"How strange," said a lady, "that a simple black veil, such as any woman might wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr.
The black veil, though it covers only our pastor's face, throws its influence over his whole person, and makes him ghostlike from head to foot.
Hooper, still covered with his black veil. It was now an appropriate emblem.
Hooper came, the first thing that their eyes rested on was the same horrible black veil, which had added deeper gloom to the funeral, and could portend nothing but evil to the wedding.
The next day, the whole village of Milford talked of little else than Parson Hooper's black veil. That, and the mystery concealed behind it, supplied a topic for discussion between acquaintances meeting in the street, and good women gossiping at their open windows.
Yet, though so well acquainted with this amiable weakness, no individual among his parishioners chose to make the black veil a subject of friendly remonstrance.
But there was one person in the village unappalled by the awe with which the black veil had impressed all beside herself.
"An ye are not able to see it, because of the influence of the
veil, know that it is no cumbrous lance, but a sword -- and I ween ye will not be able to avoid it."
Rochester: "but what did you find in the veil besides its embroidery?
There was a light in the dressing-table, and the door of the closet, where, before going to bed, I had hung my wedding-dress and veil, stood open; I heard a rustling there.
But presently she took my veil from its place; she held it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head, and turned to the mirror.
"Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and flinging both on the floor, trampled on them."
"But, sir, when I said so to myself on rising this morning, and when I looked round the room to gather courage and comfort from the cheerful aspect of each familiar object in full daylight, there--on the carpet--I saw what gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis,--the veil, torn from top to bottom in two halves!"
"Thank God!" he exclaimed, "that if anything malignant did come near you last night, it was only the veil that was harmed.
In a state between sleeping and waking, you noticed her entrance and her actions; but feverish, almost delirious as you were, you ascribed to her a goblin appearance different from her own: the long dishevelled hair, the swelled black face, the exaggerated stature, were figments of imagination; results of nightmare: the spiteful tearing of the veil was real: and it is like her.
