原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
淘米煮飯 Four Or Five Tables Laid
行者連聲高高叫道：「我師父好了，要湯飯吃哩。」教那些和尚忙忙的安排：淘米煮飯、捍麵烙餅，蒸饝饝、做粉湯，擡了四五桌。行者连声高高叫道：「我师父好了，要汤饭吃哩。」教那些和尚忙忙的安排：淘米煮饭、捍面烙饼，蒸饝饝、做粉汤，抬了四五桌。
逐句解 Line by line
行者連聲高高叫道：「我師父好了，要湯飯吃哩。」
行者连声高高叫道：「我师父好了，要汤饭吃哩。」
Pilgrim called out loudly, over and over, "My master is well! He wants soup and rice!"
連聲高高 — loudly and repeatedly. He is shouting the good news through a monastery that has been weeping for three days.
教那些和尚忙忙的安排：淘米煮飯、捍麵烙餅，蒸饝饝、做粉湯，擡了四五桌。
教那些和尚忙忙的安排：淘米煮饭、捍面烙饼，蒸饝饝、做粉汤，抬了四五桌。
He set those monks bustling to get things ready: washing rice and boiling it, rolling dough and griddling flatbreads, steaming buns and making noodle soup, and they carried in four or five tables of it.
教 is jiào, to set someone to a task. The list runs through the whole repertoire of a monastery kitchen, and 饝饝 is the steamed bun that is still the staple of northern China.
The relief comes out as catering. A hundred monks who have spent three days burying the bones of their brothers throw themselves into washing rice and steaming buns, and the novel lets the list run.
Four or five tables is absurdly, generously too much for one convalescent and three disciples. That is the point — this is a community that has been unable to do anything for anyone, finally handed a task it knows how to perform.
And Pilgrim shouting the news is the first purely happy sound in the chapter.