(198.3-200.4) As chapter eight of the Wake progresses onward, it quickly becomes clear that the depth of ALP's character is going to be explored almost as much (if not equally as much) as HCE's. The two washerwomen concede that despite his faults, HCE did work to make a living: "He erned his lille Bunbath hard, our staly bred, the trader. He did. Look at here. In this wet of his prow." And just as HCE isn't all bad, ALP isn't all good. "Shyr she's nearly as badher as him herself," one woman says. In fact, one woman alleges that ALP ordered women to entertain HCE, or, as it's said in the text, to "tickle the pontiff aisy-oisy." The woman goes so far as to call ALP a "proxenete," which McHugh identifies as someone who negotiates a marriage, or, in French slang, a bawd. Another story is that ALP could be seen sitting before her window pretending to play a dirge on a fiddle, even though she didn't know how to play the fiddle.
The conversation turns back toward HCE, who is said to have become "as glommen as grampus" at some point and driven to be a hermit by the troubles of the world. He sat somber on his seat, engaging in a hunger strike, dreaming incessantly (is the Wake the result of his endless dreaming?), and belching for "severn years." During this period, ALP was greatly concerned about HCE. She "darent catch a winkle of sleep," and cooked meals (variously featuring eggs, Danish bacon, green tea, black coffee, and ham sandwiches) for him. The ungrateful HCE would cast the meal aside, stare at ALP, and call her a so-and-so. Undeterred, ALP would whistle for him.
Today's reading concludes with the aristocratic ALP, casting sparks from her fan and sporting fireflies in her frosty tresses, clothed in a luxurious jade gown. This is an abrupt stopping point, but we're in the middle of a four-page paragraph, so I'll hold off on going further until tomorrow.
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