化甚麼緣 What Are You Collecting For
眾女子喜笑吟吟，都道：「長老請坐。」長老沒奈何，只得坐了。少時間，打個冷禁。眾女子問道：「長老是何寶山？化甚麼緣？众女子喜笑吟吟，都道：「长老请坐。」长老没奈何，只得坐了。少时间，打个冷禁。众女子问道：「长老是何宝山？化甚么缘？
逐句解 Line by line
The women smiled and laughed, and all of them said, "Elder, please be seated."
喜笑吟吟 — pleased, laughing, humming with it. The third doubled phrase for their good cheer in a little over three hundred characters, after 喜喜歡歡 and 笑笑吟吟 arrived together at the door, and the effect by now is of something performed rather than felt.
The Elder, having no way out of it, could only sit down.
沒奈何 — nothing to be done about it. Paired with 只得 in the same seven characters, it is the second helpless construction in one short sentence. He sits down twice over, grammatically.
After a little while, he gave a shiver.
冷禁 is lěng jìn, a shudder — more often written now with a mouth radical on the second character. Seven characters of physical reaction, dropped in without comment. His body has understood the room.
The women asked, "Elder, which blessed mountain are you from?"
寶山, treasure mountain, is the polite way to ask which monastery somebody belongs to — you flatter the institution rather than asking the man directly. It is exactly the right question, correctly phrased.
"And what are you collecting for?"
甚 is shén again, the question word. 化緣 is soliciting alms, and the four characters here assume he is on a fundraising round — which is a reasonable guess about a monk at your door, and wrong.
The interrogation begins, and it is disguised as hospitality. Which monastery, what are you collecting for, may we see the subscription book. Every question is one a real household would ask a real begging monk.
Between the invitation and the questions he shivers. The book gives it seven characters and no explanation, and it is the most eloquent thing in the passage. He has already reasoned his way to the conclusion that the place is dangerous; now his body agrees with him, and he still does not get up.
The politeness is worth watching as a technique. Nobody has threatened him, touched him, or said anything untoward. They have offered him a chair and asked after his temple. He is being held in place by manners, which have worked on him reliably since the first page of this chapter.