Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

The characters in VN's novel Lolita (1955) include Frederick Beale, Jr., the driver of the Packard that kills Charlotte (Lolita's mother whom Humbert Humbert married in order to get access to her daughter):

At the end of his manuscript Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) says that he started, fifty-six days ago, to write Lolita first in the psychopathic ward for observation and then in this well-heated, albeit tombal, seclusion.

At the lunch with Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) in Alphonse Four (Lucette's Paris hotel) Lucette (Van's and Ada's half-sister) compares herself to Dolores who says (apparently, in Osberg's novel The Gitanilla) that she is "only a picture painted on air:"

She wanted fish, he stuck to cold cuts and salad.

‘You know whom I ran into this morning? Good old Greg Erminin. It was he who told me you were around. His wife est un peu snob, what?’

In his commentary and index to Shade’s poem, 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) mentions the society sculptor and poet Arnor:

During her second road trip with Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) across the USA, Lolita falls ill and on Tuesday, June 28, 1949, is hospitalized in Elphinstone (a small town in the Rocky Mountains). Describing Lolita's hospitalization, Humbert Humbert mentions Dr Blue (the chief physician at the Elphinstone hospital):

In a dialogue on the pillared porch of The Enchanted Hunters (a hotel in Briceland where Humbert Humbert and Lolita spend their first night together) a stranger (apparently, Clare Quilty) tells Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) that his child needs a lot of sleep and that sleep is a rose, as the Persians say:

Describing the king’s escape from Zembla and the last moments of Shade's life, 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) mentions a red-capped Steinmann:

In his commentary to Shade's poem, 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) compares Shade's voice that he heard say "Come tonight, Charlie" to a big bird in his garden:

Describing the death of King Alfin (the father of Charles the Beloved), 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) calls a very special monoplane, Blenda IV, built for King Alfin by his constant "aerial adjutant," Colonel Peter Gusev, a "bird of doom:"

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), superstitiously he cannot write out the odd dark word employed by his black gardener (Balthasar, Prince of Loam, as Kinbote dubbed him) with regard to Shade's murderer:

Line 998: Some neighbor's gardener