幾分病兒 We Will Leave Tomorrow
三藏道:「三日誤了許多路程。」行者道:「師父,也算不得路程,明日去罷。」三藏道:「正是,就帶幾分病兒,也沒奈何。」三藏道:「三日误了许多路程。」行者道:「师父,也算不得路程,明日去罢。」三藏道:「正是,就带几分病儿,也没奈何。」
逐句解 Line by line
Tripitaka said, "Three days have lost us a great deal of road."
Still the schedule. It is the fixed point of this man's anxiety and the novel never lets him off it.
Pilgrim said, "Master, it hardly counts as road at all. We will go tomorrow."
得 is the unstressed de in a cannot-reckon-it construction. 罷 is the unstressed ba, the softener that makes an instruction a suggestion — against the full verb bà that the same character takes for the drums finishing.
Tripitaka said, "Just so. Even carrying a touch of the illness, there is no help for it."
兒 is ér. 沒奈何, there is nothing to be done about it, is the standard formula of resignation.
Pilgrim reassures his master by dismissing three days of travel as barely worth counting, which is generous and also true for someone who can cross the continent in a somersault.
The exchange is doing quiet work. It settles that they leave tomorrow, which sets the clock on everything that follows: whatever Pilgrim is going to do about the fiend, he has one night to do it in.
And Tripitaka agreeing to travel while still ill is the first decision he has made all chapter. He has spent it being carried, fed and argued with.