原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
香積廚 Weeping In The Kitchen
即時取了缽盂，往寺後面香積廚取水。忽見那些和尚一個個眼兒通紅，悲啼哽咽，只是不敢放聲大哭。即时取了钵盂，往寺后面香积厨取水。忽见那些和尚一个个眼儿通红，悲啼哽咽，只是不敢放声大哭。
逐句解 Line by line
即時取了缽盂，往寺後面香積廚取水。
即时取了钵盂，往寺后面香积厨取水。
At once he took the alms bowl and went to the fragrant kitchen at the back of the monastery to draw water.
香積廚, the kitchen of accumulated fragrance, is the standard name for a monastery kitchen. It comes from a sutra in which a buddha of that name feeds a whole assembly from one bowl — an apt place for the novel to put what happens next. 缽盂 is the monk's alms bowl.
忽見那些和尚一個個眼兒通紅，悲啼哽咽，只是不敢放聲大哭。
忽见那些和尚一个个眼儿通红，悲啼哽咽，只是不敢放声大哭。
Suddenly he saw those monks, every one of them red about the eyes, sobbing and choking, only not daring to cry out loud.
兒 is ér as always. The detail that carries the passage is the last clause: they are weeping and stifling it, which means they are afraid of being heard.
The turn of the chapter, and it is done with one image: a room full of grown men crying silently.
Everything about it is well judged. Pilgrim comes in on an errand of pure domestic ordinariness — a bowl of water for a sick man — and finds the whole community in suppressed grief. He has been three courtyards away for three days and has noticed nothing.
That they dare not cry aloud is the detail worth holding. They have been hiding this. When the reason comes out, we will learn they hid it out of courtesy to a sick guest, which makes it worse.