Silence: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

The narrative changes from Rodrigues’s first-person letters to a third-person narrator. Rodrigues (now referred to almost exclusively as “the priest”) is dragged down the road and through a village until he is deposited with a small group of Japanese Christians, shackled and sitting upon the ground. Rather than fear, the priest feels almost happy and a sense of well-being, now that his flight is over. Among them are a one-eyed man and a woman who introduces herself as Monica (her Christian name indicating that she was once baptized) who offers the priest a cucumber concealed in her shirt. Monica talks hopefully of heaven and the relief that it will be, and the priest finds himself suddenly angry at what he feels is a naïve concept of paradise, but he holds his tongue. He asks her if she knows of Ferreira, but Monica shakes her head nervously.

The same old samurai who took Mokichi, Kichijiro, and Ichizo from Tomogi arrives, commenting casually on the weather to his prisoners. In the afternoon light, Rodrigues realizes how the samurai’s plump old face reminds him of the Buddha statues he’d seen. The heat and the soft buzzing of flies make the priest feel sedate, rather than anxious or threatened as he expected such an event to feel like. The samurai explains that this seems like an unnecessary bother, and that it is certainly not out of hate that they have arrested the Christians, especially since the peasants are hard-working tax-payers. The samurai bids the other prisoners to move on with the guards, but with a flash of “hatred and rancor” in his eyes, commands the priest to stay.

As the other prisoners leave, Rodrigues prays that God will not add to their suffering. The samurai tells him that peasants are foolish and easily swayed, but priests are another matter. If Rodrigues will not apostatize, the samurai will make the peasants suffer. They close Rodrigues in a small hut and leave him for a long while, where he wonders after the other Christians and prays the rosary on his fingers. After some time, an interpreter enters, speaking an oddly-accented but proficient Portuguese.

The interpreter is scornful of Christians, even though he himself was once baptized and studied in seminary, and goes to great length to emphasize the fact that he himself is not one. The interpreter converses with Rodrigues, logically but ferociously attacking Christianity from all angles and trying to goad the priest into a full religious debate. But the priest calmly desists as often as he can, knowing that such a debate is futile, meant to crush an opponent rather than exchange ideas. Outside, a cock crows, and the interpreter, frustrated that the priest will not meet his rage, declares that if the priest does not apostatize, the peasants will be hung upside-down in the pit.

The interpreter tells Rodrigues that he will meet Inoue before long, and lists all the priests who apostatized after Inoue cross-examined them, one of whom is Father Ferreira. The priest tries to pretend he does not know Ferreira, but the interpreter sees the pain in his face and tells him that Ferreira now lives in Nagasaki as a Japanese man with a Japanese wife, and is respected by the Buddhist government. After the interpreter leaves, the priest is shaken, wondering how he can possibly hold fast if even so great a man as Ferreira was broken. The priest prays to God for strength, but also begs God to break his silence.

Later in the day, a guard fetches Rodrigues from the hut to bring him down to the village wharf. As they walk, the priest considers escape, but is dissuaded by the kind manner of the guard and the knowledge that others will be punished if he flees. The guards take him through the village, whose people look downward with sadness, and to the beach, where he is put aboard a boat. As the boat leaves the shore, the priest hears a single voice yelling and a lone, scraggly figure trying to run after the boat: Kichijiro. But the traitor cannot reach the boat in time, and the priest feels only resentment towards him.

As the boat moves through the sea, Rodrigues again wonders at how differently his capture has been from what he envisioned the capture of a saint to be. He wonders again if this means his faith is failing. One of the boatmen tells him they are going to what was once a Christian village, though nothing now remains of it; it was burnt to the ground. Again, the priest prays for strength and asks God why He’s abandoned His people. “So he prayed. But the sea remained cold, and the darkness maintained its stubborn silence.” After an afternoon and night of rowing, they reach their destination, met by a crowd of spectators—many of whom are silent and fearful, even ashamed—and a samurai at the next wharf. Rodrigues is unloaded from the boat, set on a horse, and led through throngs of jeering spectators up the road towards Nagasaki.

As Rodrigues is carried down the road, he sees a hobbling man leaning on a stick and slowly following after him, realizing quickly that it is Kichijiro once again. The priest cannot fathom why the man pursues him still. They reach a small town and the priests’ captors dine with the local samurai while he is tied to a tree like a dog. While he is sitting, head hanging, a beggar places a few grains of rice in a bowl before him. The priest looks up,  meets the beggar’s eyes, and realizes that he is Kichijiro. In his mind, the priest recites Christ’s words to Judas: “What thou dost, do quickly.” When he is placed astride a horse again and carried through more mocking crowds and past the town, Kichijiro follows behind at a distance.