Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0000460, Sun, 5 Feb 1995 13:07:23 -0800

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From: Gene Barabtarlo <GRAGB@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>


------------------- Those who discern a watermark of VN's father in the
pages of *Pale Fire* will be amused to know that the Kresty [meaning "the
crosses"], the famous St Petersburg prison built in 1893 in the shape of
two crosses, where Nabokov-Sr spent three months, -- had exactly 999
individual cells and "the legend about a 1000th perists to this day" (says
my source, The Gulag Handbook, by Jacques Rossi, Paragon House, 1989,
p.183 - - a splendid, indispensable reference book).