种梨

Planting a Pear Tree

有乡人货梨于市，颇甘芳，价腾贵。有道士破巾絮衣，丐于车前。乡人咄之，亦不去；乡人怒，加以叱骂。道士曰：“一车数百颗，老袖止丐其一，于居士亦无大损，何怒为？”观者劝置劣者一枚令去，乡人执不肯。肆中佣保者，见喋聒联不堪，遂出钱市一枚，付道士。道士拜谢，谓众日：“出家人不解吝惜。我有佳梨、请出供客。”或曰：“既有之，何不自食?”曰：“我特需此核作种。”于是掬梨大啖。且尽，把核于手，解肩上镌，坎地深数寸，纳之而覆以土。向市人索汤沃灌。好事者于临路店索得沸沈，道士接浸坎处。万目攒视，见有勾萌出，渐大；俄成树，枝叶扶苏；倏而花，倏而实，硕大芳馥，累累满树。道七乃即树头摘赐观者，顷刻向尽。已，乃以镌伐树，丁丁良久，方断；带叶荷肩头，从容徐步而去。

A villager took his pears to the market to sell. His pears were juicy and sweet, but the price was high. A Taoist priest, in an old cap and worn cotton robe, came up to his cart and begged for a pear. The villager told him to go away but he would not. The villager got angry and began to use strong words at him. The Taoist priest said, "You've got a cartful of pears which must be in the hundred, but I am asking for only one of them and one pear is not much of a loss to you. Why are you getting so angry shout it?" The onlookers said, "Give him a bad one and let him go." A waiter in the tavern, hearing the noisy bickering in the street, came anti bought a pear for the priest. The priest thanked him and said to the crowd, "As a Taoist priest I am not that sparing. I've got first-class pears and I'd like to share them with you." Someone in the crowd said, "Why not eat your own pears then, since you've got some?"

"But I need the core of it as seed," the priest said and, holding up the pear with his hands, began to eat. When he ate up the pear, he held its core in one hand and, with the other, he took off' a small shovel from his back. He began to dig in the ground a hole two or three inches deep, put the core in it and then covered it with earth. Lie asked if anyone in the crowd could find some hot water for him. One of them, an obliging person, fetched some boiling water from a strop by the street. The priest took it over and poured it where the core of the pear was buried.

While tine people around watched, the core sprouted and grew and, in a moment, became a tree with exuberant foliage and, in another couple of seconds, it began to blossom and bear pears. The pears were big, emitting sweet fragrance and the tree was heavy with them. The priest picked them and gave them to the people around and soon there were no more. Then the priest began to cut the tree and he worked at it for a long while before he felled it. He put the tree, leaves and all, on his shoulder and walked off at a leisurely pace.

初，道士作法时，乡人亦杂立众中，引领注目，竟忘其业。道士既去，始顾车中，则梨已空矣。方悟适所侬散，皆己物也。又细视车上一靶亡，是新凿断者。心大愤恨。急迹之，转过墙隅，则断靶弃垣下，始知所伐梨本，即是物也。道士不知所在。一市粲然。

While the priest was playing the magic the pear seller, standing among the crowd, craned his neck to watch, forgetting his own business. When the priest was gone he found that all his pears in the cart were gone. It was not until then that he realized the pears the priest had dished out were all his pears. And then he noticed that one shaft of his cart disappeared and the cut was fresh. The pear seller was bursting with anger. He dashed off to run after the priest. Turning the corner he found the lost shaft was lying at the foot of the wall. And by then he realized that it was the shaft of his cart, not the tree, that the priest was cutting. The priest was nowhere to be found and the whole marketplace was immensely amazed.

(刘士聪 译)

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