The Minister’s Black Veil
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The sexton stood in the porch of Milford meetinghouse, pulling lustily at the
bell rope. The old people of the village came stooping along the street.
Children, with bright faces, tripped merrily beside their parents, or mimicked a
graver gait, in the conscious dignity of their Sunday clothes. Spruce bachelors
looked sidelong at the pretty maidens, and fancied that the Sabbath sunshine
made them prettier than on weekdays. When the throng had mostly streamed into
the porch, the sexton began to toll the bell, keeping his eye on the Reverend
Mr. Hooper’s door. The first glimpse of the clergyman’s figure was the signal
for the bell to cease its summons.
“But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face?” cried the sexton in
astonishment.
All within hearing immediately turned about, and beheld the semblance of Mr.
Hooper, pacing slowly his meditative way toward the meetinghouse. With one
accord they started, expressing more wonder than if some strange minister were
coming to dust the cushions of Mr. Hooper’s pulpit.
“Are you sure it is our parson?” inquired Goodman Gray of the sexton.
“Of a certainty it is good Mr. Hooper,” replied the sexton. “He was to have
exchanged pulpits with Parson Shute of Westbury; but Parson Shute sent to excuse
himself yesterday, being to preach a funeral sermon.”
The cause of so much amazement may appear sufficiently slight. Mr. Hooper, a
gentlemanly person of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with
due clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band, and brushed
the weekly dust from his Sunday’s garb. There was but one thing remarkable in
his appearance. Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so
low as to be shaken by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil. On a nearer
view, it seemed to consist of two folds of crape, which entirely concealed his
features, except the mouth and chin, but probably did not intercept his sight,
farther than to give a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things. With
this gloomy shade before him, good Mr. Hooper walked onward, at a slow and quiet
pace, stooping somewhat and looking on the ground, as is customary with
abstracted men, yet nodding kindly to those of his parishioners who still waited
on the meetinghouse steps. But so wonder-struck were they, that his greeting
hardly met with a return.
“I can’t really feel as if good Mr. Hooper’s face was behind that piece of
crape,” said the sexton.
“I don’t like it,” muttered an old woman, as she hobbled into the meetinghouse.
“He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face.”
“Our parson has gone mad!” cried Goodman Gray, following him across the
threshold.
A rumor of some unaccountable phenomenon had preceded Mr. Hooper into the
meetinghouse, and set all the congregation astir. Few could refrain from
twisting their heads toward the door; many stood upright, and turned directly
about; while several little boys clambered upon the seats, and came down again
with a terrible racket. There was a general bustle, a rustling of the women’s
gowns and shuffling of the men’s feet, greatly at variance with that hushed
repose which should attend the entrance of the minister. But Mr. Hooper appeared
not to notice the perturbation of his people. He entered with an almost
noiseless step, bent his head mildly to the pews on each side, and bowed as he
passed his oldest parishioner, a white-haired great-grandsire, who occupied an
armchair in the center of the aisle. It was strange to observe, how slowly this
venerable man became conscious of something singular in the appearance of his
pastor. He seemed not fully to partake of the prevailing wonder, till Mr. Hooper
had ascended the stairs, and showed himself in the pulpit, face to face with his
congregation, except for the black veil. That mysterious emblem was never once
withdrawn. It shook with his measured breath as he gave out the psalm; it threw
its obscurity between him and the holy page, as he read the Scriptures; and
while he prayed, the veil lay heavily on his uplifted countenance. Did he seek
to hide it from the dread Being whom he was addressing?
Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape, that more than one woman of
delicate nerves was forced to leave the meetinghouse. Yet perhaps the pale-faced
congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister, as his black veil to
them.
Mr. Hooper had the reputation of a good preacher, but not an energetic one: He
strove to win his people heavenward, by mild persuasive influences, rather than
to drive them thither, by the thunders of the Word. The sermon which he now
delivered, was marked by the same characteristics of style and manner, as the
general series of his pulpit oratory. But there was something, either in the
sentiment of the discourse itself, or in the imagination of the auditors, which
made it greatly the most powerful effort that they had ever heard from their
pastor’s lips. It was tinged, rather more darkly than usual, with the gentle
gloom of Mr. Hooper’s temperament. The subject had reference to secret sin, and
those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain
conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can
detect them. A subtle power was breathed into his words. Each member of the
congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if
the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their
hoarded iniquity of deed or thought. Many spread their clasped hands on their
bosoms. There was nothing terrible in what Mr. Hooper said; at least, no
violence; and yet, with every tremor of his melancholy voice, the hearers
quaked. An unsought pathos came hand in hand with awe. So sensible were the
audience of some unwonted attribute in their minister, that they longed for a
breath of wind to blow aside the veil, almost believing that a stranger’s visage
would be discovered, though the form, gesture, and voice were those of Mr.
Hooper.
At the close of the services, the people hurried out with indecorous confusion,
eager to communicate their pent-up amazement, and conscious of lighter spirits,
the moment they lost sight of the black veil. Some gathered in little circles,
huddled closely together, with their mouths all whispering in the center; some
went homeward alone, wrapped in silent meditation; some talked loudly, and
profaned the Sabbath day with ostentatious laughter. A few shook their sagacious
heads, intimating that they could penetrate the mystery; while one or two
affirmed that there was no mystery at all, but only that Mr. Hooper’s eyes were
so weakened by the midnight lamp, as to require a shade. After a brief interval,
forth came good Mr. Hooper also, in the rear of his flock. Turning his veiled
face from one group to another, he paid due reverence to the hoary heads,
saluted the middle-aged with kind dignity, as their friend and spiritual guide,
greeted the young with mingled authority and love, and laid his hands on the
little children’s heads to bless them. Such was always his custom on the Sabbath
day. Strange and bewildered looks repaid him for his courtesy. None, as on
former occasions, aspired to the honor of walking by their pastor’s side. Old
Squire Saunders, doubtless by an accidental lapse of memory, neglected to invite
Mr. Hooper to his table, where the good clergyman had been wont to bless the
food, almost every Sunday since his settlement. He returned, therefore, to the
parsonage, and, at the moment of closing the door, was observed to look back
upon the people, all of whom had their eyes fixed upon the minister. A sad smile
gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil, and flickered about his mouth,
glimmering as he disappeared.
“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. Hooper’s face!”
“Something must surely be amiss with Mr. Hooper’s intellects,” observed her
husband, the physician of the village. “But the strangest part of the affair is
the effect of this vagary, even on a sober-minded man like myself. 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. Do you not feel it so?”
“Truly do I,” replied the lady; “and I would not be alone with him for the
world. I wonder he is not afraid to be alone with himself!”
“Men sometimes are so,” said her husband.
The afternoon service was attended with similar circumstances. At its
conclusion, the bell tolled for the funeral of a young lady. The relatives and
friends were assembled in the house, and the more distant acquaintances stood
about the door, speaking of the good qualities of the deceased, when their talk
was interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Hooper, still covered with his black
veil. It was now an appropriate emblem. The clergyman stepped into the room
where the corpse was laid, and bent over the coffin, to take a last farewell of
his deceased parishioner. As he stooped, the veil hung straight down from his
forehead, so that, if her eyelids had not been closed forever, the dead maiden
might have seen his face. Could Mr. Hooper be fearful of her glance, that he so
hastily caught back the black veil? A person, who watched the interview between
the dead and living, scrupled not to affirm, that, at the instant when the
clergyman’s features were disclosed, the corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling
the shroud and muslin cap, though the countenance retained the composure of
death. A superstitious old woman was the only witness of this prodigy. From the
coffin, Mr. Hooper passed into the chamber of the mourners, and thence to the
head of the staircase, to make the funeral prayer. It was a tender and
heart-dissolving prayer, full of sorrow, yet so imbued with celestial hopes,
that the music of a heavenly harp, swept by the fingers of the dead, seemed
faintly to be heard among the saddest accents of the minister. The people
trembled, though they but darkly understood him, when he prayed that they, and
himself, and all of mortal race, might be ready, as he trusted this young maiden
had been, for the dreadful hour that should snatch the veil from their faces.
The bearers went heavily forth, and the mourners followed, saddening all the
street, with the dead before them, and Mr. Hooper in his black veil behind.
“Why do you look back?” said one in the procession to his partner.
“I had a fancy,” replied she, “that the minister and the maiden’s spirit were
walking hand in hand.”
“And so had I, at the same moment,” said the other.
That night, the handsomest couple in Milford village were to be joined in
wedlock. Though reckoned a melancholy man, Mr. Hooper had a placid cheerfulness
for such occasions, which often excited a sympathetic smile, where livelier
merriment would have been thrown away. There was no quality of his disposition
which made him more beloved than this. The company at the wedding awaited his
arrival with impatience, trusting that the strange awe, which had gathered over
him throughout the day, would now be dispelled. But such was not the result.
When Mr. 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. Such was its immediate effect on the
guests, that a cloud seemed to have rolled duskily from beneath the black crape,
and dimmed the light of the candles. The bridal pair stood up before the
minister. But the bride’s cold fingers quivered in the tremulous hand of the
bridegroom, and her deathlike paleness caused a whisper, that the maiden who had
been buried a few hours before, was come from her grave to be married. If ever
another wedding were so dismal, it was that famous one, where they tolled the
wedding knell. After performing the ceremony, Mr. Hooper raised a glass of wine
to his lips, wishing happiness to the new-married couple, in a strain of mild
pleasantry that ought to have brightened the features of the guests, like a
cheerful gleam from the hearth. At that instant, catching a glimpse of his
figure in the looking glass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the
horror with which it overwhelmed all others. His frame shuddered—his lips grew
white—he spilt the untasted wine upon the carpet—and rushed forth into the
darkness. For the Earth, too, had on her Black Veil.
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. It was the first item of news that the tavern
keeper told to his guests. The children babbled of it on their way to school.
One imitative little imp covered his face with an old black handkerchief,
thereby so affrighting his playmates, that the panic seized himself, and he well
nigh lost his wits by his own waggery.
It was remarkable, that, of all the busybodies and impertinent people in the
parish, not one ventured to put the plain question to Mr. Hooper, wherefore he
did this thing. Hitherto, whenever there appeared the slightest call for such
interference, he had never lacked advisers, nor shown himself averse to be
guided by their judgment. If he erred at all, it was by so painful a degree of
self-distrust, that even the mildest censure would lead him to consider an
indifferent action as a crime. 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. There was a feeling of dread, neither plainly
confessed nor carefully concealed, which caused each to shift the responsibility
upon another, till at length it was found expedient to send a deputation of the
church, in order to deal with Mr. Hooper about the mystery, before it should
grow into a scandal. Never did an embassy so ill discharge its duties. The
minister received them with friendly courtesy, but became silent, after they
were seated, leaving to his visitors the whole burden of introducing their
important business. The topic, it might be supposed, was obvious enough. There
was the black veil, swathed round Mr. Hooper’s forehead, and concealing every
feature above his placid mouth, on which, at times, they could perceive the
glimmering of a melancholy smile. But that piece of crape, to their imagination,
seemed to hang down before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him
and them. Were the veil but cast aside, they might speak freely of it, but not
till then. Thus they sat a considerable time, speechless, confused, and
shrinking uneasily from Mr. Hooper’s eye, which they felt to be fixed upon them
with an invisible glance. Finally, the deputies returned abashed to their
constituents, pronouncing the matter too weighty to be handled, except by a
council of the churches, if, indeed, it might not require a general synod.
But there was one person in the village, unappalled by the awe with which the
black veil had impressed all beside herself. When the deputies returned without
an explanation, or even venturing to demand one, she, with the calm energy of
her character, determined to chase away the strange cloud that appeared to be
settling round Mr. Hooper, every moment more darkly than before. As his
plighted10 wife, it should be her privilege to know what the black veil
concealed. At the minister’s first visit, therefore, she entered upon the
subject, with a direct simplicity, which made the task easier both for him and
her. After he had seated himself, she fixed her eyes steadfastly upon the veil,
but could discern nothing of the dreadful gloom that had so overawed the
multitude: It was but a double fold of crape, hanging down from his forehead to
his mouth, and slightly stirring with his breath.
“No,” said she aloud, and smiling, “there is nothing terrible in this piece of
crape, except that it hides a face which I am always glad to look upon. Come,
good sir, let the sun shine from behind the cloud. First lay aside your black
veil: Then tell me why you put it on.”
Mr. Hooper’s smile glimmered faintly.
“There is an hour to come,” said he, “when all of us shall cast aside our veils. Take it not amiss, beloved friend, if I wear this piece of crape till then.”
“Your words are a mystery too,” returned the young lady. “Take away the veil from them, at least.”