We get another rare glimpse of Antonia's callousness in the fact that she can subject Don Jose to this ideal "dry-eyed." Her making the sign of the cross is a physical indication of her "rejoining" her uncle in Religion, and the "thick veil" she lowers constitiutes a new sunshade, representing a new dream-ideal. Although a veil of mourning for Don Jose is a little premature, symbolically she mourns the death of the moral nation.