282 jean walton spirituals were well received” (215) It would appear that Hall and Troubridge decided to celebrate Hall’s success by arranging an evening of folk-based songs, exhibiting not only an African American tradition but also the Celtic traditions of those nearer geographical locales under English colonial domination Only from Gordon’s account we have a sense of the African Americans as consumers as well as producers of ethnic or national cultural commodities Hall, already a year into the composition of The Well of Loneliness, drew upon the details of this party in order to dramatize a scene that, at first glance, might be discounted as inconsequential to the advancement of the plot, the development of the characters, or even the elaboration of the novel’s sexual politics In an attempt to make life less lonely for Mary, Stephen introduces her, through Valérie Seymour, to the circle of sexual exiles who inhabit Paris and who find community with each other For these “men and women who must carry God’s mark on their foreheads,” Valérie Seymour creates an “atmosphere of courage.” It would seem that, in spite of their rejection by English high society, Mary and Stephen have been welcomed into the expatriate community of Paris, a group of people linked by the marks of abnormality that set them apart from the normal world Once this emergent exilic community has been established in the novel, the scene that most concerns us is introduced Jamie, who has been studying at the conservatory, announces that she has met a pair of “Negro brothers” there and plans to bring them home to perform spirituals for a gathering of Valérie Seymour’s coterie of sexual exiles.6 The two short chapters that dramatize this event are clearly a fictionalization of the evening of spirituals hosted by Hall and Troubridge in the summer of 1927, with significant displacements and embellishments A close reading of these chapters, considered in relation to the actual musical evening in Hall’s home, will help to understand how Hall sought to portray the “voice” of Negro suffrage in order to find a “voice” that could make the case for sexual suffrage The Negro Brethren Come to Sing The Negro brothers are invited to Jamie’s apartment primarily as representatives of a folkloric musical tradition, one rooted in an historical struggle for freedom As we shall see, however, they are also invited as specimens of