Eurydice (Ruhl play) a piece of string, and Eurydice's father reads to her from "King Lear". Orpheus sends another letter, and then resolves to go to the Underworld himself to find her. In the third movement, Orpheus arrives at the gates of the Underworld, singing a song so powerful it makes the Stones weep. The Lord of the Underworld tells him that he may take Eurydice back, but only if he does not turn around to look at her. Eurydice is then faced with the decision to either stay with her father or go back with her husband. At her father's insistence, she
The Wife of His Youth "The Wife of His Youth" follows Mr. Ryder, a bi-racial man who was born and reared free before the Civil War. He heads the "Blue Veins Society", a social organization for colored people in a northern town; the membership consists of people with a high proportion of European ancestry, who look more white than black. The organization's name stemmed from the joke that one would have to be so white (to be a member) that veins could be seen through the skin. Ryder is sought after by the town's women but begins courting a very light mixed-race woman from Washington,