After this the great snow at last held off, and people began to go about.

行走: 行 is xíng. Those "people going about" are the Dame's transformed water-creatures, and the narrator reports them in the same flat voice he would use for real traffic. Nobody is told. The reader is simply expected to remember.

Old Chen, seeing Tripitaka out of spirits, had the flower garden swept and a great basin banked with fire, and invited them into the snow grotto to divert themselves and shake off their gloom.

散悶: 散 is sàn, the verb "to disperse." A 雪洞, a snow grotto, is a real feature of a Ming garden — a retreat built to be sat in during winter, with the cold outside as the view.

Eight Rules said with a laugh: 「That old fellow has no reckoning in him.

那老兒 is nà, and 兒 is ér — the full syllable that makes a person-noun in 老兒, and not the light er of 險些兒 or 那話兒 earlier in the chapter. 沒算計, no reckoning in him: no sense of what fits an occasion.

The second and third months of spring are the time for enjoying a flower garden. In a great snow like this, and cold besides, what is there to enjoy?」

The pig's objection is perfectly sound horticulture and misses the point entirely.

Pilgrim said: 「Idiot, you understand nothing.

獃子 ends in the light zi.

A snow prospect is quiet and secluded of itself: for one thing, there is the touring of it; for another, it will ease our master's mind.」

一則 keeps 一 at yì before a rising tone. Wukong offers two reasons, and the second one is the real one.

Old Chen said: 「Just so, just so.」

正是 here is plain agreement in conversation, not the tag that announces a poem — one of several places in this chapter where the same two characters mean nothing of the kind.

And so they were invited out into the garden.

遂此, "thereupon" — the hinge into the set-piece.

Only see:

The line announcing the poem stands on its own.

The season stands at the third month of autumn, the light of it like the last month of the year.

臘 is the twelfth month. The opening couplet states the showpiece's governing paradox: autumn wearing the face of deep winter.

The blue-green pine has knotted buds of jade; the withered willow hangs with flowers of silver.

The snow runs through this piece as jewellery and metalwork — jade, silver, jasper, gold. Watch how long it keeps that up.

Below the steps the jade moss heaps in powdered crumbs; before the window the kingfisher bamboo puts out shoots of jasper.

Seven-character lines now. The showpiece widens its gait after the four- and five-character opening.

Cunning stones at the hill's head; within the pool where fish are reared.

巧石: 石 is shí, "stone" — not the grain measure dàn out of Old Chen's granary two passages back. This is a theme statement of the same kind the snow showpiece used, and the same expansion follows it.

Cunning stones at the hill's head — sheer and sharp, the pointed peaks ranged like shoots of jade;

削削, doubled: pared, sheer. The first theme is taken up and expanded.

within the pool where fish are reared — clear and clear, the living water made into a platter of ice.

冰盤 returns — the same simile the novel used for the demon's fallen scales, now for a frozen fishpond. The chapter keeps passing this image back and forth between the beautiful and the dangerous.

By the bank the lotus wears a delicate pallor; beside the cliff the hibiscus lets its tender branches droop.

傍 is páng, "beside." Autumn flowers still in leaf under snow: the wrongness of the season kept quietly in view.

The autumn crab-apple is altogether borne down;

壓倒: 倒 is dǎo, "toppled, borne down" — as in 壓倒東南幾樹梅 in the snow showpiece earlier.

the winter plum ventures a few new twigs.

聊發, "to put out just a little." The winter plum is the one plant in the garden that the cold actually suits.

Peony pavilion, pomegranate pavilion, cassia pavilion — pavilion upon pavilion heaped full with goose-down;

盡 is jìn, a reading fixed across this edition. Three named pavilions, and then the doubled 亭亭 gathers them up: five occurrences of the character in a single line.

the place for easing the heart, the place for entertaining guests, the place for diverting the mood — place upon place spread over with butterfly wings.

遣興: 興 is xìng, "mood, inclination" — set it against the xīng of 興風, raising a wind, six passages back. 鋪漫: 鋪 is pū, the verb "to spread," not the pù that was right for 床鋪. And 處 falls five times here, every one of them chù, matching the five 亭 in the line above. The two lines are built to the same measure.

Two hedges of yellow chrysanthemum, jade gauze and gold; a few trees of scarlet maple, red set off with white.

紅間白: 間 is jiàn, the verb, "to set between, to interleave" — not the jiān, "interval," that the chapter uses at 此間 and 八月間.

Countless quiet courts the cold can scarcely reach — but look at the snow grotto, cold as ice.

無數: 數 is shù, the noun. 觀 is guān, "to look at."

Within it is set a bronze brazier on beast-faced, elephant feet, the charcoal fire just kindled and blazing;

那裡邊 is nà, "in there." 一個 lifts 一 to yí before a falling tone. The showpiece moves indoors for its close.

above and below, a few lacquered folding chairs draped with tiger skins, and the paper windows fitted soft and warm.

鋪設: 鋪 is pū again, "to lay out, to furnish." The doubled 熱烘烘 and 軟溫溫 shut the piece on comfort rather than on cold.