Alexey Sklyarenko (a) V. D. Nabokov (the writer's
father) had five children (Vladimir was the oldest of them). The assassin
who shot him dead wanted to kill another man (P. N. Milyukov).
Similarly, Gradus kills Shade while assassinating Kinbote. It
happens on July 21 (VDN's birthday, if I'm not
mistaken);
(b) I'm not sure if
it is important in the context of Pale Fire: like
VDN, Nikolay Romanov (the last Russian tsar, with whose family Dr Botkin
was executed) had five children.
JM: I didn't really understand your
indexing "five/six fingers" and parents of five. In respect to
Nabokov's father there might be a calendric variation, similar
to Vladimir V's birth date (April 22?,23?). In the
internet VDN is considered as having been born in July 20.*
His name is mentioned in the midst of an assorted list of July 20th
babies, including Marilyn Monroe, Alexander the Great and Petrarch. The
name of Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos Dumont appears in this listing.
Dumont is mentioned in Pale Fire and in Ada, in
connection to whom we encounter important "parental" unexpected
plane-crashes, such as Demon's, and King Alfin’s ( who "managed to rise in an
umbrella-like Fabre "hydroplane" and almost got drowned in the sea between Nitra
and Indra. He smashed two Farmans, three Zemblan machines, and a beloved Santos
Dumont Demoiselle.) Kinbote informs
that King Charles, as a boy "had hideous dreams after that but his mother
never found out that he had seen those infernal records.Her he remembered — more or less: a horsewoman,
tall, broad, stout, ruddy-faced...His mother died suddenly on July 21, 1936, from
an obscure blood ailment that had also afflicted her mother and
grandmother."
The wisest procedure would be to check VN's own
records or Brian Boyd's biographies, which I haven't by me
now.
...................................................................................
* Famous Birthdays on 20th July