"through crossexanimation of the casehardened testis"

(87.24-89.24)  Today's passage is comprised of the second part of the lengthy paragraph that describes the trial.  It's tough reading again, but it begins on an slightly less-tough note with the spectators shouting encouragement to the litigants.  With this circus-like atmosphere established, the narrator moves on to report on the cross examination of the witness before the court.

The cross examination, which is recounted in the form of a dialogue between the questioner (an attorney, presumably, but possibly also the judge) and the witness.  The subjects of this dialogue span the entire spectrum.  Really, nothing's out of bounds in this back-and-forth.  Half of the questions appear to reference events or scenes we've read about this far into the Wake, and it'd be a safe bet to say that the questions that don't seem to reference anything up to this point probably reference something that will appear later.  One could write a brief essay on any and all of these questions, but I'll just hit a couple of the highlights here.

The cross examination opens up with it being established that it was very dark and it was tough to see anything on the night when HCE was caught doing whatever he did in the park ("that knife of knifes the treepartied ambush was laid . . . there was not as much light from the widowed moon as would dim a child's altar.")  The witness, though, says that he's fairly sure that he's got the story right.  "Certified?" asks the questioner.  "As a cad could be," the witness replies.  (So, in one sense, at least, the witness must be the Cad.)  Eventually, the questioner asks whether the name of the accused is "Helmingham Erchenwyne Rutter Egbert Crumwall Odin Maximus Esme Saxon Esa Vercingetorix Ethelwulf Rupprecht Ydwalla Bentley Osmund Dysart Yggdrasselmann."  The witness replies, "Holy Saint Eiffel, the very phoenix!"  As noted by each of the authors of my secondary sources, besides this 18-word name referencing kings/conquerors/warriors from throughout history, the name also serves as an acrostic for "HERE COMES EVERYBODY," another name for HCE.

Among the references that jump out to me here are ones to the Prankquean ("Peacisely.") and the pedigree pig ("pederast prig").  It'll be interesting to see what else I'm able to catch when I get to the conclusion of this paragraph tomorrow.