Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) and mentions fra Karamazov mumbling his inept all is allowed:

Among our auditors were a young priest

And an old Communist. Iph could at least

Compete with churches and the party line.

In later years it started to decline:

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes his heart attack and mentions the cobra head that, if one looks closer, becomes a big wickedly folded moth:

                                                 Give me now

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), on his deathbed Conmal (the Zemblan translator of Shakespeare) called his nephew, Charles Xavier Vseslav (aka Charles the Beloved), "Karlik:"

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), oblivion is a one-night performance:

Describing the picnic on Ada’s sixteenth birthday, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions a little camel of yellow ivory carved in Kiev, five centuries ago, in the days of Timur and Nabok:

Describing his reunion with Ada in 1922, soon after her husband’s death, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada) mentions Swiss-German Louis Wicht who now managed Les Trois Cygnes (Van’s hotel in Mont Roux) instead of his late father-in-law Luigi Fantini:

Describing his childhood travels, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions Goethe's and d'Annunzio's marble footprints reverently pointed out to him by AAA (Andrey Andreevich Aksakov, Van’s Russian tutor):

Before the family dinner in “Ardis the Second” Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) tells Demon Veen (Van’s and Ada’s father) that the Ardis tap water is not recommended:

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), his tutor Andrey Andreevich Aksakov (AAA) blew his fat red nose, when shown the peasant-bare footprint of Tolstoy preserved in the clay of a motor court in Utah:

Describing his life with Cordula de Prey in Cordula’s Manhattan flat, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) compares his work on his first novel Letters from Terra to pregnancy and childbearing: