熊羆簡帖 The Bear-Fiend's Letter
侍生熊羆頓首拜，啟上大闡金池老上人丹房：屢承佳惠，感激淵深。夜觀回祿之難，有失救護，諒仙機必無他害。生偶得佛衣一件，欲作雅會，謹具花酌，奉扳清賞。至期，千乞仙駕過臨一敘。是荷。先二日具。行者見了，呵呵大笑道：「那個老剝皮，死得他一毫兒也不虧，他原來與妖精結黨。怪道他也活了二百七十歲，想是那個妖精傳他些甚麼服氣的小法兒，故有此壽。老孫還記得他的模樣，等我就變做那和尚，往他洞裡走走，看我那袈裟放在何處。假若得手，即便拿回，卻也省力。」侍生熊罴顿首拜，启上大阐金池老上人丹房：屡承佳惠，感激渊深。夜观回禄之难，有失救护，谅仙机必无他害。生偶得佛衣一件，欲作雅会，谨具花酌，奉扳清赏。至期，千乞仙驾过临一叙。是荷。先二日具。行者见了，呵呵大笑道：「那个老剥皮，死得他一毫儿也不亏，他原来与妖精结党。怪道他也活了二百七十岁，想是那个妖精传他些甚么服气的小法儿，故有此寿。老孙还记得他的模样，等我就变做那和尚，往他洞里走走，看我那袈裟放在何处。假若得手，即便拿回，却也省力。」
逐句解 Line by line
Your junior in the service, the Bear-Fiend, bows his head and addresses the cinnabar chamber of the venerable elder Jinchi, great expounder of the Law. I have often received your kind favours, and my gratitude is deep as a gulf.
The letter is printed as an indented block in the source, which makes it look like verse. It is not: it is ornamented prose built out of matched pairs of lines, in the register reserved for letters, and it is treated as prose here. 侍生 is a self-lowering form used between men of roughly equal standing — your junior in the service. 熊羆 is the one place in the entire chapter where the fiend names his own species, and he does it in his signature. And 丹房, the cinnabar chamber, is a Taoist adept's laboratory: the bear is addressing a Buddhist abbot in one.
Last night I beheld the calamity of Huilu, and failed of coming to your rescue; yet I judge that by your immortal arts you took no other harm.
回祿 is the god of fire, so 回祿之難 is a fire named after its deity, the way one might say a visitation of Vulcan; 難 reads nàn, calamity. Then 諒仙機必無他害 — he credits the dead abbot with immortal arts and assumes he came through fine. The condolence is being offered to a corpse.
Your servant has by chance come by a Buddha-robe, and would hold an elegant gathering. I have respectfully set out a flowered cup, and beg to draw you to the pure viewing.
得 is acquisitive dé, and 偶得, came by it as it happened to chance, is a beautiful piece of evasion. 奉扳: 扳 writes 攀 and reads pān, to draw a guest towards you — not bān. 清賞, the pure viewing, is the vocabulary of the connoisseur rather than the thief.
When the day arrives, I entreat a thousand times that your immortal carriage may condescend to attend and to converse. This would be a favour. Drawn up two days beforehand.
是荷: 荷 reads hè, to be indebted for — not the hé of the lotus. 先二日具, drawn up two days in advance. The letter is dated, and correctly dated, and will never be delivered.
The Pilgrim read it and laughed aloud. "That old flayer! There was not a hair's worth of loss in his dying — so he was in league with a fiend.
死得 takes the manner-marking de; 剝 takes bāo. 一毫兒 carries the toneless diminutive 兒, er. The Pilgrim has just read a private letter of condolence and concluded from it that the dead man deserved to die.
No wonder he lived two hundred and seventy years. I suppose the fiend passed him some paltry trick of swallowing the breath, and so he came by that span.
服氣, swallowing the breath, is a Taoist longevity practice — breathwork, in effect, with metaphysics attached. The Pilgrim explains away the abbot's two hundred and seventy years by supposing he picked them up from the bear. The letter suggests only that the two of them exchanged gifts and admired each other's things.
Old Sun still remembers what he looked like. I shall change into that monk, walk into his cave, and see where my cassock is laid.
記得 takes the light linking de. 模樣: 模 reads mú, appearance. The plan is formed inside a single sentence — and it depends entirely on the Pilgrim having looked closely at a man he despised.
If I can once get my hand on it, I will take it straight back, and spare myself the labour."
得手, to get a hand on it, takes the acquisitive dé. 省力 is to save labour. He is quite right that it would.
Seventy-eight characters of impeccable letter-writing Chinese, and every one of them a problem for a reader who has been told this creature is a monster. The letter opens with self-abasement, offers condolences for a fire, credits the dead man with immortal powers, describes a theft as a chance acquisition, invites its recipient to a private viewing, and closes with a date. It is signed 熊羆, Bear-Fiend — the only place in the chapter where he names his own kind. The narrator has been withholding it; the chapter title gave it away; the bear himself puts it at the bottom of a note.
The register is deliberately mixed. A Buddhist abbot is addressed at his 丹房, his cinnabar chamber, and complimented on his 仙機, his immortal arts. Neither correspondent appears to find this odd, and neither does whoever filed the correspondence. The Pilgrim reads it and draws exactly one inference: that the abbot deserved to burn. He does not notice that the letter is addressed to a man who has been dead since the small hours, nor that its writer has no idea of the fact.