Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

According to Ada, at the funeral of Marina (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother) Demon Veen (Van's and Ada's father) and d’Onsky’s son, a person with only one arm, wept comme des fontaines:

‘My upper-lip space feels indecently naked.’ (He had shaved his mustache off with howls of pain in her presence). ‘And I cannot keep sucking in my belly all the time.’

At the family dinner in “Ardis the Second” Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) tells Marina (Van’s, Ada’s and Lucette’s mother) "vous me comblez (you overwhelm me with kindness):"

‘Ah!’ said Demon, tasting Lord Byron’s Hock. ‘This redeems Our Lady’s Tears.’

The narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada (1969), Van Veen is the author of Letters from Terra, a philosophical novel. According to Theresa (a character in Van's novel), she had been an instrument of 'cosmic propaganda:'

Before the family dinner in "Ardis the Second" Demon Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) tells Ada that there is nothing improper about a hanky dumped on a Bechstein:

Here Ada herself came running into the room. Yes-yes-yes-yes, here I come. Beaming!

Describing the difference between Terra and Antiterra (Earth's twin planet also known as Demonia), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions the details of the L disaster that happened on Demonia in the beau milieu of the 19th century:

As he speaks to Philip Rack (Lucette’s music teacher who was poisoned by his jealous wife Elsie and who dies in Ward Five of the Kalugano hospital), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the “agony of agony” — Professor Lamort’s felicitous pleonasm:

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) says that his only regret is that he did not quietly deposit key “342” at the office, and leave the town, the country, the continent, the hemisphere, - indeed, the globe - that very same night:

The action in VN's novel Ada (1969) takes place on Demonia, Earth's twin planet also known as Antiterra. According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in Ada), the real destination of poor mad Aqua (the twin sister of Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother Marina) was Terra the Fair:

At the age of ten Armande (in VN's novel Transparent Things, 1972, Hugh Person's wife) was the dream of a Lutwidgean:

"Everything is well," she declared cozily, and stood up, now robed in bright terry cloth with the suddenness of a magic metamorphosis. "Come, I want to offer you a nice cold drink and show you my albums."

A character in VN's novel Transparent Things (1972), Mister R. (an American writer whom Hugh Person visits in Switzerland) has a long German name, in two installments, with a nobiliary particle between castle and crag: