"I fail to say. I dearsee you too."

(557.13-559.16)  HCE makes it from the pub floor to his bed during today's reading, but first the narrator once again recalls HCE's trial, which is perhaps reenacted "each and every juridical sessions night."  The jury -- "goodmen twelve and true" -- found HCE guilty "of their and those imputations of fornicolopulation with two of his albowcrural correlations."  HCE's crime is retraced:  "he was said to have enjoyed by anticipation when schooling them in amown, mid grass, she sat."  Asserting that he was under "heat pressure" at the time, HCE asked the court for "grand toleration."  He made his case, and prayed to the court that "of his fault you would make obliteration."  But the court held that "there can be no right extinuation for contravention of common and statute legislation for which the fit remedy resides, for Mr Sully, in corporal amputation."  HCE got a three-month sentence.

Meanwhile, Isabel and the 28 girls -- the "nine with twenty Leixlip yearlings, darters all" -- reveled in Shaun's company.  They were "weeping like fun" as he left (a departure we saw in the second chapter of Book III), "for they were never happier, huhu, than when they were miserable, haha."  

With these two diversions complete, we find HCE ("Albatrus Nyanzer") in bed with ALP ("Victa Nyanza").  HCE's "mace of might" is "mortified" (McHugh suggests that "mace" is HCE's penis), and ALP has hung her nightgown ("her beautifell") on a nail in the bedroom.  The narrator hints that they may be about to engage in intercourse before a cry in another part of the house interrupts them.  "Where are we at all?" a voice asks.  "and whenabouts in the name of space?"  This echoes the opening lines of the chapter, as seen in yesterday's reading.  Another voice further notes this early morning sense of confusion.  "I don't understand," it says, perhaps giving expression to the reader's thoughts.  "I fail to say.  I dearsee you too."  (You can straighten these phrases out to "I fail to see.  I daresay you too."  Of course, the way Joyce has it emphasizes the confusion present in the scene.)

The final paragraph of the chapter provides stage directions describing the modestly furnished bedroom of HCE and ALP.  Among the noteworthy items found in the room is a picture above the mantel portraying "Michael, lance, slaying Satan, dragon with smoke" (this, of course, calls back to the Mick/Shaun-Nick/Shem dichotomy).  Tomorrow, we will see how this scene begins to play out.