Владимир Набоков: Ada, or Ador: A Family Chronicle

p.35. tour du jardin: a stroll in the garden.

p.36. Lady Amherst: confused in the child’s mind with the learned lady after whom a popular pheasant is named.

p.36. with a slight smile: a pet formula of Tolstoy’s denoting cool superiority, if not smugness, in a character’s manner of speech.

p.37. pollice verso: Lat., thumbs down.

p.39. Sumerechnikov: the name is derived from ‘sumerki’ (‘dusk’ in Russian).

p.42. lovely Spanish poem: really two poems — Jorge Guillén’s Descanso en jardin and his El otono: isla).

p.44. Monsieur a quinze ans, etc.: You are fifteen, Sir, I believe, and I am nineteen, I know…. You, Sir, have known town girls no doubt; as to me, I’m a virgin, or almost one. Moreover…

p.44. rien qu’une petite fois: just once.

p.45. mais va donc jouer avec lui: come on, go and play with him.

p.45. se morfondre: mope.

p.45. au fond: actually.

p.45. Je l’ignore: I don’t know.

p.45. cache-cache: hide-and-seek.

p.46. infusion de tilleul: lime tea.

p.48. Les amours du Dr Mertvago: play on ‘Zhivago’ (‘zhiv’ means in Russian ‘alive’ and ‘mertv’ dead).

p.48. grand chêne: big oak.

p.49. quelle idée: the idea!

p.50. Les malheurs de Swann: cross between Les malheurs de Sophie by Mme de Ségur (née Countess Rostopchin) and Proust’s Un amour de Swann.

p.53. monologue intérieur: the so-called ‘stream-of-consciousness’ device, used by Leo Tolstoy (in describing, for instance, Anna’s last impressions whilst her carriage rolls through the streets of Moscow).

p.56. Mr Fowlie: see Wallace Fowlie, Rimbaud (1946).

p.56. soi-disant: would-be.

p.56. les robes vertes, etc.: the green and washed-out frocks of the little girls.

p.56. angel moy: Russ., ‘my angel’.

p.57. en vain. etc.: In vain, one gains in play

The Oka river and Palm Bay…

p.57. bambin angélique: angelic little lad.

p.59. groote: Dutch, ‘great’.

p.59. un machin etc.: a thing as long as this that almost wounded the child in the buttock.

p.60. pensive reeds: Pascal’s metaphor of man, un roseau pensant.

p.61. horsecart: an old anagram. It leads here to a skit on Freudian dream charades (‘symbols in an orchal orchestra’), p.62.

p.61. buvard: blotting pad.

p.62. Kamargsky: La Camargue, a marshy region in S. France combined with Komar, ‘mosquito’, in Russian and moustique in French.

p.63. sa petite collation du matin: light breakfast.

p.64. tartine au miel: bread-and-butter with honey.

p.64. Osberg: another good-natured anagram, scrambling the name of a writer with whom the author of Lolita has been rather comically compared. Incidentally, that title’s pronunciation has nothing to do with English or Russian (pace an anonymous owl in a recent issue of the TLS).

p.65. mais ne te etc.: now don’t fidget like that when you put on your skirt! A well-bred little girl…

p.65. très en beauté: looking very pretty.

p.66. calèche: victoria.

p.66. pecheneg: a savage.

p.67. grande fille: girl who has reached puberty.

p.69. La Rivière de Diamants: Maupassant and his ‘La Parure’ (p.73) did not exist on Antiterra.

p.70. copie etc.: copying in their garret.

p.70. à grand eau: swilling the floors.

p.70. désinvolture: uninhibitedness.

p.70. vibgyor: violet-indigo-blue-green-yellow-orange-red.

p.72. sans façons: unceremoniously.

p.72. strapontin: folding seat in front.

p.73. décharné: emaciated.

p.73. cabane: hut.

p.73. allons donc: oh, come.

p.73. pointe assassine: the point (of a story or poem) that murders artistic merit.

p.73. quitte à tout dire etc.: even telling it all to the widow if need be.

p.73. il pue: he stinks.

p.74. Atala: a short novel by Chateaubriand.

p.75. un juif: a Jew.

p.76. et pourtant: and yet.

p.76. ce beau jardin etc.: This beautiful garden blooms in May, but in Winter never, never, never, never, never is green etc.

p.78. chort!: Russ., ‘devil’.

p.83. mileyshiy: Russ., ‘dearest’.

p.83. partie etc.: exterior fleshy part that frames the mouth… the two edges of a simple wound… it is the member that licks.

p.84. pascaltrezza: in this pun, which combines Pascal with caltrezza (Ital., ‘sharp wit’) and treza (a Provençal word for ‘tressed stalks’), the French ‘pas’ negates the ‘pensant’ of the ‘roseau’ in his famous phrase ‘man is a thinking reed’.

p.86. Katya: the ingénue in Turgenev’s ‘Fathers and Children’.

p.86. a trouvaille: a felicitous find.

p.86. Ada who liked crossing orchids: she crosses here two French authors, Baudelaire and Chateaubriand.

p.86. mon enfant, etc.: my child, my sister, think of the thickness of the big oak at Tagne, think of the mountain, think of the tenderness —

p.87. recueilli: concentrated, rapt.

p.87. canteen: a reference to the ‘scrumpets’ (crumpets) provided by school canteens.

p.90. puisqu’on etc.: since we broach this subject.

p.91. hument: inhale.

p.92. tout le reste: all the rest.

p.92. zdravstvuyte etc.: Russ., lo and behold: the apotheosis

p.92. Mlle Stopchin: a representative of Mme de Ségur, née Rostopchine, author of Les Malheurs de Sophie (nomenclatorially occupied on Antiterra by Les Malheurs de Swann).

p.92. au feu!: fire!

p.92. flambait: was in flames.

p.92. Ashette: ‘Cendrillon’ in the French original.

p.93. en croupe: riding pillion.

p.94. à reculons: backwards.

p.97. The Nile is settled: a famous telegram sent by an African explorer.

p.97. parlez pour vous: speak for yourself.

p.97. trempée: soaked.

p.101. je l’ai vu etc.: ‘I saw it in one of the wastepaper-baskets of the library.’

p.101. aussitôt après: immediately after.

p.102. ménagez etc.: go easy on your Americanisms.

p.103. leur chute etc.: their fall is slow… one can follow them with one’s eyes, recognizing —

p.103. Lowden: a portmanteau name combining two contemporary bards.

p.103. baguenaudier: French name of bladder senna.

p.103. Floeberg: Flaubert’s style is mimicked in this pseudo quotation.

p.105. pour ne pas etc.: so as not to put any ideas in her head.

p.105. en lecture: ‘out’.

p.105. cher, trop cher René: dear, too dear (his sister’s words in Chateaubriand’s René).

p.106. Chiron: doctor among centaurs: an allusion to Updike’s best novel.

p.106. London Weekly: a reference to Alan Brien’s New Statesman column.

p.106. Höhensonne: ultra-violet lamp.

p.107. bobo: little hurt.

p.107. démission etc.: tearful notice.

p.107. les deux enfants etc.: ‘therefore the two children could make love without any fear’.

p.108. fait divers: news item.