Summary

Act Two is subtitled “Spring.”

“Ernestine, dressed in her finest clothing, stands in a circle of light. She wears a huge black ‘V’ sewn above her bosom” (53). Lily is in the living room, putting together some personal possessions. Ernestine speaks to the audience, describing her family’s routine, including Lily’s habit of going “uptown to commune with ‘possibility and the future’” (53).

Lily reminisces about her earlier life with Sandra, and how everyone thought that Lily would be the one to marry first because she was “the better looking of the two” (54). She comments that she “didn’t like standing still, and you gotta stand still long enough to attract yourself a man” (54). She tells Ernestine to go on down to the Peace Mission, adding that she does not think that Father Divine would “understand the mystique of this pretty face” (54).

The...