Ruinen is German for "ruins".
Heine said: "Wir begreifen
die Ruinen nicht eher, als bis wir selbst Ruinen sind"
(we understand the ruins not earlier than by the time we
ourselves are ruins).
As I pointed out earlier, Heine spent most
of his life's second half in Paris and was bedridden for the last eight
years. Lamenting his lot, he writes in his Gestaendnisse
("Confessions", 1854): "Was nuetzt es mir, dass alle
Rosen von Schiras so zaertlich fuer mich gluehen and duften - ach, Schiras ist
zweitausend Meilen entfernt von der Rue d'Amsterdam, wo ich in verdrisslicher
Einsamkeit meiner Krankenstube nichts zu riechen becomme als etwa Parfuems
von gewaermten Servietten."
Heine's Parisian lodgings were thus on
the rue d'Amsterdam. Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands,
the home land of "Velvet" Veen (David van Veen's nephew and heir, "the ecstatic
Neverlander", whose home town is the invented Ruinen). Besides, New
Amsterdam (New York, known on Antiterra as Manhattan or simply Man) is
mentioned in the "Flavita" chapter of Ada: "It
[Flavita] was fashionable throughout Estoty and
Canady around 1790, was revived by the 'Madhatters' (as the inhabitants of New
Amsterdam were once called) in the beginning of the nineteenth
century..." (1.36).
On Antiterra, Paris is also known as Lute. Heine is
the author of Lutetia, a series of articles about Parisian life, art
and politics that appeared as a book in 1854.
Amsterdam + a = master + Adam =
madam + starets - ts =
drama + mesta = mast + dream + a = sram + tea +
mad
Adam,
madam - cf. about David van Veen hundredth floramor: "a Robert Adam-like composition (cruelly referred to by local wags
as the 'Madam-I'm-Adam house')" (2.3)
starets - Russ., venerable old
man; elderly monk
ts - Cyrillic letter à in
transliteration;
mesta - Russ., places
sram - Russ.,
shame; cf. "styd i sram of our county" (as Demon calls the
new kerosene distillery in the vicinity of Ardis Hall); private
parts
tea, mad - cf. a Mad Tea-party in
Alice in Wonderland
Alexey Sklyarenko