Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing his life with Lolita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) says that he dwelled deep in his elected paradise - a paradise whose skies were the color of hell-flames - but still a paradise:

Describing his life with Lolita in Beardsley (a small University town in New England), Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) says that he did his best to tackle the problem of boys:

I did my best, your Honour, to tackle the problem of boys. Oh, I used even to read in the Beardsley Star a so-called Column for Teens, to find out how to behave!

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955), his father had a dash of the Danube in his veins:

Describing a polar expedition to which he was attached as a “recorder of psychic reactions," Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions Bert, a film photographer with whom at one time he was made to partake in a good deal of menial work:

According to Cordula Tobak, born de Prey (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's former mistress whom Van meets in Paris at the end of May, 1901), she would cause a mule to foal by just looking on:

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969), only at the very last interview with his mother Marina employed his petit nom, Vanya, Vanyusha:

At the dinner with Ada (now married to Andrey Vinelander) and her family in Bellevue Hotel in Mont Roux in October 1905 Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions Maître Jorat, or Raton:

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.

Telling Van that she has to finish a translation for Mlle Larivière (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, the governess of Van's and Ada's half-sister Lucette), Ada says that she will be down in exactly sixty-three minutes:

In his translation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin (1964) VN renders the line V okno smotrel i mukh davil (Two: III: 4) as "looked through the window, and squashed flies:"