"Can't you understand?"

(457.25-459.30)  Up to this point, this chapter has consisted primarily of Shaun delivering a sermon to the 29 girls assembled before him.  Now, however, we get to hear a new voice, that of Isabel, who in today's reading begins her reply to Shaun.  "Meesh, meeshy, yes, pet," she begins.  "We were too happy.  I knew something would happen."  Recognizing that he's about to depart, she offers him a gift of "memento nosepaper," which she tells him to use when he writes her from abroad.  Her speech is loaded with language that can be interpreted in contradictory ways, indicating her sincerity and her cynicism toward her brother.  For instance, regarding the notepaper, she asks Shaun "when never you make usage of it, listen, please kindly think galways again or again, never forget."  That "never" could be read literally, or it could be read as "ever."

Isabel says that she will be well taken care of financially because "I am getting his pay and wants for nothing so I can live simply and solely for my wonderful kinkless and its loops of loveliness."  This might indicate that she's living off of HCE's inheritance or life insurance, and so she's able to devote time to more frivolous things, like her hair.  Also playing into this theme of Isabel's superficiality is the part where she discusses "nurse Madge, my linkingclass girl," with whom she'll be praying for Shaun.  Nurse Madge could be the household servant Kate, but perhaps this "linkingclass girl" is the personification of Isabel's image in the mirror.  Isabel likes to draw marks and mustaches on Madge's face when Madge sleepwalks, but, she tells Shaun, "[Y]ou'll love her for her hessians and sickly black stockies."

At the end of today's passage, Isabel makes a confession to Shaun.  "O bother, I must tell the trouth!" she says.  "My lad's loveliletter I am sore I done something with.  I like him lots coss he never cusses.  Pity bonhom.  Pip pet.  I shouldn't say he's pretty but I'm cocksure he's shy.  Why I love taking him out when I unletched his cordon gate."  She says that her young lover "fell for my lips, for my lisp, for my lewd speaker."  She "fell for his strength, his manhood, his do you mind?"  How will her relationship with this boy effect her devotion to Shaun?  We'll see tomorrow . . . .