昏昏沉沉 We Woke Only Just Now
昨日這早晚領了銀子去買豬羊，走至山西邊大路之上，見一個毛臉雷公嘴的和尚，他啐了我們一口，我們就腳軟口強，不能言語，不能移步。被他扳倒，把銀子搜了去，牌兒解了去。我兩個昏昏沉沉，直到此時才醒。及到家，見煙火未息，房舍盡皆燒了。又不見主公並大小頭目。故在此傷心痛哭。不知這火是怎生起的。」昨日这早晚领了银子去买猪羊，走至山西边大路之上，见一个毛脸雷公嘴的和尚，他啐了我们一口，我们就脚软口强，不能言语，不能移步。被他扳倒，把银子搜了去，牌儿解了去。我两个昏昏沉沉，直到此时才醒。及到家，见烟火未息，房舍尽皆烧了。又不见主公并大小头目。故在此伤心痛哭。不知这火是怎生起的。」
逐句解 Line by line
"Yesterday about this hour we drew the silver and went off to buy pigs and sheep, and on the highroad west of the mountain we met a monk with a hairy face and a thunder-god's beak. He spat at us once, and our legs went soft and our mouths went stiff, and we could not speak and could not move a step.
The whole encounter from the other side, and it lasts one line. What Pilgrim did in a sentence of narrative took these two a day and a night to live through. 腳軟口強 balances soft against stiff — the legs give way, the mouth locks.
"He turned us over, searched away our silver, and untied our tablets.
Fifteen graphs, and every item is one we watched him take. The tablets are the part that mattered, though the two of them still have no idea why.
"The two of us were dazed and befogged, and only came round at this very hour.
昏昏沉沉 doubles both halves of a word for muddled and heavy-headed. Pilgrim said the spell would hold until this hour the next day, and it has held to the hour exactly.
"And when we got home, the smoke and fire were not out yet, and the buildings were all burnt.
They walked home from the road expecting supper. The novel gives them the smoke first, as it gave it to the rescue party a moment ago.
"And we could not find our master, nor the chiefs, great or small.
The most ordinary sentence in the chapter and one of the worst. They are looking for colleagues, and the reader knows exactly where those colleagues are, because we watched them being gathered up with the furniture.
"So we are here grieving and weeping.
Seven graphs of explanation offered to a master who has just accused them of being impostors.
"We do not know how this fire started."
They never will. Nobody in the story ever tells them, and the chapter moves on without pausing over it.
Everything these two say is true, and every part of it is something the reader watched happen. That is the whole design of the passage: it retells the chapter's cleverest moment from the point of view of the people it was done to, and the cleverness does not survive the retelling.
The timing is exact and rather cruel. Pilgrim told his brother the spell would hold until this hour tomorrow, and it does — so the two servants regain the use of their legs at precisely the moment there is nothing left to walk back to. The magic works perfectly and that is the problem.
They ask how the fire started and get no answer. The novel could easily have given them one; instead it lets the question sit, and moves straight into the Yellow Lion's grief. It is the last thing either of them says in the chapter.