Rodrigues

The end of chapter 9 presents a striking simile about Rodrigues and Ferreira’s relationship, comparing them to ugly twins who cannot stand to look at each other because they each reflect the truth about themselves. This simile provides an apt comparison of the two men, whose fates have been so similar:

…in Ferreira he could find his own deep wound just as it was. It was unbearable for him to see his own ugly face in the mirror that was Ferreira – Ferreira sitting in front of him, clad in the same Japanese clothes, using the same Japanese language, and like himself expelled from the Church…They were just like two ugly twins…. They hated one another’s ugliness; they despised one another; but that’s what they were – two inseparable twins.