楊老獨子 The Only Son of the House
漸漸晚了，又掌起燈來，都在草堂上閑敘。長老才問：「施主高姓？」老者道：「姓楊。」又問年紀。老者道：「七十四歲。」又問：「幾位令郎？」老者道：「止得一個。適才媽媽攜的是小孫。」長老請令郎相見拜揖。老者道：「那廝不中拜。老拙命苦，養不著他，如今不在家了。」三藏道：「何方生理？」老者點頭而嘆：「可憐，可憐！若肯何方生理，是吾之幸也。那廝專生惡念，不務本等，專好打家截道，殺人放火。相交的都是些狐群狗黨。自五日之前出去，至今未回。」三藏聞說，不敢言喘，心中暗想道：「或者悟空打殺的就是也。」長老神思不安，欠身道：「善哉！善哉！如此賢父母，何生惡逆兒？」渐渐晚了，又掌起灯来，都在草堂上闲叙。长老才问：「施主高姓？」老者道：「姓杨。」又问年纪。老者道：「七十四岁。」又问：「几位令郎？」老者道：「止得一个。适才妈妈携的是小孙。」长老请令郎相见拜揖。老者道：「那厮不中拜。老拙命苦，养不着他，如今不在家了。」三藏道：「何方生理？」老者点头而叹：「可怜，可怜！若肯何方生理，是吾之幸也。那厮专生恶念，不务本等，专好打家截道，杀人放火。相交的都是些狐群狗党。自五日之前出去，至今未回。」三藏闻说，不敢言喘，心中暗想道：「或者悟空打杀的就是也。」长老神思不安，欠身道：「善哉！善哉！如此贤父母，何生恶逆儿？」
逐句解 Line by line
It grew steadily later; lamps were lit, and they all sat in the thatched hall talking at leisure.
閑敘 is idle conversation. The scene is now set for an interrogation that neither side knows is one.
The elder began by asking, “What is the benefactor’s honoured surname?”
高姓 — your honoured surname — is the polite formula. Tripitaka is making conversation, and the conversation is a series of trapdoors.
The old man said, “Yang.”
The one time in the chapter that this family is given a name, and it takes two characters. Everything the reader is about to be told hangs on it.
He asked his age next.
Four characters of narrated question. The rhythm of the whole passage is short question, short answer, and it accelerates towards the thing nobody wants to say.
The old man said, “Seventy-four.”
A plain answer to a plain question. Seventy-four is old for a Ming farmer, which is part of why the next answer matters as much as it does.
He asked again, “How many worthy sons have you?”
令郎 is the polite form for another man's son — your worthy son. It is the question that undoes the evening.
The old man said, “Only the one. The child the old woman was leading just now is my little grandson.”
止得 puts 得 in its sense of having managed it, dé: I have got only the one. The grandson has already walked across the stage a page ago, and the reader now knows whose child he is.
The elder asked that the worthy son be brought to exchange bows with him.
相見 is the mutual 相 again, so xiāng. 拜揖 is the bow with folded hands. He is asking to be introduced to the household's only son.
The old man said, “That wretch is not fit to be bowed to. My own life has been bitter — I could never raise him properly, and he is not at home now.”
Two tone shifts inside one short sentence, pulling opposite ways. 不中拜 has 中 in its sense of being fit or answering to something, so zhòng — which raises it to a falling tone and lifts the 不 in front of it from bù to bú. 養不著 has the 著 of something coming off, so zháo, at a rising tone — which moves the next 不 the other way, from bú back to bù.
Tripitaka said, “In what line of business is he?”
何方生理 — what sort of livelihood — is asked politely, and the politeness is exactly what makes the answer so long in coming.
The old man nodded and sighed. “Pity of it, pity of it! If he would take to any livelihood at all, it would be my good fortune.”
可憐 doubled, and then the register lifts: 是吾之幸也 is a formal, almost literary construction in the mouth of a farmer. The shift is the measure of the shame — he reaches for book language because the plain words hurt too much.
“That wretch does nothing but breed wicked thoughts. He will not keep to any honest calling; he is all for breaking into houses and cutting the roads, killing men and setting fires.”
專好 has 好 as hào, to be fond of, rather than the everyday hǎo, good — one of only two places in this chapter where the character takes that reading, the other being the virtue that loves life in Tripitaka's reproach. 打家截道 is the standing phrase for banditry: breaking into houses and cutting the roads.
“The company he keeps is all foxes in a pack and dogs in a gang.”
狐群狗黨 — foxes in a pack and dogs in a gang — is a set contemptuous phrase for bad company, and it is still in use. 相交 is the mutual xiāng.
“He went off five days ago, and has not come back to this hour.”
Eleven characters, and they are the ones that matter. Two robbers died on that mountain this afternoon.
Tripitaka heard it and dared not draw breath, but thought within himself: “It may well be that the man Wukong killed was this very one.”
不敢言喘 — not daring to speak or even to breathe — is the reaction of a man who has just done the arithmetic. 心中 is a location, so zhōng; 打殺的 puts 的 to work turning a verb into a noun, the one who was killed.
The elder was uneasy in mind, and half rose from his seat. “Merciful heaven! Merciful heaven! Such worthy parents — how did they beget so wicked and unfilial a son?”
The same two characters, the opposite feeling. 善哉 was the delighted excellent! when he thought the gang had merely disbanded; here it is a pious noise of dismay. 惡逆 is a legal term, the second of the Ten Abominations in the Tang and Ming codes — violence against a parent — so the old man's son is being classified, not merely disapproved of. 兒 is part of the word for a person, so ér.
The passage is dramatic irony built entirely out of small talk. Surname, age, number of sons: three courteous questions, each answered plainly, and the third opens a trapdoor. The old man has no idea he is confessing to anything, and Tripitaka works out what he is hearing about four exchanges before the reader is allowed to be sure.
What makes the scene painful rather than merely neat is the father's shame. 那廝不中拜 — not fit to be bowed to — is said of his own only son to a stranger. 老拙命苦，養不著他 takes the blame onto himself. And 若肯何方生理，是吾之幸也 shifts, for one clause, into a register a farmer would use only when the ordinary words are unbearable. He has been grieving over this boy for years, and he is telling a guest about it because the guest asked a polite question.
自五日之前出去，至今未回 is the sentence the whole passage exists to deliver, and Tripitaka's response is 不敢言喘. He does not speak, does not tell the old man, does not consider telling him. What he does instead is exclaim over the injustice of good parents having a wicked son — which is true, and which is also the one thing he can say out loud that touches the matter without giving it away.
The grandson is the detail the novel plants and then leaves alone. He crossed the stage a page ago, five or six years old, led by the hand. He is the son of the man who will be buried under a mound on the mountain, and nobody in this room will ever tell him so.