"For 20 years I labored in the mission. The one thing I know is that our religion does not take root in this country."
The speaker is a tragic figure. In 1632 the Portuguese Jesuit Christovao Ferreira, after 6 hours of torture in the pit (see main story), became the first foreign missionary in Japan to apostatize. He appears as a background character in the 1967 novel "Silence" by Shusaku Endo, Japan's foremost Christian writer. Endo's story unfolds in 1643, five years after the Shimabara uprising frightened the authorities into closing the country to almost all foreigners, writes Michael Hoffman.
Defying the ban, two young Portuguese missionaries (fictional characters based on historical models) hire a Chinese ship in Macau and slip into Kyushu, bent on discovering what had become of their beloved teacher, Ferreira. They are the last two priests in Japan. One drowns himself in despair. The other, hunted like a wild animal, is at last arrested and taken to Nagasaki, where he is brought face to face with the man he sought. Having apostatized, Ferreira has been given a Japanese name, a Japanese wife and a Japanese official position. His defeat is total.