Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) Valentinov (Luzhin’s tutor and manager) writes to Luzhin’s father svoi – sochtyomsya (it's a family affair – we'll settle up later):

In his Commentary to Shade’s poem 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) says that the Zemblan word coramen denotes the rude strap with which a Zemblan herdsman attaches his humble provisions and ragged blanket to the meekest of his cows when driving them up to the vebodar (upland pastures):

Line 137: lemniscate

At the beginning of VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) Luzhin is ten years old:

In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) one of the guests at a party thrown by Luzhin’s wife, Petrov, is compared to nekiy sosud (a vessel) filled with something so sacred and rare that it would be a sacrilege to paint the clay:

At the end of VN’s novel Ada (1969) Van Veen mentions the mosquito executed eighty years ago upon one’s bare leg, which has been amputated since then:

Explaining to her little nephew the rules of chess, Luzhin’s aunt calls the bishops “Officers” and the knights, “Horses:”

In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) Valentinov (Luzhin’s tutor and manager) tells to the twenty-year-old Luzhin (who came out a victor in a chess tournament in London, the first after the war) “Bleshchi, poka bleshchetsya” (“Shine while you can”):

In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) Luzhin makes the acquaintance of his future wife at a German resort, a month after his father’s death. To the girl’s question how long he had been playing chess Luzhin replies "Eighteen years, three months and four days:"

In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) Luzhin gets married on a November day:

At the beginning of VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (The Luzhin Defense, 1930) little Luzhin finds a mysterious sweetness in the fact that a long number, arrived at with difficulty, at the decisive moment, after many adventures, is divided by nineteen without any remainder: