Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing his life with Rita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions a blond, almost albino, young fellow with white eyelashes and large transparent ears, whom he and Rita found sleeping in their hotel room bed:

Describing Gradus (Shade's murderer), 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 mineral blue of Gradus's jaw:

In VN's novel Pale Fire (1962) the poet Shade and his commentator Kinbote (who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) live in New Wye (a small University town in New England) in Dulwich Road:

Lines 47-48: the frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith

Describing his rented house, 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 his landlord’s four daughters (Alphina, Betty, Candida and Dee) and the atmosphere of damnum infectum in which he was supposed to dwell:

Lines 47-48: the frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith 

The poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962), John Shade lives in the frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith:

I cannot understand why from the lake

I could make out our front porch when I'd take

Lake Road to school, whilst now, although no tree

Has intervened, I look but fail to see

Even the roof. Maybe some quirk in space

Has caused a fold or furrow to displace

The fragile vista, the frame house between

Describing his rented house, 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 atmosphere of damnum infectum in which he was supposed to dwell:

The title of VN’s story Signs and Symbols (1948) bring to mind the words often attributed to Conficius, "Signs and symbols rule the world, not words nor laws." In the draft of Eugene Onegin (One: VII: 1-5) Pushkin mentions Confucius (a Chinese philosopher, K'ung Fu-Tzu, c. 551 – 479 B.C.) and calls him mudrets Kitaya (the Chinese sage):

Describing his theological dispute with Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962), Kinbote (Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) mentions a richly ornamented recess:

Describing his dialogue with Ada in "Ardis the First," Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions an empty beer bottle left by some dead old gardener, the year of the obsolete brand being 1842:

The element that destroys Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father who perishes in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific) is air:

Furnished Space, l’espace meublé (known to us only as furnished and full even if its contents be ‘absence of substance’ — which seats the mind, too), is mostly watery so far as this globe is concerned. In that form it destroyed Lucette. Another variety, more or less atmospheric, but no less gravitational and loathsome, destroyed Demon.