Silence: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

Although the guards interrogate the villagers, the Christians manage to conceal any evidence of their faith and are left alone. Rodrigues is entirely satisfied with life. Even Kichijiro, who accompanied him back to Tomogi, gets along. Though the man is vain, obnoxious, and still a drunk, Rodrigues finds that he still “just can’t hate him.” However, the plight of the Japanese peasants is brutal. They rarely get to eat rice, very few have any animals, and they subsist in squalor on potatoes, few vegetables, or roots. They are “slaves of the samurai” who in turn are servants of the land-owning feudal lords, who wield absolute power over their subjects, even more than a king.

One afternoon, a fierce samurai and his men storm the village, announcing that an informer has reported Christians living among them. After the priests bury their possessions beneath the charcoal hut, they descend the mountain and watch the affair through the trees. The samurai can find no evidence of Christianity, but announces that unless the villagers admit to practicing the forbidden religion, they will take a hostage, and then another in three days’ time. The samurai’s men drag away the village’s elder, an old and frail man.

The priests feel as if they should leave to spare the villagers any further suffering. The villagers are themselves divided between protecting the priests or sending them away. As promised, another samurai arrives, but this one is older and very gentle, trying to persuade rather than threaten. He tells the villagers that they have nothing to fear from him if they have committed no crime, but all the same he needs three hostages to return with him to Nagasaki and would like volunteers. The villagers decide that Kichijiro should go—to his horror—since he is a stranger with no family for which to care. Mokichi and Ichizo volunteer as well.

The night before they must go to Nagasaki, the three men ask the priests what they should do if they are told to apostatize and place their foot upon the fumie (a bronze etching of Christ made by the government specifically for Christians to apostatize with). In a rush of pity and passion, Rodrigues shouts that they must apostatize and save themselves, but Garrpe looks at him “reproachfully” and he feels he should not have said it. Kichijiro asks why God should place such a burden upon them when they have committed no sin, but the priests cannot answer.

Rodrigues is haunted by Kichijiro’s question. On the one hand, he feels that God must have some good purpose in mind. Yet so much blood has already been spilled by the Japanese Christians for the sake of their faith. and “in the face of this terrible and merciless sacrifice offered up to him, God has remained silent.” Meanwhile at the magistrate’s office, Kichijiro, Ichizo, and Mokichi stamp on the fumie. However, their interrogator notes that their faces seem pained, so he orders them to also spit on the crucifix and slander the Virgin Mary. Kichijiro does so, painfully, and is released and disappears, but Mokichi and Ichizo cannot bring themselves to do so, and are imprisoned for 10 days.

Officials ride into the village and announce that Mokichi and Ichizo will be executed by the “water punishment,” meaning that they will be tied to poles and left to be buffeted by the tide at the edge of the sea for many days. A procession of officials arrives two days later with Mokichi and Ichizo tightly bound. As workers prepare the poles, an official orders a fire built so the prisoners can warm themselves against the rain, and even offers them each a cup of sake alcohol. Ichizo and Mokichi are fastened to the poles—made from tree trunks—and left standing buffeted by the water and waiting for death. The villagers watch on, and Omatsu weeps loudly for her brother’s pain.

Days pass, and amidst the waves the villagers can hear Mokichi singing a Christian hymn: “We’re on our way to the temple of Paradise.” As time wears on, the dying men eventually grow silent except for a faint moaning, almost like an animal. Rodrigues observes that the dying men cannot be discerned from the stakes they are tied to, adhering to them as if they were all the same object. When the men die, the officials burn their bodies and throw the ashes into the sea to prevent any Christians from venerating their remains. Rodrigues often looks to the sea, reflecting that although they were martyred, there is no glory in Mokichi and Ichizo’s death, only a slow and terrible silence.

The priests hear rumor that the Japanese officials intend to search the mountains next, and Rodrigues and Garrpe decide they must separate and flee so that at least one priest will hopefully remain in Japan. Without even the time to say goodbye, they each clamber in boats in the dark of night and head in opposite directions. Rodrigues shakes uncontrollably, feeling real fear that overwhelms his faith for the first time. The priest tries to ask the young man rowing his boat where they are going, but realizes that the man wants nothing to do with him; the priests have become a burden, even a curse upon the Japanese peasants. As they row between mountains and pull into shore, Rodrigues reflects on how different Japan use to be for Portuguese missionaries: they used to be met with warm welcome, food, and drink as often as they pleased.

Rodrigues wades ashore, and the rowers hastily leave. Alone, the priest wanders up the path into a darkened village, expecting to be met by Christian villagers. Instead, the village is ransacked, looking as if it has been recently destroyed. Cups and bowls have been smashed across the street, huts have been caved in, and the village empty except for a few stray cats. Rodrigues feels no fear, but the question, “Why? Why this?” echoes through his head. Looking for food, he is only able to find a bowl of water, but fatigue takes him and he falls asleep in one of the broken huts.

In the morning, Rodrigues finds a few grains of dry rice and a few cucumbers that he wraps in cloth before wandering up into the hills, unsure of where he will go but assuming that it is safer than traveling the seaside. Wandering on, the priest finds the ashes of a small fire, still warm to the touch. Someone has passed this way not long before. The priest yearns for human company, though he knows it is dangerous, but decides if Christ gave in to such a temptation—leaving the mountains to call his disciples—than so shall he. As he walks, to distract himself from fear, the priest draws on his childhood love of botany to distinguish as many trees as he knows from the forest around him, though many of the species are unique to Japan.

Stopping at a puddle of rainwater, Rodrigues peers at his own haggard reflection. Seeing his face in the water, it makes him think of Christ’s face as well, imagining that “no doubt it was more beautiful than anything [the artists] envisaged.” The priest continues walking, listening to the sounds of the forest and noticing the sea’s present silence, which draws his mind to God’s silence in the face of such suffering as he’s seen. Briefly, Rodrigues wonders if this means that God does not exist, but the thought frightens him far too much to dwell on. If God does not exist, then Rodrigues’s life and all this pain are wrapped in a terrible absurdity. “If I consented to this thought, then my whole past to this very day was washed away in silence.”

Rain suddenly falls very heavily, driving Rodrigues into a copse of trees, where he finds a small wooden hut, perhaps used by villagers for cutting wood. The rain ceases as quickly as it began and the priest enters the hut, finding a still-smoldering fire which he uses to dry his clothes. Whoever made it must be very close, and travelling slow, so it will be easy to catch up to him.

Traveling onward, Rodrigues comes upon an overlook from where he can see the placid sea and several fishing boats and even a village. His heart races and he considers immediately running down to them, though he has no way of knowing if it is a Christian village. There are no crosses or steeples, but that is not unusual, since many churches were established in Buddhist temples. This caused many to believe that Christianity was only a revised form of Buddhism.

Suddenly convinced—without any evidence—that the villagers are desperate for a priest, that this community is the parish God prepared especially for him, Rodrigues descends the hillside. However, a voice from the brush freezes the priest in his tracks. It is Kichijiro yet again, telling him that he knows of a different Christian village, and the priest realizes that this is the man he has been following.

Conflicted, Rodrigues does not want to abandon this village before him. He suspects Kichijiro of being a traitor and a puppet, but also believes that his survival is of utmost importance; he may be the only priest left in the entire country. Rodrigues walks back up the hill and Kichijiro follows, asking where he is going and proclaiming that the price on a priest’s head is 300 pieces of silver. With “a bitter laugh,” Rodrigues remarks that then he is worth 10 times what Christ was worth to Judas. Kichijiro continues to follow him. When they both stop, the Japanese man builds a fire and offers the priest some dried fish, which Rodrigues devours.

Night falls, and Kichijiro keeps up their little fire. Rodrigues eventually falls asleep. Although he expects Kichijiro to betray him, each time he awakes in the night, the man is still there, keeping the fire. The next day as they walk, the priest distracts himself from his parched throat by wondering why Kichijiro did not betray him yet, thinking of Christ, who told Judas before he betrayed him, “What thou dost, do quickly.” For all his life, the priest never understood what Jesus felt towards Judas, why he allowed the man to betray him. Was it anger or love? Was Judas damned or saved? Though Rodrigues heard many answers during his time in seminary, none satisfied him. He cannot help feeling that Judas was only an “unfortunate puppet” to bring about the crucifixion of Christ.

As they travel the next day, Rodrigues’s thirst becomes desperate, and he begs Kichijiro to find a river so he may drink. Kichijiro again disappears, and the priest wonders if he will betray him, but the man returns with a pitcher of water and news that there is a nearby Christian village and a foreign priest. Sensing that the priest expected betrayal, Kichijiro grovels, whines, and exclaims that he is not strong like Mokichi, but a weak man. Rodrigues pities him and thinks that in an easier time, without such suffering, Kichijiro may have lived his entire life as a good and faithful Christian like any other, untested by such pain. Kichijiro kneels and Rodrigues begins to bless him, but as he is doing so armed guards rush upon them and seize the priest. One of the guards spitefully throws a handful of silver coins into Kichijiro’s face, even as he begs Rodrigues’ forgiveness.