Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing his first night with Lolita in The Enchanted Hunters (a hotel in Briceland), Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) calls Lolita die Kleine (Germ., the little one) and mentions her grimace, a routine blend of comic disgust, resignation and tolerance for young frailty:

Before the family dinner in "Ardis the Second" Demon Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) calls Blanche (a French handmaid at Ardis) "a passing angel:"

Demon shed his monocle and wiped his eyes with the modish lace-frilled handkerchief that lodged in the heart pocket of his dinner jacket. His tear glands were facile in action when no real sorrow made him control himself.

The action in VN's novel Ada (1969) takes place on Demonia (Earth's twin planet also known as Antiterra). Describing the difference between Terra and Antiterra, Van Veen (the narrator and main character) mentions Terrestrial spatial terms:

In the Kalugano hospital Dr Fitzbishop (a character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) tells Van (who recovers from a wound received in a pistol duel with Captain Tapper, of Wild Violet Lodge) that Philip Rack (Lucette's music teacher who was poisoned by his jealous wife and who dies in Ward Five where hopeless cases are kept) was poisoned with the not always lethal 'arethusoides:'

Explaning a cryptic hydrogram from Chicago, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) tells his father that he has to see a mad girl artist called Doris or Odris who draws only gee-gees and sugar daddies:

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), the disguised king arrived in America descending by parachute:

Describing Gradus' visit to Joe Lavender's Villa Libitina, 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) mentions photographs of the artistic type called in French ombrioles collected by Joe Lavender:

At the end of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's poem Pale Fire, 1962) says that the day (the last day of Shade's life) has passed in a sustained low hum of harmony:

Gently the day has passed in a sustained

Low hum of harmony. The brain is drained

And a brown ament, and the noun I meant

To use but did not, dry on the cement.

Maybe my sensual love for the consonne

D'appui, Echo's fey child, is based upon

A feeling of fantastically planned,

At the end of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's poem Pale Fire, 1962) says that the day (the last day of Shade's life) has passed in a sustained low hum of harmony:

Gently the day has passed in a sustained

Low hum of harmony. The brain is drained

And a brown ament, and the noun I meant

To use but did not, dry on the cement.

Maybe my sensual love for the consonne

D'appui, Echo's fey child, is based upon

A feeling of fantastically planned,

The action in VN's novel Ada (1969) takes place on Demonia, Earth's twin planet also known as Antiterra. 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) mentions the rosy remoteness of Terra (Terra the Fair, Aqua's real destination):