VOA新闻杂志2022 51年后寄出的信

 

A letter written to a 12-year old girl in Lithuania was delivered in December, almost 51 years after it was sent.

Now in her 60s, Genovefa Klonovska said after being handed the letter, "I thought that someone was pranking me."

A prank¹ is a trick that is done as part of a joke.

The letter included a handmade, colored rose and two paper dolls. It was sent to Klonovska by a young girl in Poland. They exchanged letters in what is known as a pen pal² program – when people write letters to each other without actually meeting.

The letter, together with 17 others, was discovered this past summer when a wall was taken down in a former post office in Vilnius.

Jurgis Vilutis is the owner of the building.

"The workers suggested we throw the old letters away, but I called the post office instead," Vilutis explained. "I'm so happy they got interested."

The letters, from the late 1960s and early 1970s, were likely hidden by a postal³ worker after he searched them for money or valuables, Vilutis said.

Lithuania was part of the Soviet⁴ Union then. The senders were family members or pen pals⁵ from places such as Australia, Poland, or Russia.

Street names and their numbering have changed in Vilnius.

Post office workers spent months looking for the people who were supposed to receive the letters – the recipients⁶.

Only five recipients were found. In several cases, children of dead recipients were handed a lost letter.

Deimante Zebrauskaite, head of the customer experience department at Lithuania Post, said "We felt a moral⁷ duty to do this."

Zebrauskaite added, "One lady compared the experience to receiving a message from a bottle thrown into sea. People were emotional⁸. Some people felt they saw a part of daily life of their deceased parents."

In the letter to Klonovska, sent from Koczary in Poland and stamped in 1970, a girl named Ewa complains buses no longer reach her village, forcing her to walk in -23 Degree Celsius⁹ cold. She also asks for pictures of actors.

Now in her 60s, Klonovska has no memory of Ewa. She probably wrote Ewa after finding¹⁰ her address in an advertisement for pen-pals in a newspaper. Their relationship stopped after the letter was not delivered.

"The loss was not life-changing," said Klonovska. She then asked, "What if they delivered a lost letter from a suitor to his love, and their wedding never happened?"

 

Words in This Story

deceased – adj. no longer living

suitor – n. a man who wants to marry a particular woman

1 prank   

n.开玩笑，恶作剧；v.装饰；打扮；炫耀自己

参考例句：

• It was thought that the fire alarm had been set off as a prank.人们认为火警报警器响是个恶作剧。
• The dean was ranking the boys for pulling the prank.系主任正在惩罚那些恶作剧的男学生。

2 pal   

n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友

参考例句：

• He is a pal of mine.他是我的一个朋友。
• Listen,pal,I don't want you talking to my sister any more.听着，小子，我不让你再和我妹妹说话了。

3 postal   

adj.邮政的，邮局的

参考例句：

• A postal network now covers the whole country.邮路遍及全国。
• Remember to use postal code.勿忘使用邮政编码。

4 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

5 pals   

n.朋友( pal的名词复数 )；老兄；小子；（对男子的不友好的称呼）家伙

参考例句：

• We've been pals for years. 我们是多年的哥们儿了。
• CD 8 positive cells remarkably increased in PALS and RP(P CD8+细胞在再生脾PALS和RP内均明显增加(P 来自互联网

6 recipients   

adj.接受的；受领的；容纳的；愿意接受的n.收件人；接受者；受领者；接受器

参考例句：

• The recipients of the prizes had their names printed in the paper. 获奖者的姓名登在报上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The recipients of prizes had their names printed in the paper. 获奖者名单登在报上。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

7 moral   

adj.道德(上)的，有道德的；n.品行，寓意，道德

参考例句：

• Moral beauty ought to be ranked above all other beauty.品德之美应列于其他美之上。
• He deceived us into believing that he could give us moral support.他骗得我们相信他能给我们道义上的支持。

8 emotional   

adj.令人动情的；易动感情的；感情(上)的

参考例句：

• Emotional people don't stop to calculate.感情容易冲动的人做事往往不加考虑。
• This is an emotional scene in the play.这是剧中动人的一幕。

9 Celsius   

adj.摄氏温度计的，摄氏的

参考例句：

• The temperature tonight will fall to seven degrees Celsius.今晚气温将下降到七摄氏度。
• The maximum temperature in July may be 36 degrees Celsius.七月份最高温度可能达到36摄氏度。

10 finding   

n.发现，发现物；调查的结果

参考例句：

• The finding makes some sense.该发现具有一定的意义。
• That's an encouraging finding.这是一个鼓舞人心的发现。