Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing the Night of the Burning Barn (when he and Ada make love for the first time), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the belated ignicolists:

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Dorothy Vinelander (Ada’s sister-in-law) calls Ada la fille d’une actrice et d’un marchand de tableaux (“the daughter of an actress and an art dealer”):

It went on and on like that for more than an hour and Van’s clenched jaws began to ache. Finally, Ada got up, and Dorothy followed suit but continued to speak standing:

After the death of his grandson Eric (the young author of an essay entitled ‘Villa Venus: an Organized Dream’), David van Veen (a wealthy architect of Flemish extraction) resolved to erect a thousand and one memorial floramors (palatial brothels) all over Demonia (aka Antiterra, Earth’s twin planet on which VN’s novel Ada, 1969, is set):

Describing the difference between Terra and Antiterra (aka Demonia, Earth’s twin planet on which Ada is set), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the deepest thinkers, the purest philosophers, Paar of Chose and Zapater of Aardvark:

In VN’s poem Slava (“Fame,” 1942) the author’s visitor mentions osobennyi privkus anisovyi (the particular anise-oil flavor) of those strainings when he happened to write in a foreign language:

В длинном стихотворении "Слава" писателя,

так сказать, занимает проблема, гнетет

мысль о контакте с сознаньем читателя.

К сожаленью, и это навек пропадет.

When Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) leaves Ardis forever, the word “inkog” pops up in his stream of consciousness:

The express does not stop at Torfyanka, does it, Trofim?’

‘I’ll take you five versts across the bog,’ said Trofim, ‘the nearest is Volosyanka.’

His vulgar Russian word for Maidenhair; a whistle stop; train probably crowded.

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) Cincinnatus’ mother mentions netki (nonnons), a toy that was once popular:

In his poem “The Nature of Electricity” quoted by 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) in his Commentary Shade mentions “Shelley’s incandescent soul:”

The light never came back but it gleams again in a short poem "The Nature of Electricity," which John Shade had sent to the New York magazine The Beau and the Butterfly, some time in 1958, but which appeared only after his death:

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Van Veen (the narrator and main character) receives an introduction to the Venus Villa Club (one hundred palatial brothels, or floramors, built all over the world by David van Veen, a wealthy architect of Flemish extraction, in memory of his grandson Eric, the author of an essay entitled ‘Villa Venus: an Organized Dream’) from Dick, a cardsharp with whom Van plays poker at Chose (Van’s and Dick’s English University):

Describing his last visit to Villa Venus (one hundred floramors, palatial brothels, built all over the world by David van Veen, a wealthy architect of Flemish extraction, in memory of his grandson Eric, the author of an essay entitled ‘Villa Venus: an Organized Dream’), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions a girl called Adora: