"It might have been a happy evening but . . . "

(156.19-158.18)  We left off with the Mookse and the Gripes just as the great schism had been completed.  Today's reading begins with the two exchanging barbs.  First, the Mookse says that in 1,000 years, the Gripes will be blind to the world.  The Gripes counters that after 1,000 years, the Mookse will be deaf ("botheared").  The Mookse says that his side will be exalted in the end, and the Gripes says that they will be humble.  The two then finally come to verbal blows, which Shaun sums up by saying, "And bullfolly answered volleyball."

The scene shifts upward, both in narrative and in verbal style, to "Nuvoletta in her lightdress, spunn of sisteen shimmers."  Nuvoletta -- an Isabel figure -- looks down on the Mookse and the Gripes as she hovers alone in the heavens.  Her companions are "asleeping with the squirrels"; their mother, the moon is "in the Fuerst quarter scrubbing the backsteps of Number 28" (or in her first quarter sweeping up the remains of the old mooncycle); and her father, "that Skand" (the Scandinavian HCE) is off gorging himself on "Voking's Blemish."  Nuvoletta tries to capture the attention of the Mookse and the Gripes, but the two are so caught up in their respective worldly obsessions that they're incapable of lifting their attentions to the wonders of the heavens.  After she "tried all the winsome wonsome ways her four winds had taught her," Nuvoletta realizes that there's nothing she can do.  "I see," she sighs.  "There are menner."

The world grows dark while the Mookse and Gripes continue bickering.  Their actions have grown futile:  "The Mookse had a sound eyes right but he could not all hear.  The Gripes had light ears left yet he could but ill see."  Their prophecies have come true -- the Mookse is deaf and the Gripes is blind -- but this doesn't deter them.  The Mookse still thinks of the profound depths his philosophizing might reach in the morning, and the Gripes thinks of the trouble he might be able to get into and out of if his luck holds.  Will the stalemate continue?