Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

One of the three main characters in VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962), John Shade was born on July 5, 1898. Two other main characters, Charles Kinbote and Jakob Gradus, were born seventeen years later, on July 5, 1915. In a letter to his brother Mikhail that he wrote on his seventeenth birthday (October 31, 1838, OS) Dostoevski twice uses the word gradus (degree):

Dandies on their shiny clockwork cycles overtake the horse-drawn carriage that brings Cincinnatus (the main character of VN’s novel “Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) from the fortress to Interesnaya ploshchad’ (Thriller Square, the site of the execution):

Describing her meeting with Cincinnatus’s mother, Marthe (Cincinnatus’s wife in VN’s novel “Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) speaks of herself in the third person and twice repeats the phrase tak smeshno (so funny):

- Что ж ты плачешь? - спросил Цинциннат, усмехнувшись.

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) the girls throw bouquets into the carriage that brings Cincinnatus to the site of the execution and M’sieur Pierre (the executioner) shakes a finger:

Несколько девушек, без шляп, спеша и визжа, скупали все цветы у жирной цветочницы с бурыми грудями, и наиболее шустрая успела бросить букетом в экипаж, едва не сбив картуза с головы Романа. М-сье Пьер погрозил пальчиком.

At the end of VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) a woman in a black shawl rushes past, carrying the tiny executioner like a larva in her arms:

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), Gradus (Shade's murderer whose whole clan seems to have been in the liquor business) contended that the real origin of his name should be sought in the Russian word for grape, vinograd, to which a Latin suffix had adhered, making it Vinogradus (note to Line 17).

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) Marthe, her moist lips half open, is aiming a thread at the eye of a needle:

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,”1935) there are several inscriptions on the wall of Cincinnatus’s cell:

"Бытие безымянное, существенность беспредметная..." - прочёл Цинциннат на стене там, где дверь, отпахиваясь, прикрывала стену.

"Вечные именинники, мне вас --" - написано было в другом месте.

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) Cincinnatus’s mother wears uzhasnyi vaterpruf (an awful raincoat):

Что ж ты плачешь? - спросил Цинциннат, усмехнувшись.

Having learnt of the death sentence, Cincinnatus (the main character in VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’, 1935) writes down that he had premonitions of this finale:

Цинциннат написал: "и всё-таки я сравнительно. Ведь этот финал я предчувствовал этот финал".

Cincinnatus wrote: ‘In spite of everything I am comparatively. After all I had premonitions, had premonitions of this finale.’ (Chapter I)