Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing his fatal conversation with his and Ada's father, Demon Veen, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) says that all ends are banal:

In Paris Jakob Gradus (one of the three main characters in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade's murderer) visits Oswin Bretwit, the former Zemblan consul. According to Kinbote (Shade's mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla), the name Bretwit means Chess Intelligence:

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), Oswin Bretwit (the former Zemblan consul in Paris) was not exactly persona grata with the new regime:

On their way from Camp Q to The Enchanted Hunters (a hotel in Briceland where they spend their first night together) Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) tells Lolita that her sick mother is at the hospital near Lepingville:

“How’s Mother?” she asked dutifully.

Humbert Humbert's friend and chess partner at Beardsley, Gaston Godin (a character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) eventually gets involved in a sale histoire, in Naples of all places:

Describing his life with Valeria in Paris, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) calls Colonel Maximovich (Valeria's lover) le gredin (the scoundrel):

Like her grandmother (Mary O'Reilly, 1806-50), Marina Durmanov (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother) likes to have her hair done in the open:

Describing the torments of poor mad Aqua (the twin sister of Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother Marina), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions the workshop of the red-shirted Yukonets and the kitchen of the red-kerchiefed Lyaskanka:

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969), Baron d'Onsky (nicknamed Skonky, Demon's adversary in a sword duel) died not ‘of his wounds’ (as it was viciously rumored) but of a gangrenous afterthought on the part of the least of them, possibly self-inflicted: 

At the end of his farewell letter to Marina (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother) Demon Veen (Van's and Ada's father) says that Marina's runaway maid has been found by the police in a brothel here and will be shipped to Marina as soon as she is sufficiently stuffed with mercury: