Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

 In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) lombernyi stol (a card table) is mentioned:

At the beginning of VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) kucha chereshen (a heap of cherries) is mentioned:

As she speaks to Cincinnatus, Cecilia C. (Cincinnatus’s mother) says that she lives in Doktorskoe (Doctorton) and mentions tryn-trava, an idiom rendered in Invitation to a Beheading (the English title of VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’, 1935) as “I take everything in my stride:”

In the first line of the "inverted" sonnet opening Zhizn’ Chernyshevskogo (“The Life of Chernyshevski”), Chapter Four of VN’s novel Dar (“The Gift,” 1937), Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev (the narrator and main character in "The Gift") mentions potomok prosveshchyonnyi (an enlightened descendant):

In Cincinnatus’s cell there is a spider, official friend of the jailed:

Работая лапами, спустился на нитке паук с потолка, - официальный друг заключённых.

Feet working, a spider — official friend of the jailed — lowered itself on a thread from the ceiling. (Chapter One)

At the end of Byron’s poem The Prisoner of Chillon the hero says that he had made friendship with spiders:

In VN’s novel Dar (“The Gift,” 1937) palach (the executioner, a character in Shirin’s novel The Hoary Abyss) stal tyulyukat' (began to coax) mokhnatogo shchenka (a shaggy pup):

When Marthe with her entire family visits Cincinnatus in the fortress, her son Diomedon kills a cat:

"Mali é trano t'amesti..." - полным голосом пропел Марфинькин брат.

Диомедон, оставь моментально кошку, - сказала Марфинька, - позавчера ты уже одну задушил, нельзя же каждый день. Отнимите, пожалуйста, у него, Виктор, милый.

As Cincinnatus (the main character in VN’s novel “Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) walks past the two men on a bench quietly conversing in the obscurity of a public garden, one of them says: a ved’ on oshibaetsya (“I say he’s wrong”):

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) Marfin'ka (Marthe) is unfaithful to Cincinnatus:

Inviting Cincinnatus to a beheading, M’sieur Pierre (the executioner) uses the phrase chik-chik delat’ (to do chop-chop):

Красиво подрумяненный м-сье Пьер поклонился, сдвинув лакированные голенища, и сказал смешным тонким голосом:

-- Экипаж подан, пожалте.

-- Куда?  -- спросил Цинциннат, действительно не сразу понявший, так был уверен, что непременно на рассвете.