Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing the King’s escape from Zembla, 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 the nippern (domed hills or "reeks"):

Describing the King’s escape from Zembla, 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 the green, gray, bluish mountains – Falkberg with its hood of snow, Mutraberg with the fan of its avalanche, Paberg (Mt. Peacock), and others:

Describing the King’s escape from Zembla, 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 the green, gray, bluish mountains – Falkberg with its hood of snow, Mutraberg with the fan of its avalanche, Paberg (Mt. Peacock), and others:

Describing the King’s escape from Zembla, 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 the green, gray, bluish mountains – Falkberg with its hood of snow, Mutraberg with the fan of its avalanche, Paberg (Mt. Peacock), and others:

At the end of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) says that he understands existence, or at least a minute part of his existence, only through his art:

Maybe my sensual love for the consonne

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) the judge whispers into Cincinnatus’s ear a token phrase ‘with the gracious consent of the audience, you will be made to don the red top hat:’

In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) Cincinnatus calls the jailer Rodion, the director Rodrig Ivanovich and the lawyer Roman Vissarionovich (all of whom turn out to be one and the same man) kukla, kucher, krashenaya svoloch’ (rag doll, coachman, painted swine):

- Позвольте вас от души поздравить, - маслянистым басом сказал директор, входя на другое утро в камеру к Цинциннату.

In "Ardis the First" Van makes Lucette (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) learn by heart a little poem by the Poet Laureate Robert Brown, the old gentleman whom Demon Veen (Van's and Ada's father) once pointed out to Van up in the air on a cliff under a cypress, looking down on the foaming turquoise surf near Nice:

In a little poem that Van makes Lucette (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) learn by heart the Poet Laureate Robert Brown mentions oats and oaks:

They tried all sorts of other tricks.

At a lunch with Van in Paris Lucette (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) pokes with a fork at her blue trout which, to judge by its contorted shape and bulging eyes, had boiled alive, convulsed by awful agonies:

She wanted fish, he stuck to cold cuts and salad.

‘You know whom I ran into this morning? Good old Greg Erminin. It was he who told me you were around. His wife est un peu snob, what?’