"Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Minister's Black Veil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawthorne Nathaniel)

the hoary head of good Father Hooper upon the death pillow, with the
black veil still swathed about his brow, and reaching down over his
face, so that each more difficult gasp of his faint breath caused it
to stir. All through life that piece of crape had hung between him and
the world: it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and
woman's love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his own
heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of
his darksome chamber, and shade him from the sunshine of eternity.

For some time previous, his mind had been confused, wavering
doubtfully between the past and the present, and hovering forward,
as it were, at intervals, into the indistinctness of the world to
come. There had been feverish turns, which tossed him from side to
side, and wore away what little strength he had. But in his most
convulsive struggles, and in the wildest vagaries of his intellect,
when no other thought retained its sober influence, he still showed an
awful solicitude lest the black veil should slip aside. Even if his
bewildered soul could have forgotten, there was a faithful woman at
his pillow, who, with averted eyes, would have covered that aged face,
which she had last beheld in the comeliness of manhood. At length
the death-stricken old man lay quietly in the torpor of mental and
bodily exhaustion, with an imperceptible pulse, and breath that grew
fainter and fainter, except when a long, deep, and irregular
inspiration seemed to prelude the flight of his spirit.

The minister of Westbury approached the bedside.

"Venerable Father Hooper," said he, "the moment of your release
is at hand. Are you ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts in
time from eternity?"

Father Hooper at first replied merely by a feeble motion of his
head; then, apprehensive, perhaps, that his meaning might be doubtful,
he exerted himself to speak.

"Yea," said he, in faint accents, "my soul hath a patient weariness
until that veil be lifted."

"And is it fitting," resumed the Reverend Mr. Clark, "that a man so
given to prayer, of such a blameless example, holy in deed and
thought, so far as mortal judgment may pronounce; is it fitting that a
father in the church should leave a shadow on his memory, that may
seem to blacken a life so pure? I pray you, my venerable brother,
let not this thing be! Suffer us to be gladdened by your triumphant
aspect as you go to your reward. Before the veil of eternity be
lifted, let me cast aside this black veil from your face!"

And thus speaking, the Reverend Mr. Clark bent forward to reveal
the mystery of so many years. But, exerting a sudden energy, that made
all the beholders stand aghast, Father Hooper snatched both his