原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
單浪瓦兒 Single Course Tile Houses
你想家中都是些單浪瓦兒的房子，那裡去尋黑暗處？不若捨一頓飯與他吃了，教他往別家去罷。」你想家中都是些单浪瓦儿的房子，那里去寻黑暗处？不若舍一顿饭与他吃了，教他往别家去罢。」
逐句解 Line by line
你想家中都是些單浪瓦兒的房子，那裡去尋黑暗處？
你想家中都是些单浪瓦儿的房子，那里去寻黑暗处？
Think — every house we have is single-course tile. Where would you find a dark place?
單浪瓦 is a roof laid in one course of tiles rather than two, so light comes through the gaps — a cheap roof, and she is being candid about her own property. Two readings here that the base gets wrong: 都 is dōu, all of them, which the character is apt to lose when it stands straight after 中; and 那 is nǎ, where.
不若捨一頓飯與他吃了，教他往別家去罷。」
不若舍一顿饭与他吃了，教他往别家去罢。」
Better to give them a meal for nothing and send them off to some other house."
捨 is to give up, to part with without return — she would rather write off the cost of the dinner than keep a guest she cannot satisfy. 罷 closes it as ba, the suggesting word.
A single course of tiles is the whole reason this chapter ends where it does. Her roofs let light in, so she has no dark room, so the only dark place on the premises is a box.
She is also about to lose the argument to her own daughter, having proposed the one course of action that would have saved everybody: feed them and send them away.