Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing his state of mind after Lolita's escape from the Elphinstone hospital, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions his daymares and insomnias:

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

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955), in a moment of metaphysical curiosity he had turned over a Protestant’s drab atheism for an old-fashioned popish cure:

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) quotes the beginning of a sonnet that Conmal (the Zemblan translator of Shakespeare) composed directly in English:

A character in VN’s novel Dar (“The Gift,” 1937), the writer Shirin is blind like Milton, deaf like Beethoven, and a blockhead to boot (slep kak Mil'ton, glukh kak Betkhoven i glup kak beton):

Describing the last moments of John 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 the horseshoe music from Mystery Lodge:

Line 991: horseshoes 

At the end of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's poem Pale Fire, 1962) says that the day (the last day of Shade's life) has passed in a sustained low hum of harmony:

Gently the day has passed in a sustained

Low hum of harmony. The brain is drained

And a brown ament, and the noun I meant

To use but did not, dry on the cement.

Maybe my sensual love for the consonne

D'appui, Echo's fey child, is based upon

A feeling of fantastically planned,

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes a game of chess with his wife and mentions the writer's grief:

"What is that funny creaking - do you hear?"

"It is the shutter on the stairs, my dear."

"If you're not sleeping, let's turn on the light.

I hate that wind! Let's play some chess." "All right."

"I'm sure it's not the shutter. There - again."

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955), he spent the end of the winter of 1949-1950 and most of the following spring in a Quebec sanatorium where he had stayed before:

Describing his life with Lolita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions his world, umber and black Humberland: