Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing the beginning of his romance with Ada, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) compares remembrance to Rembrandt:

At the picnic on Ada's sixteenth birthday Greg Erminin (Grace's twin brother in VN's novel Ada, 1969) notices a company of strangers and Van asks ‘Kto sii (who are they)?":  

In his suicide note addressed to Ada Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions a vague kind of 'Victorian' era:

In his suicide note addressed to Ada Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions a butcher’s apron, badly smeared:

At the end of her letter to Van Ada (now married to Andrey Vinelander) mentions an American farmer who finds the parson ‘peculiar’ because he knows Greek:

Describing the visit of an Andalusian architect to Ardis, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the Russian ‘hrip’  (Spanish flu) that Uncle Dan had caught:

A gong bronzily boomed on a terrace.

At the Goodson airport Van tells Demon (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) that he is in for another spell of surgery and calls the surgeons "butchers:"  

According to Lucette (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's half-sister), Dorothy Vinelander (Ada's sister-in-law) collects on her brother's behalf progressive philistine Art, bootblack blotches and excremental smears on canvas, imitations of an imbecile’s doodles, primitive idols, aboriginal masks, objets trouvés, or rather troués, the polished log with its polished hole à la Heinrich Heideland:

According to Lucette (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's half-sister), the table talk at Agavia Ranch was limited to the three C’s — cactuses, cattle, and cooking, with Dorothy Vinelander (Ada's sister-in-law) adding her comments on cubist mysticism:

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of his childhood and mentions the Canadian maid and her niece Adéle who had seen the Pope:

A preterist: one who collects cold nests.

Here was my bedroom, now reserved for guests.

Here, tucked away by the Canadian maid,

I listened to the buzz downstairs and prayed

For everybody to be always well,

Uncles and aunts, the maid, her niece Adéle

Who'd seen the Pope, people in books, and God. (ll. 79-85)