Abstract
There is an unsolved mystery in Nabokov’s PALE FIRE–the hiding place of Zembla’s crown jewels. A closed loop in the index goes from “Crown Jewels,” to “Hiding place,” which refers to “Potaynik,” which refers to “Taynik, Russ., secret place; see Crown Jewels.” Nabokov, when asked for the location of Pale Fire’s crown jewels, offered an equally mystifying circumlocution: “In the ruins, sir, of some old barracks near Kobaltana (q.v.); but do not tell it to the Russians.” (SO, 92) Kobaltana is indeed listed in Pale Fire’s index as “a once fashionable mountain resort near the ruins of some old barracks now a cold and desolate spot of difficult access and no importance but still remembered in military families and forest castles, not in the text.” What and where are the mysterious crown jewels? We shall see.
