Shusaku Endo quotes:

True religion should be able to respond to the dark melodies, the faulty and hideous sounds that echo from the heart of men."

The reason why darkness terrifying for us, he reflected, is that there remains in us the instinctive fear the primitive man had when there was as yet no light.

The sound of darkness was certainly intricately linked to the sense of being alone but unrelated to this was the sound of the palpitations of men and women experiencing the sense of utter solitude. There was no doubt about it. This was a sound audible only on evenings such as this.