原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
小家子樣 Pilgrim Calls Them Petty
行者道：「你們這些和尚忒小家子樣。我們住幾日，臨行謝你，柴火錢照日算還，怎麼這等膿包？」行者道：「你们这些和尚忒小家子样。我们住几日，临行谢你，柴火钱照日算还，怎么这等脓包？」
逐句解 Line by line
行者道：「你們這些和尚忒小家子樣。
行者道：「你们这些和尚忒小家子样。
Pilgrim said, "You monks are behaving in a thoroughly small-minded way.
子 takes the everyday unstressed zi in 小家子, a mean little household — the vernacular register, as with the idiot. The phrase survives almost unchanged in modern Chinese for someone petty about money.
我們住幾日，臨行謝你，柴火錢照日算還，怎麼這等膿包？」
我们住几日，临行谢你，柴火钱照日算还，怎么这等脓包？」
We have stayed a few days; when we leave we will thank you, and reckon up the firewood money by the day and pay it back. Why be such spineless things?"
還 is huán here, to repay a debt — not the hái of still or yet, which is the reading it takes everywhere else in this chapter. 膿包, a bag of pus, is a robust vernacular insult for a coward or a weakling.
Pilgrim gets it completely wrong, and the misreading is entirely in character. He sees a room of weeping monks and assumes they are crying about the bill.
The insult is not gentle. Calling them a bag of pus is about as coarse as this novel's dialogue gets, and he means it — he has taken them for a pack of misers grieving over their firewood.
There is something painful underneath the comedy. The monks are weeping because six of their brothers have been eaten, and the one being who could have stopped it has spent three days indoors and now accuses them of stinginess.