The master, treading in the servitor's footsteps, followed him in through the door of the abbot's quarters.

踏腳跡 is to tread in another man's footprints. 那 is nà.

He saw the abbot, robe now off, sitting there in a huff — whether reciting sūtras or drafting some ritual document for a patron there was no telling — with a heap of papers piled on the desk before him.

The abbot has taken his good robe off again. 氣呼呼 is puffing with annoyance; 法事 is a Buddhist service or the paperwork that goes with one; 紙劄 is papers and documents — the character 劄 is an older form of 札, zhá, a note or a written slip, and survives today mainly in 劄記, jottings, and 劄子, the memorandum an official sent up to the throne.

Tripitaka, not daring to go far in, stood in the courtyard, bowed, and called out: "Venerable prior, this disciple pays his respects."

Tripitaka does not presume past the threshold. 天井 is the small open courtyard inside a building; 院主 is the prior, the head of the cloister; 問訊 is the Buddhist greeting, gesture and words together.

The monk, plainly none too pleased that the visitor had come inside, returned the greeting half-heartedly and said: "Where are you from?"

Barely a greeting at all. 不耐煩 is impatient, put out; 半答不答 is half-answering, scarcely answering. 還了個禮 is to return a courtesy, and here 還 is huán, to give back. 和尚 takes hé on the first character.

Tripitaka said: "This disciple is one dispatched by the throne of Great Tang in the Eastern Land, bound for the Western Heaven to worship the living Buddha and seek the scriptures."

The same introduction as before, with one addition: 活佛, the living Buddha. 差 is chāi, dispatched; 佛 is fó, 藏 is zàng.

"Passing your precious place, and the day being late, I beg a night's lodging; tomorrow I'll be gone before daybreak."

He asks for as little as he can. 不犯天光 is "without trespassing on the daylight," meaning gone before dawn; 就行了 is "and that will do."

"I earnestly beg the venerable prior to oblige me."

方便 is to accommodate or do a kindness, and doubling it makes it a plea.

Only then did the abbot half-rise and say: "Are you that Tang Tripitaka?"

欠起身 is to rise only partway — a grudging half-courtesy, and the exact measure of the abbot's interest. 那 is nà twice; 藏 is zàng.

Tripitaka said: "I dare not claim it — but I am he."

不敢 here is a modest formula, "I dare not presume." 藏 is zàng.

The abbot said: "If you're bound for the Western Heaven to fetch scriptures, how is it you can't even find your way?"

A gratuitous dig: a man on a scripture-quest who cannot find his own road. 不會走 is "cannot walk the road," 會 read huì.

Tripitaka said: "This disciple has never yet travelled the road of your honoured district."

更不曾 is "have not even once," 更 read gèng; 貴處 is "your honoured place," 處 read chù. 藏 is zàng.

He said: "Due west, only four or five lǐ off, there's a Thirty-Lǐ Inn, with folk selling food — convenient, and good for lodging."

He points them at a paying inn instead. 里, lǐ, is the Chinese road-measure, a little over half a kilometre, and the Thirty-Lǐ Inn is named for its distance from somewhere — the way an English coaching house might be the Halfway House.

"Here it's not convenient; I can't lodge you monks come from afar."

不便 and 不好 are "inconvenient" and "not good to do." Stripped of the padding, it is no.

Tripitaka, pressing his palms together, said: "Prior, the ancients had a saying: 'Convents and abbeys, temples and cloisters are all the way-stations of us who travel; at the sight of a temple gate one is due three shēng of rice.'"

Tripitaka appeals to custom, and the custom is real. Religious houses of every kind — convent, Daoist abbey (觀, read guàn), monastery, cloister — served as the 館驛, the post-house or way-station, of anyone travelling on religious business, and a monk arriving at any gate was reckoned to be owed his keep. The measure stays in Chinese: three shēng of rice, a 升 being about a litre, so some three litres in all — several days' eating. 分 is fèn, one's due share; 都 is dōu, 藏 is zàng.

"Why then do you not lodge me — what feeling is this?"

何情 is "what sort of feeling" — meaning, what has become of ordinary human feeling.

The abbot shouted angrily: "You wandering monk — you've a glib and oily tongue, that's what."

遊方 is wandering on religious travels; 油嘴油舌, "oily mouth and oily tongue," is still the phrase for someone too smooth by half. 和尚 takes hé.

Tripitaka said: "What do you mean, a glib and oily tongue?"

何為 is "what is meant by," 為 read wéi. 藏 is zàng.

The abbot said: "The ancients said: 'When a tiger comes into town, every household bars its door.'"

Proverb answers proverb. This one likens the wandering monk to a tiger walking into town — everybody bolts the door on sight. 都 is dōu.

"Though he bites no one, his reputation was ruined long before.'"

And the sting in it: 日前壞了名, his name was ruined before he arrived. The tiger is shunned for what tigers are, not for anything this tiger has done — which is, of course, precisely what the abbot is doing to Tripitaka.

Tripitaka said: "How 'his reputation was ruined long before'?"

Stung, Tripitaka presses him to explain the slur. 藏 is zàng.

He said: "Some years ago a party of itinerant monks came and sat down at our temple gate."

Out comes the grievance. 向年 is "in a former year"; 行腳僧 are monks who travel on foot, mendicants, 行 read xíng.

"Seeing how poor they were — every one in torn clothes and without shoes, bare-headed and barefoot — I pitied their raggedness, hastily asked them into the abbot's quarters, seated them in the places of honour, served them a vegetarian meal, lent each an old garment of mine, and let them stay a few days."

To be fair to him, the kindness was real and thorough. 寒薄 is poor and threadbare, 薄 read bó in its "meagre" sense; 襤褸 is ragged; 延之上坐 is to usher guests to the seats of honour; 款待 is to entertain properly; 故衣 is old clothing, 將 read jiāng. 那 is nà.

"Who'd have known they'd covet their ease and their board, never once think of moving on, and end by staying seven or eight whole years?"

And here is where it went wrong. 貪圖自在 is to covet an easy life; 更不思量 is "never even considered," 更 read gèng; 年頭 is a colloquial "years."

"Their staying would have been one thing — but they went and did all manner of dishonest things besides."

也罷 is "would be one thing," 罷 read bà; 不公 is dishonest, not straight.

Tripitaka said: "What dishonest things?"

甚麼 is "what," 甚 read shén. 藏 is zàng.

The abbot said: "Listen and I'll tell you:"

And he has the list ready in verse, which tells you how often he has recited it.

At leisure, they flung tiles along the walls; out of boredom, prised the nails from the plaster.

The catalogue of petty vandalism begins. 沿牆 is along the wall; 扳釘 is to prise out nails, 扳 read bān. Every item is an idle hand finding something to break.

On cold days, for firewood, they broke up the window-lattices.

Burning the joinery for warmth. 向火 is to sit toward the fire; 窗櫺 is the window-lattice.

On summer days they hauled off doors to block the paths.

拖門 is to drag doors off; 攔徑 is to block the path. In summer they took the doors away, in winter they burnt the windows.

Temple banners they tore up for foot-bindings; fine incense they filched and traded for turnips.

Now the sacrilege. 幡布 is banner-cloth, torn up for foot-wrappings; 扯為 is "tore it to make," 為 read wéi; 牙香 is fine incense, swapped for 蔓菁, the turnip. The plant-name carries a reading of its own: 蔓 is mán here and nowhere else, distinct from the wàn of melon-vines and the màn of spreading.

The glazed lamps they were forever tipping to pour off the oil.

Draining the sanctuary lamps for their oil. 琉璃 here is the glazed oil-lamp; 將 is jiāng; 把油傾 is to tip the oil out.

And they'd snatch bowls and snatch pots to wager on their games."

And they gambled with the crockery. 奪 is to snatch; 賭勝 is to wager on winning. Set this list beside Tripitaka's protest a few passages back — never damaged a Buddha-hall, never stripped gold from an arhat — and you can see the two men arguing about entirely different monks.