這等上緊 Why All This Hurry?
他那幾個大小家僮，往宅裡搬柴打水，取米麵蔬菜，整治齋供，忽驚動員外媽媽，問道：「是哪裡來的僧，這等上緊？」僮僕道：「才有四位高僧，爹爹問他起居，他說是東土大唐皇帝差來的，往靈山拜佛爺爺。到我們這裡，不知有多少路程。爹爹說是天降的，吩咐我們快整齋，供養他也。」那老嫗聽說也喜，叫丫鬟：「取衣服來我穿，我也去看看。」他那几个大小家僮，往宅里搬柴打水，取米面蔬菜，整治斋供，忽惊动员外妈妈，问道：「是哪里来的僧，这等上紧？」僮仆道：「才有四位高僧，爹爹问他起居，他说是东土大唐皇帝差来的，往灵山拜佛爷爷。到我们这里，不知有多少路程。爹爹说是天降的，吩咐我们快整斋，供养他也。」那老妪听说也喜，叫丫鬟：「取衣服来我穿，我也去看看。」
逐句解 Line by line
His household boys, big and small, were fetching firewood and drawing water about the place, bringing out rice and flour and vegetables and getting the meal ready — until the noise reached the squire's wife, who asked: "Where have these monks come from, that everything is in such a hurry?"
搬柴打水 — hauling firewood, drawing water — is the oldest shorthand in Chan Buddhism for ordinary work. A famous layman's verse says that supernatural power and wonderful activity consist in exactly this: carrying water and hauling firewood. The phrase appears once in the whole novel and it is here, describing what a kitchen actually does when four monks turn up. Whether the author meant the echo or simply reached for the natural words is not decidable, and it does not matter much. The chapter is about a house where feeding monks is the daily business, and the sentence puts the holy phrase and the actual firewood in the same clause. 整治齋供 is the real compound — preparing the offering — and it comes out right. Eighty characters further on the same two characters will turn up split across a comma, belonging to different words, and the machinery will not notice.
A servant said, "Four eminent monks have just arrived. The master asked after them and they said they were sent by the emperor of the Great Tang in the Land of the East, going to Vulture Peak to worship Grandpa Buddha. How far they have come to reach us here, there's no telling. The master says they were sent down from heaven, and has told us to get the meal ready quickly and serve them."
佛爺爺 — Grandpa Buddha — is the servant's own word, and it is worth a moment. He does not say the Buddha or the World-Honoured One. He uses the homeliest possible family word, the same one a child uses for a grandfather. Four times in the whole novel, and every one of them is somebody unlettered speaking. 供養 here means to provide for, to wait on. AND THE MACHINERY GETS IT WRONG FOR A REASON WORTH KNOWING. There is a stock phrase made of the words for meal and offering, and the sentence happens to put those two characters side by side — but with a comma between them, in different clauses: get the meal ready, and serve them. The lookup that applies stock phrases throws punctuation away first, so it sees the pair, matches, and assigns the wrong reading. Three sites in the whole book do this and this is the only one that goes wrong.
The old lady was pleased to hear it, and called to her maid: "Fetch my clothes and let me put them on. I shall go and have a look too."
She dresses to go and see them. That is the whole character in one line: not curiosity from a doorway but a decision to be properly turned out for visitors she has not met, in a part of the house she does not normally receive in. 丫鬟 is a maidservant — the word is a picture, from the two loops girls wore their hair in — and she is the only one in the chapter.
The chapter moves downstairs. For eight hundred characters we have been in the good rooms with the men, and now we get the kitchen: firewood, water, rice, flour, vegetables, and boys running about with them.
It is also the first time anybody in the household asks the obvious question. The squire has been counting monks for twenty-four years, so four more is a milestone to him and routine to everyone else — until the pace of it gets through the wall to his wife, who wants to know what the rush is.
And her reaction, once she is told, is to send for her clothes. Nobody in this house is indifferent to the visitors, and nobody treats them as ordinary either. The servant thinks they have come from Grandpa Buddha; the master thinks heaven sent them; the mistress puts on her good things and goes to look.