In the Foreword to "The Defense" Nabokov informs that he started to write the novel in the Spring of 1929 and finished it in December 1929 (Berlin). The Foreword was written in Dec.1963. Zashchita Luzhina under my penname, 'V. Sirin,' ran in the émigré Russian quarterly Sovremennye Zapiski (Paris) and immediately afterwards was brought out in book form by the émigré publishing house Slovo (Berlin, 1930). That paper-bound edition, 234 pp., 21 by 4 cm., jacket a solid dull black with gilt lettering, is now rare and may grow even rarer...Poor Luzhin has had to wait thirty-five years for an English-language edition.

How are we to calculate the time lapse between this novel's appearance in Russian and in English? There is a neat indication that the numbers derive from the finished draft, in December 1929, and the December 1963 English foreword, mentioning a 35 years lapse of time (which then would have had to be 34). However, his.wording dimissing these limits is clear. We read that Nabokov is counting the interval that separates the Paris and Berlin editions (1930) and the English Foreword (but then, we'd get 33 years???). Or else, the limits start with its definite publication in English, in 1964 (original manuscript,1929 - final edition in English, 1964 - 35 years) and his forweword inserting a prophetic vision of the planned 19464 edition.

For me there's never any "safety in numbers," (I try my best...) and this is why these conundrums could be examined by mathematical-minded readers who want to discover what kind of "unseriousness" Nabokov's foreword is alluding to..