- During the Russo-Japanese war, Vladimir's mother keeps him and the other children safe by touring a series of European resorts. (What's better than war? Vacation.)
- Vladimir's father is a founder of the Constitutionalists Democratic Party, and visits the family occasionally.
- During one of his 1906 visits, his father discovers that Vladimir and Sergey are fluent in English, but big clumsy failures when it comes to Russian. As an active nationalist, he's horrified, and sets up Russian lessons with a local schoolmaster.
- A kind revolutionary, the schoolmaster brings colored, lettered blocks and offers quotes to help the boys learn.
- Nabokov discloses that this sweet man was sent during the reign of Lenin to a Siberian labor camp, although he was able to escape, and died later, in Narva, Estonia.
- In 1906, Vladimir's father spends three months in solitary confinement after the Tsar dissolves the Parliament.
- The schoolmaster organizes his father's homecoming, with red streamers (a little nod to Communism) and a garland of pine needles and flowers.