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--- lesson 24 A skeleton in the cupboard |
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--- Listen to the tape then answer the question below. |
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--- Who was Sebastian? |
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We often read in novels how a seemingly respectable person or family has some terrible secret which has been concealed from strangers for years. |
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The English language possesses a vivid saying to describe this sort of situation. |
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The terrible secret is called 'a skeleton in the cupboard'. |
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At some dramatic moment in the story, the terrible secret becomes known and a reputation is ruined. |
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The reader's hair stands on end when he reads in the final pages of the novel that the heroine, a dear old lady who had always been so kind to everybody, had, in her youth, poisoned every one of her five husbands. |
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It is all very well for such things to occur in fiction. |
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To varying degrees, we all have secrets which we do not want even our closest friends to learn, but few of us have skeletons in the cupboard. |
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The only person I know who has a skeleton in the cupboard is George Carlton, and he is very proud of the fact. |
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George studied medicine in his youth. Instead of becoming a doctor, however, he became a successful writer of detective stories. |
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I once spent an uncomfortable weekend which I shall never forget at his house. |
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George showed me to the guestroom which, he said, was rarely used. |
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He told me to unpack my things and then come down to dinner. |
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After I had stacked my shirts and underclothes in two empty drawers, |
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I decided to hang one of the two suits I had brought with me in the cupboard. |
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I opened the cupboard door and then stood in front of it petrified. |
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A skeleton was dangling before my eyes. |
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The sudden movement of the door made it sway slightly and it gave me the impression that it was about to leap out at me. |
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Dropping my suit, I dashed downstairs to tell George. |
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This was worse than 'a terrible secret'; this was a real skeleton! |
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But George was unsympathetic. 'Oh, that,' he said with a smile as if he were talking about an old friend. |
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'That's Sebastian. You forget that I was a medical student once upon a time.'^“ |
