104: Milostivaya Gosudarnynya: (Ru.). милостивая государыня; appx. English translation: “Dearest Madam”. The narrator’s bracketed “anglice” translation, “Dear Miss Blagovo”, is not literal.
104: viva-voce: (Latin). literally, “with the living voice”; “adv. By word of mouth; in speech; orally” (OED).
104: I am in bed… in an ordinary place: this fragment recalls Vadim’s dream described in the previous chapter in which a “younger, slighter, and gayer Annette” (LATH 103) and the narrator lie in separate children’s beds on opposite walls. Vadim’s dream is charged with sexual desire, thus the parenthetical in this fragment (“decently clad, of course, and with every organ in decent repose”) attempts to establish a contrasting condition.
104: bookshop: the feature of a bookshop in Vadim’s letter is not coincidental: Vadim seeks out Anna at the Boyan Bookshop on the rue Cuvier, where she was employed under Oksman (Part II, Chapter 3).
105: one of its chairs and the half of a table: like the table and one of its two appendages, throughout the novel the reader feels as if only half of reality is illuminated.
105: umbrella: this particular detail may be included to satirize Sigmund Freud, later referred to as the Viennese Quack (LATH 127). In Freud’s theory, umbrellas (and other elongate objects) may act as phallic symbols in dreams.
105: glubokouvazhaemaya: (Ru.). глубокоуважаемая (lit. Most Esteemed) here Vadim provides the literal English translation, “dear”.
105: I got up a minute ago…the folds of the two paragraphs: this parenthesis highlights the theme of fiction and reality: in the preceding paragraph, Vadim, the narrator, interjects himself in between the two fictional constructions of his “experiment” (LATH 104).
105: I imagine diurnal Vadim Vadimovich…: here the narrator adds another layer to the fictional dream. Essentially, a dream within a dream.
105: you must permit me to call you that…: this parenthesis recalls the propriety of an older generation of Russian society.
106: my power over conceived space: this may allude to Vadim’s notes on the Substance of Space (LATH 223) and the Specter of Space (LATH 231) (as he constructs Ardis), both of which seem loosely reminiscent of Van Veen’s dissertation, The Texture of Time, in Nabokov’s Ada, or Ardor.
106: about-face: “a turn made so as to face in the opposite direction” (OED). Vadim’s “affliction” (LATH 105) consists of an inability to turn about his axis and reconstruct the world in the opposite direction in his dreams. He cannot retrace the past.
106: rusty recalcitrant rudder: classic Nabokovian alliteration of the “ruh” sound.
106: Voilà: (Fr.) interjection similar to the English “Lo!”. cf. OED
106: en fait de démence: (Fr.). English translation: “a fact of dementia”. Recall that Vadim claims “Dementia is one of the characters in my story” (LATH 85).
106: the missing pinkie of a freak born with nine fingers: cf. oligodactyly
107: foreglimpse: here Vadim foreshadows the progression of his dementia in the latter half of the novel
107: Florentine hat that looks like a cluster of wild flowers: a manifestation of Chloris’ garb as illustrated in Botticelli’s Primavera. As Vadim says, Chloris is “the fifth girl from left to right, the flower-decked blonde with the straight nose and serious gray eyes, in Botticelli’s Primavera” (107). In Greek mythology, Chloris was a wood nymph who was stolen away by the wind god Zephyrus, and later transformed into a deity herself. cf. Chloris the Nymph
107: Botticelli’s Primavera: an originally untitled painting (ca. 1482) by Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli. It is replete with lush flora and is often interpreted as an allegory of spring. Literally, “primavera” (It.) translates to “spring” (En.). It may be relevant to note that Gerard de Vries and Donald Barton Johnson, in their novel Vladimir Nabokov and the Art of Painting, claim that Nabokov’s art is similar to Botticelli’s in that it conceals more than it reveals.
107: Ya idiotka: (Ru.). ты идиoт. English translation: “you idiot”
107: Peter the Terrible: as Vadim points out, Anna confuses Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible.
107: natsepila: (Ru.). нацепить. English translation: “to doll oneself up in”.
107: shapochka: (Ru.). тапочка. English translation: “slipper”.
107: and I boiled over: cf. PE
108: she did not understand… windlorn sails: one of the first invocations of Annette’s sexual inexperience (and perhaps overall ignorance).
108: trepanners? trombonists? astronomists?: consonance of the “tr” sound. In addition, D. Barton Johnson, in his 1984 essay entitled “Inverted Reality in Nabokov’s Look at the Harlequins!“, makes the following note on this alliteration:
That Lieutenant Starov-Blagidze, who had served under Wrangel,has been subject to trepanning (possibly at the hands of Annette’s father) is quite probable, for we know he suffers a “terrifying tic” as a result of his head wound (p. 58). Still more curious is VV’s choice of “astronomist,” for the initial syllable is the Latin root for “star,” while the first five letters form an anagram corresponding to the first five letters of the name Starov.3 In short, Anna Blagovo, like Iris Black, may be the halfsister, as well as the wife, of the narrator. Again like Iris, she is (possibly) acquainted with Lieutenant Starov.
cf. Count Starov
108: Wrangel: Pyotor Nikolayevich Wrangel, commander of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in 1920. cf. Wrangel’s fleet
108: deserts idle, rough quarries, rocks: allusion to Act I, Scene III of Shakespeare’s Othello, in which Othello recounts stories (of his own life’s toils) that he once told to Barbantio.
108: spies they had hanged… international politics… the meaning of life: the “gentlemen” of Annette’s past engaged in conversation topics uninteresting to both Nabokov and the fictional Vadim Vadimovich.
108: whirl about on the pin like a wingless fly. Or butterfly: Nabokov, an avid lepidopterist, kept several butterfly collections. The “pin” referred to in this line could be the entomological pin used to mount butterflies on cards. cf. Entomological collecting. Otherwise, this line seems to relate to Annette’s comment about the nettlefly on p. 109.
108: Bellefontaine
108: Look at that harlequin… which the artist had placed at a slight angle: here, Vadim’s imperative evokes his aunt’s earlier entreaty, “Look at the harlequins!… Invent reality!” (9). Therefore, we must question if the sighting of the butterfly on the wall is also an invention of Vadim the artist.
109: The creature was painted… body: the Small Tortoiseshell butterfly, Aglais urticae. cf. Dieter Zimmer’s A Guide to Nabokov’s Butterflies and Moths
109: nettlefly: a colloquial name for Aglais urticae. The caterpillar of this butterfly feeds on stinging nettle, hence its name and Annette’s association with urticaria.
109: krapivnitsa: (Ru.). Крапивница. English translation: “nettle rash”.