Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

At a Party with Boys thrown by Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) in his and Lolita's Beardsley home Mona Dahl and Roy hotly discuss Predestination and the Law of Averages:

At the beginning of Canto Four of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) says that now he will spy on beauty as none has spied on it yet and mentions two methods of composing:

Now I shall spy on beauty as none has

Spied on it yet. Now I shall cry out as

None has cried out. Now I shall try what none

Has tried. Now I shall do what none has done.

And speaking of this wonderful machine:

I'm puzzled by the difference between

Two methods of composing: A, the kind

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) began his career in the glass business as a maker of Cartesian devils:

Describing the beginning of his life with Lolita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions the lyrical, epic, tragic but never Arcadian American wilds:

Describing his childhood, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions the splendid Hotel Mirana that revolved around him as a kind of private universe, a whitewashed cosmos within the blue greater one that blazed outside:

According to John Ray, Jr. (in VN's novel Lolita, 1955, the author of the Foreword to Humbert Humbert's manuscript), Humbert Humbert had died in legal captivity, of coronary thrombosis, on November 16, 1952, a few days before his trial was scheduled to start:

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955), among the pseudonyms he has toyed with before he hit on a particularly apt one was "Lambert Lambert:"

Describing Lolita's illness and hospitalization in Elphinstone (a small town in the Rocky Mountains), Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions poor Bluebeard:

Describing his life in Paris with his first wife Valeria, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) calls Valeria "a large, puffy, short-legged, big-breasted and practically brainless baba:"

When Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) visits Lolita (now married to Dick Schiller and big with child) in Coalmont, she offers him a smoke and is smoking herself:

“Sit down,” she said, audibly striking her flanks with her palms. I relapsed into the black rocker.

“So you betrayed me? Where did you go? Where is he now?”