See Strong Opinions, P.288.
As the French editors of Nabokov's work observe, Nabokov's comment there in fact refers not to the 
first English manuscript but to an intermediary stage when Nabokov was working on HIS translation 
of the novel.  Kretschmar was going to be renamed Retlow until Nabokov changed that name to 
Albinus -- he neglected to change that scene until, apparently, his 1961 revision for the English 
edition, which incorporates a couple other changes.  For some reason, the American edition has 
never incorporated those revisions, so the mistake survives.  (Jane Grayson may write about this, 
too, but I don't have her book at my fingertips.



Eric Naiman
Chair, Department of Comparative Literature
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-2580