There once lived a lad who was deeply in love with a girl, but disliked by the girl’s father, who didn’t want to see any further development of their love. The lad was eager to write to the girl, yet he was quite sure that the father would read it first. So he wrote such a letter to the girl:

My love for you I once expressed

no longer lasts, instead, my distaste for you

is growing with each passing day. Next time I see you,

I even won’t like that look yours.

I’ll do nothing but

look away from you. You can never expect I’ll

marry you. The last chat we had

was so dull and dry that you shouldn’t think it

made me eager to see you again.

If we get married, I firmly believe I’ll

live a hard life, I can never

live happily with you, I’ll devote myself

but not

to you. No one else is more

harsh and selfish and least

solicitous and considerate than you.

I sincerely want to let you know

what I said is true. Please do me a favor by

ending our relations and refrain from

writing me a reply. Your letter is always full of

things which displease me. You have no

sincere care for me. So long! Please believe

I don’t love you any longer. Don’t think

I still have a love of you!

Having read the letter, the father felt relieved and gave it to his daughter with a light heart.

The girl also felt quite pleased after she read it carefully, her lad still had a deep love for her.

Do you know why? In fact, she felt very sad when she read the letter for the first time. But she read it for a few more times and , at last, she found the key – only every other line should be read, that is the first line, the third, the fifth … and so on to the end.

一個(gè)小伙子非常愛(ài)一位姑娘，但姑娘的父親卻不喜歡他，也不讓他們的愛(ài)情發(fā)展下去。小伙子很想給姑娘寫封情書(shū)，然而他知道姑娘的父親會(huì)先看，于是他給姑娘寫了這樣一封信：

我對(duì)你表達(dá)過(guò)的愛(ài)
已經(jīng)消逝。我對(duì)你的厭惡
與日俱增。當(dāng)我看到你時(shí)
我甚至不喜歡你的那副樣子。
我想做的一件事就是
把目光移往別處，我永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)
和你結(jié)婚。我們的最近一次談話
枯燥乏味，因此無(wú)法使我渴望再與你想見(jiàn)。
假如我們結(jié)婚，我深信我將
生活得非常艱難，我也無(wú)法
愉快地和你生活在一起，我要把我的心
奉獻(xiàn)出來(lái)，但決不是
奉獻(xiàn)給你。沒(méi)有人能比你更
苛求和自私，也沒(méi)有人比你更
關(guān)心我?guī)椭�我�?
我真摯地要你明白，我講的是真話，請(qǐng)你助我一臂之力
結(jié)束我們之間的關(guān)系，別試圖
答復(fù)此信，你的信充滿著
使我興趣索然的事情，懷有
對(duì)我的真誠(chéng)關(guān)心。再見(jiàn)，請(qǐng)相信
我并不喜歡你，請(qǐng)你不要以為
我仍然愛(ài)著你！

姑娘的父親看了這封信以后，非常高興地把信給了姑娘。姑娘看罷信也非常快樂(lè)，小伙子依然愛(ài)著她。你知道她為什么高興嗎？其實(shí)，她初讀時(shí)非常憂傷，但她怎么也不相信那是他的真心話，于是她又默讀了幾遍，終于，她清楚了該怎樣讀法。只能一、三、五行如此類推，直到信的結(jié)尾.