有件事兒 A Matter That Is Awkward
只是眼下有件事兒不尷尬，一進門就要說，恐怕冒犯洪威。卻才齋罷，方敢大膽奉告：老師東來，路遙辛苦，都在小和尚房中安歇甚好；只是這位女菩薩，不方便，不知請他那裡睡好。」只是眼下有件事儿不尴尬，一进门就要说，恐怕冒犯洪威。却才斋罢，方敢大胆奉告：老师东来，路遥辛苦，都在小和尚房中安歇甚好；只是这位女菩萨，不方便，不知请他那里睡好。」
逐句解 Line by line
It is only that just now there is a matter somewhat awkward. I wanted to speak of it the moment you came through the gate, but feared to give offence to your great authority.
尷尬 is the ancestor of the modern Chinese word for embarrassing, and it is doing the same job here that it does today. 兒 is ér throughout this project, never reduced away — the modern softening is a colouring of the vowel, not a loss of the syllable.
Only now that the meal is over do I dare make bold to inform you. Master, you have come from the east, the road is long and the journey hard, and it is quite well that you should all lodge in the little monks' rooms.
罷 is bà here, the full verb to finish — the meal being over, not a softening word on the end of a request. The same character does both jobs in this chapter and the readings differ.
It is only this lady bodhisattva who is inconvenient, and I do not know where it would be best to invite her to sleep."
那 is nǎ here, the question word where, not the nà that points at something. 女菩薩, lady bodhisattva, is the polite form of address a monk uses for any laywoman — roughly the register of madam. The abbot has taken four sentences to ask where the girl should sleep.
The whole elaborate approach — the kneel, the apology, the waiting until after dinner — was building to a question about sleeping arrangements. It is a joke, and a very well-timed one.
But it is also entirely serious. A monastery with a hundred-odd celibate monks has a genuine problem when a young woman turns up at nightfall, and the abbot knows he is raising something delicate with a guest of enormous religious prestige. Hence the kneel. He is not being absurd; he is being careful.
And the awkwardness is real in a way none of them understand. She should not sleep anywhere. Every reader knows it. The abbot's fussy little social problem is the hinge the entire chapter turns on.