Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

According to Ada (the title character of a novel, 1969, by VN), the glossy-limbed shattal tree at the bottom of the garden that Van and Ada climb in "Ardis the First" is really the Tree of Knowledge:

When Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) tells Ada that he abhors and rejects her livid lipstick, Ada says “Ladno (Okay)” and wipes her mouth with a handkerchief:

Describing the library of Ardis Hall, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions a story by Chateaubriand about a pair of romantic siblings:

On Demonia (aka Antiterra, Earth’s twin planet on which VN’s novel Ada, 1969, is set) Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary (1856) is known as Floeberg’s Ursula:

Van reached the third lawn, and the bower, and carefully inspected the stage prepared for the scene, ‘like a provincial come an hour too early to the opera after jogging all day along harvest roads with poppies and bluets catching and twinkle-twining in the wheels of his buggy’ (Floeberg’s Ursula). (1.20)

Describing his journey with Lucette (Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) on Admiral Tobakoff, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the Helmeted Angel of the Yukonsk Ikon whose magic effect was said to change anemic blond maidens into konskie deti, freckled red-haired lads, children of the Sun Horse:

On Demonia (aka Antiterra, Earth’s twin planet on which VN’s novel Ada, 1969, is set) Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary (1856) is known as Floeberg’s Ursula:

When she visits Van at Kingston, Lucette (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) calls Van moya radost’ ("my joy") and mentions skeletiki (“little skeletons,” as Lucette calls her cheekbones):

‘My joy (moya radost’),’ said Lucette — just like that; he had expected more formality: all in all he had hardly known her before — except as an embered embryo.

Describing Ada’s face, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) says that her features possessed such a softness of outline that a mawkish admirer might well have imagined the pale plume of a reed, that unthinking man — pascaltrezza — shaping her profile:

Describing his life with Cordula de Prey in her Manhattan penthouse apartment, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) compares his work on Letters from Terra (Van’s first novel) to pregnancy and childbearing:

Describing his love-makings with Ada in “Ardis the Second,” Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the ogon’, the agony of supreme ‘reality:’