Summary

This scene is set in the family’s living room. Ernestine is there as Godfrey and Gerte run in. “Godfrey’s clothing is disheveled, his forehead is covered with blood … Gerte’s brightly colored dress is stained with blood” (73). Godfrey searches for a weapon, and eventually takes up Ernestine’s sewing scissors. He tries to go back out, but Gerte stops him. As he fights to go back out, Ermina and Lily come in, asking what happened. Gerte and Godfrey explain that they were at the movies and were at first verbally assaulted by a group of white people who called Godfrey “nigger” and said he should not be with a white woman (73). As Lily asks what he expected, Ermina covers her ears and tries to block out the sound of the story, and the emotions of the room, by reciting the...