"where in the waste is the wisdom?"

(112.8-114.20)  Today in the Wake, the narrator continues to deliver more information about the letter.  The passage begins with what could be read as a feminist rallying cry.  "Lead, kindly fowl!" the narrator asks the hen.  "They always did:  ask the ages."  Humankind, the narrator says, will follow the bird in evolution, and eventually be able to fly, moult, hatch, and find peace in the nest:

Man will become dirigible, Ague will be rejuvenated, woman with her ridiculous white burden will reach by one step sublime incubation, the manewanting human lioness with her dishorned discipular manram will lie down together publicly flank upon fleece.

The human race, the narrator says, will continue to evolve, despite those who assert that literature hasn't been the same since women became involved with it.

The letter is proof of this.  It is a piece of art and an example of one woman's strength and resiliency.  The writer of the letter was not out to "dizzledazzle" us, but to tell the honest truth about her husband.  On page 113, we get another thunderword, this time in the context of the letter.  It may be a bit perplexing on its own, but in context it seems to summarize the fall of HCE as told in this version of the letter.  A portion of the thunderword is "himaroundhersthemaggerbykinkinkankanwithdownmindlookingated."  This is explained in the following lines, where we learn that the truth told in this version of the letter is that HCE's only failing was dancing with women of questionable repute.  This is the "him around her" (the dancing man with his arms around his partner), the "kin kin kan kan" (the can-can dance), and the "down-minded looking at" (the man leering) of the thunderword.  Anyway, this is the story as told by "Add dapple inn" (Ann, Dublin), and the narrator says this is the same old story that we've seen throughout human history of a feud sparked by love or lust.

But now the narrator wants to move from confusing "jiggerypokery" and "talk straight turkey."  That's not so easy, though, for we all communicate in different ways, and it's so hard to truly understand each other.  Unperturbed, the narrator urges, "let us see all there may remain to be seen" in the letter.

The next paragraph, however, begins with the narrator pointing out the differences between the narrator and the reader.  The narrator is "a worker, a tombstone mason," who's anxious to please everybody.  The reader is "a poorjoist" (perhaps a faltering supporter, a perjurer, and a poor (James) Joyce, all at once) that's anxious to please nobody and is very sorry to have to go home at the end of a night's drinking.  "We cannot say aye to aye," the narrator tells us.  "We cannot smile noes from noes."  So if we're coming from completely different perspectives, how are we supposed to reach any mutual understanding?

The letter itself further complicates the problems.  We've already heard it's in bad condition, and now we learn that it's written in a strange fashion, with half the lines running up and down the page and the other half running across the page.  The letter seems to be written with good intentions, but, it's confusing to read.  Where in this "waste" (Wake, or maybe Eliot's "Waste Land") is the wisdom, the narrator asks?  The search will continue tomorrow.