Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

At end of his brief note to Oswin Bretwit (in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962, the former Zemblan consul in Paris whom Gradus visits in the hope to find out the King's address) Baron B. quotes the Latin proverb verba volant, scripta manent (spoken words fly away, written words remain):

Describing his performance in variety shows as Mascodagama, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions a large Good-will Circus Company that had come from Tartary just then:

At the end of VN's novel Ada (1969) Van Veen (the narrator and main character) mentions butterflies and butterfly orchids in the margin of the romance:

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 Arctic no longer vicious Circle:

After the dinner in ‘Ursus’ (the best Franco-Estotian restaurant in Manhattan Major) with Ada and Lucette Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) wants to learn from Lucette (Van's and Ada's half-sister) the name of Ada's fiancé and finds her in the process of slipping on her pale green nightdress over her head:

At the end of his poem (and life) John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) says that he understands existence only through his art:

Maybe my sensual love for the consonne

D'appui, Echo's fey child, is based upon

A feeling of fantastically planned,

Richly rhymed life.

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes IPH (a lay
Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) and mentions le grand néant (the great nothing):

Nor can one help the exile, the old man

Dying in a motel, with the loud fan

Revolving in the torrid prairie night

And, from the outside, bits of colored light

Reaching his bed like dark hands from the past

He suffocates and conjures in two tongues

The characters in VN's novel Bend Sinister (1947) include the philosopher Adam Krug and his friend Ember, the Shakespeare scholar and translator. Ember (the name means in Hungarian "human being") is the son of a Persian merchant:

But enough of this, let us hear Ember's rendering of some famous lines:

Ubit' il' ne ubit'? Vot est' oprosen.

Vto bude edler: v rasume tzerpieren

Ogneprashchi i strely zlovo roka –

The characters in VN's novel Bend Sinister (1947) include the philosopher Adam Krug and his friend Ember, the Shakespeare scholar and translator. Krug means in Russian "circle;" ember means in Hungarian "human being." This makes one think of the Vitruvian Man (It., L'uomo vitruviano), a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci (dated to c. 1490):

The characters in VN's novel Bend Sinister (1947) include Krug's friend Ember, the Shakespeare scholar and translator. Hamlet's famous soliloquy in Ember's version begins: Ubit' il' ne ubit'?  (To kill or not to kill?), a play on Byt' ili ne byt' (To be or not to be), the beginning of Hamlet's soliloquy in a standard Russian translation: 

But enough of this, let us hear Ember's rendering of some famous lines:

Ubit' il' ne ubit'? Vot est' oprosen.