Cabe says:

Alice's comment about "resigned" is amazing. I didn't see it either.  But I certainly cringe enthusiastically over the series of clichés here. 

You might want to see Alice's comment about "women," also.  The milk woman in Ulysses didn't know Gaelic, either.  But what are they but "harbingers from another world"?  (That's from William Carlos Williams, "A Negro Woman")

What's going on here is that we're getting information on the ironic level, and we're encouraged by the text (through repetitions, etc.) to interpret it on other levels, especially the mythic.