Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing his conversation with Demon (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) before the family dinner in "Ardis the Second," Van Veen says that nothing is fuller than an empty mind:

In VN's novel Ada (1969) Demon Veen (Van's and Ada's father) learns about his children's affair by chance, because of Uncle Dan's Boschean death. Describing Demon's unexpected visit to his Manhattan flat, Van mentions a piece of nobler metal placed by Demon among the silver domes that Valerio (a waiter at ‘Monaco,’ a restaurant in the entresol of the tall building crowned by Van’s penthouse) brings to Van and Ada:

The boy who debauches Lolita (the eponymous heroine of VN's novel, 1955) in Camp Q, Charlie Holmes (the camp-mistress's son) is a green-shirted, redheaded impish lad:

On Admiral Tobakoff Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) quite kindly asks Lucette (Van's and Ada's half-sister) where she thinks she is going and Lucette promptly replies "to Ardis, with you, for ever and ever:"

Quite kindly he asked where she thought she was going.

In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Lolita is sent by her mother to Camp Q where she is debauched by Charlie Holmes, the camp-mistress's son:

In his Foreword to Humbert Humbert’s manuscript John Ray, Jr. (a character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions “My Cue,” a biography written by Vivian Darkbloom:

When Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) visits Lolita (now married to Dick Schiller) in Coalmont, she tells him about her stay at Duk Duk Ranch with Clare Quilty (the playwright who abducted Lolita from the Elphinstone hospital) and his friends:

She took from the mantelpiece a concave glossy snapshot. Old woman in white, stout, beaming, bowlegged, very short dress; old man in his shirtsleeves, drooping mustache, watch chain. Her in-laws. Living with Dick’s brother’s family in Juneau.

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955), his very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when he was three. Humbert's mother was felled by a thunderbolt on a ridge above Moulinet:

At the end of VN's novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert mentions the melody of children at play, with spurts of vivid laughter, that he heard in a small mining town that lay at his feet:

Describing his meeting with Ada (now married to Andrey Vinelander) in October, 1905, in Mont Roux, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions his dialogue with Lucien (the concierge at Les Trois Cygnes):

arriving mont roux bellevue sunday

dinnertime adoration sorrow rainbows