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 set as an indented block in the source, but it is a letter, not verse: ornamented parallel prose in the epistolary register, and it is presented here as prose. 侍生 is a self-abasing form used between men of equal standing. 熊羆 — this is the one place in the chapter where the fiend names his own kind, and he does it in his signature. 丹房, the cinnabar chamber, is a Taoist adept's laboratory; the bear addresses a Buddhist abbot in it.
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, and 回祿之難 a fire by metonymy; 難 reads nàn, calamity. 諒仙機必無他害 — he credits the dead abbot with immortal arts. The condolence is 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. 偶得, "came by it as it chanced," is a beautiful evasion. 奉扳: 扳 writes 攀 and reads pān, to draw a guest toward one; pypinyin gives bān. 清賞, the pure viewing — the vocabulary of the connoisseur, not 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 dated correctly, 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 — the diminutive 兒, toneless er. The Pilgrim reads a private letter of condolence and concludes 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, to swallow the breath, is a Taoist longevity practice. The Pilgrim explains the abbot's two hundred and seventy years by supposing he learnt them from the bear; the letter suggests only that they 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 resultative de. 模樣: 模 reads mú. The plan is formed in a sentence, and it depends 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 — to save labour. He is right that it would.
Seventy-eight graphs of impeccable epistolary Chinese, and every one of them a problem for the reader who has been told this is a monster. The letter opens with self-abasement, offers condolence for a fire, credits the dead man with immortal powers, describes a theft as a chance acquisition, invites its recipient to a viewing, and closes with a date. It is signed 熊羆 — and this is the only place in the chapter where the fiend names his own kind. The narrator has withheld it; the title gave it away; the bear 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 seems to think this odd, and neither does the compiler of the correspondence. The Pilgrim reads it, and draws from it 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 does not yet know it.