Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962) the first word of Shade's poem is "I":

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain

By the false azure in the windowpane;

I was the smudge of ashen fluff - and I

Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky. (ll. 1-4)

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), with braided hair Ada resembles the young soprano Maria Kuznetsova in the letter scene in Tschchaikow's opera Onegin and Olga:

It was the first time he had seen her in that luminous frock nearly as flimsy as a nightgown. She had braided her hair, and he said she resembled the young soprano Maria Kuznetsova in the letter scene in Tschchaikow’s opera Onegin and Olga. (1.25)

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), his favorite purple passage remained the one concerning the name ‘Guermantes,’ with whose hue his adjacent ultramarine merged in the prism of his mind, pleasantly teasing Van’s artistic vanity:

Re the ‘dark-blue’ allusion, left hanging:

Describing his dialogues with Ada in "Ardis the First," Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions Giorgio Vanvitelli (an opera singer):

In “Ardis the First” Van makes Lucette (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) learn by heart Robert Brown’s poem "Peter and Margaret:"

On the morning following the Night of the Burning Barn (when they make love for the first time) Van and Ada meet in the Baguenaudier Bower:

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) the twin sisters Aqua and Marina Durmanov marry the first cousins who have the same name, Walter D. Veen:

Describing the torments of poor mad Aqua (the twin sister of Marina, Van’s, Ada’s and Lucette’s mother), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the Dr Froit of Signy-Mondieu-Mondieu in the Ardennes:

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) tells about his daughter who “took her poor young life.”  In Canto Three Shade describes IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter):

During Van’s first tea-party at Ardis Marina (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s, Ada’s and Lucette’s mother) tells Van about Tarn, otherwise the New Reservoir: