帕特里克·斯图尔特爵士 | 朗读圣诞故事《亲爱的撒旦》

It began with a simple letter inscribed with excitement and love by the hand a little girl named Hope. Dear Satan, it read  an unusual start and an unfortunate typo. For hope had of course meant for the letter to go to Santa.

故事要从一封满含着激动与爱的信说起，它出自一个叫做霍普的小女孩之手。“亲爱的撒旦（SATAN）”她写到，一个不同寻常的开头，一个不幸的拼写错误。因为，霍普当然是本打算写给圣诞老人（SANTA）的。

The letter went on to praise Satan for his joviality and kindness and then to ask him for a special gift. A second unfortunate thing happened when Hope enveloped the letter and then addressed it again to Satan - innocent typos that would change the very face of Christmas.

信里赞扬了撒旦的愉悦与善良，然后向他要了一个特别的礼物，又一件不幸的事发生了，霍普把信封好，并把它寄给了撒旦。两次天真的拼写错误，将改变圣诞节的模样。

Deep in the pits of Hell, Satan was reading through his morning's acts of hate mail the usual stuff. Dropped dead and died are spaced and you look like a lobster and stop possessing grandma you heartless Beast.  When he came across an envelope carefully written in colored pencil he was eating a bath toasty. But he paused and studied the letter. Dear Satan, I hope that you are doing well. I think you were brilliant and special. And I want to grow up to be like you someday. Here is my Christmas list and it was a list of just one thing a puppy.

在幽深的地域之中，撒旦在读他的早间仇恨信件，都是些平常的内容：去死吧。你看起来像个该死的怪物，别再折磨我的奶奶，你这个无情的怪物。当他看到一封用彩色铅笔写的，小心翼翼封好的信封，他正在吃蝙蝠吐司，他停了下来，开始读信。亲爱的撒旦，我希望你一切安好，我觉得你睿智而独特，希望有朝一日我也可以成为你那样的人。这是我的圣诞清单。这份清单只有一项，一只小狗。

What happened next surprised everyone. But no one more than Satan himself. For the Lord of darkness felt a sweet aching in his chest. As a new emotional cost through his veins and special thought, me, a lovely? And he immediately wanted gallons of oil and bile because he had never before uttered that word. He was on his knees surrounded by vomit when Black as his advisor entered. Are you, are you crying? Crying, what are you an idiot Pig! These are tears of anger of rage. Satan marched out of his office and locked himself in the toilet. What the hell was going on?

接下来发生的事让每个人都感到震惊，但却没人比撒旦更震惊，这位黑暗之王，胸中感到一阵甜蜜的疼痛，一种新的感情流动于他的血液之中。我很独特？他想，我？真令人开心，他立即吐出了大量的油污和胆汁，因为他此前从未讲过那个词，当他的顾问“黑暗”进来时，他正跪在地上，被呕吐物环绕着。你在...你在哭吗？哭？你这个猪头蠢货，这是愤怒狂暴之泪水，撒旦冲出办公室，把自己锁在厕所里，到底发生了什么?

The following days were held literally. But for old Beelzebub hell have gotten a whole lot  worse. He was planed with kindly urges disgusting feelings like pity and compassion. And every time he felt them he didn't commit the higher into the face of whomever he might be passing. He could meet, he couldn't sleep and eventually he hit the bottle hard. He was going to drown those damn feelings. He drank a gallon of gin and blood sent two drunken watsapp to his ex wept  uncontrollably and finally passed out.

接下来的几天是真正的地狱，但对大恶魔来说，地狱变得更糟了，他竟充满了善良的冲动，像是同情，怜悯那样的恶心的感觉。每当他有这些感觉，他就会吐别人一脸，他食不知味，夜不能寐，最终开始疯狂酗酒，他要将那些可恶的感受淹没，他喝了大量的杜松子酒与鲜血，给他的前任发送了两条酒后信息，他不可抑制地哭泣，最终失去了意识。

He awoke the next morning. And before he knew what he was doing he had booked in an all staff meeting.  Hell's in boxes pinged at the same moment with the same layer of titled, love, tolerance and kindness. A lecture by Satan attendance mandatory. Everyone assumed that it was sarcastic a joke, a rug pull, they'd all arrived and it would be an afternoon of pitch for King pandas again. And said it came to pass that the whole of Hell were absolutely astounded to see the devil stood before them all wearing yoga pants and many friendship bracelets. He went on to lecture at length on the key pillars of tolerance oneness, even at one point quoting Gandhi.

第二天一早，他醒来，还没意识到自己做了什么，就预订了一次全体职员大会，与此同时，地狱收件箱收到了同一封名为《爱，宽容与善良》的信。一场撒旦的演讲，强制参与。每个人都以为是一种讽刺，一个玩笑，当他们都到达，就会发现又是一场杀死熊猫的午后游说，但到那时，整个地狱都被站在他们面前的恶魔震惊了，他穿着瑜伽裤，戴着友谊手链，他继续以亲切与宽容为主题进行着演讲，甚至还引用了甘地的话。

He finished with a heartfelt cover of imagine a little keyboard. Well, the gates of Hell opened and people just walked out. Blackie's threw eggs. Jack the Ripper shouted,  you shagged. Lingus Kahn tried to storm the stage. Less than an hour after giving the speech, the elders of Hell had gathered for a secret meeting and Satan was cast out of the nether world for being in their words, a puss.

他以一架小小的键盘作为充满爱意的结束画面，此时，地狱的大门打开，人们开始往外走，黑暗向他丢鸡蛋。开膛手杰克大喊着，你闭嘴！有人设法要摧毁讲台，演讲后不到一小时，地域中的长老们聚集在一起开了一场秘密会议，撒旦被驱逐出地狱，成了他们所说的弃猫。

Life in the real world turned out to be less traumatic than Satan feared. He'd been up there a few times before. He told a date with the KKK and played bingo with bin Laden. But he was different now. He settled into Shoreditch and took a job at a gluten-free Bakery. He like the atmosphere. He learned how to shape little motifs on the top of cappuccinos. He will baseball caps and made a friend called Caspian who as well. And then came the night before Christmas.

在真实世界的生活并没有撒旦担心的那般令人痛苦，他此前也来过几次，他和三K党相聚，还和本拉登玩宾果游戏，但现在他变了。他在肖迪奇安顿下来，并在无麸质面包店找了工作，他喜欢那里的气氛，他学会了怎样在卡布奇诺上画小图形，他戴起了棒球帽，交了一个叫作凯斯宾的朋友，然后平安夜来了。

Satan was finishing up some last-minute shopping when he noticed a small girl chatting to Satan in a budget grotto. The girl felt familiar but he couldn't place her until he overheard her say, hi Satan, my name is Hope. Did you get my Christmas letter? You didn't reply. All I want is a puppy. The colored rain from Satan's face, it was all a lie, the letter have never been meant for him. He'd been taken for a fool. How could the all-seeing Lord of Darkness have overlooked such a glaring obvious typo.

撒旦正结束最后一刻的购物，他注意到一个小女孩，正在一个廉价人工洞室中和圣诞老人聊天，小女孩感觉很熟悉，但他却认不出来。直到他偷听到她说，嗨，圣诞老人，我叫霍普，你收到我的圣诞信了吗，你没有回信，我只想要一只小狗。血色从撒旦的脸上消失，这一切都是谎言，那封信并不是写给他的，它他被当作了一个傻瓜，全知的黑暗之主怎么会忽视如此明显的拼写错误。

A deep burning roared up through his body. He knew the feeling well. It was his old friend fury. Before he knew what was happening he had cremated Satan. Hope who watched the whole thing and who would probably never recover. Felt a fury of her own with a heartbreaking tear in her eye, she screamed at Satan, I hate you, you ruined Christmas, go to hell. He's back-hello Lucifer went. As the sunset he stormed through the gates of the underworld but he was filled with yet another mysterious new feeling.

从内心深处涌起的火焰燃遍全身，他太熟悉这感觉，他的老朋友，狂怒，在他还没意识到做了什么事时，他已将圣诞老人烧成了灰。霍普目睹了这一切，怕是永远无法从中恢复，她也感到愤怒，眼中饱含心碎的泪水。她向撒旦尖叫，我恨你，你毁了圣诞节，下地狱吧，撒旦真的走向了地狱之路，夕阳西下，他摧毁了地狱之门，但他感到一种神秘的新的感觉。

And then came Christmas morning. All the boys and girls across the land rush to open their presents. But something was different these year, there were presents aplenty but they weren't the usual gifts. Satan had not survived but Christmas had. Hope got more or less what she wanted. Sure, it had three heads breathe fire and piss lightning but she couldn't be happier. And Satan, well, this was his little secret, but it made him fell really...

圣诞节的早晨到了，全国各地的男孩女孩们，迫不及待打开他们的礼物，但今年却有所不同，礼物虽然仍很多，却与以往不同，圣诞老人没能活下来，但圣诞节却仍在继续。霍普差不多得到了她想要的，当然它有着三个头，会喷火，尿出闪电，但她别提多开心了。撒旦呢，这是他的小秘密，但这却让他感到非常...