Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

At the end of VN's novel Ada (1969) Dr Lagosse makes Van and Ada the last merciful injection of morphine:

Was it time for the morphine? No, not yet. Time-and-pain had not been mentioned in the Texture. Pity, since an element of pure time enters into pain, into the thick, steady, solid duration of I-can’t-bear-it pain; nothing gray-gauzy about it, solid as a black bole, I can’t, oh, call Lagosse.

Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) comes to Ramsdale and falls in love with Dolores Haze in June, 1947. At the time of his first meeting with Lolita Humbert (who was born in Paris, in 1910) is thirty-seven (the age of Pushkin's death) and Lolita (who was born on January 1, 1935) is twelve (the poet's murderer, George d'Anthès, and the poet's wife, Natalia Nikolaevna, were born in 1812, the year of Napoleon's invasion of Russia). VN was born in 1899, a hundred years after Pushkin's birth.

In VN's novel Look at the Harlequins! (1974) Other Books by the Narrator include A Kingdom by the Sea (1962), Vadim's novel that corresponds to VN's Lolita (1955). At the Orly airport on his way back from Leningrad Vadim Vadimovich (the narrator and main character in LATH) finds a copy of his novel:

Describing his trip to Leningrad, Vadim Vadimovich (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Look at the Harlequins!, 1974) calls Pushkin "our National Poet:"

Describing his first night with Lolita in The Enchanted Hunters, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) uses the phrase le grand moment:

On October 22, 1905, Dorothy Vinelander (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Ada's sister-in-law) leaves a message for Van:

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), his essay Reflections in Sidra appeared in the first issue (January, 1904) of a now famous American monthly, The Artisan:

In his postscript to Ada's letter to Van Andrey Vinelander (Ada's husband) uses the phrase dushevno klanyayus’ (I sincerely bow):

In his Commentary to Shade’s poet 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 Shade shared with the English masters the noble knack of transplanting trees into verse with their sap and shade:

Line 49: shagbark

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. Describing his father's death, Van mentions a maussade Lebanese beauty of fifteen sultry summers: