新概念英語第三冊課堂筆記 第二十四課
 
Lesson 24 A skeleton in the cupboard

We often read in novels how a seemingly respectable person or family has some terrible secret which has been concealed from strangers for years. The English language possesses a vivid saying to describe this sort of situation. The terrible secret is called ‘a skeleton in the cupboard’. At some dramatic moment in the story, the terrible secret becomes known and a reputation is ruined. 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毒死 every one of her five husbands.
It is all very for such things to occur(=happen) in fiction. To <I>var</I>ying 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. The only person I know who has a skeleton in the cupboard is George Carlton, and he is very proud of the fact. George studied medicine in his youth. Instead of沒有 becoming a doctor, however, he became a successful writer of detective stories. I once spent an uncomfortable weekend which I shall never forget at his house. George showed me to the guestroom which, he said, was rarely used. He told me to unpack my things and then come down to dinner. After I had stacked裝 my shirts and underclothes in two empty drawers, I decided to hang one of the two suits I had brought with me in the cupboard. I opened the cupboard door and then stood in front of it petrified. A skeleton was dangling before my eyes. The sudden movement of the door make it sway slightly and it gave me the impression印象 that it was about to即將 leap out at me. Dropping my suit, I dashed downstairs to tell George. This was worse than ‘a terrible secret’; this was a real skeleton! But George was unsympathetic. ‘Oh, that,’ he said with a smile as if仿佛 he were talking about an old friend. ‘That’s Sebastian. You forget that I was a medical student once upon a time.’

New words and expressions
skeleton        骷髏，素描
seemingly        表面上地
respectable        受人尊重的
conceal        隱藏
vivid            生動的
dramatic        扣人心弦的
ruin    毀壞（名譽等），使破產
heroine            女主人公
fiction            小說
<I>var</I>ying        不同的
medicine        醫學的
guestroom        客房
unpack            取出
stack            （整齊地）堆放
underclothes    內衣
drawer            抽屜
petrify            使驚呆
dangle            懸掛
sway            搖擺
unsympathetic    無動于衷的
medical        醫學的

Notes on the text
A ske

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