Baron:

According to Dorothy Vinelander (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Ada's sister-in-law), Demon Veen (Van's and Ada's father who perishes in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific) resembled a Russian aristocrat much more than he did an Irish Baron:

Describing the family dinner in "Ardis the Second," Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the Great Lake of Slaves: