In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes his daughter’s tragic death and mentions the preview of Remorse:
"Was that the phone?" You listened at the door.
More headlights in the fog. There was no sense
In window-rubbing: only some white fence
And the reflector poles passed by unmasked.
"Are we quite sure she's acting right?" you asked.
"It's technically a blind date, of course.
Well, shall we try the preview of Remorse?"
And we allowed, in all tranquillity,
The famous film to spread its charmed marquee;
The famous face flowed in, fair and inane:
The parted lips, the swimming eyes, the grain
Of beauty on the cheek, odd gallicism,
And the soft form dissolving in the prism
Of corporate desire. "I think," she said,
"I'll get off here." "It's only Lochanhead."
"Yes, that's okay." Gripping the stang, she peered
At ghostly trees. Bus stopped. Bus disappeared. (ll. 443-460)
Remorse is a poem by Emily Dickinson:
Remorse is memory awake,
Her companies astir, —
A presence of departed acts
At window and at door.
It's past set down before the soul,
And lighted with a match,
Perusal to facilitate
Of its condensed despatch.
Remorse is cureless, — the disease
Not even God can heal;
For 't is his institution, —
The complement of hell.
In Canto Three of his poem Shade describes IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) and quotes the words of his wife Sybil: “I really could not tell the differences between this place [IPH] and Hell:”
A wrench, a rift - that's all one can foresee.
Maybe one finds le grand néant; maybe
Again one spirals from the tuber's eye.
As you remarked the last time we went by
The Institute: "I really could not tell
The differences between this place and Hell." (ll. 617-622)
“Hell” is the last word in Emily Dickinson’s poem “My life closed twice before its close:”
My life closed twice before its close—
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
The capital of Kinbote’s Zembla, Onhava seems to hint at heaven.
In Canto Three of his poem Shade describes his heart attack. “If I can stop one heart from breaking” is a poem by Emily Dickinson:
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
The poem’s second and last line ("I shall not live in vain") brings to mind Sybil Vane, a character in VN’s story The Vane Sisters (1951). The unwritten Line 1000 of Shade’s poem is identical to Line 1: “I was the shadow of the waxwing slain.” In Canto Three of his poem Shade (who saw a tall white fountain during his heart attack) describes his visit to a Mrs. Z. (who saw a tall white mountain during her heart attack). The Mountain is a poem by Emily Dickinson:
The mountain sat upon the plain
In his eternal chair,
His observation omnifold,
His inquest everywhere.
The seasons prayed around his knees,
Like children round a sire:
Grandfather of the days is he,
Of dawn the ancestor.
"A Shade upon the mind there passes" is a poem by Emily Dickinson:
A Shade upon the mind there passes
As when on Noon
A Cloud the mighty Sun encloses
Remembering
That some there be too numb to notice
Oh God
Why give if Thou must take away
The Loved?