借看一夜 A Night's Loan
三藏聽說,吃了一驚,埋怨行者道:「都是你,都是你。」行者笑道:「怕他怎的?等我包起來,教他拿了去看。但有疏虞,盡是老孫管整。」那三藏阻當不住,他把袈裟遞與老僧道:「憑你看去。只是明早照舊還我,不得損污些須。」老僧喜喜歡歡,著幸童將袈裟拿進去。卻吩咐眾僧,將前面禪堂掃淨,取兩張籐床,安設鋪蓋,請二位老爺安歇;一壁廂又教安排明早齋送行。遂而各散,師徒們關了禪堂,睡下不題。三藏听说,吃了一惊,埋怨行者道:「都是你,都是你。」行者笑道:「怕他怎的?等我包起来,教他拿了去看。但有疏虞,尽是老孙管整。」那三藏阻当不住,他把袈裟递与老僧道:「凭你看去。只是明早照旧还我,不得损污些须。」老僧喜喜欢欢,著幸童将袈裟拿进去。却吩咐众僧,将前面禅堂扫净,取两张籐床,安设铺盖,请二位老爷安歇;一壁厢又教安排明早斋送行。遂而各散,师徒们关了禅堂,睡下不题。
逐句解 Line by line
Sanzang, hearing it, took fright, and reproached the Pilgrim: "This is your doing. All of it your doing."
吃了一驚, to take a fright. 都是你,都是你 — the master's entire answer is a repetition, and it contains no refusal. He blames his disciple and lends the robe.
The Pilgrim laughed. "What is there to fear from him? Let me wrap it up, and have him carry it away to look at. If there should be any slip, old Sun will set the whole of it right."
疏虞 (shūyú), a lapse, an oversight. 管整 ("to see to it and set it in order") is a vernacular guarantee. Once again Wukong is perfectly correct: he will set it right. Setting it right will take him to Black Wind Mountain, and cost this monastery everything it owns.
Sanzang, unable to hold him back, handed the cassock to the old monk. "Look at it as you please.
阻當 stands for 阻擋, "to block, to hold back," and is read zǔ dǎng — the graph 當 doing duty for 擋, as 諕 does for 嚇. 憑你, "as you please": the surrender is total, and it is Sanzang's.
"Only, in the morning, return it to me as it was. It must not be soiled or damaged in the least."
還 is again huán. 不得 takes dé, the prohibitive "must not." 些須, "the least particle." A robe given him by the Bodhisattva herself, lent out for a night against a stranger's promise.
The old monk, all delight, had his favourite page carry the cassock within.
Here 著 is the lexical causative zhuó — "to have someone do" — and not the aspectual zhe; 將 is the coverb jiāng. He does not carry it himself. A man of his years is carried, and so, now, are his treasures.
Then he ordered the monks to sweep out the meditation hall at the front, fetch two rattan beds, and lay bedding upon them,
籐床, rattan beds; 鋪蓋 (pūgai), bedding, with 鋪 read pū. The hospitality is entirely genuine. The hall being swept for them is the hall his disciples will heap with firewood before the second watch.
and to invite the two reverend gentlemen to their rest; while on the other hand he had a morning meal prepared to speed them on their way.
一壁廂 ("on the one side," hence "meanwhile") is a Yuan–Ming stage idiom. 齋送行 is the parting vegetarian meal. He is arranging their breakfast; within the hour he will be arranging their funeral.
So they all dispersed. Master and disciple shut the meditation hall, lay down — and of this no more.
不題 ("no more of this") is the storyteller's device for laying one thread down to take another up. It is also, here, a door being shut — and the reader knows what is being carried away down the corridor on the other side of it.
The transfer is accomplished in five lines, and every party to it behaves according to his nature. The old monk says nothing more, having said enough. Sanzang is frightened, scolds the wrong person, and hands over the robe. Wukong laughs, guarantees the outcome, and is not consulted about the guarantee. The one condition Sanzang attaches — 明早照舊還我,不得損污些須, "return it in the morning as it was, unsoiled and undamaged" — is a condition about laundering, from a man who has just been told that greed breeds schemes and schemes breed corpses.
What follows is one of the finest small effects in the chapter. Having got what he came for, the old monk immediately becomes an excellent host: the front hall swept, two rattan beds fetched, bedding laid, a farewell breakfast ordered for the morning. 一壁廂又教安排明早齋送行. He is not dissembling; he means all of it. He has simply not yet met his disciples, who will explain to him, before the second watch, that a guest who leaves in the morning takes the cassock with him. The chapter's argument is not that monks are hypocrites. It is that a man may hold a treasure in his hands and a kindness in his heart at the same hour, and that the treasure will win.