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.