“Pleasant is a rainy winter's day, within doors! The best study for such a day, or the best amusement,—call it which you will,—is a book of travels, describing scenes the most unlike that sombre one”
“Yet perhaps the pale-faced congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister as his black veil to them.”
“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.”
“I wonder he is not afraid to be alone with himself." "Men sometimes are so," said her husband.”
“Thus from beneath the black veil there rolled a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which enveloped the poor minister, so that love or sympathy could never reach him.”
“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;”
“I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a black veil!”
“Pleasant is a rainy winter's day, within doors! The best study for such a day, or the best amusement,---call it which you will,--- is a book...”
“I know what to think when a young girl shivers by a warm hearth and complains of lonesomeness at her mother's side. Shall I put these feelings into words?”
“Perhaps a germ of love was springing in their hearts so pure that it might blossom in Paradise, since it could not be matured on earth;”
“If it be a sign of mourning," replied Mr. Hooper, "I, perhaps, like most other mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil.”
“I am a ridiculous person. Now they call me a madman. That would be a promotion if it were not that I remain as ridiculous in their eyes as before. But now I do not resent it, they are all dear to me now, even when they laugh at me — and, indeed, it is just then that they are particularly dear to me. I could join in their laughter — not exactly at myself, but through affection for them, if I did not feel so sad as I look at them. Sad because they do not know the truth and I do know it. Oh, how hard it is to be the only one who knows the truth! But they won't understand that. No, they won't understand it.”
“When the cold comes to New England it arrives in sheets of sleet and ice. In December, the wind wraps itself around bare trees and twists in between husbands and wives asleep in their beds. It shakes the shingles from the roofs and sifts through cracks in the plaster. The only green things left are the holly bushes and the old boxwood hedges in the village, and these are often painted white with snow. Chipmunks and weasels come to nest in basements and barns; owls find their way into attics. At night,the dark is blue and bluer still, as sapphire of night.”
“Продумывая детали, Уэйд неожиданно проникся новым, угрюмым сочувствием к отцу. Вот, значит, как оно было. Ходишь, делаешь свои дела. Несешь эту ношу, замуровываешь себя в молчание, прячешь адскую правду от всех остальных и большую часть времени от себя тоже. Никакой театральности. Гребешь снег, околачиваешься в политике или торгуешь в ювелирном магазине; периодически ищешь забвения», предаешь настоящее каждым вдохом из пузыря с прогнившим прошлым. А потом в один прекрасный день обнаруживаешь бельевую веревку. Изумляешься. Подтаскиваешь мусорный бак, влезаешь и подцепляешь себя к вечности, словно включаешься в электрическую сеть. Ни записок, ни схем – никаких объяснений. В чем искусство и состоит – искусство отца, искусство Кэти: величественный переход в область чистой, всеобъемлющей Тайны. Не надо путать, подумал он, абсолютное зло с несчастливым детством. Узнать – значит разочароваться. Понять – значит быть преданным. Все жалкие «как» и «почему», все низменные мотивы, все абсцессы души, все отвратительные мелкие уродства личности и истории – не более чем реквизит, который ты прячешь до самого конца Пусть публика завывает во тьме, потрясает кулаками, пусть одни кричат – Как? , другие – Почему?”
“If heaven is tolerant and writers are allowed (bunch of liars though they are), I wonder if they gather for coffee to ponder the prose they should have written instead.”
“Perhaps [he had] persevered for too long, in the face of too many obstacles, his hair proof of his tenacity - the stark black streaked with white or, in certain light, stark white shot through with black, each strand of white attributable to the jungle fever (so cold it burned, his skin glacial), each strand of black a testament to being alive afterwards.”
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