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.

在小说中,我们经常读到一个表面上受人尊重的人物或家族,却有着某种多年不为人所知的骇人听闻的秘密。

The English language possesses a vivid saying to describe this sort of situation.

英语中有一个生动的说法米形容这种情况。

The terrible secret is called ‘a skeleton in the cupboard’.

惊人的秘密被称作“柜中骷髅”。

At some dramatic moment in the story, the terrible secret becomes known and a reputation is ruined.

在小说的某个戏剧性时刻，可怕的秘密泄漏出来,接着便是某人的声誉扫地。

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.

当读者读到小说最后几页了解到书中女主人公,那位一向待大家很好的可爱的老妇人年轻时一连毒死了她的5个丈夫时,不禁会毛骨悚然。

It is all very well for such things to occur in fiction.

这种事发生在小说中是无可非议的。