受戒
Page 5
Xiaoyingzi saw that the new monks were really walking around the waste ground near the city wall, all wearing greyish-blue Buddhist robes. Each had twelve black spots on their bald heads. These would become tiny round scars only after the scabs had fallen off. Judging by the smiles on their faces, they seemed very happy. At the first glance, she easily spotted Mingzi among them. She shouted to him from across the moat, "Hi, Mingzi!"
"Oh, Xiaoyingzi!"
"Have you been initiated?"
"Yes, I have."
"Did it hurt much?"
"Yes."
第四天一大清早小英子就去看明子。她知道明子受戒是第三天半夜——烧戒疤是不许人看的。她知道要请老剃头师傅剃头，要剃得横摸顺摸都摸不出头发茬子，要不然一烧，就会“走”了戒，烧成了一片。她知道是用枣泥子先点在头皮上，然后用香头子点着。她知道烧了戒疤就喝一碗蘑菇汤，让它“发”，还不能躺下，要不停地走动，叫做“散戒”。这些都是明子告诉她的。明子是听舅舅说的。
她一看，和尚真在那里“散戒”，在城墙根底下的荒地里。一个一个，穿了新海青，光光的头皮上都有十二个黑点子。——这黑疤掉了，才会露出白白的、圆圆的“戒疤”。和尚都笑嘻嘻的，好像很高兴。她一眼就看见了明子。隔着一条护城河，就喊他：
“明子！”
“小英子！”
“你受了戒啦？”
“受了。”
“疼吗？”
“疼。”
"Does it still hurt?"
"Not now!"
"When will you come back?"
"The day after tomorrow."
"Morning or afternoon?"
"Afternoon."
"I'll come to fetch you!"
"Good!"
...
Xiaoyingzi met him with the boat and helped him get in.
It had grown hotter. Xiaoyingzi had put on a white linen blouse, a pair of black silk trousers and straw sandals. On one side of her hair she wore a cape jasmine blossom, on the other a pomegranate flower. Seeing that Mingzi wore a new grey Buddhist robe with the white collar of his shirt exposed, she urged him, "Take off your robe right now! Aren't you hot?"
Each of them took an oar. Xiaoyingzi began to row in the middle of the boat, Mingzi at the stern.
“现在还疼吗？”
“现在疼过去了。”
“你哪天回去？”
“后天。”
“上午？下午？”
“下午。”
“我来接你！”
“好！”
…… ……
小英子把明海接上船。
小英子这天穿了一件细白夏布上衣，下边是黑洋纱的裤子，赤脚穿了一双龙须草的细草鞋，头上一边插着一朵栀子花，一边插着一朵石榴花。她看见明子穿了新海青，里面露出短褂子的白领子，就说：“把你那外面的一件脱了，你不热呀！”
他们一人一把桨。小英子在中舱，明子扳艄，在船尾。
On their way, she questioned him as if they had been separated for a whole year. She asked him whether any monk had wept or cried out during the burning. He replied that no one had said anything, except a monk from Shandong who cursed, "You bastards! I won't be burned any more! "
She asked if there was anything special about the face and voice of the abbot.
"Yes."
"They say his bedroom is more beautiful than a young girl's. Is it true?"
"Yes, it's true. Everything is embroidered with flowers."
"Is it perfumed?"
"Yes, he burns a rare incense. It's very expensive."
"They say he composes poetry, paints and is good at calligraphy. Is that so?"
"Yes. Those big characters engraved on the bricks on both sides of the corridor were written by him."
"It is true he had a concubine?"
"Yes."
"Is she only nineteen?"
她一路问了明子很多话，好像一年没有看见了。她问，烧戒疤的时候，有人哭吗？喊吗？明子说，没有人哭，只是不住地念佛。有个山东和尚骂人：“俺日你奶奶！俺不烧了！”
她问善因寺的方丈石桥是相貌和声音都很出众吗？
“是的。”
“说他的方丈比小姐的绣房还讲究？”
“讲究。什么东西都是绣花的。”
“他屋里很香？”
“很香。他烧的是伽楠香，贵得很。”
“听说他会做诗，会画画，会写字？”
“会。庙里走廊两头的砖额上，都刻着他写的大字。”
“他是有个小老婆吗？”
“有一个。”
“才十九岁？”
"I heard so."
"Is she pretty?"
"They say she is."
"Did you see her?"
"No, how could I? I was kept in a room all day long."
Mingzi informed her that he had been told by an old monk that Shanyin Temple intended to choose him as a tail-Samir, but this had not been finally decided because the monk responsible had not returned.
"What does tail-Samir mean?"
"Whenever a Buddhist service is held, they have to choose two monks to be the head-Samir and the other the tail-Samir. The former is more experienced and able to chant a great deal of the Buddhist scriptures; the latter must be young, clever and handsome."
"What's the difference between an ordinary monk and the tail-Samir?"
"Both the tail-Samir and the head-Samir have the possibility of becoming an abbot in future. When the present abbot retires, either of them can take his place. The present abbot was a tail-Samir before. "
“听说。”
“好看吗？”
“都说好看。”
“你没看见？”
“我怎么会看见？我关在庙里。”
明子告诉她，善因寺一个老和尚告诉他，寺里有意选他当沙弥尾，不过还没有定，要等主事的和尚商议。
“什么叫‘沙弥尾’?"
“放一堂戒，要选出一个沙弥头，一个沙弥尾。沙弥头要老成，要会念很多经。沙弥尾要年轻，聪明，相貌好。”
“当了沙弥尾跟别的和尚有什么不同？”
“沙弥头，沙弥尾，将来都能当方丈。现在的方丈退居了，就当。石桥原来就是沙弥尾。”
"Will you be a tail-Samir?"
"I don't know yet."
"Will you be in charge of Shanyin Temple as soon as you've become an abbot? Oh, what a large temple you'll run!"
"It's too early to talk like that."
After rowing for a while, she said to Mingzi in earnest, "You mustn't be an abbot!"
"All right, I won't."
"And you mustn't be a tail-Samir either."
"OK, I won't."
After they had rowed a little further the reed marshes appeared before them.
Xiaoyingzi suddenly put down her oar and went to the stern, whispering in his ear, "I'll be your wife. Do you agree?"
Miangzi stared at her in astonishment.
"Answer me, quickly!"
"Um ..." he replied.
"What does that mean? Do you want me? Do you?"
“你当沙弥尾吗？”
“还不一定哪。”
“你当方丈，管善因寺？管这么大一个庙？!"
“还早呐！”
划了一气，小英子说：“你不要当方丈！�
��
“好，不当。”
“你也不要当沙弥尾！”
“好，不当。”
又划了一气，看见那一片芦花荡子了。
小英子忽然把桨放下，走到船尾，趴在明子的耳朵旁边，小声地说：“我给你当老婆，你要不要？”
明子眼睛鼓得大大的。
“你说话呀！”
明子说：“嗯。”
“什么叫‘嗯’呀！要不要，要不要？”
"Yes, I want you!" he shouted.
"What are you shouting for?"
"I want you!" he said again in a low voice.
"Row quickly!"
Xiaoyingzi hopped back to her seat. Both rowed as fast as they could; the boat sped into the reeds.
The reeds had greyish-purple tassels, soft and smooth like rings of shining silk thread. In some places, they had grown spikes like small red candles. On the water surface, there were duckweeds, blue and purple in colour and long-legged mosquitoes and water spiders. The little white flowers of the wild water chestnuts had already blossomed. Then a lapwing, startled, flapped its wings and flew away across the reeds to a safe distance.
...
明子大声地说：“要！”
“你喊什么！”
明子小小声说：“要——!"
“快点划！”
英子跳到中舱，两只桨飞快地划起来，划进了芦花荡。
芦花才吐新穗。紫灰色的芦穗，发着银光，软软的，滑溜溜的，像一串丝线。有的地方结了蒲棒，通红的，像一支一支小蜡烛。青浮萍，紫浮萍。长脚蚊子，水蜘蛛。野菱角开着四瓣的小白花。惊起一只青桩（一种水鸟），擦着芦穗，扑鲁鲁鲁飞远了。
…… ……
Translated by Hu Zhihui
一九八○年八月十二日，
写四三年前的一个梦。
* * *
[1] An S-shaped ornamental object, a symbol of good luck.
[2] A percussion instrument made of a hollow wooden block, used by Buddhist priests to beat a rhythm when chanting scriptures.
Special Gift
异秉
Those who lived in the same street as Wang Er well knew how he had made his fortune.
From no one knows when he had operated a cooked meat stall in the corridor of the Baoquantang Apothecary. His meat was stewed and soaked with gravy. He stayed at home in the morning and did business in the afternoon.
His house was on a slope by the river in the back street, cut off from the other houses. It was a rather shabby place with broken brick walls, a thatched roof and a mud floor. However, it was quite spacious, clean and neat, and rather cool in the summer. There were three rooms in the house. The central one served as the sitting room. Overhcad on the wall above a stone mill was his five-character motto: "Heaven, Earth, Emperor, Parent, Teacher."[1] Of the two side rooms, one was the kitchen as well as the workshop, and the other the bedroom for the whole family: his wife, his son, his daughter and himself only, as his parents had both passed away. The house was always so quiet. Hardly any noise could be heard from within. From the other houses in the back street, there was a ceaseless uproar: a man beating his wife while clutching at her hair, a woman thrashing her child with a pair of coal tongs, an old woman muttering curses against whoever had stolen her egg-laying hen as she chopped away on the wooden block with a kitchen knife. Such noises were never heard from Wang Er's household. The Wangs were early risers. Before daybreak, Wang Er was up getting the foodstuff ready, making a fire and cooking food. His wife ground beans soon after she had done her hair. Every day a good deal of homemade, gravy-soaked dried beancurd was sold from Wang Er's stall. After grinding the beans, the woman helped stoke the fire, her round face aglow in the firelight. The air around was permeated with a spiced fragrance that came from the Wang family. Later, when Wang Er raised a small donkey, his wife no longer needed to go round and round, pushing the mill; the beast did the job instead. All she had to do was to pour bowlfuls of beans into the hole of the millstone and add a little water soon afterwards. This gave her plenty of time to do her mending and sewing, a busy job in a family of four. Wang Er's son resembled his mother, with his round face, his eyes often in slits when he smiled. His young sister took after her father, having big eyes and a narrow face. The brother had studied in an old-fashioned private school. When he was able to keep accounts, he quitted school and attended to the donkey, taking it to the river to drink and letting it roll on the grass. When he got older, he helped his father with the business and his sister took over his job of grazing the donkey.
王二是这条街的人看着他发达起来的。
不知从什么时候起，他就在保全堂药店廊檐下摆一个熏烧摊子。“熏烧”就是卤味。他下午来，上午在家里。
他家在后街濒河的高城上，四面不挨人家。房子很旧了，碎砖墙，草顶泥地，倒是不仄逼，也很干净，夏天很凉快。一共三间。正中是堂屋，在“天地君亲师”的下面便是一具石磨。一边是厨房，也就是作坊。一边是卧房，住着王二的一家。他上无父母，嫡亲的只有四口人，一个媳妇，一儿一女。这家总是那么安静，从外面听不到什么声音。后街的人家总是吵吵闹闹的。男人揪着头发打老婆，女人拿火叉打孩子，老太婆用菜刀剁着砧板诅咒偷了她的下蛋鸡的贼。王家从来没有这些声音。他们家起得很早。天不亮王二就起来备料，然后就烧煮。他媳妇梳好头就推磨磨豆腐——王二的熏烧摊每天要卖出很多回卤豆腐干，这豆腐干是自家做的——磨得了豆腐，就帮王二烧火。火光照得她的圆盘脸红红的。（附近的空气里弥漫着王二家飘出的五香味。）后来王二喂了一头小毛驴，她就不用围着磨盘转了，只要把小驴牵上磨，不时往磨眼里倒半碗豆子，注一点水就行了。省出时间，好做针线。一家四口，大裁小剪，很费工夫。两个孩子，大儿子长得像妈，圆乎乎的脸，两个眼睛笑起来一道缝。小女儿像父亲，瘦长脸，眼睛挺大。儿子念了几年私塾，能记账了，就不念了。他一天就是牵了小驴去饮，放它到草地上去打滚。到大了一点，就帮父亲洗料备料做生意，放驴的差事就归了妹妹了。
Every afternoon, when classes were over and every household washed rice for supper, Wang Er began to prepare his stall. Why did he select such a location as the Baoquantang Apothecary? Perhaps because it was well situated, not far from either East Street or West Street, or the other lanes in the vicinity. Perhaps he chose it because that traditional Chinese medicine store had a spacious corridor, with quite some distance from the counter to the entrance, or perhaps because there were few customers who came to the store to have their prescriptions filled in the evening and the food stall would not interfere with their business. He had someone put in a few good words to the proprietor of the store, and he himself called on the proprietor to express his gratitude. This had occurred many years before. The equipment of his stall, called shengcai [2] by the local people, was kept against the wall in the back passage of the store, right under the poster of Marshal Zhao [3] which hung from the second beam of the house. Wang Er's shengcai was comprised of two long planks, two three-legged high stools (with two legs at one end and one leg in the middle of the other) and several boxes with a glass-paned front. Before he was ready to do business, Wang Er set down his stools, put a couple of planks steadily on them, and placed the glass boxes in a row. In the boxes were melon seeds, pumpkin seeds, fried salty peas, deep-fried peas, brittle deep-fried broad beans and spiced peanuts. At the other side of the planks were the hot foods such as dried beancurd with gravy, beef, cattail-bag meat and pig's head meat. As a rule, people in this region did not eat beef. Those who did seldom had it steamed or braised in soya-bean sauce
. They just bought some at the stalls where the beef was cooked in salt and spice and covered with red leaven. It was piled high in a box. When purchased, the slab of beef was cut into slices on the spot and placed on the customer's plate. On top was a sprinkle of garlic leaf bits followed by a spoonful of hot pepper paste.
Cattail-bag meat seemed to be the specialty of the county. Each cattail bag was about three by one and a half inches. It was lined with thin sheets of beancurd and filled quite full with small bits of meat mixed with water chestnut powder. Afterwards, the bag was tied in the middle with a hemp string, forming the shape of a gourd. When the bag was opened after being cooked, the meat was still in the shape of a gourd with a trace of the cattail bag on the surface.Cut into slices, it really whetted one's appetite.
Pig's head meat was sold after being sorted into three parts:snout, ear and face. The face was also referred to as the "big fat". The customer could select whichever part he wished. At dusk, Wang Er's business came to a climax. He was busy cutting meat with a kitchen knife, receiving money from the customers and wrapping different varieties of deep-fried, fried and salted peas and melon seeds. Hardly did he have a breather. After nine o'clock, when the kerosene in his two high-screened lamps was nearly consumed, and when the bottoms of the meat trays and pea boxes became visible, his wife turned up and brought him his supper. Then he washed his face with a hot towel and had his meal. After supper, there was still a little business to attend to. Therefore he was in no hurry to put away his shengcai. He would then pour himself a cup of hot tea, seat himself in a chair inside the shop and listen to people gossip while throwing glances at the stall. Whenever he saw someone coming, he rose to get ready a few plates of meat or wrap up peas and seeds for a short while. All his customers were familiar acquaintances. What time they came and what they wanted was as clear to him as daylight.