Cubierta

He is not beautiful. His mother does not want him, children run away from him. People laugh at him, and call him “The Elephant Man”.

Then someone speaks to him - and listens to him! At the age of 27, Joseph Merrick finds a friend for the first time in his life.

This is a true and tragic story. It is also a famous film.

Tim Vicary

The Elephant Man

Oxford Bookworms (Stage 1)

ePub r1.2

Jecanre 18.11.13

Título original: The Elephant Man

Tim Vicary, 1989

Ilustraciones: Nick Harris

Diseño de portada: Patrick Lynch

Editor digital: Jecanre

Corrección de errores: Bustopher_Jones

ePub base r1.0

Chapter 1: The creature in the shop

My name is Dr Frederick Treves. I am a doctor at the London Hospital. One day in 1884, I saw a picture in the window of a shop near the hospital. I stopped in front of the shop and looked at the picture. At first I felt interested, then I felt angry, then afraid. It was a horrible, ugly picture. There was a man in the picture, but he did not look like you and me. He did not look like a man. He looked like an elephant.

One day, Dr Treves saw a picture in a shop near the hospital.

I read the writing under the picture. It said:

Come in and see the Elephant Man. Two pence.

I opened the door and went in.

There was a man in the shop. He was a dirty man in an old coat with a cigarette in his mouth. 'What do you want?' he asked.

'I’d like to see the elephant man, please,' I said.

The man looked at me angrily. 'Well, you can't,' he said. 'The shop's closing now. You can come back tomorrow.'

'I'm sorry,' I said. 'But I would like to see him now. I have no time tomorrow- I have a lot of work to do. But I can give you more than two pence.'

The man looked at me carefully. Then he took the cigarette out of his mouth and smiled with his yellow teeth.

'All right, sir,' he said. 'Give me twelve pence then.'

I gave him the money and he opened a door at the back of the shop. We went into a little room. The room was cold and dark, and there was a horrible smell in it.

A creature sat on a chair behind a table. I say a creature, because it was not a man or a woman, like you or me. The creature did not move or look at us. It sat very quietly on the chair in the cold, dark, dirty room, and looked at the table. The creature had a cloth over its head, because of the cold. On the table in front of it, there was a dead flower.

'Stand up!' said the shopkeeper, loudly.