August 13th

August 13th is the eve of the Urabon festival, the Japanese Buddhist celebration for consoling the spirits of the dead. In the world of Silence, this date marks a night of intense psychological and spiritual crisis for the imprisoned missionary Sebastian Rodrigues, as the sounds of the festival from the city of Nagasaki penetrate his cell, throwing his own suffering and doubt into sharp relief against the backdrop of a world that continues its rituals indifferent to his fate.

The Urabon Festival and the Sounds of Nagasaki

On the night of August 13th, the people of Nagasaki prepare for the Urabon festival. In the houses, they make fish salads and cook sweet potatoes and beans. Officials at the magistrate's office offer fish and cakes to the magistrate, who in turn gives them sake, soup, and dumplings. The guards at Rodrigues' prison drink sake late into the night, their raucous voices and the clinking of cups carrying to his ears. From the city, the chanting voices of children are carried on the wind, singing a plaintive song: "O lantern, bye-bye-bye, If you throw a stone at it, your hand withers away." The festival's sounds, a mixture of celebration and melancholy, form the auditory landscape of Rodrigues' confinement.

Rodrigues' Solitary Vigil

While the city celebrates, Rodrigues squats on the ground of his cell, his hunched shoulders bathed in the silver moonlight that pierces the bars. His wasted form is reflected on the wall. He relishes the thick darkness that envelops him. On this night, when all those he knows are asleep, a thrust of poignant pain passes through his breast. He thinks of another night: Gethsemane, where a man, alone and separated from his sleeping disciples, said, "My soul is sorrowful even unto death." The face of Christ, which had appeared in his dreams hundreds of times, now seems far away. He focuses all his attention on the emaciated expression on those cheeks, wondering if that man, too, had felt the silence of God and shuddered with fear.

The Memory of the Sea and the Silence of God

The festival's sounds trigger a cascade of unbearable memories. The rainy sea into which Mokichi and Ichizo sank, fastened to stakes, rises before him. The sea on which the black head of Francisco Garrpe, chasing after a boat, struggled and then floated like a piece of drifting wood. The sea into which bodies wrapped in straw matting dropped straight down. This sea stretches out endlessly, sadly, and over it, God maintains his unrelenting silence. The words "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani!" burst into his consciousness. Rodrigues had always thought these words were a prayer, not an expression of terror at the silence of God. The question of whether God exists at all surfaces, and he laughs aloud at the thought that if not, the lives of the martyrs—the one-eyed man executed while the cicada sang, Garrpe swimming in pursuit of the Christians—are ludicrous.

The Aftermath and the Weakening of Resolve

The morning after August 13th brings some recovery of spirit. The strong rays of the sun pierce the bars, and Rodrigues whispers words from the psalms, recalling a time when God was not an object of fear but one who gave harmony and living joy. Yet the night's crisis has left its mark. He no longer gives the officials and guards a glance, and sometimes does not even touch the food offered to him three times each day. The festival night, with its contrast between communal celebration and his own solitary anguish, has accelerated the process of spiritual exhaustion that the magistrate Inoue had planned, weakening his resolve and bringing him closer to the moment of his apostasy.